Devil's Advocate: Vlad (The Bedlam Horde MC Book 1)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  I can’t let myself think on that. He wants me, he wants me. He doesn’t, he doesn’t. That’s on him. We made a connection, but it doesn’t mean he wants to take on all my mess. Though, no matter what, I know he’ll help Greer and I get to safety, even if it’s out of obligation rather than care.

  The rest I’ll work through. As long as Greer and I get safe. We need a new plan. The last I heard, men still searched for my girls, the ones who were taken in Texas. All this shit with Rage pulling my attention from where it needs to be. Who raided our safehouse? Who killed two of my girls and stole the rest? How had they known my name?

  No rest for the weary and no lie, I’m bone-deep weary. Once this bullshit with Rage gets sorted, Greer and I are still so far from safe.

  Will we be found again?

  Kingsport is over the line right on the Tennessee side of the border. I have no money. No place to stay. No place to go. Shit—I should go to the cops. I should, but just because they’re cops doesn’t mean they can be trusted. It doesn’t mean they can’t, either, a niggling voice in the back of my head tries to remind me.

  God, I don’t know what to do. I’m Nicola. I always figure something out, it’s what I do. But right now, running on empty, my mind becomes this void of nothingness. No. Not good enough. I find the answers. It’s my role, I figure things out. Dammit, I’m going to figure something out.

  Kingsport is pretty, at least in the evening. I roll past a Panera Bread and feel an immediate sense of civilization that I didn’t know I needed to feel until it came on me. Cars, people, stores open to welcome those people. And it seems, for her part, the universe has decided to help a sister out. While stopped at my first red light since arriving in this city, I turn my head to the left and right to take in more of my surroundings when I catch sight of two police officers heading for a cruiser parked in front of a coffee shop near a strip mall. To trust or not to trust? That’s definitely the question. A burning question I don’t have much time to ponder because the light turns green. Despite the unease settling in my guy, I grip the steering wheel tighter and take in a heavy breath, then I click the right blinker and turn into the lot.

  Whoa. That unease transforms itself into something much worse. In a matter of seconds, it becomes this tight, painful knot, growing tighter and more painful the closer I roll toward the cruiser. Suspicion colors the faces of each of the uniformed officers carrying steaming to-go cups.

  The car stops, partially blocking in the cruiser and I throw the shifter into park. One of the officers sets his cup on the roof of the car and walks over to my window, which I quickly roll down.

  He sucks in a sharp breath at the sight of me.

  “Ma’am,” the second officer says, getting close to the first.

  “I need to report a crime, but I’m not from here.” And then like an idiot, completely pissing me off, I burst into tears.

  19

  Vlad

  “Where… the fuck… is she?” I shout, bringing my fist down on his face over and over. The sound of an angry fist hitting flesh is a sound not many who’ve experienced it ever forget. The corner of my lip tips up more with every sickening thud. Blood spatter mixed with my sweat and spittle droplets hit my arms, chest, and face, hovering between us in the air. If he doesn’t start telling me what I need to know, I swear to god, I’ll deliver myself to the gates of hell, but I’ll do it with him in tow. “Where… is… Nicola?”

  Sarge and the Lords surround us. We traced the last photo to a rural area outside Pikeville and waited. It wasn’t long before this fucker showed his face. He’s not Horde, but I’ve met him before. His brother is one of Rage’s performing circus monkeys, not thinking for himself but doing whatever Rage asks him to do for whatever little scraps Rage tosses him.

  I raise my arm for another strike when Sarge stays my hand. “Brother,” he says. “Look at him. Don’t think he can take another blow. You kill him, we don’t find Rage.”

  “Goddammit,” I grumble.

  The man makes sickening gurgling noises as he sucks in breath.

  “You ready to die?” Sarge asks him. “Your brother or Rage giving you something worth dying for? Something you’ll never get to enjoy because you’ll be… dead.” He stretches the last word out to cultivate enough of a sense of fear. The asshole’s eyes go huge as the reality of the situation finally sinks in.

