Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
We’re taking heavy fire at the back of the compound.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Fuck. Whatever those bastards are shooting is shaking the trees.
Slider’s stretched out on the ground with a long gun, trying to pick off the men moving through the trees outside the compound fence.
“Got one!” He calls out as he settles over his scope again.
“Cover me,” I tell Gage, one of my brothers, and run for the cover of the club’s dump truck.
A bullet pings off the metal.
“Fuck you!” I yell.
More shots hit the ground around me as I get into position.
It’s only seconds before muzzle flash tells me where one of their men is hiding.
“Got you, motherfucker.”
I take aim, but a raw, ear-splitting siren pierces the air.
My heart stops dead. I’m on my feet sprinting a second later.
“They breached the clubhouse!” Prez yells to the others as he storms across the yard with bullets hitting the ground around him.
We run. Half-dozen of us, from every direction.
Fuck. Fuck.
Katie’s inside, locked in the basement.
They’re hemmed in. Some of them are armed, but…
My mind splinters. I can’t think of anything but getting to her.
Cold sweat is rolling down my temples as I tear through the rear entrance. Prez is already firing from the top of the stairs, aiming down into the stairwell.
“You mother fucking asshole!” He shouts as he unloads.
Two other brothers have a couple of Russo’s men on the floor kicking the shit out of them.
I pop another guy as he tries to run out the front door.
“What the literal fuck?” I yell. “These bastards have some balls to come into our house.”
Prez whistles for me and I step over a dead brother from the other chapter of Kings of Darkness. He must have been the first to find them in the house.
“Look,” Prez says as he heads down the steps, “A battering ram. Never seen that before.”
“It’s the kind SWAT uses,” I tell him as I storm down the stairs behind him.
“Is it clear to open the door?” One of the women calls from inside.
“Hell, no!” Prez and I both shout at the same time.
There’s still random gunfire outside.
“Katie-girl,” I call through the door. “I’ll come get you as soon as it’s safe.”
Prez gives me a look that says he knows what I’m thinking. They tried the door to grab one of the women. Until we shake down those two that we captured, we won’t know exactly why.
Prez and I climb the stairs to the landing where the mob guys are unconscious on the floor. It’s a bloody fucking mess right in the middle of our clubhouse.
“Take them to the garage,” I tell Ace.
I will know why they’re here one goddamned way or another. If it’s Katie they’ve come after, I’ll make them regret the day they took their first breath.
By the time I get to the garage both of them are hanging from chains. Ace gives me a tight nod when I walk in.
We’ve done this before. He knows what’s coming when he tosses me a club. “Have fun.”
“Oh, I will.”
I circle them, looking for signs for which one will break first.
“You came into my house. Scared my woman. You know what that means?”
One grunts. “Means you got shit for security, motorcycle boy.”
I crack his kneecap.
“You got shit taste in clothing. Who wears slacks to a fucking raid?”
The bastard spits on me.
He pays. I break his other knee.
“Why are you here?” I demand.
The other guy clears his throat and grins, showing a row of gold teeth. “You don’t know?”
“I wouldn’t be fucking asking if I knew.”
I crack him in the thigh, making him grunt.
This one’s nervous. The way he flicks his eyes around as he keeps licking his lips is a dead fucking giveaway. This is my talker. ”Enlighten me, or I start cutting off your toes.”
I flick open the laces on his boot with my switchblade and knock it to the ground.
His breathing speeds up, his foot twitches.
“The blonde girl,” he spurts.
I stick his foot with the tip of my knife. “Which one.”
“Katie Harmon.”
I’ve never felt every muscle in my body coil at once.
“Why?” I yell in his face.
“The…the deed. I don’t know anything else.”
“Shut up, Vince!” the other man screams, thrashing around.
I motion for Ace to get him out of here.
When he’s gone, I drop Vince to the floor and drag his ass to a chair.
This time I press the knife to his jugular. “Start talking.”