Colt: Devil's Nightmare MC: Book 10

by Lena Bourne

  Three of his men are sitting on their bikes behind him, cutting off all avenues of escape. The dark shades they’re wearing makes it seem like they have no eyes.

  “You still look fine, though,” Monarch says. “A little wild and unkempt, but quality like yours doesn’t fade.”

  I open my mouth to speak, figuring the best way to handle this is the way I’ve always handled him. With sweet lies and big smiles.

  His arm shoots out. I’m expecting a slap, but he grips my throat in his fist instead, pushing me backward into the room and kicking the door shut behind him. I can’t breathe and fat black spots are swimming before my eyes before he finally releases my throat and pushes me back on the bed.

  “Now tell me, what have you done with my little cousin Josh before you whored yourself out to another club?” he says.

  Before he spoke, I was sure he was just getting ready to fuck me, since most of our previous sexual encounters started with him choking me to near passing out. Or slapping me. Or otherwise making sure there was mostly pain in it for me.

  His question takes my breath away better and more completely than his fist around my throat ever did.

  I’m dead if I tell him the truth. The black hardness in his eyes is telling me that more plainly than words ever could.

  A lie is all I have. But it’ll have to be the most convincing one I ever told.

  “Six months ago, he sold me to the Roadside Sinners MC clubhouse,” I say. “Or lost me in a game of poker, more like. Thank god you’ve found me.”

  I’m looking at him with wide eyes leaning forward willing him to believe me with all that I am.

  “Shut your lying mouth, bitch,” he snaps. “I know he’s dead. I just don’t know why and you’re gonna tell me. Get dressed. You’re coming with me.”

  He grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls me to my feet, tears that have nothing to do with pain filling my eyes.

  “And pack up your shit, too,” he adds. “We don’t want anyone thinking you didn’t leave on your own.”

  Fuck my rotten luck! Even in the highest of highs, it never fails to drag me back down to the filth I belong in. How the fuck did Monarch even find me?

  20

  Colt

  I wasn’t surprised to find Blaze waiting for me in the shade of the tarp where we park our bikes. The sun is nearly set, the horizon like a bright fire blazing, but not as hot as his eyes.

  “Are you ever gonna learn how to control your dick?” he asks savagely. “You were supposed to go and show her the photos and come right back. Cross ain’t pleased.”

  I shrug and pull out the two tightly packed manila envelopes from my saddlebags. “Couldn’t be helped. But she was very thorough once I finally got her to look at the photos.”

  I start walking toward the entrance to the bunker. The day’s heat is radiating off the concrete walls of it, so it’s more or less like walking through a sauna.

  “I’d lead with that,” Blaze says, and I don’t even bother replying.

  It’s wonderfully cooler inside, but I’m still sweating by the time we reach the conference room. Hawk and Cross are already there, checking out the photos and talking quietly.

  “About time,” Hawk says as I walk in. “Did you get it?”

  I nod and walk over to him to hand him the envelopes. “And more besides. She gave me the names of everyone in the photos, including the women. A couple are missing from the photos and she told me about those too. It’s all written down on the back.”

  Hawk opens the first envelope and pulls out the photos, whistling appreciatively. “She’s real through and observant, this girlfriend of yours. I could use an assistant like her.”

  He starts sorting the photos on the tables.

  “Did it have to take all day?” Cross asks pointedly, piercing me with his black gaze. Sweat erupts on my forehead that has nothing to do with the heat.

  “Kinda,” I say. “She was pissed at being all alone at the motel for days on end, and wouldn’t cooperate until I took her to lunch.”

  “Women,” Blaze puts in sarcastically, trying to help.

  “She came through very nicely, though,” Hawk says. “Don’t be too hard on him, Cross.”

  Cross’ gaze grows even blacker before he shrugs and grins. “It’s like this club is all about women first these days. But at least yours saves us days of work. I guess I can let half a day wasted for it slide. This once.”

  “Are we moving against them tonight?” I ask, earning another unforgiving look from Cross.

  “We’ll make a plan first,” Cross says.

