Devil May Care (Four Horsemen MC Book 4) (20 page)

“I want to love you for the rest of the time I’ve got left.” He kissed her then, softly. Just the touch of his lips against hers. “My feelings for you have gotten stronger. I’ve been in love with you for most of life,” he admitted.

This was too much. She shook her head. While she’d had a talk with Joker and wanted to make space in her life for another man, he seemed to be headed into a serious relationship at a breakneck pace.  “Captain, I—”

“Don’t panic.  I ain’t askin’ for a reply right now. It’s somethin’ I want you to think on and we can go as slow as you like. Hell, we’ll take the scenic route, as long as you’re with me in this.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

“Good. Now, let me hold you and we’ll get some shut eye.” Captain laid back down and she snuggled up to him. Eddie closed her eyes and contemplated what he said until she finally drifted off.

And the more she thought about it, the better it sounded.  

***

The screech of sirens jolted Eddie awake.

In a small town, there weren’t many emergencies so it was unusual.

Eddie sat up in bed, and glanced at Captain’s prone form. He was curled
on
his side, still fast asleep. She grabbed a hoodie from the closet and put it on, and then went to the window to investigate.
She could smell
smoke as she got closer and when she peered outside, she could see flames shooting high in the night sky.

Just like that night on the mountain…

A weight settled in the pit of her stomach.
Oh, God, the warehouse!

“Captain, wake up!” she shrieked.

He shot up in bed, going for his gun on the nightstand. “Is it Beauregard? Did he come back?”

“No!. But the bastard torched my warehouse.” She didn’t look away from the from window,
couldn’t
look away.

He came up behind her, placed an arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest.  “Oh, fuck. I’m so sorry, Killer Queen.”

God, all of that painstakingly made moonshine was rocket fuel for a raging fire. Thousands of dollars. And what if the fire couldn’t be contained? What if it consumed the farms around it?

 “I could go over there, I could just be a concerned citizen right? Survey the damage. Maybe help?”

“You can’t. If you show up, the ATF and the FBI are gonna be on you like a duck on a June Bug. You won’t be able to keep your cool.”

Eddie pressed her hands against the glass. “I was careful! I covered my tracks.”

Captain’s cell went off and he grabbed it from the pocket of his discarded jeans. He flipped it open, held it to his ear. “What’s goin on, Shep?”

Eddie strained to listen, but didn’t hear anything but garbled speech.

Then, after a few minutes, he said, “Call the brothers in for an emergency meeting tomorrow morning, first thing. Talk to you tomorrow.” Captain ended the call.

Her stomach lurched again and it felt like someone poured ice water down her spine. “What happened?”

That cold blank Horsemen mask settled over his features.  “Shep said Pretty Boy’s in the hospital. After he lit up your still, Beauregard went after the prospect. Burned down his trailer, and then beat the shit out of him.”

He’d told her he’d go after her loved ones, not her. Beauregard had evidently figured out Pretty Boy had been helping her. “Oh, my God. Is he…is he okay?”

“Shep said it’s bad.”

Eddie went to the closet to grab a pair of jeans. “We should go see him!”

Captain shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do tonight and visiting hours are over, but we’ll stop by and see him tomorrow.”

 She sat down on the edge of the bed, placed her head in her hands. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have mouthed off to Beauregard. I should have accepted his offer in the first place and saved us all this trouble.”

He knelt at her feet, pried her fingers apart, and made her look at him. “Don’t let him do that. You put the blame where it belongs. On Beauregard.”

Easier said than done. Pretty Boy had paid the price for her defiance and she’d never forgive herself. He was a good kid and he didn’t deserve this. “How the hell are we gonna get out of this?” she asked. “We can’t work with Beauregard. He’s not like us. He’s an
animal
.”

 “I know,” he said grimly. “That’s why he needs to be put down.”

Oh, God. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse. If the club went after Beauregard, it would be a bloodbath.  

Captain stood up, pulled her to her feet, and then wrapped his arms tightly around her. She clung to him, staring over his shoulder, watching as Hell burned down around them.

Chapter Fifteen

“Pretty Boy is in the hospital, in stable condition,” Shep announced at the club meeting the next morning.

