Tip of the Spear: Devil Chasers (Lima Six Motorcycle Club Book 3)

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

Tip of the Spear: Devil Chasers copyright @ 2015 by Kathryn Thomas. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Book 3 of the
Lima Six
trilogy

PROLOGUE

The newspaper popped loudly as Jamie Boyles slapped it hard against the table, the force of the blow cleaving it and leaving a gaping tear in the front page. It was just the local weekly, normally full of who was marrying who, who had won a ribbon for a prize calf at some event, and other local gossip. But not this week, and not last week either. The lead story in the last two issues of the
Vallecito de Grande Journal
had been the same. Someone had been murdered. Counting Tuck, Two-Tone and the cleaning crew, that made
nineteen
murders in the last two months.
Nineteen!
That’s nineteen times the amount of the previous
five
years
combined!

Vallecito was returning to the way it was before the Lima 6 Motorcycle Club had pushed the drug trade out of the town and created a bubble of safety around the town and a significant percentage of the surrounding ranchland.

But that bubble had popped and the violence had returned. Just last week, a ranch hand had been shot while out in the fields. Hector Ochoa, one of Charles Vanderford’s hands, was shot three times in the chest while he was checking fences. There is no proof, but the Vallecito police suspect it was drug-related.

“Everything okay?” Leo asked as he stepped into the room and gave her a loving kiss.

“There was another shooting this week.”

“Who?”

“A Hector Ochoa. He worked for Charles Vanderford.”

Lionel “Leo” Graves felt a chill pass over him. “I think I met him. Remember when I told you Vanderford caught some kids running drugs?”

“Yeah.”

“Hector was the name of the hand that caught them. I wonder if it was the same guy?”

“I don’t know. This reminds me so much of Vallecito from ten years ago. Picking up the paper every Wednesday and reading about who has been shot or killed.” Jamie folded the paper and laid it on the table. “I hate this.”

“I know babe. I wish I could do something,” Leo said as he slipped into the chair beside her and took her hand.

“I know. It’s that fucking Ron Terrill. This is all
his
fault. Ever since he started going bad the town is suffering.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Jamie smiled sadly at him. Leo had tried to do something about it, when he was still the Vice President of the club, and it had cost him his two best friends, then later her brother -- and ten other members of the club -- their lives.

“We tried. You, Will, and the cleaning crew, you tried.” She looked at the torn paper, ripped in half just as she had been when her brother was gunned down in her own bar by the Prieto Cartel for attempting to shut down the drug pipeline that Lima 6 was running. If it hadn’t been for Leo holding her up, she is certain she would have collapsed under the grief from his death. She had felt lost and adrift, but Leo had been a beacon of light, guiding her back from that ocean of pain.

“I know. But I wish I could do more. I owe it to Maggie and Ellen and you. You three have lost so much because of me.”

“Don’t!” Jamie said sharply. “Don’t even go there.” She knew that ever since Leo became the lone survivor of his platoon, he felt every loss of friend keenly and took the blame for their death upon himself. “Will and Tuck were not your fault. They weren’t! You
know
that! So don’t even go there.”

He looked at her and smiled, the darkness that nibbled at the edge of his soul disappearing as it had never been there. She had taken the darkness from him and she refused to let it have him back.

“I know. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.”

“I know. Losing Will still hurts me too. And losing Tuck, Two-Tone and the rest of the cleaning crew hurts me because it hurts you. But being hurt doesn’t make it your fault.”

She reached across the corner of the table and touched his face, smiling again as the pain and uncertainty seemed to flow out of him just from her touch.

“I know. I just wish I had seen the hit coming. I know we would have taken the club back and put a stop to this mess. But now…”

“I know. You almost had the bastard. But someday he will make a mistake and then we will have him.”

“It may already be too late. As the cartel digs in, it is only going to get tougher and tougher to take him out. And it is only a matter of time before Lima 6 makes a play for me.”

“I know. But if they hurt you, I’m going to stick my shotgun up Ron Terrill’s ass and pull the trigger.”

Leo snickered as he rose from the chair to leave for work. “Who needs a Doberman? I’ve got you.”

“Be careful,” Jamie said as Leo kissed her.

“I will. Stay in the house.”

“I will,” she replied. It was their standard morning goodbye exchange.

