Chapter Sixteen
There are moments in life when you feel a sense of relief, so pure and devastating that it could bring you to your knees.
I’d had one of those moments when Ryder saved me from that bastard who I refused to name in my mind anymore, because he no longer had power over me.
This was another of them. Inside that compound, people I loved, and cared for, were fighting for their lives, even if some of them didn’t realise it.
This was our reinforcements arriving, our fucking salvation, and I could barely breathe for how much I needed them to fix things, and get Ryder out for me. Every moment we were apart, I was living in fear of returning to find him dead, and lost forever.
“Tor, back up a step,” Torch grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the range of the helicopter, and I couldn’t help it.
That kneejerk reaction I had, to being touched by someone other than Ryder, kicked in, and I jammed my elbow into his gut, turning to punch him.
It was a reflex. An instant reaction that I couldn’t hold back, especially with my nerves so wrought, and my fucking body trapped in the fight mode of the adrenaline rush.
“Fuck!” He cursed, backing up from me, with one hand up, and the other clutching his nose. I could see blood running down his chin, so I knew I’d scored a direct hit, but the guilt was punching me now, because I never meant to do that.
“I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”
He waved me off. “It was my fault. Don’t worry, just don’t block their landing, okay? We need their help.”
I pulled some tissues from my pocket, thankfully clean, and passed them to him, watching him use them to staunch the blood flow.
“Thanks. Look, I’m gonna head back in, and see if I can help hold them off, and get the gates held open. Brief your dad’s guys as fast as you can.”
I nodded, gesturing to his face again. “I’m honestly sorry, Torch, I’m not used to-”
“I know. I deserve it. Impressive moves you’ve got.
Guess you learned those growing up as the daughter of a mafia prick, huh?
” He grinned as he backed up, and turned to run toward the gates.
Dickhead. Still, I’d paid him back, hadn’t I?
He’d have to explain he got punched by a woman, and I liked that.
“Ms Rossi!” Four men jumped out of the helicopter, dressed in black and holding handguns, with rifles over their shoulders.
“It’s Mrs Carlson, as you well know,” I snapped at them, and then groaned, because that wasn’t really the point right now, was it?
“Ugh. Okay, so we have an unknown number of assailants who have infiltrated the compound, spiked the drinks with some kind of hallucinogen, and cut us off from the outside world.”
“Yeah, no shit. The drone was shot down, but we saw it was crazed in there. We were deployed immediately.”
Yeah, thanks to my dad, the ‘mafia prick’. It was time they all started showing him a little more respect. Especially with one of his men working undercover with them. Enough of them knew that, and yet, they still pushed their luck.
“We need you to get things under control in there. Be aware there are guns at play, and I don’t know if they’re intruders or friendlies. Nobody’s themselves right now, so don’t kill anyone. Just disarm.”
They started rolling their eyes, and I shot them a glare.
“Follow me, and let’s get them subdued. Gun?”
One of them passed me a handgun, and I checked that it was loaded, and ready to go.
“Let’s do this. But hear me, if you kill one of my people, I’ll kill you.”
I ignored their complaints as I ran for the gates, which were thankfully opening up right in front of us.
Ryder
It turned out that the night hadn’t turned to the lowest level of hell just yet. No, that came moments after I started away from the gate, and someone crashed into me, practically grinding my face into the dirt.
“Stay still, you fucking cunt.”
I didn’t recognise the voice, but I could hardly argue with him without getting a faceful of dust, or more than I was already getting.
Someone else called out to him, and he cursed. “Then we shouldn’t have left the fucking gate to check it out! I’m sure this is the only one who got this far. Track down the boss, and find out if we can just open fire and finish this.”
He practically sat on my back and I fought to take a breath, because the fucker was heavy.
“Yeah, let’s just kill everyone. See, asshole, I’m bored now, and you all just need to die.” He was apparently talking to me now. Who the fuck was he though, and why was he a part of whatever the hell this was?
“I thought we were just gonna kill all you useless assholes, but noooo, Roadkill had a ‘plan’, and it’s bullshit. Can’t believe I wanted to be patched in here. Bunch of fucking losers.”
Clearly he’d been a prospect, or had wanted to, but why the fuck was he taking his crap out on a bunch of guys, on behalf of… wait, Roadkill… I’d heard that name before. He’d been a Rogue Rider, before Micro cleaned house. Fucking Micro. It was always his damn fault.
