Tip of the Spear: Devil Chasers (Lima Six Motorcycle Club Book 3) (13 page)

He smiled, liking how those words made him feel. “I will always be here for you. Nothing is going to hurt you.”

“I know. I believe in you. I need you to believe in yourself. I need you to believe you are doing the right thing. I know it’s hard, but I need you to be brave and strong for just a little longer. For Vallecito. For me.”

“I will.”

She backed up so she could look into his face, reading his eyes, and she saw strength and determination there. She stepped back in close and returned her head to his shoulder. “Take me home, Leo. Take me home and hold me, make love to me, for the rest of the night.”

He held her a moment more, enjoying the warmth of her skin, before he gently tipped her face up and kissed her softly on the lips. “I will,” he whispered as he pulled back from the kiss, and he did, for a knight always keeps his word.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Leo typed frantically on his phone.
Blue GMC SUV TX plate BRC5310.
He hit
Send
just as the GMC Terrain pulled onto the highway and headed North. Having run several intercepts, they had a pretty good idea that the drugs were going to go North on 118, so they had positioned the women, along with Matt and Copper, several miles out of town at various stops. He sent the text to all four vehicles so they could start the tail as the SUV passed each of their locations.

“They’re getting ready to move out,” Allen said.

“Let’s hang back a little and see if the club leaves first. If they ride with them until they go off road, we are going to have to let them go. I knew we should have come in the trucks,” Leo fumed.

“No. The bikes are the right choice,” Allen said quietly as they watched the men shaking hands and milling about in the distance. “It helps drive the message home.”

This was the first time Leo had been on his bike since the hit on the cleaning crew, and it had felt so
damn
good to be in the saddle again. But Harleys are not off-road bikes and they would have no hope of following -- much less catching -- the cartel once they left the pavement. The four men continued to watch until they heard the Harley engines start in the distance. The men rose from their concealed position and hurried down the small bluff to their waiting bikes. They quickly started them and carefully made their way down the dirt road before stopping at the pavement.

As they had hoped, the other SUV the cartel had arrived in whizzed past, heading south, back for the border, and there were no other Lima 6 members in sight. Leo smiled. Time to resort to a little subterfuge. Easing out on the clutch, Leo turned his bike onto the road in pursuit.

***

Jamie was bopping along interstate 20, patting her hands on the wheel and singing along with Alan Jackson as he crooned out
Livin’ on Love,
an old favorite of hers that suddenly had new meaning. She had been on point for the past twenty minutes as they approached Odessa. When they turned onto interstate 20 she was certain they were headed for the same truck stop she and Leo had tailed them to the last time, and she was right. Exotic had been right on her ass as the SUV exited the interstate, and followed them off as Jamie proceeded on to the next exit. She would turn around and come back, but each time they had changed from one road to the next, the car first in line didn’t follow, turning the point duty over to the car just behind. It was a scheme they had worked out, and even practiced once, while waiting on news of the next intercept.

She had already turned around and was almost back to the truck stop on the service road when her phone chirred with the arrival of a text. She didn’t even bother reading it until she found Exotic’s BMW and Kat’s Nissan 370z. She pulled in and stepped out of her car.

“Where are they?” Jamie asked.

Kat pointed across the parking lot and Jamie squinted until she spotted the SUV sitting in a semi-deserted section of the parking lot near where the big rigs were parked.

“Now what?” Exotic asked as Matt and Copper arrived and pulled into an empty space near the women.

Kat smiled. “Follow my lead,” she answered then turned her attention to Copper. “Wait in the truck,” she ordered as he started to step out.

“What are you going to do?” Copper asked.

“I’m going to create a distraction. Get ready to go.” Kat then took her blouse in her hands and give it several quick jerks, popping the buttons off to reveal a large amount of flesh. She then took one sandal off and threw it as far as she could in the general direction of the SUV they had followed.

Exotic began to laugh as understanding began to dawn. “Oh… you are one evil bitch.”

Kat smiled. “You ladies ready?”

Jamie made her face serious, broke into giggles, then settled into character. “Let’s go stir up some shit.”

The three women burst into the restaurant. “Someone call the cops!” Kat cried as she skidded to a stop. “Two guys attacked us outside.”

All eyes in the restaurant turned toward the three women, all wide eyed and out of breath, one missing a shoe and holding her torn shirt shut. She gave them just a moment to take it all in. “Don’t just sit there. They were going to kidnap, or rape us, or something!”

Several big men rose from their chairs and walked over to them. “Are you ladies okay?” one of the men rumbled.

“I think so!” Kat cried, looking around frantically. “Two guys tried to drag me into their car. If my friends hadn’t been there and started screaming, I don’t know what would have happened! They ran to a blue SUV! They’re still out there!”

The three men looked at each other. “Do you know them?”

“No! Jamie, Elaine and I are just on our way to Dallas. We just stopped for gas. These two guys walked up and said they were trying to find someplace. We’re not even from around here! After I filled up, I parked the car so we could go to the bathroom and get something to eat. As I was getting out of the car, they grabbed me and tried to drag me off. When Elaine and Jamie started screaming for help they let me go and ran back to their SUV!”

“You said they are still out there?” another man asked as he walked up.

“Yes! A blue SUV, parked over by the big trucks!”

The four men looked at each other again. “Wait here,” one said as they turned toward the door, two more men who were sitting nearby rising to join them as they moved toward the door.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Jamie moaned. “Bathroom?”