He kissed her again, just a quick buss of the lips before he turned and walked out. She watched him go and then got up to begin picking up the remains of their breakfast. She would clean up the kitchen, do her daily workout to pass some time and then grab her shower. Then, she didn’t know. She was getting a little stir crazy having to stay inside all the time, but she also knew that being out and about alone wasn’t a good idea either. Maybe she could talk Ellen or Maggie into joining her for lunch. The afternoons, after all her chores were completed and she was just waiting for Leo to return from work, were always the hardest part of the day.

CHAPTER ONE

Jamie was wiping down the top of the bar with her oiled rag to make the wood gleam. She wiped the bar top every time she had a moment, the motion therapeutic and calming. She had just opened the bar and was still waiting for her first customer. This was always the hardest part of the night, the time between when she flipped on the open sign and the first customer arrived. It’s when the memories spoke to her the loudest.

The bar had been repaired so that no evidence remained to indicate it had been all shot to hell by the Prieto Cartel -- the same shooting spree that had taken Will’s life. But what the master woodworkers couldn’t repair was the empty place in her soul. It had been almost six weeks since Will had been killed, and she was healing, but she wasn’t healed yet. If it hadn’t been for Leo she—

Jamie looked up as her first customer of the night stepped in. It was Kathryn Schott, Kat to her friends, and one of the biker chicks that ran with Lima 6. Jamie reached under the bar and pulled out her trusty shotgun. Other than pumping three shots into Will’s killer, she had never fired the gun in her bar. But she might be willing to do so tonight.

“What do you want, Kat? You know Lima 6 is no longer welcome here,” Jamie demanded, holding the shotgun so that Kat could clearly see it, though she kept it pointed away from the woman.

Kat stopped just inside the door and held up her hands in surrender. “I know. But I need to speak to Leo. Please, Jamie, it’s important.” Kat was an exceptionally sexy woman, well built with a beautiful face and long hair, and she normally carried herself with pride. But tonight she looked almost shrunken, as if all the life had gone out of her.

“Get out.”

“Jamie, please. Just let me talk to Leo. I need to talk to him. I’m… afraid.”

“Yeah, well, considering who you are hanging out with, you should be.”

“What do you want, Kat?” Leo demanded as he stepped into the bar proper from the back.

“Leo. I need to talk to you. It’s about Copper and Lima 6. I just need five minutes of your time. Please!”

“To be honest, Kat, I don’t give a rat’s ass about Lima 6 anymore.”

“I know. But they were wrong to strip you of your colors. Since you have been gone, the club has started to come apart. There is no one left to act as a check on Ron. Copper is off the board. Fitz too—”

“And I should give a shit, why?” he interrupted.

“Because they were your friends! Once. The entire club looked up to you!”

“Yeah. That’s why they tried to have me killed. Twice. That’s why they stripped me of my colors and have been hovering about, making sure I don’t forget that I’m a marked man. You know what they say about friends like these.”

“They were wrong, Leo. I think they know it now. Copper, he’s made me his old lady. He’s bitter and unhappy. He tells me things. How the club is going down the wrong path. He and Fitz have talked to Ron, but he won’t listen. He won’t listen to anybody! They were charter members, two of the first fifteen, and they see the town returning to the way it was when Lima 6 first formed. This is Coper’s home now,
our
home now, and he doesn’t want to go back to the way it was.”

“He should have thought of that before Lima 6 started running drugs.”

“I know!” Kat wailed. “The club should have kicked Ron out back then, when you were pushing so hard against him. Maybe he could have done more, but he backed you every step of the way!”

“Really? I don’t recall him backing me when I took on Ron over shooting the kids.”

“That was different! You pulled a gun on the President of the club. That’s all that was about. He agreed with you, that the kids shouldn’t be killed, but he couldn’t condone you pulling your gun on another member. Leo, Copper is your friend. Always has been. Always will be. He was there for you the night Tuck and Two-Tone were killed.”

“Yeah, I know he was. But that’s too little, too late, now. What do you want from me, Kat? I’m dead to the club. It is only a matter of time before they take a shot at me.”

“I want you to help! I want you to finish what you started! I want you to take the club back and make it what it once was!”

“What are you talking about, Kat?”

“Copper told me what you told him after the club had banished you. How you and the others were planning a coup.”

“Funny. He didn’t seem to care when I told him.”

“I know. But he has been thinking about it. We’ve been talking about it. He was hurt, Leo, that you didn’t come to him. He was the Sergeant at Arms, and you were doing an end-around on him.”

“Because I didn’t know where he stood. I approached him about it, and he seemed to be okay with the club running drugs.”

