Rusty Nail

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “You know,” Peek said.

  “I know a little bit,” I offered. “Goody called me with information about a woman being killed and thrown into the river. I was on the phone with him when he screamed and the line went dead.”

  “That’s what I got, too,” Peek said. “I have Xavier with me, and he’s telling me that he found something.”

  “What did he find when he wasn’t supposed to be involved anymore?” I asked through gritted teeth as I pulled up to the clubhouse.

  “Come pick me up,” Peek said. “Talk to you then.”

  I pulled onto the side of the parking lot and shoved my phone into my pocket before turning the truck off.

  Placing my keys under the seat, I jogged down the path that led to the water, cursing when I saw the water had risen since last time I’d been there.

  “Fucking rain,” I growled, wading into the water up to my knees before I got to the boat. “Fucking fuck.”

  Climbing into the boat, I was just about to push off when a bike rode in from my back.

  I stopped and waited, unsurprised to find Griffin jogging toward me.

  He hit the water with a rush and trudged up to me as if the water didn’t affect him in the least.

  “Go,” Griffin said.

  A man of many words Griffin was not.

  I went and was glad that I had the backup.

  How he knew, I didn’t know, but I’d take it.

  I’d called the cops on the way there, but that wasn’t to say that Ridley had enough time to talk to any of the members when he was likely on the way to the scene himself.

  We didn’t speak until Peek got into the boat with us, and by the time we were heading full throttle toward the diner, I was beyond pissed.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” I said to Peek as we rode.

  “The kid came over around eleven saying that he hacked into the FBI database and did a search for Agent Fry. Lots of shit going down tonight according to a live feed that he was able to hack into between Fry and another agent.” He pulled out his phone. “Then I go to look at the cameras that we have on the diner and see this going down.”

  I watched as Agent Fry with his ice-cold eyes picked the woman up by her neck, held her over the water, and then shot her in the forehead with the gun that was on his hip.

  The moment her body went limp, he let her fall, not caring in the least that she was likely to show up further down river.

  The mother fucker thought he was invincible.

  I took a turn around the bend of the river, and was surprised to find Core waving me down.

  I pulled up next to him and shut the engine off.

  “I have a back way in there. Tie your boat off and get into mine.” He pointed at a dock.

  I tied the boat off and moved into his.

  Peek and Griffin followed suit, and soon we were underway again, through thick shrubs and trees.

  Core’s boat was made to do this, though.

  Being a game warden meant that Core had to go places that weren’t always conventional, and he had the boat that was practically made for anything his job could spring on him.

  “Whose dock is this?” I asked him as we started moving slowly away from the bank.

  “Another game warden,” he answered once we passed the dock and my boat. “This is a boat road that was closed down about twenty years ago because a bald eagle nest was spotted in the area. The boat road leads us to within about a quarter mile of the diner. I’m thinking since the water’s up so high, we should be able to make it without coming right on in with the rest of the general population.”

  I nodded my head, but my cup half empty nature reared his head.

  “What do we do if we can’t get there?”

  Core smiled.

  “I have a dinghy.”

  “You have a dinghy,” I replied blandly.

  “Sounds kinky,” Griffin offered his two cents.

  I rolled my eyes.

  And twenty minutes later, four grown ass adults all two hundred plus pounds, shoved into Core’s fucking dinghy and paddled the last five hundred yards to our worst nightmares.

  ***

  We arrived to a quiet diner.

  Nothing was out of place. No boats were in the open.

  Nothing.

  Not a damn thing.

  “Well, what now?” I asked the other three men with me.

  “Shh,” Core pointed. “There’re lights in the diner.”

  We paddled our way up to the tiny sliver of grass that surrounded the diner and got out.

  “Push it into the bushes,” I pointed. “It’s black and won’t be seen unless they’re actively looking for it.”

  Core pushed the boat into the bushes at the same time I started making my way around the building.

  I went for the kitchen entrance instead of the front or back entrance, thinking that it was the better choice.

  It wasn’t.

  And I didn’t find that out until I got a belly full of birdshot blasted from a shotgun the moment I made my way stealthily around the corner.

  Apparently, my thinking I was stealthy and actually being stealthy were two different things.

  Luck was on my side, though.

  The man that shot was too far away, meaning instead of getting shot straight into my stomach, the shot had time to spread and slow.

  My belly still had birdshot embedded in it, but instead of being buried deep, it was buried shallowly, not having penetrated past the first layer of skin.

  Ducking down and rolling into the water, I surfaced ten feet away from where I’d previously been, and came up shooting.

  The man went down, taking one shot by me, and one shot by Peek who’d followed me around.

  I shook the water from my face and started to trudge out of the water.

  “Fuckin’ A, man,” I grumbled, lifting up my shirt to see my belly.

  There were no lights, though, and I couldn’t see a damn thing.

  I felt it, though, that was for sure.

  We breached the kitchen door moments later, and came to a sudden standstill when we found the kitchen full.

