by Brogan Riley
“They all died,” I say.
“What?”
“All of them committed suicide or so we thought. She locked them up but none of them is alive.” I turn on the wireless headset. “Santi, are you still on the bitch’s tail?”
“Yes,” Santi says, his voice distorted by a background hum. “She’s standing by her car, talking to the other bitch.”
I draw in a deep breath. There’s a strange clarity in my head. I feel detached. I know I have to act. Fuck. What if I’m wrong? No, I’m not. Everything inside me turns into ice. “O’Mavry is a rat. She’s one of the arachnids.” I look at Jackson whose face turns into a ruthless mask. “Put a bullet into her skull,” I order. “Now.”
“Prez?” Santi rasps.
Jackson turns his headset on. “Do it, Santi. That’s an order.”
There’s a moment of harsh silence. A gunshot hits my ears, the sound distorted by the headset. It slices the silence like a snap of thunder.
“Hope you’re being sure about that,” Santi says in a gravelly voice and switches off.
We rev up the engines and shoot toward the compound. Thoughts tumble in my head. I might have killed an innocent woman. My heart starts racing. Fuck. She was my boss. Fuck. I’m not so sure anymore.
I’ve killed twice but they were drug dealers and it was in self-defence.
Santi demands that we stop so we turn into a narrow road that leads us into the woods. I pull the brakes and take my phone out. Santi sends us a photo. I look at the screen and feel dizzy. It’s a shot of Kathryn’s tattoo. I stare at the bitch’s dead shoulder blade and dread grips my heart. She was the cult’s priestess.
My phone rings and I answer the call.
“Dante?” Monica’s panicked voice hurts my ears. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” I growl.
“O’Mavry was one of them,” she cries out. “They’re everywhere. They want to kill us all.”
I feel anger well inside of me. “Pull yourself together, Brooks. I don’t have time.”
She draws in a sharp breath. “You can count on me, Dante.” There’s calm in her voice. “Whatever you’re up to. I want to help you. I will.”
“I have to go.” I disconnect.
Jackson and I exchange glances and we jump back onto the motorway. We speed like two devils.
Hannah
They allow her to leave her room. She must be very valuable to them. I’m her personal maid now. Only hers. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.
My new mistress isn’t paying attention to me most of the time and that’s a good thing. She’s either lost in thought or half-asleep. Sometimes, she’ll pray. In those moments, she’s asking God for forgiveness.
They can’t break her so they’re going to be nice to her for a while.
We spend four hours a day working out. Sort of. Our work-out is mainly long walks along the mansion’s dark corridors. We have clothes on unlike the slaves held captive here. They wear black collars, cuts, burns, and bruises.
One evening, I notice what she’s up to.
She wants to escape from the mansion.
Well, I want that too, but I need to be careful and smart. The desert kills mercilessly. The guards and the electric fence kill fast.
We can help each other, but I won’t disclose my true self to her until I’m one hundred percent sure I can trust her.
She is suspecting but is not sure yet.
She’s asked me a lot of questions but I didn’t answer them.
She’s as careful as me. She doesn’t want to make any mistake.
Neither do I.
We keep dancing around each other. We’re like two bees that circle each other but never collide.
“Head down, you idiot,” she hisses into my ear.
Two scorpions pass us; a girl who looks two, three years older than me staggers between them. Her wide eyes plead for help. She’s new here. She needs to learn the rules.
I shrink into myself, my eyes sweeping over the floor.
We enter the bedroom. My mistress hides into the corner and squeals like a startled little animal. I sit down in the opposite corner, waiting for her orders.
She freezes and then mumbles something to herself for an hour.
“Are you going to feed me or not, you idiot?” she finally hisses.
Her sharp tone tears me out of my numbness. I rise to my feet and bow at her.
She flashes me a bitter smile. “Oh please. That’s ridiculous.”
Dante
Smoke invades my nostrils and the choking greyness burns down my throat. “Chantal?” A coughing fit claws at me.
