by Jc Emery
I’ve known Nic a damn long time, and even when she ignores me—as she does so often—I’ve always known it was her. And she’s always been hot and mouthy, and even though she acts like she wants nothing to do with me most of the time, I’ve never forgotten the girl who used to always talk about traveling all over the country on the back of a Harley. Thinking about her is making me crazy to a point that’s got to be unhealthy.
Eventually, I give in and try Nic again, but she doesn’t answer, so I try Jeremy again. He doesn’t answer either, so the second message I leave on his voice mail isn’t quite as friendly. I threaten to hunt his ass down and beat the shit out of him until he has to piss in a bag for the next month. I can’t leave, but he doesn’t know that. It’s a few minutes later when he calls me back and apologizes profusely before telling me what I really don’t want to fucking hear, but have to anyway.
“She said she’s not going to call you back and that you can talk to her at 3am when you crawl in bed like you normally do,” he says. His voice trails up at the end like he’s expecting me to flip out. He’s not far off base.
“Fuck,” I say.
“Sorry, dude. She’s been in a foul-ass mood lately,” he grumbles.
“What did you just call me?”
“Sir,” he stutters. “Sorry, Sir.” I bite back the laugh that’s rumbling in my chest. He doesn’t know it yet, but I’m treating him like a prospect. Nic would flip her shit if she knew, but when I sent word via a hang-around to Butch about making Nic my Old Lady, I also made mention of having Jeremy prospect for us. I should hear back about that any day. Being around the club could be good for the kid, and from what she’s told me about his grades and all, it’s not like he’s got an Ivy League future.
“You making her week worse?” I ask him.
“No Sir,” he says. “I’ve been to class every day on time and I haven’t given her attitude even though she’s given it to me.”
“Good. If I hear otherwise, it won’t be pretty,” I say.
“I understand, Sir,” he says. I hang up and continue to keep an eye on everything. The sun started setting a while ago, and now it’s moving into total darkness. We’re keeping the flood lights off so they aren’t triggered by movement. Minutes pass and my cell rings. Pulling it out of my pocket, I let a smile cover my entire face at the name on the screen: NIC.
A loud bang sounds from the back of the property. Instinctively, I shove the ringing phone back in my pocket, right my semi-automatic rifle, and follow the sound. There’s at least five wild shots fired from the back tree line. I pick up the pace, scanning the neighboring property and the tree line to my left, but there’s nothing out there that I can see. My heart jumps in my chest. After all this waiting, shit’s finally going down.
Someone flips the flood lights on, and the entire field is illuminated. I blink at the sudden intrusion on my corneas then resume my position and pick up the pace now that I can see everything clearly. My brothers are already at the tree line checking it out. Grady, Bear, and Diesel come out with their hands in the air, shaking their heads. To my left, I spot Trigger, who freezes in place, curses, and then runs back to the house at full speed. I follow behind him, darting around trees and hopping over fallen branches and logs that are strewn about the field. PJ appears behind Trigger and runs beside him. I trail behind the two, not even trying to get in either of their way. They’re both so attached to Princess, I’d probably be missing an arm if I tried it. I force myself not to even think about anything else that could be going on. My heart sounds like it’s running a marathon in my chest, and my eyes are wide and alert. I have my rifle at the ready.
Running into the house behind Ryan and PJ, everything turns into fucking chaos. Princess is gone. My temper flares, and my muscles tense at the sight before me. Princess’s room is a goddamn disaster. She barely got it decorated, and now it’s all fucked up. From outside, men are screaming and shouting at one another. I can hear Trigger from the front yard, through the open sliding glass door. He’s barking orders at anyone who will listen. Ruby stumbles into the room with a bloody hand on her head and a clean one over her mouth. She shakes her head as tears pool in her eyes.
