2. LINK
“Ibelieve her.”
“She had tits and an ass. Of course, you believe her,” Steel muttered, snorting as he began shuffling a deck of cards.
It was a nervous tic of sorts, a new one.
That damn deck was in his mitts at all times, had been ever since we’d found out about Luke Lancaster’s little harem from hell.
I figured it had to do with the prospect of some innocent women being imprisoned somewhere in the United States of America. Starving to death…
I blew out a breath.
Yeah, no wonder he had a nervous tic. I was getting that way myself.
When I closed my eyes at night, I thought about those poor bitches, locked up, not knowing when the cunt who held the keys to their prison would return. Not knowing that he’d never return.
I thought about how hungry they must be. How cold. How fucking alone, and yeah, I ended up not sleeping.
I was a callous son of a bitch. By nature and nurture. You couldn’t do what we did and have a big heart, but even the cold stones lodged in our chests were flopping like dying fish at what those women were going through.
Even so, I resented Steel’s words. You made one fucking mistake as a teenager, and these bastards never let it drop.
“Could be a trap,” Rex concurred, breaking into my irritation, rubbing his chin as he eyed up the way Steel was shuffling those damn cards.
“Doubt it. She was nervous as fuck. Paid Cody behind the bar to dope up her guards’ drinks with vodka. Then was antsy all night waiting on them to get drunk. Plus…” I flinched as I dragged my pointer finger along the curve of my cheekbone. “She’d been beaten. All covered up. Well, too. Not the first time she’s been hit with makeup skills that good.”
Steel’s jaw clenched. “She put herself at risk.”
At his words—words that were a statement and not a question—I muttered, “Yeah. I think so.”
“We can afford to send out a couple of brothers to check this shit out,” Rex decided. “Even if she’s blowing smoke up our asses, I’d rather be safe than sorry. Don’t think I’d be able to fucking sleep at night if we didn’t at least look.”
Steel winced. “Yeah.”
Rex clapped him on the back. “You’re watching out for the MC, brother. That’s what your job is.”
“Feel like a cunt.”
“We all do,” I retorted, shrugging my shoulders uneasily. “We’re all hyped up. Worrying about Giulia, worrying about Nyx worrying about Giulia, and wondering when he’s about to break and go on the fucking rampage.” I let a breath whistle out from between my teeth. “Then there are those women.
“Dunno about you, but I’ve slept like shit for the past week.”
Rex dipped his chin. “Yeah. I’m going to go and tell Nyx.”
“You know he’s going to want to come along for the ride,” Steel pointed out.
“Which means Giulia’s coming too,” I said dryly. “No way in fuck he’s gonna take his eyes off her.”
Rex grimaced. “Because taking her to some fucked up prison in the middle of nowhere is his idea of a date now. Jesus Christ.” He scraped a hand over his head. “Last thing she needs to see is that.”
“Bet she wants to go. She’ll want to help. And she knows what it’s like to be vulnerable to that fucker. Maybe it will help them?”
“Won’t help her though, will it? And I have to think of Nyx.”
Despite myself, I had to snicker. “You worry about him too much. He’s not as vulnerable as you think he is.”
“I don’t think he’s vulnerable,” Rex denied instantly, but his glower told me I’d hit a nerve.
“Yeah, you do. He ain’t,” I countered. “Bro’s got brass balls, and even if he was fucked up, Giulia’s straightening him up some.”
Steel’s snickered. “How did you say that without busting your gut laughing? Last thing that bitch is gonna do is straighten a guy like Nyx out. If anything, she’d encourage him.”
“Two psychopaths in sweet harmony,” I joked, leaning back against the wall and digging my heel into the drywall as I did so. “Did you hear about what she did to her stepfather? Good thing Nyx’s balls are brass. That’s the only thing that’ll keep them safe if she goes nuclear.”
My words got my brothers smiling, just as I’d intended, then I reached forward, gripped Rex’s shoulder, and urged, “Hustle, Prez. We need to get them girls out.”
“If they’re even there,” Steel said.
“Don’t be negative,” I chided. “Let’s hope they are there, then maybe we can sleep again.”
