Forging Blade (Charon MC Book 11)

by Khloe Wren

  Veronica

  The rumble was getting louder. I looked out the window to see the clear night sky. No storm meant that noise was bikes, not thunder. And to be that loud, there had to be a lot of them. I started to chew on my lower lip but stopped when pain from a split fired up. Dare I allow myself hope that was Blade and his club coming to get me? A noise from outside the door had me spinning to look in that direction. Another thump and I was back across the room, grabbing the lamp from beside my bed. Pulling the cord from the outlet, I stood waiting to see who was about to come into the room. If it was my uncle or one of his men trying to get a piece of me, I was going to take a swing and run.

  Suddenly the door splintered and flew open. I raised my weapon, ready to swing, when I saw who’d burst through the door. Dropping the heavy lamp, I sobbed and threw myself at Blade, wrapping my arms and legs around him as he wound an arm around my waist, keeping me tight against him while he pressed a kiss to my temple.

  “I got you, little dove.”

  “Let’s head back out.”

  I tensed at the new voice and glanced up, but relaxed when I saw he was wearing a Charon MC vest like Blade’s. I buried my face in against his neck, inhaling his scent deep in my lungs. He’d come for me.

  “Anything you wanna take, Veronica? We’ll be burning this place to the ground by the time we’re through.”

  I shook my head. “There’s nothing of mine here. Please, Blade, just get me out of here.” I gasped as I remembered the doctor. “We need to find Dr. Maestro before we go!”

  With a palm to the back of my head, he pressed my cheek to his shoulder. “Shh, little dove. There’s another team looking for him.”

  Then he started moving. I held tight as we headed to the rear of the house. Once down the stairs he tapped my thigh, indicating I needed to stand. Reluctantly, I released my hold on my savior and stood beside him. He leaned in to speak near my ear.

  “There was a guard below your window. Let me take him out, then we’ll be running to the rear fence, okay?”

  “I don’t have shoes.”

  “I’ll carry you—”

  Before he could say anything more, shouts filled the night. The roar of Harleys that been growing steadily louder suddenly cut off and fear had me taking a fistful of Blade’s shirt over his heart. He took my face between his palms and held my gaze with his.

  “Both the Charons and Satan’s Cowboys are here for you and the doctor. Anyone wearing a cut—a leather vest—is on your side and can be trusted, understand?”

  I nodded. Movement caught my eye and I jerked at the sight of a big man coming out of the shadows behind us. Blade tensed and spun, pulling a knife from somewhere as he did. As soon as he saw who it was, he relaxed.

  “You find him?”

  “Yeah, found him, but he won’t fucking come with us. Says he’s done with switching hells.”

  Knowing they were talking about Dr. Maestro, I pushed around from behind Blade, ignoring his grumbling. “Take me to him, let me explain who you are. He’ll come with me.”

  The man raised an eyebrow at Blade and spoke over my head to him. “It’ll be the only way, unless we knock his ass out and carry him.”

  I gasped. “Please, he’s been hurt enough. Elita had her men do horrible things to him, but he’ll trust me. If I tell him y’all are safe to go with, he will. At least let me try? Before you knock him out and hurt him even more.”

  “Fine, but we need to make it fast. The others are here and shit’s gonna hit the fan any second.”

  Blade kept me between him and the other men as we jogged through the dark house to another wing. Each of the men pulled out handguns as we moved along the hallway and handled them with the confidence of men who knew how to use them. Which they proved when we came to a well-lit hallway containing three guards with semi-automatic weapons.

  Blade shoved me down and fired at the same time as the other two men. The three guards dropped, dead before they even saw us. With a firm grip under my arms, Blade lifted me back to my feet and we continued down the hallway. This whole thing was so far outside what I’d ever experienced, I had no way to process it.

  Before I could get too caught up in the easy way these men had killed my uncle’s guards, I found myself being moved past another biker and into a room where Dr. Maestro was standing in the furthest corner. Trembling, he was pressing back against the walls as though they’d open up and swallow him.

