Scotch: Unraveled (Brimstone Lords MC Book 4)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  In my head I find myself thanking whatever divine power in the universe reminds her of my injuries and my need to breathe in order to survive. She shoves me back saying, “Ohmygod” in a jumbled mess of words. “I was so scared when they took you away. Did they hurt you?”

  I slowly, and with a tremendous amount of wincing, shake my head. “Bri, I only have a few minutes. Are you okay?”

  “We’re fine. They left us in that other room for a really long time and then they moved us in here with the cot and the TV mounted to the wall.” Brighton points to the television as if I can’t see it there or hear the soft sounds in the background. “They only let me have one channel, but spending the day with fifties and sixties sitcoms is better than having nothing to do.”

  Mollie and Macie smile and babble their baby gibberish, happy to see me.

  “Hey, sweeties, I missed you.” As I couldn’t safely hold them both, Brighton first places Macie on my lap. I hold her with my good arm, kissing the tip of her head. “Your daddy must be missing you something fierce,” I say between more kisses. “He loves you. I love you, baby girl.”

  Brighton lifts Macie, placing her in her carrier so she can hand me Mollie to hold in the same spot on my lap Macie just vacated. “Mollie, girl… I missed you, too.” Her head gets the same kisses as her sister. So many kisses.

  “Time to go,” Scud’s gruff voice calls over to me. I don’t want to put Mollie down so soon, but I refuse to do anything that’ll put them in jeopardy.

  “Okay, babies, Frankie has to go. You be good for Auntie Brighton.” With silent tears running down my cheeks, I give each girl a final kiss. Brighton helps me to stand again. My best friend gets a cheek kiss as well. Then I limp back over to Scud.

  The farther away from the girls we walk, the more I think I’m being tested. It’s slow-going, but despite the pain, I keep up with Scud. On the opposite wall from the girls, he lets me through a door that leads to the outside.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. Scud doesn’t answer, shoving me toward an outbuilding. Panic fills me as I think I’m about to die, but he simply opens a door, no lock, and shoves me inside. Just as he’d said earlier, there’s a cot, a toilet in the corner, a TV hanging on the wall, and a bowl of what was probably hot soup when they first brought it in here.

  He slams the door shut behind me and I’m alone. Definitely a test. I could walk out that door right now. But would he be waiting out there for me? And really, how far would I get with all my injuries? Not to mention, how badly would they hurt Brighton and the girls before they killed them to get back at me?

  I limp over to the toilet first and take care of business. Then I ease myself down onto the cot and use the remote sitting next to the soup to turn on the TV. Like with Brighton, there’s only one station. I drink the soup and crash to the sounds of The Andy Griffith Show in the background.

  They think they know me? What I’ll do? They have no idea.

  They will not break me.

  13.

  Frankie

  “The fuck?”

  A man’s shrill voice snaps me awake. I open both my eyes today. The swelling on the bad one went down enough overnight to allow that to happen.

  I push up with my okay hand to stare at Scud. “Is something—” I clear my scratchy throat and try again. “Is something wrong?”

  “You’re still here,” he says somewhat angrily.

  “I gave you my word. So long as they aren’t hurt, I won’t try to escape. I’ll do whatever you ask of me.”

  “Fuck if I thought ya meant it.” He scratches his head. “Get up.”

  As directed, I slowly stand from the cot. He roughly grabs my upper arm to drag me from the room. A shed. Now I’m really confused because I don’t know what I did to earn this treatment. But when we get inside, I realize that they haven’t lived up to their end. When we pass by the room she was staying in, the door is wide open and Brighton looks like she’s had the ever-loving-shit kicked out of her.

  “What did you do?” I ask, okay, well kind of screech.

  He smacks my cheek, hard. “I ain’t done shit. One ’a the men thought he’d get a little somethin’ last night.”

  I gasp.

  “Calm your tits. He roughed her up but was stopped before he got any further. He’s been dealt with. When you’re given a direct order, ya follow it.

