Storm- A Wings of Diablo MC Novel #8

by Lake, Rae B.

  When I shoot a glance over my shoulder, I can still see Pirate on top of the building. He's not going to risk killing himself just to catch up to me, but I do see him with his hand to his ear. He’s on the phone. I'm sure he’s calling Archer and the rest of the boys. They know we’re here now. They’d all be coming for us, and there is nothing we can do about it. I don't know what Vale is doing with the job he’s supposed to pull, but I think it's time we find a new place to lay low, or this may be the last place we ever visit.

  "What the hell happened to you?” Vale asks when I burst through the door.

  "Fuck." I say as I gulp in air. I fall to my knees and then onto my back, my heart beating away in my chest like it's trying to blast its way straight through.

  "Storm!" He yells and moves closer to me. "What the fuck is happening?" The anxiety level rising in his voice.

  "We’re fucked." I wheeze.

  "What the hell do you mean? Spit it the fuck out." Vale reaches down and lifts me from the floor, so I'm sitting down and looking at him.

  "The Wings know we’re here."

  The look on his face tells me exactly what I need to know. Vale is as petrified of this happening as I am.

  "No! No! Fuck, I need more time!" He stands and begins to pace the floor in front of me. "How close? Are they on their way now?"

  I let my head fall back and try to catch my breath, but I don't move fast enough for my brother. "Storm! I asked you a fucking question! Are they here now?" He grabs me by my collar and slams me back against the wall. I break his hold and push him like a rag doll clear across the bed.

  "Keep your fucking hands off me," I growl, looking down on him as he does his best to rise to his feet. "Give me a fucking second to catch my breath."

  I took as many back ways as possible, running the whole way before making my way back here. I didn't think they had followed me, but there was no way of knowing for sure. Especially with fucking Archer. The bastard was a crack shot from fucking hundreds of meters away. He could take us out through the window with one shot before we even figured out we were being watched.

  "I don't think they’re right behind me. I had to jump off a fucking building to get away from Pirate. I took the back way to get here, even got lost a few times myself, so I hope I lost them." I'm finally able to spit out.

  He nods his head and goes back to pacing the floor in front of me. "Ok, we can work with this." Vale puts his hand up and rubs the side of his face with the scar. Something he has started to do when he’s deep in thought. "We’re just going to have to move up our timeline. We will need to make our moves tonight." He walks back over to me and stares me down. "You ready to put some work in?"

  "You know I am, but I still don't know what we’re doing." I hate feeling like I'm just waiting for the other fucking shoe to drop, and that’s how I feel right now. As if any second, the door will slam open, and I'm going to be asked to do some shit I'm not ready for.

  "Don't worry about that. Just have my back." He grunts and walks over to the bag in the corner. It’s bigger than it was yesterday. There’re more things in there than what we brought with us. "I have to set up," he hands me a burner phone. "I'll call you tonight and when I do. I need you to be armed and at the location I give you as soon as fucking possible. There are no fucking questions. We’re all the way the fuck in this. Once shit is put in motion, it can't stop. You understand me?" He asks, making sure to keep my gaze.

  "Yeah. I get it." I answer. I don't have a problem doing underhanded shit. My problem is that I don't know what the underhanded shit is we’re about to do.

  "Good. I love you, brother. Stay safe. It's almost over." Vale reaches and pulls me into a hug.

  It feels weird as fuck. Sure, I've hugged my brother before, but this feels calculated. Is he going to turn himself in? Is this the last time I'm going to see him?

  "You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?" I hold onto his shirt so he can't just leave right away. I want him to tell me to my face he isn't going to go off and get himself killed right now.

  "You know me. I always got a plan. I'll be fine. Just make sure you’re ready." He pulls away and pulls his black hoodie low around his face before he walks out of the room.

  I sit on the bed with nothing to do but wait. There is nothing on the TV for me to watch, no one to talk to, no bitch to fuck. Just me and my guilt.

  I lay back on the bed, thankful that after tonight it will be over. That's what Vale said. I wonder if Wire will still want to kill him. I know Ink will, but I can only hope that with the time that’s passed, they’ve all cooled down a bit. There is nothing more important than brotherhood.