  “Hey, Dr. Maestro.” He was frozen like a scared deer, so I made myself as cheery as possible, under the circumstances. I really wished he’d given me his first name at some point. Seemed ridiculous after all we’d been through that I was still calling him something so formal. “I need you to come with me now. Remember? I told you Blade would come for us, that he’d already been coming to rescue you? Well, this is him, and his club. We’re safe with them, I promise.”

  I held out my hand to him as I moved closer, while the noises in the house grew in intensity and volume. Gunfire, shouts and pounding footsteps. I ignored it all, knowing the four men standing behind me had us covered.

  “We really need to get moving before my uncle comes looking for us. He’s gonna be really mad that I’m not where he left me. He knows I’m protective of you, so he’ll come here next, looking for me. He knows I wouldn’t leave you behind.”

  The look in his gaze broke my heart. Elita had seriously fucked with his head, along with his body. I had no clue what his life would be like once we got to freedom, but I vowed to help him any way I could. I wriggled my fingers, desperate for him to take my hand so we could get out of here. Slowly, he reached for me and wrapped his long fingers around my wrist. I copied his grip and gently pulled him from his hiding spot.

  “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  We got to the door and one of the men had his phone to his ear and held his palm up for us to stay put. After saying a few words I didn’t catch, he pocketed the phone.

  “The rear of the house is a no go. Looks like we’re gonna have to head out the front somehow.”

  Bank, according to the name tag on his vest, spoke up. “Wouldn’t it be better to find another room to wait it out in? If we walk out there while bullets are still flying, I don’t like our chances of getting everyone out alive.”

  Blade nodded. “Yeah, as Veronica said, this room is the logical place that Jovan will come looking for her, but if we move to another room, we should be safe enough.”

  Remembering Blade’s words about them burning this place down had me leading them to my uncle’s office. Once we were inside, I removed myself from Dr. Maestro’s grip and went for the painting on the wall behind his desk. It was so fucking clichéd but I didn’t care about that right now. I tore the frame from the wall and spun the dial on the revealed safe. Putting in the code I’d seen him enter so many years ago, I prayed he hadn’t changed it. A click had me releasing the breath I was holding as I swung the heavy door open.

  “Veronica, what are you doing?”

  “You said to take anything that matters. He has my mother’s jewelry in here, my father’s wedding ring.” At least I hope he has it in there.

  Pulling out boxes of papers, I tossed them on the desk, not caring about his blackmail material at all. I was vaguely aware of some of the other men, the ones that weren’t wearing Charon MC vests were gathering up what I was tossing, but I didn’t give a fuck. Finally, I found the box. A lacquered black jewelry box that had so proudly sat on my mother’s dresser my whole life. Gripping it carefully with both hands, I lifted it free of the safe and moved to sit on the couch before I opened the lid. Nestled against the royal blue satin were my parents’ wedding rings, along with several of Mom’s necklaces and bracelets. I ran a finger over them, tears stinging my eyes.

  “I didn’t think I’ve ever see these again.”

  He’d threatened to sell them so many times—each and every time I tried to stand up to him. It appeared he’d sold at least some of them as there were pieces missing
that I knew should be here. I swiped at the tears. He hadn’t sold them because he needed the money, but more likely to teach me a lesson. I doubted he went to much effort so I’d go see the local pawn shops, maybe ask Keys to see if he could track them down. Although, really, it was something so unimportant in the big scheme of things.

  “Little dove, don’t cry. You’re breaking my heart.”

  “He’s sold some of it. The diamond necklace my father bought my mother for their tenth wedding anniversary isn’t here.”

  He crouched down in front of me and I looked from the contents of the box, up into his brilliant blue eyes.

  “We’ll search the local pawn dealers for it, and if we can’t find it anywhere, we’ll get another one made. It’s a thing, sweetheart, replaceable. You are not. For now, I need you to focus on getting out of here, okay? We’ll worry about the necklace and anything else missing later, yeah?”

