Chapter 56
Gabriella
With Rachel leading the way, we raced through the streets of Leeds in the same formation as our men would have done during a Devil’s ride.
I was up near the front as old lady of the vice, Imogen and Gemma were behind me as old ladies of Trent and Ant, and the rest of the old ladies fell in behind them, with Steph and Beth both agreeing to ride in the car so the kids had transportation to get back.
Rachel tore through the city like a woman possessed.
Speed limits, traffic, pedestrians —none of it meant anything to her.
She wove through cars, she dodged lampposts and street signs, and blared her horn in warning to anything else.
If they didn’t move, that was their fault.
For those that dared answer her back, they were met with her gun as she fired off a warning shot.
That was enough to have the traffic moving out of our way for the next few miles.
Greg, Trent, and Chris were left in the dust, barely having time to kick their bikes into gear before we rode off, intent on bringing those kids back with or without them.
But secretly knowing the men wouldn’t be far behind.
We arrived at the reservoir in record time, and as we slowed down our bikes, my stomach lurched at the number of bikers waiting for us.
Rachel was off her motorbike before the engine had even come to a stop.
“Hello,” one of the men drawled. “What do we have here? It’s—”
His words were silenced as Rachel’s fist connected with his face, knocking him out cold.
“Where the fuck is Nico?” she demanded, pointing her gun at the next biker.
I jumped off my own bike and raced towards her, standing by her side as a show of support. I saw the other women in my peripheral, either lining up with Rachel or standing just behind us.
“Is this the feared Devil’s Disciples?” one of the men asked.
I didn’t recognise him. He definitely wasn’t one of the Riders from the Leeds charter. I knew all the men there—many of them intimately, thanks to Nico.
Which made me think these must be old friends from Nico’s old membership in the Manchester charter.
The same friends that had stood by him whilst he raped and murdered his own sister.
Yeah… this was going to be a fucking disaster.
“They really needed to send their old ladies to do the job for them?” another chuckled.
“Oh, no,” Rachel smirked. “They didn’t need to send their old ladies. But they did recognise it would be the wisest thing to do.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said. “And why’s that?”
Rachel walked closer to him, standing up on her tiptoes as she whispered in his ear.
“Because there’s one thing in this world you don’t take from a woman, and that’s her fucking children. You ever seen what a lioness does when you go near her cubs? And you stupid cunts just took your foot off the lion’s neck.”
She shot her gun then, blasting a hole in the throat of the man who had been laughing at her.
One of the other men launched at her, and without thinking, my old combat training kicked into action.
My leg shot up, knocking the gun from his hand, and the other women launched.
The first man hit the floor before the others even realised the fight had started.
But Rachel didn’t stop to admire her handiwork.
She stepped over him, as though he were nothing but a nuisance, and grabbed the next Rider by the front of his cut.
“What the fu—”
She drove her forehead into his nose, hissing at the pain briefly before she jammed her fingers into his eye sockets.
I’d already heard bone crunch beneath the impact of the headbutt, but that was soon drowned out by the squealing of the man as Rachel tore through his eyeballs, pushing her fingers harder and harder.
“You’ve got my fucking kids!” she snarled at him. “Where are they?”
The other Riders looked on in horror, but then Rachel looked up at them and gave them a bone-chilling grin.
“Deal with them, ladies.”
“With pleasure,” Sasha said, pushing to the front of the queue. “You,” she grinned, gesturing at the largest of the men and crooking her finger in a come-hither motion.
As he stepped forward, he chuckled slightly.
He was so busy underestimating Sasha’s small frame that he didn’t see Rachel pluck her fingers from the Rider’s eyes.
He didn’t see her wrap her arms around his legs.
And as he went stumbling forward, he didn’t see the metal pole Sasha swung until it connected with his face.
I, however, very much did see the blood pour from his mouth and shoot out of his nose.
They all came at once then.
Sasha swung the tyre-iron again, driving it into the head of one of the other men. He fell to the floor with a thud, and, after throwing her head back in the air and hollering, Sasha drove the metal down onto his face over and over again.
Jade was punching someone repeatedly. Steph had Monster’s knuckledusters on and was jabbing at another man. Gemma took a nasty whack to the face, but just before the Rider could bring his boot down on her head, she grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it into his eyes.
“You cheating little bitch!” he snarled at her.
“So sue me!” she yelled back, flipping onto her feet and jumping on his back, biting down on his ear as hard as she could, wrapping all of her limbs around him tightly.
Beth had a broken bottle in her hand and was wielding it as a sword before she grabbed a man from behind and held it against his neck.
