by Hazel Parker
“You know you don’t have to do that,” Sensei said. “Giving up mission details to us.”
I knew it wasn’t a great look, and I knew I’d have to make it up later. It really was kind of a shitty look to have let my emotions get the better of me in a spot like this. But… what was I going to do, lead our men into a suicide mission when it had become apparent every single one of them disapproved of me?
“I know, but this isn’t a dictatorship,” I said. “At least, Paul wouldn’t want it to be. No one is going to go along with my plan since my plan has some of us probably dying anyway. So, as long as you two know I’m still in charge.”
“We do,” Splitter said. “Brother, this is why I follow you. Because you can admit mistakes like this—”
“No,” I said. “It’s not a mistake. I just want Jane safe. I’m doing whatever it takes to get the club rolling. Got it?”
I was no hero, no noble leader for what I had done. It was purely a selfish act to get the club in agreement to move. I wasn’t going to be worthy of standing in the hall of fame of club presidents, CEOs, and generals in the world.
I just wanted Jane back.
“Got it,” Splitter said.
The three of us headed to the hall. As if to emphasize that I was still president, I stood by my seat, choosing not to sit for the moment, as I addressed the six officers before me.
“I said outside that Splitter and Sensei would lead the details of this operation,” I said, my voice harsh and to the point. “That is still the case. Understand, however, that I am the president of the Savage Saints, a title given to me by Jane’s father. I am doing this because I believe this will best allow us to rescue Jane. I am not doing this out of some martyrdom move. Understood?”
Everyone nodded. I paused a beat longer, letting the silence reveal if anyone wanted to question what I had said or express doubts with subtle reactions about what I had done. None did. We were all on board.
“Good,” I said. “Sensei? Splitter?”
“Thanks, Trace,” Sensei began, and only then did I take my seat. “Trace told the cops that they’re in Compton; we know that. We know that the other place they like to take hostages is in an abandoned apartment complex about ten miles south of here, conveniently well before Compton. We’ve already hit their Chinese place and their warehouse, making it likely that she’s at the apartment complex.”
“How do we know she’s not at their clubhouse?” Sword said.
“The video’s floor and couch don’t match anything that would be there,” Splitter said. “The fuckers can change their furniture, but they’re not changing their fucking floors to fool us.”
“Fair enough,” Sword said.
“We don’t have any other options,” I said. “She’s—”
And then I felt my phone buzz again.
“Wait.”
I pulled out my phone and saw a new message. This one infuriated me even more.
It was of Diablo and Jane, with Diablo’s hand on Jane’s thigh.
“To this woman’s lover,” he said, a smirk on his face. “I grow tired of waiting for you. You have one hour. You know where to find us.”
Jane let out a nervous squeal as he squeezed her thigh before the video went dead. When I closed out the video, I saw that the sender had sent the address—one that aligned with the abandoned apartment complex.
“They want us to come out,” BK said. “They ain’t doin’ that for any reason other than to lay a trap.”
“Fucking hell,” I said, more out of rising anger than resigned frustration. “It’ll take us fifteen to get there. Ten to get ready. We can’t be wasting any more time.”
“I fucking hate Diablo,” Splitter said. “Agreed.”
“All in favor of moving out now?” I said.
Everyone said “aye” immediately.
“Let’s fucking go.”
Chapter 16: Jane
Diablo leaned in and kissed me again, his kisses moving more aggressively from my cheek to my lips. Thus far, I had mostly managed to avoid feeling his lips pressing against mine, but he was getting more and more assertive, and his insistence that the Saints only had an hour now made me believe he was that much closer to just kissing me… and God knows what else.
“Such a tease, friend,” he said with a smirk. “But it’s OK. There is one ticket to you living past the hour, and you’re a smart girl. You know what it is.”
To let you rape me.
Not gonna happen. Not unless I literally have no other choice. And that doesn’t mean a choice between death or rape.
I didn’t say anything in response, instead looking straight ahead, refusing to make any eye contact with him.
But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t scared shitless about what was all going on.
I just wanted my father with me right now. He would never have let this situation devolve to where it was now. He would never have let me take an Uber from the hospital without protection from the Saints. He would never have let me get kidnapped.
But my father was never coming back.
There was, however, someone who could come back. Someone who could make up for everything that had happened—Tracy.
I wished that he was there. I wished that he was there to protect me and comfort me at this moment. I wished… I wished that none of this had happened as it had.
I had a feeling the Saints would come by at some point. They weren’t evil. They weren’t going to let me die.
But would it be enough? Would it be in time to save me? Or would Diablo here kill me as soon as he heard the sound of enemy bikers?
“Let me ask you something, Jane,” he said, shaking me out of my stupor. I briefly glanced over at him, but then reminded myself not to look at him and not to respond if I could help it. “Do you know why the Devil’s Mercenaries exist? Do you?”
I looked ahead, choosing not to engage as best as I could. I heard a snicker from the side and then felt the couch compress underneath Diablo’s weight. I tried to scoot over, but Diablo had a firm hand on my thigh in a matter of seconds, suggesting that to move elsewhere was a recipe for getting punished.