  I nodded. He was right, of course. All material things were replaceable. He leaned in and after frowning at my busted lip, pressed a kiss to my temple before standing and moving back toward the door and the other men. The one who’d been on his phone earlier lifted it to his ear again, then frowned before hanging up, all without speaking a word. I was pretty sure that didn’t bode well.

  Chapter Eleven

  Blade

  Tank, one of the Cowboys who’d come in with the other van, put his phone away but didn’t look happy. “They need us out there. We’ve got the place surrounded, and taken out the exterior guards, but Jovan’s got his men covering all the exits from the inside with semis. Our men can’t get near enough to take the fuckers out. It’s going to be up to us to clear them an entrance.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. Fuck it all. How many men did this bastard have at his disposal? I turned and looked over at Veronica. She was still sitting on the couch with her mother’s jewelry box open on her lap, but was looking at us as though she’d heard what Tank had said. The doctor had shifted to stand behind the couch, behind Veronica. He was a shell of the arrogant prick who I’d met in the ER last month. I had to wonder what Elita had done to the poor bastard to do so much damage in such a short period of time.

  Veronica cleared her throat as she closed the lid on the box. “We’ll stay here while you go do your thing. We’ll be fine.”

  I huffed out a breath. I didn’t like it, but it was the safest option we had open to us. We needed to go out there and kill her uncle’s men. That would be harder if we had those two with us. The doctor was a PTSD mess waiting to happen, and Veronica was too fucking sweet and had already been through too much. Not to mention the whole no shoes thing they both had going on. Neither of them needed to see us go on a killing spree.

  “Fine, but you two don’t move from this fucking room, you hear me? And you lock that door behind us.”

  They both nodded before Veronica stood and moved over to the door, ready to flip the lock. I gave her a fast kiss, inwardly cursing when she winced before lifting her fingers to cover her split lip. Forcing myself to focus back on the situation, I pressed a knife into her hand that wasn’t covering her face before I slipped out into the hallway.

  “So, how many knives you got on you exactly?”

  I raised a brow at Riff, the other Cowboy with us. “Enough. They don’t call me Blade for nothing. And I prefer knives, they’re quieter.”

  “Guns are quicker, simpler.”

  “Only if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  With a wink, I shrugged a shoulder. I was as fast throwing a knife as I was pulling a trigger. And collecting a knife from a body was much simpler than collecting bullets and casings. But I let it go, we didn’t have time to debate weapon choice right at the moment.

  Tank chuckled before growing serious. “Right, I think it’ll be easier to clear a way through the side entrance. From reports, Jovan’s got most of his men out the front and back.”

  Once we all nodded our agreement, we all headed after Tank toward the side entrance. Allowing my inner beast to rise up again, I left my gun holstered and pulled a knife into each hand, ready to either throw or slice. The house was still fairly dark. At a guess, they were trying to make it harder for our guys to see in. Unfortunately for them, they still didn’t realize we were already inside. Apparently no one had yet missed the three guards we’d already dispatched.

  The closer we got, the slower and more careful we had to approach, to not draw their attention. Tank signaled for me to take the lead, pointing to my weapons as I slipped past him. I gave him a nod that I understood. Take out who I could silently, then they’d shoot the rest. Three men stood with their weapons pointed outside, but none of them were watching their backs. We might be able to do this silently. With a few hand signals, I had Tank and Bank by my side with knives in their fists. Riff stood back and had his gun up and aimed at the men facing away from us.

  Adrenaline pumped through my veins, heightening my senses as I crept up behind my target. My beast was roaring in my ears, ready for blood. Keeping the other two men in my peripheral vision, I made sure we struck at the same time, grabbing fistfuls of hair and swiping our blades across their throats in one smooth, fast movement. Snagging their guns, we lowered them together with the bodies to the ground before we did a final check for more of Jovan’s men. When we saw none, I flicked open the lock on the door and shoved it open while Tank used his phone to pass the information on to the men outside that they could now enter.

