Forever Zara: (novella 9.5) by V. Theia (ebook reader txt) 📕

had the street value of half a million bucks’ worth of hard drugs there.

It took seconds for him and Hawk to put silencers on their guns.

Hawk liked the up close and personal approach, he preferred to see a man suffer as death came to collect him. But they were going in hard and fast while these men were in one place.

The element of surprise worked in their favor once Hawk picked the pitiful locks.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop!

It wasn’t even a surprise how well or how fast it happened.

Rider advanced with a solid stride, the pair watching each other’s back in the same way they’d done for years. Robert cowering on the floor, drugs spilled everywhere. Hawk did a walk around, making sure bodies were dead.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop!

“You disappoint me, Robert. What was it you said, you didn’t want Marinos back here again? Well, surprise, bitch. I’ll let you into a secret. If it looks like it stinks, and it stinks, then you know what, Robert? It fucking stinks. And you have a stench all over you.”

Hawk grunted, letting him know they had to get out of there.

“Please. Meant nothing by it. It was a job. A fucking job. I don’t deserve to die.”

“Oh, but I think you did mean it. Now, who the fuck is your boss?”

The guy crouched on the floor like he had no fucking spine. Some prez he made. “Will you let me live if I tell you? I ain’t got any loyalty to him. It was just for the money, you know? He said if we wore these cuts and sold his shit, he’d pay us ten G’s each.”

“You didn’t reform the Rebels?”

“Nah, man. This bastard approached me and my cuz a few months back in a bar, said if we did this, he’d set us up for life selling coke and Molly. He told me we could make big money, but we had to start here and then move it through Armado Springs. I wasn’t meant to get seen by you, not yet. Not until we flooded your city.” With Hawk holding a gun on Robert, Rider crouched down, unfazed by the smell of iron blood around him.

Some would say it made him evil. But who fucking cared?

Reaching into Robert’s inside pocket, he yanked out his cell phone. The pathetic guy didn’t even have it passcode protected, and he scrolled to the recent calls. Several rows to the same number under Boss.

“This him?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s the boss. He laid it all out. We’re innocent.”

“Not so much, Robert, not so much.”

“Please, Rider, you don’t gotta do this. I can work for you, be a double agent. I know stuff.”

Hawk pushed the silencer to Robert’s forehead as the man whimpered and lost his bladder, stinking the place up with the smell of ammonia. Rider stepped a few feet away and hit call on the number.

A voice answered with one barked word, and Rider hung up.

Fire burning through his chest wall.

He gave the nod to Hawk without even glancing his way.

Another Pop! And the two of them headed to the door. Hawk already had a cylinder of gas out of his pocket. He sprayed it like confetti.

So much Déjà vu from the first Raging Rebels raid years ago.

The pair changed clothes, burning the ones they’d been wearing, while the shack behind them crackled and ignited in seconds.

They didn’t rush.

Didn’t celebrate.

But when they approached their Harley’s, Rider threw his leg over his first, followed by Hawk, who asked, “well? Who are we gunning for next?”

“Take a guess.”

It took Hawk only a second. “You’re fucking with me?”

Rider laughed, a dark unfunny sound because Hawk knew without being told, and he cursed the air blue.

“Bold motherfucker.”

“Maybe so. But as we know, Rex is not smart.”

Not at all.

And he’d be dead very soon.

Rider theorized if Rex couldn’t get the Souls back for himself, then he’d make damn sure someone else pushed them out of the limelight as Plan B. At least, he’d tried to. He was already gonna kill him. Now he’d do it with fucking joy in his heart for what he’d tried to do here.

He’d been so desperate for any sense of power again, he’d partnered with the devil.

As with all devils, there was only one place to send them.

If Rider had any forgiveness in him, Rex made sure he’d eliminated it.

He was going to fucking love this more than he should.

ELEVEN

“A psycho misses all the fun.” - Lawless

 

Wedding: T-minus 12 days.

“I leave you alone for five minutes and look at the fun you’re having without me,” smirked Lawless, sitting across the white Formica table from Rider.

There were vending machine coffees in front of them, along with empty Pop-tarts wrappers, Rider had fished out of the machine for Lawless.

“Shit like that never stays gone for long. Knowing Hades, he has kids growing as we speak who will take up the mantle in fifteen years,” remarked Lawless with a click of his tongue. “Knox will have his hands full one day.”

Rider didn’t disagree. The life of a club prez wasn’t an easy one, nor was it a quiet life. If his son wanted to have the gavel one day, he’d need to know it wasn’t rainbows and days at the park. The work was grueling. But if Rider could do all he could now, then one day, it would be an easier—safer life for his kids. Rider didn’t want Knox to have to do the shit he’d done over the years to get where he was now. Compared to more than a decade ago, life was better. And it would keep going that way as long as Rider did the dirty work.

“Won’t that be a fun day when the spawn of