SAVING GRACE: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK SIX)

by Honey Palomino

  Eli struggled against Tiny, but Tiny outweighed him by hundreds of pounds. Tiny quickly tied him to the chair, securing his hands and legs with duct tape.

  “Stay put, Eli, or I’ll have to shoot Grace.”

  Eli stared up at me and I shook my head.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Why am I doing this?” Snake laughed, as if I’d just asked the funniest question. “Because it’s people like you who remain a thorn in my side.”

  “How is that?”

  “Stop the act, Grace. It’s useless now. I know all about Solid Ground.”

  I stared up at him in disbelief. How was it possible that I’d been betrayed once again?

  “I know, I know, you’re surprised, right?” Snake asked. “You’ve taken down so many people already. Saved so many women’s lives. It’s impressive really.”

  He took a step closer, his gun pressed to my cheek.

  “I’ve been watching you for years now, Grace. I watched while you took down my friends. Huge operations that took years for us to build. You killed a few of them, too, didn’t you?”

  I stared back at him silently, my head spinning.

  “You thought you got us all, didn’t you?” he asked, a smile lighting up his face. “We want to show you something, don’t we boys?”

  The three men I thought were my allies stood up and nodded, laughing.

  I watched with disgust as they all reached down and unfastened their pants, dropping them to their ankles in front of me. At first, I thought they meant to rape me, and apparently so did Eli, because he began struggling against his restraints wildly.

  But then I saw their legs.

  Each of them had the same tattoo, the same tattoo I’d seen before. On each of their calves, a serpent slithered up and around their leg from the ankle. I shook my head in disbelief as I snapped my head back over to Snake.

  He stood there in boxer shorts, his own jeans now bunched around his ankles, the same tattoo engraved in his skin.

  “I’m surprised my name didn’t tip you off.”

  No fucking way, I thought. This can’t be happening.

  “All of you?” I asked, my voice shaking.

  “Are you surprised?” Snake asked, as he leaned down and pulled his pants up. The others followed and sat back down after buckling their belts.

  “You could say that,” I said, throwing angry looks at my ex-friends from the force.

  “We did good, though, didn’t we?” Snake asked, pointing the gun back at me. “All this time, you had no idea you were working with the enemy. I mean, I figured you would stop trusting people after you left the force, considering your partner betrayed you so badly, leaving you for dead, but you didn’t, did you? Sure you took up with the Gods and did your best, you should be proud of that, Grace, really you should. But did you think it would last forever? That you could keep fucking with us, that you could get away with it forever?”

  “I guess nothing lasts forever,” I said. I glanced at the door, trying to figure out how I was going to get out of this.

  Ryder was right.

  I should have listened to him.

  I never should have come back.

  I vowed to myself that if I made it out of this alive, I’d never question him again. Anger boiled through my veins as I realized exactly how fucked I was right now.

  “So, what now?” I asked.

  “Now?” Snake asked, the eerie smile spreading across his face again.

  “Oh, well, that’s easy. Now you die.”

  CHAPTER 37

  NATE

  “I can’t fucking take this shit,” Ryder said.

  Slade handed him a flask and he brought it to his mouth, taking a big slug of whiskey.

  “Fucking sucks,” he growled. “She should have called by now.”

  “Maybe we should call Sophia?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Riot shook his head. “We wait. Just like Grace said.”

  “This is fucking ridiculous!” Ryder said, throwing the flask against the mirror behind the television, shattering it into pieces. “I’m driving over there.”

  “You want us to come?” Slade asked.

  “No, stay here,” he said, ripping his cut off his body and throwing it on the bed. “I’ll just drive by and feel it out, pretend like I’m a civilian. I’ll call you in fifteen minutes.”

  “Be careful, man,” Riot said. “We need you in one piece.”

  “It’s Snake you need to be worried about. I’m gonna rip that bastard in two, if he’s touched a hair on Grace’s head.”

