Give Me War

by Kate McCarthy

  “Put Evie on the goddamn phone!” my brother orders.

  “No, I’m not putting her on the phone. You heard her speak. She’s fine.”

  “Mitch!” Evie cries out.

  “I’m hanging up now,” Rossi tells him.

  “Don’t come!” I hear my wife yell. “Please don’t come for me! Don’t!”

  “You heard her,” he adds, and hangs up.

  I glance across at my brother before turning my eyes back to the road.

  “We have the address, Jared. She has to be there. We’re going to get her back before this meeting happens,” my brother vows.

  “And after that?”

  His jaw hardens. “After that, fuck the AFP’s undercover operation. We’re taking the Vipers down.”

  7

  EVIE

  My feet seem to take control, powering me down through the back of the house. Adrenaline is surging, giving me speed. My hands push off against the walls when I stumble but my lungs aren’t working because I can’t catch a breath.

  I risk a glance over my shoulder. I’m being watched with razor-sharp eyes, but they’re not chasing me down. It’s then that I realise, and dread grips me in its dark clutches. My efforts are already futile. There’s no escape. Renny held them back to give me a chance, but even if I get out of the house, where would I go? The neighbour’s house? They’re likely members. The whole street probably belongs to the Vipers. There’s no one to help. I’m on my own, and as I reach for the back door and rip it open, my worst fears are confirmed.

  Three steps lead down into a yard where, spread out along the back of the house, must be at least fifty bikers or more. They all appear larger than life itself, as if Grudge handpicked every Goliath in existence to build his merry band of bastards. The wide shoulders, meaty fists, and biker cuts seem vast as I look out over them all.

  “Dear God,” I mumble, praying for a tornado to come along and wipe them all out.

  But just as I suspected, it doesn’t happen. I don’t even feel the faintest flicker of a breeze.

  Not even God can get me out of this one.

  My best bet here would be to … to …

  Shit.

  I’ve got nothing. No sudden brilliant plan comes to mind. If Mac were here, we’d already be on our way home, likely wounded, but victorious with guns in hand and bullet holes in the car she’d have managed to steal along the way.

  Then I see her, almost lost amongst the sea of giants. The flash of long, pale hair catches the early morning light. I cry out on instinct. “Angel!”

  She turns her head to the sound, as do several others.

  The slender biker pushes her way through the Vipers until there’s nothing standing between me and them but her. Angel’s left eye is horrendously swollen from Kermit’s fist, her skin coloured red and a deep, deep purple. It should be unbearably painful, and yet she stares at me with hardened eyes.

  I take in the worn leather jacket she hadn’t been wearing earlier. It’s cropped, and only serves to highlight her Viper tattoo, a permanent reminder of who she belongs to. Maybe calling her out was a mistake, despite knowing her and Gabriella had some kind of past connection. It doesn’t mean she’s willing to help me because of it, but I have to try.

  “Angel,” I croak, my eyes pleading, asking what I can’t voice.

  She shakes her head. “Get back inside the house.”

  “I—I can’t. They shot Renny.”

  Her eyes barely flicker and her voice is flat. “He was a cop.”

  Christ. I thought she had a heart. I guess I was wrong. “Bitch,” I mumble under my breath. “You are so going down. Along with everyone else here.”

  Angel doesn’t hear the empty threat. Instead she looks behind me just as a heavy hand clamps down on my shoulder. I flinch and turn my head, taking in the profile of the man who has a hold of me. Atomic. The vice president. “You’re coming with me, pretty Valentine,” he says in a voice that attempts to sound soothing and fails. There’s too much wicked anticipation curling around the words. “It’s time to get you kitted out.”

  He pulls me back inside the house and shuts the door, closing me off from Angel and the giants. I get one last look at her face before the outside world disappears, and I catch the slightest glimmer of fear.

  Then the door slams closed.

  Atomic drags me back down toward the front of the house, and I can’t miss the trail of blood. Red streaks mar the floor along the hallway. We reach where Grudge and his brethren stand talking as if it’s just another day, as if my whole world isn’t imploding right this very second. I want to scream at them. I want to find a gun and shoot every last sonofabitch dead. But then I realise that Renny is gone.

