Maelstrom

by Susanna Strom

  Bear swung the metal blade, striking Dwight, who crashed to the floor, blood spurting from his shoulder. Darryl staggered, then pointed his gun at Bear.

  Bear threw himself sideways, but wasn’t fast enough to dodge the bullet that struck his upper arm. Ripper grabbed him under the arms and dragged him behind another tractor. Darryl hauled his brother to his feet and half-carried him through the bay door. He paused, his head jerking back as Levi and I approached. Darryl changed course and headed toward a windowless, cinder block shed that stood at a distance from the other buildings. He shoved his brother inside and slammed the wooden door shut behind them.

  Levi and I ran through the open bay door. He turned to keep an eye on the cinder block shed, and I dropped to my knees next to Bear, frowning at the blood staining his white tee. “How bad is it?”

  “Could be a helluva lot worse,” Bear said. His pallor and the lines of pain etching his face gave the lie to the brave words. “Good to see you, man.”

  “Good to see you, too.” I stripped off my T-shirt and cinched it around Bear’s arm, staunching the blood flow. “But I got to admit, we didn’t expect to find Nazis at Valhalla.”

  “Me, neither,” Bear drawled.

  “I need to get to the house.” Ripper interrupted our reunion. “Mac, Nyx, and Sahdev should be running into the hills right about now, but Boyd and Tuck gotta be wondering about the gunfire.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Levi offered, glancing over his shoulder at Ripper.

  Ripper shook his head. “No. We got a man down. I want you and Kyle to keep an eye on the brothers. Make sure they don’t make a run for it. Dwight is unarmed and injured, but Darryl has a pistol.”

  “No worries. We got this.” Levi said.

  “Yeah, you do.” Ripper stood and drew the Colt from his shoulder holster. He looked at me and grinned. “See you on the other side.” He nodded at Levi, then took off running toward the house.

  Ripper’s confidence in our ability to handle things—to keep a level head if the situation went south—struck me hard. A couple of months ago, he would have laughed at the prospect of relying on me for anything. I sucked in a deep breath, steadying my nerves. No way I’d let him down.

  “What’s the cinder block shed used for?” I asked Bear.

  He pressed a hand to his wound. Blood spurted between his fingers and soaked the improvised bandage. “Used to be the smokehouse.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “Now we use it to store cans of gasoline.” Using his heels, he pushed his body backwards until he sat upright against the wall. “Hand me the shotgun, will you?”

  I picked up Dwight’s shotgun, placed it on the floor next to Bear, then walked over to Levi.

  “Dwight and Darryl aren’t going anywhere,” he said.

  “No kidding.”

  In their place, I would’ve hauled ass, tried to make it around a barn and over the hills that circled the place. Sure, escaping might have been a long shot, but anything was better than being cornered in an eight-by-eight-foot cement outbuilding. A dark, stuffy, windowless building full of cans of gasoline.

  The door to the shed cracked open, and the pistol barrel poked through the opening. Darryl fired blind, three shots in quick succession. The gun withdrew, and the door slammed shut again.

  “Do you think he has a plan?” Levi wondered aloud.

  I snorted. “There’s a first time for everything.”

  Darryl was a dumbass. Once he used up all his ammo, they’d have no choice but to surrender. Unfortunately, Levi and I couldn’t afford to wait him out, not if we wanted to provide backup for Ripper while he took on the rest of the brigade.

  Thank God Kenzie and Sahdev were out of harm’s way.

  “Let’s—”

  The shed exploded, the detonation cutting off my words. The ground shook, a deep rumble that rattled my bones. Scorching heat blasted past my body. Muscles tight, jaw clenched, I stumbled backwards, my ears ringing. Chunks of concrete pelted my body.

  Levi. Shit. Was Levi okay? Blinking against the acrid smoke, I craned my neck, searching for the teenager. There. I found him sprawled on the ground. The explosion had knocked him on his ass. Eyes wide with shock, he raised up on his elbows. I offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. We clutched each other’s arms. I turned around, scanning the garage for Bear. Still leaning against the wall, bloody from his wound but otherwise unscathed, he flashed me a thumbs up.

