Page 6 of Falcon

“You fuckin’ bitch!” Jackhammer screamed. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you for this! Fuckin’ whore!”

I stood so fast, my chair tumbled back. I wasn’t the only one. None of us were as fast as Rocket, though. He pulled his gun and shot Jackhammer in the crotch. Not once. Three. Fucking. Times.

“You want somethin’ to scream about, you pissant little motherfucker?” Rocket shot him in the crotch a fourth time. “Try that.” Again, Rocket shot. “How about that, too?” Blood was now everywhere. Jackhammer was covered in it and there was no doubt Rocket had hit one or both femoral arteries. Probably every blood vessel in Jackhammer’s pelvis. In any event, Jackhammer was no longer screaming. It wasn’t like Rocket to lose his cool, and definitely not like him to kill indiscriminately. Which told me Jackhammer had been way more trouble than Rocket was willing to take.

‘Course, it coulda just been the fact the fool had threatened to kill Lemon, no matter how much pain the fucker was in at her doing. The easiest way to unleash the outlaw in Rocket was to threaten his woman. Lemon had had a couple close calls since she met Rocket and the president hadn’t gotten over any of it yet. None of us had.

“Thank Christ.” Boon holstered his own gun before sitting back down. “I’d hate to’ve had to explain to Bessy how I’d killed her fuckin’ kid when I finally got to hell.”

“Jackhammer was your stepson?” I asked before I could stop myself and immediately winced. “Never mind. Ain’t my business.”

Boon gave me an impatient look. “Hell no, the bastard ain’t my stepson. He was my old lady’s kid. I never claimed him in any way, shape, or form.” He spat where Jackhammer lay in a heap on the floor nearby. “Told you this was your last chance to straighten up, kid. Shoulda fuckin’ listened.”

“Can we get on with this or would someone else like to die?” The look on Rocket’s face said he’d had enough.

Scrub, the cleaner for Grim Road, stood and nudged Jackhammer’s lifeless form with the toe of his boot. When the other man didn’t move, Scrub shrugged. “I’ll take him out back to dispose of. Let me know when the meeting’s over, and I’ll see what I need to do here.”

Rocket just grunted before continuing. “Ain’t no easy way to say this. Rattler. Falcon. One member of your team survived your last mission. She’s alive, but a prisoner.”

I felt like I’d been sucker punched. I think I actually grunted. “No,” I whispered. “Not possible.” I turned to look at Rattler who had an equally sick look on his face. Not that we valued female lives over male lives, but I hadn’t missed the fact Rocket had said “she” and there was no way Rattler missed it either. “Wevisually accounted forevery single man and woman in our mission. We didn’t leave anyone behind, least of all a woman. Christ, Rocket!”

“I have no doubt your count was correct.” Rocket dug out a thumb drive from his pocket and tossed it to me. I caught it reflexively or it would have bounced off my chest and hit the floor. I was still trying to wrap my head around what he’d said.

“We brought every one of our team back with us. They were dead, but we brought them home. We carried their bodies to the landing zone and loaded them into the aircraft ourselves.” I could barely form words. Reliving the worst day in my life… Thinking about the events of that day made me nauseous. It wasn’t just a matter of getting our brothers and sisters to the LZ and in the chopper. We’d had to pick up as many pieces of them as we could. In some cases, it had probably been left up to investigators to figure out what body went with that limb. Or head.

“You did. What you didn’t know was there was someone on the inside of that terror cell already, giving your handler real time data. No one bothered to tell you because…” Rocket trailed off, clenching his jaw. He actually glanced over to Lemon who was focused squarely on our president. Her husband. She was as stony-faced as Rocket and, in some ways, infinitely more terrifying, even if she was still practically a fucking teenager. She nodded her head slightly and Rocket continued. “Because the operative imbedded in that shit hole was Joilyn Graves.”

Instantly, Rattler got to his feet. He pulled his gun and aimed it at Rocket’s head. I’ll admit, I had to stop myself from doing the same. It wasn’t every day someone told you a woman you thought had been dead for years had been the deep operative on your mission. And you’d left her there. Also, it probably didn’t help the fact that Joilyn Graves happened to be Rattler’s sister.

To the president’s credit, he didn’t flinch. In fact, Rocket looked like he’d been expecting exactly this reaction.

“Easy, Rattler,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, trying to urge him to lower his weapon before he got himself -- and me -- killed. “We’ll figure this out.”

“You don’t get to utter her name, Rocket. Not like this.” I’d never seen this side of Rattler. The battle-hardened man’s hand actually shook as he held his gun. “Joi died a year before everything that happened that night. You go back to ExFil or Cain or whoever the fuck told you this fuckin’ horse shit and tell ‘em I’m comin’ to kill them.”

“It’s all on the flash drive, Rattler. Information that will explain everything. Obviously, the CIA didn’t offer any of this. Data and his wife, Zora, along with Cain’s daughter, Suzie, found this. I’m certain their means of procurement were less than legal.”

Yeah. The full impact of this would hit me later, but I had bigger things to worry about right now. “You said they were givin’ us a heads-up,” I said after clearing my throat. Rocket had hit me with way too fucking much in way too fucking short a time for me to process. “They offerin’ to let us in on this?”

Rocket nodded. “They are. Cain said he thought the two of you needed the option to go with them or not. Piston said to consider it the first official act of the South Eastern MC Alliance.”

“That op went to shit two fuckin’ years ago,” Rattler bit out. He’d holstered his weapon, but he was still standing and looking like he wanted to be anywhere but in this fucking meeting. “What happened for ExFil to get this now?”

“Not sure,” Rocket admitted. “But I think Mama and Pops might have had something to do with it. Them, or someone they know.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just something Cain said. He mentioned Pops in the same breath he told me they were being sent after your sister. That man doesn’t give out information without a reason.”

“When do we leave?” Rattler clenched and unclenched his fists. I knew how he felt. It had taken me a long while to make my peace with Joilyn’s death. She’d died in a fiery car crash on a rural road. By the time emergency services got there, she’d been almost completely burned. The autopsy had identified her by dental records and me and Rattler had mourned her death.

Joilyn had been Rattler’s last living relative. He, Joilyn, and I had become a small family of our own. I was included with them because their parents had fostered me. I’d been orphaned when I was only eight, and Rattler and I had been best friends from the first evening I arrived at his home. Joilyn had been born three months after I arrived so I’d known her her entire life. It had devastated me and Rattler both when she’d been killed.

Now, to know she was inside that hellhole, providing us intel at risk to her life and, not only had we not known, but we’d cut and run, it felt like the absolute worst betrayal. We’d left her to her fate. Once again, I’d failed someone who depended on me. Seemed all I did was fail people. At least, it felt like I had from that night on. Even now, I was actually planning on letting down one of the most important people in my life. Leaving on this mission and leaving Gina here was going to be hard on her. But I couldn’t leave Rattler to do this on his own. For more than one reason.

“You leave here in two days. Cain said he was sending a team to pick you up.”

“Sounds like you expected we’d not only accept their invitation, but that we’d insist on going.” I gripped Rattler’s shoulder as I spoke. It looked like a show of support, but if I touched him, I could tell how tense he was. Pulling the gun on Rocket had been bad. I thought Rattler had himself back under control, but the last thing I wanted was for him to accidentally hurt someone because he wasn’t thinking clearly. The PTSD resulting from that night wasn’t subtle. Rattler’s muscles were tight, but the trembling seemed to have stopped.

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