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  Luke, Carter, and Marty come to a stop a few feet away. Luke walks up to the guard rail and peers over the edge; the scene is disorienting. They are on the top of a sheer cliff, roughly 100 feet high, with a violent sea lurking below.

  “Holy shit!” exclaims Marty. “He just about took a swim.”

  The Harbinger groans and begins to stir.

  “What’re we gonna do with him?” Carter asks.

  “Boys,” Luke exclaims with a huge grin on his face. “We’re going to take him for a swim.”

  “We’re going down there?” Marty asks.

  “Of course, not,” Luke replies. “He can jump from here.”

  The three Suicide Kings grab the Harbinger and frog march him over to the guard rail. The four men look at the turbulent water below.

  “Holy fuck!” exclaims Marty. “That’s a long, long way down. I wonder, do you pass out before you hit the ground when you fall that far, or are you awake until the moment you hit? Someone told me once that you pass out.”

  Luke turns to the Harbinger. “Listen up, guy. Marty here needs an answer to his question, so we’ll need you to scream all the way down until you hit the water. That way we know you passed out if you stop screaming before you hit.”

  “You guys are fuckin' assholes!" The Harbinger yells.

  Luke raises his gun to the Harbingers chest. The man throws his arms up in surrender and walks back until he steps up on the rail, turns towards Marty and grabs his cut before leaping off the cliff. His action is so unexpected that neither Carter nor Luke can make a move to stop their brother from falling until it’s too late. At the last second, Luke reaches out to grab his brother, but all he gets is air. He looks on in horror and the two men, still clinging to one another go catapulting down towards the sea. Luke looks away at the last second.

  Marty was one of the newer members and Carter’s protégé. The other day, the guy was willing to give his life to protect Carter and the rest of the club. Every brother professes that kind of loyalty because it’s expected, but not everyone actually steps up to the plate and puts their life on the line the way Marty did.

  For most members the club is their family. But just like any other family, the Suicide Kings still have their squabbles.

  “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” Carter is beside himself in anguish. He'd taken Marty under his wing and they were close. “How the fuck did that happen?”

  He walks over to the Harbinger’s bike and attempts to drag it to the edge but he’s just not strong enough to move the thing. Luke joins him but it soon becomes clear that they don’t have the strength to get it up and over the guard rail.

  “Look, just forget it. We better get out of here before someone comes asking questions,” Luke says. “If we stay, we’re both going to jail and how can you avenge Marty’s death if you’re behind bars? Take a second and collect yourself because we still have business to do brother.”

  Luke gives Carter another minute or two before getting on his bike and starting it up. Pretty soon, they’re on their way to their first destination, an out of the way town called Downey, California. There, they’ll find a 16-foot truck, already loaded with merchandise. They will open up the back, load their bikes and take off to the drop point, where they’ll hand over the truck and the goods and ride back to Oakland on their motorcycles.

  The goods, of course, are an assortment of firearms ranging from fully automatic H&K 9mm handguns and .50 caliber machine guns to rocket launchers. There are a total of 56 guns in today’s shipment and it has to go off without a hitch. Both their supplier and client are new, so the potential for a fuck-up on somebody’s end is fairly high. Anything could go wrong; suppliers might ‘accidentally’ tip off the authorities, runners could pick up a tail, or the drop-off point can be compromised. The fact that they'd run across a lone Harbinger on the way to the pick-up spot is cause for concern; this isn't Harbinger territory.

  Luke is in favor of cancelling the run, but he’s overruled. In about two hours, the remaining two Kings will arrive at the pick-up spot. It’s a stressful two hours too. When everything around could be a possible threat, you can’t afford to relax or become complacent.

  The two Kings arrive at the truck stop in Downey right on time. They'd chosen to do the run in the middle of the day to avoid attracting any undue attention. They do one more sweep with their eyes before making their approach—They're clean.