  Movement drew my eyes. Twin pillars of flame, human-shaped torches—arms, legs and torsos ablaze—staggered through the smoke. My horrified mind blanked, unwilling to recognize the fiery shapes as living, breathing men. Living? Breathing? Not for long. Lungs seared, and smoldering flesh sloughing from their limbs; they were doomed. No human deserved to die in such agony, not even irredeemable souls like Dwight and Darryl.

  Without conscious thought, I raised my Glock and shot both men. They dropped to the ground, their slumped figures mercifully still. I turned my stunned eyes to the gun clutched in my hand. Christ. It was me. I’d shot them. And it wasn’t the first time I killed a man. Memory broadsided me, knocking loose an image from the worst night of my life. Miles. I swayed.

  Levi doubled over, puking.

  This was not the time to fall apart. I drew in a shuddering breath and fought to get a grip on myself before turning to Levi. I tugged on his arm. “Come on. We have to get to the house.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  Ripper

  I jogged toward the house, slowing when the porch came into view. Why hadn’t the gunfire drawn Boyd and Tuck outside? Frowning, I climbed the stairs and stalked into the empty front room, pausing until I heard a woman’s cry erupt from one of the back bedrooms.

  I ran down the hall and threw open the door. Five pair of eyes turned toward me. Boyd sat on the edge of his wife’s bed, his hand on her shoulder. Libby hunched over, sweating and panting. Well, fuck. Saw at a glance how our simple plan went south inside the house, too. Libby had gone into labor, and Tuck discovered Sahdev was missing. Our cover was blown. Jerrilyn held a gun on Sahdev and Nyx, while Boyd shot me a murderous look.

  “Traitor,” he snarled.

  I ignored him, my blood chilling.

  Where were Tuck and Mac? On a hunch, I launched myself toward our bedroom. The knob turned in my hand, but something was jammed against the door, blocking my entrance.

  In the distance, an explosion ripped the air, a blast that barely pierced my consciousness.

  Mac. I gotta get to Mac.

  I stepped back, then kicked the weak spot above the knob. The door shuddered in the frame, but held. I kicked again and again, the tread of my boot hammering the wood. The wood splintered and finally yielded. Kicking aside the chair that had blocked my way, I hurtled into the room.

  Tuck knelt on the bed, straddling Mac. If she was conscious, my woman would be fighting back, but her arms lay flat and limp against the tangled sheets. Tuck grinned at me over his shoulder, his expression exultant. He had to know that he was no match for me, that I was going to kill him. His eyes told me that as far as he was concerned, he’d won the battle.

  Roaring, I threw myself at him, dragging him off Mac’s body. I drove my fist into his face. His nose crunched and spurted blood. He dropped. I followed him down onto the floor, blind with rage, battering his face into pulp, driving shards of bone into his brain. Might have been smart to let The Ripper take over—to cede control to that calm, detached killer persona—but I couldn’t slip into his familiar skin. Not when fury rode me hard. Not with the man who hurt my Mac.

  Behind my head, I heard a click, the sound of somebody thumbing the hammer back on a revolver.

  “You son of a bitch,” Boyd growled.

  I dove sideways just as I heard a loud bang. Thought Boyd had fired. Thought I was done. Instead, Boyd toppled over, landing on Tuck’s body, the back of his head a bloody mess.

  Rolling over, I glanced at the doorway. Sahdev sagged against the doorframe, a pistol in his hand, his features blank as the h
ealer studied his lethal handiwork. He must have wrested the gun away from Jerrilyn after Boyd came after me.

  I jumped to my feet and lurched to the bed where Mac lay, still and silent. Wincing at the sight of the purple skin, I gently touched her neck. I held my breath. Please God, let her heart still beat.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Bear

  Mama always said that I had a positive genius for getting myself hurt. I kicked a hornet’s nest when I was five. The buggers swarmed me, and I got stung so bad that both my eyes swelled shut. I broke my leg falling out of the hayloft when I was nine. My little brother Finn dared me to do a handstand right on the edge of the loft, and I slipped. Didn’t tell on him, of course. You don’t tell on your brother. Besides, Mama would’ve tanned both our hides if she knew about the dare. Rolled my ATV when I was twelve and broke the other leg. At thirteen, I turned my back on a pair of cantankerous pigs. They knocked me ass over tea kettle and trampled over my back. Bruised my kidneys something fierce. I cracked two ribs at sixteen when I got clobbered by an ornery new horse. At eighteen, I was helping birth a calf when the cow nailed me in the hand with her hoof. Popped my middle and ring fingers right out of the socket. Don’t get me going on the injuries I got once I started rodeoing.