Rex grunted but moved down the hall to Nyx’s room, where he and Giulia were probably sleeping. He knocked and I heard a few thumps as Nyx made it to the door. When it slammed shut a few minutes later, and I heard more thumps, I knew he was getting ready.
Steel cut me a look. “You think this is true? Not BS?”
“Fuck knows. I just hope she wasn’t lying.”
“I’ll slit her throat myself if she is. What kind of sicko?—”
Before he could continue, I mumbled, “She’s related to Luke Lancaster. A guy who rapes for fun? Let’s hope being a psycho isn’t a genetic trait in her family.”
Steel huffed but shoved the deck of cards away in his jeans’ pocket.
About twenty minutes later, Nyx and Giulia were on his hog, Steel was on his, and I was climbing onto the back of mine.
A quick glance at the clubhouse told me everyone was watching, even though this was supposed to be under wraps, and I mock saluted those peering at us from behind the curtains before I kick-started my bike into action.
The roar of the trio of hogs made my blood sing, and even though our end destination might be the definition of a nightmare in the flesh, I felt energy flood my veins as we began the roll down the driveway.
The gates opened the second the Prospect saw us, and we sped up, flying out of the compound like we were using winged chariots.
As the wind smashed me square in the face, I let out a holler, and wasn’t surprised when a feminine version that matched my own came next.
I twisted around and saw Giulia was clinging to Nyx, but her hair was whipping around in the wind, her face was tilted to get it full frontal, and her eyes were closed as she gloried in the moment.
If I hadn’t known that she came from biker stock, I had proof then and there. This shit was genetic. Passed down from generation to generation.
We were born to ride these beasts, just like our ancestors had lived on horseback. Some people were meant for the constraints of city living, of the rat race, then there were folks like us. Folks who lived on the fringes of society. Who led their lives the way they wanted, not the way the government did.
The three-hour journey was broken up by two breaks at a pitstop.
It was late already, none of us had been sleeping right anyway, and Giulia was sore after what that fucker had put her through.
We each downed a large cup of coffee which, of course, necessitated the next stop.
Fucking coffee.
Lancaster’s little sister didn’t realize how lucky she’d been coming across me. As Road Captain of the Satan’s Sinners” MC, it was my fucking job to lead my brothers into chaos. She hadn’t just caught the eye of any brother, she’d caught mine.
But then, looking like she did, I knew every fucker with a dick had seen her walk into the bar when she had.
No one could have failed to spot the elegance she exuded. Everything about her screamed money.
More than that, it screamed ‘hands off,’ which of course, was more of a challenge than anything else.
Especially to a fucker like me.
The coordinates to our end destination were on my phone as I led us to hell, but along the way I thought about her, thought about how she’d looked around Daytonalike it was dog crap on her expensive heels. Then, I thought about the vulnerability in her eyes when I’d had to help her breathe through her panic.
At first, I just thought she was scared of me. Lots of country clubbers approached the MC, wanting to get laid. Wanting to get fucked hard by the local scum.
I’d thought she was one of them until Cody had shared her intentions with us, then I’d learned otherwise.
She’d entered my world with a purpose, one that saw me driving straight through the heart of New Jersey and close to the Pennsylvanian border.
The reason it was so far from the MC was because of a windy motherfucker of a road that brought us to the town itself and took a goddamn age to traverse.
Stewartsheim, according to Google anyway, was home to less than three hundred souls. I had to assume the women being held against their will weren’t included in the census so, yeah, more like three hundred plus.
My mouth twisted into a grimace as we approached the township.
Lancaster’s sister had given me fucking coordinates.
How the hell she knew them, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when we went off road, driving onto a field, and approaching a body of water I had to assume was a reservoir, seeing as we were in the middle of the goddamn country, and I didn’t know about any lakes in this part of the state.
The early morning sun made the body of water gleam and glitter where it hit, but it was still dark enough for me to see that, in the distance, there were rows of homes where the good folks of Stewartsheim lived, and who were slowly starting to wake up.
The coordinates took us past the township, past the reservoir—if that’s what it was—and onto slightly higher ground that was surrounded by trees.
When we reached our destination, I didn’t even fucking realize it.
