Revenge - Reckless Renegades 1

by Gadziala, Jessica

  "I'm not fucking doing this," the man to my side declared, door opening, then slamming behind him as he exited, the entire side of the car jolting back up without his weight.

  "Don't," the man holding me demanded to the one in the front. "Let him have his hissy fit. Come on, babe," he went on, closing a hand around my stomach again, yanking as he climbed awkwardly out, pulling me with him. "Open the door," he told the driver. There was shuffling then the unmistakable grumbling sound of a garage door lifting. "Come on. Couple more feet. Then we can talk."

  Talk?

  That was a new euphemism for rape I hadn't heard before.

  But he didn't pause, simply dragged me along when my feet refused to cooperate.

  The inside of the garage was what you might expect - cement flooring, support beams, and Sheetrock still lined with Spackle since no one bothered to paint a garage meant just to store tools. And this one did. The back wall was lined with paint-splattered workbenches flanked on either side with metal storage cabinets. On the wall behind the desks were pegboards and hanging basic tools. Wrenches, hammers, hand saws, ratchets, pliers, Hex keys.

  But there were other items that were more job-specific.

  Impact drivers.

  Torque wrenches.

  Things you would use to fix bikes.

  Like the ones the bastards who were holding my sister rode.

  Feeling his arm loosen as the door rumbled closed again, all thoughts of meekness and passivity flew out the window as I yanked hard enough to dislodge his arm made lax likely from my subservience, swiveling around on my heel, finally getting to face my attackers.

  You'd think, in situations such as this, that your mind would be on things like escape routes and helplessness and fear.

  But no.

  What was my sick, twisted little mind focusing on?

  How hot these guys were.

  Yep.

  Leave it to me to have the hots for my own goddamn kidnappers. That seemed about right. It fit perfectly with my track record of liking douchebags.

  But, well, damn.

  The one who had been driving was attractive in a very put together way. Sure, he had a beard. And his traditional tattoos were on point. But I had never been into guys who knew how to dress better than I did.

  The other one though - brothers, clearly, by those striking golden eyes they shared - was absolutely my type. Bearded, tatted, strong, tall, lighter-haired, wearing the simple outfit of jeans and a white tee.

  My body - too long without being the focus of male attention - responded almost immediately at being stared at by these two men.

  There were no actual bikes in the garage, but there were sheet-covered cars and oil stains on the floor, bike lifts. Bikes lived here occasionally.

  "What the fuck do you want from me? Why didn't you just grab me in the clubhouse?" I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest, trying to calculate the distance from where my body was situated to the closest blunt tool, to the button to open up that door again.

  "We'd have had to have been in the clubhouse to snatch you from there," the rougher-looking one told me.

  "Please, I'm not stupid. You're bikers."

  "She's got us there, man," the other one said, rubbing a hand up his jaw.

  "It's not bad enough you fucked up Joey? You want to fuck me up too?"

  "Babe, listen, I don't know who the fuck Joey is or how he has been fucked up. And we have no plans to 'fuck you up' either. We just want to have a little chat."

  "A chat? What are we, eighty-year-olds in a knitting club? Open that door and let me go."

  I figured it was better at this stage not to mention that Joey was, in fact, female. Despite his assertions, let's just say I was dubious about his so-called intentions.

  "Let's start with the basics. My name is Thayer. This is Hatcher. And you are?"

  Okay, so, in general, I was pretty sure people who wanted to rape and kill you didn't exactly do pleasantries.

  Except for maybe John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy...

  Okay.

  I definitely wasn't going to relax just because I knew their names and faces. Statistically, that just meant they were more likely to kill me when this was all over. Not being able to peg them in a lineup and all that.

  "Sera."

  "Alright, Sara, well..."

  "Sera," I corrected, knee-jerk.

  "Short for..."

  "Patience," I spat at him, watching as those golden eyes lit up when his lips twitched.

  "Just spent the last couple years in prison, so I'm a little short on that too, babe."

