Judgment Road (Torpedo Ink #1)

by Christine Feehan

  The elevator doors opened and this time Pierce stayed to the back, allowing Absinthe to step out. Reaper was ready with his gun, as was Keys. The first moment when a guard saw Absinthe was the most dangerous. He went straight to the guard, striding with great authority and confidence. This guard was more resistant to Absinthe and in the end, the Torpedo Ink assassin slit his throat and gently lowered him to the floor.

  Keys hurried out of the elevator. She’s here somewhere. There’s tension on this floor. Fear. I can feel all of it. He didn’t wait for the others, he simply hurried down one side of the floor, his gaze moving from floor to ceiling. He stopped abruptly and pointed down a hallway. She’s there. On the left, third from the last room.

  Reaper moved close to Keys and signaled to Pierce to take the other side. Weapons were drawn. Reaper wished they’d brought Steele with them. He was a good doctor and if the woman was in bad shape, he could fix her up fast enough to get them out of there quickly.

  Guards in both rooms on either side of her and one room across, Keys reported.

  How many?

  Keys paused just to the left of the first room. He held up four fingers and pointed to the first door. He looked at the door across from the woman’s room and held up five fingers. The room on the other side had three men in it. The woman’s room was last. He stared at the door for a long time. He held up two fingers.

  They’re raping her. She’s bleeding. Cut up. She’s fighting though.

  Reaper stood in front of the room with the five men in it. He was going to have to be accurate and fast. They didn’t want to tip off the men holding the woman hostage. Absinthe took the room with three men in it. Keys, the first one with four. Pierce went to stand with Reaper. Reaper indicated he take the left and Pierce go right. Pierce nodded he understood.

  Three. Two. One. Reaper counted off for the others, pointed to Pierce. They went in together, using silencers. Reaper shot three of the five. Pierce shot the other two and managed to get a bullet into one of Reaper’s men before he hit the floor. They heard the sound of bodies falling from the other rooms, then silence.

  “You’re efficient,” Pierce commented. “I’ll give you that.”

  Took out their guards. Going for the woman now, Reaper reported.

  Hurry. Mechanic can’t hold them off forever. Lana. Alena. Be ready, Czar said.

  Reaper didn’t wait. He went through the door, gun out, firing almost before he saw the exact position of each of the two men. He did it instinctively and took the man in front of Sylvia through the back of his head and the man behind her through his left eye. He fired a third and fourth time, taking the one in front through the base of his skull and the second man through his throat. He’d fired all four bullets before either man could recognize they were already dead.

  “Don’t let her scream,” he told Pierce.

  There was so much blood on the woman from the tiny slices the two-man hit team had made in her skin. Same exact MO as the men comin’ to cut up the Mayhem president’s wife. What the hell, Reaper? Did we miss a school somewhere, because what are the odds that these men all use the same method?

  To her credit, Sylvia didn’t scream or make any sound at all. Her gaze jumped to the men and then to Pierce. He wrapped his jacket around her and then lifted her into his arms. She was slippery with blood, but he held on to her. She gasped in pain, and her entire body shuddered.

  “I’m sorry, Sylvie,” Pierce whispered. “We have to go now. Fast. I know it hurts, but we don’t have a choice. We’re taking you home, honey,” he said softly.

  She nodded, buried her face in his shoulder and tried to make herself smaller.

  “She good?” Reaper asked. “We’ve got to move.”

  “She’s good. She’s Plank’s old lady,” Pierce stated firmly, as if by declaring that, it would tell Torpedo Ink she was good to go.

  Have the package, we’re on the move.

  They formed a tight group with Pierce and Sylvia in the center, hurrying toward the elevators. Mechanic had the door opened from his position on the first floor and they all pushed in together.

  We’re in. Lana, Alena, be ready. Reaper all but shoved Pierce toward the back of the elevator, so that they formed a solid wall of protection in front of the pair.

  In position, Lana said.

  In position, Reaper reported.

  The elevator doors opened and both women stepped inside, turned and rolled small devices that had been put together hastily from the contents inside their purses onto the casino floor. They’d already positioned more of the small devices throughout the entire floor as they’d walked through it.