Jake shakes his head, his face covered in blood. “No body. No trace of her left either.”
Ten scorpions attacked the compound five hours earlier. They’d traced our mails and had hacked into our security system. The boys killed five of them, but the rest must have kidnapped Chantal.
Poppy clings to Jackson. “Thunder, my God, they killed Thunder.” Her body trembles but she stifles her sobbing. “And Doctor is…” Her voice breaks.
Jackson’s eyes fill with tears as Tyler emerges from behind the corner of the clubhouse, his daughter Emma, clinging to his arm. Fiona follows them closely behind, her little boy gripping her wrist.
Jackson gives me a slight nod so I tear Poppy away from him gently and wrap my arm around her back.
Tyler stands in front of us, his face like a savage mask, as Emma falls into Poppy’s embrace. Chantal and she are very close. Tyler is Chantal’s older brother even though they’re not related by blood.
Jake growls with fury, and Jackson lays his hand on his shoulder.
“We’ll kill them all, kid, I promise you this,” Jackson says.
Priest is dead, Gina and one of the club girls die two hours later.
Yes, the club has changed forever.
We call Zeus’s funeral people who take care of the bodies and then we summon our allies.
We’re going to kill them all. Whatever that takes.
Chantal
I throw up.
I wet myself.
They laugh at me but it’s clear to me that they are not going to hurt me. I don’t know why.
Maybe I should stop thinking about the reasons for their actions.
They want to hurt me though. They want to do horrible things to me. It’s visible in every glance of their cold ruthless eyes they shoot towards me, but it seems like they’re not allowed to hurt me.
They’re not human beings. They’re like cyborgs, efficient, quick, and merciless. Evil has no conscience, and neither do they.
One of them shoves me into a SUV. I jerk my hands forward, putting them on a leather surface and pull myself up in a twisting motion. I find myself seated beside a man. He looks like a businessman in his forties.
He looks like a psychopath. Such people torture animals when they’re children.
I know he’s one of them. One of the priests.
Dread grips my heart. It’s a cold primal dread that people possessed by demons could experience.
There’s no reality around me anymore. I feel like I’m in a nightmare. Like anything is possible. I’m in a serial killer’s hands. Serial killers enjoy their victims’ pain.
The man raises his hand, running his knuckles up and down my cheek. “You belong to us. You’ve always had.”
“Fuck off.”
His hand swishes through the air, delivering a sharp slap on my cheek. My skin feels numb for a second and then a burning pain seizes it. My upper lip starts stinging.
I cough up blood as my eyes meet the steel evilness of his. “Asshole,” I rasp.
He wants to slap me again but I jerk my hand up and immobilise his. The dick is strong. He grips the back of my neck and squeezes me to the point of agonising pain. I yelp as he bends me and my hair falls onto my feet.
“Don’t piss me off, bitch,” he says with cold calm.
His fingers keep digging into my flesh, and I retch three times.
The SUV pulls forward.
The dick allows me to straighten and fasten my seat belt. He needs me. I’d have been six feet under for at least six hours otherwise.
“You can’t lay your hands on Felix’s empire, huh?” I flash him the cockiest of my smiles.
His eyes flicker with sick excitement and I know I should have bitten my tongue. What happened to my self-preservation instinct?
Thoughts tumble in my head like my skull is a witch’s cauldron.
Felix was a sick fuck, but he wasn’t stupid. His will is kept secure at five different law firms. I discovered that by accident. The lawyers working for those firms are regarded as the most incorruptible lawyers on earth. The whole net was started by a guy with a strong sense of justice. He employed others like him and they grew in strength. A bit like my dad’s club but it consists of five tiny cells.
Sonja Med has been crumbling, unoccupied. A high concrete wall encircles the glass tower that once was an empire. Now the wind howls through its corridors.
It belongs to nobody unless the arachnids gather three generations of Felix’s family and make us give up the pharmaceutical empire. Such a sick joke made by a very sick fuck.
