Taking Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 1)

by Wild, Nikki

  Every engine near us revved in anticipation as his motorcycle flared to life. I covered my ears briefly to keep my hearing intact, and heard a little chuckle from my chauffeur.

  Always the charmer, Hunter flashed me a quick grin, and then we were off. We drove straight into the shack and roared down into the tunnel, followed by our fleet of armed bikers.

  I clung to him as we shot forward in the dark, our way illuminated only by headlights. The sounds of the other engines rumbled down the tunnel around us, threatening to deafen us.

  Hunter didn’t seem even remotely bothered by the ear-piercing sound. I found myself wondering how he managed to hold quiet conversations, given how unwavering he was when it came to deafening engine roars.

  It was exhilarating.

  It was frightening.

  But I felt secure here, my hips straddling Hunter’s engine while we were backed up by a large flock of his Outlaws. His own men were mingled into the crowd, and every one of these bikers had undoubtedly killed men and performed all manners of illegal, illicit activities.

  Oh god, if Daddy could see me now he’d lose his fucking shit. A knowing smile crossed my lips. Would that be before or after the inevitable heart attack?

  After a few minutes of heart-pounding excitement rolling through the wide tunnel, I could finally see the exit.

  Hunter double-tapped his brakes again, signaling to the crowd to begin slowing down.

  The ground started to slope back up again. When we came up on the other side, it looked like our exit point was disguised as a large and completely empty water tank.

  Everyone came to a slow stop as Hunter turned his bike and killed his engine. Although we could only see maybe half of the fleet, the acoustics off the rusted, metal interior of the massive tank meant his voice could travel.

  Hunter made good use of that quality. He dismounted his bike, stepping in front to call out to the entire band of men.

  “Outlaws and Dragons… this is the last time I address you all. Once we cross outside, we pass straight into enemy territory, and I’ll have to trust all of you to understand how to handle yourselves on cartel turf.

  “Tonight, you represent your clubs for the reigning leader of the Outlaws. Show me the best of the Severed Sixteen, or the Winged Scorpions, or the Moonlight Riders, or the Twin Spears. Show me, brothers, what it means to you to be a fucking Outlaw!”

  The assembled fleet all cheered out, fists and guns in the air. Hunter waited for the sounds to subside before continuing.

  “All of you are under my jurisdiction tonight, and my responsibility… and I intend on sending each and every last one of you back to your club presidents with my undying gratitude. There is no dishonor in retreating. I will not speak ill of your clubs, nor will I disbar them from the Outlaws. You have answered my call of your own volition. If you mean to continue riding with me, glory and vengeance await. But if you mean to turn back, this is the fucking time to do it.”

  “Never!” A biker shouted out, fist pumped into the air. The others met his conviction, shouting at the top of their lungs.

  “We are brothers, all of us,” he addressed the clubs, “and tonight… tonight, we fight together. Follow my lead. When we arrive at the safe-house, our mission is to rescue every kidnapped girl we find, and put a bullet in the head of every sack of shit cartel member we find. Once we’ve cleared the place, you can fill your saddle bags with as much goddamned cash as you can carry, but make it fast. We want to be in and out before any of their friends arrive. To all who will join me… let’s show these fuckers how we do shit in Texas. BOYS, LET’S GET SOME!”

  The bikers roared into a chorus of cheers, jeers, and vicious taunts as Hunter walked up to me, utilizing the quick distraction.

  “We’ll be fine,” he told me, apparently sensing my apprehension. “And I might have a little surprise for you…”

  “A surprise?” I shouted, the roar of engines deafening within the confines of the water tank.

  “I think we might just find your cheerleaders tonight…”

  “What?” His words practically blindsided me. I immediately demanded: “How?”

  “According to the Desert Owl and the little rat bastard he’s keeping company, the cartel’s been having trouble selling those girls.”

  “You’re fucking kidding.”

  “Not at all,” he replied calmly. “I guess the national media attention made it hard to pass off their pretty little faces… Nobody wants that kind of potential heat.”

