Chapter 48
Bane
“Why the hell can’t I stab Destiny?” Pix twirls one of her knives as I drive the windowless white van to the location Vito sent me. “You know she’s responsible for whatever upset Slade. Let me cut a bitch.”
My suspicions are the same about Destiny, but when I questioned—okay, it was more of an interrogation—she and the other Bunnies all claimed the same story: that Destiny was giving Slade a heads-up that Cherry had gotten the new food order I had placed for her.
They were all pissing their pants, never having fully seen my brutal, dark side before, and Destiny, especially, was a blubbering mess at the end.
I had left as soon as I determined I wouldn’t get much more unless I tortured it out of them.
Normally, women are off-limits, but if they’re enemies of the MC, then all bets are off.
I considered it with Destiny, knowing she wouldn’t take much to break, but then Vito called to say he had the location.
I pull the van into a dark alley and park. Killing the ignition, I glance at Pix. She’s wired; not just because we’re going on the hunt, but because she’s worried about Slade. Over the past few weeks, Pix has bonded with her, something she’s only done with Zeus, Ash, Digits, Army, and me.
Pix stops twirling her knife while she looks at me. “You look like shit, big guy.” I rub my face, and she rests her hand on my forearm. “You got it bad for her, huh?”
“That obvious?”
She snorts and sheaths her knife inside her cut. “You’re a walking billboard.” She sobers. “Ready?”
I nod, and we get out. The alley is dark, the perfect place for monsters to be lurking. And two monsters are there, waiting for us, but they’re on our side. Vito and Raf.
“Digits took care of the CCTV cameras,” I confirm for them.
“He could just share his brainchild program, which blocks or deletes images of you Council members from any surveillance systems he has access to,” Vito complains.
“Good fucking luck.” Pix laughs. “Digits treats his tech developments like the Holy Grail.”
“You could put in a good word for us?” Raf—Raffaello Romani—steps closer to Pix, moving fully out of the shadows. He’s tall and cut, lean rather than bulky. “Couldn’t you, Pixer?”
She stiffens at the nickname that pretty much only Digits calls her, and she narrows her eyes.
Then, to my utter shock, he reaches to brush her long blonde hair behind her ear.
Pix is a tactile person; however, she allows no one to touch her without repercussions, unless it’s Digits, Army, Ash, or me.
Yet she doesn’t move away from his touch.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself just because of our chat after Tommaso’s funeral, Raf.”
I have no idea what chat they had, nor is that my main concern right now. Pix is my family, my sister—even though we share no blood—but Slade and the Mambo Posse in that building are my priority.
Vito studies Raf with a surprised look as well, before he shifts his gaze to the derelict building down the alley. “Two of Ace Marquez’s captains are on the top floor. Northside.”
“Do you want one of them or do we get both?” I ask Vito.
“We already have Marquez’s second-in-command, so we’ll let you have these two. I’ll smooth things over with Dom.”
“Thanks, Vito.”
Pix and I walk toward the derelict and dark building, but Raf blocks us, or rather, blocks Pix.
Twice, he has taken his life in his hands. And twice, Pix hasn’t pulled out the blades she loves. She’s usually much more stabby than this.
“I’ll come in for backup.”
I know Raf’s statement isn’t directed at me—and holy fucking shit, the balls on this guy.
Pix may be a tiny thing, pretty with blonde hair, a button nose, and even a little point to her chin.
Minus the leather cut, black boots, and a few tattoos, she looks like a delicate flower, a real-life Tinker Bell.
But Ash would’ve never made her the MC’s Enforcer if she wasn’t the best person for that role.
Everyone knows of Pix’s capabilities, and her inclination to stab first, ask questions never—we lovingly call her our little psycho Pixie for a reason. And Raf outright stated the Havoc Guardians’ Enforcer needs backup. I mean, yeah, no one can go solo all the time, but still…
But instead of stabbing, her knives stay sheathed as she glares up at him. “Don’t need backup, dickface.”
“That building is filled with people strung out on who the fuck knows what, and there could be more than the two captains holed up on the top floor.”