They’ve got me. They need two more. My mom, or my aunt. Coldness pierces my heart. They need my baby.
My hand travels to my tummy and I shield the life growing inside of me. The dick beside me licks his lips. I want to throw up.
“I like them pregnant,” he says.
I’m gonna slit his throat, I swear.
I drop my head. A vomiting reflex torments my empty stomach. The bitter taste of bile layers my tongue.
“You’ll love your new role,” the dick continues.
He’ll love the maggots eating his sick mouth, I swear.
He leans towards me and plants a kiss on my mouth.
My body shakes as tears roll down my cheeks.
Dante, please come here to save me. I’m so scared.
Chapter 15
Dante
I’ve never seen so many bikers gathered in one place. It’s an army—one hundred and twenty-two people—the bikers plus their old ladies. They look like violent knights in the Middle Ages, their faces ruthless. Their women support them with tough smiles.
Yes, the bikers plus Monica Brooks, George McAdra and eight cops from four different countries. Each of them either lost someone at the hands of the arachnids or knows a person who did. Three of them suspect our enemy has infiltrated their departments.
This is not about following the protocols. This is about cleaning away the scum. They’re everywhere—on the streets, in police stations, in big companies.
Jackson calls out to us to start church, but only the biker nobility is going to attend because there’s not enough space in the office. I’m allowed to attend along with four other presidents and their vices—Asher and Blaze from the Furious Skulls MC, Zane and Axel from the Shadow Wolves MC, Mike and Gunner from the Devil’s Tears MC, Declan and Tank from the Grim Dwarfs MC, me, Jackson, Jake, and Agent Brooks.
We settle ourselves in the office as a cold silence layers us. Adrenaline spikes in my veins.
She is alive.
I won’t fucking let her die.
She’s my life.
I’m dead without her.
Chantal
My eyes sweep over the woman’s messy blonde hair streaked with grey. Her cold green eyes bore into me.
She once was a beauty but now, she’s the embodiment of madness.
“What are you looking at, bitch?” she growls. Her eyes sweep over my face. She tilts her head and freezes. “Who are you?”
“Why the fuck do you need to know?” I rasp.
I was shoved into this room merely six minutes ago after three hours’ flight in the psychopathic dick’s private jet and four hours’ drive in his jeep. He’d introduced me to his psychopathic wife and his minions had gripped my arms. They’d dragged me upstairs and then along a dark corridor and here I am, staring at the mad blonde bitch.
“Answer me,” the bitch demands.
Something about the tinge of her voice touches me—it’s a hint of desperation. “Chantal,” I say. “I’m Liberator’s daughter.”
“Poppy’s daughter?”
Now she has my full attention. “Nobody knows her nickname.”
“Her sisters know it.”
“One of them is dead.”
“Dead to the outer world. Dead yet still alive.”
“Who are you?”
“Your last hope, you idiot.”
A thought flashes through my head. I know her face. I saw her face on my computer screen not so long ago.
“Sabine?” I gasp. “Sabine Selig?” I feel a cry well in my chest. “They know about the will.” My voice falters. “We’re fucked.”
The sick fuck wanted to pierce my tummy with a drill bit so I told him everything I’d learned about Felix’s will.
“You idiot,” the bitch hisses as she leans towards me.
“You’re Sabine, right? Please, tell me I can escape from this hell.”
“Oh shut up, Chantal. You’re even more hysterical than Sonja. Shut up and listen to me.” She sits on her heels in front of me, the black floor reflecting the light emitted from two antique desk lamps. She kisses me on the cheek and whispers, “There’s a girl, Hannah. She can help us.”
“Us?” I explode.
“You’re not going to leave your dear auntie here, are you?” she mouths as she lays her hand on my shoulder. “Now, focus. I can see you didn’t get your intelligence from your mother, thank God.”
Heat rushes to my face and I stifle the urge to twist her neck. “I can—“
“Shut up.”