The sun had started its rise, sure, but we were surrounded by a chaos of trees that kept us in the shadows.
Only when I braked to a halt did my brothers join me, and Nyx was the one who called out, “Where the fuck are we? Why did we stop?”
“These are the coordinates,” I stated firmly, peering at the map and wondering if Siri had failed me. Again.
“Looks like that bitch was toying with us,” Steel muttered.
I glared at him, aware he’d see my expression because of the glow from my phone.
He grunted at the sight, and I bit off, “We can’t see for shit. There could be a fucking creepy ass cabin right in front of us and we wouldn’t know it was there.”
“We have our lights on,” Steel retorted, as he folded his arms across his chest.
Fucker looked like he was settling in for a fight.
I opened my mouth to give him what he was asking for, then Giulia whispered, “Did you hear that?”
She sounded shaken, and I knew the difference.
She hadn’t been around the clubhouse that long, but she was a weirdo who I quite appreciated.
Snarky, Giulia was usually a bitch, and had a wicked right hook. I actually liked that she’d managed to bust her stepfather’s ballsack because with a fucker like Nyx in her bed, she’d need to be ready for anything.
Not that he’d hurt her, but living our life the way we did? Shit got real and weird, fast.
“What is it, babe?” Nyx rumbled, his voice low. His leathers squeaked as he twisted to face her, giving her all his attention.
The second he did, she released a sigh, like she could breathe or something because he was looking at her, seeing her. I wasn’t sure why that would help, but it did.
Hell, it had helped Lancaster’s sister this evening too.
Breathing with her, calming her down, it had felt oddly natural. But then, I’d done it often enough with my ma, helping her climb out of her panic-fogged stupor, for me to be at ease with it.
“I don’t know,” Giulia admitted. “It was like a cry.”
“Probably the wind,” Steel muttered, earning himself a glare from both me and Nyx as well this time.
“Why are you trying to be awkward?” I groused. “You want them found as much as we do.”
He gritted his teeth. “‘Course I fuckin’ do.”
“Then don’t be so damn difficult.” I turned my focus to Giulia once more. “I didn’t hear anything. The bike’s engine is still whistling in my ears.”
“Mine too,” she admitted, “and it was faint.” She reached up, tugging slightly in a way that made me realize Nyx had somehow managed to grab a hold of both her hands. She ran the one he released over her face. “Maybe I’m losing my mind.”
Nyx snorted. “No way, baby. You’re not losing shit. I’ll find you every fucking time. You hear me?”
Her lips curved in a dry smile, and she surprised me by raising their joined hands and brushing her mouth over his knuckles.
That small act of tenderness probably gained more of a reaction out of me and Steel than her getting naked would have.
Women didn’t do shit like that around us, but Giulia had because, it figured, she wasn’t like any of the women we usually had at the clubhouse.
And weirder still was that Nyx didn’t mind.
He didn’t pull back. Didn’t pull away. Didn’t even shoot us embarrassed looks.
Nyx loved her.
He actually fucking loved her.
I mean, I guessed it made sense. He’d given her his brand, she wore his patch. But still, I hadn’t thought about love. Love wasn’t a thing in this world of ours.
On edge at what I was witnessing, I kept quiet.
I didn’t want to be on the end of Nyx’s fist tonight, not when there might be some women who needed our help around here.
Last thing they needed was to see their saviors bruised and bloodied after getting into a stupid fistfight but I wanted to speak. Fuck, I wanted to ask questions.
How did it feel to be in love?
Was it weird?
Was it nice?
I’d never felt anything like that myself and I was curious, even if I probably shouldn’t be.
Badass bikers didn’t fall in love…supposedly.
Nyx had, though. He was the biggest, baddest motherfucker I knew.
Demons would cower before Nyx, that was how messed up he was.
The shit I’d seen him do to those sick fucks who messed with kids, I couldn’t see Satan himself not feeling squeamish at what Nyx did in his spare time.
But he was in love.
Fucking love.
Giulia sighed, catching my attention once again, and I saw that their hands were lowered and she’d pressed her forehead to Nyx’s arm.
Was she crying?
I cut Steel a look again, saw he was just as uneasy as me.
A noise whispered through the trees as I was about to clear my throat, trying to get things moving along.
