BANE: A Devils' Due MC Romance Novel (12 page)

“I see.  Very well, Mr. Chase...” the Don began to address me but I quickly corrected him.

“Bane.  Call me Bane,” I told him firmly.

He nodded.  “Very well, Mr. Bane... you are wondering what I will do to the girl.  I will give you a simple answer.  Retribution.”

“Retribution?!” I repeated in disbelief.  “‘Yer gonna take vengeance on a harmless girl?”

“How sure are you, Mr. Bane, that she is harmless?” he asked as he rested his chin over his clasped fingers.

“She’s eighteen!” I exclaimed.  “She’s in high school!  It’s not like she’ll stab ‘yer men with crayolas!”

The Don gave me a half-laugh.  “No... she won’t.  But there are things far more dangerous than... violence.”

“Like what?”

“Information.  The girl is... or was... close to her father.  She probably knows what he knew, and our operations, crippled as it already is, cannot take another hit.  The continued existence of this child puts our entire business at risk.”

“I can guarantee you that the girl won’t squeal,” Trevor shot back.

Don Vito just smirked.

“In Sardinia, there is a saying,” he said, “
de tal riu, tal aigua
... it means: like river, like water.  The girl is her father’s child.  If he is a traitor, the girl will most likely turn out to be one, as well.  And you’re hoarding her... bathing her, feeding her, providing shelter for her.  She is living with you.  That will make her eventual betrayal even more costly.”

“Well, again, with all due respect, Don Vito,” I retorted, “in America, we also have a saying and it goes like this: I don’t give a flying fuck about what ‘ya
Dagos
think!  The girl won’t squeal.  Is that too hard to understand?”

Trevor placed his hand over my chest in an attempt to calm me down.  He gave me a look that told me to step back, that I should just let him handle the discussion.

“Don Vito, what do you want us to do?” Trevor asked the motherfucker.

“I want the girl.  Here.  In my office.  Within the next twenty-four hours,” he ordered.

“I don’t think we can do that, Don,” Trevor replied calmly but resolutely.

“Then we have a problem, Mr. Vice President,” the old fart said with equal serenity, but with a tinge of a threat in his tone.

“And this problem... is there no other way to resolve it?” Trevor wanted to know.

“Only with blood, I am afraid,” the shithead answered. 

“Very well, then, Don Vito,” Trevor sighed.  “We will consider your request and I will get back to you soon.”

“Do make it quick, Mr. Vice President,” he reminded Veep.  “This matter has suffered enough delays already.  Twenty-four hours... that’s not negotiable.”

“We’re keeping the girl.”

That was the exact message that Trevor sent to the Captoli jackass via text as soon as we got back to the clubhouse.  He had more balls than I credited him for, apparently.  We talked about whether we should discuss the matter with the rest of the brothers so that they can prepare themselves for any strikes that the damn Italians might initiate. 
It can wait until tomorrow
, he said,
the Captolis will need some time to mobilize
.

That’s true.  These Sicilian syndicates aren’t really fast workers.  We often make fun of them for being too methodical, too calculating... like they’re afraid of taking chances and making mistakes.  It would take days for them to pull off some dangerous shit... which would give us enough time to put up some counter measures to thwart them.

Then we received some good news the next morning.  Loco was gettin’ out of jail tomorrow. 
Shakes
- the weirdo biker from Rogue Town in SoCal who serves as his attorney - told us so.  Apparently, the Feds got greedy and decided to use the RICO Act to prosecute him instead of simple trafficking charges.  They thought that the RICO Act would help them bring down the club by nabbing Loco.  Big fucking mistake.  The RICO Act required two things for it to prosper: proving the crime, and proving that it was part of an organized enterprise.  Renzo’s testimony was strong to prove the former, but nothing could establish the latter.  So Loco’s comin’ home.  Shit!  How much would he be paying Shakes, I wondered?  This was an easy case, a literal get-out-of-jail pass that came as a freebie.

It was a shitty boring day, though in our world, boring was supposed to be good.  It meant that no one got shot, no one got stabbed, no one got caught, no one got dismembered.  But boring was still boring.  With no runs to make, no errands to do and no meetings to attend to, I was at a loss as to what I could waste my time with.

So that afternoon, I decided to go back to Carlson High and pick her up again... just to make sure the kid’s concentrating on school instead of getting tongue-fucked by that bimbo with a penis.

She came down the steps a couple of minutes after the bell rang, just as I expected.  She was alone, without the horny little blonde boy who just, so obviously, wanted to get inside her skirt.  She was wearing a black shirt, jeans, and a pair of sneakers... simple, really, but something about her resonated with charming elegance.  Was it the way the wind blew her hair?  Or the way she looked so somber, making her very different from the rest of the kids who bolted out of the school?  Or her smooth, creamy, somewhat pinkish complexion that gleamed under the sun?

