Blade: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Devil's Fangs MC) (Bad Boy Bikers Club Book 5)

by Naomi West

  “Why the hell not? My men are there, and they went through this without me. It’s not right.” He hadn’t meant to snap at her, but Blade couldn’t remember a recent time when he’d been so agitated. He was tired of constantly being torn between what Venus wanted and what his club needed, what his heart desired and what his head told him he should do.

  “Because it might be a trap!” The exasperation in her voice was clear as she pulled on a pair of jeans. “They probably did this because they were either looking for me or looking for you. If we go there now—”

  “Hold on.” Blade stopped getting dressed so he could look at her squarely. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  The astonishment in her eyes was almost comical, but it was mixed with an anger that kept him from smiling. “Just what do you expect me to do?”

  “Stay right here, where you’re safe. Gator is coming to stay with you. He’s a good guy, and I trust him completely.” Blade hadn’t chosen this brother at random. He needed Champ to help him clean up the mess at headquarters. Gator could be trusted implicitly, even if there was a beautiful woman in the mix. Blade had no doubt he would risk his own life to keep Venus safe.

  “But I don’t want to just sit around and wait to see what’s happened,” she protested. “That’s all I’ve ever done, and you can see how well that’s worked out for me.”

  “Getting involved hasn’t exactly done you any favors, either,” he snapped. Blade sighed and set down his vest, which he’d been about to put on. He stepped to her and pulled her close. “I’m sorry. I’m angry, and I don’t know what I’ll be walking into when I get there. I’m not worried about it being a trap; I’ve got plenty of my men on the scene and we can handle these assholes. But I’m still not dealing well with the fact that this happened, and I wasn’t there to stop it. I never meant to take it out on you.” He kissed her forehead, glad that at least she hadn’t pulled away from him.

  “I just don’t want things to be the way they always were with the Skulls,” she explained softly. “I don’t want you to just keep me locked up because you’re afraid of what’s going to happen to me. I’m afraid of what might happen to you, too.”

  He kissed her fully then. Blade couldn’t remember a time when anyone had worried about him like that. Sure, his men were sworn to have his back, but that was different. He also couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for her in knowing she’d been through so much trauma. It was going to take her a long time getting past it, and it was going to be a challenge for him to convince her things were different now.

  “I appreciate that,” he said, finally pulling away. “But you don’t have anything to worry about. I can handle myself. As for your role, I want you by my side as much as possible. But I need you to trust me and understand that I’ve got to handle this first. Everything will be different soon, I promise.” He kissed her again quickly before reminding her to stay inside and that he would be back as soon as possible.

  Blade rushed down the stairs and out to the garage. He jumped in his car and took off, glad to know Gator was on his way.

  18

  Venus did her best to make herself at home and pretend like nothing unusual was happening while she waited to hear back from Blade. His house was a nice one, and it had much more of a homelike feel to it than the display of grandeur Jet had so carefully arranged. But it was impossible to get comfortable knowing that Blade was out there in danger.

  Slowly making herself some breakfast, she wondered if she would ever get used to that. She used to worry about her father when he was out on missions without her, but not because she cared about him. It was more of a desperate concern about what would happen to her if he died. Blade meant so much more to her, and as the leader of a motorcycle club, he would undoubtedly be in danger on a regular basis.

  Sipping a cup of coffee, she wondered if there was anything she could do to help. She’d gathered intelligence for the Devil’s Fangs before, and there was no good reason why she couldn’t do it now. Venus pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Jet’s number.

  As it rang, she rehearsed what she might say. She could pretend she was being held hostage and try to distract Jet from whatever he was trying to pull. Or she could simply ask him what was going on and beg him not to hurt Blade. No, that would never work. That would only encourage him to slay the man, and Jet was undoubtedly interested in doing that anyway.

  But Jet didn’t answer. She tried him again without any more luck and finally gave up. Maybe there was nothing she could do but wait.

  A knock on the door startled her, and she laughed at herself as she headed toward the front of the house. It was going to take a long time before she wasn’t jumpy anymore. Her father had trained that fear into her very thoroughly. But Blade had said he was sending someone to watch over her. This would be a good chance to start getting to know his brothers better.

  She swung open the door, her smile fading when she saw it was Jet himself on the front porch. Deep purple bruises accented his face, swelling his upper cheek and his left eye and making him almost unrecognizable. The split-second she hesitated was her undoing. Jet forced his way in, easily stopping her from slamming the door in his face.

  His men flanked him, closing in around her as they came into the house. “There’s my dear daughter. I think you’ve wandered off and ended up at the wrong house. I think it’s time I brought this little stray back home.”

  The hard glitter of his black eyes was enough to freeze her heart. Venus reached for the gun at her waist. She’d obeyed Blade and kept it with her even to come back breakfast, but it didn’t do her any good. A strong hand grabbed her wrist, and Ink wrenched the pistol out of her grasp. Venus cried out in pain, but that did nothing to deter the man. He handed off the weapon and grabbed her other wrist, holding them together as he lashed rope around them.

