by Nicole Fox
Beside me, the trucker gunned it, moving it a little farther ahead. I wasn't sure about all his thoughts, only that he somehow thought he'd be able to outrun us.
Not a chance.
I glanced ahead, checked that there wasn't any traffic, then I shifted on my bike and got my feet beneath me. I'd been doing this kind of stupid shit since I was a kid, and old Gator Baldwin had put me on my first dirt bike, so it wasn't anything new. Of course, it hadn't gotten any less dangerous over the years, either.
But I didn't have any other choice. He might not have been able to outrun us, but there wasn't a chance we'd be able to force him off the road with just our bikes. That's what the plan with the broken down pickup across the road had been all about. But, with him heading in the opposite direction, we had about as much chance of stopping this thing as a one-legged man had of winning an ass-kicking contest.
With my feet beneath me, and one hand still on the throttle, I glanced over at the truck. It was just a few feet. I could do that, even with the face-ripping, skin-tearing, roadrash-inflicting asphalt racing by at almost ninety miles per hour.
I didn't hesitate. I couldn't. If the trucker realized what I was doing, he could just veer over and knock me from here to Hell, and then it'd be, “That's all folks!”
I leaped out, my boots kicking off the seat of my bike. My bike flew out from beneath me, veering off to the left at almost a hundred miles an hour. It hit the shoulder at the far side and went off into the bayou, disappearing in the gloom behind me as I sailed through the air, arms outstretched for dear life.
The world stopped for a moment, and I seemed to hang there in the air, my short, risk-filled life filling my mind. It had been a good life, I guessed. Not dedicated to fixing anything, or solving any big problems, but I guessed that I'd made my buddies' lives a little better while I was president of the MC. And, I'd had a shit load of fun doing it, too!
My hand met the truck handle and grabbed it tight, the chrome steel cutting into my flesh as the rest of my body followed and slammed into the side of the rig. I rebounded hard and almost went plummeting to the highway, just more meat for the grinder, but kept my firm grip on it as I flailed in the wind.
I desperately searched with the toes of my boots for firm footing as I hooked my arm around the side mirror and looked in the window at the young driver. I realized, then, that it definitely wasn't the same guy, that it must have been a trap set by Volkov. Beyond him, I could see Jace's legs entangled with the original truck driver's and Benji curled up on the floorboard in front of the passenger seat.
But, I didn't have time to worry about it. Especially not when I saw the big, chromed automatic pistol in the driver's hand. And its barrel was looking right back at me.
I ducked down low, getting myself out of its fatal path but managing to lose my grip with my boots, as the gun roared for the second time that night. Above me as I dangled from the creaking, wobbling side mirror, the glass cracked as the bullet sailed off, over my head and into the swampy countryside. I'd dodged the bullet, but I still wasn't home free.
The rig began to swerve, almost violently, slamming me against the door. I kicked out with my feet, regained my purchase, and crawled back up the window.
I watched from behind as the truck driver threw one of the girls off him with a shout. She came back up, pistol in hand, and I realized it was Benji!
Now was my chance, while he was occupied. I slammed into the glass with my shoulder, fracturing the window out from the bullet hole in a fractal spiderweb. I hit it again, shattering it as the truck suddenly began to slow.
I wasn't sure what was happening inside, it was too dark and the jackass wearing the jogging suit was blocking my view. I reached in and wrapped my arm around his neck, yanking him back as I choked him. The gun in his hand went off again, like a cherry bomb, and I heard glass crack.
“Pull over!” I screamed in the man's ear. “Pull over, motherfucker!”
“Da!” he screamed back, and the truck screeched as the airbrakes engaged beneath us. We lurched together, truck and girls and the driver and me, as we came to a stuttering halt, rubber laying down beneath us on the asphalt.
I choked the driver out, shutting off his carotid artery and the blood flow to his brain, then reached inside and opened the door. I swung around the side and got another firm hold on the Russian driver and yanked him out onto the side of the road, his head cracking on the asphalt. I didn't give a shit if he got hurt anymore, though. I was about to do far worse.
My mind was on fire, my brain going a mile a second. I couldn't see Benji's face, or even see if Jace was okay. Were they dead? I had no idea for sure, but I was pretty damn sure they were.
I pulled out my pistol, a clean one that hadn't been registered, had no serial number, and hadn't ever been used in another crime.
Towards the back of the truck, I heard the rumble of the pickup as it came pulling up with Fed and the rest. The guys on bikes, Happy and the other two, had already come to a stop and started to unload the trailer.
My breath was coming in ragged gasps, burning in my chest with each inhalation. I flipped off the safety and looked down at the passed-out mobster. He'd killed them. He'd killed them both.
I double-tapped him, popped two bullets in his head. Out here on the side of the road, they were like big fire crackers popping one after the other, and his head just bounced a couple times on the concrete. Then, he lay still.
Fed came running at the sound of shots. “Koen?” he asked. “What's-”
“Jace and Benji!” I shouted as went to climb up into the cab of the truck. “These fuckers killed 'em!”