“Aw sorry, can’t you breathe?” the guy mocked, actually letting me turn my head, and cough out the faceful of dust I’d been involuntarily snorting.
“This… fuck me… this is about… Micro?”
The guy laughed, leaning down to look at me, although with a fucking balaclava on, I couldn’t see anything but dark eyes, and a mocking grin.
“That prick ruined everything. I was weeks away from being patched in, but he fucking took Reaper down, right in front of me. Jesus. I thought he was gonna kill me too. You guys really trust that cunt?”
I shook my head, risking more dust in my eyes.
“Not really. He’s a bit of a twat, if I’m honest.”
The former prospect laughed, slapping a hand against the ground, and sending more dry dust up in a cloud.
“Right? I wanted to kill him myself, but of course Roadkill gets all the fucking fun. Haven’t seen him for a while now. He’s probably banging one of your old ladies. He likes fucking women when they’re off their faces on shit.”
The fuck? I struggled with his hold on me, thinking he might be too distracted to stop me, but he simply laughed, and moved, and agony erupted from my bullet wound as he must have pressed down on it.
“Calm down, look, I’m helping you. First aid, right? Apply pressure to the wound. Stop being such a baby.” He did it again, and I yelled out as fire burned up my leg, and my breath left my lungs in ragged breaths.
“Cunt… I’ll kill… you…” I rasped out, and he did it again, tearing another agonised yell from my throat.
“Yeah? You and whose army, you pathetic piece of crap. You wanna cry about-” the last word from his lips wasn’t as much a word, as it was a pained groan, and his weight left me rapidly.
I took the opportunity to roll over, so I could see what the fuck was happening.
A hand stretched down to me, and I stared up in surprise at a bloody-faced Torch.
“Sorry to interrupt your date, man, but we’ve got shit to do.” He smirked at me, and I let him drag me up, although the resurgence of pain in my calf nearly floored me again. The guy who’d been tormenting me was laying on his side silently beside me.
“He dead?”
Torch snorted, looping my arm over his shoulders, to help me bear my weight.
“Not yet, but he will be.”
Good. “So he can feel pain still… kick him in the junk for me. I don’t exactly have the balance right now, but he’s due some agony.”
Torch shrugged, a motion we both felt, as he braced me against him, and drew back his leg, planting it firmly in the fucker’s groin. The guy’s eyes flew open as he screamed out and cupped himself, and I grinned at him.
“Yeah, apply some pressure to that wound, you fucking cunt!”
“Okay, so can you help me get the fucking gates open, man? Rossi’s men are here.”
Thank fuck for that. We struggled back to the gates, and I helped unlatch them, for Torch to drag one back and out of the way, just in time for my beautiful fucking lady to appear, brandishing a gun like a seasoned pro, and bracketed by four guys in black.
“Babe!”
She took one look at me, dusty, pained, and scowled furiously.
“Who hurt you?”
I shrugged, jerking a thumb back at the prick practically sobbing a few metres away, as he cradled his mangled junk. He wasn’t so fucking smug now, huh?
“Any idea who he is?”
“Former prospect, apparently. I think they’re all disgruntled former Rogues.
He said Roadkill’s running the whole thing.
” She nodded, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and made her way over to the crying bastard.
She angled the gun down in his direction, and without even fucking hesitating, she blew his brains out, and then spat on his corpse.
“Fan out, and remember, subdue only. Nobody dies until we know who’s who. GO!”
I stared at my fucking goddess of a woman, who’d never looked more stunning than she was right now. Strong, powerful, and so fucking in charge. Would I let her fuck me later, when I wasn’t in agony? Hell yeah, but then when wouldn’t I?
Cammy
Having a baby in a war zone wasn’t on my fucking bucket list, so imagine my relief, when things suddenly seemed to start calming down around us.
Firstly, Stitch, who was rubbing my back, while I rested on my hands and knees on a small patch of grass, suddenly groaned the words ‘thank fuck for that’.
The next thing I heard was Tori’s voice, yelling at people to back the hell off, and then the words ‘don’t fucking kill them’, but I couldn’t look up to see what was happening, because another contraction tore through my body, and I screamed.
