by April Lust
I shook my head. It did make sense, but I knew in my heart it wasn’t right. Bills would do a lot of things, and there was even a chance that when it came right down to it, he’d hand me over to the Slayers to save himself. I knew how loyal he’d been to the Preacher, but the Preacher was dead, and now his loyalties were a bit muddled.
But there was one thing I did know for certain: he’d never hurt Lucy.
Letting out a slow breath, I answered, “I know. I’m not asking because I think you ratted.”
I heard Bills release a relieved breath. His voice sounded less strained as he said, “What did you need?”
“I got a body on my hands here at the cabin,” I said, quickly telling him it was a Slayer. “I need it taken care of.”
Bills swore. “The hell, boss? What happened?”
I shook my head, though he couldn’t see me, and answered, “No time for the details. Just get it taken care of. And I want everyone—and I mean everyone—meeting in two hours. No exceptions. Once you’re done with the body, you catch up to us.”
“Done,” Bills answered.
I hung up the phone and got to my bike. I put on my helmet, revved up the motorcycle, and took the road at a fast pace until I hit the major streets, determined to get to the city as quickly as possible.
Start running girls.
That wasn’t an option. I would do it to save Lucy, but I knew it would mean I’d lose her. Even more than that, it was no guarantee it would keep her safe in the end. I knew guys like Blade. They’d make demands and, then, when you met those demands, the stakes would get higher. Suddenly they’d want more.
And they wouldn’t let Lucy go until they had everything they wanted, which would never happen. She was the only thing they could hold on to that would keep me doing whatever they wanted and it meant they couldn’t ever afford to let her go.
Which meant I couldn’t afford to get in.
When I pulled up outside the shop, people were already starting to show up. The shop had been closed, despite the protests of several potential customers, and the Sin Reapers were gathering inside. I saw six at least already.
Counting their bikes parked outside made me start considering numbers. Numbers like how many Sin Reapers there actually were versus how many Slayers. I knew already which number was smaller. It was the whole reason I’d been willing to break bread with the Slayers in the first place.
We didn’t have the numbers to win a war against them.
I dug into my pocket for my cell phone again. As I walked in and the phone rang, I motioned for several of the guys to make sure everyone got in and was accounted for. I knew we were still missing people, but I wanted them to keep their eyes open for who was coming up next.
The phone clicked after a moment and a deep, gruff voice answered. “The hell do you want, Max boy? Hell, I only just talked to you, didn’t I?”
Blackbird was being ornery, but it was mostly just an act. Secretly, I suspected that he was feeling a little lonely these days, missing the comradery that had made being part of the motorcycle club so appealing to him in the first place. I hoped he’d kept in touch with his old club, even if he didn’t ride with them anymore.
“I need a favor,” I said and something must have showed through in my tone, because I could almost hear him straighten up through the phone.
“What do you need?” he asked. He must have known how much it took me to ask what I was about to ask.
“I need a meeting with the Vultures, and I need it today.”
# # #
Blackbird got me my meeting, right after I finished with my own group. I told them we were officially at war with the Slayers. I told them there was now a price on Blade's head and it wasn’t contingent on whether he was dead or alive. I didn’t tell them about Lucy, though the club liked her enough that it would probably have been like pouring gasoline onto a fire, causing it to burn so hot that the whole city would crumble in its wake.
But I didn’t want anyone to know about Lucy. If I didn’t get there in time...
I shook my head forcefully. I promised myself I would, but if I didn’t, I didn’t want her to have to deal with the looks she might get from a bunch of guys who wouldn’t understand what had happened. Who wouldn’t forgive her, even though it hadn’t been her fault.
No, I didn’t want that. I didn’t want any of this, in fact. “I’ll get there in time,” I muttered.
Most of the guys had left at this point. I’d told them to actively search out the Slayers wherever they might find them. They needed to go to town and do whatever they felt they had to, even though I knew it meant there would be casualties, not to mention a hell of a lot of attention directed our way.
It was probably deplorable, but I didn’t care. I’d go to hell happily if it meant I could take Blade with me.
I was waiting in the office in the back—the one Lucy spent most of her time in, so much so it smelled like her—until Blackbird and the Vultures would show up. I knew getting them mobilized and down in the area this quickly was quite the feat, so I didn’t begrudge them too much time. Even so, I was impatient.
This needed to get taken care of immediately.
When Billy Woods, leader of the Vultures, showed up finally, six guys in tow— “The rest are on their way,” he promised me when he saw the scowl on my face—I felt something close to relief begin to settle. Maybe, just maybe, we could pull this off.
Blackbird walked off to the side of the Vultures men, but still slightly behind Billy, like he still respected the man who had once led them. He probably did, in all fairness. That was the kind of man Blackbird was.