“They took her,” she wails loudly. My heart breaks for her. She barely got Princess a few months ago and now this shit happens. I usher her over and check out her wounds. She’s got a bump on her head and a cut at her hairline, but that’s it. Collapsing against my chest, Ruby screams so loud I worry my eardrums might not recover. A painful sob and then a violent scream. She pulls at my leather cut and sinks to the floor. I crouch down beside her, not letting go as she loses her shit.
PJ whimpers from the other side of the bed and then barks loudly. Her butt’s up in the air, and she continues to whimper. Ruby wipes her nose and crawls the three feet to the corner of the bed and peers around and screams. She scampers around the corner while she wails. Jumping up on the bed and out of the way, PJ lies down and whimpers with all of her attention focused on Ruby. I stand up and look over the side. Ruby’s scooped up a bloody Tegan in her arms and has her once clean hand, which is now covered in dripping blood, over Tegan’s neck. “No!” Ruby cries and screams the word again and again until all that’s left are tiny little whispers of disbelief and pain. I grab one of Princess’s throw blankets and hand it to Ruby. We create a makeshift bandage to try to stop the bleeding.
“Stay here and keep pressure on that. I’ll get the vet over here ASAP,” I say and walk to the sliding glass door. “And we’re going to find Princess, I promise.” I rush out of the sliding glass door and down the deck to where Grady’s bent over in the grass. He shakes his head back and forth.
“This is wrong,” he grinds out. “So fucking wrong.” I get closer and find Chief lying in the grass. His body is limp, and his chest isn’t moving. Grady stands and wipes his eyes. Chief’s dead.
“This ain’t fucking right,” he says while he makes a circle and raises his hands in the air. “Chief’s dead. Are you fucking happy now?” he screams as he charges at Trigger. I take a look at Trigger, whose eyes are red and glassy. He sucks up the tears that are threatening to fall. He just stands there as Grady makes impact and slams him into the grass. Laying his arms out at his sides, Triggers takes hit after hit that Grady offers. Jim doesn’t let it get too far before he and Wyatt pull Grady and Trigger apart. I stand motionless on the side as I watch my club fall apart, and each of my brothers come to terms with their individual losses. After I’ve taken my moment to be selfish, I walk over to Trigger and lift him off the ground. Grady mainly went for his gut and didn’t do much damage to his face.
“Come on, we have to find Princess,” I say and lead Trigger back into the house as our brothers follow.
Chapter 17
”Warehouse on Fifth,” I say and hang up the phone with the deputy chief. My brothers and I are crowded around the table in the chapel with maps and ammo laid out in front of us. I look around the table to find them nodding, with the exception of Ryan. He’s scowling at the map with his gun in his hand. He’s been making us all a little more than nervous the last several hours, but nobody has big enough balls to tell him so. Ruby tried to talk to him, but all he did was stalk past her and bark at her not to fucking talk to him. Ever since, we’ve just let him be. Even Grady’s noticed how he’s taking the situation, but I don’t know that it’s going to change his mind about anything. That is, if and when we find Princess. And here’s hoping we find her alive and unharmed.
I load up my body with as much firepower as I can. I got a gun in each ankle strap and a knife in my right in addition to the knife on the left of my waist. Two extra rounds of ammo in my pockets and a gun in its shoulder holster as well as one in the back of my jeans and the rifle over my shoulder. Five guns and two knives in total and enough ammunition to take down half an army. My brothers are all locked and loaded with as much firepower as I have, if not more, as they file out of the chapel. I let everybody else go in front of me, and, as I walk out last,
I take one final look at the chapel with the realization that if shit gets too violent, I might not see it again.