  The elevator doors shut and they were heading down fast to the first floor. They exited the elevator as the first explosion shook the building. Screams came from up above them.

  “Mostly smoke,” Keys assured Pierce. “We go out together. Stay in the middle with her. Steele’s in the van. He’s a doc. He’ll tend to her there.”

  As they made the exit, Lana and Alena peeled off to get their car in the parking garage. Keys went to the right to hop into his car. He was picking up Preacher, who would leave last. Ice, Storm and Czar were in the truck. It was just at the entrance to the parking garage, in position to cover them if something went wrong. Steele was already in the van waiting. Doors open. They leapt in and moved away to give Steele and Pierce privacy to work on Sylvia.

  Transporter was at the wheel and he had the van moving before the doors were all the way shut. The truck fell in behind him. Lana and Alena’s BMW followed behind the truck and Keys took up the rear with Preacher.

  “Nice operation,” Pierce said to Reaper, once Sylvia had been convinced to take the pills Steele had provided. He kept his eye on the Russian doctor, but the man seemed to know what he was doing and handled Sylvia carefully.

  “Not our first,” Reaper said.

  “I noticed. Where did you learn your skills? I’ve got training, but you were practically going in blind. You still hit your marks, kill shots, every fuckin’ one.”

  “You killed the two you had.”

  “I took a little more time,” Pierce said. “Where’d you train?”

  Reaper shrugged. “Russia. We went to the same school.”

  “Must have been a hell of a school. Military?”

  Reaper stayed silent for a long time. Pierce looked at him steadily through the silence, clearly expecting an answer.

  “You could say that.” It said nothing, yet said volumes.

  Pierce got it. He nodded slowly. “All those scars, you get them in that school, or after?”

  “Both.” Now they were getting into territory Reaper didn’t want to discuss. Pierce was Diamondback. Their club was the top club and all the smaller clubs in their territory—and it was very large—deferred to them. Torpedo Ink had been careful to fly under their radar. Men like Plank and Pierce were smart. They saw things. They sized up anyone who might be a potential threat to their club. It would be impossible for a man like Pierce not to see that every member of Torpedo Ink was deadly. Knowing they were trained assassins probably didn’t sit well with the enforcer. His president had gone into the bar with complete confidence that they had the upper hand, when in fact, they were surrounded by men already planning out how to kill them.

  “Alena and Lana train there as well?”

  Reaper turned his gaze fully to Pierce’s. Let him see what was coming at him if the man went after either woman. “Yes.” He kept his tone terse. Ice dripped. He wasn’t alone. The other men in the van turned toward Pierce, and, Diamondback or not, the threat was very real.

  Pierce was a man who would recognize the threat, but he didn’t react. He didn’t look uncomfortable, he just nodded. “They were … extraordinary. At the bar. In the nightclub. I would have liked to have seen them in action in the casino. No one would ever suspect them.”

  Reaper was impressed in spite of himself. Few men outside his circle impressed him. Czar’s brothers—but they’d gone to different tr
aining schools in Russia, suffered at the hands of sadistic instructors—and strangely, Jonas Harrington, the local sheriff, and his deputy, Jackson Deveau. Those men had earned his respect. Pierce joined that elite realm. Because he was beginning to like the man, he warned him off.

  “She’s beautiful, but she’s also a fully patched member. We have two women in our club for a reason, Pierce. Blythe and Anya are under our protection, but that means under Alena and Lana’s protection as well. She’ll never switch to another club. Never. She’s got our colors on her back, the same as all of us. She’s sworn to protect every member and she would never break that vow. Don’t go there.”

  Pierce flashed a grin. Reaper noted it didn’t light those deadly eyes. He shook his head. He’d given the warning. If Pierce chose to ignore it, that was on him. Alena was Torpedo Ink. Pierce was Diamondback. There was no mixing those two. Even if she dated him, she would wear her colors with pride, and sooner or later another the Diamondback would get ugly. She’d kill him, and the war would start.

