Stolen: Hell's Overlords MC

by Zoey Parker

  I almost want to laugh. In spite of how much potential danger is lurking behind every corner, the thought of whipping off my disguise to reveal who I am to Rose makes me chuckle. I picture her face lighting up, all those weeks of exhaustion and fear melting away when she comes to the realization that I’m here, that I didn’t forget about her.

  I may have fucked up once. But I always fix my mistakes.

  The Diablo attendant walks her over to me and places the leash in my hand. I hate the thought of holding onto her like she’s some pet, but I need to maintain the façade for now. My eyes are darting around, sizing up any and all avenues of escape.

  The woman at the table clears her throat. “Here is your purchase,” she says. “Now please present your token and your wire information.”

  My happiness at seeing Rose dissipates immediately. I may have found her again, but it wouldn’t do any good if we both end up back in the Diablos’ grasp. There has to be a way out of here, both for her sake and for mine.

  I hadn’t dared to bring a weapon onto the boat for fear of it being confiscated and landing me in a world of trouble. It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. They’d made all the guests walk through a metal detector and submit to a wand inspection before we boarded back at the port in Galveston. The Diablos have the firm upper hand here. A firefight would only end in my death. There are times to fight and times to run. Tonight fell squarely in the latter category.

  I look at the glass windows again, taking in the view of the ocean at night. “Sir,” the cashier interrupts, “I’m afraid I won’t ask you again. Please give me your token or we will be forced to become extremely unpleasant.”

  Next to me, Rose is trembling with a brewing cocktail of hatred for me and fear for everything else. I don’t blame her. I’d be just as angry, just as scared, if we were to switch places. But I can only hope that she would take the same risks I’m about to take.

  “Rose,” I say. She looks at me sharply. Her face is a mask of confusion. She’s wondering how I know her name. “I need you to believe me. Everything is going to be okay.” I don’t wait to see how she reacts. Instead, I turn to face the cashier.

  That’s when I make my move.

  Chapter 14

  Rose

  The bearded man who bought me says my name. “Rose,” comes his gruff, rasping voice. It’s so familiar and so foreign at the same time. I can’t place it, can’t put my finger on why it sounds like someone I know. “I need you to believe me,” he says. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  Then he pounces.

  Moving faster than I can process, he brings up a fist from his side and slams it into the nose of the man who led me out from the backroom where I was waiting after the auction. A fountain of blood erupts into the air as the man groans and collapses to the floor. The bearded man swings one heel up and then drops it down in the same place he’d just punched. I hear bone crunch sickeningly as another plume of blood lashes outward.

  The woman behind the table stacked high with cash is reaching underneath it. I see her hike up her dress and notice a gun holster strapped around her leg. The man sees it at the same time that I do. As she slides the weapon loose and begins to raise it to point at him, he seizes the edge of the table and flips it. Loose bills go fluttering everywhere, and rounded tokens that look like poker chips roll all across the floor, clinking and bouncing as they careen into every corner.

  The woman falls backwards, knocked to the ground by the table, but she doesn’t let go of the gun. Diving towards her, the man clutches her wrists to steer the aim of the gun away from me. Her muscles bulge to resist him and guide the weapon back towards one of us, but she is no match for him. With a wrench of his arms, he points it to the window just as she fires. A hailstorm of bullets smashes into the broad glass panes, leaving tiny holes framed by cracks that skitter out in every direction. The wind whistles through the openings, threatening to take the whole window down.

  I look back to the pair wrestling on the ground. The gun comes flying out from between them to slide under a couch pushed up against one wall of the room. The woman howls “No!” after it, extending her painted nails in the direction it had gone. Without it, she is helpless against the man who bought me. As I watch, he cocks back a fist and strikes her across the temple. She goes limp immediately.

  He stands up, shaking his hand and grimacing. His glasses have fallen from his face. I see a flash of bright green eyes before he turns to survey the rest of the room.

  The place is a wreck. Cash is fluttering everywhere, the desk is overturned, and two bodies lie still on the floor. Whether they are dead or just knocked out, I can’t be sure. I don’t have time to check, and even if I did, I don’t give a damn. All these people can burn in hell as far as I’m concerned.

  We hear commotion on the ceiling above us. It sounds like heavy feet, pounding. The man spins back towards me. “Let’s go,” he orders. “They must’ve heard the gunshots. We don’t have long.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask, panicked.

  He points at the bullet-punctured window. “That way.” Picking up the chair in two sinewy hands, he leans back and then hurls it towards the glass. It bursts outward in a shower of shards, loud enough for the entire boat to hear. Wind is sucking in through the opening, stirring the cash into a tornado of bills flapping around the interior of the ship. The man offers his hand to help me through. Despite being careful to avoid the remaining edges, I catch my thigh on one. I wince as pain spikes through me and blood drips down the back of my leg.