  Not with men, but with women.

  ***

  Thirty minutes later, I was still just as surprised as I was when I’d entered the room.

  “Do we have a story that’s been confirmed by more than two women?” I asked Griffin.

  Griffin shook his head.

  “Fuck no.” Griffin took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair.

  I’d lost my hat about five minutes into the fiasco I’d dubbed Project: What the fuck.

  When we’d entered the diner thirty minutes ago, it was to find over fifty women in the room.

  The diner was set up like one large room. From the front door where you entered, you could see the back door, the side door that entered the kitchen, and the area that led to the men’s and women’s bathrooms.

  There was a large bar that separated the kitchen from the rest of the room where patrons were more than welcome to sit, and then there were about twenty tables scattered sporadically throughout the room.

  And every one of those tables had women occupying them.

  All of them were in various stages of dress.

  Most were dressed in little more than rags, almost as if when they’d been taken, they’d been in bed.

  Others were in jeans and t-shirts. Some short sleeves, others long. Which, in my mind, meant that they’d come from different areas of the country. It hadn’t been cold enough in the last month and a half to warrant snow boots like some of the women were wearing.

  Still, others were in fucking dresses and heels.

  Every single woman looked tired and in need of a bath, and they all were scared.

  And there was a sleeper among them, which was why they were still shoved in this fucking diner instead of on their way to a police station somewhere where they could be questioned and
then released.

  I don’t know what was telling me that there was someone here that was potentially harmful.

  All I knew was that there were two armed men outside patrolling the perimeter, a missing man with—get this—strange, eerie blue eyes, and not a single person inside that was there to watch and keep control of the situation.

  Yeah, I wasn’t born yesterday.

  “Separate them by amount of time. Start by questioning the women who’ve been held the longest and ask them about the new arrivals first. Use the women to check each other,” I ordered.

  Ridley, who’d shown up at the end of my order, nodded his head in agreement.

  “I’m in agreement with you, though. It doesn’t make sense that they would’ve left all those women in here by themselves. Someone was keeping them in check on the inside, and we haven’t found that person yet. We can’t just let them go until we know who that person is,” he agreed.

  After we separated, I found myself with a woman who looked like she was trying to crawl into herself.

  “Ma’am,” I cleared my throat. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  The simple act of coming up behind her made her jolt in her seat and practically throw herself onto the floor to get away from me.

  Knowing that I wouldn’t get a damn thing out of her if she was that scared of me, I backed up and put about five feet in between us.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Wolf?” someone called.

  I turned and found a female sheriff’s deputy calling my name, and a smiling Hannah beside her.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked her as I moved away from the woman and toward the other two.

  “They asked any available medical professionals that had any triage knowledge to volunteer to come out here. Me and a couple of other women from the hospital came to help. Where do you want me?” she asked.

  I turned to look at the room at large.

  There was no way in hell that I was going to just let her go wherever the hell she wanted to go, and then my eyes lit on Travis who’d done his level best to stay the hell away from me throughout the entire ordeal.

  An all-available-personnel had been sent out to the towns that surrounded Uncertain, and any and all help that was available had come. Since Travis was a reserve police officer two towns over, he came.

  He didn’t like that it was me that he came for, though, and he’d made known that he wanted nothing to do with me.

  So he’d given me a wide berth, and I’d let him have it.

  I’d trust him with Hannah’s life, though, and since all of my brothers were busy, he’d be the next best thing as an extension of me. The female officer wasn’t a good fit either; she was needed to keep some of the women calm—like the scared chick who I’d tried to approach earlier.

  “Come with me,” I said to Hannah, nodding my head at the deputy in thanks. “I have someone that’ll watch over you while you work.”

  My mind, however, was on a few people who, suspiciously, weren’t here.

  Like Agent Josh fucking Fry, who I knew for a fact was in the fucking area.

  How fucking convenient.

  “Who are you making my babysitter?” Hannah asked with mirth-filled eyes, taking me away from my contemplations.

  I looked at her, then back over to Travis, who saw me coming and stiffened.

  His eyes flicked over to Hannah—and surprise—he liked what he saw.

  That made me want to laugh.

  Travis was a chick hater like Mig used to be—only worse.

  He despised all women, but his sister and Raven, since I’d known him.

  I’d never been let in on why exactly he was such a prick to anything with a vagina, but knowing that Hannah affected him in some way really had me choking back a comical laugh at the situation.

  Fucker deserved to have a woman upset his tidy little world—and it made me fucking happy as hell that Hannah was the one who got that kind of reaction out of him.

  “Travis,” I said, stopping a few feet in front of him. “This is Hannah, she’s one of my good friends who is here to help ascertain if any of these ladies are in need of medical attention. Hannah, this is Travis Hail. Do either one of you need anything from me?”

  A shake of both of their heads had me grinning as I turned and walked away, my belly smarting as I turned wrong.