We wasted precious seconds on pleasantries, before I dove into the fray. “The Slayers have been edging into my territory as of late, and there have been a few resulting scuffles,” I began, needing to explain the situation.
Billy held up his hand to stop me just after I’d started. He was shaking his head already. “It ain’t my business or the business of my club to deal with a territorial dispute. This ain’t my neighborhood and it sure as hell ain’t my problem.”
I clenched my jaw tightly for a moment, forcing myself to remain calm. “This isn’t a territorial dispute,” I corrected him. “I made a deal with the Slayers and they’re actively breaking it. And maybe no one here gives a shit about that, because you’re right, this isn’t your problem. But I want you to know why I hate the fucking Slayers. I want you to know why this isn’t about territory.”
Billy frowned, but said nothing, so I took that as the okay to go ahead.
“They’ve always lived a little farther on the other side of the line than the Sin Reapers ever have,” I told Billy, my eyes flickering to Blackbird momentarily to see he was tense and frowning. He didn’t know the story, not yet, but he knew something was seriously wrong in a way Billy didn’t. I returned my focus to the leader of the Vultures. “They’ve run hard drugs; they’ve run arms. They’ve killed people without need or cause. They have no code, but I could live with that. I could work with it. But I can’t live with human trafficking.”
Billy sucked in a harsh breath, and he wasn’t the only one. Running girls wasn’t necessarily off limits to clubs like ours. Every club made its own rules, and some of those were more lenient than others. The Sin Reapers made a point of keeping our business pretty damn close to legal and our illegal activities pretty mild. Those who went too far off those tracks didn’t stay in the club for long.
The Vultures were similar in that respect, which was why I’d called them. Billy wasn’t a dad like the Preacher had been, but he had sisters and nieces and a mother. He had enough women in his life that the idea of abusing them the way the Slayers did didn’t sit well with him.
In fact, it made him angry. More than angry. He was livid.
I could see it in his features. The blotchy redness of his pockmarked cheeks. The tightness of his jaw and the sharp lines of his eyebrows, pulled low over his eyes. Eyes that were sharp as knives.
“Y
ou sure?” he asked, simple and direct.
I nodded once. “Yeah, I am.” My eyes flickered to Blackbird, then back to Billy. I didn’t want to say what I was about to say next, but I had to put it out there. Not agreeing with a club’s practice wasn’t enough to get involved, not even with something as disgusting as human trafficking. I needed more and it just so happened that I, unfortunately, had just that. Before Billy could answer one way or the other, I dropped the bomb that had to come eventually. “And they took Lucy.”
“What?” This was Blackbird, his eyes wide and full of the same panic I remembered feeling. “Lucy?”
“The Preacher’s girl?” It was Billy this time. He looked pushed just past the point of insanity.
That was the other part of the reason I’d picked the Vultures to call in for outside help. “Yeah. And I was told by a messenger that if I didn’t cooperate, Lucy would...” I swallowed hard, almost not even able to get it out. When I did manage it, it came out as a choke: “...that she’d be first.”
That was all it took. The men in the room were up in arms and there were cries of vengeance and pain towards Blade and his disturbed men. I had promises that the rest of the Vultures would be in that evening and that, if I went and started a war with the Slayers, they’d have my back.
I let out a deep breath that I’d been holding. “I’ve put a price out on Blade,” I told Billy. “And that extends to your boys, too. Anyone who brings me Blade—dead or alive—gets a reward. No questions asked.”
Just as I finished, I saw Bills appear. He’d missed the meeting, so I’d have to fill him in, but he’d probably guessed most of it on his own anyway. Billy and the Vultures shook my hand and left to meet up with the rest of their boys. Blackbird would be riding with them for a little while, at least until this mess was clearing out. He seemed an odd mixture of annoyed and relieved to be out of retirement. He’d probably be grateful when he got to go back to his little hole in the wall.
As they left, Bills came in. “It’s done,” he told me grimly. That was all we spoke about the body at the cabin.
I nodded once. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about what’s going down with the Slayers and Blade,” I said to him, “but I’ve got the guys pretty riled up.”
Bills nodded. “I heard some of it.”
“Good. Listen, I need something special from you. I need you to stay undercover with Blade, and don’t let on that I know what’s going down. I want you to find out who’s pulling Blade’s strings.”
Bills frowned, looking a little nervous, but he didn’t argue. “You got it, boss.”
As Bills turned to leave, I noticed the only body left in the shop apart from me: Thunder, the new guy. I’d picked him out of the group and asked him to stay, because I knew I’d have to send Bills off to play spy. It meant I’d be without a bodyguard, so I needed to pick a temporary replacement. I picked Thunder.