  Carter climbs in the back of the truck to inventory the weapons while Luke and two guys from the Gotham City Jokers, who have come to help with the exchange, load the bikes. Ten minutes later, Luke and Carter are in the truck driving down highway one towards Agora, California. It’s a gruelling run. After the 6-hour drive there, they’ll unload their bikes and make the 7-hour ride back to Oakland with a fat wad of cash in hand. If the run is successful, there will be plenty of alcohol and hookers awaiting their return.

  About four hours into the trip, along a lonely stretch of highway, Carter spots what he believes may be a tail. There couldn't be a worse place for a problem to arise. They're too far away for backup to reach them from their own club and there are no friendlies anywhere around either. They are on their own.

  “We picked up a lone motorcycle,” warns Carter.

  “Only one?”

  “Wait…we just picked up three more,” Carter replies.

  “Shit. We’re about to be cut off and surrounded. There’s a lever behind your seat. Pull that lever and a panel will open up giving you access to the crates. Just push really hard on that panel,” Luke continues, “and it’ll come open. You should be able to crawl through and retrieve a couple weapons. Get and couple H&K’s and a rocket launcher if you can find any rockets. Do it fast, we don’t have much time.”

  Carter reaches around behind his seat until he locates the lever. He pulls up hard until the panel opens up. He gets out of his chair and crawls through the opening.

  “Hurry it up, Carter! I think I see lights ahead.”

  Luke slows the truck down. No point rushing to an ambush.

  “Come on, Carter… what’s happening back there?”

  For an answer, he deposits a pair of Heckler and Koch 9mm hand guns along with four extra magazines onto the passenger’s seat. He goes back to digging around, keenly aware that they are running out of time. Finally, he locates the crate with the rocket launchers. As he’s prying open the crate, he feels the truck coming to a standstill. With his heart in his mouth, he asks for an update.

  “We stopped. Why’d we stop?”

  “They got the road blocked,” Luke replies as he loads one of the H&K’s. “Hurry up with that rocket, Carter. They’re all bunched up now, but when they make a run at us, that thing will be useless.”

  “I know, I know…”

  Finally, he locates the rockets and drops them both on the front seat. Luke glances behind them. The bikers have yet to advance, but the crew to their front appears to be getting ready to make their attack.

  “At least they won’t be shooting rockets at us,” Luke says.

  “Why not?”

  “They obviously know our cargo, so they’re not going to want to blow it up.”

  “Unless their goal isn't to steal our guns,” Carter begins, “but to just show our clients that we can’t protect our shipments. In that case, they’re gonna blow us to kingdom come.”

  “You got that thing figured out yet?” Luke asks.

  “I think so…” Carter says, as he tries to arm an M72A2 LAW rocket launcher in the dark.

  “Remember, you gotta hang out of the cab or you’re gonna blow us all up.”

  “Got it.”

  “Shit, they’re on the move! You either shoot that thing now or we go to plan B.”

  Carter scrambles out of the back of the truck and into the cab.

  “You got about three seconds, Carter, before it’s too late.”

  “Shut up and let me think!”

  Luke throws the truck into reverse and slams on the gas.
r />   Carter leans out the window and points the rocket towards the lights. He presses the trigger.

  Click

  “Shit!”

  “Don’t say shit, Carter; what the fuck’s happening?”

  “I don’t know…”

  Suddenly, the air is full of popping sounds and breaking glass. Luke leans out his window and empties his H&K.

  “Carter!”

  A sudden whoosh fills the cab and for an instant both Carter and Luke are blinded by the flame trail left by the rocket. An instant later, a huge orange fireball fills the night sky and the front end of the truck is lifted up off the ground as the shockwave from the blast reaches them and passes through.

  “Carter! You okay?”

  After a brief pause, the other biker speaks up. “Yeah, I’m okay. See if you can get this thing going. We still got 3 guys behind us.”

