by Kay Maree
“We have to go scout out some scumbags.” I nodded to the garage where we kept our bikes.
“What kind of scouting?” Jay asked as we made our way through the doors. He looked at the wall and raised an eyebrow at the guns on the wall.
“Grab one just in case, but the Prez says we are only to look. We don’t want to start a war with these guys, yet.”
“Who are they?” Mike asked with a raised brow. I knew what he was thinking. If the Prez didn’t want to fuck with these guys then they were some bad dudes, and he was right. The Devils were ruthless, evil sons of bitches, some of the worst in the US. but I could be just as ruthless when it came to those who hurt women and children.
“The Devils, and they have been abducting girls in our territory.” Both men growled just before starting up their bikes. Good. We were all on the same page. We were gonna get these fuckers. Maybe not tonight but we wouldn’t let them hurt innocent girls. The Devils’ days were numbered.
CHAPTER TWO
Nadia
I had no idea why I let that fucking biker get close to me. I knew it was a mistake but honestly, I had never done anything spontaneous in my life. He was cute and life got lonely on the run, so I allowed him to buy me a couple drinks. How could I be so stupid? After everything my father had drilled into my head from a young age about men and how evil they were, I should have known better, but I was tired of being the protected princess. I wanted to do my own thing. See the world and have an actual life. I started to think running away had been my stupidest move yet.
I clanked the chains against the wall for the hundredth time, but it was no use. The chains were tight against my wrists and ankles, and I had no idea where I was. It looked like a garage or a shed of some sort but I couldn’t be sure. There was a groan from my right and for the first time I realized I wasn’t alone. There was another girl in here with me, but it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. If it was a garage, there were no windows; or it was the middle of the night.
I shuddered. I hated the dark.
“Hello? Is someone there?” I called quietly.
“Shhhh, if they hear you, we will get beaten again,” a girl shushed me from the other side of the room. I hadn’t been here long, and it looked like I was in a lot more trouble than I had ever bargained for.
Boots stomping over what sounded like gravel had all the girls scurrying to huddle against the walls. Just before the man on the other side opened the door, a light turned on blinding me. When my eyes finally adjusted, my mouth fell open in shock. There were at least fifteen girls on the cold ground along the perimeter of the room wearing nothing but their underwear and chained to the walls same as I was. There were a few blonde haired beauties but many of them had features similar to mine. Dark hair and eyes, but they were all beautiful, and I understood in an instant what was happening. Traffickers.
My father had been working with the Mexican authorities to make it safer for American women to travel to the country and combat the human trafficking that had been happening. As a child I never understood how my father could care so much about the cases he worked. It seemed he cared for them more than he did me. Now, I got it. He was making the world safer for me, and all the girls like me. And, I had walked right into the very thing he had spent his life trying to protect me from. I promised then, if I was able to get myself out of that mess intact I would hug my father tight and tell him how sorry I was I’d run away. He was right; the world was a dangerous place, and there was evil everywhere.
“Hey there, beautiful.” A man with stained teeth and breath that smelled of alcohol crouched in front of me, sliding his hand through my hair. I glared at him and tried to retaliate but my arms and legs were chained. The man laughed heartily. “You’re a spirited one. I wish I was allowed to break you, but someone else has plans for you.” His grin was malicious as he swept me up in a fireman’s hold and another man unhooked my chains from the wall. I struggled against him, but he was much bigger than me and I had no way to defend myself against him with my hands and feet locked in cuffs.
“Watch it, or I will drop you,” he grunted as my knee connected with his gut. I smiled in triumph, but it was short lived as his fist connected with my side. Groaning in pain, I decided I would be good and choose my battles until I found a way to escape. I knew it would only get worse if I didn’t get out of there soon.
“Nadia, so nice to see you,” a man with some kind of motorcycle vest said to me as the Neanderthal carrying me made his way into another building. I didn’t recognize him, but he was looking me up and down like he wanted to devour me. It made my skin crawl.
“Can’t say I feel the same,” I spit the words at him with disdain. The men laughed.
“Oh, you won’t be saying that soon.” He grinned. Upon closer inspection I could see he was very good looking, but I could also see the evil in his eyes. This man was not a good man. He was dark, malicious, and took whatever he wanted, even women it appeared. A shiver went down my spine as I wondered what he could possibly want from me.
“Put her in my room. I’ll show her exactly what her new life is gonna look like.” His stare never left me as he gave his men the order. “That’s what the cartel pays us for, sweetheart. To break in their new whores. You’ll enjoy it… eventually.” I glared at him as he laughed and smacked my ass. There was no way I would ever submit to that sadistic fuck.
CHAPTER THREE
Tank
My anger flared as I watched the idiot manhandle the dark-haired beauty and carry her from the detached garage to the main building. They’d taken over the bar just as we had expected. What we hadn’t known was they had set up in a house way outside of town. If I hadn’t followed one of them, we never would have found the girls they’d been taking. Not like we could do anything about it now. Pops had strict rules. Plus there were too many girls in that garage for us to take on our bikes. Then there was the problem with the girl they had taken into the main house. It was so hard not to beat the guy into a pulp and grab the girl, but if I did, there wasn’t any hope of us saving all the girls.
