Twisted Pieces (Back Down Devil MC #5)(2)

It led to more free time and a chance to stretch his legs a little more.

He sat outside with two other inmates. One guy was an old member of Back Down Devil MC and the other just a common criminal. A guy who had caught his ex-wife cheating, so he barricaded the other guy’s house and burned it down, killing them both.

“I felt bad though,” the guy - Nicky - said to Jace once.

“About killing them?”

“No. Fuck them. I didn’t know the * had a dog. German Shepard, my favorite kind. The damn dog couldn’t get out. Poor thing. That still bothers me.”

Today, Jace, Nicky, and Paul sat outside on a shitty picnic table, dealing cards. They were playing for smokes. The rest of the yard was quiet. The midday sun was high in the air. It was hot out, but it felt good to be warmed by the sun.

Paul had been cleaning up nice for about an hour.

Nicky took the cards and started to shuffle them. “Damn shame you’re stuck in here,” he said to Jace. “Murder?”

“Alleged.”

Nicky laughed a croaky smoking-for-fifty-years kind of laugh and then went into a coughing fit. He managed to keep a lit cigarette in his mouth as he did so. “Alleged. You should be a lawyer.”

“I’m not that corrupt, man,” Jace said. “Deal a hand.”

“Five card straight. Nothing wild. Last hand.”

Nicky dealt the cards. Paul took a look at his hand and quickly folded. Jace had shit other than an ace of hearts. It was worth throwing in a smoke to call the bet. Nicky raised him another and Jace complied.

Jace showed his shit hand and Nicky ended up winning with a pair of two’s.

“Fuck,” Jace said.

“No problem,” Paul said. “Always tomorrow. That’s at least one thing we got right now.”

“Not always,” Jace said.

Nicky laughed again. “Spoken true.”

Nicky collected the cards and then threw them in Paul’s face. He lunged at Paul and took the man to the ground. Jace fell back off the picnic table to his ass and watched as Nicky took out a knife - a real f*cking knife - and slammed it into Paul’s gut. He twisted it and laughed. He pulled the knife out and did it again… and again… and again… until Paul was lifeless.

Jace looked around, expecting guards to come running into the yard, but there were no guards.

Nicky stood with the bloody knife in his bloody hand. He still had the same cigarette in his mouth. He took a deep drag without using his hand and then exhaled a cloud of smoke all around him.

“Sorry about that,” Nicky said. “Favor for a friend.”

“He was part of my club, man,” Jace said.

Nicky smiled and lifted the knife. “I don’t give a f*ck who is part of who. It’s all the same in here, Jace.” He crouched down and took a drag and blew smoke in Jace’s face. “You want out of here? I know how.”

“What the f*ck are you talking about?”

“I know who you are. I know who Paul was. He’s a piece of shit. He tried selling Back Down Devil out a month ago. Tried teaming up with two guys from Eight Under.”

“How do you…”

Nicky laughed. “No loyalty in here, right? I was never patched in to a club, Jace. But I saw an opportunity and took it.”

“Killing someone from Back Down Devil?” Jace asked.

“Yeah. Pretty cool, right?”

Jace looked at Paul. Nicky put a hand out and pulled Jace to his feet. The doors then opened and out came half a dozen guards. They were screaming, weapons drawn.

Before Jace knew what the hell was happening, Nicky stood on the picnic table and started taunting the guards with the knife in his hand. Two guards called the order and they filled Nicky with bullets. The same two guards then grabbed Jace and hauled him away.

One whispered, “You’re doing solitary confinement until your lawyer gets here. Then you’re on your way out.”

“What the f*ck are you talking about?”

The guard smiled. “Tell Miller I was asking about him. And tell him what you saw here today.”

Jace had no goddamn clue why all that had just happened. He just witnessed a man get stabbed to death. A man who belonged to the club. Then again, if Paul turned out to be the rat Nicky claimed, then he deserved the knife. But, Nicky? Making the kill and then taking all those bullets? For what? To go to his grave to say he did something for the club?

It was a powerful reminder of what Back Down Devil stood for and of the respect the MC both commanded and earned. It was really something special. And deadly.

Jace was led back into the prison. There were a collection of guards, all shouting orders at one another. They were desperate to assist in the double death out in the yard. Many of them were already arguing with each other, wanting to know how Nicky ended up with the knife he had.

“This is going to shake some things up for a little while,” the guard walking Jace said in almost a whisper. “Just what we need. Distraction and diversion.”

Jace looked at the guard. The guy looked so straight edge. Tough. Clean. Honest. A man who cared about the badge he wore and the duties he was told to uphold.

The walk to the solitary confiment area was a long one. The rooms were narrow and the doors basically matched the walls. It wasn’t a good place to be. There were only a few lights dangling from the ceiling and it stunk of cold stone, must, and shit. That was one smell that never went away in there. Shit.