Pix and I are prepared if there were more; however, I’m not about to stand out here and argue.
“It can’t hurt,” I say to Pix, and she glares at me but doesn’t protest.
“I’ll stand guard outside,” Vito adds.
Pix pushes into Raf, finally pulling out one of her knives and holding it under his chin. “If you try to intervene and save me like some damsel in distress, I’ll happily castrate you and feed you your balls.”
Raf grins as she stalks away, watching her. “Is it wrong that I have wood right now?”
Vito and I exchange a look as Raf follows her, and he just shrugs.
Shaking my head, I catch up with them. The tension has shifted, and Raf and Pix are in battle mode as we approach the building from the back. We find a broken window to enter, rather than waltzing in through the door, and pull out our guns.
Pix pushes forward to go first, and I clamp a hand on Raf’s shoulder to stop him from stopping her.
“She’s the club’s enforcer,” I remind him in a low voice.
His brow is pinched, but he lets her go.
She easily fits through the window, then waves at us to follow.
I motion for Raf to go, and he gets through without disturbing any of the broken glass.
I follow, having a bit more difficulty fitting my big body through.
My boots quietly crunch the glass and debris on the floor of what looks like an old office.
We move to the door across the empty room as a unit.
Once we reach it, we pause and cautiously look out into the next room.
Streetlight filters in through the front windows, providing enough light to reveal the dingy space that has lumps scattered on the floor—people rough sleeping and using this place as their refuge.
From the sounds of it, some are fucked out of their minds, and the smell assaults us. The stench of dirty bodies, piss, and weed mixes with the smell of smoked crack.
No one appears to pay us any attention as we walk through the room. But we remain alert and ready in case anyone enters psychosis from their drugged haze. Or if someone is hiding in this pile of human pain and suffering, waiting to strike.
We reach the out-of-order elevator on the far side of the room and the stairwell beside it. A man is slumped against the wall, and Pix crouches in front of him. Raf looks like he wants to stop her, but I shake my head, warning him to stand down.
Pix leads a life of sobriety. The first part of her life had been hell—caged, literally, at times, used as an ashtray, and worse, by her depraved bitch of a mother.
When Zeus had caught wind of it and that her dad, a member of the MC, hadn’t done anything to intervene, he put a bullet into both her parents’ skulls, then adopted Pix.
At eleven years old, she was already drinking alcohol and using drugs as a means to cope, but she doesn’t touch any impairing substance now.
She’s not judging this man, lost in his addiction and looking like he’s no longer part of the living; it’s empathy that crosses her face.
She puts her fingers to his neck, and the guy lifts his head. Pix says something that we can’t hear, and the man smiles, then lowers his head again. She stands and leads the way without looking back at us.
We follow close behind her, weapons at the ready, eyes scanning for threats as we climb the stairs to the top floor. At the top, Pix motions for me to go high and she’ll go low as we clear the entrance.
It’s dark up here, and we need to use our small flashlights. The hallway is desolate, lined with what looks like bachelor-style apartments. All the doors are missing, but we take the time to clear each one to ensure no one is here as we make our way to the north corner of the building.
We’re partway down the last hallway when a woman’s scream cuts the silence in the building.
We continue faster now, until we reach the last apartment; this one has a solid door.
Muffled cries and whimpers of pain, along with male voices and grunts, come from within the apartment.
I can almost see Pix levitating with rage.
“We need at least one alive,” I remind her.
She nods as she fists knives in both hands. She steps to the side, and I kick the door, knocking it right off its rusted hinges.
The streetlights from outside spill light into the apartment as the three of us rush in, taking the four men by surprise.
Raf fires a shot, hitting one right between his eyes, and Pix swings her arm in a lightning-speed arc, slashing another guy across his throat.
I go for the two kneeling on the floor, raping a woman—one is behind her, the other forcing his pathetic dick into her mouth.
I pick up the one who’s kneeling behind the woman and clamp my hands around his head and squeeze while I lift him.
