Whiskey: Soldiers Of Hades MC, #5
Whiskey: Chapter 3

When Whiskey and Lightning got close to the warehouse, they stopped and Whiskey stared at the building they wanted him to blown up. He could feel Lightning staring at him. “Ask what you want to know or leave it alone.” He growled at him.

“I know you’re a private person and all that, but what the fuck just happened back there?” his friend asked.

Whiskey gazed at the building rather than turn and face his friend. “I met you guys five years ago. You didn’t ask my past and I never told you but to understand where I’m coming from I think you have to hear at least part of it.”

Lightning waited but didn’t rush the other man.

“Eight years ago I was in the service. I was in charge of blowing things up in the desert and waiting at home for me were my mom, my wife and my son, two years old. Then the next year just before I was scheduled to come home, I got a message from my commander. I was issued emergency leave. Something was very wrong at home. When I got there, my mom met my plane. She was crying and I asked her what was wrong. My mom never cried. Her life had been hard and rough trying to raise me single handily and I never saw that woman cry. She and my commander escorted me to a private room and it was my commander that told me what happened. My wife and son were dead in what they thought was a home invasion. As soon as I saw the crime scene photos, I knew their deaths weren’t from a home invasion. I knew they had been targeted because of something I did.”

Lightning frowned. “Something you did?” he asked.

Whiskey nodded slowly. “Do you remember that little shithole of a town near Kabul? When we were pinned down for three days while we waited for backup?”

Lightning frowned but nodded. “I remember we lost three men in that battle and we were low on water and food before we got pinned down.”

“We were but when we went through the town the first time, I was curious about one of the buildings near the edge of the town. I noticed none of the locals went near the building. In fact, they avoided the street altogether. I had to see what was inside. So early one morning, I went for a walk. I got inside and was shocked by what I found.”

“What the hell did you replace?” Lightning wanted to know.

“That warehouse was a distribution point. I saw the symbol Luisa described on every package in that fucking warehouse. When I opened some of the boxes I found pills and guns but I also found some shit that shouldn’t have been there.”

“What kind of shit?” Lightning wasn’t sure he wanted to know but he had to ask anyway.

“Stinger missiles, Ak47’s, military grade ammo, just to name a few of the things I found.”

“What the fuck?” Lightning growled. “How the hell was that stuff just sitting there in a warehouse in a small town near Kabul?”

“I don’t know. I also found another symbol there. It was the symbol of a red rose thorn.” He shook his head. “I have no idea what it meant or what it was connected to, but I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t leave it alone. So I did what I do best. I wired the whole building and I blew that motherfucker to hell.”

“I remember that day.” Lightning nodded. “The Taliban began shooting and I thought we were all dead but then when we thought we were losing, backup finally showed up and we beat those motherfuckers back into the hills. We had some wounded but they lost a lot of their men and their men were dead.”

Whiskey nodded. “I never told anyone what I did and that was a year before he killed my family. I don’t know how he figured out I was the one who set the charges but he must have. He killed my wife exactly how Luisa described. She had twenty one cuts all over her body. They weren’t meant to be fatal, I was told. He just wanted her to bleed out. But according to the timeline the doctors came up with, just before he shoved that fucking knife in her throat she had to watch him murder our son.”

Lightning swallowed hard. “How did they figure that out?”

Whiskey continued to stare at the building as he spoke, “They found drops of Moran’s blood in her throat. They concluded that the killer made her watch as he slit my two years old throat and only when he was dead, did the killer push the knife into her throat.”

Lightning stared at him in horror. “How the hell did you survive that, man?”

Whiskey scoffed in self depreciation. “That was when I earned my road name. I drank myself almost to death in the next two years after I buried my family. I wouldn’t call that surviving. I was killing myself, drop by fucking drop. It took my mother replaceing me passed out on the floor of a dive bar to finally see what I was doing to myself. Yes, I lost my wife and my baby son but I was still alive. She told me to get off my dead ass and get on with my life. That if I really loved my family I would fight to live for them, not lose myself in a bottle of whiskey. I needed to replace their killers and get justice for them or that fucking psycho would win. Evil would win. I was only showing the whole world just how weak I was and she said she didn’t raise no fucking weakling.” He chuckled. “My mom is all of five foot four and doesn’t even weigh a hundred pounds but she grabbed me by my ear and hauled me off that floor then she kicked my ass.” He looked over at his friend and said, “I haven’t had a drink since that morning. I’ve kept my secrets and I’ve worked damn hard to replace the bastard who murdered my family. Now I have a name and soon, I’ll have the man.”

Lightning glanced at the warehouse and shook his head. “You are treading a very fine line between justice and vengeance my friend. I’m glad I’m not in your shoes.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Whiskey said ignoring his comment. “I’ve seen enough to get the job done.” He started his engine and took off.

Lightning shook his head and followed his friend.

From her perch on the flat roof of the warehouse, Sydney Ballard looked out and saw the two riders sitting just on the edge of her view. She almost ducked down but then realized she wasn’t visible from so far away and no one looked to the roof anyway. This place had become her own sort of sanctuary. She often spent hours up here after she finished her work for the day. She had a blanket, a lounge chair and a cooler up here and no one else knew it.

Her car was parked in a hidden area, so literally no one knew she was here. For the past three months she’d been in the city, she hadn’t bothered to get an apartment. Between the roof and her car, she was hiding very well.

