by Marata Eros
Ritchie violently shakes his head. “Cleared ʼem out for the new load coming in soon.”
Grunts of disgust echo through the van.
Then Wring says thoughtfully, “Smart digs, really. Like hiding in plain sight.”
“Or being arrogant,” Viper says.
Puck looms over Ritchie, who cowers away.
Fuck I would, Puck looks like he’s the reaper instead of a man. “Did you hurt her, you sick fuck?”
He fists Ritchie’s hair, and when the man doesn’t answer him, Puck slams his skull down on the metal floorboards in the back of the van.
“I fingered her cunt!” he wails.
“Step back, all of you,” Puck says in a low, rage-filled voice.
Puck slams Ritchie’s head on the floorboards until his brains leak onto the once-empty plastic.
Hard work to break open a head.
Puck straightens and takes a step back, breaths ragged, and his hands are filled with the evidence of the business he just committed.
Candi watches silently.
We all do.
Got the info we need and nothing else matters.
Except Temp.
“Get a prospect and clean this shit up,” Puck says to everyone and no one.
Viper puts a call through on a burner.
We leave the keys in a hidden place after locking the van, walk away.
Puck cleans up, although I don’t know how smart that is. He might get bloodier before the night is through.
Temp
I’m in a room by myself. I’m not sure why I get the queen treatment.
Of course, I’m slightly pessimistic by nature, so my mind goes right to assuming I’m going to get special treatment. And not the good kind.
Guilt eats at what consciousness I have. But I can’t sit here and let whatever might happen take place. There's others who matter beside me.
Kendra.
The baby.
I have to take charge of my own destiny.
Examining the IV, I see it’s not attached to a monitor. I tell my arm to move.
A finger twitches.
The lack of control over my body is excruciating.
After five full minutes, I blink rapidly to rid my eyes of the sweat.
My fingers have finally curled around the needle that pierces my opposite arm.
With a horrible slowness, I slide the needle out.
Blood begins to gush from the wound.
Holy shit. I’m going to die of blood loss.
My eyes frantically assess what I can grab to staunch the flow. The loose hospital gown is closest.
Another three minutes later, and I finally press the smock top against the hole in my arm.
My vision wavers.
No Temp, you will not pass out.
Then I do.
My last thought is I will never be able to tell Puck I’m sorry or that he might have been a dad.
It’s the saddest epiphany of my life.
Puck
I watched Candi torture that guy and wanted to myself. So much for being former law enforcers.
That life is long gone.
Now my life is defined by different parameters. Ones where a woman’s life is more important than my own.
Or anyone’s.
The irony isn’t lost on me. That the prostitution operation—and a very thinly veiled female trafficking ring—is holed up in the old Chaos headquarters.
A place in which I’m intimately familiar.
Having been undercover in Chaos for nearly four years, I know the place backward and forward.
Noose jerks his jaw at the corner of the building, and I have to wonder what’s running through his mind?
Déjà vu sweeps through me.
Lariat, Wring, and Noose close in on the perimeter of the huge concrete fortress that Ritchie barfed out the address for, knotted ropes of various sizes clutched inside a practiced fist.
And some other details Ritchie told us that make my bowel clench. Such as their plans for Temp and Kendra.
The two women were going to be absorbed into the operation.
The realization has me almost too loud, too careless in my approach to the building I spent so much time within.
Viper’s here with us this time, and he eyeballs the big building the way we all do.
The guarding of it will be huge.
Already, we spot the sentry points, and my stomach knots. My eyes scan the biggest hurdle. Lots of men at the perimeter to deal with.
Wring’s smile becomes fierce and predatory. The sense that we’re just animals posing as men washes over me.
Noose gives the signal to the ex-Navy SEAL men, and they split, moving in smooth stealthy gaits as they weave through the dense forest surrounding the structure.
Snare stays with me, and Viper takes our back.
Our faces painted in the colors of nature, we slide behind the last copse of trees before the buffer of openness, woods, and structure.
Looking at the former club where I spent so much time fills me with regret and a sense of waste.
But I know that both Candi and I—hell even that fucker Storm—did more good than evil.
I don’t know where my moral compass points anymore. Probably not due north like it should.
But if it did, would I be risking everything and everyone to save one woman?
Just as we are going to move, a shrilling alarm sounds.
Viper and Storm look in my direction.
Snare bolts for the door as the guards look at each other in an amateur move of pure buffoonery, losing sense of their surroundings because of the sound blast.
Snare is on the first one, and I handle the other two. I pistol whip the first with my dominant then sever the hamstring on the second with a left-handed knife strike, causing him to take a single faltering step forward and collapse.
Viper comes directly behind me, but Storm has already blasted through the door with a well-placed foot, dropping low.
We charge through behind him, staying to the walls as more men tear around the corner in front of us.
They never see the ropes.
Until they’re around their necks.
Silently, Wring, Lariat, and Noose snake the deadly quiet weapons around their throats.
Viper is at my back, making sure no one enters behind us.