  The ride home was mostly silent. Sylvia slept and Steele stayed close to her, washing each of the lacerations on her arms and chest and then along her legs and torso. A few he closed with butterfly stitches. A few he glued. He was gentle as only Steele could be. Reaper watched the care on his face. He was very impersonal with the way his hands cared for her, yet the personal was on his face, the flashes of anger as he moved to her lower body.

  “Was she …” Pierce wanted it confirmed, but Sylvia was a friend and he couldn’t say it aloud.

  “Yes, she was raped. She has tearing.” Steele swore softly, his hands still closing cuts. “She needs antibiotics. I can prescribe them. And Plan B, the morning-after pill. She’s a fighter. Her hands are bruised, knuckles torn. She has bruises all over her. They worked her over pretty good. You have good doctors in your club?”

  Pierce stared out the window. “Some. Not close, but we can send for them. Plank may ask you to help out until we can get someone from one of the other chapters.”

  Steele nodded. “I can do that. I’ve had a lot of experience with this …” He broke off and shook his head.

  Reaper felt for the man. He’d been the one to care for all of the girls when they’d come back broken and bloody to their disgusting, germ-ridden dungeon. Too many. Too many times. Over and over. Helping Sylvia had to bring back those nightmare days.

  Pierce glanced at Steele and then his gaze jumped sharply to Reaper’s face. Reaper gave him stone. What they’d all suffered was private. Alena and Lana had a past that belonged only to them, not to anyone else. If they chose to share it, as he’d shared his with Anya, that was their prerogative. He wasn’t about to confirm or deny what Pierce was thinking.

  It moved through Reaper’s mind that someday he might have to kill this man. It was the reason he never got close to anyone. There was always that possibility. He didn’t let himself like Pierce, but he wanted to. The man was solid. He was the kind of man Reaper hoped Alena and Lana would find someday. But not a Diamondback. Neither woman would ever fit into a club where the women had no say, no vote, and came second. Not only would Alena hate that and refuse it, her brothers—Reaper included—would never allow it. They’d fought too hard to keep Alena and Lana alive and give them freedom. Two women out of so many.

  His eyes met Steele’s over Sylvia’s head. They’d seen this hundreds of time. They had experienced it. The pain. The humiliation. The guilt. The horror. Life went on, but the victim wasn’t the same. They would never be the same. They didn’t know Plank. They didn’t know if Sylvia’s husband was a good man, one that would take his time and allow his woman to process in her own way. They had no idea if he would allow her to work things out slowly, to come back to her life and grieve and be angry. To go through the gamut of emotions not once, but over and over.

  “You have someone she can talk to?” Steele asked. “She’ll need someone.”

  Pierce’s expression shut down. “We don’t go outside the club.”

  It wasn’t exactly what Steele asked, but it still said a lot. The men looked at one another and then out the window, memories far too close.

  Plank waited at a house on the outskirts of Ukiah, a town an hour and a half from the coast. The president of the Diamondbacks had an army with him. The van had to go through two checkpoints before they made it to the drive in front of the house. It said something about Plank that he ignored the men guarding him and leapt forward even before the engine had shut off to jerk open the double doors of the van. When he saw his wife, he turned away, a loud groan escaping before he swore violently.

  Pierce jumped out first. “We got her back. The ones who did this are dead, but they have an operation going, Plank. A big one.”

  Plank turned back to his wife, hearing nothing, seeing nothing but her bruised, swollen face. He reached for her. Steele gathered her up and gently placed her in her husband’s arms. Pierce covered her with his suit jacket once again.

  “I’ll want a report,” Plank snapped, his voice thick with emotion. “Who was taking care of her?”

  Steele jumped out of the van and stretched. “I’m a doctor. That would be me.”

  “Come inside with me. And Czar as well.”

  Reaper stepped out of the van. “Czar’s inside, so am I.” He said it to Pierce. It occurred to him that the Diamondbacks’ president might not want others to know his wife had been raped. What better way than to wipe out the Torpedo Ink club. They were small in numbers, and right now, the Diamondbacks had the vehicles surrounded. The vehicles were armed with all sorts of weapons, but the Diamondbacks had no idea of that.