  The man clambers through after me. “Follow me,” he orders. He takes my hand in his and starts to run along the thin walkway on the side of the ship, headed towards the back. I hear shouts behind us. Looking over my shoulder, I see more men in all black stick their heads through the window opening we’d just climbed through. They begin to struggle over after us.

  We’re sprinting across the boat as fast as my heels will allow. The man keeps looking to the left, out over the water, as if he’s expecting to see something. I wonder what the hell he could be looking for. We’re at least twenty miles out to sea. There’s nothing out here but us.

  We round a corner and reach the back. It’s a small, flat area just above the motors, with a railing to prevent drunk idiots from falling over and becoming shark chum. The roar of the engines is deafening. The man drags me to look over the railing. Below us, the water is churning from the engine rotors whipping at a thousand revolutions a minute, fast enough to slice me open and drain me of blood instantly if I get too close.

  He grabs my shoulders and yells something, but I can’t hear him over the thundering machines. Frustrated, he stabs a finger out over the water. I must be losing my mind, because I think he’s telling me to jump.

  What the hell is happening? I haven’t had time to process anything, but this man is clearly insane. He bought me at an auction, but then, instead of paying for me and strolling off the ship like how I imagine a normal buyer of humans would do, he attacks the auctioneers and busts me out like we’re trying to escape. I don’t know what on earth he wants. And now he wants me to jump into the middle of the ocean.

  I shake my head. No way. Jumping is certain death. At least on the ship I still have some chance of surviving, however slim that chance may be. I can’t just give up and drown.

  The man sighs, exasperated, and rolls his head. I see motion out of the corner of my eye. The cartel men are almost upon us. Before I can react, the bearded man picks me up and tosses me overboard.

  I fall the remaining twenty feet, then hit the water with an agonizing smack.

  What a way to die.

  * * *

  Underneath, everything is dark. Bubbles stream by. The water is cold on my bare skin, sinking below to rattle my bones. It’s hard to kick with the heels on and the leash getting snagged in the passing waves, but I manage to kick up to the surface.

  The yacht is twenty yards off and moving farther away with each passing second. I s
ee the men in black gesturing at us and yelling, though I can’t understand what they’re saying. It must be something like “Kill them,” because all of the sudden they line up their weapons as if to fire.

  A hand wraps around my waist and pulls me back underwater as a bullet whizzes by. It makes a vicious hiss as it hits the water and scythes down towards the ocean floor. More follow, piercing the waves with deadly intent.

  The hand around my waist belongs to the bearded man. He kicks hard, sending us deeper beneath the surface and away from the boat. Water fills my surprised mouth and I begin to choke. My lungs are spasming against the influx of saltwater rasping down my throat. The man pulls another strong stroke with his free hand, sending us arrowing a further few yards away from the yacht. The bullets cease. We must be too far down for them to know where to aim.

  The lights in my eyes begin to dim. I can’t breathe. I need air immediately, or else I’m going to pass out. We start to kick back towards the surface, but I don’t think I’m going to make it. Everything is fading, fading…

  Just when I think I’m beginning to lose consciousness, another pair of hands seizes me by the underside of my arms and tow me from the water. I collapse onto the deck of a small watercraft, gasping and coughing up the water that had rushed into my lungs. I hear something heavy land next to me with a thump.

  It takes a few long seconds to regain my breath. Everything swims back into place. I open my eyes and see two unfamiliar faces staring down at me. They have tattoos peering up from their shirt collars and scars etched into their skin. Both look curiously concerned. It’s the first time I’ve seen sympathy on a human face since I was first taken from Vince’s motel room. All the cartel men ever showed was contempt or lust. Who were these people?

  I hear labored breathing to my side and look over. The thump landing next to me was the bearded man. I watch in astonishment as he pulls himself to a seated position. His head hangs below his knees as he sucks in breath slowly. Eventually, his chest calms. He looks up.

  I frown. The beard is dangling from his face by a thread. Almost like it’s fake. He reaches up a hand and plucks it off, wincing a little as the glue separates from his real skin. I blink hard, once, twice. I don’t believe what I’m seeing.

  It’s Vince.

  Chapter 15

  Vince

  Rose is looking at me like she is seeing a ghost. I rip the fake beard off of my face and chuck it into the water, happy to be rid of the annoying thing. My clothes are heavy and wet and my eyes are burning from the saltwater.

  All in all, though, it feels good to be alive.

  “How the…who…when…” Rose is stammering, unable to finish a single thought. She’s been through one hell of an ordeal, so I’ll have to forgive her if she’s a little scrambled. I want to explain everything—where she’s been, how she got here—but before I can even start, Mortar tears into me.

  “What the fuck did you do, you goddamn moron?” he yells. The whipping wind sloughs away at his voice, but the anger brimming in it is unmistakable. “Are you fucking insane? Are you trying to get everyone killed?” He smacks me in the head, hard. His eyes are blazing in fury.

