Walk Through Fire

by Kristen Ashley

  He did this with his brain not functioning.

  I’d do it every day it was so worth it to walk through fire for you.

  He knew what she meant and it wasn’t having him back in her home, in her bed, in her arms.

  It was having him back, having his daughters asleep in her guestroom, giving him a day like he had that day. Giving him everything he’d ever wanted.

  He stopped in the living room, not able to look at the two beautiful daughters his woman sacrificed years to give to him. Instead, he dropped his head and lifted his hand to curl it around the back of his neck, shutting his eyes tight at pleasure that could now turn to pain if anything happened to her at hearing her words rattling his brain.

  Valenzuela was a lunatic. Valenzuela was getting impatient.

  And Valenzuela was not stupid.

  High was the weak link. Pushed, High was probably the last brother of Chaos who would lose it, fuck everything and do anything, anything, to rescue his woman.

  And when that was done, get his vengeance.

  But it was more.

  The motherfucker had lured his baby girl out of the house.

  Fuck yeah.

  High was the weak link.

  Rescue.

  Then vengeance.

  “She didn’t mean anything.”

  Cleo’s trembling words had High righting his head and dropping his hand to focus on his girls in Millie’s armchair, holding on to each other, Zadie with her face pressed into her sister’s chest, her body shaking with silent tears.

  “She didn’t, Daddy,” Cleo kept on. “She told me last night when we were in bed that she thought Millie was cool. She wasn’t being bad. She was just being…” Her face and her voice said she knew the rest was lame. “Maybe not too smart.”

  A stifled sob came from Zadie, which meant High’s legs moved him to their chair.

  Cleo watched him do it, holding on to her sister. Zadie sensed him doing it and burrowed deeper into Cleo.

  She was scared of her old man.

  He hated that too.

  Oh yeah.

  Vengeance.

  He crouched down in front of them.

  “Look at me, Zade.”

  It took her a beat but she did, doing it just twisting her neck a little so she could peek at him still pressed to her sister’s chest.

  “We’ll talk ’bout you talkin’ to men you don’t know later, baby. Though that’s a lesson I think you already learned today and I know you didn’t mean to do anything bad. This isn’t on you, Zadie. What happened isn’t your fault. But right now what’s important is that I need you to tell me about the men who took Millie.”

  She drew in a broken breath and High fought clenching his teeth because it felt like it took her a week to draw it in.

  Then she stuttered, “I was… I was m-mean to her.”

  Fuck.

  “You got over that, Zade,” he reminded her. “This isn’t about that. That’s done. Now you gotta tell me about those men.”

  “I didn’t know, they… they were b-bad men. Never, Daddy, never would I be that mean, going out so Millie would come out after me. She’s… Millie, she’s… I did. I did tell Clee-Clee she was cool. And I’ve been mean to her. I did bad things. I scared her about Chief. But now I like her. She’s nice. She has a super nice house. She has cute kitties she lets us play with. But even if I didn’t like her, I’d never be that mean.”

  “Zade,” he said, forcing his voice to soft and lifting a hand to lay it on her back. “I know you didn’t mean anything. You’re not in trouble. But I gotta know about those men.”

  “Y-you yelled at me,” she whispered.

  His voice was firm, and with his patience slipping he couldn’t smooth the edge when he stated, “Zadie, this is not about you. There are gonna be times in your life, a lot of them, when it’s not about you. You gotta get used to that and do it now, darlin’, ’cause this is one of those times. A big one. Now you dig deep like I know you can and tell me about those men.”

  “They… they were Mexican,” she said.

  He was right.

  Valenzuela.

  “Older? Younger?” he asked.

  “Younger than you,” she answered.

  Valenzuela was close to his age.

  That meant soldiers.

  “Dressed nice?” he went on.

  She nodded.

  “The color of their SUV, you remember?” he pushed.

  “B-black,” she said.

  “Did you see the kind of SUV they were in?”