Captain glanced at his VP. If it was possible, he looked even shittier than usual.  He knew Shep took a special interest in the prospect, was protective of him. It must be hard to see the kid suffer such a beat down. The doctors were keeping Pretty Boy for observation and another round of tests. They worried he might have internal bleeding. And the fuckers had torched his trailer. Apparently, Shep was going to let him stay at his house until they figured out a more permanent solution.

“Thank God for that.” Captain glanced around the table. “Once he’s released, we’re gonna take care of him—food, medicine, whatever he needs. We take care of our own.”

The brothers all nodded. It was another club commandment, the expectation to help each other.

“Eddie bought a warehouse on Devil Run Rd. for her moonshine business under a dummy LLC a way’s back, so it can’t be traced back to her or us. I called the lawyer and she’s gonna poke around a bit, discreetly, and see what the feds know. The building is a complete loss,” Captain announced. “As far as I can tell. I only got a glimpse of it from a distance. We’ll have to wait until the heat dies down, to get a better look.”

 It had been a long night. Eddie hadn’t slept a wink, she just stood staring out the window, nose pressed against the glass. He’d never felt so useless in his life. Nothing he said comforted her.  She’d been devastated by the loss.

 Thank God Beauregard hadn't put his hands on her, too. Today, he had a decision to put before the club, but he might have made it for them, if the bootlegger had harmed her.

“What about Beauregard?” Steele asked. “We can’t let this shit slide.”

“That’s what we’re here to talk about today. I want to hear from the group,” Captain said. He’d been leaning towards a scorched earth approach to dealing with Beauregard and he wanted a consensus before they committed to such a deadly action.

“We can’t take him on,” Axel said. “If we go after Beauregard, we’ll come up against the Dixie Mafia too and those guys are stone cold. They’d come after us, our old ladies, the kids. No one would be safe.”

Just thinking about Lex and Eddie in their crosshairs made Captain’s blood curdle. Though, he couldn’t see a peaceful way out of this.

There was a long moment of silence as the brothers took this all in... They’d already taken on the Raptors. Could they handle two assaults on the club at the same time?

Hell would turn into the fuckin’ O.K. Corral.

“There is another solution,” Captain said. “Beauregard wants a partnership. In exchange, and in exchange he’ll help us take on the Raptors.”

A hush settled over the room.

“Fuck it,” Shep said. “I say we go after the dickhead instead, make him sorry he laid hands on our people.”

Steele nodded.  “We can’t trust him.  What happens when he turns on us and decides to throw in with another MC? And what kind of partnership does he want? That could be anything. Drug running, murder for hire. All kinds of fucked up crap.”

“We’re fucked either way,” Duke said. “Ain’t no way out of this that ends well for the club. So, the decision comes down to which decision lowers the body count. I say we throw in with the Beauregards and eliminate the Raptors. Then, we’ll worry about the Dixie Mafia.”

“I gotta disagree,” Cowboy put in. “We’re settin’ ourselves up for trouble down the road a piece. The Beauregards can’t be trusted.”

Coyote clapped Steele on the shoulder. “I’m with Steele and Cowboy. I say a big no to Voldemort. I ain’t gettin’ the Dark Mark.”

“Whatever the fuck that means,” Steele said.

“It
means
, maybe you should read a book now and then,” Coyote said dryly.

“Enough!” Captain said, breaking it up. Jesus. Those two were fucking Laurel and Hardy over there. Nothing about this was fucking funny. “I ain’t makin’ a decision today. Let’s all think about it. We’ll meet later in the week to figure it out. Nothin’ we can do until the feds leave anyway.” He banged the gavel, signaling the end of the meeting and they all filed out.

Fuck being president.
Whatever decision he made, someone was going to die. The question was, who would he sacrifice?

***  

Later that week, Eddie met up with the club’s lawyer for breakfast at Hades to discuss damage control.

Ryker had stepped up and was running Perdition by himself for the next couple of weeks. So far, the ATF and FBI hadn’t come knockin’ on the door, so she’d taken it as a good sign. Looked like she might get out of this without a jail sentence.

Pretty Boy had been released from the hospital, though he was still wounded and weak. She’d stopped by with a stockpile of food and apologized profusely, but he’d said he didn’t blame her for the attack.

But Eddie still blamed herself.