It was quiet.
Like a shushing sound, but it was high-pitched too.
I tensed and so did my brothers, and my brother’s woman, who scrambled off the bike at the noise.
Nyx had her back a second later.
“What was that?” I rasped, even as I started to climb off my bike too. I pulled off my helmet and hung it from the handlebars as I straightened up.
Steel, peering through the trees where only the faintest of light was bleeding through, said, “I heard it too.”
“Well, if you heard it, then it must be real,” I snarked at him, earning myself the bird he flipped my way.
I took another look around, sweeping my phone’s flashlight in the area.
Steel, evidently doing the same, mumbled, “Some kind of truck has been here. SUV maybe. Something heavy.”
I stared where his light was directed and saw what he was seeing and agreed, “SUV. I recognize those tires.”
“Of course, you do,” Giulia mocked.
Nyx tapped her leg. “Link runs the garage for a reason, babe.”
My lips twisted. “Just ‘cause I hate cages doesn’t mean I don’t know how to fix them.”
I knew how to fix them too fucking well.
Meant most of our customers wouldn’t be coming back as often as they should because I knew my craft.
Of course, I’d tried not to work at the garage.
When Rex had dumped the MC’s new businesses on the council’s shoulders, I’d hoped some other fucker would want to run it.
No dice.
I was stuck getting engine oil in my asscrack for the rest of my natural life.
“That bodes well though, doesn’t it? If there are tracks that means someone’s come here recently.” The hope in Giulia’s voice was painful to hear.
I sucked in a breath. “Could be anyone. Could be hunters.”
To counter my words, there was that noise again.
I whipped around, my phone with me, trying to fucking see where that goddamn sound might be coming from.
“Never heard a bird sing like that before,” Steel complained as he slowly turned, his gaze drifting along the tree line. “Something’s here.”
“If that isn’t the creepiest thing you could have said,” Giulia retorted, shuddering as she wrapped her arms around her waist. “This is like the setup for a horror movie.”
Nyx snorted and hauled her into his side. “You’re safe with us.”
“Yeah,” I teased. “Giulia, ain’t you realized it yet? We’re the boogeymen.”
Her only response was to huff, which either meant she thought I was full of shit or she was agreeing. Never could tell with Nyx’s bitch.
“We’re going to have to go into the woods,” Steel stated grimly, and I knew he was just as freaked as Giulia but he wouldn’t say shit.
I’d have goaded the motherfucker for being a pussy but hell, it was creepy.
It reminded me of the opening scenes of a horror movie too.
When the director was setting shit up to get the audience in the mood.
Even the lighting wasn’t on our side. It was bleak and there was a haze to the air.
Plus, knowing that some women might be held in captivity around here didn’t exactly make the place fucking cheerful.
Grunting at my thoughts, which were goddamn stupid, I strode forward.
The crunching of grass beneath my feet was a giveaway—there was more crunching when my brothers and Giulia joined me.
Three more streams of light merged with mine as we pushed between the trees and began walking over the soil.
It was pretty peaceful in here, but there was a low mist that made it hard to see the ground.
Okay, so this place was beyond creepy as shit.
I’d admit it.
Even if it was only to myself.
As we walked, our feet making too much noise as we stomped through the forest, it was a miracle we heard that weird ass sound again, but we did.
And we all froze.
I thought about what it sounded like, and could only compare it to the clank of a wrench or something clanging against the body of a car.
Metal against metal.
A dull whine.
Ears pricking up, I peered through the mist, then groaned with relief when a shard of light from the sinking moon pierced the trees.
Giulia whispered, “Oh my God, over there.”
I followed the direction where she pointed with her finger and grimaced at the sight of a shack.
Fifteen by fifteen, minimum.
As we processed its sudden appearance, we took off at a run.
The sound echoed again, and my belief that it was metal ringing against metal was reiterated as the dull, shrill whistle seemed to be on repeat.
My heart began to race with hope.
Someone who was being held captive, who’d managed to hear someone in the vicinity, who was trying to call for help—they’d make that kind of noise, wouldn’t they?
I heard the click of a gun behind me and dug into the back of my jeans where I kept my weapon.