  She shook her head.

  “What’d they say to you?” he kept at his girl.

  “Just that… that…” She pressed her lips together and when High was near to losing complete hold on his patience, she continued talking. “They were friends of yours and they had something in their car for you. A present. A surprise. Something special. They asked me to come get it and bring it to you. I know it was stupid,” she whispered the last, sounding beaten. “But I… I…” She shoved into her sister. “This is a nice neighborhood. Millie has a really pretty house. They seemed nice.” She took another broken breath. “I didn’t think they were bad.”

  She just didn’t think. She knew better. Even High had drilled the don’t talk to strangers shit into her head since she could cogitate.

  Then again, a ten-year-old shouldn’t have to know what kind of bad could knock on the door in any neighborhood.

  “Is Millie…?” Cleo started, and got her old man’s attention, paused, then pushed on. “Did Millie do something bad?”

  Only the kind he gave her.

  But this shit should never touch his girls. Any of them. He should never be in the position to field questions that would lead to the kind of answers he’d have to give.

  That was on Valenzuela too.

  “No,” he told his big girl. “Millie’s good to the core.”

  “So why—?” Cleo began.

  “That’s not for now, Cleo,” High stated, straightening.

  “Is she…?” That was Zadie and he looked to his baby who was pulling away from her sister, looking up at her dad. “Do you think she’s gonna be okay?”

  He knew she’d better be.

  “She’s gonna be fine,” he told her.

  Her lip trembled.

  His phone rang.

  He stepped away from them, looking at it. When he saw the caller, he took the call.

  “Where are we?” he asked as greeting.

  “Keely’s headed over,” Tack told him. “Brothers are rendezvousing at the Compound. Mitch and Slim have been informed.”

  High stopped at the side of Millie’s couch. “Keely?”

  “She’s closest to you,” Tack explained. “She should be there in a few.”

  The girls had met Keely only a couple of times. They barely knew her. More, after she lost Black, pulling her into Chaos mess was not cool.

  He’d prefer Tyra, Lanie, Tab, Elvira.

  He’d have to take Keely because he had to get out of there. He was holding it together but only because his girls were watching. Inside, it felt like he was about to come out of his skin.

  “He’s not gonna do shit to her, brother,” Tack assured him.

  High wanted that to be true.

  But Valenzuela was ready to roll. He was bringing it. He was forcing it so Chaos would shove it back.

  Which meant anything could happen.

  Millie

  I sat curled into myself on the bed in a motel room that wasn’t all that nice but it wasn’t shabby either.

  I did this and I didn’t take my eyes off Benito Valenzuela, who was standing at the door with his henchmen.

  Another man who was even scarier than Valenzuela was standing in the corner, surveying the entirety of the scene (in other words, keeping his eye on me as well as the action at the door) even as a woman walked my way.

  She got my attention when she sat on the edge of the bed.

  She was a hooker.

  It wasn
’t like she was wearing Julia Roberts’s stretchy outfit and thigh-high boots from Pretty Woman but still, she was seriously made up and her clothes were revealing and it wasn’t even noon on a Sunday, so I didn’t think it was jumping to conclusions to guess her occupation.

  “Got some ice from the machine outside,” she said quietly, offering me a wet, bulky towel. “You should put that on your eye, shug.”

  She was right.

  I took the ice and put it to my eye.

  Then I turned the one eye I could still see out of toward Valenzuela just as I heard him whisper, “… do with you after this colossal fuckup.”

  “You said force it, jefe,” the one who grabbed me replied.

  “I meant scare her, not fucking kidnap her,” Valenzuela bit back.

  “Still, think this’ll force it, Benito,” the one who hit me said. “Chaos ain’t gonna let this stand.”

  I felt something and tore my eyes from the conversation at the door to look at the woman seated on the bed in a not-too-shabby motel with me.

  “They aren’t, are they?” she whispered, and she didn’t sound happy.