  I’d been looked over by a paramedic earlier and had seven pellets removed from my belly. All of them were less than a quarter inch into my skin. After getting a dose of antibiotics and my wounds cleaned, I was sent on my way.

  That didn’t mean that it didn’t still hurt like fuck.

  “Yo,” Peek called as I made my way back to the woman I was going to question before Hannah showed up.

  Stopping, I turned in the direction of where Peek was. A woman was at his side, holding her arm across her chest as if she were trying to keep as much distance in between us as she could and still appear as if she was cooperating.

  “What’s up?” I asked him once I arrived.

  Peek’s eyes caught mine and something inside of me came to attention.

  He didn’t have to say a damn word and I understood. That was the nature of such a close brotherhood like The Uncertain Saints had, though.

  “This is Annelise,” he said. “She’s got a few things she thinks you may need to hear. Maybe out of the way of all these ladies.”

  I nodded my head and gestured to the kitchen area—which happened to be across the room—that gave as much privacy as we were going to get in this big open room.

  She stiffly walked at my side, keeping as much distance between us as she could while we made our way in the direction of the kitchen.

  It wasn’t the way she moved at my side that alerted me to the possible problem.

  No, it was the way that every single woman in the room moved out of her way. Not overly scared, but wary. Almost as if the woman had given them a reason to be scared of her.

  I realized the problem at the same time that she did, and that’s when she produced a pistol from her front and brandished it, pointing it straight at my head.

  Where she’d stowed it, I didn’t know. At that point, though, it didn’t matter.

  I moved like lightning, and it still wasn’t enough.

  How some small woman, who was barely five foot anything could get the drop on me, I didn’t know, but she did.

  One second I was walking at her side, my hand at her mid-back as I guided her to where I wanted her, and the next she was shooting me in the head.

  I had enough time to move, but not enough to keep me from getting shot.

  Lucky for me, I was able to drop and throw my body at her, which threw off her aim. Going from the middle of my face to the top of my head.

  I went down, but I took the bitch with me.

  Chapter 22

  Shut up, I wear heels bigger than your dick.

  -Raven’s secret thoughts

  Raven

  I stared at the cameras, hoping beyond hope that what I was seeing wasn’t what I was seeing.

  But the man shifted again, and Nathan, Wolf’s baby boy, shifted with him.

  His eyes were closed and he looked like he was dead.

  Mig was nowhere to be seen and hadn’t shown in the hour and a half that I’d been in here, and now I was staring at one of my worst nightmares.

  The only thing that was keeping me slightly calm was the fact that it was my brother who had Nathan and not the creepy guy beside him.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” the creepy fucker called, looking directly into the camera as if he knew I was there watching him.

  I wanted to knock him in the face with my knee.

  And I would.

  As soon as I had Nathan safe.

  Knowing this might turn out to bite me in the ass, I fired off a text to Wolf, Mig, Peek, and Alison, and then centered myself.

 
; Going against everything inside me that screamed for me to stay put, I unlocked the door using the code that Wolf had given me a few weeks ago and hurried straight toward the front door where I knew they were.

  I yanked open the door without checking to see if anyone was there, and came face-to-face with one of my worst nightmares.

  “What did you do to him?” I hissed, reaching for Nathan.

  My brother—who’d never so much as looked at me like he knew me—handed Nathan over as if that was what he intended to do all along. Almost as if he were just dropping him off from spending the day with him.

  Nathan settled in my arms and then wrapped himself around me like he always did, only sleepier.

  Raphael’s eyes were blank as he stared at me. The other man’s, however, were not.

  They were full of mirth as he reached for my hand.

  “Come,” he pushed me into the house and followed behind me.

  Raphael followed him, and then shut the door. The lock clicking shut was the loudest thing I’d ever heard.

  “Who are y’all?” I backed up until my back was to the wall.

  Everything inside of me was practically shaking in terror. On the outside, I was as cool as a cucumber, or at least I hoped I was anyway.

  Nathan shifted until his face was against my neck, his hot breath breathing out against my skin with a little snore at the end that would’ve been adorable had we not been in this rather terrifying situation.

  My eyes went to the gun on my brother’s hip and then went back to the other man who had a gun underneath his shoulder.

  “We’re with the FBI,” the pale blue-eyed man said, sounding sickeningly sweet as he did. “We’re here to inform you that something has happened to your boyfriend.”

  My brows furrowed, and I immediately moved my gaze from the blue-eyed man to my brother.

  My brother gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, and I realized that my instincts weren’t steering me wrong.

  They were, in fact, telling me that I should be scared. That this man wasn’t who he said he was.

  Sure, he may actually be with the FBI, but there was no reason on Earth that Nathan should be brought here if there was something wrong with Wolf.

  First, his grandmother would be the one to call me had they contacted her, and second, everyone in the town knew that Wolf and I were together. Ridley was the law around these parts, and the man was Wolf’s brother. He would come to tell me. What he would not do was let some man that had no connection to me whatsoever come to me.