When a half-naked Temp races around the corner, skidding to a halt with one sock halfway on and the other completely absent, all I see is her bare pussy and bloodied arm. Forgetting all the training I’ve ever known, I sprint toward her with one intention: to protect her.
“Puck!” Storm screams.
I duck, and a bullet flies, hitting Temp, who spins like a puppet with its strings cut. She drops to the floor in a fragile heap.
Sliding in next to her body, I don’t care about the bullets zinging over my head.
The yelling or chaos.
I look into her eyes, queering the entire moment of reunion with tears that fall on her upturned face.
Fucking please, I berate myself.
Slowly and with great deliberation, she says, “It’s just a flesh wound.”
Scanning her body, I see it was a grazing shot to her left hip.
“Temp...”
“Shh,” she says, putting her fingertips to my lips.
I cup my hand around her wound and drag her small body into my arms while the bodies of men I don’t know lie around us.
Doing a brief headcount, I see all the brothers are standing and accounted for.
Except Storm.
I stand with Temp in my arms.
Without a word, Noose clamps his teeth on the only clean spot in the middle of his bloodied rope, stripping off the tight black T-shirt he wears and wordlessly hands it over.
I cover Temp’s lower half with the shirt.
Temp fists the material of my own T-shirt in her small hand. Says something too low for me to hear. I lean over her as the sound of yelling can be heard in the distanc
e. “What?”
“Kendra. Save K.”
My head snaps up and Noose shakes his head. “Gotta torch this fucking place. Clean sweep, man.”
Wring is at his shoulder, his hair so blond it’s nearly white. They bump fists. “Let me work on the cavalry.”
Lariat and Noose exchange a look. “Then it’s fire time.”
Noose gives a curt nod.
“No!” Temp says in a voice that’s hoarse.
I don’t stay. Turning, I get her the fuck out of there, feeling like the luckiest son of a bitch in existence.
Chapter 25
Storm
Fucking hell. Should have stayed with the men and not lone-rangered shit. But now I’m here, moving through a maze of halls I have only a rudimentary knowledge of.
I slide down the wall, weapon raised high and tight against the smooth surface, with a silencer affixed to its end. Of course, the muffling probably doesn’t have that much effectiveness remaining.
Already killed three fucks in the space of a minute, just to press deeper into the long corridor.
My head snaps to the right at the sound of a high-pitched, feminine wail. As tense as a rattler, I spring around the corner, dropping to one knee, and sight the only guard in this hall.
The gun barely kicks as I shoot off a round, punching a neat hole in the center of his surprised face.
He crumples, and I run hard to the door he was standing outside. Grabbing the doorframe with one hand, I swing myself into the room.
A woman lies on the bed anchored in the center of a room, spread eagle while some fuck attempts to stick his dick in her.
No hesitation. No thought process. Like taking my next breath, I fire the gun, making more noise now that the silencer’s been derailed by my absolute enthusiasm.
The shot takes him square in the ass.
The man jerks upright, hands to ass cheeks as he cants to the side. I help him along with a kill shot in the chest, simultaneously disgorging him and all future options of rape.
He rolls off the bed, falling to the slick floor with a wet thud.
Whirling, I check the door, as still as a cat on a tripwire. Hearing nothing, I turn back to the bed where the girl was and walk over to where she cowers, gun bare in my hand.
“Come on,” I say, knowing instantly this must be Kendra from Puck’s rapid debrief of the facilities inside this former clubhouse.
I hold out my hand, and she slides hers within.
That’s when I notice the blood all over the sheets.
“Did that fuck rape you?” I bark at her, thinking I’d prevented that.
Flinching at my voice, she shakes her head, a pile of dark-honey hair flying around her shoulders. “Not... yet. I—oh my God—” She looks down at herself and the surrounding sheets. “My period just started.”
Our eyes both move to the mess of blood.
Holy shit.
Okay, fuck it. Scanning the immediate area, I find what I’m looking for. Moving a couple of feet from her bedside, I grab about eight paper towels from a wall dispenser then walk to a closet rod where a variety of clothing is hanging.
I grab a small pair of jeans and toss them in her direction, noting her lame attempt to cover her bloody pussy with one hand as she deftly catches the pants with the other.
Walking back, I thrust out the paper towels. “Stuff this where it belongs and jerk the shit on. We’re going.”
Her face rises to meet mine for the first time since I barged in here, one small hand fisting the wadded up towels.
I get a good look at her face and take a staggering step backward.
Kendra—if this is Kendra—has my mom’s eyes. Same shade. Same shape.
“What?” she whispers. Tears bloom like wet flowers in those arresting eyes, spilling down her upturned face.
I shake my head, gun hanging limp by my side, speechless for once.
Distant shouting snaps me out of it, and I come back to myself with a jolt. “Do as I said.”
“Okay,” she says.
I look away.
Kendra doesn’t need to see me checking her out after the near-rape and her monthlies starting in front of a stranger.
“I’m done.” Wiping her eyes, she slides off the bed and her bare toes touch the ground.
As I walk over to her, she shies from me, and I frown. “Not going to fuck you up. Just have to get you safe.”