Knowing Nyx had armed himself made me want my gun in my paw too, and when I heard Steel’s safety snick off, I knew we were all feeling the same vibe.
The same hope.
The same concern.
Especially as we slowed down the second we got to the shack.
It was made of wood, almost entirely, except for a window beside the door—four dirty glass panes held together by a cross, loaded with spiderwebs and filth.
There was guttering around the roof that quivered when a gust of wind whispered through the trees.
“Shit, did we bring anything with us? Food? Fucking clothes?”
Steel’s remark had me jerking in surprise. I twisted around to glower at him. “You serious right now?”
“Yeah. If there are women in there, we need to help them.”
“Yeah, by not shooting the shit,” I ground out, even as I strode forward and pulled the door. It was, not surprisingly, locked. “There are space blankets in each of our saddlebags as well as water and protein bars,” I informed him absentmindedly.
The door rattled and shook under my grip, the padlock old and rusty, but there was some wear around the hinges that told me it was used.
“When did you do that?”
“When you were taking a leak before we set off,” I muttered. Twisting to face Nyx, I ordered, “Hold the light steady so I can shoot off the padlock.”
The second the stream of his flashlight hit it, I angled myself so it wouldn’t ricochet into my damn face and shot it off.
That clanging sound appeared again, confirming that someone was behind it.
Someone in the fucking shack that belonged in hell.
Breathing in sharply, I pulled open the door, and the second I did, the stench hit me.
Now, I was a hardened criminal.
I’d killed.
I’d watched Nyx torture fucking pedophiles.
I’d even helped torture them.
I would kill and kill again for my MC.
But the smell in the shack had me staggering back with my hand to my face to try to cover it.
“Holy fuck!” Nyx spat, and Steel’s curse echoed at the same time.
I wasn’t surprised when Giulia dashed off and the sounds of her puking soon followed.
That stench signified one thing only—death.
We were too late.
Too fucking late.
Then the clanging sound came again and fuck, I realized someone had to be alive in there.
Someone had been living with that goddamn stench.
The prospect of heading toward the smell made my stomach roil like I’d eaten ten ghost chili peppers, but step forward I did.
I tried to breathe through my mouth, tried not to inhale the scent, but it was impossible.
And then the humming started.
“Coffin flies,” I muttered, the words coming out nasally.
“Sweet fuck, someone’s down there with a corpse,” Steel rasped.
His words shouldn’t have been the catalyst, the stench and the flies should have been, but his statement kicked us in the ass.
As one, we stepped into the shack, peering around and seeing jack shit. We swept our lights over the ground, saw the cellar door, and rushed over.
The clanging sound came again, softer this time. Weaker. Like someone who’d either given up hope or who’d lost the strength to carry on.
Heart fucking melting, I scrambled to find the handle, but if the gloom outside was bad, in here it was worse. And with the stench making my eyes water and the flies fucking with my ears, it was a wonder I could do anything.
“Stand back,” I roared, the second I found a smaller padlock in the bottom corner of the opening.
Giving whoever was down there a few seconds, I shot the lock off as I braced myself for what I was about to see.
But even as I prepared myself, even as I told myself to man the fuck up and deal with whatever chaos Lancaster had left behind, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
Nothing.
Seeing the shit Nyx could do to sick fucks was nothing in comparison to this.
It coated all five of my senses.
In comparison to the sight, the smell, the fucking taste—I could taste it.
The sheer evilness, the fucking horror of what I was witnessing drowned all five of them, making me falter for a few seconds as I tried and failed to process it.
Only seeing the girl slumped over, with some kind of pipe in her hand, twitch, jerked me into action.
As I staggered down the few steps into that pit of hell, I realized there were four cages down here. Four fucking cages I wouldn’t have put a goddamn pit bull in.
Half the size of a single bed in both length and width, how the fuck the one out on the floor had escaped was beyond me.
“Go get the blankets and food, Giulia!”
Nyx’s command had me jerking in surprise, and it had the women in this pit jolting too.
A woman, filthy, so filthy I didn’t even see her eyes at first because she was covered in shit and piss—fucking shit and piss—moaned as she slumped onto her back.
