by T. L Smith
Jake’s at my house, he’s sitting on his bike and his head is hung low. A smoke draped from his lips. He sees me pull up, stands, and nods his head. I know why he’s here. Even if it’s his father, I’m his brother. I’m more loyal to him than anyone he knows. I have killed for him, lied for him.
“They know,” he says and my spine chills.
“When?” I ask.
“They won’t say, just that it’s soon.” He flicks the butt of his smoke and watches it roll away. “He knows you’re protecting her and he doesn’t care. He says she’s his.”
“She’s mine,” I growl. He places his hands up in surrender.
“I know, brother.” He lets his hands drop slowly. “They won’t tell me anything else, they know I’ll tell you.”
“I will kill them, Jake,” I tell him, he must know that I will. I will take his father’s life.
“I know.”
“You plan to get retribution after?”
“I won’t, the club will.” I nod my head. “Run, Black, take her and run. You’ll be a dead man walking if you stop it from happening. Your head will be number one on the hit list.”
“She won’t leave.”
“Why?”
“Her daughter’s here.”
“Fucking hell.” He shakes his head. “I want you to know that I love ya, man,” he says his final goodbye as he climbs on his bike and starts it.
I go to the house, pack a bag and call her cell. It’s late and she has work in the morning. I know she’ll be in bed, snuggled up to her one hundred pillows. But I have to hear her voice first.
“Liam?” She yawns into the phone.
“I’m coming over,” I say then hang up.
The house lights are off when I enter, the front door closed and locked. I don’t bother knocking, she knows I’m coming. I use the spare key and unlock the front door. A smell hits me when I do, and it’s a smell I know only too well. Blood.
I flick the lights on, see broken glass covering the floor. The back window is broken, blood is splattered onto the kitchen bench and on the floor. I spoke to her not even an hour ago. They couldn’t have gotten far.
Car tracks are what I find, footsteps as well—bloody footsteps. I run inside, completely forgetting about Hayden. I flick his bedroom light on, but he isn’t here. My heart rate picks up, did they take him too? I ring Casey. It’s late, so she doesn’t answer, but Sax does, and he does not sound happy.
“I need your help,” I say, hoping I got him.
“Man, Hayden is asleep, the girl is asleep. What you want?” he whines into the phone. I calm just a fraction knowing Hayden is there safe and not here.
“They took her.”
“Wait for me, I’m coming,” he says, and I hear his shuffling around. I don’t have time for this.
“No, wait for me. I’ll text you the address,” he says into the phone, and I know he agrees and I hang up.
My phone dings, and it’s from and unknown number. The message, though, is a picture of Rose with a band tied around her arm. Parts of her blonde hair red with blood.
The message reads, ‘Say goodbye.’ A chill runs up my spine. They have her, and the picture of the surroundings does not look familiar.
I’m strapped, I have a holster attached to my chest, a gun on each side and a rifle in hand. I drive to the clubhouse, the one I’ve frequented since I was sixteen. The one I learned everything from. The house now, it looks as shit as it is. Not somewhere I used to practice shooting at, not somewhere I meet my best friend. No, this place is anything but. It’s a living hell that I’m about to burn down.
The place is empty, or so it seems. I grab the gasoline from the back of my truck. Moving upstairs first to where they kept the girls, none are there. It’s empty. I pour gasoline over the floor, the floor where I first saw her again after ten years. I pour it all down the stairs and into the main house. As I walk out the back I see a figure, but it’s not moving.
I don’t want to go out there, it could be a trap. So instead I light the son of a bitch house on fire. I watch as it burns, the fire lighting up the night sky. Then I hear a moan… I know that sound.
Legs run fast as I reach the end of the yard I see that the figure is strapped down by barbwire and underneath it is Jake. The barbwire slitting his mouth open, every time he moves it slices in deeper.
