His face turns red, then purple as his eyes bug and turn red, too, from the capillaries bursting. Veins protrude under the skin of his forehead. He’s gasping for breath, clawing at the ligature, bucking his back as his strength wanes. The women keep twisting until he collapses on top of me. A pinkish-white foam froths from his mouth and I gag.
The monster is dead. The two women release the stick to roll him off me, then help me up. I’m woozy and sway when I stand. Escalante’s soldiers will be on us if we don’t get out now.
“Where are his clothes?” I ask the woman in the shock collar, garbled and barely in a whisper from the damage to my throat.
She looks at me, her brows wrinkled. “By the pool.” After a beat, it dawns on her. And the two of them help me run. She veers off to run back to the pool, throwing his gray T-shirt over her body, but more importantly, grabbing his belt and holster.
“I got away once before. I joined a group to help rescue the other women. I was tagged the second time helping them escape,” Nicola says. “We’re close to the gulf. There’s a rocky outcropping where we can hide until dark. That’s where I sent the other women.”
Keeping our heads down, we run. It’s difficult for me to take in a breath while walking, which makes running that much more painful. My head starts to spin, but I push through the pain.
“Keep going, ladies,” she orders us. “We’re getting close.” I start to feel like we just might make it when pandemonium breaks out back at the mansion. We don’t waste time looking back but can hear the shouts and screams of Escalante’s soldiers. “Faster!” she shouts, and despite my injuries, I try for faster.
The moment we hear the chopper engine fire up, I know if we don’t reach the outcropping of rocks soon, we’re dead. No second chances. A man like Escalante doesn’t keep choppers for fun. They’re armed, just like his soldiers.
16.
Raif
Hours before the women’s escape…
So far we’ve got jack on the whereabouts of Escalante. Whomever he’s paying, he’s paying them well and probably offering to take care of their families in case of death, in return for their loyalty because no one’s talking. It’s like his place doesn’t exist on any map. How am I supposed to find a guy who passes through a wormhole or some shit to get home?
Without any decent info coming in, with Duke’s okay, we made the decision to shake down Hannah and Brinley’s junkie dad. He’s a man we know we can get to. It means escalating war with the Pythons, but we’re losing time and options.
The Pythons call Houston home. From there, it’s not hard to locate their compound. And for a man like Coyote, the women’s dad, a man falling deeper and deeper into his addiction, it’s not hard to find someone who knows him and knows where to find him for a price. Our informant meets us in a shady-as-fuck part of town. The Outcasts arranged the meet.
This dude is skin and bones and open sores. He’s like a walking disease. I make the approach. “You know Coyote?” I ask. He’s supposed to, but I don’t trust junkies.
“Yeah… Yeah.” He shakes his head vigorously.
“You know where he is right now?”
I can practically feel Hero bouncing on the balls of his feet behind me, waiting to pounce. The man’s pregnant wife was sold off by her own father and Hero vowed vengeance for his woman.
The informant looks between me and the brothers to my back. “They gonna hurt me?” he asks, gesturing with his chin.
“Not if you tell us what we need to know,” I reply.
“Got the cash?”
I pull the envelope from my cut, flashing it to him. He reaches out to grab it, but I pull it back. “Nope. You know the deal, motherfucker. You want the cash, I get Coyote.”
The man’s practically vibrating as he turns without saying another word and takes off in a jog down a dark, depressing, slumhole of a street. The sad part is, this ain’t even the worst place I’ve seen.
We turn down three city blocks of boarded-up, abandoned buildings. Spray paint tags show this neighborhood is rife with gang activity. We even see a few men step out from their buildings to flash us Glocks, letting us know who’s in charge around here.
They also see us wearing Lords cuts and let us pass. Been in gunfights before, but I prefer they be in an area I’m familiar with if they’re going to happen.
The informant gets twitchy the closer to our destination we come. He leads us around the back of a rancid-smelling building. There’re used needles and human shit along with God-knows-what-else along the outer brick wall.
Each man with me draws his weapon before stepping through the broken piece of plywood the property owners use to try and keep the homeless and junkies out of the building. It’s dark. I’m on high alert, prepared for some stupid fuck to try something. By this time of day, they’re all smacked out of their minds. No one’s coming at us any time soon.
As we reach a second room, the junkie steps to the side to hide himself behind a wall but points to a spot in the corner. And shit if our timing couldn’t be more perfect. Coyote is sitting, bent knees, on a dirty mattress on the floor, too busy removing his boot and sock to notice us.
I pull the envelope from my pocket, handing it over to the jittery man, who snatches it and becomes smoke, poof—just like that.
“Careful. Don’t let him stick you,” I warn Hero and the other brothers. Then, on the count of three, we sneak in, keeping to the dark recesses. The man doesn’t even know we’re on him until he hears the click from cocking the hammer and feels the cool end of the muzzle against his head. Hero on one side, Boss to the other.
“Fuck you doin’, boys?” he shouts, and just like that, the fun begins with Hero popping him in the jaw using the hand not holding the weapon.
Stunned, the man doesn’t register my approach and I’m able to safely lift the syringe he was about to shoot up. Never seen a man go into such a panic. Sell off his own flesh and blood, no problem, yet panic over losing his smack. He disgusts me.