  "Color me shocked that a fine, upstanding kidnapper like you has spent time behind bars."

  To that, there were chuckles from both brothers.

  "When this is all over," Hatcher piped in, "how about I take you on a date sometime?"

  "Please," Thayer cut in. "I'm the one she's been eye-fucking, man. You gotta excuse my brother. He thinks he's irresistible to all the ladies."

  "Oh, so this kidnapping thing is a serial hobby, huh?"

  "This is a first for me," Thayer supplied, wholly unfazed. "What about you, man? You going around snatching chicks off the street while I was away?"

  "Nah. You know me, I prefer being chased."

  "See? Nothing to fear from us. Just fine, upstanding outlaw bikers..."

  "Then where are your bikes? And your cuts? And what the hell do you want with me?"

  "Well, see. I used to run the club your pretty ass was walking out of tonight. Before my men fucked me over once I got sent to jail."

  "Before Doug," I supplied automatically.

  "Yes, babe, before Douchebag Doug fucked me my brothers and me over."

  This was new information to me.

  The way Doug acted, it was as though he had been a man with power - and therefore without consequences - for a good, long while. How else did you explain someone so hyped up on said power?

  Well, I guess you could explain it by overthrowing the previous leader and commanding the respect of all his men.

  That sure sounded ego-boosting to me.

  "Were you as big of a fuckface as he is?" I asked, angling my chin up.

  "Don't think there are a lot of men around who are as big a fuckface as Doug is, Sera," he told me, tone almost apologetic.

  "That's a somewhat comforting thought." Except not for my sister. "So, what? You want to get your club back?"

  "I'm going to get my club back. And you're going to help."

  There was no stopping the scoff before it rose up and burst out. "Yeah, okay," I told him, eyes rolling.

  "Not asking much."

  "And what the hell would I get in return for 'not much?'"

  To that, his shoulder shrugged. "What do you want?"

  "I want Doug dead," I admitted.

  I'd disliked a lot of people in my life. I'd been raised around assholes of all sorts. Some of them had very few - if any - redeeming qualities. Yet I'd never wished death on anyone before.

  But I wanted Doug to die.

  Preferably slowly, painfully, and knowing I was the cause of it.

  "That's not really a fair trade," Hatcher cut into the conversation again. "Since we planned to kill him anyway. But what'd he do to you?"

  "Why were you in the clubhouse tonight?" Thayer asked at almost the same time.

  As a whole, I relied on myself. I'd never been given an Option #2 in my life. I had to shoulder the burden of responsibility since I was a child. It created a drive in me never to rely on anyone else. For anything. For any reason.

  Standing in that garage, though, I was considering how it might serve me. To make a deal with these devils. To bring about the end I so desperately wanted. After all, they stood a much better chance than I did at bringing down an outlaw biker president than I did.

  "Why should I trust that you guys are being honest with me?" I asked, buying myself a little time.

  "Because this is what Doug had done to me after he got Thayer
here locked up," Hatcher supplied, lifting up the front of his shirt, showing three puckered marks on his stomach. I'd seen more than my fair share of scars in my life - people always wanting to cover them up with ink - but never bullet wounds. There was no mistaking that was exactly what I was looking at. "Our other brother took one to the heart and one to the kneecap."

  Well, that would certainly make me murderous too.

  Hell, if I got bad enough cramps, I was likely to stab someone for talking to me in the wrong tone.

  "Alright," I said, dropping my arms.

  "What were you doing at the clubhouse?" Thayer repeated. "Buying?"

  "Buying?" I repeated, not comprehending for a second. "Drugs? No. I don't do drugs."

  "Are you dating one of the guys?"

  "Hell no." The words hurtled out of me, voice louder than I intended. "I mean, there's a good looking one or two in there. But they work for Doug, so they all have to be evil through-and-through."

  "Can't give you much of an argument there," Thayer agreed. "Then what were you doing there?"

  "Seeing my sister."

  "What? Is she a clubwhore?"

