by Zoey Parker
“They’re at the old water plant,” I panted into the phone as I sped down the highway. “There’s a big pipe room underground. That’s where they’re holding them. Meet me by the giant water tank; I know a secret entrance.
Now I stood by the tank, eyes scanning the road, waiting for Croak to show up with reinforcements. Where the fuck were they? There wasn’t any time for this shit. If I didn’t get down there as soon as possible, I might be walking in there to find Olivia’s head on a pole.
These Diablo fuckers didn’t mess around—the prospects back at the clubhouse were proof enough of that. They were some brutal bastards. They loved inflicting pain. For them, the money was just a side benefit.
I snarled when I thought of how stupid Luke had been to get in bed with them. What the fuck was he thinking, trying to partner himself with an animal like Lobo? There was no amount of logic or preparation that could keep that insane monster in line. He did what he wanted with blatant disregard for the rules. The cartel council knew it, and that’s why they’d kept their distance for so long. They’d been hoping that he would just be content with the piece of the pie that he had, but they couldn't have been more wrong.
You can’t appease someone with an appetite for destruction. Lobo was the kind of man to take and take and take, murdering anyone who tried to stop him.
But not anymore. He’d taken the one thing from me that I refused to let go. When I stood on that altar and made Olivia mine, I sure as hell meant it.
And no one stole what was mine.
Finally! The growing din was music to my ears. I felt my heartbeat pounding against my chest as the line of motorcycles lurched over the horizon.
They quickly came into view—twenty or thirty of the baddest motherfuckers I knew. My brothers-in-arms, ready to fight to protect our own. This was the code; this was what being an Inked Angel was all about.
The bikers screeched into a ring around me. Each of them dismounted and walked up to me. I clapped hands with them one at a time and pulled them into a hug. I’d put these men at risk, but when I needed them at my side, they had come without a moment’s hesitation.
I turned to Croak as he approached. He gave me a solemn nod..
“Let’s get these bastards,” he said.
It was time.
“The main entrance is guarded by Lobo’s men,” I said to the group. “Steezy and Ember, you two sneak up on them. Take them out from a distance, then move in slowly. And be careful—they’ll be expecting us to come in that way.” They nodded.
I turned to the others. “The rest of you are coming with me. Follow close, keep your guns at the ready, and if you see a Diablo, there’s only one thing to do: aim high and fire.”
Without another word, I turned and took off towards the tunnel entrance that only a few select people knew about. When we’d done business in the pipe room, back when I was just a prospect in the Austin clubhouse, the former president had entrusted me with guarding the only other way out of the cavernous space below. It was supposed to be the emergency entrance in case a deal ever went south. Now it would be our way in.
I yanked open the grate that sealed the entrance and shimmied down the ladder. At the bottom, I turned and shined a light down the tunnel. It split in two different directions, but I could hear voices coming from the left.
“This way.” I pointed as we hunched over and began to run.
After a hundred or so yards, I saw a halo of light that signaled the end of the pipe. I reached it and looked carefully out onto the main underground room.
That was when we heard the screams.
* * *
The pipe we were in was about six feet in diameter. It hung nearly ten feet above the floor, the mouth opening into the room below. I was leaning against one side so that the men standing sentry couldn’t see me.
Looking around the edges of the room, I counted thirty Diablos, each clutching an automatic weapon and staring directly ahead in precise military attention.
Collapsed in a weeping huddle in the middle of the floor was a figure I recognized as Luke. He couldn’t have been dead—the sounds of his moaning in pain reached all the way up to my vantage point. It would have been easy to dismiss him as a weakling, until I saw what hung in front of him.
It eclipsed even the mutilated bodies I’d found in the Austin clubhouse. Nearly a dozen corpses hung upside down from chains that wrapped around the pipes. Each of the men had been sliced and diced a million times over. Their blood was pooled ankle-deep below where they were suspended. Their skin was the palest, deathly white I’d ever seen, and their eyes were shocked open like they’d seen the devil himself.
And I couldn’t blame them, because they probably had.
Standing below the bodies of men I once called my brothers was a small, lithe figure, drenched in their blood. His black clothing was sticky with the substance, but his arms were spread wide and a beaming smile adorned his face. He might as well have been dancing in the rain.
The knife in his hand was well-worn from heavy use. I could only imagine how long he’d worked on these Inked Angels, one painfully etched cut at a time. He was evil incarnate.
He was Lobo.
“Luke, Luke, Luke, what else will it take?” he called out in a clear, lilting voice that echoed around the massive room. He sounded ecstatic. “So many of your men are dead! They died terribly. You watched them die. And still you will not talk.”
I looked at Luke. He was hunched over on his knees, still alternating between gasping tears and cries of terror. Lobo pirouetted over to him and put two fingers under his chin, forcing him to look straight in his eyes.
“What will it take, amigo?” Lobo said.
“Die, bitch,” he said through gritted teeth.