He screams in pain as I crush his head, his legs kicking and flailing.
Raf moves behind the one kneeling in front of the woman and jerks him away, and zip-ties his hands behind his back.
The bloodthirsty demon that lives within Pix is peering at me, and I give her what she wants and needs.
I force the guy I’m holding to his knees.
She crouches down in front of him and rams her knife into his stomach, and then lower, piercing through his dick and pinning it to his thigh.
Keeping her knife there, she pulls her long, thin knife from inside her cut, this one looking like a long ice pick, and holds it up for the guy to see.
“I’m sorry,” he blubbers. “I’m sorry.”
Without a word, Pix lifts the long, thin knife to his ear and presses in.
His screams fill the apartment as she slowly inserts the knife into his ear canal first, then, with a slight upward angle, shoves it harder until it enters his brain.
He’s not dead yet, and his breathing is frantic and erratic as she pulls it out before driving it into the back of his neck, severing the nerves that tell his heart to beat and his lungs to breathe, and he falls to the side.
The remaining Mambo Posse member stares in horror at his easily slain comrades and pleads for his life.
Pix motions for Raf to shut the guy up, and he quickly gags him using a filthy shirt.
I turn my attention to the woman who has scrambled away, huddling in terror, looking at us with wide eyes.
I go to help her, but she recoils and whimpers.
Pix pushes past me and kneels in front of her. “We won’t hurt you. We were here for these men, but we won’t hurt you.”
Raf and I exchange a look; leaving an eyewitness to us killing three people isn’t ideal. But neither is killing an innocent woman who had been violated.
“We won’t hurt you,” I affirm Pix’s claim. “What’s your name?”
Her long dark hair hangs in a lanky curtain on either side of her dirty face. “Valentina,” she whispers through her tears.
“Where are you from, Valentina?”
Her eyes dart to Raf and me.
“They won’t hurt you,” Pix reassures.
“Brazil.” The woman hiccups and tries to take a deep, calming breath.
“I was at the bar with my friends, but I woke up in a cell before these guys took me.” She’s trying to keep her ripped dress in place, and Raf pulls off his shirt before I can shrug out of my cut to get my shirt off, and he offers it to the woman.
“We can take you out of here,” Pix says. “Help you get to wherever you want to go. Home, the police station—”
“No,” Valentina says. “Neither of those places. Please.” She stares up at us. “I won’t tell, I promise. You saved me from hell. But I can’t go home…not yet.” Her voice cracks.
Raf steps closer to me. “Creed and Sophie are helping women who have been abused. Valentina could stay at Hope’s Legacy and get whatever help she needs. They’ll take care of her.”
Pix explains it all to Valentina again, who slowly and cautiously agrees, and Pix helps her to her feet.
I yank the last breathing guy to his feet by fisting his hair, and he screams into his gag.
Raf does quick work of yanking the guy’s pants up so I don’t have to touch his pathetic dick.
Then, I haul the guy to the kitchen counter and smash his face so hard into it that the rotted wood collapses under the force and he's out cold.
After I toss him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, Pix has Valentina ready to go, and we leave the apartment. We remain vigilant with weapons at the ready, but are met with no resistance.
We exit the building through the door instead of the window, and Vito emerges from the shadows. His brows hike high, seeing Valentina, and Raf quickly explains the situation.
While Pix and Raf take Valentina to Vito’s car, Vito comes to speak with me as I toss the sack of shit into the back of the van.
“Thanks for ensuring Valentina is taken care of, Vito.”
He regards me. “She could talk.”
“Yeah, it’s a risk.” I rub my jaw. “But, since Commissioner Talon himself takes a harsh stance against human trafficking, I think we can manage the risk even if she does.”
Vito nods. “You calling in one of your teams to clean up the scene?”
“Leave them for the rats.”
“Call me if you need anything else. We’ll keep our ears to the ground for any more talk about your little bird.”
“Appreciate it.” I clap him on the back as Pix walks back to the van.
We climb in, then head back to the clubhouse, eager to get our captive into the Cell.