  I close my eyes only for a second, and exhaustion and adrenaline crash hit me. I drift off faster than I've done in months. It must be the peace that comes with knowing it's almost over.

  * * *

  The generic ring of the burner phone pulls me from my sleep.

  "Shit!" I rush to answer the phone and hope Vale hasn't been calling me. I don't know how long I've been asleep, but I can see it's night already. Darkness pours into the room.

  "Yeah!" I answer quickly.

  "Get your shit and meet me on high deer street, in the back alley near the hotel. Do you remember it?"

  The street name doesn't ring a bell, but there was a hotel we looked at before we settled on this one. I know where it is. "Yeah, I'll be there in twenty."

  "No, run fast." Vale hangs up before I can respond.

  I look at the phone and see the time says three in the morning. What the fuck? Nothing good ever happens at this time of the day. I stuff my feet into my boots, grab my wallet, phone, and gun and run out. I leave everything behind. We could come back for it when everything was done.

  I rush to the alley and can see Vale hiding on the side of the building.

  "What's going on?"

  "We got to go. Now." He croaks. I can't see too well because it's dark, but I can tell he was in a fight. His eye is almost closed shut, and there is blood coming from the wound Vado gave him, the never-closing wound. He turns and quickly rushes down the alley. I didn't realize it was a turn-off, but I see a car. We don’t have a car, so I'm assuming he stole this one. If this was the job he had to pull, I don't understand why he couldn't tell me about it before.

  Vale hops in the driver's side, and I move to the passenger side. He starts the engine, and we drive down a narrow alley.

  Once we get to the street, he picks up speed, enough for me to feel like we’re about to get pulled over any second. We may not be in one of the major cities right now, but the cops are vigilant here.

  "Vale, slow the fuck down. What the hell are you doing?"

  "We can't go back now. You hear me? I don't give a fuck what your feelings are about the subject. We can't fucking stop." His eyes dart around the road and then back to me. He gulps, and sweat is pouring off his forehead and down his face.

  "Yeah, man, what the fuck is wrong with you? What's happening." Something is off. Vale isn't usually like this, but the man I’m looking at is scared out of his mind right now.

  "I jumped in the big boy pool. You’re coming with me." He mutters but doesn't look at me. It’s as if he’s trying to amp himself up.

  "Vale!" I yell for him and grip the dashboard as he swerves around a street barrier just in time. He is all over the fucking road. "Pull over, let me drive," I demand.

  "No, can't stop. Can't pull over." He mutters to himself.

  I lean as far forward as I can to see his face again. One eye is swollen, but I can see the other eye, and even though it’s darting around like a crazy man looking in every direction, his pupil is huge. The motherfucker is high out of his mind.

  "You asshole! Are you fucking high right now? I should kill you!" I reach over and try to get him to put his foot on the brake.

  "Get off of me! Now!" He roars, and the slice on his face cracks open at the stretch of his jaw. "Do you know what I just did for us? Do you know, Storm? Not even those pussy Wings
will be able to touch us when this goes through. We're free. We'll be free finally." He cackles.

  "You're going to get us fucking killed," I yell back at him and grab onto the door handle to brace myself as he swerves around the road again. "Stop fucking around, Vale."

  "Get us killed? You think I'm afraid to die? You think I give a shit if I'm in the ground? I don't give a fuck about this life. I don't give a fuck about dying!" He screams loud enough the windows rattle. He puts his foot down, and surprisingly the car goes even faster. He swerves into the opposing traffic. It's late, so there aren't many people on the road, except for the tractor-trailer coming straight for us.

  "Vale! Stop fucking around! Stop!" I scream.

  The truck blares his horn, but Vale doesn't move or slow down. He just keeps going straight.

  "Shit!" I scream and turn my head at the last second.

  The tractor-trailer skids to the right, the driver’s side tires lifting off the ground as his air brakes fight to get the hulking vehicle stopped, but it's moving too quickly. The cab of the trailer twists in an awkward position and then crumbles to the side.

  Vale hasn't moved from the lane at all.