“C’mon, we have enough to go back to Prez with so hopefully we can figure out a way to get these girls out of there,” I whispered to Jay and Mike. They nodded gravely but they both looked like they wanted to storm the place as much as I did. “Later, we report first, then we will get these bastards.”
I began to make my way through the dense forest back to the main road where we’d left our bikes. My hackles were up. I hated having my hands tied. I kept thinking about those chocolate brown eyes. They were wild as she struggled against the bastard taking her into the house.
We walked back in silence and in a matter of minutes, we were roaring through the streets toward the clubhouse on the other side of town. But I still couldn’t get her out of my mind. My blood boiled with the need to go back and save her, but I was under orders. Scout and report. This was a reconnaissance mission, not a rescue. Not yet.
We pulled our bikes into the garage and I barely let the engine settle before I stomped into the clubhouse. The guys were still partying as I pushed past them into Pop’s office. “We have to go back. Now.” I didn’t ask; I demanded, and the look he gave me told me how close to stepping on his toes I was.
“We can’t. Those assholes are three sheets to the wind.” He gestured in the vicinity of the bar room. “I doubt any of them can stand, let alone operate a moving vehicle. Send a prospect to the place to watch them. I doubt they’ll be moving any of the girls tonight if the pattern holds. We’ll make an extraction plan and be ready by tomorrow night.”
He had a point, but it pissed me off. I wanted to be the lookout but being second in command, I needed to help come up with a way to get those girls out and back to their families. Without alerting the feds to what we were doing. We still participated in plenty of illegal activities and alerting anyone to our presence was not a good idea. I just couldn’t bring myself to leave them to be sold to traffickers.
I knew that was exactly what they were planning.
“Fine,” I said stomping from the office. “Prospect!” I yelled. One of them stumbled away from the club whore he was attached to and I shook my head. His eyes were glassy, and I knew he was too far gone for this. “Not you.”
For a second he looked defeated but then he shrugged and walked away. Miguel walked up and his eyes were clear. Nodding, I pulled him into my office. I wasn’t nearly as ruthless as my old man. I at least had a chair in front of my desk that wouldn’t buckle under the pressure. Miguel looked at me a little scared. I was sure he was worried about getting his patch, but the kid kept his nose clean, so he didn’t have anything to worry about.
“We have another club in the area kidnapping girls. I want you to go out there and keep an eye on them. Let me know if there is any movement. The second it looks like they are even gearing up to move them, I want you to call me. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll report the second I see anything.” He nodded.
“I’m not a drill sergeant, you can call me Tank.” I shook my head at the scared prospect. He nodded before shuffling out of the room. He was relatively new, but from what I had heard he was scrappy and had a dark past. I wasn’t really interested, as long as he followed club rules and wasn’t a fed, I didn’t care either way. “I’ll text you the directions.”
Making my way back to the old man’s office, I thought again about the raven-haired beauty, hoping we would be able to get to her before anything horrible happened. If they were bringing her into the house, it wasn’t looking good for her and I couldn’t explain why it made me so angry. She was just a woman. I had never met her. I didn’t know her, and she didn’t know me. I was going off nothing more than my reaction to the way she fought back and what she looked like, but something in me wanted to protect her. It was stupid as fuck, but something just didn’t feel right.
“Come in, son. Let’s come up with a plan so whatever is bugging you can be taken care of,” the old man chuckled. I flipped him the bird as I leaned up against the wall instead of sitting in his death trap of a chair.
“Let’s do this. We need to get those girls out of there,” I grumbled.
“Or a certain girl in particular?” The old man raised an eyebrow at me.
“Whatever, let’s just figure this out.” He was trying my patience. I needed to take action; not talk about some nameless girl I had no connection to. We needed to figure this out so I could move on to the things that were important.
CHAPTER FOUR
Nadia
Being tied up in a spacious bedroom rather than a dank dark cold garage was just slightly better, or it would have been had I not been scared shitless something terrible was about to happen to me. When it didn’t happen in the first hour, or two or three, I started to breathe a little easier.
A tapping on the nearby window startled me and I nearly screamed before I saw kind eyes looking through the clear panes at me. He put a finger over his lips and shook his head as he pulled the window open and jumped inside. I didn’t recognize him, but he wore a vest similar to the man who had drugged and kidnapped me.
As he hopped inside the window, I noticed how big he was. He towered over my five-foot nine-inch frame. He had his dirty blond hair tied back at the base of his neck. He was gorgeous and I felt a stir of arousal flash through me. Now is not the time, I chastised myself for thinking lustfully while I was restrained from a recent kidnapping.
The man pulled something from his pocket and I flinched away but it was just a key. He started with the chains on my wrists, and when the metal fell away, I sighed in relief. “Shhh.” He glared at me. I shut my mouth quickly and rubbed at my aching wrists. There were red marks on my skin and it looked like hamburger, I was so cut up. They definitely hadn’t been gentle with me. I heard a shout from deeper in the house and the man cursed as he released my ankles.
