“No, sir.”
“We’re going to need dinner, and access to a bathroom. And I want her to come with us.” She pointed at the cougar shifter.
“Why?”
“Because Pixie and I are lesbians, and we’re planning on using her all night long for an orgy,” Bobbi said, completely straight-faced. “Since it’ll be our last night on earth, we’d like to enjoy it.”
Vaughn stared at her as if trying to figure out if she was making fun of him. Bobbi stared back.
“Fine,” he said coolly.
Bobbi could only imagine the revenge that he would exact on them all when he had his hands on Tony.
As the three men led her, the cougar shifter, and Pixie to their room, she heard one of the men complain in a low voice, “So wait, we got nobody to fuck tonight? And these three lesbos get to do it with each other all night long? Seriously?” It came out in a whine.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll make up for lost time tomorrow. You know how the boss is.”
The cougar shifter staggered and fell against Bobbi, who helped her stumble into the room. It was a large bedroom which had been completely stripped of all furniture; the windows had bars on them.
The cougar fell to her knees.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked in a dull voice.
“What?” Bobbi was startled.
“What do you want me to do for you? Do you want me to start with you, or her?” she muttered, glancing at Pixie.
“We’re not lesbians. I just said that to get you away from them.”
“There’s no escaping Vaughn.” The cougar shifter curled up in the carpet in a ball of misery. “I used to think there was, but not any more.”
“Don’t give up yet. What’s your name?”
“Jennifer.”
“I’m Bobbi, this is Pixie. Don’t give up.” But the cougar’s eyes were staring at something far, far away, and she lay silent on the floor, shaking and sweating.
“Pixie, if I get a chance to create a diversion tomorrow, you need to take the opportunity and run. Without looking back,” she said in a low voice.
“No.”
“Do as I tell you, damn it.”
“Or what? You’ll come after me and kill me? That’ll be hard to do if Tony’s murdering you. This is my fault; tomorrow morning, I create the diversion, you run.”
“As if. Damn it, Pixie, I don’t even like you. I’m not your friend; I was just using you. I lied to you all along like I lied to everyone. I’m not worth dying for. I was going to fire you, by the way. Then I was going to leave town without saying goodbye. So when I create a diversion, you will run for it.”
“You know what’s the problem with trying to talk to old people like you? They’re hard of hearing. I said no. I meant no. Get over it.”
“Dumbass useless human.”
“Stupid shifter bitch,” Pixie muttered, and then they both started laughing. Then Bobbi glanced at the door and their laughter died out.
Bobbi sat on the floor next to Pixie, wrapping her arms around her knees and trying without success not to think about what Vaughn would do to them tomorrow after he got his hands on Tony.
Chapter Eighteen
“Up ahead,” Bobbi said to the driver. “Turn left.”
She was in a stretch limo sitting between Vaughn and a bodyguard. Pixie and Jennifer sat in the seat behind her, also flanked by bodyguards. There were four other cars following them, packed with men who were armed to the teeth and wearing bullet proof vests. The windows of the limousines were all darkened.
The old factory loomed ahead. It was a brick building which hadn’t been used in twenty years. Vines snaked up the outside of the building, pulling apart the fire escapes and iron scaffolding. Windows were boarded over and a rainbow of graffiti sprayed across them.
“Is he going to be there?” Vaughn demanded.
“Maybe.”
Suddenly Vaughn’s fist lashed out, catching the side of her head so hard her ear rang. “If you’re fucking with me, you’ll watch while I peel your friend’s skin off,” he snarled.
She clenched her teeth and stayed silent.
They pulled up and parked in front of the building.
A dozen man ran in ahead of them. After a pause, Bobbi heard gunshots, and screams.
Then Vaughn’s radio crackled to life. “We got Tony, boss.”
A fierce grin spread across Vaughn’s face. He turned to Bobbi. “You’re about to learn the true meaning of pain, bitch.”
The door of the limo open, and his bodyguard climbed out.
Vaughn grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her out of the door.
