Page 59 of Penn

It screeches to a halt, and the driver keeps it upright, thankfully. But there’s more to this than one bullet taking out a tire.

“Ambush!” Pacino shouts, pulling his gun from the holster.

Rooster and Jethro start shooting from their stopped position guarding the stranded truck, and Capone stops next to them. Kannon pulls out his gun and nods at me. “Ready for some shit?”

His eyes are wild and filled with a cold fury that only comes from a man with nothing to lose. Pacino and I, however, both have something to lose. Pacino has a wife, and I have a pregnant girlfriend. But these assholes need to be taught a lesson.

We speed up and head into the desert, counting on luck being on our side to keep the bikes upright as we barrel towards the rocks concealing our enemies. Kannon leads the charge, and I swear, that man has more lives than a fucking cat.

The closer we get, the more we can see, and when a man pops up, I see the Venom leather clear as day. He aims his gun directly at Pacino, and the sight of the snake patch makes my blood boil.

Kannon fires before I do, and the man jolts twice before slumping over the rock, his gun falling into the sand. Blood pools in the dirt, and I’m actually impressed.

“One down,” Kannon shouts, but there’s no emotion in his tone.

Another pops up holding a rifle, and Pacino and I both shoot three shots, hitting the man at least four times in the chest, knocking him backwards into the sand. His rifle shoots aimlessly once in the air as he becomes motionless, the life drained from his body.

I see a third man running toward a cluster of bushes, his boots slipping as he tries to flee the mess he helped start. But I’ll be damned if he gets away.

“Not today, motherfucker,” I mutter as I aim my gun.

I squeeze the trigger, and the gun kicks against my palm. The shooter screams, clutching his upper left arm where the bullet pierced his flesh, and he drops his weapon.

Aiming for another shot, I miss as he ducks and grabs a hidden dirt bike. Kicking the starter as he climbs on as gracefully as a man with a bullet wound in his bicep can, he takes off when the engine comes to life with a high-pitched whine.

He never looks back as he zigzags through the open area until he hits a ridge of boulders. I’m about to race after him when Pacino shouts, “Let him go!”

Kannon lowers the weapon he had aimed as well, displeasure on his face. “Why?”

“We got enough. And we need to clear the road before the cops catch wind of this,” Pacino says. “Tell me we have a spare tire for the truck.”

Shrugging, I holster my gun and head back to the stopped truck where Rooster and Jethro examine the damage. We should really do something with the bodies, but fuck it. They decided to attack, and we took them out. When their leather is spotted, no one will be surprised to find them dead out here.

“Stupid bastards,” Kannon says as we stop to see what we can do to help. “They thought they could catch us sleeping.”

“Butch is getting desperate if he’s sending his boys out here to die to try to take a shipment,” Pacino agrees.

Shaking my head, I sigh. “It wasn’t a random hit. They knew our route, and this is the first shipment in months with heavy artillery. They fucking knew.”

The real question is how they knew. We change our routes. And we never get the same shipment consistently. It’s all strategy to keep them off our tail because drug-dealing club members getting their hands on high-powered weapons they can’t get anywhere else would be the end of us.

“We got a spare?” Kannon asks.

“Yeah, but we don’t really have a great way to jack up the truck on the sand here,” Jethro says. “It’ll just fucking sink.”

“I got an idea,” Rooster says, hopping up and opening the back of the trailer.

Kannon paces along the highway next to our bikes like a restless dog itching to chase after a rabbit. His fingers tap along his holster as if he’s waiting for a duel to start at high noon.

“This is messy,” he mutters as I study him. “I’m starting to think that Zep’s not completely wrong when he suggested taking out those motherfuckers.”

“Kannon—”

“This isn’t a coincidence, and they didn’t just get fucking lucky. They knew we were going to be here. What makes us really believe that Johnny’s death was really a hit and run the cops can’t find?”

Johnny’s death is the dark cloud that’s been hanging over us for two years now. The official report said it was a hit and run on a dark road, but no one was able to find the car. They identified it as a Ford based on the paint transfer, and they believe it was an Explorer. But that’s it. No vehicle. No driver. No justice.

“Johnny was careful. He knew how to ride, and he knew how to watch his back. A random car crossing the yellow line, especially in town on a clear night? You can’t tell me it feels right,” he continues.