Unchain My Heart(52)

We’d been trying to nail the fuckers for months and now they were falling into our lap? Yes, this was going to work out just fine. I’d get my hit—blood would spill, and I didn’t even care if it was mine, I was that far gone.

“When is it going down?”

“This weekend. They have another infamous barbeque planned for Sunday. Those dumb assholes actually think they can pretend nothing is going on. So while we are watching the decoy fucking party, they will be smuggling weapons from their underground hideout. But we have a little surprise party for them. We’re going in strong.”

I rubbed my hands together. Just what I wanted. “Promise me one thing?” I said, keeping the growing excitement from my voice.

“What’s that? You wanting the weekend off, or something?”

I chuckled. “Hell no. I want you to promise me Ryder Knox. I want to end that fucker’s life.”

Callahan appraised me for a long moment. “Know what? You are one sick fuck. I pity Knox. He’s not going to know what hit him.”

I rubbed over my chin in the exact spot the biker had punched me. It still hurt. “You got that part right. I have a long overdue score to settle with that lowlife.”

“What about Jade? How will she handle it?” Callahan sounded nervous. He knew what a ruthless fuck I was when I’d set someone as a target.

“Jade will be better off. I'm doing it for her. She’s lost her mind, hooking up with a biker. He’s going to ruin her life. But I'm going to fix that. Once and for fucking all.” I grinned, pleased at the prospect of exacting my revenge on Knox. This was what I fucking lived for.

By Sunday night, one of us would be dead. And it wasn’t going to be me. Fuck no.





Chapter Thirty-Nine — Ryder


An internal war raged inside me during my ride to the club hurting my head as my mind raced, going through all the possibilities. I opened the engine up and rode the hell out of it, taking my frustrations out on the bike and the road. Finally as I drove up to the gates, I made up my mind to tell Cobra about my hunch.

Countless sleepless nights in the Beverley Hills house convinced me never to push aside my gut instinct again. If I'd warned Cobra then, Mia might not have lost her baby and Cobra could’ve been spared the bullets that nearly ended his life.

If he laughed it off and ignored it, I'd at least have told him. It was time for our monthly meeting and all the boys were gathered around the big table in the clubroom. Ox had thrown out the hangers-on as well as the new barmaid because only patched members were allowed to attend these meetings.

I grabbed a beer and sat at my usual place at Cobra’s right hand. We didn’t say anything to one another; in fact, he looked surprised as hell to see me there. He stood at the head of the table, his legs spread wide and his arms folded across his chest as he waited for everyone to settle down.

Hammer laughed and elbowed me in the ribs. “We better get Ryder a fucking straight jacket. His tic is reminding me of Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movie. Fucking hilarious.”

It wasn’t funny. My fucking eye had twitched all week. I didn’t know if Marianne had gypsy blood in her veins, but whenever I had a premonition, it usually came to being.

I cleared my throat. “Something’s wrong. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. I had this same feeling in my gut before the shootout last time . . . but I ignored it because I thought it was fucked up. I'm not making that same mistake. You’ve got to stop this deal. Shit is going down.”

Christ, for once I hoped to be wrong. I was still trying to come to grips with what’d happened to Peanut; I didn’t have the slightest fucking inclination to cope with this shit. Cobra and I’d had our differences before, but it was reaching an all-time high.

“Listen to Ryder, brother, he’s always been right when he’s had these fucking hunches. Every fucking time. Even when we got Mia out of Mexico, and you said he was talking through his ass. Remember?”

Razor was an unlikely ally . . . he was hotheaded and acted on the spur of the moment; unlike me, who liked to think things through first.

“What? Now the fucking twitchy eye gives Ryder fucking superpowers? That’s bullshit and you both know it.” Grumpy as hell, Cobra frowned, his eyebrows knitted together as he stared us down as if we were crazy. “It's the way we’ve always done fucking business in the past. It worked for our pop when he was pres, and it will work for us.”

“Ha ha, that was before fucking Sons of Anarchy aired on TV. Now everyone is a fucking expert on how bikers do things, brother. The old ways aren’t going to work anymore.”