I manage to get it free from his mouth, cutting him even more in the process. He doesn’t scream. His face just looks like agony. I don’t wait for him to speak, I immediately start freeing his hands and feet. He’s completely naked, the wire digging into all parts of his skin and cutting him everywhere. His nipple is bleeding the most, his nipple ring is missing, torn away.
“Where are they, Jake?” I ask once he’s totally free. He struggles to speak, his mouth filling with blood. His lips bleeding.
“Don’t know,” he manages to say as he sits up, wincing as he does.
“I don’t have time for this. I’ll call someone.” I go to walk off, but his hand reaches out and catches my boot.
“He worked it out… he knows you know,” he spits again. I don’t bother replying as I call Sax and tell him to get Jake. Jake has the resources I don’t for helping people. I have skills in other areas, bad areas.
I end up at the one place I should never enter, the one place that would be more than happy to see me locked up behind bars. Robbie looks up at me as I enter, he sits behind his desk on the phone. He looks to me then around the room as I walk directly to him. He seems shocked, his hand on his weapon.
“Why are you here?” he asks, panicked. He must know a lot about me.
“I need you to search someone, I need to know about previous addresses, owned properties etcetera,” I say. He looks at me like what I’m saying is false.
“Why?”
“It’s to do with Rose.” He straightens up and looks around.
“Is she in trouble?”
“Yes, don’t ask for more. Just give me what I need.”
“It will take time, I don’t have that info on hand.” I hand him the Pres’s name and he looks at it with suspicion.
“This man is the president of a motorcycle club?”
No shit, Sherlock.
“How long?”
“Is she in trouble with these men?”
“How long?” I ask again.
“Give me a few hours.” He nods his head and starts tapping on his computer. I walk out, trying to recall every place I’ve been to with them, or done jobs for them. I know of two other properties.
The first is empty, no one is there.
The second holds a surprise, just not one I’m interested in. It holds his two members bodies, the ones I killed. I hear ticking, and when I follow it, it’s an alarm. It has ten seconds left on it. I realize what it is and run, but my legs don’t carry me fast enough as I get blasted from the door. My back lands with force into the fence at the front. The wind is knocked out of me. I struggle to breathe, which gives the person watching me a perfect opportunity to knock me when I’m down.
It’s another member, one I’ve had drinks with. One that was one of Jake’s friend. Anger takes over, thinking what kind of brotherhood this is. Torturing one of their own, a brother, a son to the club.
He kicks me hard, his boots encased with steel. It knocks me forward, sending me to my hands and knees. He laughs, then kicks me again, breaking a rib. I hear it crack in my rib cage, which drops me entirely to the ground.
He goads me, saying what I piece of shit I am, that I shouldn’t have been allowed into club business to begin with. While he talks my breath returns. I move slightly, enough to grab my knife strapped to my wrist. He goes to kick me again, and he connects, but so does my knife stabbing him straight into his leg. He screams as the pain shoots through him, hopping backward, away from me. He doesn’t walk fast enough as I manage to stand.
He notices I hold my ribs, hoping the pain will ease. It slowly does as I think of who they have and what I will do to keep
her safe.
“Where is she?” One step closer. He hops back another step, and the pain shoots through me as I take another step. He shakes his head no, he won’t give me what I want. I will just have to make him.
It's dark when I wake, I hear glass smash. Then hushed tones. Whoever it is, is trying to be quiet. My body freezes up, thinking that it’s them. That they’ve come, and what I will do? I can fight, always been good at it. But against more than one full grown man? I don’t know how I will do it. Footsteps are now in my kitchen, coming closer to my room. I crawl out of bed, taking my bat with me. It lays at the top of my bed, close to me if I need it. I almost want to kiss it for being so close.