  Steezy is behind the wheel of the motorboat. The throttle is wide open as we bounce across the waves at top speed, cutting a wide, foamy V through the ocean on our way back to the shore. He adds his voice to Mortar’s, saying, “Vince, you fucking idiot!”

  Mortar drops to his knees in front of me, blocking me from Rose. I can see her confused, terrified expression over Mortar’s shoulder. She has no idea what’s going on. “We were supposed to be backup,” he seethes in my face, “not your fucking escape route. You lied. You fucking son of a bitch, how dare you.” I’ve never seen prez this angry. His jaw is clenched and his teeth are gritted like he wants to take a bloody bite out of me.

  I guess he’s right to be upset. The plan we’d agreed upon was much simpler than the one I actually had in mind. He wanted me just to sneak in, glean what information I could, and sneak out without causing any ruckus or letting anyone know who I was. Low-key, undetectable. Mortar and Steezy suggested following along in a motorboat just in case things went south. They never expected to actually be called in to help.

  Maybe I should’ve told him about Rose. I had a sneaking suspicion she would be on the boat, and the second I’d seen her paraded onto that stage, I knew I couldn’t leave without her by my side. The only way to ensure I had a chance at that was to win the auction. However, seeing as how I didn’t have a hundred grand to simply hand over to the Diablos, the quiet, undetected exit we’d planned on executing wasn’t going to work out. Thus, the broken window and ensuing gunfight.

  I explain all of this to him as concisely as possible, choosing my words carefully. It does little to help his mood. I see tension knotted along his jaw in thick, muscular ropes.

  “I ought to strip your fucking patch right now,” he says. “That’s a fool fucking move you pulled back there. You’re lucky as hell that we made it to you in time.”

  “Take my patch if you want, prez,” I tell him. “I can’t blame you if you do. I blew my cover. You’ve got every right to be pissed at me.”

  He sits back on the deck next to me, clenching and unclenching his fist. I look down at my own hands and notice for the first time that they’re ringing with pain. Glass shards are stabbing into my skin everywhere I see. The saltwater adds another sting to the mix. I’ll deal with the injuries when I get to shore.

  I can tell he’s thinking it over, seriously entertaining the idea of booting me out of the Inked Angels. Men have been kicked out for less. There’s no room in this business for lone rangers pulling stupid stunts or men who lie to their presidents. I’d been both tonight, and if there was a punishment coming down the pipeline, I’d take whatever it was on the chin, like a man. I looked at Rose. That was all I needed to see to remind me that this had all been worth it.

  “I really fucking ought to,” he says again after a long pause.

  I interject quietly, “I learned something, though.”

  He snaps his gaze to me. “I’m not about to play twenty fucking questions, Vince. Start talking.”

  The drone of the engines plays out like a background track as I begin to explain to Steezy and Mortar what I’d overheard the men on the upper deck talking about. “They’ve got an inside guy, Mortar. He’s been feeding them information for a while. I don’t know anything about who it is, but we need to lock things down immediately. They’re getting ready for war. This whole thing—the yacht, the auction, everything—was designed to make us think they’re still early in the planning phases. But they’re almost ready to invade. They’ve been moving guns and men across the border for weeks. Any day now, they’re going to hit us where it hurts.”

  Mortar says nothing after I finish talking. He stares into the distance as he opens and closes his hand, over and over. Eventually, he starts to speak. “Okay. This doesn’t change much. We just need to be more careful now. Let’s consolidate all our contraband in one warehouse and set up redundant patrols. I want separate teams of men checking on things at all times. I don’t trust anyone outside of you two; although you, Vince, are on the thinnest fucking ice I’ve ever seen. I need you to get your head out of your ass and start thinking, okay? There’s no room for error here.”

  Steezy and I both nod. I’m relieved that Mortar has decided to let my wild behavior slide. “I hear you, boss,” Steezy says. I murmur the same thoughts.

  Rose is sitting silently with her back on the other side of the boat. I can’t imagine what she’s going through. Weeks of captivity with the goddamn Diablos doing horrible shit to her, then this auction, the madness of our escape. But the only thing that matters is that she’s here now. She’s safe with me. I fixed my mistake, and I’m determined not to fuck up again.

  The motors’ whining recedes as we approach a hidden boat ramp about a mile down the coast from the port. We pull in and guide the boat onto the trailer. I help Rose down. She gr
imaces in pain as she steps over the edge of the vessel. I notice a jagged cut on the back of her leg. Must be from jumping through the broken glass window.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  She looks at me quietly. “I’ll be fine,” she says. I lower her to the ground with my hands on her hips. Even when her feet make contact, I don’t let her go. The swish of waves against the shore sounds like a giant whisper around us. Mortar and Steezy climb into the truck that the trailer is attached to, leaving us alone for a moment.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she tells me. She’s looking up at me, eyes big and blue and so goddamn beautiful.