Claiming Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 2)

by Nikki Wild

  Hunter flicked off the flashlight as we came in view of the upper floor windows, gazing out over the dirt. A couple of bikers were reloading weapons as we approached, both crouched low on the floor.

  “Skid, what’s going on out there,” Hunter requested.

  The younger biker of the two glanced our way, his fingers pushing bullets into his revolver chambers. “We’ve downed a few of them, but a couple more climbed out from the van. A couple of the fuckers were hiding in the truck, too.”

  “What about the girls?”

  “If they’re here, they’re in that van,” he replied, flicking his revolver closed and giving the chambers a quick spin. “We’re going to have to kill ‘em to get down there, though. We keep picking these bastards off, but they ain’t surrendering.”

  “Damn,” Hunter hissed. “I knew they weren’t the white flag type… these assholes are going to return fire down to the last man…”

  Gunfire hit the wall near us and all of us instinctively hit the floor.

  We heard a shriek from outside as another couple of cartel members dropped to the ground, and slowly climbed up to the window.

  More gunfire forced us to retreat.

  It sounded like they were assaulting every defensive point at once, firing everywhere that they knew held one of our people.

  “They’re staggering their fire,” Hunter realized aloud. “They’re distracting us, keeping us out of position … which means… oh, fuck, we’ve got to get down there and–”

  The sounds of screeching tires cut him off. The color drained from my face. I realized what he had been trying to say… and how completely screwed we were.

  “They’re here!” The other biker at our side shouted out. “There’s a van on the other side of the fence! They’re moving the girls!”

  We rushed downstairs, trying to make it to the back door. Hunter had the flashlight, guiding our steps as we descended as fast as possible.

  I felt my foot slip…

  Stripped of sight, I fumbled around as I rolled painfully down the last few several steps to the floor. My pistol clattered out somewhere near me, and Hunter froze, whizzing around to secure me.

  “Go!” I hissed. “Save them!”

  “Done,” he replied without a moment’s hesitation, disappearing around the corner.

  What if they missed someone in here?

  I shuddered at the thought.

  The gunfire continued, and I heard the spray of gravel. A couple of more screams rang out.

  It was impossible to figure out what was going on out there…

  There!

  My fingers clasped around the barrel of my pistol. I was careful to slowly push the barrel turned away, facing out into the dark as I lifted the pistol from the ground.

  Fumbling around with my other hand, I found the wall, guiding myself unsteadily back up onto my feet.

  In just a few moments, I could return to the fight – and put down some of these rabid dogs that dared to kidnap teenage girls and force them into this filthy, despicable world that they had chosen.

  BANG!

  BANG! BANG!

  The sound of screeching tires hit the air again. Gravel hit the side of the building in the van’s flight, and I knew that the surviving members of this little cartel operation were fleeing.

  Well, at least we saved them, I thought aloud, hoping desperately that that was the truth.

  I rounded the corner, facing out onto the back patio. Visible through shattered windows, dead bodies littered the ground; none of them were ours, thank god.

  The bikers that had fought from this vantage point were leaning against the walls, their chests heaving from the disappearing adrenaline. They turned to face me, weapons still held high, but none of their faces looked particularly victorious.

  With mounting horror, I stepped out the back door to face Hunter. He was doused in blood, climbing up the steps in a slow, quiet stagger.

  “Where are the girls?” I asked, glancing over his shoulder at the abandoned vehicles on our side. “Did you fight them off? Are they in the van?”

  Hunter glanced up in a frightening glare. “No,” he replied quietly. “The girls are gone.”

  Chapter 42

  Furiously, Hunter slammed his fist against the side of the farmhouse in anguished defeat.

  The rest of us listened in unified silence to his frantic shouts and vicious cursing. Several of his Dragons glanced between each other, and one of them took a few steps forward to try and sympathetically clasp his leader on the shoulder.

  One swift, meaningful look from Grizz stopped the biker in his tracks.

  With no other movement in sight, we watched Hunter compose himself. The furious biker president pulled himself back together rather quickly, all things considered.

  “Burn the bodies,” he growled.

  Grizz nodded towards the nearby bikers, and they began to fan out to collect the dead. Hunter stood silently, gazing towards the spot where the van had arrived.

  I walked up to his side, following his statuesque stare. “There wasn’t anything else that you could do,” I tried to reassure him.

  Hunter scoffed to himself before turning away, and it was at that moment I thought about just how screwed I was.

  I was surrounded by death.

  I’d shot a man dead.

  Cherry on top, I was way out of my fucking jurisdiction… and I knew that the Lieutenant was going to have a goddamn field day demoting me down to janitorial duty if I didn’t end up on the inside of a prison cell first.

  “I must have missed something,” Hunter growled to himself. “These assholes were waiting for us. There’s no reason why the cartel would have been in such a hurry. They’re more careful than this. They don’t like drawing attention. This wasn’t careful – this was hasty. Something rattled their cage…”

  “You sure that something isn’t you?” I asked, hands on my hips. “You’ve not exactly kept it a secret that you’re out for fucking blood when it comes to these people. Maybe they saw you coming and ramped shit up.”