Maybe it seemed like an off choice. He hadn’t been with us long and though he was big, much of that was in fat rather than muscle. But I had my reasons. Most of them were the fact that he was still recovering from the blows of his initiation. The other part of that reason was that he was so interested in being an Reaper, so desperate to be one of us, that he’d do a lot to prove himself to me.
And I needed a few people I could trust.
Chapter 21
Lucy
The meals came in through a little flat opening in the bars. It was horizontal and barely wide enough to fit my hand through, but it was big enough to allow a whole tray to come through the bars, complete with a plate of food, a plastic spoon, and a juice box.
The meals were bland, but not necessarily bad, and they gave me the strength to deal with what was happening to me: the cage. The quiet. The knowledge that I was the queen bee in enemy territory. It got difficult to tell just how long I’d been here, but I was pretty sure they gave me three meals a day, and if that was true then I'd been here for several days at least.
No one would speak to me. That was probably a good thing, given the circumstances. If Blade came to see me, what good would possibly come of it? Would he tell me, “Oh, sure, why don’t you just skip on out of here?” Doubtful. It was much more likely that, if he came to me and spoke more than a handful of words, all of them would be bad.
After all, he wasn’t keeping me for shits and giggles. There was a reason behind doing what he did and I knew it had to do with Max. He was trying to lean on him about something. I just didn’t know what.
It had to be bad, though. It had to be; otherwise Max would have done it and I would be out of here.
Maybe.
I’d begun to look at my options, thinking if I could save myself maybe Max wouldn’t have to do something terrible and I wouldn’t end up on Blade’s chopping block.
It was a decent plan, but, unfortunately, I didn’t see a single means of getting out. The cage was made with metal bars that weren’t likely to break, especially not given my delicate hands. There had to be a key, of course, but I hadn’t seen it. I’d been unconscious when I arrived, so I never saw anyone unlock or lock the door, though they must have done just that. If the key were lying around somewhere, it wasn’t any place I could see and it was doubtful I'd be able to reach it anyway.
Most likely, Blade had it. If I were a bad guy or a supervillain or something, that would be where I would keep the top-secret key.
Slumping onto the poor excuse for a bed, I sat back and tried to tell myself everything was fine. Everything would be fine. I was okay.
For now.
Max would come for me, of that I was sure, but the problem with that was there was no guarantee he could get to me before they killed me. And if he could (because I didn’t think it was about killing me, though maybe that was their endgame), then how would we get out? The only other option was Max doing what Blade wanted.
I shuddered at the prospect. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
I stared down at the untouched plate of food. It was from the morning, mostly breakfast stuff. At the time I’d been starving, but incapable of eating a bite. Maybe it was the atmosphere, maybe it was the food, or maybe it was just stubbornness. Now, however, I was contemplating gnawing at a piece of toast or something. The juice box was already empty, and I was starting to get thirsty, so I ultimately decided eating anything would probably do nothing to temper my thirst. Still, wasn’t it better than a completely empty stomach?
Before I could decide one way or the other, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. More than one person, it sounded like, based on the cadence. It sounded almost like a horse trying to awkwardly tromp down the stairs.
The image almost made me laugh. Almost.
Then I saw who it was and any desire to laugh died completely. Blade’s face matched his name. He could have been a shoe-in for the Frankenstein monster and I desperately wanted to tell him so. It wouldn’t be kind and I was fairly certain he’d take it out on me if I got clever about it. My own cowardice prevented me from saying a damn thing to the man.
The second man came down the stairs behind him and, with a start, I realized who it was.
Bills, Max’s lieutenant.
I clamped my mouth shut tightly so I wouldn’t gasp in surprise, but it was hard. I’d known somewhere in my gut that Bills was the wrong kind of man, but I would never have imagined this.
They came to a stop several feet of the cage, one right next to the other, and stood there facing me. Bills folded his arms across his chest and gave me a broad, menacing grin. He was leering at me. Blade’s expression matched Bills' except...
Except there was something a little off with Bills’ expression. A dull color to his eye and a pallor to his skin. Beads of sweat trickled down across his bald head and slid down his face in disgusting rivulets.
I couldn’t trust this man, but something was strange here.
“It’s almost that time, Cherry, sweetheart,” Bills told me, his tone full of something akin to lust, bordering on giddiness.
He was convincing. So convincing.
So why, this time, didn't I believe him?
“Do you know what’s coming, baby?” he asked, his tone cracking just slightly. I didn't think Blade caught it, but I did. This—these words, me in a cage—it was killing him.
I swallowed and shook my head just barely. My response caused both men to grin wider and it was Blade who finished Bills’ words for him. Bills looked strangely relieved by the fact.
“We’re gonna use you,” he told me, his grin widening as his eyes dropped down over my body, making me feel as though I was naked before him. He looked maniacal. “That pretty little body of yours. We’re gonna use you just like your pretty little mommy.”
