Sons of Anarchy: Bratva Read Free Page A

direction. Their best hope was to force someone to stop—no one would willingly pull over for a couple of shaggy guys in biker cuts. Might be they had to jack a car.
    And I end up right back in Stockton .
    Shit . Whatever they were going to do, it would have to happen here. Their only real choice was to outlast the Russians, stay alive until the cops showed up, and then leave it to the lawyer.
    Across this section of Highway 99, the trees were thicker. They could get lost in there, at least for a while, maybe long enough to call the clubhouse and get Juice or Phil to come and pick them up before the cops tracked them down.
    A way out, maybe.
    A bullet grazed Jax’s right shoulder, and he swore as he stumbled. He dodged left and kept running, the skin on his back prickling with the sensation that every inch was a possible target. Opie’d heard him grunt when the bullet tagged him. He turned toward Jax.
    “Keep moving!” Jax snapped, and Opie didn’t need to be told twice.
    Bullets zipped by, punching the air and shaking tree branches. They broke from the edge of the pine grove twenty feet from the shoulder of Highway 99. A big rig thundered past, sucking gravel and someone’s discarded McDonald’s burger wrapper into its wake. A bullet hit the truck’s broad side. Another took out a window in a Mustang racing along the northbound side of the highway, and the car slammed on its brakes.
    Jax thought they might just have found themselves a ride.
    Heads low, he and Opie hurtled into the road.
    Amidst gunfire and the blare of car horns, they reached the median strip that divided the highway, only to hear tires skidding behind them and voices shouting loudly in Russian. Jax spun, ducking behind the guardrail at the median, and took aim with the Glock as a silver Lexus skidded to a halt on the grassy shoulder they had just vacated.
    “What the hell?” Opie said, dropping down beside him.
    A guy in an old Volvo shouted and honked as he drove by, maybe not noticing the guns. Opie racked another round in the shotgun’s chamber, and he and Jax both stared at the Lexus. More Russians poured out—no mistaking those icy eyes and granite features—but instead of opening fire on Jax and Opie, they turned their weapons on the men now emerging from the pine grove.
    “Check it out,” Opie said, and gestured back to the cut-through between the side road and highway—the gap where they had left Opie’s pickup.
    A black Escalade raced along the same dirt track and slid to a halt at the edge of the highway, and more armed men jumped out.
    Another big rig roared by. Jax closed his eyes and turned away as grit pelted his face. When it had passed and he turned to look again, the gunfire had ceased entirely. Russian voices rose in warning and anger as the newcomers took aim at the men from the Humvee and the white box truck. The two groups barked challenges at one another, and a huge, bearded man who’d climbed from the Escalade came forward. The man had presence, and the body language of both groups changed as he started shouting at them all.
    “The boss?” Opie asked.
    Jax nodded. “ Someone’s boss.”
    The bearded man smoothed his tailored charcoal suit and gestured southward. Jax frowned, wondering what he might be telling the other Russians, but then he heard sirens in the distance and got the gist.
    “We gotta go,” Opie said, starting to turn. They needed to be in the woods on the other side of the highway and hidden deeply before the cops arrived.
    Jax stayed to watch the Russians, who had all begun to retreat. Sensing his hesitation, Opie waited as well. The first group kept their guns out as they backed awkwardly into the pine grove, then turned and hurried back through the trees to their vehicles. Three of the newcomers kept their weapons trained on the fleeing group as the rest climbed back into the Lexus and the Escalade. In moments, all four vehicles were pulling away.
    The sirens grew louder, but with the open