  "You could have fucking killed me." I turn back to my brother, who still hasn't said a word.

  "Then I guess we would just die together. We came into this world together; it only makes sense that we go out together." He smiles and keeps on driving.

  There is nothing I can say to that. He's out of his mind right now, and no matter what I do, it's just going to get worse.

  He finally eases up on the gas, and we drive down some back roads where I honestly don't think anyone has lived since before Katrina. Everything looks completely torn down and decrepit.

  *THUMP, THUMP, THUMP*

  "MMMMM!"

  "What the fuck is that?" I turn my head but can't see anything.

  "MMMMMM!"

  I suck in a deep breath when I realize the moaning and thumping are coming from the car's trunk.

  "Vale! Is someone in the fucking trunk?" I glare at him for a second, waiting for him to tell me no. He better not fucking lie to me right now.

  "Yes, where the fuck did you expect me to put her? In the back seat?"

  "What the fuck! Who the hell is her?” I hear another thump and someone crying.

  "Don't worry about it, Storm. Everything is fine now. It's all good. We just need to stay under the radar for a little while."

  I don't know what the hell my brother is into, but I know it's not going to be alright. Nothing about this day says it's going to be alright.

  We pull up in front of an old mansion on an abandoned plantation. This mansion is large, but it doesn't look like anyone has lived here for quite some time. The vegetation has already grown up over the walls of the house and onto some of the windows. "Come on, let's get inside."

  I jump out of the car, and he rushes around to the back. I stand back and wait for him to pop the trunk to see who’s in there. When he does, the woman kicks her legs and swings her tied arms around blindly. She has a cloth bag over her head, so she can’t see what’s going on. I don't know who she is, but she’s fighting with everything she has. It's probably how Vale got the black eye.

  "You fucking bitch! Stop!" Vale rears back and punches the woman right in the stomach. She crumples to the ground and gags hard as her stomach tries to force whatever she’d eaten out of her mouth.

  "Hey." I don’t use his name, not wanting to give it away to the woman. There’s just no need for him to hit her. Of course, she is fucking going to fight him; he kidnapped her. "Cut the shit," I growl in his direction.

  "Fuck off. Take the car and hide it well. The swamp area back there is good. We’re going to hide out here until we can get our payment." Vale drags the woman behind him and up the stairs to the house.

  I do what he asks and drive the car in the back where the trees and shrubs are way overgrown. It would be hard to spot the black car unless you were right on top of it.

  I rush back into the house and start looking around for Vale. He isn't in the entry or even on the first floor, from what I can tell.

  "What in the shit is this?" I look around the house, or at least what I thought was a house. It's not. There are bars on the windows and plexiglass partitions in various places and what looks like a reception area. There is a large open space with an old piano and old photos on the walls.

  The floors are all worn and stained. I walk further into the large sitting area and see some of the chairs littering the main area have cuffs on them. Thick leather cuffs. I back out and take my time walking up the rickety half spiral staircase. I find a floor with nothing but rooms and bathrooms. All the rooms have metal cots with more straps attached to them, nothing on the wall, and nothing inside them but the bed. There’s old medical equipment in some rooms, things I have never seen in my real life. Shit straight out of a horror movie and nothing that looks like it was made in the twenty-first century. This wasn't home. At least that wasn't its last use. I think this used to be an insane asylum.

  "Vale!" I yell, but I don't hear anything. I run back down the stairs taking them two at a time. The whole area is giving me the creeps. I wonder how many people died in these rooms, locked in and chained to the beds.

  "Vale!" There is a door off to the side ajar a little. I push it open more and can see it leads down to the basement. Instead of normal walls like they have upstairs, the walls down here are stone, slimy, and crumbling. Nothing about this place makes me feel comfortable.

  "Vale," I call for my brother again.

  "Shut up! Just shut up already." I hear him, but I don't know if he is talking to the woman or me. There is no electricity down here, only candles. No electricity means no fucking heat, and it's cold as fuck.

  When I get to the bottom of the stairs, I see my brother pacing back and forth in front of a door. His hands are on his head as he pulls at his hair with his eyes closed.

  "Vale, who the hell are you talking to?" I ask, and his eyes pop open.

