Chapter Seven #2
There is a huge bang. A door crashing open.
Scarlet catches her breath, a terrified whimper.
“Search the fucking place!” A deep male voice. “Find her.”
The phone goes dead.
Something in me dies too. My heart turns black with terror and fury. I’m on my bike now, my brothers around me, and we are tearing out of the clubhouse lot. People stare. Cars get out of our way. The roar of our combined anger vibrates through my chest.
If I was mad before, now I’m beyond that. I would sell my soul to the devil to secure retribution. They’ve brought Scarlet into the crossfire, not once but twice, and for that they’ll burn.
Getting to Belly is bad enough, fucking hideous, but Scarlet, sweet Scarlet who I dragged into this. I can’t live without her.
That thought jumps into my brain. But it’s quickly replaced with the need to decapitate anyone who hurts even one hair on her head.
I speed up. The wind hits my face and the engine roars between my legs.
I don’t let myself imagine what is going on at the safe house.
What good will that do? I just have to get there with my brothers at my side.
We are bound by steel and sin and there is no one else I’d rather have fighting beside me.
****
Scarlet
“Consuela, wake up.” I shake her, my hands trembling and my heart skipping to a crazy tempo. Sweat pops on my brow.
“Mmm ... what?” She opens her eyes a fraction.
“They’re here.”
“Who?” She must see the look of terror on my face because she springs to sitting.
“The Hyenas.” I look around and spot a wardrobe. It will have to do. “Come on, we have to hide. They’ve burst the door open downstairs.” Quickly I remove her drip. She’ll be okay without it. She’s taking fluids well now.
She moves with surprising quickness and I guess she’s had a spurt of adrenaline.
There’s banging downstairs, shouts too.
We move across the room. I have my arm around her waist, half-dragging, half-supporting her. In my other hand I hold Reaper’s gun. It’s cool and heavy and feels strangely alien but I’m really glad I have it.
We go into the cupboard and I shut the slatted door. We’ve left evidence, lots of it, it will be obvious we’ve been here but with no vehicles outside perhaps they’ll believe we left.
“Where the fuck is she?” A deep angry voice. “Find the little bitch.”
Consuela cowers in the corner, her dark eyes wide and her bottom lip trembling.
“It will be okay.” I squat next to her with my arm around her shoulder.
“Shoot them.” She nods at my gun. “Shoot them all.”
“How good is your aim?” I ask.
“I’ve never held a gun in my life.”
“Me neither.” The gun is shaking as I aim it at the cupboard door, about halfway up so I’ll hit mid-torso if someone opens it.
It sounds as if the place is being ransacked. Banging and crashing. Something smashes. Heavy hands and footsteps combined with loud angry voices switching between Spanish and English.
“Where are the men? Your men?” Consuela whispers.
“They’re not my men, they just brought me here to care for you.” Perhaps one of them was my man?
“It will all be for nothing if they find us. We will both be dead.” A tear runs unchecked down her cheek.
“We will fight,” I say. “Until Reaper gets back. I called him. He won’t abandon us.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Shit. So do I. The last time I was this frightened, Billy was on a rampage with a knife and I’d hidden in the basement until he’d passed out drunk. But now there was no basement and these guys were not drunk. They were determined and vicious and our chances were slim.
The rhythmic thumping of floorboards tells me they are coming up the staircase. I place my finger on the trigger and try to steady my racing heartbeat.
“Madre de maría ayúdame.” Consuela crosses herself.
Someone is in the room. He’s big and dark and his shadow falls over the slatted door of our hiding place.
“Hey, they’ve been here,” he shouts. “And the fucking pillow is still warm.”
“Find her, kill her,” someone shouts up from downstairs.
“Roger that, Boss.”
Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.
I brace. There’s no way this is going to work out well. He’ll find us. Then either I kill him or he kills us.
The wardrobe door opens abruptly and a huge bearded biker glares in at us. He has a hunting knife in his hand and growls when he sees us.
I aim for his chest, at a flame-eyed skull on his t-shirt. I shoot. I hit.
Surprise crosses his eyes briefly and then he falls backward like a tree being felled.
“Come on.” I grab Consuela’s hand, my ears ringing. “We have to escape.”
“What the fuck?” More footsteps and shouting on the stairs.
We reach the window and before more scary bikers arrive in the room, Consuela opens it. I turn.
“Shit, man, they’ve killed Dunbar!”
I see the fury in this new biker’s eyes as he looks at the dead man on the floor and then my gun. So I shoot again. Another decent shot and he goes down clutching his belly.
“Fucking bitch! Fucking bitch shot me.”
“Get out the window. Climb onto that roof.”
I didn’t need to give Consuela instructions. She’s already out of the window. I’m about to follow when thick mean arms lock around my waist. I’m pulled onto a brick wall of a chest and the gun is wrestled from my hands.
“Get the fuck off me!” I shout as I wriggle and writhe. “You have no idea ... who...”
I am struck around the head with something hard and metal. “Shut up, bitch, you’re gonna pay for what you’ve done, no two ways about it.” Another whack that rattles my teeth and then everything fades to black.
When I wake my hands are tied in my lap and I’m propped up on the sofa. Consuela is next to me shaking.
There’s a ripping sound. The t-shirt she’s wearing is torn at the neck to reveal her tattoo. “Yeah, this is the one. Got our mark.”
“Good.” A tall lean biker, with an eye patch, puffs agitatedly on a cigarette and paces. “Get rid of her first.”
“What, no!” I try to stand but I’m forced back down with a rough shove. My head spins and my temple throbs. “She’s just a girl. She’s been abused by you, let her go.”
“And who the fuck are you?” He points at me. “I wanna know before I put a bullet between your eyes.”
“I’m a doctor, caring for her. I can prove it. Look in my purse.”
