Eden's Joker (Devil’s Nightmare MC Next Generation, Book 7)

Chapter 41

I was more beast than man when the Devils freed me. A monster. Satan’s Spawn MC made me into that monster by killing my family and forcing me to fight in a cage for seven long years. To live in a cage too. After the Devils freed me, I became an even bigger monster as we hunted them down and killed them one by one.

I didn’t stop being a monster until the day I first held my daughters.

But the monster didn’t go away. It just slept somewhere deep inside me.

Eden’s abduction woke it. Seeing her scared face on camera and hearing that bastard’s threats made it more ferocious than it ever was. It won’t sleep again, not until I tear Joker apart with my bare hands.

But each time I think we have him, he slips further away.

I haven’t been sleeping, I haven’t been eating, I definitely haven’t been thinking straight. All I see every time I close my eyes is Eden’s face. Bloody and bruised and lifeless. Turning into the face of all the women we’ve pulled from sexual slavery over the years. Women who have no hope of being whole even after they’re saved.

Even my social worker sister Roxie stopped trying to convince me such women can be saved after the first week of Eden being missing. She knows as well as anyone it can’t be done. Eden as she was is lost to us.

And nothing will ever be all right again. Not even the slow and painful death I have planned for Joker. Imagining that is what has kept me going. The only fuel I need.

The men who didn’t know me back then, know the monster I was now.

We’ve been camped out at one of our safe houses in the desert. It’s basically just a bunker filled with guns and ammo and guys and gals giving me a wide berth whenever they see me. I’ve taken to sleeping outside, under the starry sky, like I used to do for months after I was freed. It’s not helping much now.

Our Prez Cross exits the bunker and looks around. Then his piercing gaze zeroes in on me. I’ve clashed with him so often these last few weeks that it’s a miracle he’s still letting me ride with them on these search missions. A lesser man would’ve kicked me to the curb a long time ago, or worse. Even in my messed-up state, I know that and respect it.

He strides towards me. I can’t read anything off his face, but that doesn’t mean he’s not coming to tell me bad news. He’s the only one who would dare deliver that kind of news to me these days. I try to feel fear. But the truth is, I don’t feel much at all these days. Just like I didn’t for years in my old life.

“Hawk’s got new intel,” Cross says. “Come.”

I don’t move from my perch on a fallen log in the shadow of some bush that grows tall, spindly, and thorny.

“It’s not that kind of intel,” Cross says. “We’d know if she was dead.”

Even in my feeling-less state, that word, and the image of my daughter’s lifeless body, bruised and battered, it brings, pierces me like a knife.

“Would we?” I ask. “Because we sure as hell don’t know a whole lot lately.”

Since the day she was taken, we’ve searched for Eden and Joker and his Lost Sons MC relentlessly, going everywhere where there was even a whisper of a hint that they might be. All dead ends. For weeks. Nothing but dead ends. I don’t know if I can take another one of those. I don’t know if my sanity can.

“We’ll get her back, Ice,” Cross says.

I don’t understand how he can still speak with such certainty about that. And yet I do. He’s lying to me to keep me calm. Like I’m some damn woman who needs reassuring.

But arguing with him will achieve nothing. So I stand up and tell him to lead the way.

I will follow every dead end, turn every rock, chase every rumor to get Eden back. I just no longer hope to get her back alive.

Hawk and the rest of the execs are gathered in one of the larger rooms in the bunker, which is still too small to hold this many men. Especially since the execs of the other two MCs helping us out—Rogue Angels MC and Forsaken Outlaws MC—are also here.

Hawk has his laptop open and is projecting some sort of a map onto one of the concrete walls. It’s not much of a map. It’s just pictures of somewhere in the middle of the desert with some dots that could be houses. Or they’re rock formations. Impossible to tell.

Everyone in the room takes a step away from me as I enter.

“What is this?” I ask. “A slideshow from your last trip?”

Hawk clears his throat and won’t meet my eyes. We’ve had a lot of words over the last few weeks. None of them friendly. He’s our intel officer and until now, he’s always found everyone and anyone that we needed found. But not my daughter. It’s not something I can understand.

“This is some long-lost town in the middle of the desert,” Hawk says. “And everything points to it being the place where Joker has Eden.”

“You said that about the last three places we hit.”

“But this time, the signs are clearer,” Hawk says.

I know he hates himself for not being able to find Eden. But not as bad as I hate him for it. He’s my brother, he’s family to me and we’ve been through a lot together, but that’s the truth now.

“What’s left of the MCs warring against us have been converging on this place for days,” Hawk says. “All my eyes and ears are telling me that. They’ve been doing it in clumps of ten or twenty, but it’s been non-stop happening day and night. Something’s brewing. Something big.”

“And these photos are the best you have of the area?” Tank asks, saving me the trouble. He’s our VP and normally always ready with a joke. But even he’s found no humor in anything during these last few weeks of failure and defeat.

“Unfortunately,” Hawk says. “They’ve been shooting down all the drones I’ve sent. Only one got through and back. The town is smack in the middle of a lot of hills. Whoever built it didn’t want to be found.”

“And that’s the only road in or out?” Cross asks, pointing at a winding line that reminds me of a snake.

“There’s ways in over the hills,” Hawk says. “But they’ll be guarding those, guaranteed.”

Cross walks closer to the projection and studies the pictures. The room is so quiet I can hear the soft hum of Hawk’s laptop. We’re all seeing the same thing. But no one is saying it.

“We’ll be trapped the moment we ride in,” Cross finally says, speaking what we’re all thinking. “How sure are you this is where they’re holding her?”

My phone chimes in my pocket and I check it right away, like I always do, day or night, hoping to see Eden’s face.

It’s a text from an unknown number.

“What is it?” Cross asks as I just stand there, holding the phone in a shaking hand.

“It’s a text from that bastard. It says, “You’re invited to Justice. She’s waiting for you.” There’s a map attached… and another photo…”

I can’t speak about that photo. I can’t describe it. For as long as I live, I’ll never not see it.

It’s of my daughter’s body. Lying on the dark ground, her dress ripped, her face obscured by her hair. All of her covered in bruises and blood.

Hawk takes the phone from my hand and stares at the map. The whole room seems to be buzzing and the walls are closing in.

“It’s the same place,” Hawk says after comparing the image on the wall to the one on my phone. “The town of Justice. This Joker’s got a sick sense of irony, I’ll give him that.”

“All I’m gonna give him is a slow and painful death,” I say through clenched teeth. “When are we riding?”

My brothers stay perfectly silent, but the execs of the other MCs are buzzing again. Whispering protests. Saying it’s a suicide mission.

It probably is. But I’ll ride on it alone if I must.

“Soon,” Cross says, his deep voice cutting through the buzzing. “But we’re going in to kill them all. And that’s gonna take some planning.”

Because this is no longer a rescue mission. He knows that because he’s seen the photo too. They all have. This is now a revenge mission. And we are very good at those.

“The sooner the better,” I say. “Let me know when we ride.”

Then I turn and walk out of the room, into the darkness under the stars. There are no emotions in my heart, and only one thought in my head: My daughter is dead. I can’t move beyond that. Because beyond that thought lies only madness.

And I need my mind to destroy the monster who took her from me.