  In order to not clue in Jovan’s guards on the other doors that we’d breeched the building, only the men closest to this entry point came in after us. We were now a dozen men strong and I was torn over what to do. I wanted to be the one to put an end to Allen Jovan’s life, but I also wanted to get back to Veronica’s side to make sure she was safe. The men who flowed through the door spread out, heading to the other entrances to take out more of Jovan’s men.

  “Anyone seen the fucker himself?”

  Tank shook his head. “No one’s reported in with a visual.”

  “You think he escaped before we got here?”

  Riff grunted. “No way. If his niece is here, so is he. No way a man puts all that time, money and effort into retrieving her, just to abandon her. He’s here.”

  Riff was right. There’s no way Allen would leave Veronica behind. “Let’s go back to the office and grab her and the doctor, get them out of here. Then we can go hunting. He’s been breathing for way too long.”

  With a sudden sense of urgency, I jogged back down the hallway. I skidded to a stop when I came around the corner and saw the door wasn’t closed all the way. What the fuck? Was Veronica trying to see if the way was clear?

  Veronica’s voice filled the air, “Don’t touch me!”

  Oh, hell no.

  I turned back to Tank. “Found the fucker, and he’s mine.”

  Bank and Riff were also beside me but like Tank, they didn’t say a word as I rolled my neck, allowed the beast free rein, and strode forward. As I struck the door with my foot, flinging it open, I had my arm raised, ready to throw. My blade left my fingers as I stepped into the room. He let loose a curse when the metal sank deep into his shoulder. Predicting he’d spin just as he had, I’d aimed for his upper torso, not wanting to risk hurting Veronica if I went for his neck and missed. That, and I didn’t want his end to be fast. Fucker deserved to suffer first.

  “Get away from my woman.”

  At my growled words, he lifted his other arm to reveal a gun with a silencer on it. Time slowed down, the seconds dragging out. I lifted my other blade to throw, but knew it wouldn’t be fast enough to save myself. I heard guns behind me being cocked but, in the end, it wasn’t one of the men who saved my life, it was my woman. Curses filled the air as bullets flew and Veronica lunged at her uncle and drove into his side hard, taking them both down. I rushed forward to get her away from him, praying none of the bullets had hit her. Jovan had dropped his weapon and had his fingers wrapped around Veronica’s biceps, holding her to him.
His eyes were on hers and looked both pained and shocked.

  “Why, baby? You’re mine, I always looked after you. I came and rescued you!”

  Her voice was rough, sounding like she had a sore throat, when she replied. “You’re a monster. I was your niece! And you ruined me. You took away everything I ever cared about. You fucking killed my parents. You never looked after me, only ever yourself.”

  His knuckles turned white as his grip tightened on her. I attacked one hand, gripping his pinky and wrenching it back until he released his hold on her. Tank was on the other side, doing the same thing on his other hand. Once he released his grasp, we both slammed his wrists back against the floor and Bank wrapped an arm around Veronica.

  “C’mon, honey. It’s over.”

  I ran my eyes over her, looking for wounds, but all I could see was blood. Was it hers? Or his? I looked back at her uncle and had to smile at the knife embedded in his stomach. Veronica had stabbed him with the blade I’d given her. That was my girl.

  “You’ll always be mine, Victoria. No one will ever have you like I have. You’ll never wear another’s mark like you do mine—”

  Her scream cut off his words and she broke free of Bank’s hold. She stepped up to her uncle and delivered a hard kick between his legs, making the fucker howl and the rest of us wince. No doubt the bastard deserved it, but no man could watch another’s balls copping that kind of abuse and not flinch at least a little.

  “I was never yours. Never.”

  She dropped to her knees and started pawing at my belt. It took me a second to realize what she was wanting. My heart broke a little more for her. She was trying to get my larger knife.

  “Tank, take this.”

  I transferred Jovan’s wrist I held to Tank, who shifted to hold both of the dying man’s wrists tightly against the floor. I took my knife out and moved until I was behind Veronica. I put the hilt of the weapon in her palm, wrapping my hand around hers.

  “Let me help you.”