This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.
Rogue Stallion copyright @ 2014 by Carmen Faye. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
CHAPTER ONE
Cole pulled his bike into his drive, clicking the garage door opener attached to his handlebars and watched blankly as the door began to ascend. The Lowrider purred, sounding good. He would take it in for a tune tomorrow anyway. He just completed a run down to St. Louis, out to Kansas City, then up to Des Moines. This completed the schedule, so back to Chicago he rode. To date, that was the longest planned ride of his experience and he loved the journey, but he was glad to be home. He missed Nicole more than he could stand and spent an embarrassing amount of time talking to her on the cellphone.
Nicole came bouncing out of the house, running up to meet him with a smile on her lips and sex in her hungry eyes. She squeaked with glee and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him across his face and then narrowing down to his lips.
"Holy shit I missed you, baby!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "I'm so glad you are back. Are you back? Do you have to go anywhere else tonight?"
"All done. Let me get the bike into the garage and check her over. Then I'll come inside."
She nodded happily, "I'll get dinner started and some beers out."
"Make mine a Coke. I need the caffeine," he requested.
"I visited with Angie today and she gave me a bit of crystal. Want some? Wake you up?" she asked. While she was terrified of heroin, Nicole knew how to manage her crystal intake. Hell, they gave this shit to kids for ADD. All she had to do was be careful with the amount and to keep herself properly hydrated.
"It will wake me up and put my dick in the dirt. Can't maintain erections on that stuff, but I'll give you good pillow talk," he offered.
"Never mind. I don't know anything about crystal. Haven't seen any for years in fact. Not even sure what it is, now that I think about it. So, a Coke? Cause I am very horny, lover. I have no idea what the fuck you did to me, but for a gal who use to think she thought about sex all the time, I'm seriously thinking about sex all the time," she pouted. "Only now it is all about how I'm not getting any because my lover is in fucking St. Louis."
"So, you did a bit of that crystal I take it," Cole decided.
Nicole bit her lip, "I'll get dinner."
"Good idea."
She tossed her hair into a shower of gold as she spun and skipped back toward the front door. Cole watched her with warm amusement and then he pulled the bike inside, hitting the switch to close the door behind him. He checked the bike over -- oil, air, belt, and tires. Then he leaned back against his tool bench and let exhaustion fall down on him. It was a good and profitable trip, but perhaps not the thing for him. Still, he made more money this week than he ever made in the same amount of time while doing something he loved to do.
His eyes suddenly focused and he realized that he had been dozing. "Might as well do some crystal. Not going to be much use to her anyway," he muttered, and went out the side door, and into the back door of the house, walking a tired but content stride through the kitchen looking for his lover.
She was at the front door and from her posture he could tell she was seriously scared.
"I called him, Antonio. I made it very clear." She was saying.
Cole then heard a professionally calm voice say, "Yes, I was there. It was quite amusing, Nicole, but unfortunately there is no out. You have a client tonight, in three hours. We need to get you there. Brian is your new driver; he’s in the car and this is Davis, who will be your bodyguard. We are very concerned about you right now. You are not making healthy decisions. So we are taking on a bodyguard's expense to ensure that you are safe, even from yourself. Now, do you have things you would like us to gather up for you?"
Cole knew Antonio and Davis. Brian, he dearly hoped wasn't a Chrome Horsemen, or this was going to get ugly and very difficult to explain. Antonio was the most dangerous. He was brutal and as skilled in close quarter combat as they come. His history boasted over thirty years of serious experience and when a man is an enforcer for the mob for thirty years, you don't take him lightly. He is a man who made it a habit to stay alive while making other men dead.
Davis was a monster. He was nearly as tall as Cole's six-four, but outweighed Cole by at least sixty pounds. Cole didn't know him well, but he had the reputation of being a knife man. So far, no one noticed him in the house and he made sure they wouldn't by changing his course as he came up behind Nicole, drawing his weapon.
They weren't going to take no for an answer, so he wasn't going to bother asking the question. Against a superior enemy, which he was, ambush is an acceptable and effective tactic. He just reached the position he wanted to be in when Nicole shouted "No! Don't touch me!"
"This is will hurt if you do not come," Antonio told her in his eerie calm voice.
Cole located the position of Antonio’s voice on the other side of the door and fired at mid-height three times, then adjusted his aim to near the door jam area, across the portal, where he figured the bodyguard would be and sent four rapid shots into the wall, blowing apart the jam and splintering just about everything in the area.
Then he grabbed Nicole by her shoulder and spun her hard, sending her back into the house and flying for the couch while keeping his aim on the door area as he did. He heard her thump into the couch cushions just as the door was slammed, sending it flying on its hinges to crash into the entry wall, but by that time Cole was pulling the trigger. He fired, adjusting his aim as information presented itself.
The first face he saw was Davis, who had his gun out, but was looking the other direction -- a fatal mistake. Cole calmly fired two slugs into Davis’ head, then swiftly adjusted his aim again as he spun on his knees, going as low as he was able to without losing balance while pulling the trigger on Antonio four times, going for center mass.
Cole's gun clicked empty, but instead of going for the extra clip in his jacket, he hurtled it at the surprised Antonio's face while sprinting forward as fast as he could. Cole caught the corpse of Davis as it slid down the doorjamb and removed Davis' gun from his dead hand in time to see another man running up the walk outside from the waiting limo. The new man had a gun in each hand. Keeping the stunned and dying Antonio between himself and the other man, Cole called out, "Horseman!"
The man stopped. "Chrome Horsemen?"
"Yes!" Cole replied making sure the man heard him. But staying out of direct line of fire.
"Cole? Shit! Is that you, Cole?"
"Yes! I don't want to kill you man, but I will. I'm in no gaming mood."
The man put his guns away and lifted his hands, "No, not between brothers man. What do you need?"