  “Stay calm,” Slade said, even though he was bouncing around from foot to foot like he’d just snorted a few lines of coke. I’d never seen him so amped up, clenching his fists at his side and grinding his teeth. “Just take a look and call us right away.”

  “Don’t you dare go in there alone, Ryder,” Bones said.

  “We’ll be there in minutes, just say the word,” Wreck said.

  Ryder grunted and ran out of the room, his footsteps pounding as he ran away.

  “Fuck,” Slade said, shaking his head. “This doesn’t feel good at all.”

  “Sure as fuck doesn’t,” Riot said. His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket. “It’s my computer guy, I gotta take this.”

  He left the room and we all stood around staring at each other with helpless looks on our faces.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Easy,” Slade said, picking up his flask from the broken glass on the floor and pulling a pint of whiskey from his cut. “We drink.”

  He filled the flask again and held it towards me.

  “I don’t know if we should drink, man.”

  “Don’t be so fucking uptight.”

  I groaned and took it from him as I sat on the bed, shaking my head as I took a big gulp from the flask.

  “This is fucking torture,” I growled.

  “Welcome to life as a God, my friend. Welcome to the Gods…”

  CHAPTER 38

  RYDER

  After leaving my cut at the hotel, I grabbed a ball hat from the backseat of the van and pulled it low over my face as I drove past Snake’s compound. The last thing I needed was to be recognized and there wasn’t much traffic in that area anyway. Just the sight of a car passing by could be suspicious.

  Right away, I knew something was terribly wrong.

  On the inside of the fence, every fifty feet or so, one of Snake’s men was stationed, with a pit bull sitting right next to each of them. They didn’t have their guns out, but it was obvious that they were armed by the bulges in the heavy leather jackets they wore. It was cold today, but luckily not raining, and every breath they took ended with an exhalation of steam escaping from their mouths.

  Grace’s Mustang was parked just outside of the front gate.

  I peered past the guards, doing my best not to drive too slowly, but inside everything looked peaceful. My mind couldn’t help but imagine what was going on inside those buildings.

  Rage and worry mixed inside of me like a dangerous cocktail that threatened to destroy all my restraint. I contemplated my options — driving my car through the gate was the first thing that came to mind, but I knew I wouldn’t get far after that. I’d be descended on and shot to death in seconds.

  Walking up to the gate and politely asking to see Grace had a slim chance for success.

  As angry as I was, as worried as I was, I knew I was no match for that many men by myself. At least a dozen, as far as I could see. No telling how many were inside.

  No, I’d need my Gods and I honestly wasn’t sure how we were going to do this by ourselves, either.

  I drove back to the hotel as quickly as possible, my head spinning with possible solutions, every one of them ending up with the same solution — we were in for one of the biggest fights of our lives.

  It didn’t matter, though. Nothing was going to stop me from getting my woman out of there safely. I was prepared to take a dozen bullets for her.


  I’d die for Grace.

  Back in the hotel room where they were all waiting for me, their eyes turned to the door expectantly as soon as I rushed in.

  “The place is swarming with guards. Something bad’s going down.”

  Riot stood up and walked over to me, pressing his hand to my arm.

  “I have some bad news, man.”

  CHAPTER 39

  GRACE

  All I could think of was that I’d failed these women.

  In moments, I’d be dead and they would still be enslaved. As I looked over my shoulder, I took in the scene. Eli was tied up, bruised and bloody, his eyes flashing with anger. Sophia sat next to him stoically, watching Snake and I intently.

  And then I saw the people I’d worked with for years. They’d allowed me, helped me even, as I continued to do my work, allowing me to believe they were on my side, when all along they’d been the very enemy I was trying to bring down.

  And then there was Snake.

  Cocky and sarcastic, waving his gun around in front of me as he flaunted how easily he’d duped me.

