by Marata Eros
His bushy brows dump above enraged eyes. “You fucker,” he says, charging me.
“Don’t,” I warn, putting Kendra behind me.
He slams into me, and I hug him. Not for the feels. For the fucking love of crushing him.
“Oh shit!” I hear Puck say from what seems like a great distance away.
The guy is wheezing in my hold, his piece jamming into the tender inside of my hip.
Fuck it.
Then Puck’s there. “Jesus, Storm, they can’t forgive everything.”
I let the cop go.
He whirls, chest heaving and coughing. “Fucker!” he manages.
“You weren’t here when we found the b—girls,” I say. “So ease up and get off my dick.”
Reaching behind me, my fingers encircle Kendra’s tiny wrist, and I pull her against my back, her forehead pressing between my shoulder blades.
Instantly, I feel more calm, which in turn, pisses me off again.
“Storm,” Puck says.
“Yeah,” I answer, keeping my eyes on the needle dick uniform who just got in my grill.
“Let’s just go.”
I flick my eyes to his. “Need to take a leak.”
With a curt nod, Puck sweeps a hand at the open bathroom door. “Hurry up.”
I put Kendra next to Puck and give her unbroken eye contact. “Stay by him.”
Her large eyes don’t leave me, and I feel guilty for taking a piss.
When did that shit happen? Guilt.
But fucking nature calls.
We all have to listen.
Chapter 31
Noose
Earlier
I chuck my smoke on the ground then decapitate it with a practiced boot-toe pivot.
The gorged ash and butt glare from the ground at me, reminding me of this habit I have to kick.
Because of Rose.
She’s mentioned about one hundred two times that it’s better for me if I don’t smoke. Well, no shit. I don’t smoke because I don’t understand that. I keep smoking because it takes off the edge.
I’m a fucking worrier. I got that.
Right now, I got a case of the itches that won’t quit. Got a feeling.
I got two texts from Snare and Lariat.
Problems. Meet at Garcia’s.
The fucking downtown Kent dive.
Cryptic as fuck.
I stand outside the restaurant smoking to my heart’s content because I can’t bust the feeling like something’s wrong.
Whenever I get that feeling something usually is. I crank down my shit when the boys roll in on their rides.
Don’t bother waiting for them to park, just stride over from the front door of the greasy spoon to their rides.
“Hey,” I say, perching my hands on my hips, “what's doinʼ?”
Lariat cocks his black eyebrow. “Hoping you’d explain when we got here.”
The pit of my stomach drops out, and his practiced eyes sweep my face. “What the fuck is it?” Lariat whispers like a hissing rattler.
My jaw snaps in Snare’s direction. “When’d you see Sara last?”
Heart racing, I watch as he gives a minute shake of his head. “She’s got that play-whatever it is where all the property gets together and the kids horse around and shit. The girls are at the club.” Snare says.
His face falls. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” I nod slowly, already heading toward my ride. “Shit.”
“You think our women are in trouble?” Lariat asks.
“Given that someone hacked our phones and told us to meet here and none of us knew any of us instigated this rendezvous?” Noose spreads his arms wide.
“Fuck,” Lariat says, thumbing the engine on.
We don’t confer, we ride out to the clubhouse.
I miss Wring’s text.
Probably can’t hear it over the thudding of my heart and the roar of my engine.
Or the fear that my wife is in danger.
Rose
Our twins are back there with only Charlie in charge. My almost-nine-year-old nephew and Sara’s seven-year-old daughter.
Please God, I pray, let someone find our kids.
“Move tits,” a man says, shoving me in my lower back with the butt of his gun.
At that exact moment, my milk chooses to let down. One of the blessings of nursing year-and-a-half-old twins is an abundant milk supply.
Normally, it’s not an issue.
But sometimes when I’m feeling emotional, my milk will come in even if the twins aren’t feeding. It’s just a consequence of emotions tied to nursing.
Impossible to explain to the uninitiated.
I stumble forward, the force of the gesture causing my lower back to throb.
Jerk.
Giving him a dirty look over my shoulder, I walk ahead, hands tied behind my back and think for the thousandth time that it’s not always safe to be a biker’s wife.
Usually, I feel protected, but right now, I’m just trying to keep myself together and not think about my four kids standing next to a burning building.
“At least they didn’t take the kids,” Sara says, her eyes wide and blank.
I appreciate her perspective. If the kids aren’t here, they can’t use them as leverage. Not that they need to. I know what Noose will do when he finds out someone has me.
“Shannon got away,” Angel says calmly.
And I’m so glad. God, just thinking about a pregnant Shannon being here and what they might have done to her.
I want to cover my mouth and realize I can’t. Because my hands are tied.
A mid-fifties man walks out in a suit, reminding me somehow of Mover, the Chaos guy.
This guy is different, though. Instantly, I know he’s got his eye on me.
“Why is your shirt soaking wet, Rose?”
Oh God. I look down, and sure enough, my nursing pads are drenched through.
Normally, I would be embarrassed, but this jerk kidnapped us. I’m a nursing mother, and not only have I blown through nap time, but I’m all freaking out.
