by Piper Rayne
Bikers?
A bike rumbled by in the street outside while he was talking, the echoes still settling down.
Who the fuck did this?
“Do you know anything about this?” the other detective, the vaguely familiar one asks. “Did your friends do this?”
He means the Devils. While I don’t flaunt my membership in the MC, it’s no secret that I am one of them.
“Absolutely not,” I say.
“Maybe she wouldn’t be with you, so you decided to get your friends and force her,” the man insists. I don’t like the gleam in his eyes or the smirk on his face. I want to wipe it off with my fist. But the last thing I need right now is to get booked for assault on a police officer. What I need is for them to leave so I can go look for Mia myself.
“I didn’t see her for almost twenty years before she came back to town a couple of days ago,” I say, as calmly as I can. “But before that, we were together for seven years. Check me out as much as you want, but don’t focus on me. I had nothing to do with this. She’s the last person in the world I would ever harm in any way.”
The annoying detective opens his mouth to speak, but the shorter one beats him to it. “All right, Mr. Wright. Thank you for your time.”
“Find her,” I say as they turn to walk away.
“We’ll do everything we can,” he assures me.
As soon as the metal door by the gate shuts behind them, I dial Hawk’s number. He’s the one that knows shit. The one who finds people for our MC. He better be able to find her. I’m afraid he’s the only one who can.
“I’ll be right there,” he says as he picks up and promptly disconnects again.
A few minutes later, the rumbling of a bike cuts off at the gate and Hawk strides in through the door, slamming it after him.
“Talk inside,” he says as he approaches and I enter the office, leaving the door open for him.
He slams this door too.
“What was that all about?” he asks. “What did they want?”
“It wasn’t about the cars,” I tell him. “My girlfriend Mia’s been abducted. By bikers.”
“The woman who was here the other day?” he asks and I nod.
“I need you to help me find her.”
He looks at me for a couple of seconds, something I can’t read flitting across his face.
“Can you do it?” I ask impatiently.
“I think I know where I’ve seen her before,” he says slowly, his eyes fixed on me and kinda soft like he’s getting ready to give me some very bad news and doesn’t know how.
“Where?” I snap.
“I’ll have to check to be sure,” he says and takes another infuriatingly long pause. “But I think we were contacted to take her out a couple months ago.”
Devil’s Nightmare MC is a mercenary club. That’s all we do. We get hired to take people or sometimes whole clubs out. It’s how it’s always been. I’ve never been a part of that side of club life and neither has my father. We just fixed their bikes and cars, or get rid of both when they needed us to.
“And you accepted?” I ask, the room literally spinning around me.
He shakes his head and grimaces. “Of course not. That’s not the kind of jobs we take, never have. She’s some kind of lawyer or something? A prosecutor?”
I nod.
“Yeah, they wanted her gone,” he says. “Off the case, I assumed.”
“But you said no,” I say. “Is there any chance not everyone got the message. That some of the guys took the job on anyway.”
He shakes his head again. “No way. You know they wouldn’t, that’s not how it works.”
I do know. But I have to be sure.
“Can you find her?” I ask again.
He pauses again, looks at me some more with that unreadable look in his eyes. Only it’s not really unreadable, I just don’t like what it’s saying. That it might be too late. That there might not be anything but her body left to find.
“I can sure try,” he says and opens the door. “Come on, let’s go up to HQ.”
I’d much rather get on my bike and start scouring the town looking for her. But I’m sure Hawk’s way is better. He knows his business and I should let him do it. And try not to go crazy with worry while he does.
25
Mia
Are you all right, Mom?! Mom?!
It’s the last thought I remember having before I lost all touch with reality and the first one that erupts as I regain awareness. I think I screamed it both times, but I’m not sure.
My head is pounding, my stomach sour like I’m about to throw up. The fresh smell of it tells me I might actually have done that while I was asleep.
I sit up, but something cuts painfully into my right wrist as I try, making my headache worse and my nausea more unbearable.
I lie back down and take a couple of deep breaths, trying not to panic, trying to calm myself down enough to take in my surroundings.
I’m in a small, ten by ten shed, the only light coming from the cracks between the roof and the walls and around the door. I’m shackled with a zip tie to a metal camp bed with a paper thin mattress that smells of urine, feces and I think blood.
The walls of the shed are metal, and it’s so hot in here that sweat is running down my forehead and my neck. The sun must be shining directly onto this place to make it so hot. The heat is also waking every smell inside, making it ten fold.
My skirt is all twisted up, the waistband digging painfully into my flesh. And that’s a problem I can do something about right now. Even the pragmatic part of my brain that’s telling me this—the part of my mind that’s always been very loud and sure of itself—sounds panicked.
What the hell is happening?!
The door suddenly bursts open, the yellow sunlight streaming in blinding, making the men entering just black creatures, not human at all.
“Let me go!” I yell at them, rattling the bed by jerking on my restraint. “Do you know who I am?”