It’s days like today, when shit goes south and everybody’s falling apart on the inside and the club’s battered on the outside, that I hate this life. I sometimes wonder what could have become of me had I been a garbage man or maybe a cop. Cops aren’t any less dirty than we are. The only real difference is that we get to play by our own rules, and I like that a fuck of a lot more than the shit they have to go by. But maybe if I was a garbage man I wouldn’t have had to see my mentor dead in the grass, and I wouldn’t be walking into what could very likely be a trap in order to save a girl who never asked for us to do any of this shit on her behalf, but deserves it all the same. And I know where my head should be, but all I can think about is Nic and if she’s safe. All I can do is battle with the urge to ride to her house and make sure everything’s okay. That’s not where my priority needs to be right now, and I can’t do that to Princess. We got a tip that there’s a few black sedans outside of a warehouse on Fifth Street. It’s our best lead so far and, it’s been hours. If she’s not there, we might be fucked. This isn’t our first rescue mission, but it is the most personal. I just hope that Wyatt took me seriously when I told him that if I don’t make it back, he needs to make sure that Nic is taken care of.
We load up in three SUVs and take off downtown. The bikes are too loud, and even though we’re all suited up with bullet-proof vests and we’d have our helmets on, there’s too much exposure to the neck and legs when riding, and this is a mission we can’t take a single chance fucking up. The trip downtown is shorter than it’s ever been before. Jim drives the SUV I’m in with Ian in the passenger seat and Trigger next to me. It isn’t until we’re close to the warehouse that we creep up and cut the lights. Once we’re in the far end of the parking lot and all three SUVs have arrived, my brothers scatter about to cover the area. We discussed all this shit before I got the call from the deputy chief with this tip. Everybody knows where they’re supposed to be.
I take my position beside Ian and behind Trigger, who’s taken the lead—and nobody was willing to argue with him about that—as we walk very quietly to the side door. Grady, Wyatt, Bear, and Jim follow behind us. They’re all good with a gun, but Jim likes to have his sharpest shooters in front.
All of the windows are covered or boarded up, and the thick concrete walls make it difficult to know what’s going on inside, if anything. I stalk around the corner and find a man in a black suit with slicked back black hair holding a gold gun. He turns from side to side, but not enough that he’s able to see me watching him. I pull up the AR-15 with the suppressor and super sonic ammo, click off the safety, and center it on his skull. Just as he turns and catches sight of my gun gleaming in the darkness, I pull the trigger. The bullet hits him at the corner of his temple, and he crumples to the ground. I give him a quick look then turn back to my brothers and give them a nod.
Trigger lifts his hand and gives two swift knocks on the door just as I get back in formation. The door opens but a foot or two when Trigger pops two shots into the guy’s skull, using his suppressor. Ian stands by and catches him as he falls to the ground to avoid making a sound, then drags him out of the way. We walk through the door as silently as possible. The warehouse is dark as fuck, and I can’t see much of anything with the exception of some agricultural equipment in the center of the room we’re in, which is far smaller than the building is. The warehouse must be broken up into several rooms. Trigger leads us through the room, careful to keep us in shadows. A skylight on the roof provides enough light to cast a slight blueish glow over the space the farther we move into it. All I can hear is heavy breaths and the occasional scuffle of a boot. Up ahead on the right are two more guys who stand shoulder to shoulder with their backs toward us. I breathe a slight sigh of relief that Mancuso didn’t send his top team, but if he did send his top team then this is fucking sad. These guys are fucking jokesters if they don’t know better than to turn their back on the only entrance to the warehouse aside from the boarded up dock in the back.
I look over to Ian and nod at the guys. He squints and nods in confirmation that it’s not Michael, who we have orders not to kill unless we have to. We train our guns on the backs of their skulls and, with near perfect aim, shoot. Both of their skulls break apart at the point of contact, and blood shoots out as they tumble toward the ground in unison.
“You would turn your back on your family for them?” a voice with a thick east coast accent says. His words are clipped even in his fury. We move past the two dead bodies we just put down and into the second room. It’s empty, but in the expanse beyond the room we’ve just entered is another room, which appears to be much smaller. Where the two larger rooms are without any lighting, the small room in the back has a single light bulb hanging overhead, which gives us a decent line of sight to see what’s going on.