I take each step to my ensuite very slowly, knowing that there’s a connecting door. If I can reach that and run for the front, I should miss them. When I’m at the entrance of the door, a shadow comes over me. A man is now standing behind me. I didn’t even hear him, and he reaches down over my hunched body and goes to grab my hand. I don’t think as I swing the bat the opposite way, hitting him. I don’t know where it hits, but the sound he makes suggest it was his abdominal. He wheezes and then screams, letting the other men know I’m awake. Lights flicker on, and I turn to see the man on the floor breathing heavy and is dressed in all black.
I run, bat still in hand, and hope I can make it to the front door without being grabbed again. Just as I’m passing the kitchen, the front door inches away, the bat is seized, and I’m flung into the kitchen bench. My ankle hurts, my head hurts. I must have knocked it hard. I see the Pres, his smile like the devil. He takes a step toward me and I manage to stand just as he reaches me. I don’t think as I kick my leg straight up between his legs, making him drop just as hard as he flung me. He now blocks my path to the door.
I look around and just past the kitchen is the back door, some glass shattered on the floor from where they came in. I run to it and slam into a brick wall of a man. An enormous man, bigger than all these men combined. None of the skills I know would work on this man, I think he has fat even covering his junk. He’s scary as all hell.
He laughs as he holds me. “Took two men down, a little thing like you.” He laughs harder. I reach out to the bench, my knife tray just within reach. So I grab one and cut the arm he holds me with. He drops me straight away, his blood now on my shirt and at my feet.
“You little bitch!” he screams, holding the wound.
I run, and I even make it outside. I go to scream, but I’m knocked down. Then I’m hit again and I black out.
I wake to swearing and my head pounds. My whole body is wracked in some kind of pain. I open one eye, trying to pretend I’m still asleep. I feel someone grab my arm, then strap it. I start to buck, kick, slap, and punch anyone around me. They’re not doing this to me again. I will not go back to that.
“Aww… the bitch is awake,” a voice purrs near me. It’s the man from the bathroom. I recognize his face. It has a large scar across his cheek like someone cut into him deeply. He’s bending down in front of me, watching me.
“Don’t,” I say, trying to pull my arm away from him, but he doesn’t let it go. He holds on to it and squeezes tight, bruising me just by his hold.
“Leave her,” a voice booms from behind him. The man I recognize now is the man who bought me when I wasn’t anyone’s to sell.
The man with the scar backs up, his smile evil as he watches me on the ground. I look down and realize I’ve been stripped of my clothes. I lay on a dirty floor in nothing but underwear. The men’s eyes leer, making me feel dirty.
“Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon, poppet.” Gray is his name. I remember that’s what he liked me to call him.
“Too soon,” I reply dryly. Trying to sit up, my back screams in pain when I do.
“I liked you better when you didn’t backchat.”
“I liked you better when I didn’t see you.”
“Cut her wrist,” he says to the man with the scar. I instantly pull my hands up to my chest. He smiles swinging a switchblade in his hands as he steps toward me. “Not an artery, though,” Gray states taking a seat on a chair and pulling his phone out. He doesn’t care, he’s one cold son of a bitch.
The man with the scar pulls my arm from my body like it was no effort at all. While he does that he drags me across the ground, my back scraping on the floor. He sits on me, pinning my legs and arms down with his body. Then I can do nothing but watch as he brings the blade to my wrist and slowly slices, making me scream out in agony.
“A little louder, poppet, he can’t hear you,” Gray says, pointing the phone at me. I hear Black’s voice. He threatens him, then it goes dead. And a part of me wishes I was too.
“He didn’t sound too happy did he, poppet?” Gray says, walking up behind the man on top of me. He looks down and seems pleased, tapping the man on the shoulder to release me. “Ru, let her go.” Ru stands up from me, and I bring my hand to my chest again trying to stop the bleeding. But the only material I have is covering me, so I place it on my panties to try and stop the blood.
“It could have gone a lot easier,” Gray says, looking now between my legs. “He could have just handed back what’s mine. But no, now I have to start a war with him, with a man who’s deadlier than all sin. Do you know what that’s going to do to my business, poppet? No, I suppose you don’t. It means I’ll have to start getting my hands dirty, start recruiting, because if I know one thing about Black and, believe me, I know him well, he would have killed all the men I’ve sent after him.” He seems pleased with that, like his own men don’t mean a thing to him like no life matters.