  “You won’t kill me?” he asks muffled because his mouth is too swollen to speak any differently.

  “Not if you tell us what we need to know. Fair warning, you think to bullshit us and something happens to his woman”—Sarge points to me—“we’ll hunt you down and you know we will. Once we have you, you’ll hurt in ways unimaginable to weak-minded fucks like yourself until you’re begging for us to put you out of your misery. But we don’t show mercy for those who go against us, so the moment you beg for death, we bring on a level of pain and insanity the likes, trust me, you can’t fathom.”

  Sarge isn’t bullshitting.

  This guy is smart enough to realize Sarge isn’t bullshitting, either. Self-preservation overrides whatever shit Rage or his brother used to rope him in to taking Nic.

  “There’s a building. Like, a block building,” the man starts, then stops to swallow down a mix of blood and saliva. He winces. His pathetic moans carry around the room. His breathing comes labored, but the fear I read in his eyes must be the force driving him to continue. And what he says is exactly what we need to hear. “Belonged to my neighbor’s uncle,” the man manages to finish.

  “Where’s the uncle?” I grumble.

  “Prison first, now dead. They got him inside.”

  “And why’s that?” I ask next, fisting a handful of his bloody shirt, shaking him.

  “His choice of sex partners.”

  Fuck. I close my eyes, forced to take in a calming breath. I know his meaning.

  “I guess… he’d take them to this property… I went there once with my neighbor. The property… went to him after his uncle bought it. He needed to check it out… see if it was worth keeping.”

  “Where is it?”

  The asshole sings for us like a canary. We tie him up before leaving to keep him from warning Rage of our impending arrival and ride hard to get to my woman—god, I can only hope that she’s still my woman. But even if she can’t stand the sight of me, at least she’ll be breathing. Please god, let her still be breathing.

  It takes us an hour to reach the property. The twists of the mountain roads and the darkening skies make the trip hazardous.

  When we finally turn down the long drive, I don’t know why, but I know she’s no longer here. Not from fear or anything; it’s simply a niggling feeling I get. If he sent us on a wild goose chase, he’s dead. Fucking dead. But then, that niggling feeling tells me he wasn’t bullshitting us. She was here, but now she’s not. We need to check it out anyway. Every man with me cautiously dismounts, pulling weapons. This place gives me the fucking creeps.

  With no light coming from the building, we can only just make out the shadowed structure before Blood pulls his phone, lighting up the area with the flashlight. Broken-out windows and a missing door. One of the windows is taken up with a giant spider’s web, complete with the giant spider in the corner, and I shudder.

  “I fucking hate spiders,” I whisper to Sarge’s corresponding soft chuckle.

  “What?” I whisper. “Not all of us spent nights in the desert with man-eating sand crabs trying to chew our faces off while we slept.”

  “Man-eating sand crabs?” he asks. “You’re an idiot. Besides, the flies were worse. Those things were relentless.” But in an instant, he goes from laughing to total seriousness, pressing a finger to his lips, because we were about to enter the main room of the building.

  Each man, weapons raised, ready to fire, we silently file in through the doorway two at a time only to find it empty. It’s completely empty with the exception of the thick layer of dirt and animal feces on the floor. A rickety set of steps to the le
ft leads to a second story.

  Hero turns to me, then Blood. He nods, nonverbally telling us what he’s about to do before creeping over to the steps where he makes sure to step only where there’s framing to keep from falling through and from making noise.

  While he does his thing, we search the floor and—dammit, there’s signs of a struggle. The dirt’s disturbed, there’s a broken chair lying scattered in pieces and I see what appears to be dark spots.

  “Flashlight,” I direct Blood. He flashes the beam of light in my direction. “There.” I point to the dark spots, bending down to get a closer look. “Shit. That’s definitely blood.”

  A few minutes pass before Hero joins us again. “All clear upstairs. Nothing’s been disturbed.” He looks to the spot I can’t get out of my mind. “Whatever happened happened here,” he says.