  My poor Brighton; she must be so scared. We had a deal. I don’t give a shit if he’s been “dealt with” or not. It’s up to them to make sure their men follow the rules. I harden my resolve. All bets are off now… I’m getting them out one way or another.

  The one thing that could throw me off my guard happens when we reach the lab again. Deputy Rodrick is there barking orders at the other two men whom I worked alongside yesterday.

  Deputy Freaking Rodrick.

  He saunters his way over to us, dragging his finger along my cheek like he’s checking out the merchandise. “Looky what we got here, boys. Guess she likes us too much to leave.”

  I keep quiet, not giving him anything. Apparently, he doesn’t like that and lashes out, slapping my bad eye. It stings so badly and water leaks out, but not because I’m crying. Oh, no… only that eye leaks and I stand straighter.

  “Not so tough without yer fuckboy to protect ya,” he says, and I want to laugh in his ugly, smug face. Scotch a fuckboy? Seriously?

  Instead of responding to that, I turn to Scud. “Same thing as yesterday?” I ask.

  He shoots me a chin lift, which I take as an affirmative and begin limping toward the crack table. Not getting the response he seems to have wanted, Rodrick grabs me by the back of my neck, digging his fingers into the flesh just enough to cause pain, and pushes me forward until I’m bent at the waist with my face smushed against the table.

  “I could take what I want right now and there wouldn’t be a damn thing for you to do about it.” He says low and threatening in my ear. And he’s right, he could. But I don’t care any longer. I refuse to cower to this bastard.

  At my nonresponse, he punches me in the side by my broken ribs and he puts his all into it. My breath rushes out in a gush, but I don’t move or make another sound until he pushes away from me. Then, even slower than yesterday, I limp around the table to sit and get back to work.

  Every so often, Rodrick shows his slimy face in the lab to yell at us. “Faster!” he shouts. Or, “Gotta get this shit moved.”

  At one point he walks in, screaming at someone on the other end of one of those cheap burner phones. I hear a ticking like someone lighting a burner and then—boom!—it sounds like I’m underwater as a rush of heated air blows me off the stool.

  Pandemonium erupts everywhere, but it all looks to be happening in slow motion. I keep low, curling into a ball and covering my ears. My seat was far enough away from the backfire not to seriously injure me, but the moans and cries of the men who weren’t so lucky fill the room.

  “Spike’s dead… Spike’s dead!” people keep yelling through the melee. It’s a chance you take when cooking chemicals.

  As everything happens around me, I look to the left and to the right, trying to figure out what my next move should be and that’s when I believe there are no coincidences in the universe. I believe that because on the floor, against the metal wall, there’s the burner phone Rodrick was on when the blast happened. It takes real effort not to get stepped on or raise suspicion while crawling across the floor.

  The black, plastic outer casing has melted and warped from the heat of the blast, but the screen is still lit up with the date and time in the window, which means it’s working. I slip it in my bra and wait for my chance to make my call.

  Scud lifts me to my feet several minutes later and drags me to a utility closet, where he pulls on a long piece of string tied to a light fixture hanging from the ceiling to click on the light. Then he shoves me inside, shutting the door. After waiting a bit longer, I reach inside my bra to pull out the phone when the door opens again and I snatch my hand back q
uickly. He’s brought the hotplate, frypan, cleaner, and bricks of cocaine. “You work here,” he says, plugging the hotplate into the wall.

  I nod, keeping silent and wait. Once he’s good and gone, I fish the phone out to call Rory, hoping like hell I press the correct numbers. He’s in my contacts, so I don’t have to dial the actual numbers when I call.

  “Please, please, please be right…” It starts to ring.

  “Who is this?” a person answers.

  “Rory?”

  “Frankie? Christ, Frankie… mo leannan, where the fuck are ya?” There’s commotion in the background and rapid-fire questions at him, but he ignores them all, focusing on me.

  “I don’t have much time. There was an explosion. That’s how I got the phone. All I can tell you is we’re in a very large warehouse with smaller outbuildings on the property.”