  Luke stops and shifts into first, desperate to plow forward. They approach the burned out wrecks of a half dozen or so motorcycles scattered about on the blackened highway. The air is full of the acrid smell of smoke, burning flesh, and gasoline. The carnage from a single LAW's rocket is astounding. As they maneuver through the detritus, Luke breathes a sigh of relief. This could have been him. Once clear of the wreckage, he floors it. At some point, the three guys behind them are going come after them. They’ll figure out that there’s nothing to be done for their friends and they’ll be looking for revenge.

  Luke throws the truck into 4th and steps on it. They really do need to beat their pursuers. The client’s not going be happy if they come in hot to the drop point.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a GPS right now…,” Luke grumbles.

  “You don’t know where the drop is?”

  “Of course, I do. I just know one route. I want to take a different route so we can be sure to lose those guys behind us. I don’t suppose you know this area?”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  “Well, keep your fingers crossed ‘cause I have an idea those guys are gonna catch up with us before the night’s over.”

  “Do you think we should just ditch it?”

  “You kidding?” Luke asks.

  “No, I’m not. Ditch it, burry the guns and live to fight another day. You got their number, right? Well, call them to set up a meeting in a couple days after the Harbingers or whoever those guys were back there are gone.”

  “Good idea, Carter, except that we have four crates of guns and no shovels. Unless you plan on digging with your fingernails, you’re going to have to come up with a plan B.”

  The next couple hours are just about the longest in Luke’s life. There are so many things that can go wrong tonight. If a cop happens by, there’s no way he’s not going to see the nearly destroyed windshield. By the time they finally reach the drop point, both men are a nervous wreck. The second they explain the destroyed windshield to the receiving crew, the men get back in their SUVs and split, only to call them a few minutes later with an alternate location. They actually do it two more times before they allow Carter and Luke to unload their cargo.

  The two bikes in the back got knocked around but are still okay to ride. Good thing too, because they have an 8-hour ride ahead of them. It’s nearly dawn before they’re able to head back home. Neither man is looking forward to breaking the news to the club about Marty. He was a popular new member and his loss will be felt. As a token for all their troubles, the client allows Luke and Carter to each keep the H&K’s they had taken. Carter wanted to keep the LAWs Rocket as well, but no chance of that.

  When they pull up to their clubhouse, dusty and exhausted, it’s nearly four in the afternoon and all they want to do is sleep. Gunnar makes them tell and retell their story until he is satisfied they’ve told him everything. He is, of course, trying to figure out who the bikers that attacked them were. They all suspect the Harbingers, but there’s no solid proof. Some brothers want to drive out there and check out the scene for clues as to the bikers’ identity, but it’s finally decided that it would be too risky. The cops will likely have the area taped off and staked out in case the perpetrators return to the scene of the crime.

  Marty’s service is a low key affair and the brothers forgive and forget the fact that he shot their hostage when Luke and Carter tell them their wildly embellished tale of bravery surrounding Marty’s death. No point in telling how he really died, screaming in terror and falling a thousand feet into the ocean.

  Chapter Six

  Constant Chaos

  Kayla goes down hard, her body barely breaking the fall before her head strikes the floor hard enough to make her sees stars. As she fights to stay conscious, her small frame is crushed beneath the tall muscular biker, Dillon Jones, Sergeant of Arms for the Harbingers Motorcycle Club.

  Using his weight, he forces her legs apart and enters her with a powerful thrust. The man is a machine, a veritable jackhammer of thrusting force as he rams his rigid member deep into her sex. His hands are everywhere at once. He grabs her hair yanking her head back and bats away her arms as she tries unsuccessfully to fend him off. He’s tearing, ripping into what clothes she still has on until remnants of Calvin Klein and Versace litter the floor.

  Dillon’s love making, if you could even call it that, wasn’t always so violent. Sure, there had always been an element of brutality just beneath the surface, but it usually didn’t erupt into sheer savagery like today. It’s ferocity, bordering on sadism, that has her truly terrified and if she were to lose consciousness…well, that would not be good.