His men followed suit, dragging Pixie and Jennifer, punching and kicking the women as they hauled them towards the warehouse.
“Party time!” one of the men yelled. The other men whooped with glee.
As they were hauled into the door, Bobbi caught a final glimpse of blue sky and white clouds overhead. She couldn’t see any way out of this. Outnumbered, outgunned, and in the middle of nowhere. Best case scenario – they managed to get themselves shot to death before Vaughn had a chance to start torturing them.
An image of Ashley’s tortured body flashed before her face. The broken fingers, the angry red circles where the men had burned her breasts with cigarettes, again and again.
I’m sorry, Pixie, she thought, suddenly wanting to cry for the first time in a very long time.
They were dragged down a long hallway, and into a huge space dimly lit by the dirty light that filtered through cracked windows. There were stacks of wooden crates, some broken and some intact, and wooden pallets, and cardboard boxes piled randomly throughout the room. Every surface was furred with thick gray dust.
In the center of the room, Tony was on his knees, eyes wide with fright. Bodies lay scattered around him in pools of shiny red blood.
The drug dealer and whatever bodyguards he’d brought with him, Bobbi imagined.
Her heart beat faster at the sight of Tony. Her prey, her quarry, so close and about to be snatched from her grasp. Vaughn would hold him prisoner, but he’d ply him with drugs and high end liquor and women as long as Tony manufactured more drugs for him. Tony would never suffer like he deserved.
A scent drifted to her nostrils, and her eyes widened.
No. Way.
It couldn’t be. How…?
Suddenly the room exploded in roars of rage, and air was full of shifters, leaping from behind the boxes.
Bobbi hurled herself against Pixie and knocked her to the floor, covering her with her body. Gunshots rang out, and there were screams and the smell of gunpowder and blood and adrenaline.
Bobbi clawed the copper collar from her neck, and then did the same for Jennifer. Pixie had picked the locks the night before with the lock pick she’d had hidden in her hair, but there had never been an opportunity to escape. They’d always been surrounded by dozens of men at the house, and Bobbi could smell the silver bullets in their guns. There would be no point in running; they’d cut her down before she got twenty feet.
She heard screams as several shifters fell to the floor, and saw them writhing in their death throes as smoking holes sizzled and burned them. Within seconds they went still.
There were more screams, as shifters brought down humans, ripping their throats open.
Was Jax one of them? She scanned the room wildly. Where was he? Was he dead?
Bullets pinged on the floor next to her head, and she heard Pixie yelp with alarm.
She grabbed her and, shielding her with her body, began moving her across the floor, towards a stack of boxes that could provide some shelter.
“Motherfucker! Ouch! Sonabitch!” Pixie cried out, as shots whizzed by.
“Are you shot? What happened?” Bobbi cried out, alarmed.
“No, I just felt like swearing,” Pixie gritted out.
Once they were behind the stack of boxes, Bobbi turned to check on Pixie, who was pressing her hand against her
bleeding shoulder.
“Behind you!” Pixie screamed.
Bobbi whirled, shifting as she turned, and narrowly dodged a fusillade of bullets as she launched herself at a beefy bodyguard. She ripped his throat out in one swift motion and, praying that Pixie would be all right, dashed around the stack of boxes and into the fray.
As she rounded a corner, she tripped over the body of a panther shifter, whose eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling. Quickly she scrambled back to her feet.
She spotted Tony on his hands and knees crawling frantically for the door.
Vaughn, flanked by several big, bulky bodyguards, ran in front of Tony, blocking him.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he snarled. “You’re mine.”
Blinded with rage, Bobbi launched herself at Vaughn and knocked him to the floor. One of Tony’s bodyguards jumped on her. She whirled and tore into his throat with her fangs, his warm blood spraying across her fur.
“Stop!” a bodyguard screamed.
He stood in the middle of the room, his arm wrapped around Pixie, a hand over her mouth, a gun pointed at her temple.
“Everybody back off, or the bitch dies. We’re leaving, and we’re taking this whore with us for insurance.”
Bobbi froze. Everyone froze.