  “Warehouse with outbuildings,” he yells to someone else. “What else, Frankie? Anything lass.”

  “The men are Horde… A man named Scud was in charge yesterday.”

  “The Horde,” he yells. “Scud’s in charge.”

  “Rory,” I talk over him. “Rodrick is here. He’s working with them.”

  “Fuck…” He doesn’t yell. “The babes?”

  “They’re okay for now. Only Brighton and I have sustained any injuries. “Please, you have to save us, Rory.” This comes whispered. “The warehouse is a meth lab and they have me cooking crack. I hurt all over, but I promised them they could do whatever they wanted with me if they’d keep the girls safe.” Having him on the line, revealing this secret, the sobs begin and I can’t stop them.

  “What have they done to you, Frankie?” he asks, his voice lethal.

  “It doesn’t matter…”

  “It fucking well does.”

  Outside the closet, boots clomp to a standstill and the lock jiggles. I hold the phone to my ear with my shoulder and frantically pour the cleaner and a scoop of coke in the pan, cranking the hotplate on and up to high. I hang up on Rory, shoving the phone back in my bra just as Scud gets the door open.

  “Needed to make sure you’re workin’. Heard talkin’.”

  “To myself,” I say. “Reminding myself how much of each I’m supposed to use.”

  “Fuck, your heat’s too high.” He runs over to dial it down two notches. “Wanna blow this room, too?”

  “No. I just… my head is foggy from the explosion. I guess I forgot the setting.”

  “Yeah, okay… whatever. Just get it done.” He turns to leave me again, slamming and locking the door, and I sag against the wall. Then I start to cry. That was way too close for comfort.

  I only allow myself a couple more minutes of self-pity, then wipe my eyes and get back to work. Rory knows… He knows and I have to keep the girls safe.

  I feel our time here running down.

  14.

  Rory

  Duke sets Blood and Hero on the trail but pulls me into the rally room so I can give a total briefing of the situation.

  “What all she say?” he demands to know.

  “Just what I told you out there—it’s the Horde and Rodrick. I knew that fucker was involved. There was an explosion. They’re cooking meth at a warehouse and Scud has Frankie making crack. My lassies are hostage in a meth lab.”

  “Chill, brother. We’ll get ’em. How’d the situation with the Horde get so far gone? All these women’s shit… Fuck!” he yells, pounding his fist on the tabletop. “Years tied up in kidnappings and killings, Horde built this shit right under our goddam noses.”

  “What do we do?” I ask. “She was talking on a burner. She found it in the commotion, but what if they let her find it? I can’t help thinking this is a setup.”

  “Let me plan. You don’t do anything stupid. Stupid’ll fuck shit up worse, got me?”

  “Aye, I got ya.” I turn to storm out of the rally room and the clubhouse, then I hop on my bike, fire it up, and peel out, noticing both Blue and Crass at my rear.

  My phone rings. While I pull it from my cut to answer, my front tire skids over loose stones, causing me to nearly lay my bike down. Shite. I have to get my shit together. “Yeah?” I grumble into the line.

  “We got one of ’em cornered at Shopper King.” Then the phone disconnects and I shove it back in my pocket. I hold up two fingers in the air to signal to Crass and Blue that I got a direction. The voice on the line didn’t need to identify himself. I knew the voice. Hero. And ‘one of ’em’ meant Horde.

  Destination in hand, the brothers and I rocket toward Shopper King. Left turn, right, and another left brings the store in sight. Hero’s and Blood’s bikes are stashed off to the side of the building, no doubt in order to keep from being seen.

  I signal to my brothers. We park next to the bikes and I pull my phone out to dial Hero. “Here. Where you want us?” I ask, no need for pleasantries.

  “Meet you in the dairy aisle. We can cage him in.”

  I disconnect and turn to Crass and Blue. “Dairy. We’re caging the fucker in.” Their looks remind me that they have no idea what I’m talking about, but they follow because they know this is about my woman and the lassies.

