Christopher Golden - Sons of Anarchy - Bratva

“In my experience,” he called back, “friends don’t bang on your back door after midnight.”

“Sorry if we woke you,” that voice rasped again. “The lateness couldn’t be helped. It’s pretty urgent I talk to you.”

I guess it must be, Carney thought.

“You armed?” he called.

“Yes, sir. But none of us have weapons drawn. If we wanted to do more than talk, there are open windows.” Carney reached out and opened the blinds. Through the slats he could make out five men silhouetted by moonlight. Shotgun leveled at them, he flicked on the patio light, and the men blinked at the sudden brightness. The one in front squinted but didn’t raise his hands to shield his eyes, too smart to want to spook Carney into pulling the trigger.

“Hands up, slowly,” Carney said.

The men complied. The guy in front, blond and bearded, was the first to do so, and the others followed suit. In the back of the group, a massive red-haired man was the last, and his reluctance was obvious.

Carney studied the faces. “I don’t know any of you.”

“I know how this must look,” said the blond, the owner of the raspy voice. “My name’s Jax. I think you may’ve met my sister, Trinity—”

A memory flashed through Carney’s mind. Gunshot and blood spatter in Oscar Temple’s kitchen. The woman’s face floated across his thoughts, and he saw the resemblance. Carney’s heart had been thundering in his chest, and now it skipped a beat as the copper stink of blood returned to him.

“Irish girl?” he asked, voice raised to be heard through the sliding glass door.

“That’s her.” Muffled. Quieter.

“You don’t have an accent.”

“Different moms.” The blond man put the palm of one rough hand against the glass and gazed calmly at him. “She’s not safe, Mr. Carney. I just want to get her the hell out of here and home to her mother.”

A fine sentiment. Carney had taken a shine to the girl from the moment she’d approached him at the gun show, and not just because her accent reminded him of home. She had a raw energy that he’d admired. But that wasn’t why he lowered the shotgun.

The rough men on his patio seemed surprised when he raised the blinds all the way and unlocked the slider. He stepped back and covered the door with his shotgun, but he kept his finger outside the trigger guard. John Carney had gotten old, and his hands trembled sometimes. If he shot somebody, it would damn well be on purpose.

“Just you,” he told Jax. “Your friends can make themselves comfortable on the patio.”

A goateed man with startling scars on his face looked disappointed. “Any chance of a cup of coffee?”

Carney heard the mix of burr and brogue in his voice and smiled. “You’re not a guest. You’re a stranger who woke me in the middle of the night.”

The man beside him, pale and bearded with his hair tied back in a small knot, nodded. “He does have a point.”

Jax slid the glass door open and entered the kitchen as the other four made themselves comfortable on the patio furniture, sprawling as if they hadn’t a care in the world. They weren’t worried about him killing them with his shotgun, which told him they had no intention of trying to kill him . But he hadn’t gone to Oscar Temple’s house thinking anyone was going to die, either.

“Lock it behind you,” he told Jax, who complied without complaint.

“Can I sit down?” the man asked.

“You’re not getting coffee, either,” Carney told him.

Jax smiled, but it turned to a wince. Carney flicked on the light above the kitchen table, and now he saw the bruises and swelling on his visitor’s face.

“Rough night?”

“I’m alive,” Jax replied. “I’d like to stay that way, and keep Trinity alive, too.”

“She told me her name was Caitlin Dunphy. I heard one of ’em call her Trinity, but I didn’t put it together that it was her name till you said so. I would’ve known who you meant regardless, though. You resemble her a little. Plus, she’s the only woman I’ve run into in a long time that I figure might cause armed men to show up on my patio. How did you all get here, anyway? You got a van out front?”

“Bikes,” Jax said.

Carney almost laughed at the image of these five leg breakers riding bicycles out here with the lizards and dust devils. Then he realized the guy meant motorcycles, and his humor dissipated. Had he slept through the roar of five approaching engines? A disturbing thought. If they’d meant to do him harm, he really would have been dead by now.

He lowered the shotgun and leaned against the counter.

You’re crazy . Letting this man into your house .

Motorcycles might mean they were part of a biker gang. That made a certain sense. He’d caught a glimpse of what looked like some kind of logo on the vest that the big red-bearded bastard had been wearing out on the patio. Oscar Temple dealt illegal guns—a shitload of illegal guns—and Jax’s sister had been trying to make a deal with him on behalf of some Russians.

“You involved in the gun business, too?” Carney asked.

Jax cocked his head. “I’m told you used to be pretty involved yourself.”

“I’m not casting aspersions, lad. Just trying to figure out all the connections here.”

“The only connection that’s relevant is that I’m a concerned brother. I don’t want to involve you in anything that’s going to cause you trouble—”

“Your sister involved me already,” Carney said.

Jax nodded, said nothing more.

Carney sighed deeply and then shrugged. “She did save my life, I suppose. Though it wouldn’t have needed saving if I’d never met her.”

Jax opened his hands, palms up as if in surrender. “Question is, What are you gonna do right now? Tonight?”

Carney turned the question over in his head. He glanced out at the men on the patio. Would there be consequences for the wrong answer? Jax seemed intense, but not intimidating. Was it an act?

“I spoke to the police already,” he said, hesitating.

“I can hear a ‘but’ coming.”

Carney raised the shotgun slightly, barely noticing that he’d done it. Maybe his subconscious mind wasn’t as sure of Jax’s motivations as his conscious mind was.

“I liked her the moment I met her,” Carney went on.

“She has that effect,” Jax said.

“I didn’t want the police to find her, but I wasn’t just protecting her.”

“You were protecting yourself. Makes sense. I figure you told the police being up there at the ranch was a coincidence, but whatever deal Trinity and her boys were trying to strike with Temple, you were a broker. Maybe coming out of retirement?”

“One night only, like all the great Vegas comebacks,” Carney said. “Anyway, I wasn’t in a hurry to help the cops track them down.”

Jax leaned across the table, blue eyes alight. “So you do know where they went?”

Carney’s hands felt sweaty on the metal of the shotgun. “No. But someone else might. One of the men your sister was with mentioned a name, after the killing was done. Something about how they had to make sure they couldn’t be tracked back, or Drinkwater would have to find them a new place.”

“That name mean something to you?”

“Louis Drinkwater is a local real estate guy. Never met him, but I’ve seen him in the papers. He’s had his share of legal trouble.”

Jax stood abruptly, the chair scraping linoleum. Carney flinched, raised the shotgun, but Jax had almost forgotten he was there. The biker unlocked the slider and snapped at his men.

“Let’s go,” he said. “The night is young.”

“Drinkwater has a lot more money that I do,” Carney said. “Probably has better security, too. Maybe you oughta wait till morning.”