  Suddenly, he stops. He’s looking into her eyes. Perhaps it’s her terrified expression she can see mirrored in his own eyes that gives him pause; but he stops. Maybe it’s the way the clothes and furniture are strewn about in a way only a tornado or a violent lover could make it. Kayla watches the change come over his face and his expression returns to that handsome young man she fell for so long ago in high school.

  How could that young, ambitious son of a preacher be so rotten to the core? Maybe he wasn’t. She remembers how he used to protect her like a fragile rose, lest a single petal bruise. How exhilarating those days were on the back of his Harley Davidson motorcycle. She would look down at the pavement watching those yellow strips fly by, so close, so fast, and so electrifying.

  Dillon’s path from preacher’s boy to outlaw biker had been so completely thorough and shockingly fast that she’d been powerless to extricate her own life from his, as the young man she once loved slid down that nightmarish slippery slope into life as an outlaw biker in the Harbingers Motorcycle Club. And she has been trying to disentangle herself from him, unsuccessfully, for much of the last year.

  The sound of weeping, great gut-wrenching sobs brings Kayla back from the past with a painful jolt. Her head aches and her insides feel ripped, torn into and from the feel of it, she figures she is bleeding as well. Dillon realizes he has her attention now and looks up at her with his large baleful dark eyes, tears making tiny dusty tracks down his cheeks.

  For the first time in a very long time, what she sees in those mirrors to the soul doesn’t terrify her. Instead, all she feels is pity… and a little compassion, and that has always been her downfall. She's too compassionate and empathetic for her own good and others often take advantage of her.

  Suddenly, the image of Luke pops into her mind. She remembers his fantastic body; his smooth, muscular chest crisscrossed with scars acquired in the service of his country.

  Now there’s a man with principles. He is someone who holds his country and fellow man in high regard, she thinks.

  She recalls their first playful exchange as she stitched up yet another wound and wonders why she didn’t give him her number. Then she remembers that last tattoo she saw when he rolled over on the table. Suicide Kings, was it? That’s the reason she didn’t give him her number. How can she fall for yet another biker when she can’t seem to shake the last one off?

  She looks up at Dillon again. He’s apologizing, promising a life of gentleness and care, neve
r to lay a hand on her or anyone ever again. He begs her forgiveness and professes to be glad that Luke woke him up with that ass kicking he’d received. As she listens to his vows punctuated by sobbing, she wonders how he could have even convinced himself of what he’s swearing on his mother’s grave. He’s certainly not convincing her. But if he’s not, how’d she end up in his bed one more time?

  What possessed her to seek him out? She kept telling herself on the way there that she was just stopping by to make sure Luke hadn’t permanently injured him. She would just offer medical care if needed and then be on her way. That was two hours ago. One more time she fell under the sway of an outlaw biker; never again.

  Chapter Seven

  Breakfast at Denny’s, Lunch at Luke’s, and Dinner with a Harbinger

  The next day…

  Kayla attacks her breakfast with gusto. It’s not often she eats at Denny’s, and for good reason. But after the chaos in the ER, losing herself in syrupy pancake goodness is just what the doctor ordered.

  “Hi.” Says a man's voice behind her.

  She drops her fork halfway to her mouth. It lands on the edge or her plate, rolls off and ends up in her lap, pancake, butter, syrup and all in one gooey mess.

  “Does that happen often?” Luke asks with a smile, as she tries to find her voice…and a clean napkin.

  He swipes one off the table next to hers and hands it to her. “Would you like some assistance, Doc?”

  She snatches it out of his hand and proceeds to clean herself up. She refuses to acknowledge his presence by speaking to him.

  With infuriating confidence, he sits himself down opposite her at the table and flags down a nearby waitress.

  “Coffee please, and a refill for my friend,” he says with a smile.

  “Not his friend,” she finally says. “But I’ll take that coffee.”