“I will ask you again, friend. Do you know? Why. The Devil’s Mercenaries exist?”
“Because you want to hurt the Saints.”
Diablo laughed, scratching my leg uncomfortably high up.
“In a way, I suppose that is not an inaccurate thing to say. However, allow me to let you know the truth.”
I gulped. This wasn’t going to be a narcissistic retelling of what he knew—this had to involve the Saints in some fashion, I already knew.
“When your mother died some three decades ago, your father became weak and pathetic,” he said, his voice disgustingly delighted at this retelling. “Admittedly, at first, we all had sympathy for your father. After all, beautiful baby girl, loss of his wife, it was all such a dramatic shift of events for him. But then he became emotional and weak. He let things get to him far too easily. He let business falter, and many began to question his leadership.”
I tried so hard not to break. So far, I had not, but it felt like every word was a butter knife, meant to cut just hard to enough to make me hurt but not so deep that it would cause any fatal injuries. Still, the more he spoke, the more became unbearable, and the closer those weak knives would get to causing the death of my silence.
“I approached him on this. I advised him that many in the club worried that he was falling behind the times, you know? That he paid no attention to how his members felt, especially some of the younger and newer ones then. But he didn’t listen to me, no. He was absorbed in his own little world, unable to think of anything other than himself. We all took turns speaking to your father, Jane. But he was an arrogant man, a pathetic man, a man who cared only about himself.”
He smirked as he leaned in to breath closely in my ear. I had never felt so close to being hurt, being taken advantage of, being violated. I scooted away, but there was just not much space and not much
I could do if Diablo decided to take me. I would just have to close my eyes and wait for it to end.
“I warned him repeatedly that failure to take care of his own would ensure that others left,” he said. “But did he ever listen? Nope. So I was forced to spin off because of that. Because of your father’s incompetence, I had to form the Devil’s Mercenaries so that we could form a real MC that could produce what the people actually wanted.”
And then I finally snapped at his next words.
“In a way, I can thank your mother’s death for being here.”
Instinctively, I turned and slapped him as hard as I could, rising from the couch. I felt a gun point to the back of my head, but Diablo ordered the man down, all the while laughing at me as he ran his hand over his cheek.
“Oh, beautiful, beautiful!” he said, laughing like a maniac. “You have the spirit of your father and your mother. I should have known that the daughter of the Saints whore would be so strong.”
“I swear to fucking God—”
“What? Can’t handle the truth?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Come, sit.”
I did… on the other end of the couch. I crossed my legs and refused to turn to him, but Diablo seemed unfazed by this.
“How much do you know of your mother? Hmm?”
“Don’t you even dare.”
“I only speak the truth, friend.”
I bit my lip, terrified of what was to come—the only saving grace of this all was that I knew Diablo was probably lying about a great deal of it, but the problem was trying to figure out exactly which parts were lies and which parts were truth.
“Your mother was a mama in the Saints at first. You know what that means?”
I did. I unfortunately did all too well.
“She was communal. We all got a chance at her. Oh, was she a beauty. Oh, was she fun.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“No?” he said. “Go and ask any of the other Saints when they show up. Anyone besides Trace. Ask Sensei. Ask Sword. They’ll all tell you the same thing. Theresa was like the community bike—anyone could ride her when their own wasn’t working.”
“Shut up,” I snarled.
I just chose to refuse to believe everything Diablo said. Nothing that he said to me between now and either my rescue or my death would be believed. He’d already lied about letting me go if the Saints didn’t come—who was to say he wasn’t lying about this as well?
“You can hate me all you want, friend, but your mother was for all of us,” he said.
And then he scooted over and placed a firm hand on my thigh.
“And now, you are all for me.”
At first, I just tried to resist by remaining as close as I could to being still. When Diablo tried to pull my thighs apart, I squeezed them shut. When he tried to grope my chest, I turned away.
“Darling,” he said. “Do not make this so difficult. I will make this more enjoyable than anything Trace could have done for you.”
“Don’t you dare fucking touch me,” I growled, but with guns pointed at me from multiple directions, I didn’t have a way to prevent that from happening.
“Dare to fucking touch you?” he said as if deliberately pretending I had misspoken. “Very well, in that case.”
This time, he moved more aggressively, twisting me to the side and pushing on my back on the couch. He mounted me with a smirk.
“Fuck you,” I said, spitting in his face.
With a roar, he slapped me twice, drawing blood from my cheek the second time.
“You will fucking let me do what I want,” he growled. “Or else I will kill you and then rape your corpse. The choice is yours.”
I snarled at him, but now the time had come.
I closed my eyes, bit my lip, and tried to imagine myself anywhere else.
“Good girl,” he said.
I felt him kiss my neck and my chest, working his way down. I just wanted this to end as quickly as it could, to get done with as soon as it could. He spread my legs…
“Sir! Saints are approaching!”