  Hero creeps around the corner from a second aisle, finger to his lips to shush us. I nod once and look to the brothers behind me. They nod, too, and once we reach Hero, he whispers, “Blood’s on the other side. Two of you take the middle aisles. Scotch, follow me.”

  We take up position, and on the count of three, while the fucker drops cheese and butter in his plastic basket, we move and he feels us. His back goes rigid as he slowly turns his whole body. His eyes dart around, frantically landing on each of us pinning him in with the cold door of the cooler to his back.

  Being so close to this asshole, it’s hard not to take the lead, especially as I see his fear, smell his fear; and with each of my brothers closing in to keep him from bolting even as he straightens his spine in a ploy of false bravado—which, not gonna lie, pisses me off because I can’t help but respect him a little—I ball my hands at my sides to temper my emotions.

  “The fuck you want?” he asks, though I pick up on the tremble in his voice.

  All the brothers shoot me glances to make sure I’ve got myself in check, and as hard as it is to take that first step, I step back to bide my time until I’m allowed to put my fist through this motherfucker’s teeth for having the audacity to breathe the same air as my family. As us. For being a fucking Horde.

  “You have something we want back,” Blood says, crowding the man—his cut says Scourge—getting right in his face.

  “I don’t got nothin’ of the Lords. You must be mistaken.” He snickers.

  Blood lashes out, squeezing Scourge’s throat. His face begins to darken from red to purple. “If you value your life, you’ll tell us what we want to know.”

  “Where are they keeping the women and children?” Hero asks. We’re all losing patience. Hero’s breaths come hard through his teeth, baring gritted like a rabid animal, and we can all see he’s about to lose it, but it’s Crass who beats him to the literal punch, pulling a set of brass knuckles from his jeans pockets, shoving them over the knuckles of his right hand, and socking him right in the diaphragm. The asshole’s natural instinct to double over is thwarted by Blood’s hand at his throat, keeping him upright.

  “Gonna ask you one more time and this time you better give the answer I want,” Blood says, his spittle flying in the guy’s face.

  “Blood, man…” Blue says. “You might wanna let up on his larynx or you’ll crush it and he’ll never tell us what we need to know.”

  Blood grinds his teeth but lets up just enough for the Horde bastard to suck in a sharp breath. His face stays pink, though it’s no longer purple. “Talk,” he orders.

  “Other side of the county. Dead end off Squirrel Crick Road.”

  Crass takes another shot at him, striking him in the shoulder. It’s definitely going to leave a mark. Scourge winces and sort of whimpers as he curses, “Fuck.”


  Then I finally step up. “Ya know for a fact they’re there? Why were they brought there?” I press.

  “D-Don’t know. Bull brought ’em.”

  Bull. We know that name.

  I push deep into his space one more time. “Ya sure? Because I get there and they ain’t, I’ll put a bullet in yar brain and let the animals’ snack on yar carcass.”

  “No… no. They’re there. Seen ’em myself, I swear—they’re there.”

  From behind me we hear Crass. “Need a pickup at the Shopper King.” I glance over my shoulder just in time to see him press the end call button on his phone.

  15.

  Rory

  We wait by the dairy aisle for the pickup. Occasionally, shoppers turn the corner, stopping abruptly once they catch a glimpse of our Lords cuts, then they promptly spin around and head back the other way.

  The people of Thornbriar don’t get involved. They know if ya piss off the Lords enough to corner in a grocery store, then yar bad. Period. We make the streets safe for their friends and family without the confines of the law binding our hands in red tape like the police have to deal with.

  Boss and Chaos show for prisoner extraction. We form a circle around Scourge to march him out of the store. Not one person speaks or puts up a fuss. The manager nods then turns back to check out a customer. That’s the most attention they give. And Scourge, to his credit, marches out stone-faced instead of crying out for help like the pussy I thought he’d be.

  More than that, he doesn’t attempt to escape before he’s shoved into the back of our old white van—older than most of the club members, but it runs like a dream thanks to the brothers with mechanic skills.