Page 108 of Soulless Saint

If it came to a firefight, I had no doubt we’d lose some of our own, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make if it meant burying the threat once and for all.

“Everyone’s ready,” Ma said, coming up behind me.

She had her hair pulled back in a long ponytail that made her look years younger as she leveled a hard stare on Dad. They were speaking now, after the shit that happened on Friday at dinner, but that was about it.

I checked my phone for another status update from Pope, and it was there, right on schedule.

Pope: At the safehouse now. The girl’s safe. Picking at a pack of peanut M&Ms.

He followed it up with a picture of her for proof. Becca sat in the corner of one of the couches, her knees pulled tight to her chest, a big blue M&M between her fingers. Beyond her, I could see the other family members lounging about. Some huddled together, worry making lines in their faces, but even more were at ease, laughing, treating this as an excuse for a social gathering.

They had that much trust in Damien, in their husbands, brothers, and sons, to know that everything would be all right.

“You wearing your vest,” Dad asked Ma, and she jerked the collar of her black long sleeve shirt down to show him that she was.

“Boys?”

Kaleb opened one side of his jacket to show his.

“It’s time to move out,” I said gruffly before Dad could demand to see the vest I wasn’t wearing. That shit would just slow me down, make it harder to move, and I had a feeling I was going to need a full range of fucking movement before the night was through.

Dad straightened his spine, checking his phone one last time for word from Zade or Arch. He lifted a hand in the air, whistling the crew he’d pulled in from every corner of our territory. “Move out!”

Near eighty men piled back into their vehicles, ready to follow Dad’s truck to the meet point. Kaleb slid into the driver’s side of our Bronco, and I jumped to sit atop the roll bar, twisting the rifle slung across my back to my front.

“You ready, Bro?”

“Let’s just get this shit over with.”

I stared down at my brother as he pulled in line to follow Dad, great clouds of fine sand tinted red from his tail lights. The better question was, was he ready?

Unlike me, Kaleb preferred using a tactical approach as opposed to brute strength and savagery, and there was no telling which way this was about to go down.

But I knew, with Ma there and with me and Dad there, he could be every bit as merciless as I could if it meant the difference between all of us getting out alive or winding up dead.

The drive to the canyons was silent save for the occasional chirp of the CB radio we rarely had occasion to switch on. Other gang members sounded off with every mile marker.

Clear. Clear. Clear.

The hills were eerily quiet as we made our way down into the crater-like floor of the valley where a twelve year old version of myself helped Ma bury our deranged father.

Where were they?

Tension stretched across my back, and I slipped down into the seat next to Kaleb. “It’s too quiet,” I growled over the roar of thirty engines and tires crunching over sand.

“No shit. We’re almost there.”

I squinted to see into the dark, through the mist-like spray of red sand, but couldn’t see past Dad’s tail lights.

Just as he hit the base of the decline, leveling out on the valley floor, bright lights flashed to life, drenching us in blinding white, making Dad slam on his breaks and Kaleb have to carve the wheel left to avoid hitting him, skidding to a stop in the sand next to Dad’s truck.

“What the fuck?” Kaleb grunted, jolting forward in his seat as the Bronco rocked and we both squinted to see into the light.

Behind us the rest of the cavalry came to a halt, and I heard doors open, our men marching forward to defend their leader as he stepped down from the driver’s seat of his truck.

I shoved out from the Bronco, thumbing the safety off on my rifle.

“Welcome,” came a man’s voice loud over a megaphone and my gut twisted, filling with heat. Great. A fucking showman.

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