by Avelyn Paige
“The party is just about to begin.”
The cartel has Raze.
Panic and unbridled fear swarms my body as I rush out of the trailer past Hero, hoping that this is all some bad dream. This wasn’t supposed to happen. What if I never see him again or get to tell him that I do still love him? All the what ifs and whys send my head spinning as I stop dead in my path. The truck that flew out of here like a bat out of hell earlier sits parked in the drive with a bloody and beaten Trax being pulled out of the driver’s seat. Ratchet and a man I don’t know haul him from the truck and lay him out on his back on the porch.
He sputters something as they lay him down as Hero brings out a medical kit from the trailer to tend to his wounds. I watch as the men hover around him,asking questions that he returns with inteligable replies. Hero starts to stitch up the wound over his eye and doses him with what I can only assume is an injection of pain medicine before he begins to make any sense.
“What happened, man? Where is Raze?” yells one of the men in the group that surrounds Trax.
“We went into town for supplies,” he sputters. “They must have seen us there. We got shoved off the road, and I blacked out from the impact. I woke up and he was just gone.”
Something doesn’t add up to me. Why would they go into town for supplies when Hazzard had already dropped some off hours earlier? Looking at the truck, I don’t see visible markings from an impact that would have caused that much damage to his face and body. Shouldn’t there have been some kind of ding or scratch to go along with his wounds?
“We have to go get him,” Hazzard orders.
“What do we do without Raze to lead us?” yells another.
Hero steps up onto the porch and throws his hands in the air to quiet the crowd. He looks at me and then at Trax propped up below him before speaking.
“We stick to his plan and we get him out. That’s our number one priority. Even if we can’t get to the cartel leader, we get Raze out no matter the cost. Now, let’s go get this fucker and bring our president home.”
The men yell to signify their agreement of Hero’s demands and move swiftly in the direction of the vehicles. In Raze’s absence, they are turning to him to make the decisions. While he has good intentions on bringing him home, he doesn’t know the full story. He goes into the trailer to grab his gear that he’d laid out on the table with Raze, and I follow him.
“I’m going with you,” I order. Hero spins around as he Velcros a bulletproof vest to his chest and just gapes at me.
“The hell you are.”
“Michael brought me here to help,” I plea, trying to make him see reason.
“No, Raze brought you here because he’d rather you be here where he could watch you instead of you charging into this on your own.”
“That’s misogynistic bullshit and you know it, Hero. You are taking me with you, and that’s final,” I demand, reaching for the small bag of weapons and protection equipment that their supplier brought earlier.
“No, you need to stay here and look after Trax. We can’t leave an injured man here. If they kill us all, you two can get the fuck out of dodge and live. Besides, if Raze is alive, he will kill me if I include you in this. You weren’t brought here to fight, Darcy.”
“You have to take me because Voodoo relayed me information that you don’t know.”
He grabs two handguns and tucks them into the holsters under his arms and then shoves a series of knives into his boots and wrist sheaths. He takes two steps toward me, trapping me against the sink in the trailer.
“You can either tell me and give me a chance to save him or not tell me and possibly condemn him to death. Your choice, Darcy.”
“Maj is alive and at the compound,” I stammer. “Voodoo saw her in some of the pictures that Irons and Thrasher sent back. The bitch that killed my husband is still fucking alive.” Hot tears trail down my face in an attempt to win him over in frustration and to expel the rage boiling over inside of me.
“Fuck,” he exclaims. “Was he sure it was her?”
“Yes.”
“Darcy, listen. I know you want a piece of her, and frankly, I want to deliver her to your feet so you can kill her yourself, but if we have a chance to get him out and she has to live, I’m choosing him over her. That’s how it is. If I can get them both, you can pull the trigger, I promise you that. Now, I need to go and bring our guy home. Do what I say and stay here. Promise me you won’t leave.”