Jax shifted into human form. “You’ve got no way out,” he snarled. “The police are on their way. Hear those sirens?”
“Then I guess she dies,” the man snapped. “If I’m going down, I’m taking – owsonofafuckingbitch-”
He yanked his hand away. It was streaming with blood from where Pixie had bitten him. His finger clicked uselessly on the trigger of his gun.
“I can count, you asshole,” Pixie snarled, spitting blood. “Your gun was empty.”
A howl of rage tore through the air, and a giant grey wolf that Bobbi recognized as Tyler knocked the bodyguard to the ground and tore him open.
The other shifters had finally gained the advantage, and pinned the remaining bodyguards to the ground, except for two bodyguards who stood near Vaughn and Tony. A dozen shifters faced them in a giant half circle, growling and snarling.
Jax rushed over to Bobbi, who shifted back to her human form.
“Are you all right? Oh my God, say something. Are you okay? Bobbi, are you all right? Talk to me!”
“Be quiet for half a second so I can answer you! I’m okay. How did you find me?” Bobbi asked, dazed, staring around at the carnage.
“Tyler was secretly hacking your phone calls.”
“What?”
“Long story. I’ll tell you later.”
Tony was curled up in a ball on the floor, hugging himself and whimpering. Still alive. So far. Bobbi would be taking care of that immediately.
Kenneth was there, and Tyler, and Dominick, and dozens of shifters she didn’t recognize. Sirens wailed, growing closer and closer.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Jax demanded. “I thought I’d lost you. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m fine.”
She took a breath.
Now was the time. She’d dreamed of this moment for so long, planned for years and years…so why was she hesitating now?
Because it meant goodbye, to Jax, to all her friends in the Enforcers, to everyone. After she did what she’d come here for – they’d have to kill her, or she’d have to escape and leave them all behind, forever.
She closed her eyes and thought of the shredded, bloody remains of her brother Marcus, of the way she felt the day she’d looked at him lying on the coroner’s table, forced to confirm his identity by scent alone.
She swung towards Tony, shifted back to coyote form, and leaped through the air, crouching over him. She raked her claws across his handsome face, and he screamed, and blood flowed from the wounds. Then she turned human again. He needed to hear what she had to say.
“You killed my brother for profit, you fucking animal,” she hissed into his face. “And I’m going to claw your throat out and watch you drown in your own blood. Marcus Hall, that was his name. You made the drugs that drove him mad, and that’s why you’re going to die today.”
She felt Jax come up behind her.
“Don’t do this, Bobbi,” Jax pleaded. “You’ll go to prison, or you’ll be on the run for the rest of your life. Do this the right way; let him go to trial and he’ll rot inside a prison cell for the rest of his life. He’ll never see the sun.”
His fingers closed on her arm.
“You’ll have to kill me,” she panted.
“You know I won’t do that. I would rather die. Please listen to me, Bobbi, I’m begging you. You’ll be leaving behind Pixie; she needs you. You’ll be leaving me behind. I love you. I know it sounds crazy, but you’re a part of me now.”
Bobbi closed her eyes and felt the red, red rage boiling up inside her, and the pain of her brother’s death.
“Bobbi. He’s right, for God’s sake.” Her head jerked up, and her eyes widened in surprise as Heath walked towards her, flanked by two wolf Enforcers.
Heath was pale after six months behind bars, but other than that, he was her big, handsome older brother, the one who made all the girls simper when he swaggered by. His curly brown hair had been clipped close to his head. He was wearing street clothes, not an orange jumpsuit.
“Who the hell are you?” Jax barked. Even in this most extreme of situations, she could feel Jax’s jealousy flaring.
“It’s Heath. He’s my brother.” Tears of relief burned her eyes.
She didn’t know how he’d found her here, but he was safe. He was out of prison. That was all that mattered at the moment.
Heath knelt down next to her. “Bobbi, we’ve planned this for five years, but he’s right. We got this scumbag, and he’ll never hurt another shifter with his drugs. Don’t kill him like an animal. Let the justice system do its job. We’re here to represent the shifter community, and it’s our duty to be better than this pig.”
