24. Hollywood
24
HOLLYWOOD
I f I thought dying was going to be easy, I had another fucking thing coming. They hauled me, KC, and Lore up, bound our hands and mouths, and forced us into the back of their SUV. I couldn’t see Coins, but I heard his angry shouts as they did the same to him.
I was pretty sure my rib was broken and every breath racked my body with agony, but fuck it, ya know? I’d make it through this with a broken rib, and if I could do something to protect Lore and KC, I would or I’d go down trying.
Lore held his shoulder while it leaked down his arm and KC’s leg had stopped oozing, but of the three of us, he looked like he was the closest to greeting Death. Not today, motherfucker. I just hoped if the bitch came for me, I was doing something that actually mattered. Trojan had gone out protecting Alba and Ru from these fuckers, and if I could do anything remotely similar, I’d make sure to hold out until I could.
I took a deep breath in through my nose, wincing when I struggled to inhale, and each bump in the road made my torso radiate with pain. I’d been shot three times, but none of those compared to this. On a scale of paper cut to “fuck-me-call-911,” I hovered somewhere around “put-me-out-of-my-misery.” Broken ribs were a son of a bitch.
A hard shove at my foot had me forcing my eyes open, meeting Lore’s stern gaze from the other side of the SUV. He gestured to his boot, hitting me in the arm again before glaring down at the thing.
I couldn’t remember if they checked us for weapons, but if they had, they’d done a piss-poor job. He had a knife sticking out of the top of the leather, right next to his sock. I tried to twist around so I could grab it with my hands behind my back, but I couldn’t move in the right direction to get it.
“Get your shit together, Matty,” came a deep, familiar voice in the back of my head.
“Trojan?” I thought, grimacing as more torment sliced through my body.
“No fucking shit,” he said. “Focus. Get KC’s attention.”
I nudged my brother next to me, nodding toward Lore’s boot and hoping he got the idea. KC’s face had grown almost as pale as his shirt had once been before blood and dirt soiled it. When he understood, he twisted his body so he could grab it, but his fingers kept slipping off the handle, too coated with sweat and crimson.
When KC finally palmed the blade, he twisted it around in his grasp so he could saw through the plastic zip ties on his wrists. These stupid fuckers had put the three of us together and given no one to watch us, so once he got his hands free, he turned to me so he could get mine loose, too.
Once Lore was out, KC set his sights on the driver, who currently argued with the passenger in Italian, gesturing to the roads like they didn’t know where they were or what they were doing. KC sat back in his original spot and held the knife like he was waiting for the right opportunity to use it. We turned into a driveway for a house I didn’t recognize, and when the passenger turned around to face us for the first time in however long, he realized we were out of our bindings.
“Hey!” He unhooked his seat belt and murmured something to the driver, causing him to slam on the brakes. The three of us careened forward, KC’s weight collapsing on top of mine, and I nearly screamed from how badly that fucking hurt.
But our cover had been blown, and KC hobbled forward, stabbing the knife into the driver’s neck three times before the passenger pistol-whipped KC in the face so hard that he collapsed on top of me. The driver lost control of the SUV and it hurdled off the road, slamming into a tree.
That sent scalding torture through my chest so badly that I lost consciousness. Pain ripped down my spine and through the back of my legs before everything went dark. I hovered in that strange peacefulness for entirely too short of a time before I heard shouts, beckoning me back to consciousness. My brother’s screams sounded from a distance, but they were too far away for me to make out. A hard smack to my cheek brought me back to reality, where two Caputi fucks dragged me out of the SUV and hauled me to my feet.
God. Fucking. Damn. It!
Everything throbbed and my head thundered so fucking bad I couldn’t focus. And if I couldn’t focus, I had no idea how we’d get out of this. They’d replaced the gag around my mouth so I couldn’t communicate with my brothers. Instead, I tried to take in my surroundings while we walked.
A rickety run-down house stood up ahead, the rafters hanging off the shithole and the windows long since broken and decayed. Several Caputi pricks stood on the porch out front, most of them carrying assault rifles or loaded down with pistols. The three of us were vastly outnumbered, even if we weren’t injured. Getting out of this was going to take a fucking act of God.
“That’s it?” one of the Caputi guards said, walking closer as he eyed us up and down. “The boss isn’t gonna be pleased about this.”