My mouth twisted into a snarl as the desire to string Lancaster up by his balls, to eviscerate him, filled me.
I forced my thoughts away from violence and tried to focus on the women. One of them, at least, was dead. That smell, those flies? Someone had to be dead in here.
I flashed my light over the cages, cringing when I saw more fluids, more insects, more of everything no one ever wanted to see, and finding relief when I heard two sets of moans as the women reacted to the light.
Only one didn’t flinch.
The four cages were lined up in a row.
The one to the far left, against the wall, didn’t move, and when I trained the light on her, Steel doing the same, I saw?—
My stomach roiled once again, and how I didn’t puke, I’d never fucking know.
Staggering down the stairs, feeling dazed, I made it to the woman on the floor.
Hauling her up, I lifted her into my arms, wincing as she pretty much goddamn rattled in my hold. She was a bag of bones, and I passed her up to Steel who I knew would pass her to Nyx.
With her out of the way, I approached the cages. My boots had them flinching, and I whispered, “Luke Lancaster is dead. My brother’s woman killed him. It was slow. She twisted the knife, made sure he hurt, but no amount of hurt is payment for this. My name is Link.” I pointed to Steel. “He’s Steel, and my brother upstairs is called Nyx, and his woman is Giulia. She’s the one who ended that cunt’s life.”
“He’s dead?”
The voice was softer than a whisper, and it was the spookiest shit I’d ever heard. Ghosts were louder than this poor creature.
“Yes. We’re here to help.”
A cough came from the cage beside the ghost. “Too late for Sarah. Almost too late for us.”
“Too late for Sarah, but just in time for you. What’s your name?” I asked, even as I stepped into the puddles of human waste and tried to find where the openings to the cages were.
“I’m Tatána,” one woman replied, her voice stronger than the ghost’s. “She’s Alessa, and the one you carried out is Amara.”
I hummed at her words, trying to split my attention as I sought a way out for them. It took me longer than I’d like, but there were tiny padlocks keeping them barred.
When Steel stepped forward, I cut him a look, saw he had something from only the fuck knew where, and he smashed it into the padlock.
On the brink of telling him that wouldn’t work, it worked, and he handed it to me.
It was a brick.
A fucking brick.
The occupant jerked when I slammed into the metal, and maybe fortitude was on my side too, because within five slams, the padlock was broken and I could open the door.
I crouched down, then peered inside. “You’re going to have to crawl out, honey. I can’t get you out. It’s too small for me.”
It was too small for her too.
She was crouched on her side in a fetal position, but her legs were relaxed in a way that told me this was as far as she could stretch.
“Too tired,” she mumbled.
“You’re not too tired,” I countered, my throat thickening with tears. Tears! Me. I hadn’t cried at my momma’s goddamn funeral, yet here I was, ready to bawl. “We just got here. You gotta help me help you.”
I flickered a glance at Steel and saw he was chivvying the other girl out.
Grabbing her arm, he was half dragging her out of the cage, and although I wanted to shout at him, I knew these women were on the brink of death.
If they couldn’t help themselves, we’d have to do the heavy lifting.
Wishing there was more fucking light in here so I could see what I was doing, I reached in, grunted when I touched something wet, and tried not to think about it.
Fuck.
Every moment of these past five minutes were going to stick with me for a lifetime, so there was no forgetting any of what was currently going down.
Shoving the thought aside, I grabbed something soft and frail, and started hustling the woman, Alessa, toward the opening.
She cried out in pain, and I understood, I did, but fuck, what choice did I have? I had to get her out of there.
Sweat beaded from every single pore as I strained to get her out. She wasn’t struggling, but she was a dead weight, making the job ten times harder.
When I managed to maneuver a part of her out of the opening, I wanted to crow with delight, but she slumped, and suddenly, I knew what a deadweight truly felt like.
My heart in my throat, I shook my head, unable to believe we’d come so close only to fucking lose her.
Rage filled me, it burned me from the inside out, and though I was pretty strong anyway, a level of power I’d never tapped into hit me at that moment.
It helped me haul Alessa out of the tiny space, helped me drag her onto the filthy floor, and it helped me carry her out of that poisonous prison and into the outside world, where there was only the vague scent of death, rotting flesh, the pungency of a mass wave of insects, and human shit.