Inside the cab, neither of the girls moved. My teeth gritted, my eyes narrowed, I shook my head and went to grab the other trucker, the one they'd first approached. I grabbed him back the back of his shirt and pulled him up from Jace, untangling his limbs from hers. I dragged him out, my body stronger than even I realized as the adrenaline pumped through my veins like PCP, and onto the side of the road.
The driver groaned as I dropped him there like a sack of manure, which was all he was to me. Human shit. Fuck this motherfucker.
“No!” Fed screamed, trying to pull me away from the guy. “Don't, Koen!”
I shook him off and went back to the man, drawing my pistol. The trucker cap he'd been wearing had come off, during the scuffle maybe, or when I'd yanked him from the tractor. What little hair he had was mussed, wild looking. The chloroform must have been in system still, because he didn't even look at me or register what was going on.
I brought my pistol up, leveled it.
“No!” Fed shouted again, one last time, but I strong armed him back beside me.
I pulled the trigger three times, unloading into the man's head like it was nothing.
“Get the pickup loaded,” I said to Fed, my voice as cold as my heart. The little spark Jace had started was gone already, and there was nothing but dead ashes left behind.
Aleksey was mine, now. For both Jace, and her brother Tomlin.
“I just . . .” Fed started, but trailed off.
“They killed them both,” I told Fed as I stuffed my pistol back into my shoulder holster and headed back into the semi. “They didn't deserve to live. Get 'em off the road.”
Fed didn't respond, didn't say anything. He just went to grab the two men and haul them off the shoulder of the highway. He'd dump them off in the weeds, far enough away that they wouldn't be seen until daylight. Unless, of course, the gators got to them before someone came looking.
I climbed up and into the driver side of the cab, my head feeling like it was full of wool or cotton, stuffy and disconnected. The sharp tang of gunpowder, with the sweet undercurrent of chloroform hit my nose as soon as I entered the cab. I looked down at the girls, at Benji's bloody wound, at the crimson surrounding Jace's face as she lay on the floor of the cab.
I sucked in a breath and groaned. She'd been so damned beautiful, it hurt to think of her this way, her face bash
ed in. I couldn't leave her like this, dead in some semi truck, dead because of my stupid fucking mistake. The state cops would end up getting hold of her if I left them here. I knew they didn't have any family or anywhere else to go. The Fire and Brimstone MC was the closest thing they had, and we'd known them less than week.
I realized I was holding my breath in anticipation of the carnage I was going see as I got down between the seats and grabbed her by the shoulder to flip her over. How bad would it be, I wondered. How destroyed was that pretty-as-a-picture face of hers?
She was light as a feather, and I rolled her over with ease. Thankfully, or ironically, her face hadn't been damaged at all. Just a big, heavy wallop to her temple, it looked like. I brushed the hair out of her face and, my stomach still bottomed out, I crushed her to my chest.
I couldn't cry over her. Maybe, years ago I could have. But not anymore. I'd seen and done too much to deserve to shed tears. Instead, the immensity of the task ahead of me, of the vengeance I would now have to seek, settled on me like a ton of cinder blocks. I crushed her to my chest and stroked her hair. “Oh, Jace,” I whispered as I pushed her long, auburn hair behind her ear and out of her face. “Goddamnit,” I mumbled.
I nearly dropped her when she woke up. “What?” she asked. “What's going on? Koen?”
“Holy fucking shit!” I yelled.
“Quit yelling,” she mumbled. “Fuck, is Benji okay? Koen, Benji's hurt.”
“Benji's dead, babe,” I said.
“What?” Jace cried.
“No, I ain't, you idiots,” Benji rasped from the foot well, her voice still high and squeaky. “Hurts like Hell, though.”
“Fed!” I shouted. “We need some help in here!”
Chapter Twelve
Jace
“I told you,” Koen said to me, his voice more even and measured than it had any right to be, “we can't take her to a goddamned emergency room for a gunshot. Not unless you want the cops sniffing around. We've got a doc, she'll be fine. Shit happens.”
We were in his private office, now, back at Club Hellfire. They'd gotten us back in the pickup truck, along with the guns, and pulled us up here. Now, he sat there with his antique desk between us, just cool as a fucking cucumber, and I couldn't stand it.
This motherfucker almost got us killed with his high-handed, over the top bullshit with robbing rigs and trying to rip off the Russian mob. “Probably some goddamned washed up vet assistant!” I screamed back, ignoring how calm he was.
I was furious. Not just at Benji getting shot, or me getting hit in the head, or at Koen even for killing those men. Definitely not the last part. No, I was livid because my chance at getting close to Aleksey was gone, perhaps forever. There was no way in hell I'd be able to get into one of those trucks again.
“Well,” he said, his hands spread in front of him, fingers splayed, “he's helped us out more than once, and he knows the deal. He knows what's up and can actually be trusted.”
