by Evelyn Glass
***
“What have you got?” Dolch ask twenty minutes later as he and Whiteshirt settled into chairs at the table, a beer in front of them.
Peyton decided to open with what was most important to her. “I found Melissa. She’s in the Arabian Motel, on Lorain. We need to get her, as soon as possible, before they can move her.”
“We’ll get to that,” Ironside said. “Tell us about the hit.”
“What hit?” Whiteside asked.
“The cartel is pushing the Saracens to deal with you. Worse, they know the home addresses of the officers, maybe others, too.”
“Fuck! Are you sure?” Whiteshirt asked.
“Sure? No. I’m not sure about any of this. I only heard about it through the grapevine.”
“How did they find out?”
“How should I know? I didn’t tell them, if that’s what you’re implying. I don’t even know where you or Dolch live.”
“Deal with us how?” Dolch asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was trying to find out when I got burned.”
“Andrew knows she’s our mole,” Ironside said softly. “That’s how she got the busted up face.”
“How did they make you tell?” Dolch asked.
“They didn’t. Someone tipped him.”
“Are you sure?” Dolch asked.
“Positive. I’d been putting him off, telling him I was on the rag, and he was playing grab ass and hassling me about fucking in the shower, and I was playing along. He left for a meeting, then three hours later, he comes back from his meeting, kicked in the bathroom door, and started trying to beat the shit out of me, demanding to know what I told you. So, yeah, I’m sure.”
“You don’t know how the hit is coming? When? Where? Anything?” Whiteshirt asked.
“No. I was trying to find out.”
“How long have you known this?”
She shrugged. “A couple of days.”
“Two days, and you haven’t bothered to tell us?” Whiteshirt asked.
She shrugged again. “Now I’m telling you. Has it done you any good?”
“The information isn’t worth shit without at least a time and place,” Whiteshirt growled.
“Which is why I didn’t say anything until I could find out more. I can’t exactly walk up to Andrew and ask him about it, you know. ‘Hey, Andrew! I hear you’re planning on ass-fucking the Knights! Can you drop them a line and give them all the details? Thanks, Stud!’” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“This is worthless!” Whiteshirt snarled.
“We know something is in the works,” Ironside said, annoyed with Whiteshirt’s attitude. “We’ll have girls keep their ears to the ground, see if we pick up any rumbles. Knowing it’s coming might allow us to see something we’d otherwise over look.”
“Not very fucking likely,” Whiteshirt muttered.
Ironside ignored him. “Dolch, what can we do to spring Melissa?”
“You’re not serious!” Whiteshirt cried. “She comes in here, drops this bombshell about the hit but with no details. This could be a trap to get all of us to ride into Saracens territory where they can take us out in one shot.”
“Fuck you, Whiteshirt, you asshole!” Peyton shouted. “We had a deal! I’ve done my part! Now you have to step up and do yours!”
“Whiteshirt’s right. We need to be damn careful. Not because I think you’re selling us out,” Dolch added quickly as Peyton began to flair, “but if they know we’re coming for her, they’ll be waiting. Remember Canfield? If we’re going to pull her out, we need to move, now, before they can get organized or move her. Do they know we’re coming for her?”
“I never said anything to suggest that. When I started busting on Jeanette I knew I wouldn’t be back, so after I found out where Melissa was, I started trying to find out anything else about the hit. She’s Pogo’s old lady and I thought she might know something. Maybe she won’t realize it was about Melissa and think it was about the hit. Maybe.”
“Too risky,” Whiteshirt said, shaking his head. “We need to see what the Saracens do before we go charging into there.”
“They could move her!” Peyton cried.
“One woman versus how many Knights?”
“You fuck!” Peyton shouted.
“What do you recommend, Dolch?” Ironside asked.
Dolch thought a moment. “Ten men with suppressed pistols. Go in fast and hard. Do you know which room she’s in?”
“No.”
“We’ll take all the women,” Ironside said.
“Are you shitting me?” Whiteshirt asked loudly. “Why would you do that?” he continued more quietly.
“To fuck the Saracens. I don’t know how many girls they run, but if we were to lose eight or ten girls, we would see that in our bottom line. How soon can we be ready to do this?”
Dolch stared into space a moment. “An hour.”
“Let’s make it happen.”
“You’re both crazy! Leave me out of it!” Whiteshirt snapped.
“You got it,” Ironside growled. When this was over, he and Whiteshirt were going to have a come to Jesus meeting.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ironside handed his holdout Glock 43 through the driver’s window of the van. The Knights were preparing to make their move and were in a parking lot two blocks from the motel. “You know how to use this?”
Peyton took the weapon, looked at it a moment, then handed it back. “No. If I need that, we’re already fucked.”