I’d always hated the Morris bastard, even before he shot me in his backyard. He was condescending, vain, a real all-around prick. And this stunt he’d pulled, inviting the most evil son of a bitch I’d ever come across right into his own territory—it was unforgivable. He would forever bear the blood of his brothers on his hands. He was responsible for their deaths, and he knew it. It would haunt him forever.
But goddamn, even I had to respect a man who could look his torturer in the face and tell him to go fuck himself.
“A shame,” Lobo said sadly. “I suppose I will have to resort to my last option.” He spun away and issued a stream of quiet orders to one of his men. The soldier barked his understanding, then turned and disappeared down another tunnel. Lobo went and sat on a chair in front of Luke and inspected his gloved fingers, wiping off drops of blood one by one.
I turned and whispered to the men standing in the pipe with me. “On my count, we move. Take out the men along the outer rim of the room. Leave Lobo for me.” The men signaled their understanding. I prayed that Steezy and Ember had managed to take care of business at the main entrance.
I looked back into the room right as the soldier who had left re-entered. He was holding a rope in his hands, but I couldn’t tell what it was attached to. He gave the thing a savage wrench, almost like he was pulling something on the end of a leash.
That’s exactly what it was—a leash. Stumbling into the room was Olivia, with a rope tied around her neck as if she were some alley-dwelling mutt.
My grip tightened on my gun. If it was up to me, I would’ve unleashed a hailstorm of bullets on every square inch of this room. I wanted every single Diablo to die under my boot, painfully and slowly. They each deserved the worst this world could offer as punishment for laying a single hand on my girl.
But I couldn’t move yet. If I shot now, it would have been too easy for the soldier holding Olivia to vanish back to where they had already been keeping her. If they managed to swoop her away, this whole rescue operation would be for nothing.
I had to sit still. I clenched my teeth and waited.
The man handed the rope off to Lobo. He took it delicately between his fingers, as if he were guiding a prized horse around a ring.
“Venga,” he said to her. “A bit this way, mi flor.” He led her to stand in front of Luke. She stumbled, not wanting to follow the bastard’s lead but having no other choice. The tide of blood had begun to wash near Luke’s knees. The sight of so much of it nearly made me sick.
“I did not want to hurt her,” Lobo announced to Luke. “And we might still be able to avoid it. Perhaps there is another option.” He grinned sadistically. I couldn’t begin to imagine what sick torture he had in mind. I had to stop him.
But, goddammit, not yet. I could see one of the soldiers on the far side of the room squint in the direction of the pipe we were in. I had to duck back. If he saw us, everything would go to hell. I tried to breathe and focus, though I couldn’t see Lobo anymore. I listened as intently as possible.
“I do not like to shame a woman,” Lobo went on, his voice rising up to the rafters. “But, unfortunately, given our present situación, I think it is necessary.”
I heard Luke yell out, a wordless protest. It was followed by the sound of fabric ripping. What the fuck was Lobo doing? The tearing noise continued. I could hear the sound of Olivia’s whimpering. If that motherfucker hurt her…
I needed to know what was happening. As carefully as I could, I raised my head so I could see.
Olivia’s shirt hung in tatters around her arms. As I watched, Lobo ripped it from her body, leaving her clad only in jeans. Her breasts were bared to the cool, damp air.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Lobo said. He began to circle around her. His hand wavered just inches above her skin, darting in but stopping before he made contact, like he wanted to touch her but had to make himself wait first.
“Don’t you dare hurt her,” Luke gasped. “I’ll fucking kill you, I swear.”
Lobo only laughed and waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t want to hurt her, Luke. I told you that. I want only to savor her.”
I tore my gaze away to check on the soldier who had been so close to discovering me. His eyes were still roaming over the pipes in my corner of the room. “Look away, you bastard,” I whispered under my breath. “Just look the fuck away, and this will all be over quickly.”
I looked back to Lobo. He had come to a halt behind Olivia. His left hand drifted downwards to rest lightly on her hip. His right hand rose up towards her neck, where he carefully pushed her hair away from her exposed throat. Staring straight at Luke, he lowered his mouth to Olivia’s skin and laid his tongue delicately where her shoulder met her neck.
Her face swam with terror. I couldn’t bear to wait anymore. He had laid a hand on my girl. This motherfucker needed to die—now.
I jumped out of the tunnel with a roar and a heavy finger on the trigger. A stream of bullets erupted from the mouth of my gun, sending five Diablos cascading to their deaths before I had even hit the floor. Two more quick bursts sent another pair of them on the way to meet their maker.
Behind me, I heard my men jumping and firing their own weapons. Blood and gore erupted everywhere as we laid waste to the fuckers who had overstepped their bounds.
“Go to hell, motherfucker,” I said as I pointed the barrel of my gun between the eyes of a man frozen in shock and terror. One twitch of the finger and boom, down he went, with a lovely little flower of crimson planted on his forehead.