“She’s a feisty one, that’s for sure,” one of the men says to the other.
“But she’s gorgeous, don’t you think?” the other one asks. “That red hair. And those lovely curves. She’s every bit as soft as she looks.”
“Sure, she’s all right. A little old for my taste, though,” comes the reply. “But you can keep her if you want her. Just make sure she’s no trouble.”
One of the men leaves, while the other approaches. The closer he comes, the more of his features I can make out. Once he’s right next to me, I know him. It’s the guy who burst into the bathroom, I recognize his eyes.
“Get the hell away from me!” I shout and back away as far as I can. It’s not very far and his face is still inches from mine even when my back is against the wall.
“Settle down,” he whispers hoarsely. His breath smells of garlic and rot. “I’m the only reason you’re still alive, so stop fighting and start cooperating.”
I freeze and stare at him, trying to read the truth from his eyes because his words make no sense at all.
“You mean… you mean you’ll let me go?” I ask in a barely audible voice.
He chuckles coldly and moves back. “Didn’t exactly say that. But you won’t be dead. How about that?”
My very blood freezes in my veins, stops flowing it feels like. I think I’d maybe rather be dead that chained to this guy.
He produces a paper bag from one pocket and a bottle of water from the other and tosses them both on the bed.
“Now eat and drink and stay quiet,” he says. “Then maybe by tonight I can move you somewhere more comfortable.”
The words, Just kill me now, are on the tip of my tongue. I could never handle aggression and threats calmly, but somehow I manage not to say them. He’s probably my only chance of getting away from here, and I can’t mess it up.
I pick up the water and open it clumsily, since I have to bring it down to my shackled right hand to get it done.
He chuckles at me, cl
early amused. “Good girl.”
I want to throw the bottle at his head, but instead I just unscrew it and take a sip.
He leaves, locking the door behind him, the padlock, or chain, or whatever the hell’s on the other side rattling against the metal door.
I hope Axle can find me. I hope he can help me. He’s my only hope.
But what if it’s his MC that did this?
No. I won’t let that thought in. I don’t know exactly what kind of things they’re involved in. Nothing good, that’s for sure. But I know Axle. And I know he’d never do anything to harm me. God knows I’ve tested him at times.
But what do I really know? It’s been twenty years, and I hurt him deeply.
But no. No, it can’t be.
His kisses didn’t lie. His eyes don’t either. And there was nothing but love for me in them the last time we saw each other.
The last time?
The very last time?
I can’t let those questions in. But I can’t keep them out either. And once the memory of seeing my mom lying face down on the white marble tiles in her kitchen, surrounded by a pool of her blood, comes into clear focus, I just want to scream and scream and never stop.
Why is this happening?!
26
Axle
The MC HQ is a huge mansion on top of Resolution hill. The place is surrounded by a huge garden and a ten foot high metal fence. I used to be a regular up there, back when the place was the site of endless parties and nothing was impossible. Except completely forgetting Mia, in my case. No matter how many other women I had, even if I had several at the same time, it was never enough to forget her.
I figured that out even before our President’s daughter, Lily, came to live with him a couple of years ago and all the parties stopped practically overnight then. Now that he’s happily married with a young son to boot, it doesn’t look like they ever will. The younger brothers that help out at the garage are always pestering me and Diesel for stories of those times, but I let Diesel do all the talking. I don’t miss the parties, and I haven’t been up here more than a handful of times in the last decade or more.
The gate in the wall starts opening for me and Hawk as we round the last bend in the road, and I follow him inside, down the surprisingly not bumpy gravel road that leads to the house. Gravel is not good for bikes, but despite me and my father before me bringing up the subject many times, the driveway never got paved for some reason.
Bushes, some flowering, most not, line the driveway and in the distance the tall grass of the garden is dotted with thick oaks and other such leafy trees with not a redwood in sight on this side of the wall. The house itself never ceases to amaze me. It’s easily big enough to house two hundred people, and at one time, back when it still housed the entire MC, it did. Once upon a time, before the founder of our MC inherited in back in the 1940s it used to be a retreat, or a convalescent home of sorts for the rich and famous. It became a place of healing of another sort once the MC took it over.
I remember one night in particular here, more vividly than the rest. It was soon after I finally realized Mia was gone from my life for good. A warm September night to be exact, and bonfires were burning all over the grounds. That party lasted for days and loud music was blaring from inside the house throughout, filling the garden via the wide open windows. I fucked five women that I remember and several more I don’t at that party. All to forget Mia. I didn’t then and I never will.
Only now, I might have to.
And I can’t handle that.
“I’m just gonna check a couple of things and then we’ll go see Cross,” Hawk says as dismounts in front of the wide open double doors leading into the house. “You can wait in the kitchen.”
“I’m not hungry,” I snap.
He nods thoughtfully. “Fine, come with me. We’ll find her. Don’t worry.”