He grinned and tucked the weapon back into his ankle holster. “We’ll call you as soon as we have the building locked down. Get your ass in there as fast as you can and get the side door open. We’re all leaving in the van, so pack the girls in tight to make room for us.”
Peyton nodded. She was driving the van; the Knights were going to haul out as many girls as they found, and she had been silently praying the entire drive that one of them would be Melissa. He reached through the window and gave her hand a squeeze. The mission had been thrown together at the last moment with the simple plan of going in fast and killing anyone who looked like a threat.
Ironside stepped back from the van and the eleven men sauntered down the street in three groups, their patches covered in black tape, as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
***
“What a shithole!” Dolch muttered as the men sauntered into the parking lot of the Arabian Motel.
“It’s not the Four Seasons, that’s for sure,” Ironside agreed.
The Arabian Motel was a seedy, two-story motel that appeared to have been built in the fifties, and not renovated or repaired since. The once bright red doors were faded, along with the rest of the rain-stained paint.
“You take two, I’ll do one,” Dolch said as the men broke into two teams, then divided again, starting at opposite ends of the motel and working toward the center so anyone running would have no place to go.
The Knights fanned out, five on each floor, with one moving to the manager’s office. Each man stopped at a door and waited. The moment he heard the first door being kicked in, Ironside drew back and kicked hard at the door. The old, tired wood gave way easily and he burst into an empty room.
He hurried past his men as they burst into rooms to the shouts of men and screams of women. He stopped at the next room in line and kicked in the door. Inside a man was on his back in the bed with a woman on his chest, his cock inside her pussy. Crouching behind her was another man, his cock in her ass, while a third man stood at the side of the bed, his cock in her mouth.
“Everyone out!” Ironside ordered, his gun leveled at the tangled bodies.
“Hey, man! We paid for two hours with this bitch!”
“Out!” Ironside snarled, drawing a bead on the head of the man that spoke. The men began to scramble. “Are you Melissa Booker?”
The woman, her eyes empty, shook her head. “If you want to get out of here, go to the courtyard and wait. Now!”
> “Don’t shoot us, man!” of the men spoke. “We didn’t know she was your bitch!”
“Shut the fuck up and get out of here! You have ten seconds!”
The men bolted from the room, joining other men running naked down the steps and into the courtyard. There were already three women forming a cluster, another woman running to join them.
“Thank you,” the woman whispered as she squeezed past and hurried down the walk to join the other woman.
Ironside pulled his phone and punched dial. “Get here! Now!”
He moved down the line, a woman running out of a room and bouncing off him with a shriek of surprise then cowering. “Run! Hurry!” he said, giving her a shove to start her moving again. He stopped at the next unopened door, kicked it in, saw it was empty and moved to the next. He kicked it in.
“One more step and I’ll kill her!” the naked man snarled, his Sig Saur 9mm under the woman’s jaw.
Ironside quickly surveyed the room, noticing the Saracens’ colors draped over a chair. “Go ahead, she means nothing to me,” he growled, his weapon never wavering.
“I don’t know who you are, but you’ve made a big mistake coming in here. You’re going to let me walk out of here or she dies.”
“Whether she dies or not, you’re a dead man. You’re not leaving this room except in a bag.”
“Fuck you! Then I might as well kill her and take my chances!”
“Go ahead.”
The woman stared at him with wide eyes and he could read intent, but he didn’t know what she was going to do, until she twisted hard to the side. The man’s weapon roared, followed an instant later by the loud pop of Ironside’s suppressed Glock. The man and woman tumbled to the floor together.
“Fuck!” he snarled, grimacing at the woman’s ruined skull and sightless eyes. The man moved with a groan, and Ironside pumped two more shots into the man as Hammer skidded to a stop in the door.
“You okay?” Hammer asked, starting at the carnage.
“Yeah. He had a gun.”
“We’ve cleared the motel! We need to go. That gunshot is going to bring the cops!”
Ironside nodded and turned his back on the mess. “How many?”
“Don’t know. About twenty looks like. We’re whole. Skin killed one, so that’s at least two Saracens dead.”
The two men pounded down the steps as Peyton was shoving the last of the women in the van, the Knights piling in behind. It was going to be a tight squeeze in the van with thirty people packed in back there.
Jinx wedged himself in, the men and woman piled on top of each other as Ironside slid the door shut. By virtue of his size, and his rank, he got to ride up front with Peyton. Peyton threw herself behind the wheel and yanked the gear selector into drive and matted the throttle. The van roared, groaning under three times the weight it was designed to handle. Peyton bounded out of the parking lot, the van healing over as the suspension bottomed hard.
“Take it easy!” Ironside murmured, but Peyton didn’t lift, the van straining for speed.