“I’m nursing,” I explain, hiking my chin.
“I see no infants.”
I grit my teeth. “Because you left my children back at the burning club.”
His dark eyes lock with mine. They are so cold, they’re colorless. Soulless.
“Yes,” he waves a palm, dismissing my statement, and slowly walks toward me.
My throat goes dry.
“Gentleman, hold her legs.”
“No,” I say, but suddenly, a man has tied something around my legs.
The older guy scrutinizes my T-shirt.
“Cut it off. The shirt.”
I look down, and he has a huge erection.
Oh my God. I scream at him, “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Casually, he slaps my face.
My head rocks back, and I would have fallen if it weren’t for the other man behind me.
Face stinging, I say, “Don’t do this.”
Cold metal lands at my neck, and a whimper slips out. No, no, no, no.
My family rushes through my mind like warm wind. Noose, the twins, Charlie, and Ari.
I don’t want to die.
After the T-shirt is cut from my body, the bra goes next.
The wet nursing pads flutter to the floor.
“You fucking perv,” Angel says.
Her flesh makes a very specific sound when slapped.
Not by the guy before me.
No. He’s on his knees, and when his fingers touch my breasts, I want to scream.
I don’t want my milk to come. It just does. Because that’s the biological imperative.
“God your breasts are so beautiful.” He looks up at me, hands cupping the lower part of my breasts.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
He gives me a benign smile. “Make her kneel, gentleman.”
I’m forced to my knees.
The man bends his head and be
gins to lick my nipple. More milk comes.
“Tasty,” he murmurs, and I suck in a harsh sob.
Without pausing, he grabs both breasts, and with a sick groan, he latches on to my right one, sucking hard.
My milk lets down, and he drinks.
When he comes in his pants, he drank deeply from both breasts, and my tears wet his head.
Noose
“Like a dog?” Candi asks in a tart voice, and I shrug.
Got no time to work over the moral framework about microchipping my wife.
It is what it fucking is.
“Don’t give fuck one. I know where Rose is, and I am getting her back. I need Wring.”
“Here,” Wring says from somewhere behind me.
Ashes cling to everything, and this entire part of the woods smells like a forest fire.
Club’s in tatters.
Men lay dead.
But our property is being tortured as we speak, and by fucking God, my men and I will fuck up whoever touches our women.
I crane my head, giving Wring a narrow look, and he answers my unspoken question. “Got all the rope in the fucking universe.”
I nod. Counting on that. I got a few favorites on my person, as well.
Crushing my tenth cig in half an hour, I look to who’s going.
Snare, Lariat, and Wring.
We zero in on the location, and again with the motherfucking coincidences.
Wring says, “Holy shit, it’s that stupid warehouse place were all the Bloods hung that were after Shannon.”
“All the cockroaches dig the same hole,” Snare says then adds, “We gotta split. I can’t think knowing Sara is with men who will hurt her.”
Lariat’s black eyes glitter.
Whoever has our women is going to die.
Slowly.
The body drops limply to the ground, and I step over it. It takes everything I am not to charge into the warehouse. Don’t even need to recon this shit. Because damn, this is a redo.
I remember when we grabbed Shannon out of this joint and the lunatic gang king threatened us.
He’s dead now.
But when Lariat peeks his dark head over the lip of the window, I see his face. And I know.
My Rose is in trouble.
Lariat meets my charge, hugging me to him. “No, you fucking hothead fucker. We got to go in cool, employ stealth, you hard-charging bastard.”
“What are they doing to my wife?” I ask in a voice gone low with rage.
“No, Noose,” Lariat says. “They’re not hurting her.”
That’s when I know it’s some sex shit.
Somebody’s touching my property, and I’m going to go fucking berserk on their asses.
We fan out, and each of the four of us takes an exit.
Snare has his trusties—left and right eating utensils. The man knows how to use metal.
I smile and would bet my life that my baring of teeth is nothing more than a wild animal, giving a last, morbid grin before gutting its prey.
Because that’s all those bozos are in there—dead men walking.
We’ve disabled the hearing devices and entered the building.
When I see some old fucker sucking Rose’s tits, I can’t feel my toes or fingers. Adrenaline has flooded my system with that just-stuck-my-finger-in-an-electrical-socket vibe.
He’s dying first. As it happens, he dies last.
But he does die.
Chapter 32
Alexander
Come to think of it, Alexander might just fuck his enemy’s woman right now, in front of witnesses.
Her breasts are so sweet, he believes her honeypot will be even sweeter.
With a last gulp and swallow, Alexander pops his lips from the nipple of her huge teat and gazes at her.
Rose King’s eyes are filled with the disgust.
He feels a slow smile spread across his face as a chilling dribble of breastmilk slides down his chin. “I’m going to fuck you now, like your husband fucked my business.”
Alexander bestows her with his most benevolent expression.
She screams, trying to lurch away, and he admires the view of her giant breasts jiggling with the endeavor as his boys move to grab her arms before she falls flat on her face.
Alexander realizes later, as he’s dying, that if he hadn’t been so intent on Rose, he might have noticed Road Kill MC closing in.