  Dumb luck, dumb decisions, whatever. Mama was right; I had a gift for getting hurt.

  But I never been shot before. Well...technically I’d been grazed by a bullet rather than shot clean through, but it was close enough for shock and blood loss to make me woozy. If I hadn’t been sitting down, the explosion would’ve knocked me on my keister.

  Dwight and Darryl stumbled from the shed, bodies on fire. They were smokers; they carried cigarette lighters in their pockets. Fools must’ve ignited gasoline vapors when they tried to see in the dark shed. Kyle put them down, an act of pure mercy as far as I’m concerned.

  Kyle and the teenage boy jogged over to me. “You all right?” he asked. He swallowed, twice, like something was rising up in his gullet.

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “We’re good.” Kyle cocked a thumb at the boy. “This is Levi.”

  Levi and I exchanged nods.

  “We have to get to the house and see if Ripper needs help,” Kyle continued. “You want to stay behind or come?”

  Stay behind while other men risked their lives to take Valhalla back from the men who killed my family? Hell, no. I held out my good arm, and Kyle hauled me to my feet. I was still weak, but no way I’d lag behind and slow them down. I hung onto Kyle’s shoulder while we ran to the house. We climbed the steps and burst through the front door only to be met with a spooky silence.

  A woman screamed at the back of the house, and we took off toward the sound, stopping outside the open door to my parents’ bedroom. Three people were in the room. The pregnant woman leaned against the headboard, knees drawn up to her chest, clutching her belly and moaning. Sweat streamed down her face. Her panicked gaze darted back and forth, from Kyle and me to the Nazi biddy, who was face down across the foot of the bed. Blood trickled from a wound on the old woman’s temple.

  A young, red-haired woman knelt on the woman’s back, securing her wrists together with two of my dad’s neckties. With her wild burgundy hair and tattoo-covered arms, she didn’t look like any cowgirl of my acquaintance, but she tied the knots with an ease and self-assurance that would do any calf roper proud. Grandma’s flow blue pitcher—a giant chip missing from the spout—lay beside them on the quilt. Looked like the young woman clocked the Nazi in the noggin with a family heirloom. Somehow, under the circumstances, I don’t think my mama would object to the busted pitcher.

  “Looks like you might know something about ropes,” I said.

  The young woman gave a final yank on the necktie, then glanced over her shoulder at me. Her red lips turned up in a smile, and the bluest eyes I ever seen sparkled at me.

  “You might just be surprised by what a city girl like me knows about ropes, cowboy.”

  My jaw dropped, and I stared at her like a dummy.

  “Where are Ripper and Sahdev?” Kyle interrupted.

  “Ripper ran up the hall, probably looking for Kenzie. Boyd chased after him. I jumped Jerrilyn, then the doctor took her gun and chased after Boyd.”

  Another gunshot splintered the silence.

  FORTY-SIX

  Ripper

  “Doc!”

  After the longest few seconds of my life, Mac’s pulse tapped against my fingertips, faint but unmistakable.

  Sahdev stumbled to the bed. His fingers skimmed over her face as he examined the thumbprint-shaped bruises on her throat, then peeled back her eyelids to reveal red, pinpoint spots on the whites of her eyes.

  Mac’s eyes fluttered open and she dragged in a deep breath. She panicked, slapping at Sahdev’s hands.

  “Mac.” Soon as she heard my voice, she stilled and turned her head, her eyes seeking mine. “I’m here, darlin'. Tuck’s dead. You’re safe.”

  “Ripper.” Her voice was a hoarse rasp. She swallowed, her throat muscles working painfully as she struggled to speak.

  “Try not to talk,” Sahdev said. “Your larynx—your voice box—might be bruised.”

  Mac shook her head, rejecting his advice.

  “Ripper,” she whispered.

  I touched her face with my blood-spattered hand. Instead of shying away from the gore, she pressed her cheek against my crimson fingers, her eyes shining. My heart turned over in my chest when I saw the love glowing in her eyes. The trust. The acceptance.

