Free Unholy: The Unholys MC by Ellen Harper Page B

beside him, I couldn’t help but wonder what a life without fear was. I tried to picture it, but as much as I tried, I just couldn’t.
     

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    Johnny
     
     
     
    It took me a moment longer than it should have to realize what was going on. I was drowsy still, heavy with sleep and sated after the pleasure I’d taken from Charlotte. She was still lying beside me, but like me, had jerked awake at the sound.
     
    It had been loud, like a car backfiring or a small cherry bomb blowing up a mailbox, but that wasn’t it. I knew because I’d heard the sound before a time or two. Occupational hazard of leading a biker club, even if we were mostly legitimate.
     
    “Shit,” I muttered as I realized what that sound was, and the potential for what it meant.
     
    I reached for the bedside table and jerked open the door, pulling out the piece that I always kept there, just in case. Even as I threw back the covers and leapt out of bed, I checked to see that the gun was loaded. It was. Safety off. I made a quick run for the window, it was the only one in the room and faced the front lawn, which was where I thought the shot had come from.
     
    A gunshot. Someone had been shooting in my fucking front yard.
     
    “Johnny, what’s going on?”
     
    It was Charlotte, her voice small and worried. She was tough when she had to be, but so much of that was an act. When she could, she relied on me to be the tough one, and I couldn’t let her see that I was scared, too.
     
    “Get on the floor and stay away from the window and door!” I told her in a fast, hushed tone.
     
    I didn’t look to see if she obeyed, but heard the ruffling of clothing, the padding of feet, and knees hitting the floor. Focusing on the shot, I went to the side of the window and carefully looked around the frame, pushing back the curtains just enough to see outside.
     
    It was late still, dark outside. The streetlights were on, but three in the area were broken and unlikely to be fixed anytime soon. The neighbors’ lights were out and I knew they’d remain that way. It wasn’t that they hadn’t heard the shots. It was that they didn’t want to get caught up in what those shots meant.
     
    I searched the street for the shooter, and prayed that whoever it was wasn’t too close to here , though it seemed the most likely scenario.
     
    Quickly, my eyes fell to a dark shadow in the night. His arms were up, his bulky frame lined perfectly to fire away from the house and down the street. There was the faintest gleam of light reflecting off his smooth, shaved head, and after I made that connection, the rest fell in place quickly.
     
    “Specter.”
     
    “What?” Charlotte asked. She was on the other side of the bed on the floor, but had come up just enough so that she could look over the bed at me. “What about Specter?”
     
    “Stay here. He’s downstairs. I’m going to meet him and ask him what the hell is going on.”
     
    “Johnny!”
     
    I didn’t listen or pause. I headed out the door of the bedroom and headed down the stairs immediately to meet Specter. I still had my piece and it brought me some comfort. I couldn’t say why I was nervous, this was Specter, one of mine, but there was something off about tonight. A lot of things had been off lately.
     
    The front door opened and there he stood, a dark silhouette in the doorframe. I gripped my piece tighter, then flipped on the damn light. He squinted against the sudden brightness.
     
    “Fuck,” he growled.
     
    “That’s my line,” I told him, gripping the handle of my gun tighter, but keeping it lowered at my side. “What the hell is going on?”
     
    He gestured back out towards the night. “I caught some fucking guy creeping around your house,” he told me, his voice dark and serious. “He had a fucking knife, man.”
     
    A tendril of cold ran through me. A knife? All things considered, it wasn’t the most deadly weapon in a lot of respects. A gun would have maybe