Giulia was there immediately, and I wasn’t surprised when she retched, even as she held open the space blanket so I could wrap Alessa in it.
“I-I think she’s dead,” I bit off, even as I pressed the bundle to the ground.
“No. She just fainted,” Giulia rasped, as she pressed a hand to Alessa’s chest. “Feel. There’s a slight vibration. She’s breathing.”
Hope swirled inside me. “She needs help.”
Giulia nodded, but after she licked her lips, she whispered, “But how?”
These women needed medical attention, but I knew why Giulia was at a loss.
If we got involved, somehow the cops would make it so that we were the ones who’d abducted the women.
They’d squirrel into our lives, into our world, ruining it because they could Capone us—get us on a charge that had nothing to do with our business to shut down our operation and jail us, even if we’d done nothing wrong to these women.
“Can you drop us off somewhere?”
I jerked in surprise at the ghost’s voice. It was a gentle susurration of sound that whispered along my ears, filling me with relief that she was awake again.
“You’re too weak to move. You need help. A lot of it.”
The ghost’s laugh was eerie. “You’d be surprised what we can do. We’ve survived this far.”
Gutturally, I responded, “I know you have. You’re warriors, but now’s the time to heal. You’ve done the fighting, now you need to rest.”
“I know your MC. I heard of them when I was working over in Newark.” She smiled, her brutally thin lips pulling taut against her jaw.
That smile told me she knew something about us, something she probably shouldn’t know.
I twisted around so I could look at her, and when her eyes caught mine, there was a stillness there that, oddly enough, calmed me.
Whatever had happened to her in that pit, and it didn’t take much fucking guessing, she knew that sometimes, self-confessed sinners weren’t all in possession of midnight souls.
“I have a burner phone,” Nyx inserted from his crouched position at Amara’s side. “We could place you somewhere and you could make the call for help.”
Steel disagreed, “No. We need to keep this shit under wraps. Giulia’s already in enough shit because of that Lancaster cunt.
“Last thing we need is to have the cops sniffing around us over this. You know as well as I do that they’ll pin this shit on us.” He sucked in a breath, one that sounded oddly shallow. “We need to bring Stone in.”
My eyes widened at that. “Fuck me, has the world just come to an end?”
He scowled at me. “What?”
“You heard me. Thought the only time you’d even fucking breathe her name was if Bruce Willis was stuck on a meteorite above us.” I peered up at the sky. “Where’s Aerosmith? They gonna burst into song?”
He flipped me the bird. “Fuck you.”
I just shrugged. “Too many ladies want to fuck me for me to waste my fine self on my fist.”
A soft snort escaped the ghost, and I peered down at her and grinned. Maybe now wasn’t the moment for a conversation about classic movies—and fuck yeah, I considered Armageddon a golden oldie classic—and maybe I shouldn’t be joking when these women had been laying in their own shit for only fuck knew how long, but Christ, that smile on the ghost’s face? I knew Steel was right.
Stone could help.
If she’d agree to come to the clubhouse, that is. We all knew Steel and Stone hadn’t parted ways as friends.
He slipped his phone out of his back pocket. The screen lit up and he put in the code—don’t know why he bothered. Everyone knew he used Marilyn Monroe’s birthday for all his fucking passwords—and started scrolling through his contacts.
“You don’t have to do this, brother,” Nyx rumbled, sounding, as usual, dark as fuck.
“Yeah. I do. For the MC.”
I pulled a face at that, because even if it was best for us, I wasn’t sure if it was best for the women.
“Stone can’t do all that a hospital can for them,” I pointed out softly, and I wasn’t even joking when I said, “Save the sacrifice for another time, bro. These ladies need proper medical attention. They’re starved, their bodies are?—”
“Please. Don’t take us to a hospital.”
Ghost’s words had me rearing back in surprise. If anything, I’d have thought she’d want to go back to civilization. “Huh?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Please.” When she started shifting on the ground, moaning as she moved, I realized she was trying to sit up. “Don’t take us to the hospital.”
I considered myself a dumbass because, just that second, I heard the accent. “You’re an illegal, aren’t you?”