  “You guys sure took the bait,” he laughed. “And Tiny, I must commend you, brother. You performed your role like a champ. Luring Slade in was like offering candy to a baby. After that, it was a cake walk. You moved fast, too, Grace, I was impressed with your efficiency. And what a great actress you were! I wish I could give you an Oscar! As much as I didn’t want to, I had to sacrifice a few of my girls to you so that you’d believe me. I must admit, it was pretty sweet taking your cash from you, though.”

  “You’re disgusting, you know that?” I said, my anger rising, my courage welling up inside. He was going to kill me, I was pretty sure of that, so why should I hold it all in? If anyone deserved my wrath, it was Snake. “You’re the man behind all this? All these years?”

  “Well, I like to delegate. My old man taught me that. So, I branched out, kept myself behind the curtain and laid low. I must say, I was angry you brought so many of my colleagues down. You do good work. But you never came too close to me, did you? Thought you’d gotten to the top of the food chain, but you hadn’t, because you didn’t know I existed. I’m great at staying off people’s radar. Of course, I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured it out. Your guys are great at uncovering things, I’ll give you that, too. There were times I had to hustle to cover my tracks because you were hovering around, but I stayed a few steps ahead of you.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “You threw me a few curveballs, I’ll admit that. I never expected Sophia to follow you, that was one thing. Of course, I trace her every fucking move,” he said, turning to Sophia in the corner. “You’re not very smart, are you, sweetheart?”

  She glared at him and he laughed, walking over to her. He reached down, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “I can’t believe you thought you could get away with betraying me,” he said, shaking his head. He cupped her chin, lifting her eyes to his. “You are going to make the most beautiful corpse, darling.”

  She flinched, pulling away from him. She was trembling, her chin quivering, her eyes filling with tears. Eli struggled against his restraints again, to no avail. Snake walked back over to me and leaned in close.

  “So, you kill me. Then what?”

  “Well, I’m ready for the battle with your precious Gods. After they’re all gone, we’ll clean up the mess, deposit your rotting corpses in a furnace somewhere, with the help of my old pals here, of course.” He smiled at the other guys and they smiled back, all of them laughing at us. “And then, it’s back to making money the old fashioned way.”

  “By raping and trafficking humans?”

  “Oh, Grace, you make it sound so disgusting.”

  “What you do is disgusting. You’ve ruined thousands of lives. Caused so much pain and trauma. To young, innocent girls…”

  “It’s just business, darling,” he said, leaning down inches from my face again. He sneered as he slid the tip of the barrel of his gun down my cheek, tracing along my jaw and down my neck, trailing along my collarbone and down into my shirt, stopping between my breasts, pressing it into the middle of my chest.

  “It’s a shame that I have to kill you. You have such a good heart, don’t you? Saving the world, a modern day Wonder Woman, taking on all the bad guys with a group of your own bad boys-turned-heros. This whole story would make a killing in Hollywood, don’t you think?”

  “You won’t get away with this forever, Snake,” I said, shaking my head, doing my damnedest to quieten my trembling body. “You can kill us, sure. But there will be someone else to come along and fill my shoes. Maybe I didn’t succeed, but you’ll pay. Someday, you’ll pay. No monster as horrible as you can last forever. Deep inside, you know it, too, don’t you? I can see it on your face. My only regret is that I won’t be there to dance on your grave.”

  His eyes flashed with anger. Quickly, he leaned back and pulled the gun back, hitting me across the cheek with it hard and fast. The force of it sent me flying across the room, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor in front of the locked door. I reached up, the hot, sticky blood running across my fingers as I looked up at him.

  Snake stood over me, furious, angry, completely enraged by now, his gun pointed right at my head.

  “I don’t like it when people talk back to me, Grace.”

  You could have heard a pin drop as he pressed his gun to my forehead.

  He pulled the hammer of his pistol back and the click echoed through the room like a bomb.