  The streaks. The blood. They must have dragged his body away.

  I try not to think about it but I can’t close off my mind. I see his dark eyes fading. Blood everywhere. The way he told me to run, that single word the last he might ever speak. And then I remember the grin he used to give me as we climbed off the back of his bike after a wild ride. It was bright and happy, and deep down, just a little bit broken, as if the boy inside him had found something, just something, worth living for.

  He might have broke my young, naïve heart, but he grew up to be a cop, tried to be better, tried to make a difference, tried to save my life, and then got killed for it.

  A lone tear trickles down my cheek as Atomic lets me go. I wipe it away as he steps off to the side, fiddling with something on an old, worn table. “Kitted out?”

  He turns around with a vest in hand.

  The bikers, and Grudge, go silent, watching their VP.

  My brows draw together.

  A bullet proof vest? They’re trying to protect me? It doesn’t make sense.

  Then I see there’s more to it than just a vest.

  There’s thick padding and coloured wires, and electronic components that even my untrained eye can figure out at a glance.

  My blood runs cold. “No,” I whisper, and stumble backwards. “N—no.”

  Atomic’s lips curl at the corners in a wicked slash.

  It suddenly doesn’t take a genius to figure out how the biker earned his name.

  He comes at me, and I stumble back another step, slamming into someone behind me. Another biker. I don’t even know who.

  I lash out then. Terror making me wild. I hit whatever I can. Bite. Scratch. Kick. Scream until my voice cracks and gives out. An elbow catches me in the eye, or it could’ve been a fist. Something slams into my ribs and a scream rips from me.

  I falter, pain making me dizzy, and they get me on the ground, held down, my right arm pinned out straight as Atomic slides the vest carefully over the seized limb.

  I close my eyes close. I can’t watch anymore.

  I’m pulled upright, lurching as my left arm is shoved through the lethal contraption.

  I feel tugs at the front. Atomic closing it off. Strapping me in. Connecting wires.

  I still can’t open my eyes.

  More tugs around the back and front, and it’s secured. I know it is, because I feel every last one of them step away from me.

  Claustrophobia takes over. The vest isn’t covering any part of my face but I feel confined and suffocated. Every inhale brings with it the heavy weight of death. Every exhale, the fragility of my own mortality, and that of the new life growing inside me.

  Grudge’s gravelly voice barely penetrates the thick barrier of fear. “Open your eyes, Genevieve.”

  But I can’t.

  “Open them,” he orders.

  My body begins to tremble. I can’t control it.

  A hard slap lands across my cheek, hitting across my nose and snapping my head sideways. My eyes fly open at the new flare of pain, giving him what he wants.

  Grudge stands before me, and it’s all I can do just to take a breath. “It would be wise, at this point, for you to do what I tell you.”

  He holds out a hand and Atomic slaps a device in it. Grudge studies it a m
oment. As do I. It looks like something Wolf has in his toybox that operates his little off-road monster truck. I can’t take my eyes off it. Is that it? The press of a few buttons and I’m gone?

  “Do you agree?”

  I feel a trickle of blood leave my nose, the smell of it strong inside my nostrils. It heads south, the flow gaining strength as it pools above my top lip before flooding my mouth and spilling over, down my chin.

  “Do you want to die?”

  I drag my eyes to his and shake my head, blood dripping to the floor.

  “No?”

  “No,” I manage to get out, the sound a whisper after screaming myself hoarse.

  “No, what?”

  My voice cracks. “No, I don’t want to die.”

  “You might though, if you try removin’ it. That thing’s rigged to blow if it comes off.” Grudge chuckles and offers a mock expression of sympathy. “Today ain’t your day, huh?”

  I hate this man. “Fuck you.”

  He laughs uproariously and his brethren join in. “If only there was time for that,” he wheezes, taking a moment to unearth a packet of cigarettes from his vest pocket. He brings the entire pack to his mouth and plucks one free with his lips. He tucks the pack away and brings out a lighter. He flicks it, eyes on me as the flame catches on the end. Grudge sucks the poisoned fumes deep inside his lungs, speaking as he exhales. “Want one?” He angles the lit cigarette towards me. “Atomic’s contraptions are enough to drive anyone to smoke,” he says with a wink, as if we’re co-conspirators in his joke.