She sagged against the ground. “We all are.”
“That changes things.” Nyx cut Steel a look. “Get Stone on the line. I’ll talk to her.”
“Ain’t no one gonna mention that it’s fucking weird as shit you still have her number?” I questioned.
“I keep an eye on her,” Steel rasped, even as he connected the call and put it on speaker.
“Have pigs started flying? Or has hell frozen over? As far as I know, that was the only time you said you’d talk to me again.”
Steel’s top lip snagged into a snarl, but he turned his face away at the sound of Stone’s voice and left it to Nyx.
Never thought Nyx would be the rational one in a situation like this, but fuck, these were trying times.
“Stone, it’s Nyx.”
“Nyx?” Stone sounded confused. “Oh my God,” she rasped. “Oh, God. I’ll be right there! Don’t you let that fucker die, do you hear me? I’ll drag him back from hell if I fucking have to. Do you hear me, Nyx?” she screamed, making the ghost jolt on the ground in surprise.
“I hear you, honey,” he replied, tone soothing as he shot me a wry look. “We’ll keep him going until you get here.”
“Good,” she barked, then cut the call.
I blinked at Nyx before we both turned to Steel.
“She thinks I’m dying?” Steel growled. “And that’s the only way she’ll come back?”
“Look on the bright side, she doesn’t want you to die.”
He didn’t appreciate my help because he glowered at me.
“At least she’s coming to the compound.”
“Because she thinks I’m dying,” he reiterated.
“Some men would think that was a compliment,” the ghost whispered, but again, I heard a sliver of amusement in her voice.
How the poor woman could find anything humorous about this fucking situation, I didn’t know. But sweet fuck, I was just grateful she wasn’t sobbing and was coherent.
“Stone always did know how to fucking insult me,” Steel grated out.
“Not sure it’s an insult. She doesn’t want you to die, bro,” I pointed out. “I mean, she wasn’t all, ‘let me roll up so I can spit on his grave.’ She wants you to live. Ghost’s right, that’s pretty much as big of a compliment as someone can give to another person.”
“If she’s on her way, we need to be on ours too,” Nyx stated, putting an end to the conversation with a firm tone.
Just because the dude was a sick motherfucker didn’t mean he wasn’t the bomb at being the Enforcer.
“They can’t ride on the back of a bike,” Giulia breathed weakly, and I cut her a look, unsurprised to see she was close by but had propped herself up against a tree.
This situation would traumatize anyone. But someone who’d only recently been traumatized herself? Fuck, it was a wonder she wasn’t catatonic.
When Nyx glanced at her, I knew he saw that too and his face darkened in a way that, usually, he dedicated to the bastards he slaughtered. This one was only softened by the love in his eyes.
Yeah, that goddamn love again.
Giulia didn’t burn to nothing at the sight.
Didn’t disappear into a puddle of ash at the foot of the tree.
If anything, she shot him a shaky look and rasped, “I’m okay.”
“You’re not,” he instantly countered.
“I’ll be okay then.” She blew out a breath. “We need transport. The MC is too far away to help.”
“It’s three hours away, Giulia. Not Mars.”
“Look at them and tell me we have time to fuck around?”
Ghost cleared her throat. “If we could just eat something, maybe that would help?”
Steel winced. “Don’t you need, like, fluids or something?”
“You got sports drinks in those Mary Poppins bags of yours? Or just water?” Nyx questioned.
“Just water,” I hissed under my breath. “Dumb of me to forget.”
“Water would still be nice,” the ghost whispered.
I flinched, because of course it fucking would be.
“I’ll go get the bags.”
“Nyx brought them already,” Giulia murmured, as she began to riffle through the saddlebags that were at her side. Bags I’d only just seen.
In my defense, it was still gloomy as fuck around here. Couldn’t see for shit, and trust me, there was enough shit around this place for that to be true.
The dawn light was too weak to make that much of a difference on the forest, and it was a reminder that even though I felt like I’d aged a good two years since I’d first entered these woods, it had probably only been sixty minutes from start to finish.
Sixty minutes from hell, and fuck, if a Satan’s Sinner said that, he meant it.