  Still she fought and kicked, twisting her shoulders and lashing out with her feet. One of her blows went wild and knocked a vase off a side table. She rammed her shoulder into Hook, whose metallic hand made a heavy thunk against the wall, but it didn’t stop them from coming after her. She wasn’t going to let them take her so easily; she couldn’t. But they were too strong. Hook swept her off her feet with a swift kick, and Ink bound her ankles with quick and painful efficiency.

  Jet bent down, looming over her as she lay on the entryway floor. “Is that going to be enough? Or do we have to gag you, too?”

  “Fuck you,” she snarled, realizing she’d never said that to him in her life, even though he’d deserved it for a long time.

  Jet hardly reacted, merely gesturing at his man. A rough strip of cloth went in her mouth, quickly tied behind her head. Her hair had gotten tangled in the knot, but of course they didn’t care.

  “Get her out to the car, and quickly.”

  She was tossed unceremoniously into the back of Jet’s sedan. Jet and Hook were in the front, but Ink was assigned to sit next to her. Venus shrank herself into a tiny ball on the leather seat, wondering how she was possibly going to get out of this. The ropes around her hands and feet were biting into her skin, and they showed no signs of working loose anytime soon. She couldn’t even roll down the window, much less open the door and throw herself out onto the street.

  Venus leaned her head against the deeply tinted window in despair. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She didn’t have any more time to think about it when they pulled into the garage of Jet’s house, the place she had once considered her home. A chill sent its cold fingers down her spine as they pulled inside, the door closing behind them with finality.

  “Bring her inside,” Jet said as he got out of the car, sounding like he was telling his men where to put the groceries instead of where to put his daughter. “She needs some punishment.”

  19

  “Holy shit. They really did a number on the place.” Blade stood just inside the garage, his arms folded across his chest and his mouth pulled down into a frown. This part of the clubhouse had ta
ken the most damage, and that included plenty of bikes.

  “They drove a truck right through the door,” Champ affirmed, already used to the wreckage around them. “Not one we’d ever seen before, so I guess it was one of the new recruits. They couldn’t get any further than the next wall, so they just spent a lot of time running things over in here. But there are windows smashed all over the place, and at least a few guys made it inside.”

  “I never thought their balls were that big,” Blade admitted. Jet had crept into the outer borders of his territory, but he’d never come this close to the heart of their operations. It didn’t bode well for the Fangs unless they took quick action.

  “I’ve got those few men I told you about tied up in the basement. They put up one hell of a fight, but it was a lot of fun,” Champ said with a grin. “Thought you might be interested to find out if they had something to say.”

  “Absolutely. Hang on.” His phone was ringing again, a noise he was starting to hate. It was Gator. “Yeah?”

  “I’m at your house, but Venus isn’t here.”

  The world stopped turning for a moment, and Blade froze in place. Of course Venus was at his house. That was where he’d left her. “Maybe she’s just not answering the door. I told her to be extra careful. I’ll give her a call and let her know it’s you.”

  “No, that’s not it. The front door was open, and there are some signs of a struggle.”

  “Shit. Champ, I’ve gotta go. Gator, I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Blade trotted back to his car, knowing for sure now that he didn’t deserve Venus.

  He couldn’t get home fast enough, and it didn’t help that he was in his car instead of his bike. It was a powerful vehicle, but he couldn’t dodge around traffic the way he could on his motorcycle. Blade kept his eyes open as he made his way through town, looking for any other vehicle that might be suspicious.

  Arriving at his home, he found Gator there standing outside the front door, his face pinched with worry. “I haven’t touched anything, but I did go in and look through the house just in case she was here hiding somewhere. If she’s in there, then she’s damn good at hide-and-seek.”

  Blade brushed past him, seeing the smashed vase on the hard floor and the deep hole in the drywall nearby. Venus had probably fought to get away, but Jet probably hadn’t come alone. Blade called for her, knowing there was a slim possibility Venus really was hiding and wouldn’t come out for Gator. But a quick run through the house, shouting the entire time, told him the truth.

  He jogged back out to the front door. “I’m heading to Jet’s house. I’m going to guess he has her there. Call Champ and see what men he can round up to send over there. This is going to get messy.” He didn’t wait for Gator’s reply as he jumped back in his car.

  The car was a heavy weight around him as he made his way across town, kicking himself the entire time. He’d been such an idiot, and it would’ve only taken a few different decisions to have prevented all this from happening. He swore to himself that if he managed to get Venus back, he would never again have her anywhere but at his side. His mouth nearly watered with the need to kill, to seek and destroy anything and anyone that tried to keep Venus from him. Other drivers on the crowded freeway honked and flipped him the bird, pissed at his reckless driving, but he couldn’t care less. As long as he got there, he couldn’t get there fast enough.

  The sun was just beginning to come up, tinting the edge of the sky purple as he slammed on the brakes in front of Jet’s house. So many other times, he’d arrived here knowing he needed to be careful, sneaking around to avoid dealing with Jet’s men. He hadn’t questioned it as it was happening, but he did now. Had there been some reason he’d been circumventing the true faceoff? Had he been evading it because, deep down, he wasn’t sure he could handle it? The thoughts were ridiculous. It was the kind of thinking that never would’ve happened if he’d been in his clubhouse, surrounded by his men. But something had made him soft. It was probably Venus.

