Saving Della Ray

“What the hell happened out there?” Nichole whispered fiercely to me.

Just then we heard the rev of his engine as he brought the machine to life and we both listened as he zoomed it dangerously off into the night.

“Della-Ray!” Nichole called out again. “Are you all right?”

I managed to nod.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but I raised my palm at her, before peeling myself away from the door and staggering back to my room.

Gage

-this is the road to hell-

Fist clenched as I watched her hurry into the house. If she only knew the state she’d just put me in. My whole fucking body throbbed like a fresh wound. All I wanted in that moment was release, and not from anyone else but her. Only her. I felt like the man who had been wandering around for weeks in an endless desert with only bitter water from his camel skin bags to slake his thirst…then he stumbles upon a spring of fresh, cool water.

My phone kept vibrating in my pocket, but I ignored it. Like desert sand slipping through my fingers she slipped through the door and it closed behind her.

Aggravated and frustrated, I pulled the phone out of my pocket, placed it to my ear and barked, “What?”

“Bone,” Skippy said. “Where are you? There’s trouble at the house.”

The haze of lust dissipated into vapors of sweet nothing. “What trouble?”

“RJ crashed into Death’s Hand’s bar and did a burnout.”

“What? Shit,” I swore, as I began to stride towards my bike.

“I know,” Skippy responded. “He’s a fucking moron. They pounced on him, but he managed to get away. They tore off his vest though before they sent him on his way.”

I exhaled. “Fuck.”

“Exactly,” Skippy responded.

“Snake?” I asked, the club’s president’s deathly gaze and chilling tone coming to mind. “Is he aware yet?”

“Yeah, they’re in the den now. I’ll be surprised if RJ makes it out of there alive.”

Shit. Reaching into the seat of my Harley, I grabbed my gear then kicked my bike to life and hit the gas. I arrived at the three-storied house in Glenwood to see the driveway already packed with bikes.

I headed inside, my weapon hard against my skin. Nodding at the brawny men idling in the hallway I made my way down to the basement. I walked in to see twelve of the club’s members grouped around the brazen and most moronic fool that ever lived: RJ, a red-haired lout who had long established his reputation as a mad man with no boundaries.

Some of his escapades included almost burning the house down along with every member inside it, continuous overdosing to his near death, jumping up on the counter of every single bar he’d ever visited nearly intoxicated to stupor, but still somehow coherent enough to boast of the power the club’s patch had granted him. He believed he could own the bar and the town if he wanted to. No questions asked.

He insisted we all call him mayor. Vermin was a more appropriate name, but it would have started unnecessary fights, so we all just stuck to how he had been introduced to us from the very beginning, with his initials RJ, standing for Reynolds Jordon.

His clothes were dirty and messy. His face was bloody while he was on his knees, his lumpy shoulders curved as if he was cowering with fear and respect for his betters, but I knew different.

“I say we quarter him and deliver his body to Death’s Hand,” Tank growled. Brutal looking features and bald, with a yellowish-white face and granite gray eyes which were hidden by a pair of steampunk sunglasses. He rarely took them off. Not even now in the middle of the night in a damn basement. He wore an armless vest as his tattoos of demons and naked girls shone a sickly blue in the fluorescent light.

“I’ll chop him up,” Shotgun offered. He was Tank’s equally brutish distant cousin, but with a penchant for thick silver chains. They dangled around his neck and made delicate tinkling sounds. It was the most disconcerting thing about him.

“Rooster and I will make the delivery,” Tattoo Man contributed.

I regarded the men perched on the bar’s stools, as they nursed tumblers of Glenfiddich, their eyes boiling with disgust at the offender who knelt in the middle of the room.

“No one is fucking asking what exactly led to the argument,” Dobson, an edgy, long-haired coward, spoke up in his defense. His hands were shaking with uneasy excitement. He was afraid of danger and yet fascinated by it as some people are fascinated by a venomous snake. “RJ could have a good—”

“Shut the fuck up, you pathetic bastard!” He was instantly shut down by Tyler, the club’s Sargent-at-Arms snarling at him like a wild animal. When he drew his 9 millimeter Sten and pointed it down at RJ’s face, we all snapped to attention. All that was needed for things to go sour had always been only a hair’s breadth away, and none of us ever wanted to be caught unawares.