  CHAPTER 40

  RYDER

  “The pimp you killed the night you found Grace was connected with Snake,” Riot said, staring at me as I sat down on the bed.

  “Dice?”

  “Yeah, brother. So was Judd, her old partner. Apparently, this shit goes deep inside the force. Remember we never figured out what those snake tattoos meant? Well, apparently Snake is the ring leader and I think all those assholes got tattoos in solidarity and loyalty to him and the Vipers. I feel like an idiot for not figuring this out sooner, just by his name alone, but I fucking missed it — I’m so sorry.”

  “So, how’d you find out?”

  “We traced all the financial records we could find, starting with his property. Snake inherited the compound years ago from his father, but the mortgage was paid off in one big payment just a few years ago. Snake’s been careful not to leave a trace since then. But we followed the bank transactions and found out that the payment came for the mortgage came from Judd’s account. I couldn’t believe it when his name popped up. I’ve got a friend at the IRS and he followed the trail even farther, looking into Judd’s closed accounts. There he found payments from Dice that he’d tried to hide under an alias, but we crossed referenced the information from years ago and the amounts and dates match. My guy called me just after you left. It’s a tangled web, but everything leads directly to Snake.”

  “What the hell does all this mean?”

  “We think he set up Grace. Led her right into a trap. They’ve been trafficking for years and we’ve gotten close a few times to Snake’s operation, but we didn’t even realize it. He’s probably got a lot of resentment for Grace at this point.”

  “Fucker!” I shouted, banging my fist on the table. “We gotta get Grace out of there. He’s going to kill her, if he hasn’t already. He’s got men surrounding the place, many more men than we’ve got here.”

  Nate stepped forward, nodding at me solemnly.

  “After Riot told us what was going on, we all knew we’d need more men. I took the liberty of calling up a bunch of the old Loyal Gentleman. Since our old man went to prison, we’ve all just been wandering around aimlessly. But they’re still loyal to my family and they’d take a bullet for us in a second. Once I told them Eli was at risk, they jumped on board. They’re already on their way.”

  “How many?” I asked, my heart pounding so loudly I could barely hear my own voice. These extra men might just be wha
t we needed to save Grace.

  “Got ten men arriving in under…,” he paused, looking at his watch, “half an hour tops.”

  “I called in a few reinforcements myself,” Slade said. “A few tough motherfuckers I knew from my days on the streets of Portland. Kind of a motley crew, but they won’t hesitate to put their lives on the line, brother. Three of them. Don’t worry, we’ll get Grace out of there.”

  “We don’t have much time. It may already be too late,” I said, shaking my head, that fucking fear rearing its ugly head in my heart once again.

  “Don’t say that,” Riot said. “Grace is smart. She’s knows we’re coming for her.”

  “We can’t just bust in there,” I said. “They’ll shower us with bullets.”

  “I have an idea,” Riot said, pulling a makeshift map of Snake’s compound out of an envelope and spreading it on the table.

  “We can’t fuck this up, guys,” I said, shaking my head. “We just can’t.”

  CHAPTER 41

  SOPHIA

  Watching Snake torment Grace sent rage rushing through my veins.

  This was all my fault.

  Grace was an amazing woman. A good woman. Strong, with a huge heart and balls of steel. I wanted to be just like her.

  I looked over at Eli, his mouth and nose ribboned with blood and my heart sank. There was no fucking way I could let this happen.

  Snake hadn’t tied me up but I figured that was because he figured I was scared of him enough that I knew better than to try to attack him. It didn’t help that there were four other men in the room that would protect him.

  His gun dug into Grace’s forehead and he pulled the hammer back, the sound of it causing me to flinch violently.

  And then, something snapped.

  The rage took over and I didn’t care about my safety. If Snake wanted to kill me, then fine, but I couldn’t let him get away with killing Grace or Eli. I saw his finger on the trigger and I knew he was about to send a bullet right through Grace’s brain and there was no way in hell I could let that happen.