She saw me, but unlike yesterday, she showed no hints of shock.  But neither did she smile.  She just approached me, ever so casually, and stopped right beside my bike.

“‘Ya know the drill,” I told her as I handed over my helmet.

She took it without question.

“Are you my own personal chauffeur now?” she asked.  It wasn’t a jest.  Her face was dead serious.

Fuck!  Chauffeur?  Does this girl even realize who she’s talking to?

“Just hop in, alright?” I told her without making any attempt to hide my irritation.

Then she simpered... a damn smug smile that expressed how amused she was that she was actually able to irk me like that. 

It was a fucking
antagonizing
smile.

It was a fucking
beautiful
smile.

She sat on my bitch pad and hugged me from behind.  She rested her lidded head on my back, as if she was telling me that she was ready to go.  I shook my head, still annoyed by her cutesy effort to get on my nerves, before I turned on the engine.  With a tumultuous roar that caught the attention of everyone nearby, I shifted gears and rode off.

Her head never left my back the entire ride.  It was as if she was comfortable with that position... contented, even.  I guessed, if she had a choice, she’d rather ride with me the whole day than go back to the clubhouse.

We would never get back to the clubhouse that day.

We were at Gillette when it happened.

Somewhere along Route 90, two black sedans overtook us.  One turned to block our path, forcing me to squeeze the breaks.  The other blocked our left side to cover our escape route.

Then another vehicle, a black van, stopped on our right, trapping us completely.

The girl began to panic.  She squeezed my waist tightly.  She didn’t want to let go.  Terror was starting to grip her.

“Relax, darlin’,” I whispered, “they’re not after ‘ya.  They’re after me.”

When the men inside the vehicles stepped out, I realized that my words were not true at all.

Their obnoxiously loud voices, their square-shaped noses, and their overly developed foreheads revealed who they were.

Fucking Italians.

I committed a damn error in thinking that they wouldn’t make a move this early.  That could prove quite costly.

I didn’t leave my bike.  I held her hand to tell her that she should do the same.  I was waiting for an opening... the slightest gap in their formation... then I’m gonna fly outta there at full throttle.

But they moved quick, and they were damn organized.  No opening came.  They covered all possible exit points.

One of them grabbed the girl’s arm and forcefully dragged her out of the bike.  She screamed for help as she lost her balance.

I held on to her, preventing her from falling.

“Hey!  Take it easy!” I yelled at the Guido who eerily looked like
Ivan Drago
from one of those awful
Rocky
films.  “Your crew and mine, we got no beef.  What’s this all about?”

“The Don wants the girl,” the lackey said as he continued to pull her away from my chopper.

I got up and shoved him.  He let go of the kid.

Then, the other Dagos - eleven, if I counted them correctly - pointed their guns at me simultaneously.  They were ready to fire.

I held my hands up.  I had no choice.  I could’ve gone berserk and fought them off.  But they’d just shoot me before I got to any of them.  I’d be killed... and that won’t help Lana at all.

“Chillax boys,” I said with a feigned smile.  “Surely, this is something we can settle with a couple of six-packs.”

“No settle, no negotiate!” one of them shouted in broken English.  “Girl come with us now, no excuses!”

“Dude... I think ‘yer mistaken,” I told him, still with a grin.  “‘Ye’ve got the wrong girl.”

He, along with a handful of his companions, gave me a bewildered look.

“This ain’t the girl you’re after,” I said as calmly as I could.  “This is my daughter, Lala.”

They looked at each other in confusion, giving me hope that my plan was actually working.

“The girl you’re after, Lana is it?  That’s Lana with an N, right?” I continued my ruse.  “She’s at the clubhouse.  I can take ‘ya and ‘yer crew there right now and we can talk about it.  You know... a nice, peaceful exchange... no one has to get hurt and shit?”

“Mr. Bane,” the man I pushed called my attention as he slowly got back up.  I started to remember him... he was one of the underlings at the Captoli headquarters last night.  “There is no mistake.  Our information is accurate.  You cannot mislead us.”

Aw shit!

I looked around me.  There was no way out of it.  They had us surrounded good.  The highway was empty.  There were no other vehicles to be seen.  There was no one near who could help us.

So I did the only thing that made sense.

“Alright!” I said.  I helped Lana up and pushed her towards the man who wanted to haul her away.  “She’s all ‘yers.  ‘Ya don’t have to kill me, right?  We don’t have to sour our relationship with needless bloodshed.”