He swallowed heavily, but before he could defend himself and break her hold, The Birds came along and repeatedly kicked him in the dick until he was curled up on the floor, his hands between his legs trying to protect himself.
I saw all of it, but none of it really registered.
Because as all of this was happening, someone grabbed my shoulder and instinct took over.
I trapped his wrist, twisted his arm and threw him over my hip. He landed awkwardly, winded and surprised. I took advantage of his shock and brought the heel of my boot into his nose, breaking it with one firm kick.
As he howled out in pain, another man rushed me.
This time I didn’t wait to be grabbed.
I stepped inside his reach and drove my elbow into his throat, following it with a punch to his temple.
“Gabriella!” Rachel shouted, drawing my attention just in time to see another man aiming at her back.
I snatched the metal pole out of Sasha’s hands and launched it, whacking him across his back.
He wasn’t overly hurt, but he was taken off guard. Which gave Rachel time to strike. From her position on the ground, she rolled to the side and fired once, stopping the Rider in his tracks, clutching his shoulder, desperately trying to dislodge the bullet.
As blood spurted from his lips, I chuckled, knowing it had hit his lungs.
He was no longer a target.
Around us, the fight dissolved into complete chaos.
Jade had somehow managed to acquire someone else’s crowbar and was swinging it wildly.
Imogen was biting a man’s hand, trying to steal his knife.
I watched as she brought her other hand between his legs and squeezed his bollocks with all of her strength.
He yelped in pain, dropping the knife, and she wasted no second replacing her hand with the knife, slicing his bollocks in half.
Beth and Steph were working together, one distracting while the other landed blows from behind.
And whilst they were handling themselves well, they weren’t without their injuries.
Steph’s lip was busted open, blood running down her chin and chest. Imogen had a huge slash down her arm that would definitely need a lot of stitches. Sasha and Jenna were both sporting black eyes and cuts.
We weren’t graceful and we weren’t tactical. We were running off pure feminine rage, but our strength was waning.
But we had taken down the majority of them, and as the engines rumbled behind us and tyres screeched to a stop, I knew we didn’t have to worry about a thing.
Dante came off his bike, and the whole area seemed to freeze at the rage that simmered off him. He walked over to Rachel and grabbed her chin, staring down at her intently.
“Who hit my wife?” he said, his voice barely audible.
But somehow, we heard it anyway. I shivered at the intensity of the barely controlled anger beneath his words.
“Who. Hit. My. Fucking. Wife?” he said, gritting his teeth as he spoke.
“I killed him,” Rachel whispered to him, grabbing hold of the arm that was gripping her chin.
“Of course you fucking did,” he grinned before kissing her deeply.
And then he snatched the gun from her hand and spun, firing off three quick rounds, each of them hitting a different Rider in the chest.
“Show off,” Rachel muttered from behind him.
I felt a large presence approach me from behind before two strong arms wrapped around me and spun me around, inspecting me just as intently as Dante had done.
“You good?” he asked me.
“Please,” I scoffed.
I heard a whimper and spun back around as the last remaining Rider tried to back away from Dante, who was leisurely stalking towards him. He raised both hands in surrender, looking around as though help was coming.
“I don’t want any trouble,” he said, his voice trembling.
Dante shot his leg, destroying his kneecap. “You should have thought of that before you took my kids.”
He seized the man by his cut and hauled him into the air until he was face to face with him. “Where are they?”
“I don’t—”
Another shot fired off, and I saw that Dante had fired with his free hand, the gun pressed against the man’s stomach.
“Wrong fucking answer,” Dante growled. “I’ll ask one last time.”
“They’re… they’re at the playhouse.”
“Where?” Dante growled as my stomach dropped.
“The abandoned playhouse,” I whispered, looking over my shoulder at Vienna. He nodded at me. “Dante, I know where they are!”
Dante released the Rider instantly and turned to me, his eyes almost black with fury. I couldn’t help but gasp and stumble back slightly. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I said, swallowing heavily. “Remember that shithole we all used to fight over?”
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
I almost stomped my foot in frustration. “The one that Vienna climbed the roof of, declaring himself king of the castle.”
“And then fell off and broke his arm,” he said quietly, everything coming flooding back.
“The very one.”
Rachel grabbed his hand, almost swaying as relief rushed through her. Dante wrapped his arm around her shoulder, holding her steady without a word.
“Come with me,” he demanded. “The rest of you, get this fucking shit show cleaned up. Gabriella, you better get up front and lead the way.”