  I was pretty sure I snarled at that word.

  No one got to call my sister a whore. No one.

  "Alright, I take that back," Thayer consoled, hands going up defensively. "Who is she then?"

  "She is - was - dating Doug."

  "Past tense."

  It wasn't exactly a question, yet it was.

  "Well, I would say it started off as dating. And then it got warped into something else."

  "This sounds like a long story. And long stories call for whiskey. You wanna go upstairs and talk about this somewhere that has air conditioning?" Thayer invited, already moving toward the interior door without waiting for a response.

  It wasn't the air conditioning or the drink that had me turning and following the men up.

  It was the curiosity.

  And, maybe even more so, the hope.

  That they could do something that I clearly couldn't. That they could get Joey out. That they could get justice for her.

  That was all that mattered.

  And if they could help me with that, then I owed it to her to hear them out.

  A couple minutes later, I was sitting on a chair across from the couch where both of them sat, a blanket and pillow piled on the top, both their hands holding glasses. Whiskey for Thayer - like the glass in my hand - and scotch for his brother.

  "Alright, tell us about your sister."

  "Joey has always been a little..." I paused, searching for the right word, but the only one that came to me was the true one, even if it was a little harsh. "Naive. She's too trusting. Never sees warning signs. I mean this is a girl who gave money to kids begging on the street despite the fact that they were wearing shoes that cost more than our rent. She's never had amazing taste in men, but not as sucky as mine either. So when she started talking about this guy named Doug she met, I was happy for her. Despite thinking Doug is a cursed name."

  "Ever met a douchebag who wasn't named Doug?" Hatcher asked, shaking his head.

  "Exactly. But she was infatuated with him. I didn't ever meet him. Back in those beginning days. If I had, I would have found a way to convince her to end it. But she never brought him around. Then one day, I got home from work, and half her shit was gone, and she left a note saying she moved in with him."

  "So, of course, you went to investigate," Hatcher guessed.

  "Of course. It wasn't like her. First, because she never moved in with guys. Overnights, weekends, sure, but she always came home. Second, she left all her college textbooks. Third, she wouldn't just leave me a note. She's not like that. She's a long, mushy conversation kind of person. She didn't leave me an address, but I knew about the strip club," I specified. "She'd told me he ran it."

  "That wasn't a red flag?" Thayer asked.

  "I spent last Tuesday tattooing some guy's cock because he lost a bet. I'm not one to judge you on what you have to do to make your ends meet. I certainly didn't want my sister on a pole, but I didn't care if he made money off of other women up there."

  "Fair enough. So you went to the club..."

  "And the very helpful ladies there explained to me about the bikers. About the drugs. About the clubhouse where some of them lived."

  "So you went to the clubhouse."

  "At first, it wasn't so bad. Doug let me visit whenever I wanted, he let me stay as long as I wanted. He didn't eavesdrop. But then that slowly changed. I don't know why. He suddenly thought I was a bad influence."

  "Which you were," Thayer said.

  "Which I absolutely was. Since I spent all my time trying to convince her to leave him, and come home with me, go back to school, get her life on back on track. And the more disruptive I became to what he wanted, the more Doug eavesdropped, hung around, followed me around when I was there. Then, suddenly, I wasn't allowed to drop in whenever I felt like it. I got cut down to weekends. Then, as my sister's condition started to deteriorate, only once a week."

  "He got her hooked on something," Thayer guessed.

  "I mean, I've never seen her use. But, yeah, I think so. She's just... falling apart. Losing a ton of weight. Her eyes are lifeless. She has no drive to do anything anymore. Tonight, she was just in bed. She didn't even get up. Just stayed there the entire visit. I'm worried I don't have a lot of time left to try to get her away from him."

  "We never dealt in the life-ruining shit," Thayer mumbled mostly to himself.

  "The life-ruining shit?" I repeated.

  "Heroin and shit like that. We dealt party drugs when I ran the place."