Hades was pretty empty. No townies, just Steele, Voo, and Fetch at the counter. Steele eyed the pretty lawyer, who sipped her coffee while tapping on her tablet.

“I’ve put out a few feelers about the warehouse,” Jane said.

Eddie had barely reached the booth when she started the meeting. She’d expected some preliminaries about the weather, some pleasant greeting at least. But no, the lady lawyer was all business.

“Well, hello to you, too, Ms. Hunter,” she said, holding out a hand. “I’m Eddie Rollins.”

Jane stared at her hand, but didn’t take it. After an uncomfortable moment, she lowered her hand.  “I know who you are. Eddie Rollins, the late wife of Joker Rollins. What I don’t know is why you were engaging in illegal behavior while the FBI has been looking for a reason to charge anyone in or associated with the club.”

Under her breath, she counted to ten and reminded herself the lawyer was here to help. “I haven’t gone near the warehouse, since the feds showed up.”

“That’s good news. They’ve been looking for CCTV feeds, talking with locals, searching through records, but they haven’t made any connection to you.”

“The townies don’t want to make an enemy of the club. Even if one of them saw me, they wouldn’t report it to the authorities.”

“And what about Beauregard?” Her face grew very still. “Is your club is involved with the mafia? Captain denied it, but I need confirmation. Because I should have known up front.”

“No,” Eddie denied. “But they’d like us to be.”

Just then, Steele walked up to the table and he eyed the lawyer up and down like she was a particularly tasty treat. “Mind if I sit down?”

She was about to wave him off, when Jane spoke up.

“Yes, I do. Go away.” She waved her hand in a shooing motion, like she batted away a pesky insect.

Steele stood there in his jeans so tight she could see his religion, scratchin’ at his jaw, mouth agape. He glanced at Eddie as if to say
What the fuck?

Women never turned him down. Steele helped himself to heapin’ handfuls of hellions, screwing more than one a night in some cases.

She smothered a laugh. Then, schooled her features into a polite smile. “Honey, we’re in the middle of something, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. No problem.” He ambled over to the counter and Voo burst out laughing.

“Isn’t Beauregard concerned about the feds?” she asked.

“He’s really not,” Eddie said, shaking her head.

“I’d advise you against getting involved with them.”

 “Good tip, but he doesn’t seem to be taking no for an answer.”

Jane’s phone rang and she picked it up. “Hunter speaking.” She nodded. “Yes, I understand. Good. Well, actually, that’s great, though not for him, I suppose. For me, it's wonderful.  I’ll get started right away, sir.”

“What’s going on?” she asked, unable to help her curiosity.

“I just caught a new case.” She smirked. “Serial killer. You know, the one who’s been killing women in El Paso.”

She couldn’t stop her jaw from hitting the floor.  “Yeah, I’ve seen the news reports. He’s killed dozens of women.”

Jane stared at her, studying her features. “You’re…disgusted? Surprised?”

“A bit of both. How can you defend someone like that?”

“This isn’t about guilt or innocence.  Not from my perspective. A capital case is a big deal. It’s a career milestone.”

She understood the ambition piece, but Eddie couldn’t help a killer, even if it was her job. Assholes like him made her skin crawl. The way she saw it, there was a right and wrong.

“I’m going to wrap up this case, before I start that one. Don’t worry, I won’t leave the club hanging.”

“Didn’t think you would, honey.” She placed a hand on Jane’s, who flinched, pulling back as though she’d been burned. Jane was a bit of an odd duck, but Eddie thought she was basically good people. “You be careful now. You hear me?”

“Always,” she promised as she grabbed the phone. “I’m gonna give the office a call and see if they can pull together a few files for me. When I get back, we’ll talk about what sort of statement you’ll make to the FBI if they do end up pulling you in for questioning, okay?”

She nodded. “Sounds good.” Jane seemed to be a good lawyer, and she’d haul their asses out of the FBI fire, but she couldn’t protect them from everything. Certainly not Beauregard. Definitely not the Raptors.

Things were going to get ugly. Eddie could feel it.

***

That night, Eddie had snuck away from the house while Captain slept and stood staring at the charred remains of her moonshine business from a safe distance at the end of Devil Run Rd. The scene was still cordoned off with police caution tape.