As she stared at him – helpless to look away – he reached slowly into one sleeve with the opposite hand and came back out with a knife. Unfussy: an old wooden-handled kitchen knife with a slender, sharp blade. Its edge caught the light, winking at her, honed and sharpened and ready for flesh.
She heard Axelle’s breathing pick up, a rough in-and-out sawing through her mouth.
“It’s okay,” Michelle told her, though it wasn’t, though the Holy Father was turning toward her, light sliding along the knife. “It’s okay.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
And then…
A chuckle.
The slow, liquid movements of the Holy Father fell away, and it was with a regular sort of casualness that the man reached up with his free hand and pushed his hood back.
Michelle knew who this was, too, because Melanie had given her a detailed description – and because she’d seen him herself outside of Sandoval’s. There was the sleek dark hair pulled back into a bun, the wink of diamonds in his ears, the smooth skin, and fine features. She hadn’t seen his eyes up close until now, and they were big, and coffee-dark, and fringed with silky black lashes. They were full of a delight and humor that had all the alarm bells in her head clanging. His smile – white and straight and flashing sharp canines – crackled with beautiful, unhinged malice.
“Luis,” she greeted.
His smile turned up sharply at the corners. “So they do tell their women things. I suspected they might.” His voice held a musical quality, velvety and pleasant. The voice of someone who’d practiced being charming. “You know my name, and I obviously know yours, Michelle.”
Intel as simple as her name wouldn’t have been difficult to obtain, not for anyone, but hearing him say it sent fresh terror rippling through her.
He glanced toward Axelle. “This one I don’t know, though.” He took a step toward her, robe swaying, slender back curving as he leaned over her. He lifted a hand – elegant, ringed fingers – and poised it as if to touch her face.
Michelle said, “She’s nobody.”
He paused, hand hovering, cheek twitching as he smiled again. “Really? You just let nobodies into your clubhouses?” He traced one careful fingertip down the slope of Axelle’s nose. Axelle shivered beneath him; Michelle could hear her teeth chattering. “No, I think she’s someone. I’d like to find out who.” His finger skimmed the width of Axelle’s mouth, pressed lightly at the point of her chin. Axelle was shaking, her jaw clenched. Her eyes rolled toward Michelle, a desperate plea for help.
“She’s just a friend,” Michelle said, fighting to keep her voice steady. She was terrified for herself, but she’d grown up in this life. She’d been raised to understand that sometimes ugly things happened to the people who walked on the other side of the law. But Axelle was still new to it; only just now starting to trust. This had the ability to break her. “I met her a week ago. She doesn’t know a bloody thing about all this, and she’s not important to the club. If you turn her loose, she’ll run home and not bother you ever again.”
He touched Axelle’s mouth again, a lingering press of this thumb, like a kiss, then straightened, and turned a close-lipped smile back to Michelle, eyes sparkling. “Do you really think that line’s going to work?”
“Worth a shot.”
Glimpse of teeth. “Oh, I like you.”
He retreated, though she knew not to feel relief, and came back a moment later with a cheap folding chair that he set down between the beds. Settled on it, legs crossed, forearms draped casually over his thigh. Relaxed and pretty and unbothered. “What’s her name?” he asked.
Michelle didn’t answer.
“Tell me her name,” he said, pleasantly, “or I’ll cut off a piece of her and mail it back to the clubhouse so someone else can tell me her name.” When she didn’t answer this time, he produced the knife again. Lifted his brows. “Do you think I won’t do it?”
He would. She knew that he would, and Axelle knew it too, going by the faint whimper from the other bed. Luis was a showman, was probably clinically insane, but he’d showed no hesitation so far in murdering and maiming.
“It’s Axelle,” she gritted out.
He bobbed the knife toward her, a little flashing good girl. “Interesting. Sounds like she ought to be in a band. Or in a whorehouse that caters to truckers.” Another grin. “Close enough, I suppose. Which of your bikers does she belong to?”
“None of them. She’s a groupie.”