  "Like Molly?" I asked.

  "Yeah, Molly. 'Shrooms. Acid. The fun shit that you do every once in a while at a party and move on from, not the shit you have to take day in and day out just to be able to keep you from the withdrawals."

  "Well, that's definitely not what she's on."

  I was no saint by any means. I had dabbled here and there. Pot, of course. Though it hardly counted as a drug. Molly. A little Adderall once or twice when I was young and stupid and needed to be up for prolonged periods of time to pull double shifts to keep a roof over my and Joey's heads.

  I knew what those drugs were like.

  I'd never touched the harder shit.

  Because, like he said, they were life ruiners.

  And now they were ruining my sister's life.

  "Sucks," Thayer said, shaking his head as he lifted his drink.

  "Yes, it does. It's my job to protect her."

  "She's an adult."

  "She's still my little sister."

  "Can't really object to that. These fuckers are bigger than me, but they're my little brothers too. It's my job to protect them too. Even if they don't need it."

  The three bullet holes in Hatcher, and the two in the other brother implied that they did need his protection. But I figured that was not the kind of thing I was supposed to be saying right then.

  "So you understand."

  "I understand," he agreed with a nod, leaning back on the couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. "What if I say we can help each other to bring about an outcome we both like?"

  "How do you think I can help?"

  "See, we know the compound. We grew up there. But we haven't had eyes in there in years now."

  "You need me to give you... information?"

  "Yeah. Names, faces if you can't get names. What they all seem to be doing when you show up. Firepower..."

  They had that.

  It was one of the most off-putting parts of walking in there as the months went on. I was no stranger to guns. I'd grown up around them. I had guys in my life who collected them or needed them for protection. But there was just something about the way they had them laying around on every smooth surface, bullets scattered, no one even paying them any mind, that set me on edge.

  I didn't like the idea of them being around, so easy to grab. Especially for someone as fragile a my sis
ter, someone as unhappy as she clearly was.

  Would they even tell me if she killed herself?

  Or would they take the body and bury it in the woods behind their clubhouse like some dog?

  In my heart, I knew it would be the latter.

  "So, what? You want me to go visit my sister, and try to take in all the facts I can about the place and the people?"

  "Yeah, that's about it. We would get you to plant something, maybe, if you think you could pull it off without being seen..."

  "Like a bug? I don't think I could do it. Doug watches me like I am seconds away from throwing Joey over my shoulder, and hauling us both out a window. Which, admittedly, isn't too far from the truth some nights."

  "Is it always the same night of the week you go?" Hatcher asked, making me jolt a bit, completely having forgotten he was even there.

  "It wasn't at the beginning, but the last month and a half have been on the same night, at the same time, for the same length of time."

  "What are the guys doing when you show up?"

  "It depends. Playing pool. Watching TV. Sometimes they will have a poker game going. Always smoking. Always drinking. Some nights the place will be flooded with women in barely-there clothes. I once walked in and saw two of your guys and one of those chicks doing an Eiffel Tower. Right there in front of everyone else. I'm no prude, but that was a little... out there even for me."

  "Do you see any of them snorting? Shooting up?"

  "Once. Snorting. I've never seen any needles laying around. But I know they're there."

  "How?" Thayer asked.

  "I've seen track marks between my sister's toes."

  Ugh.

  That hurt to say aloud.

  It had been excruciating just thinking it.

  "Sorry, babe," Thayer said, shaking his head. "That sucks."

  "Yeah, it does. It sucks more when you know how awesome she is."

  "You'll get her back," Hatcher assured me. "She might not be the same. At least not for a while, but you'll get her back. We'll make sure of it. We know what it's like to have a sister on the line."

  To that, Thayer's head whipped in his brother's direction, pinning him with a stare. I didn't have to speak their brotherly language to know that look. The one that said Shut the hell up.

  I was just trying to decide to press the issue, or let it slide, save it for later, when the door flew open, making me jump hard enough to spill some of my drink on my bare leg.