Page 69 of Eden's Joker

“I’m sure there’ll be enough spoils to go around once the Devils are finished,” he says to the crowd once he’s standing next to me. “I’m with Joker. I’m sure he’ll succeed where we failed so far.”

I didn’t even know how much I wanted to hear him say that until just now.

He turns to me. “You have what’s left of my guys.”

We shake on it.

After that the others pledge their guys to me too,some more heartily and readily than others. They’ll all come around once we have victory.

Some are even chanting my name now. I’m sure Scorpio started that, but it’s good to hear, “Joker! Joker! Joker!” echoing over the treetops.

It makes all the failures worth it. And in a lot of ways, also makes me feel like I’ve already won. Kinda like I can have my pie and eat it too.

We spent the rest of the night planning our next moves and I think by dawn, I truly had them all ready to follow my lead. Ten days from now, we make our final stand. In Justice. The town that was named for that very day.

We can’t all converge on it at the same time though. No matter how secretive we tried to be, it would alert the Devils that something was brewing for sure. Hence the need for a delay. It took most of the night to make the others understand that. Most of them wanted the battle to happen yesterday.

Some of them left at first light to regroup with their scattered brothers and pass on the word of our plans. Others left shortly after that. By noon, only my MC brothers were still with me in the forest.

Only Scorpio and I are riding back to Justice. I’m leaving Manic and Razor here to organize the transport of these weapons there and sending the rest to threemore bunkers just like this one to get the weapons from those. They’re also gonna spread some false rumors about where Eden is being held.

The more tired and deflated by failure the Devils are when they come to Justice, the better.

“Best thing would be to send them up and down the coast for the next ten days,” I tell Scorpio as we’re getting ready to ride.

He gives me one of those weird accusatory looks he’s been giving me for the past couple of days. “Ten days should be enough time to get done breaking Eden, right?”

His gaze is boring holes in my head like he’s trying to read my mind.

“Yeah,” I say non-committally.

“But you won’t, will you?” he says.

I shrug. There’s not a lot of secrets between us, never have been. He’s probably the only one who can see clearly through all my lies and my bullshit. Sometimes even when I can’t see it myself.

“How are you gonna stop all these other angry guys from doing it though?” he asks, once again hitting the nail right on the head.

I mount my bike and put on my helmet. “Let’s ride. It’s a long way back to Justice.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Even longer than it was a couple of days ago, it seems.”

He probably means that we’re now farther away from getting justice and revenge than we were beforeall this started, but I’m not gonna ask if I’m right. He can keep this bullshit philosophy to himself. I’m having a hard enough time sorting my own thoughts these days.

The ride takes the whole day and most of the evening. My arm is burning again by the time we pull up in front of the Saloon in Justice. No one challenged us on the way in, which I assumed was because they recognized us. But now there’s only the hoes here and none of my guys. Even though all their bikes are here.

Cherry comes out of the Saloon as we dismount, three other women right behind her. For once she’s not wearing her sky-high heels and her makeup isn’t as perfect as it usually is.

“What’s going on?” I ask her.

It’d be just my luck to have everything go wrong just after I’ve successfully obtained everything I’ve spent over a decade wanting.

“She ran,” Cherry says. “They’ve all been looking for her for hours.”

“Fuck!” My yell echoes over the hills and comes back multiplied.

As well it should.

If Eden gets away, all my plans are ruined. Dead in the water before they even got started.

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