Bounty:Fury Riders MC(3)

Conflicting emotions rushed through me in the span of a few seconds.  Horror at what I'd seen. Relief at being saved-if that was what I was.  And a strange sort of victorious feeling that made me want to jump to my  feet and pump my fists. That son of a bitch had gotten what he  deserved.



My eyes flickered down to him, then up again to the man who'd beaten  him. I was breathless, grateful to him and afraid of him. My dark  savior.



He looked at me, our eyes meeting for the first time. I had been an  afterthought to him, I realized. He wasn't fighting for me, so much as  he was fighting an old fight. I remembered the conflicting patches. They  were from opposite sides. If I was the prize, if the Fury Rider was  trying to save me, he could have done that with one or two blows. The  pummeling was personal.



His eyes were dark, but it could have been the shadow in which he stood.  Still, I felt an electricity in them. It flowed from him into me. I'd  been breathless already, but he nearly made my heart stop. I froze  again, this time because I was taken aback by him. He had a strong  presence. He would have been intimidating even if I hadn't just watched  him beat a man nearly to death.



We were connected through our eyes until he looked away. He then looked  around, as if just remembering that we out on the street. He looked back  at me.



"Come on." He extended a hand down to me.



"What?"



"Come on!"



No way was I going with him. I had no idea who he was or what he wanted  with me. He might not have saved me at all; he might have been out to  hurt me, just the way the man on the ground had been.



"I just want to go home!"



He glanced at the ground, then at me. "Right now, you need to get out of  here and go anywhere else. You have to come with me. Now. Before they  find you."



"Who?"



"I'll tell you, just come now." He was pissed now, and not taking no for an answer.



It was either wait here to die or go with him. I could go under my own  power or let him drag me bodily. I swiped the broken camera from the  ground and gave him my other hand so he could pull me to my feet.



I wanted to ask who he was but was too afraid to speak. I wanted to know  where he was planning to take me. Wherever it was couldn't be worse  than the trash-strewn street I could have lost my life on.



I had to jump over the body of the man who'd nearly attacked me. He  wasn't moving. I wondered vaguely whether he was still alive-and I knew I  didn't care.         

     



 



He had stabbed and maybe killed someone, and could easily have killed  me. I wished I had the time to hit him myself, but I was being dragged  away by my savior … who seemed just as dangerous as the man on the ground.





Chapter Three




Vince





This was what I got for not being able to mind my fucking business.



I was only out for a ride, trying to clear my head. Anything was better than the tension at the clubhouse.



It had been a tough week after three of my guys were killed. The  clubhouse was like a morgue. I knew everybody was trying to keep their  spirits up and be brave for each other, but it wasn't easy. The strain  was heavy, always there.



And all of them were looking at me, wondering what to do.



I didn't know what to do, besides killing every one of the men who  killed my guys. I wanted revenge. So did everybody else. But running  blindly into revenge was the last thing we needed. One of us had to be  cooler than the rest. If we went straight into it, angry, wanting to  make them pay, we would be sloppy. Against the Vicious Wolves, we had to  be smart. They'd have a plan in place. We needed one, too.



So I rode to get my head on straight for a little while. Riding always  helped me focus. As I rode, I remembered the stories my dad used to tell  about the neighborhood. It used to be working-class, clean and  respectable. Families moved there because they thought it was desirable,  and it was back when Dad was a kid. Factories supported the community,  and nearly everyone living there had a job at one of them. Kids played  on the streets. Mothers scrubbed their front steps on Saturday  afternoons. Nobody locked their doors. Sure, times could be tough-when  the factories started laying off employees in stages, everyone had hope  that things would pick up.



They never did. The factories shut down, and the neighborhood turned  into a slum. It was still that way, ugly in the daytime and a war zone  at night.



Somehow, I felt comfortable there. More comfortable than anywhere else.  Maybe because my dad grew up on those streets. When I looked around, I  saw what used to be. Happy Christmases and kids playing stickball and  going door to door on Halloween. Families growing and living together.  The families living there in the present, few though they were, tried  hard to make it a good place. But too many other people were working  against them. Many abandoned buildings were used as drug dens, or as  places for homeless people to sleep.



I got to the main strip, pulled up at the pizza place to get myself  something to eat. They knew me there and had my normal two slices ready  in just a minute. I folded them both over and ate standing by my bike.



A few people said hi, and I nodded when my mouth was too full to  respond. Most were too afraid to look at me, much less say hello. They  knew my club, and they knew our rep. We weren't people to fuck with.  They would rather ignore me. I was all right with that. I didn't want to  have anything to do with them.



I'd been away long enough. I didn't want the rest of the club to start  wondering if I was avoiding them. They needed to have their leader in  front of them so they knew I was taking care of things.



Only I didn't feel like I was. Three guys-three-had died. I felt like I  was losing my grip, and the tighter I held on the more out of control I  felt. It seemed like all I could think about was Rick … Lance … Jake. All of  them dead. My friends, my brothers. I couldn't afford to lose any more  of my men. I couldn't even afford to lose them.



It was a dangerous time. I couldn't make a wrong move. Onyx was my  right-hand man, my second. I relied on him. He kept me centered, and he  felt the same as I did about laying low while we put a plan together.



I got on my bike, wanting to be back at the clubhouse before the card  game started. It was what we always did on Friday nights, and Onyx  agreed with me that things needed to stay as normal as possible.



I was only a block or two away when I looked further ahead and saw a  familiar patch on the back of a kutte. My blood boiled. The Vicious  Wolves. I knew they were behind the murder of my men, but hadn't been  able to prove it yet. What the fuck was one of their guys doing in our  territory?



Part of me wanted to mind my own business. No sense starting a fight-I  didn't see one of my guys on the ground, so it wasn't up to me to step  in. Besides, we didn't need any more trouble with that club. Things were  bad enough.



Then I saw that it was a woman on the ground, and she was cowering in  fear. If there was one thing that pissed me off, it was a man hurting a  woman. My good sense still told me to keep riding, but there was no way.  I was already dying to hurt one of their members, and this was just  another reason to go for it.



The bike was barely parked before I jumped off and ran to them. He was  just about to bend down to the girl, and she had her eyes closed with an  arm over her face. I got there just in time.



I shoved him away. He spun toward me with surprise on his face. I only gave him a split second before I lunged at him.



He threw a punch, which would have connected with my eye if he wasn't so  slow. I ducked, then hit him with three solid jabs to the ribs. He  doubled over and my knee connected with his face.         

     



 



He staggered back, hitting an old fence. When he bounced off it, I  caught him by the lapels of his kutte. I steadied him before hitting him  with a roundhouse to the face, connecting with his eye. Another one,  this time to his nose.



He fell on the ground and I had the satisfaction of kicking him. I  kicked him for every one of my guys. When he rolled over, I did it  again.



Finally, he stopped moving. I knew he was alive, but didn't care either  way. I was tired of fighting. He wasn't going to hurt anyone now.



I stood over him and felt victorious. Like an animal standing over my  prey. My heart was thudding hard, and I smelled his blood in the air. It  smelled good to me.



Then I looked down and saw her.



The first thing I noticed was her hair. It was long and blonde, and it  shone in the light from the street lamps. Then her eyes. Wide, blue,  scared. Her lips were parted slightly, and she breathed heavily through  them. She was tiny, like a little doll.



I wanted her.



More than that, I wanted to get her out of there. Not to mention myself.



My eyes locked onto hers and I didn't want to look away, but I had to. I  looked down the street, in both directions. Someone was going to come  by soon enough.