Running back into the security room, seeing that Lucky was dealing with the last of the perps, he scanned the surrounding woods to make sure there wasn’t anyone in the shadows to take them out. Satisfied, he turned his focus to Jo’s driveway, where Shade was just arriving.
Cash had been running for the front door last he looked, but now he had fallen back to take a position behind a car ten feet away. Rider knew why when he saw that Aly had stepped over F.A.M.E’s body, going to the window next to the table. She must have shouted a warning out to Cash, threatening to kill the women.
The bitch meant it, too. She had Rachel take one of the chairs at the table, then had Lily take the other, across from her. Staying to the side, Aly then lowered the blinds so the men outside would only see shadows, not who was who.
Seeing Lucky and Viper come to the garage door, he opened then closed it once they were through.
Rider hit Shade’s number on his cell phone as the two men came through the door. When they saw he had his phone to his ear, they remained silent.
“The outside yard is clear. It’s only inside. Lily is in the chair closest to the door; Rachel on the other side. Aly has the rest of the women standing in a line across the doorway along the front wall. Any shots in that direction will strike one of them. She has two guns. One a Glock 27, the other a 45. Knox is on his way with Greer. Position Knox at the beginning of the driveway. No one in or out unless it’s one of us.”
Rider sat down, scooting the chair forward while motioning for Viper and Lucky to help with surveillance, making sure the other houses and the club were still secure.
Putting his phone on speaker, he sat it down on the desk. Concentrating on the inside of Jo’s house and her property, he left it to the other men to make sure the other members were safe.
“Shade and Greer to the black Cavalier. Circle around to the tan Cadillac that sits on top of two other cars. Make a right at the red Fiat. That will put you behind Jo’s house. Let me know when you’re in position.”
“The area is clear here. You want me to send more men to Knox?” Shade asked.
“Moon is sixty seconds from here; send him to Shade’s house and let him in,” Rider answered, prioritizing who he wanted where.
He waited for Shade to get in position. Any miscalculation in his plan, and there would be a bloodbath inside Jo’s house. There were only two men in the world who he would trust to save their lives.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the screen that kept trying to distract him.
“Lucky, call Killyama and tell her it’s Hammer and Train coming. She’s about to shoot one of them.”
“I’m in position,” Shade’s voice came over the phone.
“Hold your position,” Rider ordered Shade on one breath, then gave the next order on another breath. “Viper, call Gavin and give the phone to me.”
Rider raised his hand in the air, watching every movement Aly made. The phone was in his hand in a second.
Rider heard Gavin answer the phone.
“You good?”
“I’m good. What do you need?” he asked.
“I need you to save my woman for me. Can you get it done?”
“Let Shade or Viper—”
“Viper is going to open the front door in ten seconds, and then you are going to haul ass to Jo’s place and save my old lady. You goddamn owe it to me! You fucking hear me?” It was the first time since he had started his military career that he had come close to losing his cool.
“I hear you.”
“Good.” Rider lowered his voice back to normal. “And this time, don’t fuck it up.”
41
“If you move, I’ll shoot the two next to you.”
Aly’s threat had Jo stiffening her shaking legs so neither Beth nor Willa would be forced to pay with their lives for her not being able to get herself under control. Gathering her courage, she tried to think of anything that could distract the woman who had two guns pointed at their backs.
The laughter that had filled the small house had turned to screams of terror when Aly had come up behind F.A.M.E and shot him, not only once, but twice. That she was capable of any violence had stunned her.
At first, she could not believe her own eyes, despite the women trying to flee toward the door. When a bullet had narrowly missed Beth as she tried to grab the doorknob, the women had frozen in place, following Aly’s demand to stop. She had then ordered Lily and Rachel to sit at the table and lowered the blinds before forcing them to line up in front of the wall that had the windows facing the junkyard.
“You should run. The Last Riders are going to kill you.” Mag rolled her wheelchair around F.A.M.E’s body, going to the stove.