She licks her lips nervously, and I notice how tiny she is now that we’re facing each other. “Who are you?”
A million replies race through my mind, then I say the dumbest of all the possible answers. “A friend.”
She nods quickly, sniffing in her fear. “What about Temp?”
That has an instant smirk riding my lips. “I think Puck’s got that.”
Her shoulders fall a little in clear relief, and I fight a surge of rare tenderness, somewhat pissed off I have anything resembling compassion. That is not my modus operandi for surviving my life.
Getting the feels.
That’s for other people to embrace.
Instead of caving to the bizarre impulse, I grab her hand and haul her roughly behind me.
“Wait,” she says breathlessly.
I turn, ready to snarl, but the look on her face is so filled with uncertainty that I take a deep, steadying inhale. “There’s no time for bullshit. I need to meet with the brothers at our rendezvous point.”
“I’m scared,” she says without an ounce of care to what I just said.
“Okay, and I’m Storm. Nice to meet ya.”
She blinks. “Kendra.” A small frown forms between her brows. “You’re kind of an asshole.”
“Yes. That doesn’t change the fact that we need to get the fuck out of here.”
Without waiting for a reply, I start towing her behind me until I get to where the bodies are.
Viper is waiting. He doesn’t bother to hide his relief. “I was just going to tromp around this place, looking for your solo ass.”
I jerk my chin behind me. “Got the other b—female.”
Viper looks at Kendra standing behind me and nods. “Good, because this place is going up in flames.”
I cock an eyebrow. “When?”
Viper looks at his huge scuba diving watch he always wears and grins. “Now.”
A huge explosion takes the side of the building we were just in, and Kendra’s eyes dart to me, wide with understanding and fear.
Fuck... those eyes.
It pisses me off. I jerk her after me, following Viper.
Can’t wait to get rid of this bitch.
Temp
Kendra shivers, but she’s underneath every blanket I own. We’re at her house, because mine is unlivable at the moment.
Cops have been there and back. But we keep to our stories. The ones where we both escaped from that horrible building.
The building that is nothing but a few smoldering hunks of concrete at the corners.
“I can’t get warm,” Kendra says, wrapping herself more tightly inside one of my mom’s old quilts.
Sighing, I walk over there, freshly showered and feeling wrung out. I’ve been checked by a doctor, and although I’m physically fine, my mental stuff might take a little longer.
There were paralytics present in my bloodstream. But not the date rape drug I thought had been used against some of my clients. That’s why they hadn’t thought it necessary to restrain us.
Puck had filled me in on the tense ride home from the ordeal. I was half-naked and bleeding all over him from jerking that needle out. I didn’t know that some other guy was going after her, and I thought he’d left Kendra in there to die.
There was so much to say that I didn’t even know where to begin, and there was zero privacy to talk to him like I so badly wanted to.
When he dropped me off last night, Puck promised me someone from his motorcycle club would be guarding us. Our shared moment of staring didn’t resolve anything. So much was left unsaid. Like how he found m
e in the first place.
Or why he bothered after the big knock-down drag-out we had.
Puck finding me gives me hope.
I sit down next to her and snuggle against her thin body, squeezing her gently. “Storm got you, K. It’s over.”
She gives a rueful laugh. “I don’t think he wanted to get me.”
I shrug. He seems like a hard guy for someone a few years younger than us. “He did, though. Seems like a lot of the biker dudes are tough. But maybe they’re redeemable.” My laugh is a little unhinged. “Because right now, I won’t lie—I’d forgive them almost anything. I didn’t think we’d ever see our lives again.”
Kendra swipes a tear from her eye. “I know,” she agrees quietly. “If the circumstances hadn’t been so dire, I’d be embarrassed. My God, my period decided to start right then—in front of Storm. How does that even happen?” Her voice is half-wail, half-embarrassed whisper.
I laugh. Periods stop for no female. “Just lucky.” Then I sober, running through the details Kendra already told me. “He didn’t rape you, though, right?”
Kendra shakes her head, eyes meeting mine. “No, Storm came in right when he was going to go for it.”
I crack up then slap my hand over my mouth.
“What is so fucking funny?” Kendra asks, the heat of anger bleeding through her question.
“He shot your attacker in the ass, right?”
She starts laughing too, and inside of five seconds, we’re holding our ribs, roaring.
Some shit is just wonderful.
“Dead on the ass crack.”
We have another cathartic roar fest, then finally, our laughter begins to fade.
“And then he blew him away when he was trying to play grab-ass with himself,” Kendra adds quietly.
God. “Wow, that must’ve been something.”
Kendra nods. “I’ve never seen anyone be shot. Die. Nothing. Even though that jerk was trying to rape me, even though, clearly their criminal enterprise was threatened, he was going to get one last unwilling fuck in.” She shivers with revulsion.
“I’m sorta surprised about Storm being the one to get you out, actually.”
Kendra gives me a sharp look.
“I mean, you’ve heard about him. You’re friends with the girl that’s Noose’s wife’s best friend—Rose, right?”