“I told her they were carrying an arsenal with them,” the fucker on my right said. “We lost five guys. We were lucky to bring in these four.”
I glanced behind me and saw another two Caputis hauling Coins toward us.
“Where’s the road captain?” another one said.
“Dead,” came the response.
My heart sank at the thought of our lost brother, at his family and wife left behind.
Fuck. We’re so fucked.
They pulled us up the wooden steps and across the porch, taking us inside the decrepit building. But my heart stopped when we got inside.
Kneeling on the floor were the girls ... our girls. They’d been bound and gagged, and each had a Caputi standing behind them with a gun pointed at the back of their heads. Perpendicular to them, facing the front door, were four of my brothers—Skulls, Castor, Hollister, and Wheels. The first was supposed to be on guard duty at one of the storage locations where we’d planned to take our delivery from the cartel. I realized then that this had been a coordinated attack. We’d been outplayed.
Ru immediately met my gaze with an icy, pissed-off one of her own. Next to her, Selene silently seethed with her fury. I’d bet my left nut she was planning a massacre, even now. Alba saw KC and clenched her eyes shut, tears streaming over her cheeks as he struggled against the men holding him, screaming behind the gag, forgoing the fact he’d been shot in the leg in favor of trying to break free. But on the far end, staring up at me with those gorgeous violet eyes, sat my girl. My V. My Mistress.
I took a deep inhale and glanced back at KC, trying to tell him to calm down with my stare. If they were going to kill our girls, they would have already done it. More men walked in while our captors shoved the three of us to our knees, facing our MC princesses. They put Coins next to Skulls, right on the other side of V. He met my gaze with an angry one of his own, indicating he had plans of getting out of this as well.
My entire body shook with the effort to stay still, to not jump up and make a scene so the rest of them had a chance to get away. I’d have to find my opportunity and use it soon. Finally, the distinctive click-clack of high heels came down the hallway, and there she was.
Gabriella Caputi. In the flesh. She looked terrible, having aged at least fifteen years in a few months. She wore long dark red pants and a matching blazer, her thick diamond necklace matching her earrings and the gaudy paperweights around her fingers. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a chignon, and if it weren’t for the desperate vileness in her eyes, I’d see the family resemblance to Alba. But where Alba was the very impersonation of her nickname Sunshine, Gabriella looked like a black hole, like she sucked all the joy out of every place she went.
“Now that I’ve got your attention,” Gabriella said, sauntering into the middle of the abductee circle. “I’ll ask again. Where is my nephew?”
I tried to grumble something around the gag, and the guy with the gun to my head yanked the wrappings down.
“What was that?” he sneered.
“Leo Caputi is dead.” I winced at the stab in my rib, but now that the adrenaline was racing through my blood, the pain had started to subside.
Gabriella turned to me, narrowing her dead stare before coming to stand in front of me. “That is not true.”
I forced a grin. “You stupid bitch.”
The guy slammed his gun down on my face, and I whipped to the side, using KC’s torso to right myself again despite the vicious twinge from the gash on my chest.
“I know that is a lie,” Gabriella hissed, nodding to one of the guys in the corner. “Bring her in.”
More rustling came from the hallway, followed by the familiar voice of Julia Caputi. Two Caputis carried her inside the room and threw her on the ground in front of us. She’d been beat up, her tear-streaked face more bruised than any of ours, and stripped down, her once beautiful dress now in tatters around her legs and shoulders.
This fucking demon.
I was going to enjoy watching her die—assuming, of course, I managed to get out of this situation alive.
“This one has been rallying support among my family to overthrow me.” Gabriella spat on her niece like she was garbage. “After all I’ve done for her. After everything I’ve sacrificed. She betrays her own blood.”
“Please,” Julia whined, sounding broken and defeated. “Please, I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”
“Shut up.” Gabriella nodded at one of her guards, who stepped forward and rammed his boot into Julia’s gut. She cried out and curled in on herself, weeping from the abuse. I didn’t know Julia very well, but she was an ally. According to Saint and Crow, she’d been helping us for years.
“Stop it!” I growled. “Leave her alone.”
Gabriella returned her attention to me.
“Do you think your silly little motorcycle club is coming for you?” She tsked her teeth and shook her head. “I can assure you, they will be quite entertained for some time. My friends at the FBI are showing them what happens when you pretend at power.”