“But that is when Ron said that they were just allowing the drugs to pass through Lima 6 territory. It is like you pulling the gun on Ron. He couldn’t condone what you were doing. But now he knows you were right. Ron is too far gone to save and that Lima 6 is actually transporting the drugs. He’s sorry Leo. He’s so sorry he didn’t help you when you needed it most, and it’s eating him alive.”

“Why hasn’t he come to tell me himself, then?”

“Because of his pride! And he’s afraid. Afraid of what may happen. The club is just hanging together. One more shock and it may break apart, and he doesn’t want that.”

Leo glanced at Jamie. She had put the shotgun away, but she was still hard as nails. “How, Kat? How do you expect me to help? What do you expect me to do?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Kat shouted then took several deep breaths. “I don’t know. But it is getting bad, Leo. The club is tearing itself apart. The Cuervo Cartel is trying to push the Prieto Cartel out and Lima 6 is being caught in the middle.”

“That’s what happens when you get in bed with the devil. You get burned.”

“You won’t help me? You won’t help Copper, or Fitz? Allen? Do you not care anymore?”

“Kat, if Copper wants to take the club back, I will support him in any way that I can. But I can’t do this for you. I’m not a brother anymore. I can’t just waltz in there and start making demands.”

“How do we know this isn’t just an attempt to get Leo out in the open where the club can take him down?” Jamie wanted to know. They had been
very
careful since he left the club to not be caught in a bad position.

Kat looked like she was going to cry. “I guess you don’t have any reason to trust me. Leo, I’m sorry for what went down. A lot of the club is. I can understand you being suspicious, but I just want your help. Copper told me what you said about the cleaning crew, how it was all Ron’s doing. But this isn’t that, okay? I’m begging you, please help me save Copper before he is hurt, or killed.”

“I’m sorry, Kat. I can’t. Copper has to be the one to make the first move.”

Kat wrung her hands as she stared at the floor. “If he comes and asks for your help to take the club back, will you give it?”

“Yes. What little help I can provide, I will.”

“Leo, are you sure that’s a good idea? It could all be a setup,” Jamie pointed out.

He looked at Jamie. “It could be. But I promised you that I would take the club back, or destroy it. This may be the first step to doing that.”

He turned his attention back to Kat. “Have Copper come here and talk to me, alone. Just him. We’ll see where this goes after that. But I’m not promising you anything except to talk to him, understand?”

“Yes,” Kat replied before she stepped forward and hugged Leo briefly before letting him go and looking at Jamie self-consciously. “Thank you, Leo. Thank you for anything you might be able to do.” She nodded once at Jamie then hurried out of the door.

“Do you think you can trust her?” Jamie asked.

“Don’t know. She seemed sincere, don’t you think?”

“Yes. But that doesn’t mean you can trust her. She may be everything she seems, but if you start pulling strings in the club again, who knows what may happen.” Jamie looked at the bar and began to polish one spot. “What if the cartel comes after you? I couldn’t stand to lose you too.”

Leo stilled her hand with his own. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve had someone try to kill me three times now, and I’m still here. I’m hard to kill.”

Jamie looked up with tears in her eyes. “I’m afraid your luck may have run out. I don’t want to take that chance.”

Leo smiled as he released her hand. “I guess you better keep that shotgun handy then, in case you need to shove it up someone’s ass and pull the trigger.”

Jamie snickered and wiped at her unshed tears. “It’s not funny, Leo.”

“I know babe. But going around looking over our shoulders all the time isn’t funny either. And if you won’t leave—”

“I can’t leave my home or
He’s Not Here!”

“And I can’t leave without you. This is the first chink in their armor. Let’s see if we can pry them open a little. If Copper is serious about wanting to take the club back, I’m willing to help. Like Kat said, he’s one of the founding fifteen. People will listen to him.”

“Then he should have come forward when you were trying to take the club back before.”

“It’s a hard thing to turn on a brother,” Leo said as he nodded in agreement. “Especially with as much history as Copper has.”

Jamie sighed. “I just hope you know what you are doing.”

He smiled. “Yeah. Me too.”

Leo turned and Jamie instinctively reached for her shotgun as the door opened again, then they relaxed as a man and woman came in, laughing at some joke as they settled into a booth. “We’ll talk more about it later, okay?”

“Okay. But this is our best chance so far to fix this. We may not get another opportunity.”

“I know,” she said as she kept an eye on Bobi, waiting for her to finish taking the couple’s order. “But I’m not ready to trust anybody from Lima 6. Not after what happened the last time.”

Leo pursed his lips as he nodded in agreement. No more deaths. There has been enough killing.