  The gates to the driveway were closed, as usual, but Blade didn’t expect Jet to just let him in. One glance told Blade the rest of his men hadn’t arrived yet. The smart thing to do was wait, but that was the only thing he’d been doing lately. He’d waited to see if Jet would back off his territory. He’d waited to see if Venus could convince him that he had no choice. He’d waited while Venus stayed at Jet’s home, gathering information so they could ruin one of the biggest deals the Skulls were to have. Then he’d even waited to go back to her, even though he’d known in his heart that Jet would take out their actions on her. Waiting to plan out their final attack had been the last straw.

  Those last two were the ones that hurt him the most. Venus had been injured, and now so had his men. There was no telling what they were doing to Venus even now. He had to admit there was the tiniest bit of fear in the back of his mind, wondering if the beautiful woman who’d been sharing his bed was some sort of double agent. But he shoved those worries aside as he leaped the short wall and strode across the lawn.

  The guards didn’t appear to be on duty, or if they were, then they hadn’t spotted him yet. The sunrise was reflected in the large window on the front of the house, which looked into the living room. Blade headed for it, doubtful that he’d be able to see anything that helped.

  He was disappointed, and in a way that made his heart freeze over completely. Venus was slumped in a wooden chair, the ropes that bound her to it digging deep into her skin. One of the Skulls stood next to her. He grabbed her hair, wrapped it around his fist, and yanked her head back, revealing the damage they’d already done as he threatened her with a knife. The eye that Jet had bruised before Blade had taken her away was now swollen completely shut. Blood trickled from her hairline down to her jaw, and another stream dripped from her nose. Her beautiful skin had been camouflaged with fresh bruises. An array of her father’s men stood around her, laughing, shouting, and encouraging the man in charge of beating her at the moment. Jet stood several feet away, his arms folded over his chest and a smug look on his bruised and lacerated face as he watched.

  This was going to end now, and there was no more time to waste. Blade ran for the front door, barely even thinking as he burst through it. He didn’t stop to calculate the force needed to knock it down or feel the heavy thud of the door against his shoulders. He didn’t feel the splinters of wood as they dug into his arm or worry about the guns that would be pointed at him as soon as he entered. He only knew that Venus was in there. He would get her out, or he would die in the process.

  The Skulls jumped at the sudden noise, but they recovered quickly, their hands reaching for the weapons as soon as Blade barreled in the front door. Jet was the only one who didn’t bother. He stood there, looking completely casual as he watched the intruder approach. “Well, well. Our friend Blade is here, and he doesn’t look very happy. Boys, it seems like we should show him a little hospitality.”

  Blade wasn’t in the mood for his banter or his games. He didn’t care what Jet said, and he wasn’t going to dignify it with a response. He leveled his gun at the man nearest Venus, the one who still had his fist wrapped tightly in her hair, and fired. The bullet flying from the gun was an extension of himself, and he felt it as it soared through the air and impacted flesh, sending a spray of blood out onto the pale carpet. It had hardly exited the man’s body before he was aiming for the next one. It all happened so fast, but in Blade’s mind it had been slowed down by a thousand times. He forced himself not to look at Venus again, knowing he would lose control if he did. But he would have his revenge.

  20

  Venus reeled with the beating she’d been enduring. Jet had punished her plenty of times before, but he’d usually stopped after a punch or two, especially if he was bruising her in a place that would show. This was nothing like that, and it made her almost miss Jet’s retribution. Every man was getting a turn, taking out their aggression at the Skulls’ failure on her. All the while, her father stood by and encouraged them, explaining t
o his men that she had fed information to the Fangs, she was the reason things had gone badly with the Broken Hearts, she was the root of all evil.

  She’d lost track of how many times she’d lost consciousness. The brief reprieves from reality were welcome breaks, but they never lasted long enough. Her body was too tough. She’d been slapped and kicked and punched, and there was no telling what else they might do. Her mouth tried to form words, tried to beg them to stop, but nothing would come past her swollen lips.

  The crackle of a radio filtered into her mind. “Hey, boss. He’s here, and he’s alone.”

  “Good,” Jet replied. “Let him come.” Her father came to stand in front of her for a moment. “Looks like your Romeo has shown up to save you. The idiot doesn’t even think he needs backup. That’s just as well. I can’t wait to kill him right in front of you. Slowly, of course. I want you to hear the gurgle of blood in his throat, see him tortured the same way you tortured everyone else. You’ve sent countless men to the grave because of your stupid ideas, and it won’t happen again.”

  His words were just noise in her ears, muffled as though he was speaking to her from underwater. Or maybe she was the one who was underwater, watching his angry face float in front of her as he watched her drown. It was hard to breathe. Someone had slammed her in the ribs at some point.

  The sudden crash that resounded through the house didn’t register with her at first. Everything had been noise and chaos and pain, and this new sound didn’t make much difference to her. But the man who held her by the hair had yanked her head back, and she saw Blade come charging into the room.