“I told you not to move.” Aly walked over to Mag, putting one of the guns to her head.
Rachel started to get up, but when Aly lifted her hate-filled glare at her, she sat back down.
“Don’t,” Beth whispered to her when Jo started to turn to go to Mag.
Jo stilled, not wanting to set off a chain reaction that could hurt the women next to her.
Aly hadn’t missed that she had been about to intercede.
“I wouldn’t let her move, Beth. The life you save may be your own.”
“Unless you want to save The Last Riders the trouble of smoking us out, I need to turn that chicken off,” Mag advised, not even shaking under the gun pointed at her.
“Turn it off.” Aly stepped back, giving Mag room to go to the stove.
“Aly, please stop. You’re not going to get away with this.”
“Oh, but I am. I got away with murdering my parents, didn’t I?” she bragged.
“God, Aly. Why?” Jo felt as if an abyss had opened beneath her and she had been sucked inside.
“I needed money, and they refused to give me any more. I wanted them to sell their house so I wouldn’t lose my business; they refused. They were old, could barely take care of themselves; what did they need that house for? I had to sell my business, so the least they could have done was lose their house. Of course they don’t know I sold it—they’re dead. But they believed in the afterlife, so I’m sure they know I did and got the money from their insurance policies, too. Fortunately for me, they had a double indemnity clause for accidental deaths.”
Aly mocking her dead parents sent a chill of terror up Jo’s back. If Aly could kill her own parents, she wasn’t going to hesitate to kill all of them.
“What do you have to say to that, Jo? Are you finally getting the message that if you don’t do what I say, I’ll kill all of you?” she sneered.
“I’d say you’re crazier than a tick in a room full of dogs.”
Aly strode over to Mag, lifting her gun and striking Mag across her cheek.
When Mag’s head snapped back at the force of the hit, all the women moved at once, regardless of the fear of being shot. Rachel screamed, and Lily caught her arm when she tried to go to Mag, jerking her back over to her chair.
Aly jerked Mag’s wheelchair around so she could stand behind her, pressing both guns to Mag’s temples. “Get back!” she snarled.
The women backed away, moving into the position Aly wanted them in. Rachel was the last to move. Standing by her chair, the redhead bristled with rage.
“You’re dead when Cash finds out you touched her.”
“Don’t you stupid sluts get it? The Last Riders won’t be coming to your rescue! They’re all dead!” She looked at them all in mock pity. “Do you think I waited all this time to get you where I wanted you without knowing I would get away scot-free?”
Jo felt Beth grab her hand at Aly’s announcement. She reached out her other hand for Willa to take. The conviction in Aly’s words had her not caring if the abyss swallowed her whole. Without Rider, she didn’t want to live.
“Cash isn’t dead, and neither is Trip. They’re right outside.”
“Not yet, but they will be when Curt and his family get here. They’re planning a big party for you ladies, and to renew o
ld relationships. Isn’t that right, Jo?”
“Curt and I never had a relationship. He and his cousins raped me.”
“He didn’t have to rape you. You were constantly chasing after him with those big cow eyes, begging him to notice you. And when he did, you started running your mouth about what he and his cousins did to you. There were no cops coming to arrest him, were there, Jo? Because it didn’t happen.”
Her furious rant had Jo worried for Mag. The old woman still hadn’t seemed to regain her senses, and her lined face was drawn and sagging.
“He didn’t have to rape you. He was getting everything he wanted from me. You teased him when Justin and Tanner let you convince them to meet you at the storage building.”
Jo could only shake her head at the deranged woman’s delusions. “He may have told you that, but you know that isn’t the truth,” Jo said simply. You couldn’t reason with a mad woman, and Aly was clearly sick.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. I got over Curt a long time ago,” Aly sneered. “I’ve moved on to bigger and better men. You have, too. If I didn’t know what Curt had in mind for all of them, I might have decided to stay around longer. If I didn’t think that it would be too suspicious to be fucking all of them so soon after my parents’ death instead of being bored to tears in that fucking basement, I would have screwed their nuts off.”