“Want it back?” I ask. His eyes go right to mine. “Then you tell me what I need to know.”
“Ain’t got nothin’ for no Lords pussies.”
“Lords pussies, eh?” I bring my arm up, ready to throw the syringe, and he scrambles, despite the guns to his head, waving his hands frantically and begging.
“No, no, no…” He lunges for the drugs, but my brothers keep a tight hold on him and I dangle his prize just out of reach. I can’t even fathom how two beautiful women like the Brown sisters came from this man. He’s trash.
I get closer, using the hand not holding the syringe to grab his chin and squeeze until it’s painful. “Now, listen, you son of a bitch. My wife is missing and you’re gonna tell me where. The fuck. She is.”
“Wh-Who’s your wife?” he stammers.
“Hannah Brown.”
The man’s back goes rigid. “I—I ain’t seen her in years.”
“No shit,” Hero says as he clocks the guy upside the head.
“Fuck you do that for?” he whines.
“For my wife,” he says, spitting his hatred with every word. Coyote clearly looks confused. “Brinley, motherfucker. Was Brown, now Hendrix.”
“You married Fat Ass?”
Never seen the brothers swoop in so fast, Crass catching Hero’s hand before he crushes the bastard’s throat. “Calm, brother. You’re gonna kill him before we get the intel.”
“Focus,” I shout and his eyes go back to me. “Escalante. I need to find him.”
“You don’t wanna be messin’ with him,” the drugged-out asshole says and I lose it, throwing a punch hard enough to knock teeth out.
“Tell me what I need to know,” I order.
“Big place. Near the border. Right on the Gulf. Prison fence surrounding the land portion of the property. You see the towers; you found the place. Now give me my shit.” He reaches for it, but I step back.
“Got a city? Something?”
“Told you what I know, man. How many ma
nsions on the Gulf close to the border, surrounded by prison fence do you think there are?”
Right. I can go with that. “Fine,” I say. “We’re done, then.” I throw the syringe to be swallowed up by the blackness of the room. He lunges to follow but is stopped by a brutal punch to the gut. His guttural grunt of pain makes me smile. Hero, the man who took the shot, goes in for another. He’s taking all the fun and we can’t let Coyote somehow try to warn Escalante that we’re coming.
I have never taken such pleasure in beating a man senseless in my life. It takes every other brother to keep us from killing him. “You know we’ve been made,” Chaos says. “Houston PD can track this shit if he ends up dead. Think of your wife.”
She’s all I can think about.
Got the Outcasts on the line before we clear the rot of the building. “On the Gulf at the border. Heavily fortified,” I tell my contact.
“Meet up at the compound. Escalante’s a nasty motherfucker. You go in, be needin’ all the backup you can get.”
I hate taking the extra time, but he’s right. It’s the best way.
More men with guns make themselves visible as we make our way back through the neighborhood. I nod, showing I see them and that we’re no threat. Not unless they start shit.
We’re fucking lucky they don’t start shit.
Two hours into our drive toward the border, we veer off the main drag to hit the ghost town owned by the Outcasts. Not all the brothers have arrived back from Thornbriar yet, but they’ve got good numbers between the men who couldn’t make it to the celebration and friends they’ve roped in to helping.
“It’ll be dark by the time we make it,” Horse, so called I think because he’s got the face of one, one of the Outcast’s allies says. “Might be able to use that to our advantage.”
“Right. We go in hot—one concentrated hit. But there are women we need to protect. None of this guns blazing shit. Targeted. Got me?” I look around to every guy in the room. We spend the next twenty minutes shoring up the rest of the plan. There’s not enough time to do more than what we’ve got.
At the twenty-five-minute mark, my brothers and I are back on the road with our friends and allies in tow.
We spend another three and a half hours on the highway. Once we get close to Brownsville, we split up, circling the area to find our target.
Boss calls it in. “Got a fence and towers in our sights.”
We’re so close, I can feel it. My heart races while I take down the coordinates. Chaos calls it in to the rest. To get the jump of surprise, we can’t go in on Harleys. That level of rumble will set anybody’s teeth to chattering, bringing us attention we don’t want.
At the meeting point, we climb into the vans we rented and go in lights off, taking up the closest position we can without being spotted.
I use a pair of binoculars that Crass was smart enough to pick up for us in Houston to check out the towers for movement. What the hell? The first tower is empty. I swing the binoculars in the direction of the second tower. Empty as well.
This place is supposed to be fortified. I get on the phone. “Send out scouts,” I order Jonesy, one of the Outcasts. “Need to know if the other towers are guarded or not.”
“On it,” he says, clicking off. Now it’s another damn waiting game. It takes another ten minutes for the reconnaissance teams to report back and the news is troubling. On the surface, empty towers mean we’re clean going in, but why are they empty? All the team leaders coordinate our strike times and at the beep, we go in silent but ready to fight. There are at least twice as many stables on this property than at the Juarez property back in Kentucky and we need to look inside each and every one. Each team leader takes a section of stables. Boss and Hero go in one. Crass and Blue. Sneak and Boetcher. Duke and Scotch. Chaos and me. The other clubs break up into their own groups, but as we’re the ones who know what Hannah looks like, we need to cover as much ground as possible to not possibly miss her.
