Chapter Twenty-Four
Pike
Everything felt wrong as I got closer to Steel City.
It wasn’t the weather, the night air was perfectly cool, leaving the road warm from the unusually hot day and the ride had been a good one.
It wasn’t my bike either, she ran as smooth as ever.
But something crawled under my skin. It was an unsettling feeling I couldn’t shake no matter what I did.
Somebody was watching me.
I couldn’t see it, but I felt it all around me. Here on the desert road I was completely exposed.
Maybe it was the guilt over leaving Chloe and Gemma, that feeling hadn’t left me since I got on my bike.
I knew they’d be safe up there as long as Chloe was diligent about protection, which I knew she would be.
I knew all that, but it didn’t make one fucking bit of difference as my bike ate up the road.
My instincts, my gut, all said that leaving was a mistake.
The sooner I got to Steel City and handled the Ghost Riders, the sooner I could get back to Chloe and Gemma.
But thirty miles from Vegas, that unease became reality when I spotted the black muscle car trying to keep its distance on the deserted highway.
At first, I thought it was just another car on the road, maybe a traveler trying to avoid daytime traffic, but when I sped up the black car sped up to keep me within his sights and when I hit my brakes, they slowed down too, as if they wanted to keep a certain amount of distance between me and them.
It was too fucking consistent to be a coincidence.
I scanned the road in search of a quick exit, anything that would allow me to put more distance between us. I sped up through a curve and went full throttle, hoping to get off the highway and take an alternate route and lose them for good, but the car kept up.
Stupid fuck that I am, I was too focused on the black car that I didn’t see the real threat until it was too late.
A glint of light flickered on the side of the road, just off the shoulder. A man crouched down near the brush that was too small to conceal him completely. That’s when I saw it, the rifle resting on his shoulder.
“Shit.” I made a rookie mistake, hitting the gas and locking up my brakes so that the fucking bike went down. Asphalt tore through my jeans and then my skin, and I bit back a groan. My shoulder screamed like a motherfucker and my ribs burned as I rolled to a stop.
But I didn’t stay down. Didn’t think.
I couldn’t. Hesitation in this instant was certain death.
Adrenaline pumped through me, and I jumped to my feet, charging the bastard on the side of the road with his gun aimed my way.
He squeezed the trigger, the sound echoed in the empty desert a second before it grazed my shoulder.
That didn’t slow me down, I was too fucking pissed off to stop, and I took that anger and slammed into him as hard as I could.
On top of that asshole, my fists rained down on him even as my shoulder screamed in pain.
The fight was a blur of arms and fists, slamming and blocking, grunts and groans as we beat the fuck out of each other. I was angry and that anger caused me to make another mistake. I was too focused on one asshole to worry about the others.
Hands grabbed my shoulders. Boots slammed into my sides. A fist pounded against the side of my head. It was a beatdown and I could take that shit like a champ, but then a bag fell over my head, plunging me into darkness.
The familiar zip of plastic ties tightened around my wrists before my arms were raised.
I kicked out at the attackers I couldn’t see, but there was nothing there, just concrete beneath the heels of boots as my body was dragged and then lifted in the air before my back hit the cold, hard metal that I knew instinctively was a van, even before the door slid shut.
My heart raced but I refused to show any hint of doubt or fear, knowing these motherfuckers—the Ghost Riders, no doubt—would use it against me.
I kept my breathing slow and even, trying like hell to count the turns and listen to any familiar sounds, hell I even tried to count out the minutes to figure out how far we’d gone.
To figure out where the fuck they were taking me.
But despite the fact that they were stupid fucks, they knew what they were doing.
This wasn’t their first kidnapping, and they made sure to keep me confused and disoriented.
One asshole shouted nonsense in my ear while loud metal music blasted from the speaker beside me.
Someone kept fucking touching me to keep me out of sorts.
There was no rhythm to it, nothing but complete and total fucking chaos.
When the vehicle finally came to an abrupt stop, I couldn’t say if I was back in Steel City, Red Rock, or somewhere else altogether.
Two sets of arms hooked around my shoulders and dragged me from the van.
My boots slammed on the ground and then dragged again, but I noticed that gravel broke up the flat cement.
Instead of freaking out, I tried to calm myself down, the way I used to when my folks were high and fighting, destroying the apartment.
That’s when I noticed other shit, the smell of motor oil and that slightly rusted scent of old metal.
The metallic scent of blood, a large quantity of blood, ran underneath all the other smells.
The zip ties were cut but I couldn’t see fuck all so there was no point making a move.
Yet. But then I felt the cool touch of metal against my skin, wrapping around my wrists and even before the clanking of metal tore through the air, I knew what was happening.
Chains bound me, dragged me up in the air until my feet dangled freely beneath me.
My shoulder burned like a son of a bitch and my ribs throbbed enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I kept my fucking mouth shut.
I let them think I was broken. Defeated.