  “…Then they might just be here, tonight,” I realized with a mixture of hope and disbelief. “That’s one hell of a lucky fucking break, Hunter.”

  “Not as lucky as you’d think. My old friends have been getting brash. I’m banking on the hope that they’ve gotten sloppy, too…”

  Could it be true? Would we find the missing cheerleaders tonight? I thought about those implications for a moment as he continued. Maybe my career didn’t have to end. If I showed back up to the lieutenant with those cheerleaders in tow they’d give me the goddamned key to the city!

  But… After all I’d done out here… Did I want to go back?

  This wasn’t the time to be thinking about that… It was time to ride. Hunter stepped over his bike and helped lift me onto the seat behind him. In a deafening roar, we rolled out into the desert. It was about twenty minutes later that we finally met a trail. Hunter swung us south, guiding us along the dirt road until we finally came up on a dilapidated complex in the distance. We stopped for a moment, the anticipation around us buzzing like electricity.

  “What the fuck is that?” I hissed over the engine. “Is that the place?”

  “Welcome to Víboras Verde,” he grimly replied. “This is where they’re basing all their ongoing operations… Right in my own fucking back yard.”

  “That’s no safe house I’ve ever seen, Hunter,” I told him with mounting fear. “That’s a fortified goddamn compound… do we have enough men? Can we even fight that?”

  “Well, Detective… we’re about to fucking find out,” he replied. His body tensed as he hit the accelerator, roaring us forwards.

  Chapter 18

  As we skidded to a stop around the side of the complex, Hunter leapt off the bike. Dragging me to the dirt with him, he hissed into my ear:

  “You sure you’re ready for this?”

  I nodded, pulling my Glock from my holster.

  He reciprocated the nod, rising up beside me with his hand against the outer wall. He slipped me a pair of goggles and put his own on as the bikers swung out around us, kicking up a fierce cloud of dust with their arrival.

  I covered my mouth and held my breath with my free hand, following his vague shape as he pressed forward along the side of the building. I could hear the others dismounting, locking, and loading as a swarm.

  The cloud began to dissipate just as the moon came through the cloud cover. It shone down on the complex, and I studied it quickly at a glance.

  It was a low-hung set of adobe buildings, with a small warehouse attachment. A northward tower looked to be in construction, and some unfinished and half-assembled lights were laying about atop scaffolds and on the rooftops.

  Hunter was right.

  If we’d waited any longer to strike this place, we’d have lost our chance to hit them hard. They were still setting up shop, but soon, this place would be a fortress.

  “This is it,” he murmured, hiding behind cover near the open front entrance. I crept up to his side, flanked in my approach by at least a dozen bikers. “Fortune favors us tonight, detective. This base is one hell of a shit-show…”

  “But why?” I asked quietly. “Why risk moving somewhere like this when the place is barely together?”

  “No idea,” he murmured. “I can only guess that the other cartels have been pushing them forward, taking territory further South.”

  Hunter nodded to the other bikers, gave a signal, and watched as they quickly checked their weapons. With everyone satisfied, he adju
sted his signal, and the team scampered out in front.

  It wasn’t more than a few seconds before a few cartel gunmen with automatic weapons poured out into the open. Fanning out in a defensible formation, they strolled out and rained down gunfire as the bikers ducked behind vehicles and whatever cover they could find. Hunter and I watched from behind the cover. I was preparing to fire off a few rounds before he held up a cease-fire hand.

  “No… not yet. Let’s not signal our position until they’re distracted…”

  “They’re sitting ducks out there!” I hissed.

  “These are the Outlaws you’re talking about,” Hunter informed me. “They can hold their own… just watch.”

  The cartel formation continued fanning out, separating to cover more ground. A few of the nearer bikers, ducked behind a truck, glanced to Hunter for instruction.