He was probably here already, closing up the hole in Benji’s shoulder. It had gone clean through, in one side and out the other. Once they'd gotten her out of the cab and examined the actual damage done, Fed had figured it was an easy fix. She'd be hurting for a while, but as long as she got sewn up and they put some fresh blood in her, she'd be fine.
It didn't matter if Benji was going to recover, though. What mattered was that we'd been in a position where we could have gotten shot in the first place. “You didn't tell us there might be guns involved,” I screamed at Koen, my blood pressure high. But I was into it, on a roll, and was being brash. And, as long as he was letting me scream at him, I just kept doing it. “She could have died in there! I could have died!”
“If you'd followed the plan,” he said, his voice cold as ice, “we wouldn't be in this position. You jumped the gun, didn't you? If you'd waited to make your move, waited till you got on the road like we'd planned, you would have seen there were two men in the truck, not just one. You could have bailed before one of you got shot and the other got pistol-whipped. Why?”
“Why what?” I yelled back, my voice pressing against the boundaries of the office. I didn't care how loud I was getting, though. I just needed to do it, to scream out my rage and frustration.
“Why'd you fuck up the plan?”
“You know why!” I screamed. I was so pissed I didn't even think things through. I just opened my mouth and the words came spewing out, like when you accidentally turn the faucet on too high and the water just goes everywhere. “Aleksey! I wanted to get close to him.”
His eyes went wide, his nostrils flared. He bared his teeth, but not in a pleasant, grinning way. “You,” he started, the anger seething into his voice, “what?”
Oh no.
He stood up from his chair and started to come around the desk. His eyes were lit like bonfires, his jaw locked, the muscles working away as the vein on his forehead began to stand out.
Shit.
I reflexively took a step back, shaking my head. “I'm sorry,” I stammered, the words broken before I could even speak them.
Double shit.
# # #
Koen
“You,” I said, as I took another step closer, my hands clenching and unclenching at my side, “don't get to decide what to do anymore. You lost that option when you killed Sven and begged for my protection. You're mine now, Jace.” I kept my voice even and low, despite my rage.
Of all the people who would ever defy me, I never would have imagined it to be this little wisp of a woman that I could curl with one arm. Never in a million years would I think that this little lady would come into my club and disregard my explicit orders. Sure, I could have imagined it from one of the prospects. But her?
My eyes traveled up and down her body, her teenybopper clothes she had on that seemed so damned out of place with the intensity of her determination and will for vengeance. There was something about her that just drove me up the fucking wall, but also got me in all the right places. Maybe it was the ballsy-ness of it, of the idea that she could somehow dupe her way up the food chain to see Aleksey. Maybe it was how she'd ignored everything I'd already told her, even though she claimed to be mine.
She took one look at my face and took another step back.
I reached out and, fast as a snake, snatched her wrist up and pulled her into my arms.
She yelped in surprise as I grabbed her ass and pulled her closer to look down into her eyes.
“You're my girl now,” I reminded her, my voice still cold and ragged at the edges. “You gave yourself to me, remember?” I pulled her closer.
“I know that,” she almost whispered, turning her face away. I could tell that, as pissed as she was at me, and herself I think, for the way things went down at the truck stop, my words cut even closer to the core. “I know that,” she repeated, her eyes still downcast away from mine.
“Then act like it,” I said, pulling her into me. I spun her a little to our left and pushed her back onto the desk, lifted her ass up onto the edge.
She spread her legs for me almost eagerly, pulling me in closer.
My hips spread her thighs farther apart as I kept her against me with one hand. I touched her cheek with the back of my fingers. Her lips had the barest of parts, and I could tell she was breathing faster. I needed to taste those lips, to see if she felt the same about me, to see if she wanted this as badly as I did.
I couldn't stand this whole “ownership” bullshit. If I was going to fuck her, I needed her to want it, to crave it. She had to really give herself to me, but not as a form of payment of some sort. That much hadn't changed at all. I hadn't ever needed to pay a woman to hop in my bed, and I didn't plan on changing now.
Her eyes danced as they peered into mine. There was a mixture of fear in them, of uncertainty.
I wasn't sure what she wanted, but there was only way to tell. I leaned down, pressed my lips to her.
She tasted like sweetish lip gloss, peach maybe, throwing me off for a moment
. She didn't kiss back at first, didn't respond at all.
Finally, I opened my mouth and ran the tip of my tongue over her lips, encouraging hers to open.
She opened her mouth, invited me in. We explored each other, with her acting unsure of herself at first, testing the waters. Soon, though, we were making out on the edge of my desk. I could feel her warm, petite body in my arms, feel it trembling like a frightened bird.
This Jace was so completely unlike the one I'd first met. She was timid, unsure of herself. Soon, though, she seemed to relax into it, seemed to enjoy it a little more, like she was easing back into an old habit of hers.
I ran my hand over a small, perky breast. I honestly hadn't noticed before now, but she hadn't worn a bra for the heist. Probably to create the illusion of a slutty teenage runaway, the better to get in the cab of the truck. I passed my thumb over a pert nipple, teasing it through her tank top.