  "You, fucker. All your screaming is giving me a fucking headache." He rolls his eyes though I only see one of them roll.

  I let the remark slide, not caring if he has a headache. I have my own issues to deal with, and one of them is finding out who the hell we just kidnapped.

  I walk over to the door and see it’s deadbolted from the outside. Instead of a solid wooden door, there’s an open space for us to look in. It is lined with bars, and there are no windows to the outside.

  The woman is laid out on a metal slab and tied down by her wrists, waist, and ankles. She cries, but she isn't screaming anymore. I try to see who it is, but her head is back. Vale has stripped her down to her bra and panties.

  "Vale, where the hell are her clothes?" I growl.

  "She didn't need them anymore." He answers calmly.

  I turn back to look through the small viewport, and the woman raises her head. A mass of dirty, curly light brown hair sits atop her head. For the millionth time tonight, my breath is caught in my throat. It can't be who I think it is. I run over and take one of the candles from the wall and move back to the door. I point the flame in the woman's direction to get a better look at her, and the first thing I notice is her eyes. One blue and one hazel. It's the fucking bartender from the small bar we went to the first night we came here.

  My fucking bartender!

  "What the fuck!" I drop the candle and turn to my brother. "What in the fuck is she doing here, Vale?" I scream at him.

  "What do you mean, that woman is our freedom right now. Do you know who that is?" He squints his one good eye at me.

  "I don't give a fuck who she is. What is she doing here?" I spit back at him. This woman has done nothing to me as far as I know.

  "We need her. Her family is going to give us a way out."

  "Are you fucking serious? You're holding a fucking bartender for ransom?" I couldn't believe the shit that he was saying. I mean, what the fuck did he think he was going to get from her? />
  "Not just some fucking bartender." He points to the door, "That girl is Orza Juric. She is Liam Juric's daughter and Marko's niece."

  Marko Juric, that’s a name I fucking know. He’s the head of the Juric Crime family, the fucking mob.

  I laugh because it’s all I can do. "Are you out of your fucking mind? You stole from the fucking mafia, and you think they aren't going to kill us for it? No, open this fucking door right now. Get her the fuck out and pray they never fucking find us." I couldn’t believe this shit. Not only were we on the run from the Wings, but from the fucking mob as well. How the fuck did this make our life any easier?

  "Wait a minute. When we went in the other day, this is what you were doing? You were figuring out the best way to get her?" I ask, finally putting two and two together.

  "I had to get shit done. You were doing nothing but fucking bitching about your little motorcycle club. I knew you wouldn't have the fucking balls to man up and do it, so I did."

  I see red. This bastard has put us in another fucked up position, and he brought me along with him. If there were anyone there watching her, which I'm sure there was, they would have seen me with him. They knew we were together. Now his sins are my fucking sins. My fist lands square in his face, and he flies back into the door. I don't let up, punching him over again, hoping to knock some fucking sense into him. He finally blocks one of my blows, and he grabs my arm, twisting it into an awkward position. I use the back of my head to hit him directly in the nose. When he lets go, I roar and rush him.

  I knock him to the floor and wrap my hands on his collar. I slam his head down on the ground once and shake him some more, "You stupid fuck! Why did you fucking do this? Why?"

  It's not every day I can say I don't see a way out, but now I'm wanted by the mafia, that's it for me. My brother just signed my fucking death warrant.

  "It's the only way!" He screams back at me.

  I roll off of him and sit with my knees up and my head down.

  "Storm, listen to me. We can get the Croatian's to give us sanctuary. The bullshit that happened in Puerto Rico got me thinking. The only reason Vado put us out was because he knew he could get something from the Wings and the Spawns. They had some leverage on him. With Liam, there’s nothing he can't get. If we take the only thing that means anything to him and hold it for ransom, we can force him to give us sanctuary. The Wings won't be able to get to us. The Spawns. None of them. We would be free. Sure, it might be in a different country, but that shouldn't matter. We can work our way back into their favor and who knows maybe even become part of the family ourselves." Vale's eyes drift off to the side. He’s lost again, thinking up some foul shit.