“Fuck, baby, I’m so sorry. This isn’t how this was supposed to happen, I know.” Stitch was crouching beside me, his warm hand soothingly rubbing my lower back.
“We had a plan, dammit… this wasn’t… the fucking plan!
” I felt like the cliché character in a fucking tv show.
You know the one, the pregnant bitch who decides to drop the damn baby at the most inconvenient time, and in the worst possible place.
This. This here was the worst place. I didn’t want to give birth without doctors, and meds, definitely something to help with this pain.
Hospitals were the last place Stitch was comfortable, after his cancer scare just before we met, but he knew I wanted to be where our baby would get the best chance. The right support, to be safe and healthy. This. Wasn’t. It.
“Breathe, baby, just breathe. Here’s Lissa, look, just let us get you through this. Help’s here, now. We’ll get you to the hospital as soon as we can. I know this isn’t the place. I know.”
“If you even try to suggest I hold the fucking baby in until we get somewhere, I’m going to remove your one remaining bollock, you hear me?”
I heard gasps from god only knows who, of the people milling around us, but Stitch just chuckled, stroking my hair back from my face.
“Ouch, baby. Too soon. It’ll always be too soon.”
I was a bitch. Was I really picking on the one thing about him that he feared had destroyed his life? Thank god he hadn’t taken it to heart. Thank god he knew that I was just terrified, and in pain, and exhausted.
A loud bang made me jump, and Stitch cursed, before I heard Tori yelling at someone.
“I SAID, DON’T KILL ANYONE! Who the hell did you just shoot?” Oh god. Someone was dead.
Stitch
Iwas freaking out about my poor woman, and the fact that she was literally in labour, as we fought to take back our club from unknown assailants, while the nearest building had nearly been our fucking funeral pyre.
The arrival of Rossi’s men, and admittedly, he’d only sent a couple, the stingy fucker, well, it should have been our salvation, but apparently one of them just killed someone, who just might be a member of the fucking club, and I couldn’t leave Camille to check it out.
Micro wasn’t faring any better, sitting up now, at least, but he’d taken a bullet somewhere near his chest, and wasn’t getting up without help.
“Someone needs to see who just fucking died. Ice! Get the fuck over there and see what’s what.”
“It was some cunt dressed in black,” one of Rossi’s men offered, probably trying to help, but I shot him a glare, because was he that fucking stupid?
“Most of us are dressed in fucking black, asswipe. If he killed one of my club brothers, I’ll gunfuck him, got it?”
He smirked, he actually fucking smirked. “Think the boss’ daughter has that under control.”
Tori was heading back for us, and you know what, four mafia guys, plus Tori, and apparently Grease, even though he was barely fucking moving either, oh and of course, our mercs, who’d decided I was their CO…
yeah, they’d just reined in the chaos. Nobody was on their feet still, and nobody was making a sound.
“It’s okay. It was some rando, one of the bad guys,” Tori said, as she dropped to her knees beside us.
“Cammy, they want you in the chopper, and they’ll airlift you straight to your maternity ward back home. There’s a doc on board waiting to travel with you too.” Oh thank fuck.
“What about the wounded?” I asked as I stood up, and offered Camille my arm, to help her up, with Tori propping up her other arm.
“More help is enroute, but you can’t have a baby here. You need to go with her, Stitch. We’ll lock this down.”
“It’s okay, VP, we’re under control,” Grease said, slapping my back, and nearly faceplanting beside me, “Jesus. I’mma just sit my ass down now, if that’s alright with you fuckers.” He landed pretty hard, and stayed down, clutching his bleeding head.
I lifted Camille’s chin and looked into her eyes. “We’re going now, baby. We’ll get to the maternity ward, and have this baby the way we planned, okay?” She nodded, her teeth digging into her bottom lip, as tears coursed down her cheeks.
“Please… I think we’re running out of time.”
Fuck. The last thing I wanted was for this baby to be born here in this fucking dump, especially on this night of all nights. And I was no more willing to let it happen in a fucking helicopter.
“They’ll take us to the nearest hospital, babe. We’re not risking a longer flight. I want you and the baby safe, as soon as fucking possible.”
And what do you know? My fucking woman just nodded at me. My old lady was letting me be in charge for once, and I wasn’t about to disappoint her for a second.