  He made a quick motion, earning the attention of the closest gunman. The bastard let loose some rifle fire our way, the rounds unable to penetrate the thick wall, but it gave the sequestered bikers the opening they needed.

  We heard the gunman fall with an anguished shriek, and the others turned to return firepower. That pulled them away from their searches, allowing a few Outlaws to find more offensive positions along the edges… The bikers made use of the shadows, firing pot shots from the dark. Some stayed mobile, moving around when not in a line of sight, quietly creeping around to attack from a new vantage point.

  The cartel fighters seemed to realize their error. They were standing directly in the moonlight and unable to see their enemies. They decided to rush the shadows, firing off a sweeping round in a wide circle.

  “Now!” Hunter snarled.

  The bikers descended from the shadows in an ambush and I watched as our enemies fell. The last two threw down their arms in surrender, and Hunter led me forward quickly.

  We each took one of their rifles from the ground, shared a glance, and bashed them with a swift strike to the back of the head. The surrendering cartel members dropped to the ground, unresponsive to a pair of swift boot kicks to the ribs.

  They’d wake up with a few broken ribs, but they’d live to see another day. Hunter had them hog tied before we moved closer to the building.

  Several of the bikers snatched up remaining weaponry and pocketed their own pistols. My eyes scanned the vehicles and I spotted that bastard van off to the side in a line of trucks.

  Pointing it out to Hunter, he nodded.

  The abducted girls are here.

  I could hear gunfire from inside – it was clear that the rest of the Outlaws had found another entrance or two, and were storming the unfinished facility from different approaches.

  Another ten bikers slipped around the front and joined our battalion. We’d lost one of our men in the shadow ambush, although I was surprised that it hadn’t been more…

  “These must be new recruits,” Hunter muttered, kicking over one of the fresh corpses. “They’re stupid motherfuckers, but this cartel isn’t usually that unprepared…”

  “Where’s Grizz?” I asked suddenly, glancing around. Hunter was ripped from his thoughts, matching my sweeping gaze with his own.

  “Leading a second team inside,” one of the bikers informed us. “Took a group of twenty and stormed towards the back.”

  “That’s my boy,” Hunter chuckled. “Well, let’s not keep him waiting…”

  Hunter strolled forward, leading our collective of armed badasses for the front gates. He had such a comfortable, confident swagger, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and whipping out a pair of pistols.

  If only time could have slowed down there and then, like it does in the goddamn movies.

  One of his Devil’s Dragons kicked the front door. The immediate bath of light demonstrated that Víboras Verde had done more work on the interior than they had on the outside.

  As the sound of commotion filled the air with gunfire, smoke, and adrenaline, Hunter’s lips spread into a wicked grin.

  “Sweep and clean house, boys.”

  We strolled through the entrance as the bikers fanned out around us, automatic rifles at the ready. Every cartel gunmen that appeared around a corner or behind cover suffered from an immediate hail of bullets, shoving them back out of sight.

  He signaled for the team to separate into three factions headed for different areas. One group of five or six broke off on either side, fleeing towards nearby halls or staircases as our remaining escort surrounded us in a circle and followed his lead.

  “Yeah, this looks familiar,” Hunter acknowledged as he glanced around the interior. “This is the same kind of design I remember from our original strike… Can’t fault the fuckers for their consistency.”

  We were in a large entrance room, apparently meant to host a mobile fleet to transport kidnapped cargo. The walls and ceiling were all adobe, reinforced by steel foundations and braces. Exposed wiring ran in the walls, only demonstrating further how unprepared this compound was for a siege.

  A couple of vehicles were already in here, highlighting their intended expansion into a rolling armada of trucks and vans.

  “Hmm. That’s new,” Hunter murmured, kicking at an open panel in a corner of the room. It exposed a staircase running downward, and he glanced at a few similar panels in the other corners.

  “They built down?” I asked, swallowing my fear. If they’re constructing down into the earth, then there’s no telling how far deep this place goes…

  “They’ve learned,” he muttered in annoyance. “Well, I’ll be damned. The rest of this might be a façade… they’re more prepared than I gave them credit for.”