Another gesture with the knife. “You’re lying to me again, and I don’t like liars, Michelle.”
“You don’t need her here. Let her go, and keep me. She’s not a valuable hostage.”
“That’s for me to deicide. Whose old lady is she? I won’t ask a third time.”
She thought about what Candy had told her this morning, in the safety and privacy of the sanctuary. If it comes down to saving yourself, or helping the club, I want you to be selfish, little baby thing. I want you to get the hell out. Run and don’t look back. This was the sort of moment he’d been talking about: a tight spot, and he wasn’t here, and she was supposed to save her own skin. Run and don’t look back. Her promise had been a lie, and it still was.
But her hands were tied, and she couldn’t run. Couldn’t do anything but stall. Play this man’s twisted game, take every opening he gave her, strike at every weak spot…and yield when she had no choice. A good operative knew when to hit, and when to hold back. When to play for time; when to grit their teeth and take the licks.
What would Fox do?
She took a deep breath and managed to let it out on a sigh. The twitch of his brows told her she’d sounded appropriately bored. “Well, she’s not an old lady, that’s for sure. She’s my uncle’s – the sentimental uncle. Picked up a piece of tail and convinced himself he’s in love with her. He’ll be tired of her in a few days.” Sorry, Axe, she thought, and hoped the other girl knew what she was playing at.
He chuckled, delighted. “Albie’s, then.”
“He is the stupid one. Almost got himself blown up in London a few months ago.”
“So I’ve heard. A near death experience can alter a man’s perspectives on love.” He tipped his chin up, inviting.
Michelle snorted. “This isn’t love. It’s a midlife crisis and a good shag.”
He shrugged. “It’s been known to happen.”
“Like I said: she’s a wasted hostage.”
“So you’ve said. I applaud your composure, Mrs. Snow, but you’re overeager to have me turn Axelle loose. Rookie mistake.”
Damn.
“I think you don’t want to see me do anything ugly to your future aunt. Brave, given that you outrank her, and that you’re pregnant.” He sat forward. “We don’t have to talk about her, though. You’re right: she’s not valuable as a hostage, only as a tableau when I’m done having a chat with you.”
Who are you? she wanted to ask. Where did you come from? Because this was no garden variety cartel boss, no. The creature studying her with rapt amusement was something far, far more frightening than that.
Fifty
It turned out not to matter that their guns had been taken back at the garage, because Mercy produced two duffle bags full of goodies once they’d taken care of the two officers who’d followed them to the gas station. Still in uniform, faces hidden by their caps, Mercy and Michael had gotten the drop on them at the pumps, locked them in their own trunk, and off they’d gone.
The van now sat parked along the shoulder, behind a clump of thorny shrubs. Their destination lay thirty yards ahead, the top of a dirt drive screened by tangled mesquite boughs. Adrenaline danced along every one of Candy’s nerve endings, breath choppy and fingers steady as he chambered a round on his borrowed .45 and holstered it.
Fox slipped his phone back into his pocket and met his gaze. “Albie and his crew are gonna come in from the other direction.” He nodded toward the street. “They’ll park off the road, like us, and cut diagonally overland
to get to the workshop. We’ll split up: a few guys walk straight down the driveway, and the rest of us circle wide and go all the way around to the back of the workshop. It’ll be a hike, but it’ll triangulate.”
“I’m not here to question your strategizing,” Candy said. He surveyed the rest of his boys – his troops, for the moment. “Heads on the swivel, boys. Try not to get killed. Don’t be shy about killing them.”
He earned a chorus of yes, sir.
Mercy had stripped off the ill-fitting uniform shirt and now wore a white Henley and Kevlar under his cut, his hammer propped on his shoulder. “Any suggestions about who goes in the front way?”
Fox smirked at him. “I’ve got a few.”