I wipe away the tears on my face and nod my head in agreement. Hero walks over and pulls my head close to his face, laying a kiss on my forehead.
“I’ll bring him home,” he tells me just as he disappears through the door. I walk to the door and watch as dozens of men pile into cars, trucks, and SUVs kicking up a huge cloud of dust as they speed off after Michael. As they drive away, I mutter a silent prayer that they bring him home to me as I notice Trax trying to stand up from where Hero left him.
Looking at how well he can move for an injured man, my suspicions rise further.
“Let me grab you a pillow,” I tell him as I turn back into the trailer and go for the bag of weapons. Trax may think he’s fooling them, but something isn’t right. If I have to put a few bullets into non-life threatening places to get answers, I will, because his role in all of this is more than he is letting on. Thinking ahead to what might happen, I pull two blades and tuck them into the tops of my boots. Retrieving a small caliber hand gun from it’s holster, I shove it into the padded portion of my bra in addition to the gun already tucked into my waist band. It’s uncomfortable, but they be would less likely to look there than some of the more obvious places to check for a gun. It also gives me a secondary weapon should they take my first one away. Adding an extra magazine to my back pocket, I stroll back onto the porch with the pillow from the dingy couch.
I find Trax standing up and leaning against one of the posts of the trailer’s porch framework, puffing on a cigarette.
“About time you got back out here. I need your help sitting back down,” he barks at me. Setting down the pillow, I walk to his side and help him ease down on to the porch, his hand conveniently sliding to my ass as he leans back onto the pillow.
“Sorry, doll. My hand slipped.”
I ignore him as I sit down across from him on the other side of the steps. He takes another drag of his cigarette with ease before throwing it to the ground.
“They ran you off the road, right?” I begin.
“That’s what I said, didn’t I? I didn’t end up looking like the loser of a UFC fight by picking wildflowers, doll,” he bites back, taking a ragged breath.
“So why doesn’t that truck have scratches on it?’
He glares at me before laughing it off.
“What’s with the third-degree interrogation, doll? Can’t a man recoup in peace after an accident like this?” he states, leaning his head back against the pole behind him.
“Well, that’s the funny thing about accidents: there’s always a mark, scratch, or ding somewhere on the vehicle.”
“What’s your point, doll?” he growls back.
I rise up from my seated position and move to stand directly in front of him on the ground. My hand wraps around my back, fingering the gun that lies hidden in the waistband of my jeans.When he noted it earlier, I knew I needed to move it to a different spot, because after our earlier exchange, I just didn’t feel comfortable about him knowing I was armed.
“My point is that I don’t think there was an accident at all. I think you led Michael into town under false pretenses to hand him over to the cartel.”
“Why would I do a thing like that?” He chuckles while opening his eyes and looking at me once more.
“Because I think you were the one who was supposed to kill his wife, and guess who happens to be alive? I knew as soon as you told me that you were here to protect your business interests that you weren’t talking about the club, you were talking about the cartel. You’re in bed with them.”
Trax
stands easily from the porch and steps toward me, but before he can come any closer, I draw my weapon and aim straight for his head.
“I’d have thought you would have figured that one out when you paid me cash for club secrets. Tell me, does Raze know about how you went behind his back to find out how your husband died?”
“No, there was no reason to tell him. You sold me lies anyway.”
“Lies are a funny thing, really. Some lies hurt while others protect from pain. However, the real lies, the ones that gut you and strip you down piece by piece are something entirely different. Take your husband’s death for example. You may not know about the club Raze and his men annihilated over his murder, but those men were only for show. I am the one who put the knife to your husband’s throat and watched him bleed out all over the floor of that shed. In fact, I still have a piece of his flesh hanging from the wall in my club house. You should come see what’s left of him.”
“You fucking son-of-a-bitch,” I scream, pressing my finger onto the trigger and putting a bullet into his leg. “Now here’s what we are going to do. You, me, and that truck over there are going to go to the compound. You’re going to get me in the same room with Maj so I can put a bullet in her fucking brain and end this.”