  In fact, she sounded absolutely, one hundred percent freaked out.

  Considering I was that, and more, I didn’t need her freaking out with me.

  “I’m right,” she said when I didn’t respond, and she was still whispering. “You’re an old lady. They’re gonna ride.”

  They were gonna ride.

  And I needed them to ride. I needed Logan to come and get me, and to do that safely, for him and me, he needed his brothers.

  I still was terrified of what Chaos riding meant.

  I didn’t answer her, partially because I didn’t want to think about it but mostly because I sensed movement so I looked toward the door.

  Apparently, even whispering, our conversation had gotten the attention of Valenzuela.

  Great.

  He came my way, stopped by the bed, cast a split-second glance at the hooker, and she vacated her place, scurrying on her platform heels straight to the door.

  I didn’t take that as a good sign.

  Even so, I kept my eye to Valenzuela, my position on the bed and the ice to my swelling face.

  “Which one decided to take you?” he asked after the door closed on my unusual Florence Nightingale.

  I pressed my lips together.

  Then I pressed into the headboard when he snapped right before my eyes, leaned toward me, his face twisted with rage, his eyes burning with it, and he thundered, “Which one took you?”

  Oh my God.

  He was totally crazy.

  “Th-that one,” I answered, lifting my hand to point at the one who’d held me.

  Valenzuela leaned back. “He hit you too?”

  I shook my head.

  “So Pedro took you, Carlos hit you,” he stated, all evidence of his fury gone, this was uttered matter-of-factly.

  God, he’d been freaking me out but that about-face scared the absolute crap out of me.

  Thus, even if it seemed he didn’t intend to hurt me further—in fact, he was pissed way the hell off I’d been taken and hurt at all—I felt it prudent not to relax quite yet because this guy was clearly fucking loco.

  I would have no idea how right I was.

  I would also have no idea that I shouldn’t confirm his statement even if I didn’t know which was which, Carlos and Pedro.

  I shouldn’t have even spoken.

  But I did both.

  “Yes,” I said.

  And right then, right there, he twisted his torso, doing this nodding to the other man in the room.

  I looked that way just as the guy reached into his suit jacket and came out with a gun.

  Before I could even brace or open my mouth to scream, he lifted it. I heard two strange, loud zings followed instantly by far less welcome sounds at the same time my eyes jerked toward the door. I saw blood and brains spatter against walls and Pedro and Carlos sink to the carpet.

  I dropped the ice and shuffled frantically back on the bed, shocked I could move because it felt like my body had frozen right to the bone, terrified at the same time that, because of this, it felt my limbs would crack right off. My brain saturated with images of carnage, I couldn’t gauge where I was going and fell off the side of the bed.

  I scrambled to my feet as Valenzuela turned back to me. Mind in turmoil, my only thoughts were escape and the chilling knowledge that there wasn’t one.

  “Stop moving. I won’t hurt you,” he ordered.

  I kept moving, making preparations in order to take flight.

  He reached into his suit jacket, pulled out his own gun, and lifted it my way.

  “Stop… fucking… moving.”

  Automatically, I stopped moving.

  He turned his head and dipped his chin at the only other live person in the room.

  I stared, shock beginning to overcome me, my body starting to tremble as the guy coolly dipped his chin as well and sauntered to and out the door, closing it behind him.

  “You’re at the Mile Hi Motel in room two sixteen,” Valenzuela stated, and my eyes darted back to him. “You call your biker, you tell them where to find you, you tell them that’s for them.” He swung his gun toward the two dead bodies on the floor, then back to me. “You tell them I did not order what happened today. You tell them Carlos and Pedro acted alone. You tell them I was not happy about this and saw to their punishment.”

  Punishment?

  That was his brand of punishment?

  I stared at him, suddenly realizing that I was not only trembling from hair to toenails, my chest was rising and falling with shallow breaths and my fingers felt like they’d been asleep but were coming awake, tingling in a way that skimmed the edge of pain.