There’s gunfire in the distance. The pop, pop, pop, pop of an automatic weapon, most likely an AK. Then there’s the rumbling whoosh of a chopper blade. Spotlights shine down on the ground, but not near us. Other side of the property, near the waterline. We drop low to take off in the direction of the lightshow. Before we go running into the fray, we take stock of the situation using the stable closest to the mansion as cover.
That’s when we hit a big, fucking problem. All the stalls inside the stable are empty and there’s a huge motherfucker on the ground, naked and very much dead with a pink shirt twisted around his neck. Unless these dudes are progressive and enjoy wearing what appears to be small enough to be a woman’s size T-shirt, I think some woman got the jump on him.
Chaos looks at me, “Ready?” he asks.
“You got a wife, man. You’re my sister’s world. Go home to her. I got a bad feeling.”
“Your sister is the love of my goddamn life, but when haven’t I had your back? We go in, we go in together.”
From the time we met on the playground before school on the first day of kindergarten, he’s never faltered in his loyalty to me. “Now,” I whisper, and we go in ready to take these assholes by surprise. As I run, I raise my gun, aim, and fire. The soldier drops.
“To your left,” Chaos barks, taking a shot of his own as I pivot to the left, popping off another round. The closer we get to the waterfront, the more bullets fly around us.
The danger rises when all we can see are the flashes of light from the guns being fired. They can’t see us, either.
Someone got ahold of a rocket launcher and uses the chopper for target practice. When the rocket hits, it lights up the property and we get a glimpse of the carnage. Spotlights from the water hit the shore and it looks like we’re about to die until we see the letters FBI. They might have come late, but they’ve come to party.
While the bureau occupies Escalante’s soldiers, the brothers check every stable. The only empty one was the one closest to the house. It’s so fucking hard seeing these women behind glass, telling them they’re safe and then having to leave them to keep looking.
My Lords brothers enter the mansion with me and we scour the place. From basement to attic. And at the end of a very long day, I’m forced to accept one undeniable fact.
She’s gone.
17.
Hannah
Escalante’s men have so much firepower that it sounds like we’re in a warzone even with the waves crashing against the rocks. The cracking and popping go on for what feels like forever. It’s night. We’re on the water—most of us are soaked to the bone and freezing from the wind chilling our barely clothed bodies. My negligée clings to me. I’m barefoot. The rocks are slippery with slime and water. Still, we wait it out.
When the worst of the gun fire appears to be dying down, we climb out of our hiding place in a single file, each woman holding on to the one in front of her for support. With it being black as death out here, death is a real possibility if one of us slips.
Twenty-eight women escaped. I bring up the tail end in order to keep anyone from being left behind. I climb my way to the top. Nicola whispers that she has her arm outstretched to help pull me up, but in the dark, it takes us several tries for our hands to connect.
“We need to find a phone, drinking water, and shelter.” She fills me in on the plans as we heft me up over the edge of the cliff. “I’m not good with direction when it’s this dark,” she says. “But if we head up the coastline for a while, I might get a bearing on the safehouse.”
“Okay,” I whisper. My voice won’t come back for a while. I’ll be lucky if I ever get it back to full functionality again.
“Celeste,” Nicola calls to the woman who helped us kill the monster. “We’re taking the coast for a while.”
“Got it,” Celeste calls back as she takes her spot in the middle of the group with Nicola leading and once again, I bring up the rear. Somehow, we’ve fashioned ourselves into the leaders of this troupe. Maybe because we rescued th
e rest, but these women are looking to us to get them to safety and I damn well plan to do it.
We march for hours, first taking the coast until we reach a stretch of road that Nicola recognizes. From there, we bend to head back to the west because we’ve walked too far east, and we’re headed inland now.
My feet are a bloody mess by the time we reach the small, nowhere town of Halfway.
“The safehouse is another two miles back off the main road access,” Nicola calls to us.
Nothing but dirt and rocks down the bumpy path. When I think of a safehouse, I always think of an actual house. These are singlewide trailers. Four of them grouped in a square—dirt, dust and nothing to the outside but in the middle, a green courtyard. They get their water from a cistern and have a septic tank for waste. Both are aboveground. I’ve never seen a setup like it before.
The women, although tired, injured and dehydrated, begin the final leg of the journey by picking up the pace to a run and I don’t want to lose sight of them or be left behind, which means even though I have no energy to spare and leave disgusting, bloody footprints in the dirt, I run, willing myself to cross that finish line.
It’s a miracle when I finally make it to the first trailer, but after everything I’ve survived, I simply have nothing left and collapse to the ground before I make it to the steps. Carmen and Nicola each take a side to help me stand, and together the three of us heave my deadweight body up each of the three burning-from-the-Texas-sun metal steps, which sear the bottoms of my feet.
I’d seen them do the same for Celeste as I was running. Neither she nor I have shoes.
Blood Revealed (Brimstone Lords MC Book 6) Page 22