~*~
Eden climbed off the back of Walsh’s bike and surveyed the area while she unclipped her helmet. They’d pulled off along a stretch of lightly-wooded, uninhabited territory with just enough trees to provide cover – and shade. Her breath misted as she exhaled. She could smell sap, and dry earth, and above the ping of cooling engines heard the looping calls of songbirds. A peaceful spot. The road was old, its asphalt faded and full of cracks. No traffic. The rustling she whirled around to search for the source of proved to be a fox – a four-legged one, slinking off between two trees.
“They shouldn’t be out in the day,” Walsh said, then cast a glance up to the sky. It was already darkening, the sun winking through the branches in pale panels and coins. “It’s nearly dusk, though.”
“We need to move,” Albie said, his jaw still tight. “The others are headed that way, now.”
“Reese,” Walsh prompted.
The boy looked like a nightmare. He wore a tattered black hoodie, its hood pulled up to cover his bright hair. He’d painted his face, all save the very edges of his eyelids, and then tied a solid black bandana over his nose and mouth. He carried a sawed-off shotgun on a strap across his back, and pulled one of two handguns from his waist, suppressor already attached. His other hand produced a compass. He gave the barest nod, and then turned and set off through the trees, down the slight rise that would lead them to the workshop where the Holy Father terrorized his victims.
The others let Reese get a little ahead before following. Eden hadn’t heard one of his footfalls, but was keenly aware of the small cracks and crunches of their own as they followed.
Fox was loose, along with Candy and the others, on his way to meet them now, but she couldn’t feel relieved, not yet. If learning the truth about his father had put cracks in Fox’s foundations, losing his niece would shatter him. And Eden didn’t know what to do with the idea of a world in which the most unflappable man she’d ever met was a shattered ruin.
Fifty-One
Michelle badly wanted a drink of water. Her throat ached, and her tongue was too dry to do much good when she dampened her lips again. But she wasn’t at the point of asking for things: not yet.
“If it’s intel you’re wanting,” she told Luis, “you would have done better to kidnap one of the boys.”
He gave a dismissive wave. “No. It’s boring talking to men. I just get a lot of chain rattling, and ‘let me go,’ and ‘so help me God.’ You know: threats and pleading. They don’t know how to play the game.”
“The game?”
“Well, more of a dance, really.” The smile he gave her this time was lazy, knowing; a we-share-a-secret smile. “Men are clumsy. Your men, my men. They don’t understand the delicacy of this sort of thing.”
She stared at him as levelly as she could manage. Stupid, pretentious wanker. If he wanted to monologue like a comic book villain, she’d let him; it would buy the guys more time.
“The club fascinates me,” he said, like an admission. “Individually, all its members start as outcasts. Soldiers, and criminals; the bullied, and the weak; the addicted, and the vicious. They don’t fit in anywhere so they decide to fit together. They form their own society – and then they adopt every trait of the society that shunned them. They bully, and they discriminate. They flood the markets with all the vices that once tempted them. Kill and capture and torture.
“It really isn’t about wanting to be free, or to find peace,” he said, smile edged with bitterness. “Is it? It’s only about wanting control. Wanting power. Humans are no better than any other animal: everyone wants to be the strongest with the most territory.”
“Your point being?”
“I like that you don’t deny it.”
“The club doesn’t have a gentle reputation.”
He chuckled. “No, it certainly doesn’t. And it’s just as dictatorial as any nation of the world, isn’t it?”
“And your cartel isn’t?”
“My cartel is exactly like your club: a means to an end. The means for the acquirement and maintenance of power by a few, supported by those willing to exercise ruthlessness.”
The game, he’d called it. A dance. She wanted to dismiss all this as philosophical nonsense, but she also wanted to live. “You sound like you don’t like that setup,” she hedged.
He shrugged. “I’ve learned to like it. Or at least appreciate it. You have to if you want to get ahead in life.”
“And you want to get ahead.”
“I have gotten ahead.” He made an expansive gesture.
“You’ve gone about it in a really strange way.”
The resulting smile was warm with pleasure. “I’m glad you’ve noticed.”