  Pierce glanced back at him, gave him a curt nod and then followed his president into the house. Reaper watched Lana and Alena take up their positions. They were still dressed in their slinky, form-fitting, low-cut dresses and both made a show of moving around their little car, bending to look in the mirror, checking makeup and generally keeping all eyes on them.

  Pierce came back out of the house as Czar and Reaper approached, but his gaze was on the two women. He shook his head. “I see they know exactly what they’re doing.”

  Reaper didn’t react. As far as he was concerned, Pierce was on his own figuring out what Czar’s crew was doing while Plank’s men were watching the Alena and Lana show. He flanked Czar, Savage moving into step beside him. His brother had come out of nowhere. Pierce’s sharp gaze jumped to his face then to Reaper’s. Neither man looked at him. They weren’t going to explain where Savage came from, not when he had to have ridden in one of the three vehicles to Marin and back.

  Pierce shook his head again. He knew now just what kind of men and women Torpedo Ink was comprised of. They’d wanted to keep that secret, especially from other clubs, but they’d blown it when they’d decided to help Plank get his wife back. Now, it was up to Pierce whether or not he decided to share that information and start a war, or just tuck it away for future use, if he ever needed it. Either way, Reaper didn’t like that he knew.

  Plank carried his wife straight to the bedroom, glancing over his shoulder at Steele. “In here,” he said unnecessarily. “Why won’t she wake up?”

  “I gave her a mild sedative. She was in a van surrounded by men she didn’t know, no clothes, and I had to work on her. I didn’t want her more uncomfortable than she needed to be. She’ll wake up soon. She’s been showing signs of coming around for the last few minutes. If you talk to her, that will help. She’ll need to take a couple of pain pills in the next twenty minutes. I want to keep her as comfortable as possible.”

  “Before she wakes up,” Plank said, staring down into his wife’s bruised and swollen face, “I want you to tell me everything that happened to her. Don’t leave out one detail.”

  Steele told him everything he knew about the multiple attacks on Plank’s wife. “They had to have intended to kill her, because they would know if they gave her back in this condition, you’d retaliate.”

  “I would have retaliated anyway,” Plank
said. “We’re already preparing to take down their club and the casino.”

  “I get what you’re saying.” Plank walked him out of the bedroom and pushed open the door next to the room. “You can stay in here.” He wasn’t asking.

  Steele stood for a moment then looked past him to Czar. Czar nodded slowly. Steele shrugged. “I’ll need my equipment.” He walked around Plank, heading for the door. Two Diamondbacks stepped in front of him, preventing him from leaving.

  Pierce shook his head, went straight to his president and lowered his voice so no one else could hear him. Reaper was on the side of Czar closest and he shifted, gliding silently so he could get into position to hear what the enforcer said to his president.

  “Plank, this club risked their lives for Sylvia and you. They pulled the rescue off like clockwork. Precise. It was a thing of beauty. Not once have they shown disrespect toward us, but every time they turn around they’re met with suspicion and hostility. You’ve got to tell the boys to stand down.”

  Plank shook his head. “It’s Sylvia.”

  “I was there when Reaper shot the bastards. He killed both of them before they could even register we were there. There was no risk to Sylvia, and the moment they got her out of there to safety, Steele began working on her. She was treated with respect at all times. I didn’t have to make sure of it, or remind them who she was. They just did it.”

  Plank nodded his head and waved the guards from the door. “I wanted to kill those fuckers myself, Pierce. Sitting here, waiting for word on my wife while another club rescued her, made me feel like a pussy. I should have taken the boys and stormed that place.”

  “They would have killed her before you got to her. The place was a fortress. Security that tight. It had to be a small force going in undetected to get her back. It was the only way, and you did the right thing. Torpedo Ink is affiliated with us. They came to us and asked to be in our territory. We agreed. They might be small, but they have their uses. Seriously, Plank, I watched them work. They were like a machine. If you want my advice, I would tell you to form closer ties with them. They definitely have their uses.”