Aly moved the guns away from Mag’s head. Jo’s relief was short-lived, though, because Aly then moved her hands to the handles of Mag’s wheelchair and tilted it forward, spilling the old woman into a heap next to F.A.M.E’s body.
When Rachel tried to kneel next to Mag to check on her, Aly shoved one of the guns into the waistband of her pants to yank Rachel to her feet with the other gun pointed at her head.
Using Rachel’s hair, she slammed her back down in the chair. “Sit!” Releasing her, she retrieved her gun to go sit down in the chair in the living room that faced the line of women.
Jo could only stare at the woman who she had never expected to carry such ugliness within her soul.
“Oh, please. Don’t stare at me that way, Jo. All of you are nothing but sanctimonious hypocrites.
“Holly, you kidnapped a kid and played mommy to him as if his mother never existed.
“Rachel, you and Sutton act like you’re best friends now, but when she dumped Tate to go to the prom with Cash, where was your family loyalty then?
“You all stand there like I have a screw loose, yet everyone walks around Lily like she’s made out of glass. You all know she’s as crazy as a looney bird.”
“No, she’s not.” Jo tried to drop her hands from Willa’s and Beth’s. She’d had enough of Aly’s insults.
“Yeah, right.” Aly curled her lip in contempt. “Just like Diamond isn’t nuts for buying an island because she’s afraid of zombies. Word to the wise, Dia; if you’re afraid of something, don’t watch movies about them.”
“Don’t call me Dia.” Diamond stared hard at her. “Are you having fun, Aly? Pointing those guns at us while you belittle us? There isn’t a woman here who hasn’t been nice to you. You blackmailed Jo to get what you wanted her to do. When your house burned …” Diamond’s eyes widened as the same thought hit all of them. “You burned down your own home, didn’t you?”
“I was never going to get anyone to buy that old house. At least, not for the same amount as I got from the insurance.” Aly laid one of her guns down on her lap as she took out her cell phone. Then she switched the two items, putting the gun back up to point it back at Rachel and Lily.
Jo saw her darting quick glances nervously down at her phone.
“What’s the matter, Aly? Curt running late?” Jo drew her attention back to her and off the other two women.
“I’m not worried. He’ll be here.”
“How late is he? A few minutes? An hour?”
“Shut up, Jo. Beth and Willa have kids; you don’t want to make them motherless, do you?”
“They are going to be motherless regardless of whether you pull the trigger or Curt does. They have no intention of letting us live, do they?”
“That’s not my problem. The last of my problems were taken care of last week when that sweet couple bought that dirt patch they’re planning on building a home on.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t you just take the money and leave? Do you have to have a whole roomful of women’s deaths on your conscience? Just leave. Your car is sitting outside. We won’t stop you.”
“I owed Curt for helping me make my parents’ deaths look like an accident, and for burning my house down. Unlike you, I pay my debts.”
“I paid you what my father owed.” Jo hadn’t believed she could hate anyone as much as she hated Curt, Justin, and Tanner. Aly, however, had gone to the head of the list.
“You would have, if I hadn’t spurred you on to get Rider interested in you,” Aly taunted. “Curt and I killed two birds with one stone with that masterpiece.” Aly sneered, leaned forward in the chair. “You’re really going to appreciate this …”
Jo promised herself not to react to whatever Aly was about to tell her. The venomous woman was feeding off their fears and the disclosures she was revealing.
“Your father never owed my parents that money. Lyle made it so easy for me and Curt. He had different places he always liked to drink. Curt was smart enough not to go to Rosie’s and catch him there … He liked to drink in Jamestown on the weekends. The bar Lyle liked to hole up in didn’t have a Mick there to watch out for him.”
“I know my father’s signature …” Despite her promise, each word Aly uttered was stabbing a knife through her heart.