The hostess who had been listening looked at her with sympathy. “Through those door, honey. Do you need anything?”

Jamie turned and bolted for the door, nearly choking on laughter. Kat should win an Academy Award for best actress for that performance. She dialed Copper’s number as quickly as she could while laughing her ass off.

“Six men headed out. Follow them. They’re truckers heading over to have a chat with Lima 6 over trying to kidnap your old lady,” Jamie gasped out between bouts of laughter.

“What?” Copper squawked.

“Just follow them!” she gasped before ending the call. She didn’t have time to type all that into a text, so she was just going to have to cross her fingers and hope the call was too brief, too cryptic, or both, to do anyone any good.

Getting herself under control, Jamie exited the bathroom and walked back into the restaurant. “My friends?” she asked the hostess.

“Outside.”

Jamie hurried through the door and joined Kat and Exotic as they watched the six men talking pointedly to the Lima 6 members. Jamie squinted, trying to make out who the men were. One was Curt for certain, and the other may have been Kyle or maybe Skinner, she couldn’t tell for sure.

“Copper and Matt know what is going on.”

“I saw them sneaking over that way,” Exotic said.

As they watched, Curt took a swing at one of the men and Jamie shook her head. Three to one odds. Curt never was the brightest crayon in the box. It was over in moments and the six men turned and started back across the parking lot, the two Lima 6 members down on the ground. The men looked back a couple of times, to make sure the two men had enough, but as Kat released the front of her blouse and smiled at the approaching men they stopped looking behind them.

“Thank you!” she gushed, bouncing out into the parking lot and hugging each man in turn. Jamie looked down and smiled, amused by the fact the six men all
tried
to not stare at the fleshy mounds of her breasts.

As Kat flattered the men with attention, Jamie saw Matt and Copper sneak up from behind the SUV as the two beaten men struggled to their feet. They went stiff as a hand went around their mouths when Copper and Matt closed up behind them and walked them backward around the SUV until they were out of sight. Jamie and Exotic looked at each other, their eyes wide, both thinking the same thing.
It’s a good thing these guys are on our side.

They saw the SUV rock a couple of times, then Copper walked around the front of the SUV and crawled behind the wheel like he owned the thing as Matt walked nonchalantly back to his truck.

Jamie and Exotic reached for their purses as the same time as their phones announced a message. While Kat began to extract herself from the attention of the six men, Jamie read her message.

It’s done. Curt and Kyle are sleeping. Will dump the bodies somewhere on the way home where they can walk to help. Thanks for the distraction! They never knew what hit them!

She had just finished reading when Exotic’s phone twittered again and Exotic began to giggle. As Jamie looked at her, she held her phone so she could read the text she alone got from Matt.

I expect a full report when you get home.

“Shit. I have to go. Now,” she purred then giggled again. “I’ll give him a full report,” she said in a way that made Jamie think there would be a lot more than just talking involved. “I want to do this again,” she whispered into Jamie’s ear. “But next time I get to be the one that gets attacked.”

***

It was almost midnight when Jamie eased her car into the garage at her home. She had called Leo as she approached Vallecito and he said he would leave the bar for Bobi and Rebecca to clean up as soon as it closed and the last of the customers were out.

Less than forty-five minutes later he stepped into her house and held her long and tight.

“How’d it go?” he asked softly as he continued to hold her.

“Smooth as silk. Curt and Kyle go the shit beat out of them twice, but they had no idea what was going down. That Kat… you do
not
want to piss her off.”

“Why? What happened?”

Jamie spent several minute telling Leo how Kat had managed to manipulate the truckers into distracting the drug runners until Copper and Matt were in position to get the drop on them.

“And they didn’t see who took them down?” Leo asked. That was always going to be the hard part, taking down the guys running the drugs without them knowing who did it while not looking like hoods by wearing ski masks.

“Matt didn’t seem to think so. They were too far away for a good look, but they weren’t moving too good when Matt and Copper jumped them from behind. What about you?”

Leo shrugged. “We killed one of the cartel but the other one got away.”

“How did you get them to stop?”

“That was the easy part. We just rode up beside them and flagged them down. It wasn’t until we pulled our weapons that they even knew they were in trouble.”

“And how did the one ‘get away?’” she asked with a grin, intrigued.

“We got sloppy,” he said with a small grin of his own. “We turned our backs on them for a moment while we argued over what to do with them. They made a break for it. I shot one, but then we couldn’t hit shit and kept missing.”

“So why the long face? Sounds like it all went down just like you planned.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He paused a moment then continued. “It’s the killing, Jamie. So much violence. Yes, I know they were cartel members, and drug runners to boot, but I’ve killed two men in less than a week. It just bothers me. I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, if maybe there isn’t a better way. I’m afraid that I’m going to become just like Ron and his group.”

Jamie caressed his cheek in the way he liked. “That won’t happen.”

“How do you know?” he cried out, backing away from her hand, not deserving of her touch. “I shot Lucas. Then today, I shot a guy just because I could. He hadn’t done anything to me, but I shot him without a second thought.”

She took a step forward and re-closed the distance to him. “Listen to me, Leo. I won’t let that happen. You’re not like Ron, okay? If I even suspected you were, we would be threw. I think the proof that you won’t become like Ron is the fact you are worried that you might.”