“A doctor. Handy, got someone bleeding out over there, thanks to you.” He nods at a chair that holds the biker I shot in the guts. He is pasty and there’s a pool of blood on the floor at his feet.
“I can fix him up. Patch up that wound.” I lift my hands. “Untie me and I’ll get to it.” I downturn my mouth. “Dude’s not looking so hot. No time to lose.”
He grimaces and then nods at his buddy who pulls a knife from his belt.
But before he moves toward me, there’s a low rumble. It gets louder. Faster. Until it’s unmistakably the sound of bike engines.
“Thank fuck,” I mutter.
Eye Patch Guy rushes to the window. “Fucking Sons of Sin are here. I thought they’d pissed off for the day.”
“I guess they’ve got pussy here.” The guy with the knife snarls my way then pulls a gun.
I look at Consuela. She’s trembling and as white as a sheet of paper.
“They’ve come back for us,” I whisper. “Stay strong.”
There are four Hyenas in the room, all carrying, all snarling. Their hackles are clearly raised. I nod at the kitchen area. If they all start shooting, the breakfast bar Reaper fucked me on might give us some protection.
Eye Patch Guy is shouting orders to his men. They are huddled at the windows. One is by the door. An air of menace surrounds them. They are on the hunt for blood, ready for the kill.
Consuela and I slip unnoticed to the kitchen area. We duck into a corner and huddle together. I feel naked without the gun but I find a steak knife and cut the ties at our wrists.
There is a bang on the door, like knuckles rapping, but before anything else happens it’s smashed open, flying off one hinge.
Consuela shakes and tries to make herself smaller.
All I see is Reaper. Deadly. Handsome. Furious. A killing machine.
“You’re on our fucking turf,” he yells as he points his gun at Eye Patch Guy. “Now you pay the price.”
“I don’t think so. You have something of ours.”
Reaper steps in, flanked by three more bikers. I recognize Tank and Ghost but not a third. I risk a look out the window and see at least ten more bikers all ready for action.
When I turn back around, a Hyena is in front of me. He grabs me and slams me to his revolting body. The sickening glint of a blade flashes before my eyes and I feel its sharp coolness on my neck.
I freeze. Reaper freezes too. His top lip curls into a snarl. “Let her go.”
“Ah, so she’s your pussy,” Eye Patch Guy says. “Gonna miss her, are you? When we slit her throat.”
“You fucking hurt her.” His voice is tight, choked. He doesn’t take his attention from me. “I swear your shriveled nuts will be hanging from my handlebars for the next ten years.”
Another biker has Consuela in a tight grip but thankfully no knife at her carotid.
Tank lets out a growl and steps toward her.
“Keep the fuck back.” Eye Patch Guy aims his gun at Reaper. “We’ve got one of ours to deal with. She fucked up. Only herself to blame.”
My heart stutters. It’s a sickening sight. So much hate and so much damage about to be played out that will only end one way.
“Reaper,” I gasp, clutching the thick hairy arm of my captor. “Please, let them take me, not her. She’s a child.”
“No one is going anywhere with these assholes.” A biker behind Reaper raises his gun and neatly shoots the guy holding Consuela between the eyes. He drops down dead.
She steps away, screaming. And then all hell breaks loose. There are more gunshots, knives are drawn, shouts, and yells.
The asshole holding me takes one to the leg and stumbles, the knife falling, but he doesn’t let go. He clings tight to my upper arms. I twist and tug and pull at the tight clamp of his fingers. He doesn’t let up.
A roar at my side and a furious Reaper is there, serrated knife in his hand. He goes for a neck stab and buries the blade deep. Blood spurts from my tormentor’s neck.
“Die and burn in hell.” Reaper clutches the biker’s face and stares into his eyes. “And know it’s because you touched her you’re dead.” He withdraws the blood-coated knife then buries it deep again. The guy is blacking out fast. His lips pale and his pupils widen.
“Reaper,” I gasp, backing up.
The room is mayhem but all I see is the violence, the vengeance, the absolute fury in Reaper’s blood-spattered face.
The biker falls to the floor and lands in a pool of his own blood. Dead.
Reaper grabs me and pulls me out of the line of fire between Tank and Eye Patch Guy. “Stay down.”
He half hides behind the counter as he fires off a series of sharp shots. A grunting yell tells me he hit at least one target.
“Die, bastard!” Tank shouts and there’s another thump, a body hitting the floor.
Consuela looks at me from where she’s cowering beside the refrigerator. She looks so fragile and young. I hate that she’s experiencing this.
“Jesus.” Reaper straightens and drops his gun to his side. “What do you reckon, that them all?” He looks at me. “Are there more upstairs?”
“One.”
He flicks his attention to the stairs.
“He’s dead. I shot him.”
“Fuck.” He reaches for me and pulls me close. “I’m sorry you had to do that.”
I look up at his face, at the wildness in his eyes. “I had no choice.”
“You survived. That was your choice and you took it.”
I gulp and a tremble goes up my spine. My knees are weak, barely supporting my body.
“Hey.” He runs a hand over my hair. “It’s okay. I’m here now. Nothing gonna hurt you.”
I close my eyes. Instantly the violent images of death fill my mind. I gasp.
“Aw, honey.” He pulls me closer still, his leather cut soft and his body strong and solid.
“We gotta get out of here,” he says after a moment. “This place needs to be torched.”
“What?” I pull back and look around. “Why?”
“Best way to get rid of evidence. And there’s a lot of it.”
He was right, there were four bodies in the room. Eye Patch Guy lay with his limbs akimbo on the floor beside the sofa with a bullet in his temple.
I struggle to feel empathy for him. It was either he bite the dust or me. I’d been a wound dressing away from being dead at his hands. Consuela too.