“No, I’m protecting my family,” Princess screams angrily. In front of me, Trigger picks up his pace at the sound of her voice. Less than thirty feet away now, and I can see her. She’s tied to a chair, which is on its side. The kid standing over her can’t be any older than her, even though his size begs to differ. The longer I look at him, the more similarities I can see between he and Alex. There’s absolutely no doubting that he’s her twin. Fuck.
He tightens his fists at his side and delivers several swift kicks to her stomach. Trigger jumps to rush at the guy, but he’s got a gun in his hand, so I reach out and grab him before he can get too far and make any noise. He turns his head, glaring at me, but I don’t care. I’m not going to let his temper get Princess or Junior killed. I don’t think Ruby would survive either loss—Junior because she never got a chance to meet him, and Princess because she just barely got a hold of her.
The kid delivers blow after blow to her stomach before he stops. She’s on the floor, her face is bruised as fuck, and she’s got drool coming out of the side of her mouth. Dried blood dots the other corner of her mouth, and her clothes are dirty as all fucking hell. My throat tightens at the sight. Keeping a close eye on Trigger and moving forward as quietly as I can, I train my gun on Junior’s skull. I hate this part of the job—when shit gets personal—but if Junior kills her, he’s going to die regardless of who his mother is. If I let Ryan at him, he’s going to die a slow and miserable death. It’s better that I do it. I’d rather he die mercifully so I can tell his mother he didn’t suffer.
“Please pick me up,” she says, and her voice sounds so fucking pathetic. Junior pulls at his hair and curses a few times in what I assume is Italian, then he leans down and picks up the chair with one hand. In the other, he’s got that gold gun that all of Mancuso’s men seem to have.
“Are you going to tell me where they are?” he says, leaning down and pulling her head back so she’s forced to meet his eyes. Her head flops, and her eyes squint then widen like she’s struggling to see him clearly.
“I love you,” she says in a sincere voice. She waits a beat and then her lips form a thin line. “No,” she says in a much stronger voice than I expect she’s easily capable of. But Junior isn’t having any of it. He slaps her across her temple so many times that I think Trigger’s gonna lose his shit and pop a cap in the kid’s ass right here and now. If it were Nic… I can’t even go there or I’ll do it myself.
She blows out a heavy breath and takes each blow like a fucking champ. I don’t know many men who could have the shit beat out of them like she’s getting and to keep fighting. In a moment that I’ll never forget, she rights her head and narrows her eyes at her brother—someone who’s supposed to love her and protect her—and she pushes against the next blow to her head. Steeling herself, she yells at the top of her lungs, “Keep hitting me!”
The words fall out in a jumbled mess, but the show of strength is what imprints itself on my soul. The girl has balls—big ones—and if I wasn’t already so fucking stupid over Nic, I might have fallen in love with Princess right then and the
re. “I won’t hurt them.”
It’s just a moment that everybody stops moving as we watch this small person with guts as big as any of the men behind me as she takes on someone twice her size with only her words to fight against the beating he’s giving her. I promise myself from this moment forward that whatever Princess needs, Princess fucking gets. I shoot a quick look back to Grady, who’s still so blinded with rage that I’m not sure he can really appreciate what’s happening here. If this isn’t a sign of loyalty to the club, then I don’t know what the fuck is. But that moment passes way too soon, and Junior’s face turns bright red. He shoves his gold gun in his pocket and clamps his hands around her neck. With her arms and legs bound to the chair she doesn’t have a fucking chance of making it.
“Tell me where they are!” he screams into her face. His eyes are wild, and he squeezes her poor, thin neck as he shakes her back and forth. I want to just call a time out and throw in the towel and be done with this shit. I’ve killed enough men in my time, and I’ve seen enough men put down for a variety of reasons. I stopped counting long ago. I’ve even seen a few women be beaten, and I’ve seen the aftermath of what happens when we’re too late to stop the beating. But this shit is too fucked up. If Princess isn’t okay after this, then Trigger won’t be okay, and I won’t be okay, either. If I’m not okay, then I can’t be okay with the club or this life.
