“What do you think is going on?” Deacon asked after the third car had come and gone.
“I know what you do.” Which was nothing. Nada. Zip. The bugs were still picking up conversations, but it was like the fuckers were speaking in code. All I could understand was some sort of shipment was coming in a few hours, one Pistol was excited for. “Could be drugs.”
“My bet’s on weapons.”
“Doesn’t seem like his bag.”
“Maybe not, but neither does drugs.”
“Both bring money.”
“That definitely seems more like his thing. He’s an opportunistic fuck.”
Deacon wasn’t wrong. Pistol worried more about how much money the club had coming in than I would have expected for someone in his position. He wasn’t a treasurer—he was an enforcer. The muscle of his crew. The money thing had to be because of something internal with his club. An event or punishment or responsibility we’d never have access to unless he blabbed about it at home, something I highly doubted would happen. Guys in motorcycle clubs—especially ones who’d grown up in them as Pistol had—were notoriously tight-lipped.
Still, something about the plans for tonight didn’t sit right with me. Something more than the money aspect. It took me a while to start to pin down what, though.
“This seems more personal,” I finally said. “Like something he wants, not something for the club.”
“But the club is setting him up with whatever it is.”
A gift. A present. A token for a job well done…that’s what this was. The way Pistol talked about it, the way the other guys had come and offered it. Pistol was getting rewarded for something.
“He’s done something the club is happy about. That’s what this is. They’re going—”
Just then, a car pulled up outside Pistol’s house. Deacon and I barely breathed as we stared out the front window. The sun had almost set on the day, the shadows growing deep around our property and Pistol’s. There was enough light to see, though. Enough to spot the four guys who stepped out of the vehicle. Big guys—fighters. Likely club muscle.
But what made my blood run cold was when they yanked a fifth person out from the back seat. Dragged, really. Because that person didn’t fit with the others. At all.
Small in stature and build.
Definitely feminine.
Bound.
They’d kidnapped someone.
And that someone looked enough like my woman to turn my blood to ice.
Thirty men or thirty lashes.
“Well, shit,” Deacon said before grabbing the burner phone he’d been keeping beside him.
“What are you doing?”
He kept his eyes on the screen as his thumbs flew over the buttons. “Making sure Finn and your girl are okay.”
“That’s not Shye.” I met his gaze dead on when his eyes darted to mine. “I know my girl—that’s not her. She’s taller than Shye is.”
Deacon set the phone down, looking out the window again. I could almost see the anguish on his face, the worry for that girl. She threw a wrench into our plans. A big one. One I would need to deal with before we could finish what we came here for.
I rose to my feet and headed for my weapons bag, my mind focusing in on the job at hand. On the mission that had just been shoved to the forefront of our goals. First rule of planning was that priorities shifted, and you needed to be able to shift with them.
Time to shift.
“What are you doing?” Deacon stayed on the floor by the front of the house, still sort of watching out the window. Paying attention to me, though. Ready to back me up. Good.
I slipped on my leather gloves then grabbed the night vision goggles I’d packed and a couple of small hand grenades. Not enough bang to blow up Pistol’s house completely, but enough to startle the fuck out of him if I needed to. I had a feeling I’d need to.
“Alder?”
I loaded my backup gun and made sure I had extra ammunition on me. Slid my hunting knife into the strap on my thigh. Popped a box of matches in another pocket—matches always came in handy on jobs like this. When I was done, when I felt ready to take on the enemy, I gave Deacon my attention once more. “You thought that was Shye.”
“I did.”
“It could have been. It likely was once.”
Deacon frowned. “It’s not today, though.”
No. But the could haves and the dids and the never agains weren’t going to let me go. The memory of Shye flinching away from my touch and hiding herself—her scars—from me wouldn’t leave my thoughts. I had a feeling I knew what was about to happen in that house, to that blonde, and there was no fucking way I could sit back and do nothing.
So it was time to move. “I don’t want anyone else ending up like my girl—with scars on her body and fear so deep down inside, she feels she has to hide herself from the world. I won’t sit back and do nothing while that useless excuse for a human makes another woman bleed. I can’t allow it.”
Deacon sat silent for a moment before rising to his feet. He set down his long-range rifle and grabbed a handgun from his stash, going through the same preparatory process I just had. Sighting down his guns, sliding extra ammo into strategic pockets, grabbing the tools he felt he’d need for the battle ahead.
The one that wasn’t really his to fight. “What are you doing?”
He shrugged. “Whatever the fuck you tell me to.”
“We said no witnesses, which I was fine with until now. The girl wasn’t in the plan, but I won’t let her be collateral damage.”
“Then she won’t be, and we’ll deal with how to keep things quiet once we get her out of there.” He snagged an apple from his bag and took a huge bite. “Saddle up, cowboy. It’s time to rescue a damsel in distress.”
There was only one thing to say to a statement like that.
“Hooah.”