Tony lay wailing and bleeding on the floor. The stench of urine assaulted Bobbi’s nostrils; he’d wet himself.
“I didn’t know, I didn’t know!” Tony howled. “I make people feel good! I didn’t mean for anyone to die, for God’s sake! Why would I do that? It’s terrible for business!”
Shaking with the effort it took to keep herself from killing Tony, Bobbi fell into Jax’s arms, and he pulled her to her feet.
As she did, Heath suddenly lashed out and kicked Tony in the ribs so hard that Bobbi heard bones crunch, and he spit on Tony’s face. “That’s for my brother, and every other shifter you’ve poisoned,” he snarled. Two Enforcers pounced on him and dragged him backwards.
“Okay, now we’re done,” Heath said, as the Enforcers spun him around and walked him away.
“You fucking bitch! My lawyers will have me out on bail by this afternoon, you stupid whore!” Vaughn howled in rage. “I come here looking to buy warehouse space, and you lead me into a trap? You lunatics assault me? I’ll sue you, you bitch!”
Jax let out a growl, and Kenneth put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
Bobbi walked up to Vaughn, and her smile spread across her face. She’d been waiting for this moment for six months.
“You’ll spend the rest of your life buried in a cell block so deep that you’ll forget what the moon and stars look like. I’ve played you, Vaughn. I was working deep, deep undercover for the Enforcers, and so was Heath. We planted him in that jail, and I’ve been collecting evidence against you from the minute I started working for you.”
Vaughn’s jaw fell open. “No. No,” he spluttered. “No. No. No. It’s not possible. No.”
“Every politician, every judge, every dirty cop that you have on your payroll, is going down with you. We’ve bugged you, we’ve videotaped you, we’ve had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. By the way, I hear that Stanford Roosevelt is your special little friend these days. Maybe you can have adjoining cells,” Bobbi taunted him.
“Your brother is a murderer! He killed a
man! He was caught on videotape!”Pure triumph sang through Bobbi’s blood. She’d waited for this moment for so long, pictured the look on Vaughn’s face when he was finally brought down. The rage, the self-pity, the stark terror…it was all there.
“It was an Enforcer-sanctioned kill,” Bobbi said. “He killed a drug dealer. It was all done so we could send him to prison.”
“You’re lying. You’re lying.” Vaughn’s eyes were bulging out of his head.
“If I’m lying, how is my brother here, with Enforcers, out of prison and not under arrest? We shut the investigation down and pulled him out, because we’re done. We have everything that we need to lock you up forever.”
She stood up and walked away.
Bobbi felt weak with relief that this whole ordeal was over. Heath was tough as nails, but having him in prison was the hardest thing she’d ever experienced. Even though she knew that the guards were watching out for him, an inmate could have gotten to him at any time. It was a daily struggle to quell her fear for him and carry on as if everything was okay.
As soon as Heath had gone to jail, she’d approached Vaughn and begged him to use his connections to protect her brother. She’d promised him inside information, but everything that she’d fed him had been carefully orchestrated by her bosses. She’d given him information that set up rival drug dealers for the kill, that weakened their organizations, that helped hijack their illegal drug shipments…helping to wipe out dozens of high level criminals while they carefully prepared their case against Vaughn.
As she walked away, Vaughn lunged at her, but Jax lashed out with a kick that sent him flying and crashing to the floor.
“Come near her again, threaten her again, and you die,” he snarled, his voice half-human, half-wolf.
Suddenly, Jennifer flew through the air in cougar form, raking Vaughn’s abdomen with her claws before several shifters jumped on her and pulled her off.
Vaughn screamed in agony, and the Enforcers quickly called for an ambulance.
“That was for Pamela, you fucking murderer! That was for her cubs!” Jennifer screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She turned to Bobbi, as the Enforcers rolled Vaughn onto a pallet of wood and carried him, bleeding and screaming, from the warehouse.
The Alpha Meets His Match Page 19