More than half of the Diablos were dead within seconds, but the ones who remained had finally gotten their shit together and began to return fire. Bullets were flying in every direction, zipping by me like pissed off hornets with lethal intentions. I ducked behind an overhanging pipe, breathing heavily.
I scanned around the room for Lobo. Where the fuck was he? In a far corner of the room, I saw Croak grappling with a Diablo, his gun having fallen from his hands. He took one punch to the face but didn’t even blink before grabbing a knife from his boot and jamming it hilt-deep in the man’s stomach and ripping upwards all the way to his chin. That man had been in his fair share of fights; he knew how to handle himself.
All around me, Inked Angels and Diablos were locked in combat, crouching around the protruding pipes to fire off shots at each other. I heard screams piercing the air as lead met flesh. Personally, I hoped as many of these assholes as possible were left alive so we could take our time exacting revenge.
But for now, I had a mission. Where had Lobo gone?
There he was. Clutching the rope between his hands, I saw him dragging Olivia behind him. They were headed towards the main entrance at a full sprint as bullets whizzed past them in all directions. I hoped to God that Olivia wouldn’t get hit.
Whipping around the corner, I took off running after them. With any luck, Lobo was about to run straight into the pincer trap I’d laid out for him. If Steezy and Ember had done their job right, he would have nowhere to go.
The long, dim hallway took half a dozen twists and turns. I had to be careful not to slip on the puddles that had collected on the concrete floor. The plant was rickety and ancient, though millions of gallons of water still sat in its pipes, waiting for purification that would never come. The whole thing was only one misplaced bullet away from unleashing a massive flood.
I heard Lobo’s footsteps slapping wetly up ahead, trailed by Olivia’s frantic cries for help. Every time I managed to catch sight of her back, they turned another corner and disappeared. I didn’t dare risk taking a shot, for fear of hitting Olivia or the main pipes that ran overhead. If this hallway started flooding, we were all done for.
“Get back here, you son of a bitch,” I growled as I ran, still holding my gun by my side. There was a bullet in the chamber that had Lobo’s name written all over it. I wasn’t going to kill him, though—oh no, far from it. This cocksucking motherfucker was going to be begging for death by the time I was through with him.
We had to be nearing the end of the tunnel. I knew there was a ladder that led up to the ground level. If I could get there in time to stop Lobo from climbing, this whole thing would have been worth it.
Only a few more turns, I thought to myself as I sprinted down yet another long corridor. One left, another right, and then the last stretch before the final turn that led out. I glimpsed Lobo and Olivia make it around the corner. I redoubled my effort, hauling ass to save the woman I loved.
Twenty more feet.
Ten.
Five.
I turned the corner and found myself staring down the barrel of a gun, for the second time in as many days.
Lobo grinned from the other end of the pistol he had pointed at my face. I saw his other arm wrapped around Olivia, who was shivering in the cold and blanched white with fear.
“Oh, no,” he said to me, his voice dripping with false concern. “We have reached the end. But your friends will not be able to help you, I am afraid.” He jerked his head behind him.
Oh, fuck.
I saw Steezy and Ember seated on the floor, bludgeoned so badly as to be near unrecognizable. Blood was caked around their broken noses. The Diablos standing above them had high-capacity assault rifles jammed into the back of their heads.
“I’m sorry, Blaze,” coughed Ember. “They knew we were coming. We were outnumbered ten to one. We tried.” He winced in pain, one hand pressed against his rib cage. When he pulled it away, I saw that it was painted with red. He must be badly hurt.
“If you kill any of them, I will hunt you down,” I said, staring fiercely into Lobo’s black eyes. “You’ll wish you were never born.”
He laughed in my face and replied, “It is not you who should be making threats, my friend. I have your woman and your friends, and there is a gun pointed in your face. What do you have?” He cocked his head to the side and licked his lips, then grinned. He was enjoying this, I could tell. I felt rage brewing in my chest. I’d give my life to be able to crack this motherfucker in the jaw just one time.
“We will be leaving, now,” he announced. “Take his gun from him.” One of the men standing guard over Ember strode forward and snatched the weapon from my hands. They began to clamber up the la
dder. Their guns stayed pointed at me.
The Diablos thugs disappeared over the upper rim. I looked Olivia in the eyes.
“I love you,” I told her. “And I’m coming to get you back.”
Lobo laughed again. His cackle rang out like a bell in the dank hallway. “Amigo, you will never see her again. I am taking her away with me, and I will use her like a whore until she is useless. Then I will discard her. There is nothing you can do.”
My fists tightened, but if I moved I’d end up with a bullet in my face, and then Olivia would be truly doomed. I was trapped.
“Come along, then,” he said, tugging the leash that was wrapped around Olivia’s throat. She couldn’t talk through the gag buckled around her mouth, but I could see everything I needed to see in her eyes.