  There are footprints leading in and out, and Nic’s nowhere in sight. My gut feeling confirmed. The problem now is whose blood is on the floor and how did Nic leave the building?

  “Do we search the grounds?” Sneak asks. “It’s dark. I’m not sure how much ground we’ll be able to cover or if we’ll miss something because we can’t see.”

  But what choice do we have? Nic could be out there—alive and injured.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket and I tense wondering if I’m about to open another damn picture of Nic or worse. As it’s not a number I recognize, my stomach pitches when I hit the answer button. “Hello?” I bark into the line.

  “Vlad?” The fucking most beautiful voice in the world softly calls my name.

  “Nic.” When I say her name the room goes wired. I feel it thickening the air. “Baby, where are you—how are you? Are you safe?”

  “I’m safe. I’m in a city called Kingsport.”

  “In Tennessee?” I question.

  “Yeah. This, um, this is a police line. I got away and found the police. My phone’s gone. I didn’t know your number.”

  “How’d you get it now?”

  “I remembered Tommy Doyle and told them to contact him. He’s real busy. Vlad, you were attacked, are you okay?”

  Shit. She escaped a madman and she’s worried about me? “I’m fine, baby. Listen. You can explain the rest when I get there.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do not leave the police station. Not even with a police escort. Stay put, understand?”

  “Yes. I’m here. I’m waiting. Please come get me.”

  “On my way. Hanging up now. My battery’s low. Damn, woman, you don’t know how good it is to hear your voice.”

  “Get here,” she repeats.

  I whisper, “Baby.” Then I hang up. It guts me to do it but I need to conserve the battery in case of an emergency, like a run-in with more out-of-state Horde chapters.

  The brothers have gathered close. I look to each of them. “She got away. Somehow ended up in Kingsport, on the border. She’s with the KPD.”

  “As much as it shits me,” Sarge says, “we aren’t gonna find Rage in the dark. Let’s go get your woman and resume the search tomorrow.”

  Right.

  We all agree to pick up the search in the morning, though, depending on the state of my woman, I may not be with them. And then, we ride. The warm night air feels refreshing against my face, or maybe it’s just because I feel lighter than I have since she went missing.

  There’s another hour’s drive between the property and the area where the forest opens up to clear, rolling green hills with lights to illuminate the onramp for the highway. Reflectors on the signs. Civilization.

  Once I hit the highway, I gun the engine. Nic’s so close and yet still so far away. I need her. I need to hold her in my arms to know she’s really okay.

  I signal to my brothers that I’m pulling over as we hit the outskirts of the city and stop along the shoulder of the road to bring up the GPS on my phone, then I type in Kingsport Police Department. I lock in the directions, hit go, and merge back into traffic, the white van in tow.

  A few stoplights and turns later, we roll to a couple of empty spots on Market Street and cut our engines. After locking my weapon in the saddlebag, I jog up to the double doors leading inside. All normal procedures met, I move through the waiting area searching for Nic’s beautiful, soft hair or her gorgeous eyes, but I don’t see her anywhere. Frustrated, I drop my hands to my hips, frowning at the possibility that she didn’t listen to me and left. Or what if they kicked her out?

  That’s when I hear it. “Vlad?”

  When I turn to seek out her voice, I get an eyeful of Nic running down the hallway. Behind her, there’s a sign screwed in place, jutting off the wall, that reads, Women’s Restroom.

  I let loose a breath and wait with my arms outstretched. She leaps into them, slamming her small body against mine, immediately wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. I hold her back, taking all her weight, not that there’s much of it, reveling in the fact that I’ve got Nic back in my fucking arms, her head on my shoulder. Exactly where she belongs.

  “I was so worried,” I whisper and she pushes back to look me in the eyes where I can’t help but to zero in on the scabbed-over gash on her face. Her face is more black and blue than flesh toned and half of it’s swollen to almost unrecognizable. Despite her injuries, she remains the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.