  “What does this mean?” I asked him. A few of the nearby bikers shuffled their boots with tension, signaling their support to my question.

  “It means we don’t underestimate them,” he answered obliquely.

  The other two teams returned into the main room before he could continue.

  “Killed every fucker we found,” one of them informed us loudly.

  “What about the girls?” Hunter asked.

  “None to be found.”

  Hunter glanced back at the staircase, lifted his pistols, and then started descending. “The real fight’s down here, boys… pull your wits together, because there’s no telling what we’ll find…”

  I trotted down by his side, both hands on my Glock. The combined teams flanked us as we descended; on the next floor down, we spotted a familiar face in some bad shape.

  “Grizz!” Hunter shouted, dropping down to his second-in-command’s side. Grizz was gasping for air and clutching his leg. In his stead were two dead bikers, and half a dozen cartel corpses.

  He checked Grizz’s wound briefly, then held up his head and asked: “What the fuck happened in here?”

  “We just got ambushed,” Grizz groaned, painfully trying to shift into a more comfortable position. “Took out a couple of us in this corridor. We chased them from another stairwell… led us right into gunfire.”

  “Dammit,” Hunter snarled, slamming the side of his fist into the wall. “Any of you fuckers know how to extract and patch up a bullet?”

  “I’ll be fine… bullet passed clean through,” Grizz grumbled, his piercing eyes slightly dulled of their intensity. He barely even looked at me. “This corridor is clear,” he motioned to the side, “although I don’t know about that one. A few of my men chased after the assholes…”

  Hunter directed a team of six that way, and pointed out another six. “Guard this man,” he said. “See to it that he stays safe and conscious. I want him with us when we ride out of this hellhole, understood?”

  Grizz glanced up slowly, his fresh sweat splattered across his face. “I’m sorry… for holding you back, boss…”

  “Not another fucking word,” Hunter growled in retort. “You conserve your strength. I can’t lose you here, Grizz. Understood?”

  Grizz nodded painfully. “Crystal clear,” he acknowledged.

  With his conviction renewed, Hunter gave him a
nod, and then led the rest of us down the next flight of stairs. It was the bottom floor, and all that greeted us was a thick, steel door: it waited ominously with silence on the other side.

  “There’s no way this goes any further down,” Hunter told us. “Must be bedrock below this…”

  We could hear staggered gunfire from further into the complex above us. Sharing a glance, we steeled ourselves for a fight… and Hunter threw open the heavy, solid door.

  The bikers released rapid-fire from their assault weapons to fend off the surprised cartel members. They had apparently been too compartmentalized to hear the fighting above their heads, and couldn’t draw their pistols fast enough.

  Hunter and I put a few rounds in the chests of a few hostiles, pausing to reload our weapons behind cover.

  “That is some Dirty Harry shit,” I muttered to him as I hastily slammed bullets into my pistol chamber.

  He finished loading his gun, and we nodded together before rising up from cover. With reflexes just quicker than mine, he let off a couple of shots from both wrists, missing once or twice but downing three cartel fighters in the process. We continued to mount our assault, aided by our team of fighters – most of whom were members of the Devil’s Dragons. They defensively stuck close to their leader, ready to annihilate any threat that appeared.

  Even down here, exposed wiring and limited panels showed just how new the structure was. The rooms appeared to be filled with scattered construction equipment and debris, and a lot of walls were only built on one side, or lacked external plating. Still, the further forward we went, the more the various rooms and hallways started coming together.

  The cartel members were spread a little thinner here, and we reduced their numbers with every corner we turned.

  Before we could sweep the entire floor, a pair of bikers caught up with us.

  “We found them!”

  Hunter whipped around. “How many?”

  “Fifteen girls!”

  He was stunned by the news, pausing to process this. His gaze shifted to meet mine, and then he asked the biker: “Any Caucasians?”