Alexander has only a split second to wonder how on earth they found them before an abrasive cord finds its way around his neck and the wound cord begins to close his airway with a finesse that surprises him.
He claws at the rope, but Alexander’s fingertips can’t find purchase. He attempts to dig at the manacles of steel that cinch at his throat, and there is seemingly no person attached to the device of his death.
Only the rough twine and the puppet master who keeps tightening it further.
At that moment, Alexander becomes aware he might have underestimated a vengeance that surpasses even his own. That of the Road Kill MC.
In the end, the epiphany reaches him as he lay dying in a pool of his own bodily waste.
They are very much like him. They care about killing. And not having competition while they do it.
Then he knows no more.
Noose
I drop the body, stomping on the side of the prick’s head as I stalk over to a half-naked Rose. One of the guys has cut her bindings, and her wrists are raw.
My jaw clenches at the sight of her wounds. I glance back at the head prick, give a self-satisfied snort, then return my attention to my wife.
She sees a body coming, but doesn’t see me, covering her tits with one arm and screaming as she tries to scoot away.
Of course, I’m wearing brains on my boots, and I’m elbow-deep in the business of killing.
“Rose!” I holler, winding the bloodied rope and stuffing it in my cut.
That’ll have to be dry-cleaned later, I note randomly.
She blinks up at me, one hand holding her gorgeous rack and the other hand thrown up in front of her, warding off whatever new attack might come at her.
The only thing coming at her is a man who loves her next breath.
“Baby,” I say in a softer voice.
Slowly, her eyes fill with recognition and tears. The hand she had used to ward my approach, drops. “Noose?” she asks tentatively, as though my ass just appeared like a mirage.
“Yes.” I bend over her and scoop her into my arms.
“Oh my God,” she cries, burying her face in my chest and circling my neck with her arms.
Eyes narrowed, I walk past all the other dead fuckers and find the first clean thing to cover my woman—a blanket from a nearby stack resting on one of the few tables not overturned. I throw it over Rose.
Nobody needs to be seeing her tits. Especially after that fucker was sucking on them.
I scan the room. It looks like Lariat’s just put down number four, while a couple of shitbags are trying to army crawl like bloody slugs toward the single door exit.
Fuuuckkk that.
I whistle, making Rose jump. Tightening my arms around her, I murmur, “ʼs all right, baby.”
I catch sight of Snare. “Yo, Snare!”
He whirls, his forearm painted red from his handywork. His blade gleams ruby in the bright overhead lights.
“Getting sloppy,” I say, jerking my jaw to the two wandering fucks.
“Yeah,” he comments absently, walking casually to the closest one. He lifts the guy’s head up by the hair and slices his throat. Nice and neat. Economical. No grandiose gesture.
Nope.
That’s our boy, Snare. He’s got murdering douche patrol down to a science.
Sara and Angel are hugging each other in the corner, and I wonder about some aftershock consequences of watching the melee.
Then I have to let that thought go, because we can’t sugarcoat death and murder. Or the fact that our property has to see the work of what goes into making
them safe again.
Lariat grabs a couple of dead guys by the scruff of the neck and starts hauling bodies as Snare finishes his grim work.
Ten dead in all.
Probably Head Douche thought he had shit figured out. He thought he would dish out a little retribution to Road Kill MC and be done.
Surprise! He wasn’t dishing out anything to our women.
Walking over to his body I turn, giving him a visual once over. In death, like so many, he appears asleep. But he was a nightmare when he was alive. It’s good he’s busy being dead now.
“Don’t move, Rose,” I instruct.
“Okay,” comes her muffled reply.
Rocking back on my heels, I jump on the dick’s head. Then off, then on again.
I stomp his head until his brains come out, all the while holding Rose tight to my body.
Checking out the result, I give a satisfied nod and walk out of the building. I arrange the blanket around Rose like a cocoon and tuck her inside the club truck passenger seat that Snare used to get over here. I grab a trash bag out of the box we have stashed inside the back of the pickup.
Untying my ruined boots, I sigh then slip them off and stuff them inside the bag.
I look down at my black socks, curling my toes and releasing, curling then releasing.
Fuck it.
I secure the bag then hop inside the truck. I text Viper the barest amount of deets from a fresh burner cell.
I know all our kids are safe, thank fuck. So there’s that I don’t have to worry about—just Rose and the damage control of her mind and body. That’s enough.
Five minutes later Viper’s voice is in my ear while I drive my wife home and we construct a vague plan for the next twenty-four hours.
My first priority is getting Rose a hot shower, and then I’m checking out every inch of her body.
Thinking about what I walked in on makes my jaw ache as I clench it.
Cleaning up that rat’s nest of perverted fucks was satisfying. Just wish I’d had more time with Head Douche.
Killing that asshole seems anticlimactic.
Puck
eight weeks later
I roll Temp over on top of me. She rides me slowly. Delicious.
“I’m never letting you go,” I say on a groan.
“Better not,” she whispers, throwing her head back, and I admire her delicate curves in the shadowed moonlight caressing her slightly rounded stomach as I create tight circles on her swollen wet clit.