Chapter Six
Two of the men who’d pulled up at Pistol’s left soon after they dropped the girl off inside the house, leaving her and three targets. So long as they didn’t have greater firepower than Deacon and me—or catch sight of us coming before we were on them—this mission would be going in the success column. That wasn’t being cocky, arrogant, or overconfident—we’d dealt with these fuckers enough to know their skills—or lack thereof. We’d already put a number of them in the ground. We had this.
And as I thought of Shye and the scars running up and down her back, I knew we had to have this. There could be no failure.
Deacon and I snuck out through the back door and slipped around the side of our borrowed house. The sun had set a little more, and the shadows had deepened. The only streetlights in this part of town were at the intersections, which would leave our end of the block nice and dark once night had fallen all the way. Just what we would need by the time we were finished with what was about to come.
Cleaning up dead bodies was easiest in the dark. No doubt there.
The two remaining Soul Suckers sat on the back porch, smoking cigarettes and talking softly to one another. As if this was a normal night, a totally typical evening for them. Kidnap a woman, drop her off for Pistol to do with as he wished…and then what? Would they kill her? Take her back to their clubhouse to be drugged and used as club pussy? Worse? Because as bad as this was, in the world of sexual slavery, there was always worse.
Deacon and I stood at the corner of Pistol’s house, listening. Waiting for our chance to take these two fuckers out and clear the path inside. It happened faster than either of us had likely been expecting.
“I need to take a piss,” Soul Sucker One said as he rose to his feet. The sound of his footsteps moved toward the yard, though. Not into the house. Something his partner seemed to confirm for us.
“There’s a john inside.”
“Nah. I don’t want to interrupt Pistol. The man’s been a fucking pain in my ass for weeks—let him work out some of that frustration.”
Number Two chuckled as Number One headed across the
yard toward the detached garage. Deacon gave me the hand signals to lay out his plan—he’d follow Number One, and I would need to take out Number Two—before slipping along the fence line toward the opposite side of the garage where One had gone. If Two was watching, I had about three seconds to take him out before he alerted One and Pistol that we were there. If he was paying attention—
He wasn’t.
Deacon made it to the corner of the garage and disappeared around it, leaving me time to approach the porch with care instead of balls the wall. Two didn’t see me coming—not until the last possible second, which was exactly what I wanted. I wanted his eyes on me, wanted to get a solid look at my target before firing. One shot. A small thump bouncing through the air as my supresser did its job. A quiet grunt was Two’s last sound.
One down, one to dispose of.
Normally, I wouldn’t shoot someone in what I considered a public place. Too messy. But the bullets I had in my gun were meant for this sort of work. They’d puncture flesh just like a standard round, but that was about all that was standard. There’d be no through-and-through shots with these, no second wound as the bullet exited the body. They entered and then exploded like a tiny bomb, ripping through flesh and sending shrapnel all through the immediate area. Effective for killing and way less cleanup. Something I had needed to keep at the forefront of my mind during planning and that Deacon had made sure I was prepared for. I had to get my ass back to Shye and keep it there, which meant sloppy mistakes that could lead the authorities to my door weren’t allowed.
I dragged Two toward the back of the garage, figuring Deacon had already taken care of his target as well. I wasn’t wrong about that. I found my partner standing in the doorway to the crumbling old structure, looking way more casual than a man on a mission should.
“Took you long enough,” he said, giving me a grin. “Need some help with that, old man?”
If looks could kill, he’d likely be dead. “Just get out of the doorway, jackass.”
He stepped back, still grinning, and swept his arm to the side in invitation. I hefted my load inside and dropped it on top of the other body already laid out on the floor.
“How are we handling them?”
Deacon strolled up, staring down at the two bodies we’d definitely need to get rid of. “I say we burn the place. Easy, effective, but it brings immediate attention to the attack.”
True. And we didn’t want to be anywhere around here when that sort of information got out. “Let’s deal with Pistol first, then make the final cleanup decision. I don’t want to lock into one thing if this situation gets messy.”
“There’s a girl inside there. An innocent, most likely. It’s already messy.”
Truth. But there wasn’t a lot I could do about that. “Ready?”
“Always. Let’s go break the link between the Soul Suckers and your woman.”
My thoughts exactly.
We didn’t even make it inside the back door of the house before we heard it. Loud, thumping music, some sort of rhythmic snap that didn’t quite fit the beat, and the girl. Screaming. Crying.
Fucking begging.
All I could think of was Shye; all I could imagine was her inside that house. Tears staining her pretty face. Anguished pleas for Pistol—her own stepbrother of a number of years—to stop hurting her.
The rage inside of me could have fueled the entire town of Justice for a year, it burned so bright and hot. It made me move, made my steps strong and sure, made me enter the house without a thought spared for keeping quiet. Fuck that. Let Pistol know we were coming for him. If he did, he might stop whatever he was doing in there, and the girl might get a break. I had a feeling no one had given Shye a break.
“Alder, wait.” Deacon grabbed my arm, getting right up into my face when I shoved him off me. “That’s not your girl in there.”
“I know that.”
“Then slow the fuck down.”
The girl screamed again, and I heard Shye in her voice. Heard the woman I loved crying for mercy. I couldn’t go slow. It simply wasn’t an option.