But I am worried. And so’s he.
“Stop trying to comfort me,” I say. “I know how these things work.”
“How what works?” a man asks from somewhere to our left.
I turn towards the voice to see our president, Cross, leading his toddler son by the hand.
“And what brings you up here, Axle?” he adds when neither of us respond. “Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”
“There’s a situation,” Hawk says, glancing at the kid.
Cross is a legend, and one of the most feared MC presidents in the country. He has a vicious reputation as one of the worst and most ruthless killers, but I’ve never seen that side of him. He’s a stern, fair man who’s respected by every member of the MC, not because he demands it, but because he earns it. He’s also my only hope of ever finding Mia. Looking into his piercing black eyes, I know I don’t have to worry about finding her. Though finding her alive might be another matter. One I can’t even begin to contemplate.
Cross lets go of his son’s hand and gives him a little push towards the door.
“Go find Mommy,” he says. “I have to talk to these men.”
The kid has his father’s eyes, but they’re not as piercing. Could be one day they will be. He gives us a cursory glance, looks at his father who nods, then runs into the house.
“Let’s go to the office,” Cross says and we follow him into the house, where the entry hall is already at least ten degrees cooler than the scorching heat outside. Heat that could already be burning the soil over Mia’s unmarked grave. No, I won’t think it. I can’t.
All this is already taking too long.
I’ve been to Cross’ office maybe three times in my life, but one glance tells me not much has changed. The giant oak desk is still there, gleaming in the sunlight filtered by not quite shut wooden shutters. Cross points at the black leather sofa arrangement in one corner of the huge room. The sofa I sit down on has seen better days, but is very comfortable despite the many cracks and scratches in the leather.
“So, what’s going on?” Cross asks.
Hawk glances at me then clears his throat. “I’ll be brief. You remember that request we got to take out a lawyer from San Francisco.”
Cross nods. “The red head woman? We said no.”
“Emphatically,” Hawk says. “But someone else said yes.”
Cross fixes me with his piercing black gaze, then glances back at Hawk. “How’s that our problem now?”
He sounds like he already knows as he fixes me with his gaze again.
“She’s my girlfriend,” I say. What I should’ve said is that she’s the love of my life, my everything. The one person I can’t live without. Not well anyway.
“And she’s been killed?” Cross asks quietly.
“Taken,” I say, which is all I can get out.
“By who?” he asks.
“Bikers,” Hawk answers. “Of the top of my head, I’d say Horned Riders MC. They’ve been working hard at picking up the crumbs we leave behind for years.”
“How sure are you it’s them?” Cross asks.
Hawk shrugs. “I’d have do some digging. But my money’s on them.”
“Go find out what you can,” Cross tells him and Hawk nods, then shoots to his feet and leaves the room.
Cross looks at me once the door closes behind Hawk, his look not as piercing or dark this time.
“You want us to find her?” he asks.
I nod.
“We might not find what you want us to find,” he says.
“But you’ll try?”
Cross nods. “This club owes a lot to you and your father before you. You’ve always been loyal to us and I’ll always repay that loyalty. Of course we’ll ride to get your woman back. If we’d known who she was, we’d have protected her too. But now—“
“I understand the situation,” I say, not wanting to hear it spoken out loud. Some things are best left in the darkest corners of one’s thoughts. Even when they’re words that describe the most probable reality.
Mia’s body is probably the best we can hope to find.
But I wo
n’t let that thought into the light until I’m staring at it.
27
Axle
What feels like a year later, I’m standing by my bike in the driveway in front of Sanctuary. It took Hawk all day to find out who took up the contract on Mia’s life. It was the Horned Riders, as he rightly guessed in the first place.
I’m not alone. Cross is here, Hawk too, even Tank, our vice-president and Ice, whose standing is high in the MC, even though he doesn’t have an official exec title. A couple of years ago, the MC rode to avenge him and his family.
Now it seems like the Devil’s Nightmare MC is riding to avenge mine.
Diesel is here too, even though he’s never ridden on a job with the Devils. He’s not saying much, or asking too many questions, but offering me his undying support with his presence alone.
At least fifty brothers have gathered, the late afternoon sun making the handles of their bikes gleam gold. Cross found many ways to tell me not to expect too much from tonight’s ride without coming right out and saying it.
“We’ll talk first,” he tells me now. “I’ll say things you don’t want to hear. Don’t react.”
“I’d like a gun,” I say. “Can I have a gun?”
Cross fixes me with his gaze, the eyes saying no, while Tank looks at him, then reaches into his saddlebag and pulls out a silver pistol.
“We should let him have a gun,” he says to Cross as he hands it to me, black leather handle first.
“All right, let’s ride!” Cross yells and mounts his bike.
I’ve ridden with the Devils plenty of times, just never on a job. Just like Diesel, my father and I also left all the killing to them. We just took care of the bikes and the cars and partied with them.