  So close. Fuck, we’d come so close to losing everything. Again.

  I leaned over her. “You’re getting your happily ever after, Ms. Dunwitty. Just like in one of your books. I’m no Prince Charming, no white knight, but everything that I am is yours.”

  “I love you.” I could barely hear the words.

  “Love you, too, Mac.” I turned my eyes to the doc. “Sahdev, you saved my life, brother. Thanks.”

  He nodded.

  “Is Kenzie all right?” Kyle stood in the doorway.

  “Come in and see for yourself,” I called.

  Kyle sat on the edge of the bed. Mac lifted a weak hand to clasp his. His gaze skimmed over her face and throat, taking in the evidence of what she’d endured at Tuck’s hands. His expression tightened. He glanced at Tuck’s body on the floor, then at me.

  “Good,” he said simply. His face softened when he looked back at Mac. “We won, sweetheart. We took Valhalla.”

  Mac swallowed and cleared her throat, trying to speak.

  Kyle held up a hand, cutting off her questions. “Dwight and Darryl are dead. They probably ignited gas fumes by using their lighter in a shed full of gasoline cans. That red-haired woman with all the tattoos—”

  “Nyx,” I interrupted.

  “Yeah, Nyx. She helped Sahdev overpower the old woman, then she tied her up with some neckties she found hanging in the bedroom closet. Nyx and Bear are watching over Libby and Jerrilyn now. It seems Bear is impressed with Nyx’s knot-tying skills. He asked her if she knows anything about ropes.”

  I snorted, suspecting that Nyx might very well be acquainted with ropes.

  “Levi?” Mac whispered.

  “Levi drove back to the house to get Hannah,” Kyle said. “They’ll be back soon.”

  Mac’s eyelids drifted shut, then flew open again, as if she suddenly remembered something important.

  “Libby?” she croaked.

  “Still in labor,” Sahdev said. “I should get back to her.” He touched my arm. “Call me if Kenzie needs anything.”

  “Will do.”

  Mac blinked, losing the battle against the sleep her abused body needed. I scooped her into my arms. Didn’t want her to wake up in a slaughterhouse. I carried her down the hall to an unused guest room, stripped her, and tucked her into the bed.

  Kyle waited for me in the hall. “I’ll help you get rid of the bodies and clean up the mess.”

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “Thank you, brother.�
��

  Kyle startled, then smiled. “Whatever you need...brother.”

  Odd how naturally that word came to my lips again. First Sahdev and now Kyle. Before long I’d probably be calling Levi brother, too. When I lost my club, I figured that kind of connection was a thing of the past, dead, like most of the people on the planet.

  We form new connections, new bonds. Life persists. And life can still be good.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Ripper

  Hector sprawled next to Mac on the bed. One stern look from me and he would’ve hopped down and settled on the floor, but I didn’t have the heart to say no to anything that gave Mac comfort. Years of training undone by a woman who threw an arm around my dog’s neck, then smiled in her sleep.

  “I promise, I’ll call for you if she wakes up,” Hannah whispered. Hannah had burst into tears when she saw the bruises on Mac’s face and neck, then she’d sucked it up and asked to stay with Mac. I wanted to stick by Mac’s side myself—to watch her sleep, watch her breathe—but Hannah was trying to step up, trying to contribute. That deserved recognition and respect.

  “All right.” I laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I know I can count on you. Thanks, Hannah.”

  Bone-weary, but too keyed up to hold still, I walked down the hall, pausing in Libby’s doorway. She lay on her side, breathing hard and groaning.

  “How’s she doing?” I asked Sahdev, who sat on the edge of the bed.

  “How do you think she’s doing?” Jerrilyn spat. “After you all murdered her husband?”

  I turned my gaze to the Widow Wilcox—the first Widow Wilcox—and narrowed my eyes. We murdered Boyd, huh? That was rich, coming from the woman who’d led the brigade on their killing spree.

  She’d begged to be allowed to witness her grandchild’s birth, to comfort Libby in her time of need. Jerrilyn had to be the least maternal woman I’d ever met. The idea of her comforting anybody was a joke, but Libby had asked to have her mother-in-law at her side. I’d zip tied Jerrilyn’s arms and legs to a chair, and threatened to gag her if she gave us grief.