  I don’t bother with an answer.

  “He does good work,” one of the bikers to the side of me pipes in.

  I turn my head, my eyes narrowing on a tanned face, dark hair and beard. Another goliath. “You think he does good work, then you wear this fucking vest,” I snarl, but the insult is ruined because my voice can’t rise above a whisper.

  His reply is spoken with a smirk. “No thanks. Looks better on you. Knowing that hot body might be splattered across the walls in the blink of an eye, well that’s just a little exciting, don’t you think?”

  Goliath steps behind me, running hands down my hips. They curve down and around, over the cheeks of my ass, squeezing. I tense. “Doesn’t it make you feel more …” his mouth touches my ear, “… alive?”

  I hiss. “Don’t touch me.”

  Grudge frowns, sucking on his cigarette. “Not really in a position to be giving orders, are you, little Valentine bitch?”

  I lift my chin, my eyes on the Viper president as the man behind me runs one of his hands back over my hip and moves down, cupping me between my legs, rubbing. “Maybe not, but if this vest explodes, you can be damn sure I’ll be taking all of you with me.”

  His nostrils flare, and he drops his half-finished cigarette, grinding it beneath his boot, crushing ash and tobacco in with the streaked blood on the floor. Then he jerks his head to the left. Goliath removes his hands and steps away, and when a phone rings from somewhere on his person, he tugs it free and answers, leaving the room.

  “Let’s get down to business then, yeah?”

  “Yes,” I say with thinly veiled sarcasm. “Let’s.”

  “Now, we got a meetin’ with the Valentine’s at nine this mornin’. Seems to me that snatchin’ you up was a good way of gettin’ their attention. They don’t know where it is yet, but we’ll get to that. Give ‘em just enough room to get here without time to plan any tricks. I’m pretty sure we got enough Vipers here to ensure they meet our demands, and if not,” his eyes flick down, “that vest’ll make sure they do. Then you won’t have to die today.”

  “What demands?”

  “Just the one really. Stay the fuck outta our way. Easy, right?”

  “They’ll never agree to that. Even if it’s not the Valentine’s, you’ll always have cops on your ass, waiting for the moment to bring you down.”

  “Cops can be bought.” His eyes flatten. “The Valentines can’t.”

  “So you know they’ll never agree.”

  “Oh no, they’ll agree to our demands. They’ll give us whatever pretty words they have to in order to get you back, but that’s all they’ll be.” He cocks his head, studying me. “Pretty, worthless words.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Grudge. You’re going to kill them.”

  He shrugs, but I see pleasure flash across his face as if he likes that I figured it out. “Now I wouldn’t do that, but if it happened by happy accident, then I wouldn’t complain, would I?”

  Dear God, he actually does plan to kill them all. He plans to wipe the earth of the Valentines and then continue on his merry way as if it never happened.

  The biker president is either incredibly stupid, or completely unhinged. Considering I’m standing here wrapped up in explosives, I’m going with both.

  Grudge is opening his mouth, likely to offer something equally as insane, when his lackey steps back in the room. The badge on his cut shows the biker’s name as Rider, but I’m sticking with Goliath.

  “Grudge, we got a problem,” he says, and the words are an absolute delight.

  Hell yes.

  I like the idea of the Vipers having a problem. I’m so down with that. Their problem could only mean something good for me, right? I offer up a smirk, which is wasted by Grudge ignoring me. He lifts his brows at Goliath, prompting him to continue.

  “The Valentines have been spotted.”

  Wrong. Fuck this problem. I don’t like it. I figured there would be a plan, but the kind that doesn’t involve just driving on up and asking these bastards to hand me over like a cheeseburger at a McDonalds drive-through. I was praying for a stealth attack. In and out before the Vipers could blink. That they’ve been spotted means they’re not trying to hide themselves. What the hell is with that?