“You’re sick. You know that, right?”
“Didn’t you know, poppet, the best of us are. Black especially.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Oh, but I’m right. I take it you met Stella? Right?” A simple nod is all I give him. “Black killed her, shot the bitch right in the head. All because I told him to, and he will do the same with you because I tell him to.”
“He won’t.”
“But, poppet, he will. He isn’t wired normally, haven’t you realized that yet?”
Her screams fill my ears, the ring of them stuck in there for a lifetime. Even after the call replays in my mind and in my ears. What did they do to her to get that reaction? How badly is she hurt?
It’s time to play.
I pace around him. He’s strung to my roof. His feet on a box, a rope tied around his neck. He’s waking up, he goes to move, realizing what a mistake that is and stays still. If he moves that box under his feet, he’ll hang by his throat.
“I’m not a patient man, Evan, you won’t get many chances.” He looks down to see that he’s missing most of his clothes. The only thing that remains is his underwear.
“What were your instructions for the night?”
“He’s going to bleed her dry.” He laughs, which just makes me angrier, and I’m fucking angry as it is. I have a nail gun, a very good nail gun, it’s brand new and very fast. So when I shoot one off into his foot, it takes him but a second to scream.
“What did you say again?” He starts to whimper and he doesn’t answer, so I do it again, eliciting more screams from his mouth. He still doesn’t answer, just looks at me with determination. His will is breaking, he may not see it, but I sure do.
“Last chance before one goes in your ass.” His head shakes, so the nail goes right into his ass cheek. Making him scream bloody murder. I walk around, taking him in. He has a very long nail sticking out from both his feet and one in his hand which he now has positioned near his neck. Then the ass. I walk back around to it, placing the head of the gun on his other cheek. His body moves forward, and he speaks.
“I was to knock you out… not kill. Bring you to him.”
“Where were you meant to bring me?” He shakes his head no. I shoot him again, this time in his abdominal.
“To the Hill,” he finally speaks. The Hill is a place where I’ve killed before, killed for Gray. It’s sec
luded and quiet.
“What time?”
“At nine.” I look at my clock, it’s almost nine now. The Hill isn’t far away, I know all the tracks to get there, it’s where I’ve done multiple killings.
The man on the box looks at me, realizing I’m about to leave. My nail gun is placed on the floor and my gloves are taken off my hands. My gun’s back in my pants. He looks relieved, but he shouldn’t be.
“I’ll see you there,” I say, just as a puzzled look lands on his face. I kick the box, hanging him from him neck, cutting off the circulation. He tries hard to free himself. It’s a lame attempt and I don’t have time to watch as he dies. I go, knowing exactly where I’m meant to be.
The whole hike up the Hill is quiet, nothing but insects on the way. I try to get as close as possible to the place where he will be. It overlooks the water, nothing but black water.
I reach nearly the top and I hear voices the closer I get. Gray is talking, talking and yelling fast into his phone. I look for Rose and spot her in the arms of Ru. She’s hardly clothed, blood drips down her arm and she’s not awake. Ru places her on the ground, not gently, making her head bounce on the ground. Ru walks away, leaving Gray and Rose by themselves. I walk from the bushes. Gray spots me and doesn’t look surprised at all.
“I figured you’d get the information.” He laughs, the sinister bastard. He looks to me and sees a card in my hand. A smile forms on his lips. “You worked it out, did you?”
“You did it, you purposely turned me into the person I am today.” He nods his head, looking to the card.
“I thought you’d join me, that you’d become one of us. You never wanted that, and I ended up accepting it. You ended up being a great investment, Black, even if I had to kill your mother to do it.”
“You did it to have me?” I ask in disbelief.