“I’m gonna get you out of here, do you trust me?” His eyes begged me to say something but I couldn’t, so I nodded. He scooped me up in his arms and took me out the window. We landed with a soft thud, but it wasn’t long before bullets started whizzing past us. He cradled me close with one arm as he pulled a gun out of his waistband and began to return fire.
Another man met us at the tree line just as a shot grazed his arm and he bellowed in pain. He handed me off to the smaller man who smiled warmly at me and a fuzzy memory tried to break through. He was so familiar, but I just couldn’t figure out from where.
The man put me in the car and quickly went around to the driver’s seat before my rescuer slumped in beside me. “To the clubhouse, Tank?” He asked starting the car and skidding away.
“No, I went off the rails on this one. Pop isn’t gonna be happy I disobeyed orders. Take me to my place, then go back but stay out of sight. We need to see if they decide to try to move the other girls and rescue them before they can.” He directed the other man through gritted teeth. He must have been overcome with the pain. From the amount of blood coming through his fingers, I was thinking he was injured worse than I had originally thought.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, trying to get a better look at his arm. His eyes bulged as he looked over at me. I didn’t blame him, my accent was probably thick, and it got thicker when I was upset. I had lived in America for a year for school, but always with bodyguards until I decided to quit and ditched my detail a couple days ago. Just a few days and I had already found myself in a ton of trouble. I sighed as I tried to move his hand, but he flinched away. “I’m just looking at it. You might need stitches.” I rolled my eyes.
“How do you know?” He asked raising a skeptical brow.
“I was going to medical school before…” I trailed off. I didn’t owe him any kind of explanation no matter how much I wanted to tell him everything. Those beautiful hazel eyes bored into mine and all thought fled me.
“Here, boss.” The Hispanic guy who was driving said, looking in the rear-view mirror. His eyes were sad for a beat but then he winked at me and I scrunched my brows down in confusion. Who was he? I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Tank got out of the car and looked at me. He must have just realized something because he pulled his vest and button-down shirt off before grabbing his undershirt and ripping it over his head. He offered the shirt to me.
“It’s cold, and we don’t know who may be looking,” he said warily. “As soon as we get inside, I’ll get you a clean one and see if I can find some shorts or sweats that might fit you.” He rubbed a hand over his neck, his eyes never leaving my bare legs.
I quickly pulled the shirt over my head. It didn’t have any sleeves so the amount of blood on it was at a minimum. I covered myself and stepped shakily out of the car. The man called Tank reached a hand out to steady me but flinched in pain as he did. I shook my head and steadied myself. I had no idea how long I’d been held but my legs were wobbly from disuse.
“Can you… uh…” he looked back at me sheepishly. “The keys are in my pocket.” His face heated as I looked down at the jeans plastered to his huge, muscled thighs. I took a shaky step forward reaching for him and a little groan left his lips that had me cocking an eyebrow. I reached my hand in quickly, maybe a little too quickly and brushed a finger over something huge. I snatched my hand back quickly and hurried with the keys to the front door. A growl behind me had me stopping and turning. His eyes were trained on my ass and I realized my borrowed shirt barely covered me.
“Shouldn’t we get inside before you bleed out?” I asked snarkily. He grunted and stomped forward. He wasn’t much of a talker, that was for sure. Unlocking the door, I opened it and stepped aside so he could go in first. I figured the last thing he wanted was to get the doorknob bloody, even though he obviously didn’t care about the blood all over his body. I shut the door behind me locking it for good measure. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Under the bathroom sink. I can handle it.” He started off down the hallway.
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��You can’t possibly stitch yourself up one handed,” I called after him. He stopped and turned to me huffing out a breath.
“Fine, but the bathroom is small.” I followed him down the hall and into a bedroom. He threw his clothes on the floor next to the bed and made his way to a door on the left. The door opened into a seriously tiny bathroom.
“Sit, I’ll find the first aid kit.” He sat on the toilet seat and I bent to get the kit out of the small vanity cabinet under the sink. I could feel his eyes on me, assessing me. I pulled the kit out and noticed the contents. This man led a rough life if he was prepared for anything. It was like a complete medical kit. It even had a needle and thread inside.
“This is gonna sting.” I grabbed the alcohol and put it on a swab before moving to his injured arm. I swiped at the blood, trying to clean it as much as possible. His other hand came up to my wrist as he hissed in pain. I looked at him sharply and he let go, leaving a bloody handprint behind.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. I shrugged and went back to cleaning the blood off. It had stopped bleeding, which was a good thing and the gash wasn’t as deep as I had thought.
“It looks like we don’t actually need to sew you up. We can put some butterfly stitches on it, and it will heal just fine.” I went to the kit, found what I was looking for and came back. I hadn’t even realized the intimate position I was putting myself in as I stepped between his legs until I felt his thumb brush my thigh. I must have been in shock because I wasn’t reacting to anything the way I normally would. I put the thought away to analyze later and finished patching him up. “I’m gonna put some plastic on this so you can take a shower and wash the blood off.” My eyes were firmly on his arm as I worked to wrap it quickly, when I felt his thumb brush my thigh again.