  Grudge leans his hips against the table behind him and lights another cigarette, appearing nonchalant, but already I can read past the expression. His eyes are glittering as he exhales smoke. “How far out?”

  “Ten minutes, maybe a bit more.”

  The biker president growls. “They got ten minutes out before you fuckers noticed?”

  “Seems so,” Goliath mutters.

  Three sets of eyes come to me.

  “Get the bitch cuffed,” Grudge orders. “Put her in the back room.” His eyes move to Atomic. “You come with me.”

  They stalk off, talking, taking the device to the vest with them. With a shaky breath, my eyes come back to Goliath. He grins and steps in front of me. Reaching behind him, he plucks a set of metal cuffs free. My heart pounds. If he gets those on me, the chances of me getting my hands on that remote get considerably harder.

  I stumble as he seizes my wrist and jerks me closer. He grabs the other wrist, wrenching me forward. I refuse to cry out at the sharp pain. Instead I mash my lips together, and actually start wondering if all my affairs are in order. Does Jared know where I keep all the family albums? Did I tell him about that necklace in my jewellery box? I can’t remember. It belonged to my mother. It’s not expensive, but also not cheap, and I planned to give it to my daughter if I had one, but maybe Wolf could have it for his future wife? The thought of not seeing my son grow up, to never see him as a man, steals my breath.

  It’s enough to renew my struggles but the biker is freakishly strong. It’s like fighting against a silverback gorilla on steroids. “You on the ‘roids?” I taunt as a cuff clips around my right wrist. I wrench my left arm back. “Bet you are. You should get off that stuff. Don’t you know it’ll make your tiny dick even smaller? And give you itty bitty balls. You got itty bitty balls, Goliath?”

  “Are you askin’ to see my junk, bitch?” He grins and clips the left cuff on, effectively shackling my hands in front of me. “Cause I won’t just get it out, I’ll fuckin’ use it on ya.”

  He grabs me by the cuffs and starts pulling me down the hall. I pull back, putting us in a tug-of-war. My feet dig in, sliding further toward the back of the house as he drags me. “Wait.”
<
br />   But he doesn’t listen, so I do something I’ve never done before. I beg for my life. “Please.” I even use his actual name. “Rider, please.” Tears clog my throat. “Please let me go.”

  “Can’t do that. Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all.

  “Do you have an old lady, Rider?”

  He sneers at me over his shoulder. “Bitch, whatever you say, it ain’t gonna work. I don’t have a heart, you see?”

  We’re following the smeared trail of blood on the floor and I try not to think about who it belongs to. “What about a child? Would you stand by and watch a child die?”

  “You ain’t no child.”

  He shoves me, propelling me into the same room I woke up in earlier this morning. I stumble and turn, panic bubbling up inside me like molten lava. “Rider, wait!” I call out, running for the door as he starts to close it on me. “I’m pregnant. Don’t let them kill my child!”

  He doesn’t blink an eye, but he snorts. “Yeah, right. I’d say nice try but like I said, I ain’t got no heart.”

  The door slams shut and I hear a lock turn. I bang against the solid timber with the back of my cuffed fists, sobbing, “Rider, please!”

  But it’s really true. He has no heart. I’m not surprised. Not even a little bit.

  A voice penetrates over the yelling and banging. A pained raspy voice.

  “You’re … pregnant?”

  I know that voice. I suck in a breath and turn. Renny is on the ground. On his back. The smeared trail of blood ends at his feet.

  “Evie?”

  Oh my god. I race over, dropping to my knees. “Renny?” My hands shake as they hover over him, not sure what to do. “You’re alive?” I go for his pulse. It takes two attempts because my cuffed wrists make it awkward but it’s there, and it’s faint.

  Renny turns his head in my direction and his eyes blink open just a fraction. “Fuck,” he mutters and his eyes close again. “I’m sorry. Baby, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.” A tear leaks out and slides down his temple, into his hair. “They told me to take you and I did because I thought it better me than some other Viper. Thought you’d be safe here. But I didn’t know they knew … about me. Got cocky,” he whispers. “I wanted you outta the ... outta the … way. Wanted you … safe.”