  But what I saw as I stared at his face was not fear.

  He wasn’t scared of Chaos’s retribution for the mistake made by his men that day and taking care of it so they wouldn’t lose their minds.

  It was something else.

  And right then, I went from scared out of my brain to terrified down to my bones.

  “You should leave town,” I blurted.

  He dropped the gun, which was a relief, but he also smiled a creepy smile, which wasn’t.

  “Thank you for the advice, but I think I’ll stay,” he replied.

  Regardless of the fact that he didn’t want my very good advice to penetrate—seeing as I was witness to his minion’s double homicide and an old lady to a member of a band of brothers who took family and the protection of it really fucking seriously, so I knew what I was talking about—I kept going.

  “You don’t touch old ladies.”

  “I didn’t.”

  That was the truth.

  “Your men lured Lo… I mean, High’s daughter to their car,” I shared.

  His mouth got tight.

  He didn’t know that.

  My body got tight too. Or tighter.

  Then his mouth relaxed. “Another fail,” he stated. “And as you can see, they won’t do anything like that again.”

  Another truth. A big one.

  I kept my eyes off the slaughter sharing a room with me so I could keep hold on my mind.

  “I mean no offense. I’m sure you know this,” I began. “But you don’t mean anything to me. Still, this plays out like I know it will, people I care about will be forced to do things they don’t wish to do. They’re good men. But this won’t stand.” I carefully indicated the floor beneath my feet. “They won’t let it and you shouldn’t underestimate them. There’s no way you can win.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  I stared at him.

  He believed that.

  Totally.

  A chill crept over my skin and I kept trying.

  “You won’t win, Valenzuela. Seriously, believe me. I’ve known them a long time. United, the brotherhood can’t be defeated.”

  “Many brotherhoods felt the same and continued to do so until they fell.”


  I stared into his eyes and I read everything there.

  He wasn’t going to give up. He wasn’t going to go away. He wasn’t going to stop. He was weak, with men misinterpreting his orders, facing a woman who could guarantee his time in prison when he was caught and I testified that he’d ordered the murders of two men.

  He still wasn’t going to stop.

  Not until it was over however that came about.

  There was something scarily wrong about that. He was a man with every chip in the pot, holding weak cards in his hand.

  But he was acting like he had an ace up his sleeve.

  “You need to be careful,” I whispered.

  “Ah, Millie, your concern in touching. But don’t you worry. I’m being very careful.”

  “No,” I returned. “What I mean is, you hurt him, you hurt High, you hurt any of them, I’ll hurt you.”

  He found that amusing, so much so it was incredibly insulting.

  While smiling big, he tipped his head to the side. “You’re threatening me while I hold a gun?”

  “Wrong again,” I told him, shaking my head. “It’s insane but I’m trying to save your life. Seriously, you should get out of town.”

  “I will not fall to Chaos,” he said with utter confidence.

  “If you don’t leave and you also don’t fall to Chaos, you’ll still fall.”

  “Chaos gash comes after me after I bring that Club low, that’s business I’ll be forced to take care of too.”

  Gash.

  He’d said that word before.

  It wasn’t nice.

  It also pissed me off.

  I straightened my spine and squared my shoulders, sharing, “There’ll be only one storm mightier than the one your men unleashed today. You don’t mess with an old lady. You definitely don’t mess with an old lady’s man.”

  He was still amused. “After I claim all of Denver, that’ll be an interesting challenge.”

  He might hold the ace.

  But his cards were still weak.

  “I see your weakness,” I told him.

  That amused him too. Greatly.

  He lifted his brows over dancing eyes.

  “I have a weakness?” he asked in disbelief.

  “You don’t think gash have brains,” I shared.

  “You’re not difficult to look at, Millie, but you aren’t being very smart, where you are, how you are, speaking to me the way you are.”