Fuck!
We’d known Detective Jordan and her fucking pigs were hunting us down, but this had been an ambush for the ages. While the Caputis were rounding up our members on the run, the Feds had ransacked the clubhouse. How did we miss this?
She reached out to run the back of her knuckles up the side of my face and into my hair, clenching a fistful before yanking my head back. “Watch real power.”
Gabriella nodded at the person standing in front of Coins, who leveled their gun at his head and pulled the trigger. I forced my eyelids to stay open while blood and brains scattered the wall behind him. KC screamed behind his gag as Coins’s body fell lifeless to the ground.
No!
I’d known him since I was a teenager and watching him die while I’d been helpless to stop it sent blinding fury and panic through my veins.
“You see? I have the power here. I am the one you should fear.” Gabriella let go of me and I slumped back on my feet, my heart aching for my fallen brother.
The Caputi bitch looked at KC, narrowing her gaze as she stuck her chin higher in the air.
“You’re the one who killed my beloved Benito, aren’t you?” She twisted her lips into a crooked grin as she pat his cheek. “Do you recognize this place?”
KC took a deep breath in through his nose, letting it out on a loud sigh, shooting daggers out of his eyes.
“This is where it happened.” Gabriella pointed toward the front yard. “That is the spot where he died, where you bled him to death like a fucking monster.” She made a sardonic laugh and shook her head. “I’m going to save you for last. I want you to watch me take the love of your life from you.”
She went to Lore next, rubbing a finger over his eye patch. He seethed with hatred, staring up at her like he’d been planning her demise for months. “I must say, you look better this way. I think Leo did you a favor.”
He pulled against his bindings like he was one second from getting free, but Gabriella only moved on, going to the man standing in front of Skulls.
“Do it,” she said moments before he pulled the trigger, painting the wall with more Rose red.
I growled and yanked against my restraints, the sharp plastic digging into my skin at another brother’s death. I didn’t know him very well, but he’d sworn himself to the same MC as me. We were family by oath, if nothing else.
I’ll kill her for this. I will.
The tape around my wrists gave, and I yanked farther, pleased when my own blood mixed with my sweaty hands and enabled me to slip my thumb through the opening. I minimized my movements, keeping my gaze on the man with a gun pointed between my eyebrows.
We were outnumbered at least three to one, but I’d faced worse odds and I’d bet these fuckers were underestimating our women. Selene had the best shot in this room and the worst bloodlust. She could get out of a pair of cuffs faster than anyone alive, and twenty bucks said she’d already thought through an escape plan. Ru and V had been shooting since we were kids, and all I’d have to do would be to cause a scene to get it started. KC had been training Alba since they got together, and I’d seen the piece she carried in her purse. She could handle herself much better now than the last time these Caputi fucks had come for her.
I eased my hand out of the bindings, forcing myself to take as deep a breath as I could before Gabriella went to Hollister, nearly a spitting image of his brother next to him. They had the same enchanting eyes, the same dark skin, the same genetic beauty they’d both inherited from their mother. I knew what it was to suffer through the loss of my only sibling, and I wanted to spare Wheels from that if I could.
But how?
I made eye contact with Selene, whose gaze darted between me and KC, attempting to get our attention.
Are we doing this? I tried to ask with my eyes.
She gave me one slight nod, as if to suggest she’d be ready if I started something.
Then, my attention went again to V, who gave me a red-rimmed stare with tears streaking down her cheeks.
I’m sorry, I tried to tell her. I love you. I love you, and I’m sorry. Please forgive me.
She shook her head, widening her eyes as if she could tell what I planned and didn’t want me to hurt myself. But if it got her out of this, if she’d be safe, I’d do much worse.
“Hey!” I shouted, causing Gabriella to stop and turn to me. “You wanna know where Leo is?” I had to sit back on my heels to finish it, my lungs unable to inhale fully. “I’ll tell you.”
Seemingly intrigued, she came back to me, straightening her blazer with curiosity in her eyes. “Okay. Talk.”
Julia widened her eyes, her poor broken body writhing on the floor as she looked at me, practically begging me to keep my damned mouth shut. But I’d seen enough. The time was now. If I didn’t act, I was going to watch this cunt kill everyone I loved, and I had no desire to see that.
You told me it wasn’t my time, Trojan. I sure hope you’re right.