I lean towards her and whisper into her ear, “Hack into their security system.”
“Good, that’s what I wanted to hear.”
The door creaks open and a slim figure walks in. Pain squeezes my heart. She’s so beautiful. She looks like an angel with platinum blonde hair and an intensely blue eye. Her other eye has been removed and the scar tells me that happened in a very violent way.
Sabine nods at me. “This is Hannah,” she says in a barely audible voice as she rises to her feet and grips the girl’s arm. “Now sweetie, show is over. We’re going to talk seriously.”
The girl’s eye radiates mortal coldness. My God, she’s not a human. She’s one of the scorpions. She must be. That coldness and emptiness in her eye is dreadful. Sabine is wrong. We can’t trust her.
Sabine shakes Hannah’s arm, turning her round, so she and I face each other. “You see her, Hannah? She’s Liberator’s daughter. She’s our little treasure we’re going to… pamper.”
Hannah flashes me a cobra-like smile. “Master L wants you to have a shower, and attend the sacrificial ceremony.”
“The sacrificial ceremony?” I gasp.
Hannah looks at me like I’m a piece of rotten meat. “Hurry. Master L is a very punctual person.”
Dante
Everything’s been decided. The orders have been given.
We’re going to strike against the arachnids’ cell in France. Nikko, a biker from the Shadow Wolves MC is going to hack into their security system. We’re going to leave only the corpses and ashes.
I put my hands on the handlebars.
Poppy leans toward Jackson. “There’s a massage on your desktop.”
“There’s no time. Read it for me and call me.” Jackson kisses his wife on the top of her head.
“I’ve already tried to read it but it’s encrypted,” Poppy hisses. “I couldn’t open it.”
“I’ll read it when I’m back to the compound,” Jackson says.
“It may be something important,” Poppy says in a sharp voice.
“This is more important.” Jackson strokes her head and starts the engine. He cups her face in both his palms and kisses her on the mouth.
“Prez,” I yell through the roar of the engine. “Maybe—“
“Let’s
go,” he rumbles.
I bow my head at him.
We don’t know where they’re holding Chantal captive. We think it’s their main cell in France.
We refuse to believe she’s dead.
She’s alive and we’re going to save her.
The bikes start to pull forward. Jackson waves his hand at Poppy and rides off. I follow him.
Chantal
I tremble against Hannah’s sweaty form as heavy footsteps resound around us like snaps of thunder.
Please, just don’t look under the bed. Don’t look under the bed.
Hannah’s tiny hands dig into my back as her rapid breath puffs against my shoulder.
She helped me create a mess that gave us six hours for disabling the cameras and sending a message to my dad.
Hannah is so intelligent. She knows the whole layout of the mansion, every secret of it. She knows one of the storage rooms is not wired. The pipes stretched in there leak and Master L didn’t want to risk a fire.
Sabine, Hannah, and I sneaked into that room and discussed our escape plan. We started a fire in the kitchen and then caused another fire in one of the slaves’ cells. That gave us enough time to sneak into one of the master bedrooms and use the internet access.
Hannah and I managed to hide but we saw them capture Sabine. That was her choice. She wanted to give us more time. She was supposed to tell them we were outside the mansion.
Sabine is so desperate to survive and so brave in her unpleasant way.
Hannah and I heard them talk about her.
They kicked her and whipped her and burned her skin with their cigarettes. They chopped off her finger. She wailed until she passed out.
They don’t want to kill her, but they have no mercy either.
An icy paw of dread grips my heart.
They wanted me to be a temple of their faith.
Hannah had saved me before they had the chance to lay their hands on me.
It’s been six hours since the alarm bell went off. They’ve been searching for us since then.
I haven’t eaten anything for twelve hours and acid bites my stomach every few minutes. Thirst torments my insides. I wetted myself two hours ago because I couldn’t use the toilet.
I smell urine from Hannah.
At least, we’re in this shit together.