“But why go to all that effort? Why create” – she nodded toward him – “the Holy Father?” Why cut people’s throats and leave them out like sacrificial offerings, you freak? she wanted to ask.
“I told you I’m very curious about the way the club works. I’ve studied criminal organizations. Conflicts between them are usually comprised of back-and-forth raids on product. Shootouts. It’s all very cinematic and upfront.
“And – don’t take this as too great a compliment – we all know that no one could challenge the Lean Dogs in a cinematic and upfront way and hope to succeed. I realized I would have to wage a psychological war with them.”
He hadn’t beaten them, not yet, but he’d been more successful than he should have been. “Why wage a war at all?”
He leaned toward her, chin resting in his hand, tone conspiratorial. “Because wouldn’t it just be thrilling to slay a giant?”
~*~
Candy did as he’d told the others: kept his head up, his senses alert, scanning every rock and tree and clump of old pine needles, but he couldn’t hear much beyond the triphammer rhythm of his pulse in his ears. His own breaths sounded too loud inside his skull; his skin felt pulled tight, prickling all over with nerves. Every delay – Fox lifting a hand to halt them all so he could listen – tightened the invisible band around his chest.
They had to move! The sun was going down, and they’d lost too much time already, and Michelle was…
No, no. Couldn’t think about that.
He closed his eyes a moment, briefly, a long blink, and tried to take a deep breath. Tried to clear his mind. He’d been so afraid that he’d gone soft; that marriage and fatherhood had weakened his resolve, but he knew now that wasn’t true. It had stripped him like a wire and left him charged and sparking. A threat to his club could be dealt with coldly, efficiently. A threat to his family left him red with rage, murderous and merciless.
He opened his eyes, and Fox was motioning them forward again.
At his side, Blue whispered, “You doing alright?”
Candy didn’t answer. What good would a terse fine do?
Blue moved in closer on his next careful step, so their elbows nearly brushed. “We’re gonna get her back,” he said, with a confidence meant to be soothing, like he was trying to comfort a child.
What if I don’t? Then what?
Candy gritted his teeth and kept walking.
It seemed like hours, but was really only twenty minutes or so. It was an old, rarely disturbed patch of woods, plenty of underbrush, and old sticks, and leaf litter to create
a constant rustling. If there was anyone out on sentry duty, they would hear them coming long before they drew into sight. It felt so – primitive. So pathetic. Creeping along through the forest. He wanted to be on his bike. Wanted to be kicking down doors, and throwing punches, and turning the barrel of a shotgun on his enemies. All sorts of Tarzan fantasies about cutting a path of blood and gore to get to his woman, to take her in his arms and comfort her, protect her. All folly and whim; all useless while he was stepping over old stumps and hoping he didn’t disturb a rattler.
“Wish Jinx was here,” Blue muttered.
“Yeah, well, he’s a dumbass who went off book, so he’s not,” Candy bit back.
Blue let out an audible breath, but wisely didn’t respond.
Finally, at the top of a rise, the trees thinned, and Candy caught a glimpse of rusted, corrugated metal through the foliage. His pulse paused, and then sped, a terrible lurching beat that left his chest aching.
There. She was there.
Fox lifted a hand and signed careful.
They drifted toward one another, closing ranks, lining up along the top of a ridge. The ground fell away below, carved up by summer flash floods, exposed roots and rocks and the striations of the sandy soil visible in the last red-gold rays of sunlight.
The promised workshop waited on the other side of the ravine, a rambling, ramshackle affair that had been added on to time and again, the metal marked by rust and rain, its windows small, barred, and painted-over.
Candy couldn’t breathe; his heartbeat strangled him. He wanted to charge down the hill, and go sprinting up the other side.
But Fox said, “Wait.” He cupped his hands around his mouth, and whistled. It wasn’t a human noise that left his lips, but three long, looping blasts that sounded like a bird call of some kind. A moment later, the same rhythm echoed back, faintly, from the far side of the workshop.
Lone Star (Dartmoor Book 7) Page 44