I raced down the hallway, Deacon muttering a quiet Fuck behind me before he followed. The door at the end sat closed, the music and other sounds coming from behind it. I knew the setup of the house—that was Pistol’s spare room. A space filled with his toys, his weapons. Not an ideal spot to try to take him out, but I had no other choice. I’d been in a lion’s den before. I’d managed to bust my ass back out of it. I’d do it again—and this time, I had one hell of a motivation.
Shye.
The door swung open as soon as I kicked it, the wood holding the handle shattering into thousands of slivers and chunks. It might as well have been in slow motion for how my brain processed that, because as soon as I had a visual inside the room, my world went sideways.
The girl stood naked against what looked like a St. Andrew’s Cross. Her back to me. Pistol between us with a whip in his hand. But I barely saw him, hardly even glanced his way because my eyes were locked on her.
Blond, like Shye.
Super petite, like Shye.
Scared and shaking, like Shye.
Crying, like Shye.
Bleeding, like Shye.
Every plan I’d ever come up with, every moment of military training I’d gone through, slammed through my brain in a split second. There was only one option here. One chance to set things right. If I missed this opportunity, if I didn’t follow through with this, if Pistol somehow got away from me—this would be Shye’s future. Her past revisited. More scars would be added to her body, more tears would stain her pretty face. More of her blood would be spilled because I wasn’t able to keep her safe.
“No fucking way.” I lunged for Pistol, the world suddenly no longer in slow motion and, instead, speeding past. I caught the bastard around the throat and pulled him back, locking him in my hold as Deacon stormed in behind me. Before he could even take a step in my direction, I nodded toward the cross. “Take care of her.”
Deacon reacted without pause, no argument needed. He rushed to the cross and started working the straps holding the girl in place. Whispering to her. Likely trying to calm her down. Not that she’d ever be calm again after what she’d been through. I’d seen those types of scars firsthand—both the internal and external ones. My Shye was a strong woman, but what her stepbrother had done to her had broken something that could never truly be fixed. Left her with jagged pieces that slipped and cut at the most random of times. Left her with memories that coated her happiness in shadow.
Calm wouldn’t be in her lexicon for a while.
As soon as Deacon freed the girl from her restraints, he directed her out of the room, leaving me alone with Pistol. Likely staying close enough to step in if I needed him to. Not that I would. This was my time—my kill. My moment to get Pistol to make reparation for what he’d done.
“Looks like you weren’t expecting me,” I said, tightening my hold as he tried to wrestle his way out of it. “That wasn’t too smart.”
Pistol choked out a laugh, still fighting hard against my grip. “You’re the one without smarts. You think I’m alone here?”
“Nah, you have two guys with you outside.” I leaned closer, making sure my lips brushed his ear as I whispered, “Or, at least, you had two guys outside before my partner and I got to them.”
Pistol stilled for just a second, those words probably settling into his mind and stirring up the primordial beast that kept scum like him alive. The one that brawled and strained and refused to go down without a fight. The one that had to see the end coming and would likely soon do everything it could to get away from me.
Not happening.
I braced my feet and gripped Pistol harder around the throat, cutting off most of his air supply. Most, but not all. I had things to say, things that might need a response. Just for fun. Still, I tugged him close and kept my choke hold strong, not willing to let him get a single second of reprieve from me. He had so few left anyway.
And he knew it. Or he would. I didn’t feel the need to beat around the motherfucking bush on that particular aspect of my plan.
I gave him a little more space to breathe—fucker didn’t even know to drop his chin for air, so I had to spoon-feed him that release—and said, “You’re a dead man, Pistol.”
And just as I expected, he spouted off as if he had a shot in hell at getting out of that room alive. “You think you’re going to get away with this? My brothers will know who you are. They’ll come for you.”
“I don’t think they will. I don’t think you’re as valuable to them as you think you are. They’ve sent what…ten men to Justice? Some on your orders, right? Ordering men to take me out, to kidnap Shye, to snag Katie. You keep sending men in. How many have come back?”
“Fuck you.” Pistol jerked again, his fingernails digging into my arm. “What the fuck do you want?”
As if he had something to trade. “Nothing. I want nothing from you. See, this isn’t about the Soul Suckers or the fires or the men who keep coming and causing trouble. This is about Shye and what you owe her. You fucked up when you laid a hand on her. Or should I say a whip?”
He laughed, a sad little choking sound. “You’re doing all this for pussy? Man, and I thought you were smart. Though I do miss her hanging around here. She was a good little bleeder—you have no idea how many times I’ve gotten off to thinking about her blood dripping onto my floor. Right here.”
When looking for a way to kill with zero mess, a choke hold focused on impeding blood flow instead of airway constriction, one my fellow soldiers and I called a rear naked, was a good call. Quick, simple, real fucking hard to defend against without having trained for it—that hold was an all-around winner for quiet murders. You had to be close, though. Had to have some strength in your arms and get your body into just the right position. Had to know precisely how to grip the target around the throat to block the blood flow to the brain and arch your back just so.
Reparation Page 4