“And why would I do that?” he retorts, spitting blood on the ground. “What’s in it for me?”
“I’ll let you live.”
“Well, now, that is an interesting twist. You’d let the man who killed your husband live so you could kill the woman responsible for it? My dear Darcy, I didn’t know you had that kind of hatred inside of you.”
“There’s more to me than you’ll ever know. Now get moving.”
I shove the gun into his back as he hobbles by me on his injured leg. I only nicked him so I know it’s more for show than anything else is. He opens up the door, and as he climbs in, I remove his weapon from his holster, tossing it the ground outside of the truck before shutting the door. I keep the gun trained on him the entire time I walk around the front of the truck and slide into the driver’s seat. The keys jingle from the ignition as I turn the truck on with one hand while the gun stays pointed at him with my other. Putting the truck into drive, I fly out of the trailer park and demand him to give me directions.
A few minutes later, we come up on a T in the road, and he directs me to follow the dirt path up the side of a mountain. The ride is bumpy and narrow, and at times frighteningly close to the edge, but several miles later, we pull up behind a large white house. A large fence lines the property. Leaving the truck, I pull him from the passenger’s side of the vehicle and use some discarded zip ties I find lying in the seat and secure them around his wrists.
He walks up the path and gives me a code to punch into the gate. It beeps and unlocks, allowing us to pass. Trax takes to a stairway at the back of the house as gunfire echoes off the front of the building. I watch in horror as dozens of men run from the building below us toward the gates where Hero and his men stand. Two trucks are backed up to the gate as men wrap iron chains around the bars of the fence, trying to pull them down. Two large explosions rattle the foundation as smoke fills the courtyard below us.
I press the gun into Trax’s back, forcing him to move forward, but not before I notice a smirk on his face. This sick fucker is getting off on the fact that his brothers are fighting below and probably injured. I start to rethink my promise to let him live because being on this Earth is not good for anyone if he is still alive.
He leads me to a room on the far side of the building, and I can hear a woman’s voice inside.
“Can I kill him now?” the voice begs, and I know in an instant it’s hers.
I lean down and pull one of the knives from my boot and shove it against his throat, nearly drawing blood. With the gun in his back, I kick open the door and use him as a shield from what lies in the room.
We inch into the room, and I see Michael tied down to a chair with Maj straddling his lap with a look of pure ecstasy on her face while he grimaces in disgust. It sickens me to see her in such an intimate position, but his pants are clearly still belted tightly to his waist so she is doing it to torture him. I don’t know if I can handle seeing her raping him without losing my composure and compromising us all.
“Well now, who do we have here?” She giggles. “I see my lover has finally joined us and, oh,” she squeals, “he brought me something to play with.”
Michael’s eyes instantly lock onto mine as he begins to struggle to break free. His face is bloodied, and so are his hands. He doesn’t look to have any serious wounds, but I can’t tell from Maj’s body pressed so tightly against his.
“You’re just in time, Darcy,” she purrs as she reaches her hands down onto Michael’s crotch and paws at his fly. “I was just about to enjoy one last goodbye fuck with my husband here before I killed him. Would you like to watch?”
“You touch him, Maj, and I will put a bullet into your boyfriend’s brain right here and now.”
“Aw, sweetie. You won’t be doing much of anything in just a few seconds.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because you’re failing hostage situation 101, baby. Always check the room for other players in the game.”
As soon as the words escape her lips, a rope is thrown over my head and pulled tightly against my neck. The gun and knife drop to the floor while Trax stumbles away from my body and falls toward the ground. I struggle to breathe when the person behind me pulls tighter on the rope, forcing it to cut into my flesh. Darkness begins to edge into my vision as my air supply grows smaller and smaller. I’m on the brink of nearly passing out and there’s nothing I can do but watch Michael’s face in horror. My body begins to feel weightless just when a shot rings out in the room and the rope around my neck falls slack. I fall to the ground, but the body of the man behind me cushions my hit. My hands grasp for my throat as I pant and gasp for air.