I pushed away all thoughts of my MC. Of Chloe and Gemma. Of Ashley. I shoved it all down deep and focused on the moment. The sounds and the smells, so that I could come up with a way out of this shit.
A door opened and then closed in the distance, followed by footsteps, heavy and slow.
And then I heard the voice of the man who I didn’t know until recently but was now my sworn enemy.
“Look at what the fuck we caught.” Amusement colored his voice, but I didn’t react.
Vendetta was an asshole, but he also loved the sound of his own voice, thought he was always the smartest motherfucker in every room.
He was the new President of the Ghost Riders MC, the one who thought shooting his way into power made him king. It wasn’t a way to earn loyalty and as soon as I got the chance, I’d use that shit against him.
The hood still covered my eyes, but I heard his slow, heavy-booted steps circling me below like a goddamn vulture.
But the more he walked, the more details came into focus.
Concrete floors and the sound of cars and trucks in the distance said we were in a garage or warehouse, so not in the city proper.
“Been waiting a long time for this, Pike.” I didn’t need to see his ugly mug to know he was smiling. “Pretty fuckin’ stupid of you, traveling alone right now.”
He wasn’t wrong but I said nothing.
He snatched off the hood eventually, his need to get a rise out of me was building. “I was sorry to hear about your sister.” He smacked his lips and shook his head as if he was really fucking sorry. “It didn’t have to go down like it did.”
He thought he could rile me up, but he was wrong. I was still angry as fuck about Ashley’s death, and I knew I’d never stop grieving her, but I also knew that my goal for the foreseeable future was vengeance.
Vendetta’s nostrils flared, angry that he wasn’t getting a reaction out of me.
“Funny how she never said a word, never gave us what we wanted.” He flashed a devious smile, getting off on reliving this shit.
“She begged a little but only at the very end. She never gave up the little girl,” he said with a hint of pride. “Too bad it didn’t save her.”
Yeah, too fucking bad. My hands curled into fists above me, more to keep some feeling in my hands than suppress my anger. “That’s what this is about,” I asked, my tone incredulous. “Revenge because the big man can’t get his hands on a little girl?”
He stopped in front of me, his jaw clenched tight. “This is a message.”
I smiled. “Deliver it like a fucking man, then,” I spit the words at him.
The punch came quick, but I expected it, and I braced myself as well as I could for the hit. He didn’t know about the ribs when the fist landed, and pain exploded through my torso, but I ate it and let out a slow breath.
I didn’t give him shit and that pissed him off even more.
His next hit was a backhand, the ring on his hand sliced through my cheek. He grinned, satisfied he’d left his mark. “You talk too fuckin’ much. Too bad your sister didn’t.”
“Still pissed she didn’t give you what she wanted, huh?” I smiled, taunting the little man so desperate to feel big.
“Shut the fuck up!” There it was, the panic I was looking for. That edge of uncertainty that made his voice wobble.
I laughed out loud, the sound echoed all around me as I took in the rows of empty shelves, the bay doors that told me this was some kind of receiving area for big rigs.
“I thought you wanted to be king, Vendetta. This is what you wanted, right? Start a war and end up dead just like your former Prez. What a fucking legacy.”
His hands fisted at his sides. “You think we’re scared of your little club?” It was a cheap shot, and it told me more about him than he realized.
I didn’t need to hit back on that point because the Steel Demons were a goddamn institution.
We didn’t need to swing our dicks, they swung on their own.
“You don’t have to be scared for the damage to land.
You’ve hit us a few times, a few dings here and there, but we haven’t hit back.
Not yet.” I let those words hang in the air, settle into the men who watched us carefully. “Not really.”
He shifted. It was nearly imperceptible, but I heard it and more importantly, I saw it. He was worried.
“You want to be nothing but another flash? You keep this shit up and you won’t even last as long as Blade.” I shook my head the way he did, sighing heavily as if I gave a fuck what happened to him. “Forget about the girl and you get to live to fight another day.”
He snapped, bracing his feet wider than shoulder distance apart and throwing another punch that landed in my gut. Another hit my ribs. Again. Two more landed against my side.
I let my body hang freely, smiling as I took the hits.
They hurt but not as much as my fucking ribs.
I kept smiling though because I knew who Vendetta was now, he wasn’t a leader.
He was a little fuckin’ boy playing at being a leader.
“Hey man, I’m just lookin’ out for you. You’re gonna lose men you can’t afford to lose while you rebuild your MC. ”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” He roared the words in another display of ego and impulse.
I shrugged with a smile. “Keep going and there won’t be an MC to save.”
Fear flashed in his eyes but only I saw it.
And I pushed. “You guys willing to die for a man who wants to kill a little girl? Trust me, it’s a war we’ll gladly fight if we have to.” In fact, it was a war I welcomed, and I knew in that moment that I’d be the one to kill Vendetta myself.