“It was your father’s signature, but he was drunk as hell when he signed it. Curt and I are still laughing our heads off over that. Of course, I’ve had to hang on to that secret for a while for it to be any good. A couple of things had to happen first.”
Both Beth and Willa’s hands tightened around hers, giving her the support she needed to keep from attacking the woman, regardless of her fate. Only the reality that Beth or Willa would pay for the price had her strengthening her resolve not to let Aly know how bad the blows she was dealing her were.
“You had to wait for my father to die.”
Aly nodded. “Curt helped with that, too. He rigged the brake pedal so it wouldn’t work. He was the town drunk; no one even checked to see if it was a mechanical failure. You were so broke. I knew you’d have to seek help to pay the loan back, so I gave you a little nudge in the right direction. That was the good idea Curt had. He said all The Last Riders were loaded. I had to get my foot in the door to find out about the patsy that would be financing my new life. They made it so easy for me when I found out The Last Riders were trying to steer Rider in your direction.”
“I don’t understand. If the only thing you and Curt wanted was money, why attack The Last Riders? Why hurt the women?”
“Come on, Jo. You of all people should know why.” Aly looked down at her phone again, pressing the home button. Jo knew she was checking the time. “Because Curt is a vindictive son of a bitch, which is another reason I had to live up to my end of the plan. Which, unfortunately for you ladies, didn’t originally include you or The Last Riders getting snuffed out until Rider made Curt mad by firing him. So, don’t place the blame on me; blame Rider. There won’t be anyone left standing when Curt gets here. They won’t be leaving any witnesses. Lucky for me, but I can’t say I’m sorry for any of you.”
“I feel sorry, Aly. Actually, I feel sorry for both you and Curt. You’ve both been planning this for years while you could have been enjoying your life. Even if Curt and his family do succeed in killing every last man and woman who belong to The Last Riders in Treepoint, the Ohio chapter won’t stop until they find out what happened. You, Curt, and any family member who took part in it won’t be able to run fast enough.”
Aly shifted uneasily in her chair, picking up the phone and pressing buttons before putting the phone to her ear.
Jo
gave her the same mock-pitying look that Aly had given them when her confidence had been soaring from the adrenaline of taking them all hostage.
Disastrously for Aly, she had underestimated The Last Riders.
Jo turned the metaphorical knife that Aly had used to stab her with when she had confessed to her father’s murder, using it to plunge it deep, deep into Aly.
“Curt isn’t coming, Aly. He never had any intention of coming. He never does his own dirty work. He lets his family do it for him. He’s probably in a bar or at a store, miles away from here, making sure he’s being seen and has plenty of witnesses to back him up.”
“He’s coming!” Aly yelled, slapping the phone back down on her lap.
Jo feared one of the guns would go off. From the way the women’s hands she was holding were shaking, she knew they had been afraid of the same thing. The tension between the women was fraught with fear. Diamond and Holly were pregnant, and the fear in their eyes for their babies’ safety was evident. The women next to them had placed themselves a step forward, trying to block them if Aly did start shooting.
“Take me, Aly,” Jo pleaded. “Use me as collateral. Rachel can call Cash and tell him to let us go. You can have the gun at my head. I won’t fight you. Please, Aly. I’m begging you.”
Aly laughed at her. “You as collateral? That’s a joke, right? I killed one of them. Rachel said it herself. What I did to Mag was enough to get me killed.”
“Cash won’t know about it until we’re gone. Rachel won’t say anything. Will you, Rachel?”
Rachel, who had scooted her chair forward enough that she could reach Cash’s grandmother’s hand, looked up stonily at Aly. “I won’t say anything.”
Aly’s face went thoughtful. “It won’t work with you as my hostage.” She narrowed her eyes at Rachel. “But he won’t shoot his own wife, will he, Rachel?”
“No, Cash wouldn’t,” Rachel agreed, making no effort to conceal the loathing that she had refrained from putting in her answer.