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“Cowards!” Ilia snapped. He stood drunkenly and moved to the heavy drapes, peering out between them at the darkness. “They are cowards, and so are we, hiding here and striking from shadows. I say we talk to our ‘friends’ again, let them know they can’t stand by and wait to see who is still standing at the end. They must choose, and if they do not choose us, then we make them regret the choice.”
The room seemed to hold its breath. Trinity glanced at Pyotr, Sacha, and the others and realized that they agreed. This was why Oleg seemed so wary of Ilia’s words, because he knew the others felt the same.
“Throwin’ away through haste what might be gained through strategy is a fool’s gambit,” she said.
They all stared at her, and she felt more than ever like an intruder. Even Gavril curled his upper lip in disapproval of her interference. Only Oleg looked kindly upon her.
Kirill walked slowly to Ilia. Even drunk, he had the good sense to take a step back as his captain approached.
“It is my brother lying out there in a grave with no name,” Kirill said. “I want Lagoshin dead more than any of you, but I want to do it without burying anyone else in this desert. I agree that we must put more pressure on some of our friends to choose sides, but it must be done carefully and wisely… and soberly. In the morning, Ilia, we will speak of this again.”
Ilia looked terrified, but he raised his chin in a show of defiance and, in his own language, agreed.
Kirill turned from him. “Oleg, Gavril, come into the office.”
Oleg and Gavril followed him into the little side room with its maps and markers while the others began to disperse, realizing that nothing more would be happening until morning.
Ilia, who had been so welcoming to her before, paused to glare drunkenly at her. “If they find us before we find them, they will kill us all.”
Trinity nodded slowly. “They might. But if we rush into their gun sights without a plan, we die even faster.”
The drunken man flinched, sniffed at her logic, and marched out of the conference room. The trouble was that she agreed with him. He was drunk and foolish, yes, and she didn’t think they ought to do anything without preparing for the consequences, but the time had come to force the truth out of the Bratva’s local contacts, even if it meant pain. Even if it meant blood.
No more hiding in shadows.
* * *
The crowd at the Tombstone Bar was significantly more subdued than the usual suspects back at Birdland. Chibs stood by the bar and waited on Baghead, who’d slipped behind the oak counter and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. Hopper had been tending bar, pulling pints of local ale off the tap and setting them in front of patrons with the foam still spilling over the rims. Now he turned to glare at Baghead and mutter something sharp. Bag replied, and Chibs saw Hopper look up, search the bar, and settle on him, then nod. Bag may not have explained exactly what was going on in the back room, but he knew it wasn’t good.
Chibs and Joyce had let Jax and Opie ride in the lead, just in case one of them took a spill. Despite the blows to Jax’s head and Opie’s blood loss, they’d made it back to the Tombstone without any real difficulty and guided their bikes into the lot at the rear of the bar. Patrons leaving the last showing at Rollie’s little next-door movie theater stared at the snorting Harleys as they vanished behind the gate. Chibs hoped the darkness had hid the crimson soaking Opie’s shirt and the blood on Jax’s face.
“Got it,” Baghead said proudly as he emerged from behind the bar. He did a little two-step as if to celebrate his achievement, and Chibs wondered just how crazy the guy might be. With Tig and Happy, they had their own madmen back in Charming, but Bag seemed to walk a fine line between good-natured idiot and raving lunatic.
“Brilliant,” Chibs said as they fell into step together.
Bag handed him the bottle as they strode toward the back hallway, and Chibs nearly choked. Talisker single malt, twenty-five-year-old scotch. A rare beast, and surely one of the most expensive bottles of liquor behind the bar.
“This isn’t the sort of thing you give a man to take the edge off,” Chibs said.
Bag shrugged. “Honored guests, man. Jax is VP of the mother charter. You guys get the best. Rollie said so.”
Chibs thought Rollie might shit his pants when he saw how literally Bag had taken this instruction, but he stopped arguing about it. He was looking forward to a little taste of the fine stuff himself.
They went through the back of the building to the crash pad. In the poolroom, Joyce and Thor were playing a round of eight ball while Rollie used peroxide to clean the wound on Opie’s right side. Jax had already washed most of the blood off his face and lay on the sofa with a plastic bag full of ice against his head.
Chibs raised the bottle of Talisker. “If you need a painkiller, Jackie, this one’s a beauty.”
Opie extended a hand for the bottle. “Whatever it is, pass it over.”
Rollie glanced up from his handiwork and sighed. “Shit, man, that’s a three-hundred-dollar scotch.”
“Honored guests, that’s what you said,” Bag reminded him.
Chibs took a sip and handed the bottle to Opie, who slugged back several long gulps.
“Get it done,” he said.
“Let’s give it a bit for the scotch to work its magic,” Chibs said.
Opie took another swig, this one not as deep. “Just do it. We can’t waste time.”
“You’re going out again tonight?” Joyce asked, clearly surprised.
Baghead sniffed.“You deaf or stupid? Opie already took a bullet. If the Russians are getting close to an all-out street war, Jax’s sister is go
“Not ‘we,’ Bag,” Rollie said. “I don’t want you near any part of it.”
“Yeah, yeah. I can’t keep my cool. I’ll only make it worse,” Bag replied, waving his prez’s words away as if they were irritating houseflies.
Chibs wondered how long Clay would have put up with the guy. A wild card could be useful, but a loose ca
“Stitch him up, Chibs,” Jax said from the sofa.
Rollie stepped out of the way to let Chibs work. It wasn’t the first time a member had been stitched up in this room, and Chibs figured it wouldn’t be the last. Fortunately, that meant Rollie had everything he needed to sew up Opie’s wound. “Turn,” he said.
Opie shifted sideways to present the wound, and it pouted open a little. Chibs has treated his share of wounds as a medic in the British Army, and taken care of more than a few for his brothers in SAMCRO, but the scotch could only do so much. When he started stitching up the wound, Opie grimaced.
“So,” Opie said, taking another pull from the Talisker bottle. “How we go
Jax sat up slowly, and took the ice pack from his head, steadying himself. Chibs had thought he’d cleaned up more, but now he saw the blood in Jax’s beard and the swelling on his face and jaw. At the church, he hadn’t been close enough to see how bad Lagoshin had beaten Jax. Now his hands twitched with the desire to throttle the big Russian.
“I’m not worried about taking them all down,” Jax said. “They’re already trying to kill each other, so all we need to do is get out of the way. We get Trinity, make sure Lagoshin goes down, and we’re done here.”
Opie grunted, teeth grinding as Chibs sewed.
“From what Lagoshin told you, the only lead we’ve got is the murder of this Oscar Temple,” Chibs said.
Jax nodded painfully. “Which is why we talk to a cop.”
Rollie glanced over at him. “How hard did that Russian hit you?”
Jax stared at him. “I know you have someone on the local PD who’d be willing to give up information at the right price.”