  “Maybe,” he thought aloud. “Although…”

  We were cut off by the surprised exclamation of one of his men. Hunter and I turned towards the source of the noise, walking towards the back deck and up the stairs, into the house.

  “What is it?” He demanded.

  “We’ve got a live one!”

  Hunter and I stopped in our tracks, sharing a quick but meaningful glance. “Hold him!” He demanded, rushing to find the biker and his hostage.

  We turned a corner and spotted a wounded cartel member slumped in the corner, clutching his leg and uttering a string of incoherent profanities.

  Descending with cold, calculated movements, Hunter knelt down beside his enemy. The Víboras Verde gunner glared back up at him with venomous eyes, holding onto his wounded limb for dear life. In a final act of defiance, he spat in Hunter’s face.

  The biker didn’t even flinch. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the saliva from his eyes and lips, and rose back up to his feet. I could almost swear that he was smiling, which sent a shiver down my spine.

  “It would seem that fortune smiles down upon us,” Hunter thought aloud. “What we have here is a bonafide prisoner.” He turned to his biker and commanded: “Bring him into town. Take him to the Desert Owl.”

  The biker swallowed, but did as he was told. He checked the wounded cartel member for weapons, and then started to lift him under the shoulder.

  Another one of the Devil’s Dragons turned the corner, noticed the sight, and helped escort the wincing, cursing gunman outside.

  Moments later came the sound of a firing engine, and then a departing motorcycle.

  “The Desert Owl?” I inquired.

  “A skilled interrogator,” Hunter offered offhandedly. “He’s one of my Outlaws in the area. He has a reputation for extracting information… which means that we may have just found our way into the cartel after all.”

  “Tha
t man’s wounded. There’s a goddamn bullet in his leg. He’s not going to offer you anything if he’s dead from an infection. After all, you’re dragging him around in the desert.”

  Hunter shook his head. “The Desert Owl is a former combat medic,” he replied. “That little asshole will survive… although he’ll probably prefer death, if he proves to be stubborn… Now it’s just a waiting game… I’ll have my contact pull whatever information we can from the cartel gunman. I’m hoping that we can find out where those girls are being taken. Hell,” he added quickly, “he might even know where your missing cheerleaders have gone.”

  I tried to swallow down the pit in my stomach. Not only had we attacked a cross-border cartel operation… not only had I shot and killed someone, villain or not… but I had stood by and watched this faction pull a man from his deathbed to be grilled for an interrogation?

  Shaking my head, I stepped back outside for some fresh air.

  Unfortunately, the immediate sight was of a pile of cartel corpses thrown into a pile. A biker was presently dousing the heap in gasoline, and another had a flip lighter at the ready.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I groaned to myself.

  But no, the bikers stepped aside, and the lighter was flicked and thrown. Within seconds, the mound of dead cartel men was roaring in a hot, heavy blaze.

  “You look surprised,” Hunter murmured from behind my shoulder. “You chose to accompany us on a midnight expedition to stake out a cartel operation. You’re in goddamn law enforcement, Detective… what exactly were you expecting?”

  I shook my head in anger.

  “Not this.”

  Hunter stepped aside, crossing his arms as he leaned back onto a support beam on the back deck. His stern face turned to watch me carefully.

  “What in the hell are we going to do?” I asked fruitlessly, throwing my hands up in exasperation. “You’re just expecting me to stand idly by and let you torch bodies… let you torch evidence?”

  Hunter nodded without an ounce of regret or consideration on his face.

  “That’s not how we do things!” I groaned with mounting anger. “How can you just act so blasé about this shit? Who the fuck thinks that torching bodies is normal?”

  Hunter’s eyes darkened, even in the low visibility under the moonlight. “Someone who has lived on this side of the law for as long as I have, Detective… someone who has done this for a very long time.”

  I stuck a finger into his chest.

  “I thought you told me that this life wasn’t going to change you, Hunter. But it was nothing for you to give the order… and when the police catch wind of this… I’m going to be implicated–”

  “Calm the fuck down,” he commanded.

  Oddly, I felt myself obeying the order.

  “Listen, Sarah, this is exactly what’s going to happen,” he growled. “The police aren’t going to care about some little skirmish near a break in the border fence. They’re going to put this down to cartel infighting, and leave it at that. Do you know how many headless assholes they find down here every single week? We’re just going to finish up here, head back, and wait to see what our new friend has to tell us. We might have lost the battle… but the war is just starting. Now it’s just a matter of time…”

  “A matter of time until what?” I asked.

  “Until we have a better grasp of what we’re up against… and figure out how to approach the problem properly.”

  “But what about the goddamn girls?” I demanded. “What’s going to happen to them now that we’ve interfered?”

  “Trust me, Sarah, I know these people,” Hunter reassured me calmly. “Víboras Verde isn’t going to take those girls far… we’ve disrupted their operations, and they’re going to sit on this a day or two… hole them up somewhere safe.”