I opened my eyes. I saw Diablo looking at the man, cursing, and then standing up.
“You move, you die,” he growled. “Remember what I said.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t have felt more relieved.
For now, I was alive, still whole, and with protection on the way.
For now.
Chapter 17: Trace
As soon as I had said “Let’s fucking go,” there was nothing else that happened between us getting on our bikes, heading to our homes to grab our weapons and bulletproof vests, and assembling at the highway exit to go south. I didn’t have to bang the gavel—I did as much by slapping my hand on the table—I didn’t have to give any formal instructions—the team knew to meet at the highway exit—and I didn’t have to suggest what was going to happen.
We were going to head into their abandoned complex, kill everyone that crossed us, and get Jane back. This was something we had to do for reasons beyond just getting back someone that I had been intimate with.
We had to do it because she was a human, and we treated those who were honorable, truthful, and fair with the same respect. Even if I hadn’t known Jane as anything other than the blonde doctor at the hospital, she was a good person, and a hostage situation like this would have justified a similar reaction.
We had to do it because she was the daughter of the founder, and so even if she swore us off, swore never to associate with us, and swore never to be our friend, we had an obligation to protect her. She carried the legacy of her father, our closest thing to God, and to ignore her plight would be a slap in the face of everything that Paul had done.
And, though I would barely admit this to myself, I had to do it because I realized that I actually loved her.
I couldn’t say I loved her like I might have loved Kelly, but my love was a more mature love. It was a love built from knowing her all these years, from wanting to protect her, from caring about her. I may have fucked up miserably last night, but it was a classic case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. I intended to protect her, and though it got her pissed off…
Well, I had failed to protect her. But that was going to change, and it was going to change with every fucking Merc dying at my bloody hands.
The seven of us sped down the highway toward the abandoned apartment complex, not wasting any time making our way down. We each had AK-47s strapped to our backs and pistols by our side. We didn’t pass any squad cars along the way, perhaps the most important aspect of this entire run, and when we pulled off the exit and to the apartment complex, two things became readily apparent.
One, the Mercs knew we were coming.
Two, they were nice enough to give us a welcome present.
“Incoming!” I shouted, swerving my bike behind a nearby trailer as the others followed suit. Bullets rained down upon us, and though the trailer gave us some temporary cover, there was no way that we could just walk in and fire.
“Got any ideas, boss?” BK said as he turned and fired out a few rounds.
“Decoy,” I said. “Someone’s gotta play the role of decoy.”
“Any other ideas that don’t get every fucking one of us killed?” Sensei said, also firing a few rounds.
I peeked around the edge that was furthest from the apartment’s center to try and get a better sense of what we were up against. A very hasty check—too hasty to be certain, but slow enough to get a rough estimate—told me there were three floors and about ten windows per floor, with more likely out back. We had to assume that meant they had thirty lines of fire—maybe more since I hadn’t accounted for the front entrance and anything that we’d get in there.
“Do we have anything besides guns?” I shouted.
“Funny you should ask,” BK growled, reaching into his pocket. “These fuckers ain’t got any idea what’s about to hit them.”
I looked ove
r, saw him pulling out a grenade, and yanking on a pin.
“Jesus Christ, BK, what the—”
But as soon as he yanked it and hurled it, we all took cover. I turned my head just a smidge to hear the screams of some Mercs before an explosion rocked the bottom floor.
“Now’s our chance!” I yelled.
I hurried around, listening to the sounds of gunfire, charging straight for the smoke and flames that had erupted as a result of the grenade exploding. I roared as I jumped in, ran through the smoke, and turned my gun into the hallway.
I saw two Mercs. Two quick shots killed them, dropping them to the ground instantly. Splitter came to me, got my back, and fired two rounds, ideally dropping a few more of the assholes.
“Let’s clear this floor quickly,” I said. “Split up and go. Splitter, take Sword, Krispy, and Mafia. I’ll take Sensei and BK.”
“You got it, boss,” he said. “Time to die, motherfuckers!”
I directed the incoming Saints to their respective targets, moving with precision and ease down each door, firing rounds at whatever lay there, even if the bodies were already dead. I wasn’t taking any fucking chances of anyone pulling a move on us, no matter what.
We both cleared out the first floor and reached opposite ends of the apartment complex with stairs on each side. I assumed that Splitter and his crew were heading for the second floor when a terrifying thought occurred to me.
What was to prevent Diablo and his men from killing Jane because of this onslaught? What would stop them from doing that if they thought that this was the end?
“We gotta get to the third floor,” I said. “Jane’s almost certainly up there.”
“You got it, boss,” BK said.
We might also have the element of surprise if we went to the third floor first, given that Diablo almost certainly expected us to go up to the second floor first. That was the idea, at least.
When we reached the third floor, I first had the two of them wait in silence, hoping that we could look into the chaos that was unfolding. I pressed my ear against the beige door, but the only thing that met my ear was some muffled grunts and the sounds of guns being picked up. There was no way to make out coherent dialogue.
