Jax cast a quick glance at Luka, saw the way the Russian was watching them, and he had his answer.
Desperation had Joyce sweating. His chest rose and fell in quick breaths. He shook his head again.
“I promise you, this wasn’t me,” he said. “You don’t believe me, fine, take it to the table. You’re not in Charming. Talk to Rollie, man, if it’ll make you feel better—”
“Exactly what I’m gonna do,” Jax said.
Which was when Joyce went for his gun.
Opie shouted in alarm, but he had nothing to worry about. Joyce never had a chance. Jax shot him through the skull, and Joyce flopped backward onto the dirt.
“Idiot,” Chibs snarled, staring down at the dead man. “Who goes for his gun when he’s got one pointed at his head?”
Jax exhaled, staring at the spatter of Joyce’s blood in the dirt. “He knew it was over for him. If we took it to the table, it would’ve ended the same way. Maybe he just figured this was quicker.”
Opie wiped his prints from Luka’s gun, then pressed it into the grip of Ustin’s dead fingers. Luka muttered a curse in Russian, seeming to have abandoned English entirely since the tables had turned on him.
“What are we gonna do with this guy?” He pointed at Luka, and all three of them stood there for a moment contemplating their next move. They had nothing but motorcycles. No way to get Luka where they needed him without the risk of the guy taking off.
“Shit,” Opie muttered.
Chibs laughed humorlessly. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Jackie. Situation’s changing fast. We’re making this up as we go along.”
Jax scuffed his shoe against the dirt. “We can’t call Rollie unless we feel like taking the time to convince him Joyce betrayed the club.”
“Never mind that he went for his gun,” Chibs added.
“He’ll lose his shit that we didn’t take it to him before getting into this situation,” Opie finished for him. “We could just say Ustin killed him, but this other piece of Bratva shit isn’t going to cover for us.”
They all stared at Luka for a few seconds, Jax trying to decide how much they needed Luka. Enough to go to all the trouble it would require to get him where they needed him? He swore quietly. They might not need Luka to convince Kirill Sokolov, but if they did…
“Drag the bodies away from the road,” he told Chibs and Opie. “Dump the bikes on the other side. I’ll get to cover, keep him guarded, while you two go find us a truck.”
Luka had a smile on his face, enjoying their frustration.
Jax cracked him across the face with his gun, then turned to Opie and Chibs.
“Make it fast, or this whole thing is going to fall apart around us.”
13
As Oleg shook her, Trinity fought to stay asleep. She sighed, grumbled, and batted his arm away. In that bleary state between sleep and wakefulness, she became aware of the thin line of drool on her cheek and the dryness of her throat.
“Come on,” she heard Oleg growl. His hand clutched more tightly at her arm, and he shook her so that her head lolled back and forth like an old rag doll’s. “Trinity!”
Her eyes snapped open. They burned, craving sleep, but she batted his hand away more forcefully and propped herself up, glaring.
“What time is it?” she demanded, the question accusation enough.
“Get up, love,” Oleg said, more gently this time, although his gaze carried a grim urgency.
Trinity threw back the single sheet, untangling her legs. Oleg handed her jeans over, and she slid into them. She wore no bra under her tank top, but he seemed too impatient to wait for her to put one on, so she grabbed a thin sweater from the bedpost and slipped it over her head even as he ushered her into the corridor.
“What the hell—” she said, voice muffled by the sweater.
As she drew it downward, trying to keep her footing, she heard voices coming from other rooms, saw Timur and Gavril rushing up behind them with guns in hand, and fear burned the last cobwebs of sleep from her mind.
“Lagoshin,” she said. “Is it—”
“No,” Oleg said, taking her by the hand as they hustled toward the lobby. “In answer to your question, it’s nearly four in the morning. You didn’t hear the truck pull up?”
“I was dead asleep.”
Oleg pushed through the door to the lobby, drawing his gun. In the darkness, the moonlight that came through the lobby windows turned the gun a ghostly blue. It seemed strangely alive, as if it were more at home with deeds done in dark.
“I’ve got her,” Oleg said.
Trinity glanced past him. Kirill stood over by the lobby doors, up against the frame with his gun pointed at the ceiling, keeping himself shielded from bullets that might fly through the doors. Vlad and Pyotr were positioned on either side of the uncurtained section of glass at the front. She saw nothing but darkness outside, had no idea what might have spooked them so completely.
Kirill pushed the door open just a bit, careful to expose as little of his body as possible. “Put those headlights back on!” he shouted.
Twin spots blazed to life, so bright that she had to shield her eyes. She blinked, getting used to the glare.
“If it’s not Lagoshin, then—”
“Step into the light!” Kirill called to the front parking lot.
A single figure stepped from the darkness into the brilliance of the truck’s headlights. A halo of white light silhouetted him, but then he walked a dozen steps nearer to the lobby doors, and the angle of the light changed. She saw the beard and the cut of his features. Trinity knew that face, and that walk.
“Son of a bitch,” she whispered.
“You know this man?” Oleg asked curtly.
Trinity stepped away from him, crossing the lobby. He called her name, reached out, and grabbed her arm, fearing that someone might start shooting.
She turned and looked at him, feeling almost as if she were in a dream. “That’s my brother.”
Oleg’s eyes darkened. “You never told me you had a brother.”
A chill went through her. There’d been a dangerous edge to his tone just then, and it scared her a little.
“Half-brother. It’s a long story.”
“You’d better tell it.”
She nodded. “I will.”
Then she turned from him, walked toward the door with Kirill and the others staring at her. Kirill held up a hand to stop her.
“Look, I brought you a present! Something you need!” Jax shouted from the lot. “What I need is to see my sister.”
Kirill glared at Trinity with deep mistrust. It hurt her, that look, but desperate men were always paranoid, and she couldn’t blame them for being uneasy about surprises. It shocked her that there had not been any gunfire yet. She could picture it in her mind, though… Jax rolling up in this old pickup, getting out, calling out to whoever had been on guard. Knowing the Bratva were here in the hotel—And how had he known that? How had he even known she was in Nevada at all?—he’d just put himself out there as a target. Bloody fool could’ve been gurgling up blood from his lungs by now. If Trinity had been on watch and someone had come strolling up, knowing they were there, she’d have made sure he had at least one bullet in him by now.
Had they hesitated for her, because he said he was her brother?
That alone could have its own complications, if they thought she had told anyone where to find them.
“Kirill,” she said, “I swear I don’t know how he found us. But he’s a good man. You can trust him. If he’s got somethin’ for you, it’s gonna be somethin’ you want.”
Oleg came up behind her. Despite feeling that she’d sinned by omission with him, he seemed to support her. After a few seconds, Kirill nodded.
“Come ahead slowly!” Kirill called.
Trinity glanced at the truck’s headlights and wondered how many other men were out there. Jax made his way toward the lobby doors, lights playing strangely over him, so that at times he seemed barely there, but then he reached the door, and Kirill unlocked it. Jax came through with his hands up. Kirill backed into the lobby again, covering him.