She stood on the brakes when they reached the parking lot where their bikes were waiting, some of the women in the back crying out in pain or fear as the van ground to a stop. The moment the van stopped, Ironside jumped out and opened the sliding door. The Knights began to pile out like clowns out of a car, some of the woman moving to follow.
“Stay in the van! We’re taking you someplace safe!” he yelled, pushing women back in. Most complied, but one escaped his grasp and began running down the street. He watched a moment then decided she was on her own. He slammed the door shut and banged on the side of the van with his hand. “Go!”
He watched the van surge away a moment then turned and mounted up, thumbing his ride to life.
***
Peyton drove on the edge of control, running red lights and speeding past slower moving cars, until she crossed north of I-90. She wiped at her face, trying to clear her eyes as she gasped, struggling to hold it together. Melissa was the fourth woman she’d shoved into the van, but she wasn’t the Melissa she knew. The Melissa she knew was a gorgeous, vibrant, quick to laugh, fun-loving woman. This Melissa had lost weight and her beauty was gone. Worse than that, she was broken, her eyes empty, and as she shoved her into the van, the way she looked at her reminded her of pictures she’d seen of concentration camp survivors.
She blubbered once as the Kings rode up, flanking the van. They were safe now, but she couldn’t stop her tears. This was all her fault. She was the one who wanted to join the hard-drinking, hard-fucking, hard-partying lifestyle. She was the one who talked her friend into going to the party. She was the one who wanted to stay in the Saracens clubhouse after the men were done fucking them. When Andrew picked her out for special treatment, fucking her like she’d never been fucked before, she had ignored Melissa’s warnings, the pleas to leave while they still could.
Peyton wiped her eyes again. She had to be strong. She would take Melissa and they would get away from Cleveland and the Saracens. Ironside had promised to get them out of town, and she believed him. She didn’t know how, but she would do whatever it took to make this right, to repair the broken shell of her friend and return her to the fun, vivacious, woman she once was. And after that? After that, it would be her life’s ambition to find and kill that fucking Andrew Moore.
She turned into the Teutonic Knights’ compound, waiting while the gate rolled open, an anger and hate unlike she’d experienced before burning inside her. The Saracens would pay for what they’d done; she would see to that, or die trying.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Peyton stepped out of the van as Ironside and the rest of the Knights backed their bikes into parking spot. As the rest of the members stepped out of the clubhouse, the rescue crew began to pull the women out of the van. Most were dressed, a few were naked, but all had a haunted look.
“Jesus,” Jammer muttered, pulling one of the women aside. “Look at their arms.”
Peyton waited and watched as the Knights continued to pull women out of the van. Melissa would be one of the last out of the van, and when she finally appeared, Peyton shoved her way forward and pulled her into a hug. “I’m so sorry!” she sobbed.
Melissa pulled out of her grasp and looked at her, her face devoid of emotion. Ironside took Melissa by the arm and pulled her out of the way then turned her arms over to look inside. “Fuck…” he breathed. The inside of her arms were badly bruised and covered in tracks. “Did she use drugs before?” he asked.
“No! Neither of us did!” Peyton cried then began to sob into her hands. “This is all my fault!”
Ironside turned Melissa’s face one way then the other. He could tell she was probably lovely, once, but the drugs had started taking their toll already. “What did they give you?”
Melissa looked at him a moment. “Heroin,” she said softly. “I tried to fight them, but there were too many of them and I couldn’t stop them.” She began to sob. “They raped me, and forced me to take drugs, over and over again, until I stopped fighting. Then they sold me to men.”
Ironside looked to Peyton. She stood there, tears running down her cheeks, her face twisted in anguish. “Get them inside, find them some clothes, and get them something to eat and drink if they want it,” he ordered. “Go with them. Find out what we can do to help them.”
Peyton sniffed, trying to gather herself. “What are you going to do with them?”
He grimaced and shook his head. “Fuck if I know.”
***
“Are you fucking crazy?” Whiteshirt raged. “Twenty-two whores strung out on drugs! How the fuck are we supposed to deal with that?”
“What would you have me to, leave them?” Ironside roared in return.
“You were going to rescued one girl, and you come back with twenty-two!”
“I wasn’t leaving them!”
“Are you a fucking boy-scout now? Anyone of these bitches will sell their mother for another hit! I worried about a mole before? Now
there are twenty-two of them here! Can’t you see that?”
“They’re only staying long enough until we can find someplace to put them.”
“And how long is that going to take? Ironside, Bjorn, these are women who need rehab. There probably isn’t a clinic in town that can take that many at once! How long before they can accept them all?” Whiteshirt sighed. “Look, I understand what you’re doing. I don’t like what the Saracens did to those poor women any more than you do. And yes, we’re fucking them pretty good by taking that much ass off the street. That’s probably going to cost forty to fifty grand a day. But at what cost? What if a few of them go back the Saracens?”