  Still, I have to know if she’s hurt anywhere else. She makes this sad little whimper when I push back slightly to check the rest of her for visible damage, not finding any others…yet. She’s dirty and I pick up a bitter scent mixed with bathroom hand soap. She must have washed her face and other exposed skin. She didn’t have to clean up here for me. Just having her back in my arms alive is enough. But I have to know and so it’s time to ask the big questions. “Baby, you leaping on me like a spider monkey, I’m guessing not, but I need to know, did anyone—”

  She shuts down that question by kissing me. Planting those usually soft, now chapped lips square on mine, taking it all from me. My breath. My heart.

  We stand in the middle of the waiting area making out like a couple of teenagers in heat, with people moving around us and I don’t have two fucks to give. Eventually, when we’re forced to pull apart by enough throats clearing, our chests heaving in synchronization, I capture her eyes with my stare.

  “Talk to me, Nic. Was that because he didn’t get that far or because you’re trying to distract me so you don’t have to think about it?”

  She shakes her head. “He tried, but I stopped him.”

  “How’d you stop him?”

  “Can we leave now? I’ll tell you everything, but I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I stink worse than skunk spray.”

  “Blood, Hero, Sneak, and Sarge are waiting outside. Oh, and a young brother named Boetcher that I don’t think you’ve met yet. We’ve been on the hunt for you. Baby, you got to know we had men on your trail since you went missing. The six of us took care of Rage’s accomplices along the way.”

  “Took care of them?” she asks.

  “Trust me. You don’t want to know the details.”

  She scoffs. “Are they dead? Because I’m fine with that. I should’ve killed Rage myself.”

  I move my hand to cover her mouth. “Not here. We’re in a police station.”

  She laughs. “Oh, yeah,” she says, though it comes out muffled.

  Still holding her, because I can’t get myself to put her down, we leave the station behind.

  The brothers swarm us and I only relinquish Nic because these men put themselves out there searching for her. They get to know she’s okay.

  Blood moves in to hug her first and holds on for longer than I’m comfortable with having another man touch her. If he didn’t have a woman at home he’s completely head over heels for, I’d punch him for the length of time he holds her. Hero pushes the man out of the way to get in, hugging her too. Longer, but totally brotherly. These two brothers know all too well the fear and subsequent relief of having a woman they love kidnapped b
y a psychopath then getting her back alive. Sneak goes next. And lastly Sarge gets his time with Nic.

  Boetcher offers a half-hug, gentle pat on the back without getting too close to her. “Glad you’re safe. Sorry we had to meet under these circumstances,” he whispers. Then before pulling away he remembers to introduce himself. “Oh, by the way, I’m Boetcher, and just like the other brothers, you ever need to call on me for anything, don’t hesitate.” He looks to me out of respect, to make sure he’s not stepping on another brother’s toes and I tip my chin up, giving him the okay. Boetcher’s a good man.

  None of them says a word about her face. All of their women have been injured from shit. They know the deal, and the men without a better half sleeping in their beds simply know better than to make her feel uncomfortable.

  “Rage knows the cabin, so we’re not going back tonight. I need to grab her a change of clothing and some food first. But with what happened at the clubhouse—”

  “Good call,” Sarge cuts in.

  “We’re staying here tonight. I’ll get us a hotel,” I finish my thought so they’re all made aware of my plans.

  “We saw a Walmart,” Blood says. “It’s not ideal, but I can run in and grab her a few things while you all wait in the parking lot.”

  “What the fuck?” I bark.

  “Don’t, Vlad. Check the attitude,” he argues. “We don’t care what she looks like, but I was thinking she might care. That and it’s more of a chance for her to be seen possibly by someone we don’t want seeing her.”

  “Yeah, all right. But I want the receipt to pay you back. She’s my woman, don’t argue.” He knows. Some other man taking care of Hannah, it wouldn’t happen. Not for any reason.

  “Hi.” Nic starts waving at us. What the hell? “I’m Nicola,” she says, bizarrely.

  “Baby?” I wrap an arm around her waist to draw her back against my body while she continues her stare down with the other men.