She was tired of living like a rat in a sinking ship. More than just her feet were wet on that ship she rode on every day, the water was rising up to her neck. She felt like just one more wave and it would swamp her, pulling her down the drain.

There were times in the last three years when she thought it would just be easier to make a stand and let it just be over but then her grandmother’s face popped into her head and she was scolding her, telling her that life was precious and that she had to survive to finally tell the truth. Sydney didn’t have a clue as to who she should tell and that was part of the problem. She hadn’t known her grandmother long enough to make an impression, but the older woman had made a good first impression. She’d only seen her three times before she died of neglect, neglect of her mother failing to replace the old lady’s pills… pills she needed in order to live. She couldn’t go that long without her meds and her mother totally flaked her mission of getting them to her. She let her own mom go without her medication for four days. That was two days too long. When her mom did remember, they found the older lady dead. Her mom, Cecily didn’t seem to care but Sydney had. She was eleven at the time and that was when she opened her eyes to how cruel her only parent really was.

So until she could figure that out she had to keep her nose clean and stayed out of sight. It was almost time for her to move on again. She’d made a practice of not staying in one place long enough for her boogeyman to replace her. She would rather not have that happen again. It was her own luck that he hadn’t caught her yet. It had literally been a case of her she getting lucky and slipping out the back door as he was coming in the front door… twice now. She didn’t think her luck would stick with her a third time.

Sydney didn’t know his name but she learned to hate his face and it all started because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’d witnessed his carnage and even after all this time, it still gave her nightmares.

Three years ago, she’d been in New Orleans, Louisiana. She’d been living there about three weeks and she enjoyed walking along the edge of the water. She was watching the sun go down when she heard what sounded like trouble behind her.

She couldn’t help herself and she got closer to the battle that seemed to be going on. What she found was horrific. There were two men caught in a battle that pitted them against each other but only one had a weapon. And he was using it to hurt the other man. He slashed and ripped then finally pushed his knife into the other man’s throat. It wasn’t a fair fight, but instead, downright murder. The other man left the dead man lying in the wet sand and simply walked away.

She must have made some sound as he turned to walk away because the man stopped and began looking around. She hid in the shadows and when he came close to where she was hiding, she saw his face very clearly. It was her luck that he didn’t replace her as she dared to hardly breathe when he came close to her hiding place. She didn’t hesitate to leave town when he finally walked away. She went back to her small apartment, packed her bag, and left town that same night. She didn’t even pick up her last paycheck. She just disappeared.

She moved around the state and finally came over to Texas. She never stayed in one place very long and now, she was tired of moving so much. She liked it here but she also knew she might not be able to stay much longer.

She had a feeling there was something going on and she could feel the air snapping with doom. It was coming her way. Just the other day she knew something happened, she just didn’t know what. She’d been working when all of a sudden she heard gunshots and people were moving quickly but she couldn’t see where they were coming from. It was over almost before it begun and by the time she was free to look, it was long over.

The woman working with her urged her not to go looking for trouble or she might replace it. When she asked if she knew what happened the other woman shook her head and again, told her not to look for trouble.

Now she was up on the roof waiting for the sun to go down. She had finished her shift at the liquor warehouse hours ago, but the ruckus earlier had spooked her and she felt unsafe walking around the small town of Hondo in the daylight hours.

Now she wondered what seeing the bikers here tonight meant. There had been some trouble a few days ago in Laredo and while Hondo was miles away, the gossip in whispers still made it here.

It wasn’t the first time word of the Brago cartel made it this far north and she was almost positive they would again. Hondo was a nice place to live and she was almost sorry to be leaving. Even with the MC just outside the city, the people here knew the MC protected the city from the riffraff.

Sydney sighed and slid down the short wall. For now, she was hidden from the whole world. She looked around and noted once again, she was all alone but she was okay with being alone. She’d been alone most of her life. She never knew her dad, her mom wouldn’t even tell her his name. All she did say was that one minute he was there then the next he was gone. Her mom, on the other hand was good to her when she remembered she was there. Her mom was kind of a flake living her own life and everyone mattered to her but the daughter she had waiting at home. So Sydney grew up mostly alone.

She was sixteen when her mom forgot to come home altogether. When she called her mom’s job three days later, one of her friends told her that her mom left town with a man who worked in another department. One she’d been having an affair with and one who left his own wife and kids behind. She hung her head in shame at her mom’s actions. Once again, her selfish mom had struck, this time she left another woman without a husband and those kids without their father. Sydney knew this man wouldn’t even last any longer than any of the other’s had and her mom would move on again, leaving him totally devastated. He would have put everything he had on the table and for what? For the sweet nothing of her mom— that’s fucking what. In the end, it wouldn’t even matter to her mom.

Sydney knew in that moment she’d never see her mom again and so far, she hadn’t. Cecily had moved on with her life and she couldn’t or wouldn’t be bothered to remember her daughter wasn’t old enough to be on her own yet. Oh well, that had been almost ten years ago now. She had wished her mom good luck at that point but she knew her mother would never be happy. She wanted a man to take care of her but when he did, she always found fault with him and began looking for more.

Sydney was happier away from her mom even if she was alone. She sat there on the roof until the stars came out. She was far enough from town that the lights didn’t obstruct her view of the night skies and once again, she got lost in the twinkling lights of the stars. As the shadows grew, the heat of the day began to wane but it wasn’t enough yet to chill her body.

Sydney settled down for the night and fell asleep while studying the stars.