Sons of Anarchy: Bratva Read Free

them.
    “You’re too quiet, Mr. Teller!” the Russian shouted. “But we will catch up to you, and then there will be bullets. I imagine you’d prefer to keep bullets out of this.”
    Opie frowned at Jax. “Gotta buy some time,” he rasped quietly.
    Jax nodded. Every option he considered seemed to lead to only two possible results: die or survive and end up back in prison. They could claim self-defense if they shot these bastards, but possessing the guns they would use to defend themselves might be enough to flush his parole down the toilet. His mind reeled, trying to puzzle his way out of it.
    Ticktock, pass the time, keep them talking .
    “Who sent you?” he called. “Might make our decision easier if we knew who we were dealing with.”
    “Your only decision is bullets or no bullets,” the Russian said, his accent somehow growing thicker.
    The wind picked up. If there were any birds in the trees, they’d fallen silent.
    Off to Jax’s left, a man in a gray suit sidestepped into view, edging over with his gun raised, trying to get a clean shot behind the pickup. Jax whipped around and took aim.
    “Back the hell off!” he roared. “Or the decision is made!”
    The man did not move, but neither did he shoot. He kept his gun trained on Jax, who glanced at Opie and wondered how many seconds they had before another Russian moved into view on that side of the pickup. They hadn’t had a long list of choices to begin with, but the list was getting shorter with every passing second.
    “Jax,” Opie muttered.
    The Russian called his name. “Time is running out. In moments, the decision will be taken from you. My men have witnessed the opportunities I gave you. My employer won’t blame me if you die here on the side of the road. Your children will cry for you, Mr. Teller, but I will sleep well tonight.”
    Jax stopped breathing. Anger blinded him for a second or two as images of his boys, Thomas and Abel, swam into his head.
    “I will count to five,” the Russian said. “One—”
    The countdown narrowed their options to only one. Jax glanced at Opie, found his friend already looking back at him, dark anger in Opie’s eyes that matched Jax’s own.
    “Two,” the Russian said.
    Opie helped keep him focused, keep him grounded. They had been best friends so long that Opie understood him better than anyone. When Jax has lost his brother and later his father … and when Opie’s first wife, Donna, had been killed … they had relied on each other. Hell, they’d always relied on each other.
    “Three.”
    “I’ve got the asshole to your left,” Opie whispered.
    Jax took a breath, relaxed his grip on the Glock, then popped up from behind the pickup’s bed. In one smooth motion, he took aim at the Russian who’d just brought his children into the conversation and shot him twice in the chest. One of the bullets punched all the way through, fanning bright crimson blood onto the grass behind him.
    Simultaneously, Opie stepped back from the pickup, leveled the shotgun behind Jax, and blasted the guy who’d come around the side. The Russian blew backward through the mist of his own blood. The boom rattled Jax’s brains as he ducked behind the pickup again, but then he and Opie were both running into the copse of pine trees. The Russians opened fire, and the pickup rocked with scores of gunshots that plinked metal and shattered glass. By then, Jax and Opie were in the midst of the trees, and Jax had begun to count the seconds in his head. How many until they caught up? How far to the highway, running at this angle through the trees?
    Opie crashed between two pines, and Jax raced to catch up.
    “We need a ride!” Opie said.
    The clamor had died down behind them, but Jax knew that didn’t mean the Russians were departing. They would be in pursuit. He glimpsed Highway 99 through the trees, spotted an eighteen-wheeler, a whining Suzuki motorcycle, its rider all in vivid blue, and a couple of cars racing in either