Maj just laughs when I look up to see Trax holding my smoking gun. Trax smiles and reaches down, pulling me from the ground by my hair. He wraps his arm around my waist, pressing the knife I once held at his throat against mine.
“Kill me,” Michael pleas. “I’m the one that you want. Not her. She’s innocent in this.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my husband. She’s a part of this just as much as you are, aren’t you, whore?”
Michael looks to me with pleading eyes.
“You see. She paid off Trax to get information about your club and how Jagger died. She paid him a pretty penny to get information from us instead of you. While it was false information, mind you, she still didn’t trust you enough to believe that you would make the right call.”
Michael seethes in anger as he thrashes in his chair.
“You didn’t know that, did you, husband? With all the lies you both seem to be spinning, you almost could be the perfect fucked-up couple. And you thought I was a bad wife.”
“I am nothing compared to you, Maj,” I scream out. “It’s true that I bought information about the club, but unlike you, I didn’t use it for ill-gotten gains. I didn’t use it at all because I realized that the man I know as my husband was the real side of him and not the bullshit you fed me. Just like I know Michael far better than you did. Even if you kill me, he’ll keep on fighting, and eventually, you will die.”
Maj slides from Michael’s lap and walks over to a table, picking up a gun and sauntering back over to him. She places her leg on his knee while leaning forward and pressing the barrel of her gun straight into his chest. I jump in a startle when large explosions begin to rattle the building.
“Oh,” Maj exclaims, “sounds like they’re having fun outside.” The sickening smile on her face spreads as she turns back to Michael. “That’s the thing about people, Darcy. Everyone is capable of a little bit of evil, and in my case, a lot of it, but at the end of the day, it’s how you live with yourself with the actions and decisions you make. Say good bye to Darcy, lover. It’s time for our business relations
hip to come to an end. No harsh feelings, okay? I’ll make sure that my kids remember you fondly.”
“I love you, Darcy," he yells out as she begins to press her finger into the trigger when Michael’s feet break free of his bindings and knees her hard in the stomach. She falls to the ground below him as the gun falls to his lap. Trax flinches both from Maj’s fall and another explosion outside. I take my opening and donkey kick him in the balls sending him spilling to the ground just like Maj. He tries to get up, but I press my foot into his throat, taking the fight out of him. He gags and gurgles against the ground.
“Stop,” she cries out. “I need him!”
“He’s your fucking dealer, isn’t he?” I stall, biding time while Michael tries to break free from his confines. “He got you hooked on drugs so he could take over the cartel and the club.”
“Drugs have always been a part of my life. I have an addictive personality,” she says with a shrug. “But, you are right. He gets the club, and I get the cartel.”
“And then, you’ll live happily ever after, right?”
“Yes, please don’t kill him.”
Maj scrambles to get up and take the gun from Michael’s lap when a snap echoes in the room from one of the zip ties on his hands breaks in half. Just as her hand touches the gun, I pull the hidden gun from my bra, take aim, and fire. The sound of the gun silences the room while Maj’s lifeless body falls in a heap at Michael’s feet.
“People like you don’t get happily ever afters, bitch,” I scream.
Trax reaches up and grabs my ankle trying to throw me off balance, but I twist and shoot him in the chest.
“That’s for my husband, you motherfucker.”
Blood bubbles from the hole near his heart while he sputters for air and dies at my feet. I watch Trax draw in his last breath, and a sense of peace settles across my body. It’s over. The people responsible for my husband’s death are finally dead. Dropping the gun, I run to Michael as he gingerly stands from the chair and stops over his dead wife’s body.
“I’m sorry I said all those horrible things to you, Michael. I had to push you away because I knew I couldn’t save you if I didn’t.”