  “And you’re just going to, what? Ride into goddamned Mexico to get them back?”

  Hunter turned to face me, his eyes filled with burning, solidified faith. I felt a slight shiver down my spine when he met my weakening gaze.

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “You… you don’t understand,” I pleaded. “I can’t be a part of this. What you’re proposing is… it’s insane.”

  I waved towards the burning pile of bodies nearby, coughing at the smell. “This little fight tonight is one thing… but going into Mexico to fight this cartel? Just loading up men and guns, and bringing the fight to their turf? That might have worked nearly a decade ago, but you can’t get away with that now!”

  Hunter pushed off of the support beam and walked over to my side. He brushed a few strands of hair from in front of my eyes, and smiled softly in the moonlight.

  “Sarah… I don’t expect you to understand. All I ask for is your trust… Have faith in me. I know what I’m doing, and my men believe in me. Can you do the same?” He whispered, pressing his lips lightly to my forehead.

  I shook my head. “This is crazy.”

  “It’s not as crazy as you think…”

  I pulled away from him. “Whatever you’re planning, you’re going to get a lot of men killed. Heads are going to roll for this.”

  Hunter crossed his arms, looking as confident as ever. “I’m counting on it… but none of them are going to be from the men on my side. My Devil’s Dragons will shed blood over this, and I fully expect all of them to come back with me.”

  I sighed in exasperation. “Do you even have a plan, Hunter? Do you really know what you’re doing here?”

  “I’m working on it,” he chuckled. “And in the morning, I suspect that I’ll have enough to push forward. Just give me a little time.”

  I thought of my Lieutenant, back in Phoenix. “Time is not a luxury I really have, Hunter…”

  He leaned forward, lips planted against mine. “One day. Give me one more day to figure things out, and then make your decision. But if you want to find those girls, there’s your chance.”

  I pulled away from him and shook my head. “That’s what you said about tonight… how many chances do I have to give you?”

  Hunter turned away, his face unreadable.

  When I started walking away from the burning pile of cartel corpses, he called after me. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m getting out of here, and I’m praying that I can still salvage part of my career when I get back to Arizona…”

  “So, that’s it?” He asked calmly. “You’re just going to give up and go without seeing this through? You go out of your way to convince me that you’ll stick it out this time, and now you’re just going to freeze up again and take the easy way out?”

  I paused in my tracks.

  What if that was exactly what I was doing?

  When it became clear that I didn’t have an answer for that, I slumped against the side of the farmhouse. My inner strength gave out, and the tears started to stream down my face…

  Chapter 43

  The ride back to the dilapidated bar felt like it lasted hours, although it was only maybe twenty minutes before we pulled up into the gravel.

  The bikers strolled into their headquarters, and began tending to their wounded. Three of them had taken bullets – one in the shoulder, and two in the leg.

  These club members weren’t going to see action for a little while, but Hunter ensured that they were well taken care of. He said they had a sympathetic doctor hanging round a nearby after-hours clinic, and I watched the three of them get hauled off to get patched up.

  I took a seat at the bar countertop, sipping a glass of water. Hunter was busy checking on his men, but kept glancing over my way. When his phone buzzed, he stepped aside to take a quick phone call.

  Grizz was left in charge, and he took the moment to step behind the bar. He looked me over briefly before pouring a tumbler of whiskey.

  “You look like you could use something stiffer than tap water,” he muttered as he placed the short glass in front of me.

  “How could you tell?” I asked, grate
fully smiling as I kicked back the drink.

  “Just a hunch,” he answered.

  We stayed in silence for a moment – me, glancing over the bikers as they shed their equipment and cleaned their weapons, and him, eyeing me cautiously.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, turning back to face Hunter’s second-in-command. The question was so direct that I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  “I asked, ‘Why are you here?’” He repeatedly softly, his piercing eyes trained onto mine. I almost felt like he was looking right through me, into my very soul.

  “I… because I’m looking for missing girls,” I answered quickly. “Cheerleaders.”

  “Right,” Grizz nodded contemplatively, before suddenly shaking his head. “No, that’s not right. What are you really here for?”

  “I don’t know what answer you’re trying to angle for there, buddy, but you’re doing a pretty bad job of it.” I laughed, taking another swig of whiskey.

  “You know what I mean.”

  The awful part was, I did know.

  “It’s not like that,” I insisted.

  “Like what?” He tilted his head thoughtfully.

  “You think I’m just here for Hunter, and that I don’t really care about my case at all.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Oh, come on,” I insisted, setting the whiskey glass down. “You think that I’m here to fuck your boss and play at being a detective? I’m following a lead on a case – my first case. I’m here because you guys were doing a private investigation into the missing girls, and I want to know what you came up with. And Hunter…”

  “Hunter is being who he is,” Grizz shrugged.

  “Something like that.” I thought on this for a moment. “What do you know about the missing girls? You’re his right-hand man. Do you know anything else about them?”

  Grizz thought for a moment.

  “I know that we found them once.”

  If I’d been holding the tumbler in my hand in that moment, it would inevitably have shattered against the floor.