  “I was thinking,” I say, interrupted for a moment by a very pointed warning look from Blaze, but whatever, I have an idea. It’s been on my mind since I spent two nights watching the sleeping town. “They think the place is haunted. We go in as ghosts, in the middle of the night. Two per house, in and out, fast and silent.”

  Cross nods, I think despite himself. “I’ll consider it. Now leave.”

  It wasn’t a harsh order or meant to shut me up. I think. I hope. But I heed it straight away, with Blaze on my heels. I can feel his blazing hot look on my back, but what he still doesn’t seem to understand is that in this world, it’s always, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I don’t plan to be a nobody enforcer for this MC until I’m too old to be useful. And I plan on taking him with me all the way, so I don’t know what he’s being so pissy about.

  I headed to the bedroom I share with Blaze, thinking only to get away from his accusations and dire warnings, but I promptly fell I sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.

  As a result, I was groggy and disoriented when Blaze came to wake me at just before nine PM.

  “There’s a meeting. Cross wants you there,” he said, and I banged my head against the top bunk in my haste to get up.

  The throbbing pain in my head doesn’t help my disoriented state as I follow Blaze down the corridor and to the main room. A couple of our brothers are sitting on the crates lining the walls of the main room, talking quietly, and I can hear yet more outside, their words carried inside on the plumes of smoke from their cigarettes and evening wind.

  Whatever’s happening is happening soon. We’re moving tonight, it seems. Cold nervousness floods my stomach as soon as I realize the entirety of what that means. We’re riding to deal out death once again. I’m not ready. I never am. Not until I’m standing with my knife or my gun before the man I’m supposed to dispatch. Then I do what I must. As always, I’m gonna trust that and not think about anything ahead of time.

  Cross, Ice, Hawk, and Tank are standing beside the long table that’s only holding a couple of images tonight. Five other brothers are hanging back, leaning on the wall, or sitting on crates. Ace and Rook are sitting on crates, while Scar is leaning against the way between them. His face is grotesquely disfigured by the jagged scar across his cheek. He’s in charge of torture for our club, and most men just tell him what he wants to know before he even gets started on them. He’s a legend in his own right in the biker world. The other two are Mac and Eagle, and I’m surprised to see the young half-Indian here since he’s been so critical about us not punishing the Knights for the explosion that killed Mitch. Cross clears his throat, drawing my attention away from Scar.

  “Nice of you to join us,” he says, sarcasm thick in his voice. I nod and look down at the table.

  A picture of Snake, the gray-haired guy who seems to be running the show for the Sinners now is in the center of the table, next to an image of the big house overlooking the town. Below that is a row of six more photos of men and houses.

  “These are the Sinners’ ringleaders now,” Cross says, pointing at the photos.

  “Tonight we will ride, grab them all, and bring them here, where Scar will go to work on them to find out the rest of what we need to know about who’s talking to the feds and such,” Cross says. “I’d prefer to be handling this the old-fashioned way, by leaving none alive to tell tales to cops, but there’s already too much heat
surrounding this job. The explosion at the bar drew everyone’s attention, and there’s all manner of police presence around now. Feds, local cops, ATF, you name it, they’re here. And some MCs from as far up as Vegas are already sniffing around too, looking for an advantage in the Sinners’ downfall. They’re all crawling all over town and the cops have already arrested several members of Knights of the Road MC. We can’t afford any more fuck ups and we can’t afford to leave behind a town full of corpses. There are too many eyes watching. We gotta find the heart of this thing and strike there and only there.”

  Cross pauses, his piercing black gaze traveling across all of us. I nod along with the rest of the guys in the room. Only Tank is looking a bit skeptical, his eyes narrowed as he watches Cross, but he keeps silent. If anyone asked my opinion, I’d tell them I think it’s a good plan, not foolproof, but perhaps the best we can achieve under the current circumstances.

  “We move tonight,” Cross says. “A small operation, an in and out kinda thing. Tank, Ice, and I will take Snake at the big house. The rest of you will be working in teams of two and will each get a house and a target to extract from. There will be no repeats or second chances. Any wives or children living in that house are not to be harmed under any circumstances. Gag them and tie them up if you must, but work hard at not waking them up in the first place.”

  Ace and Rook approach the table, as do Mac and Eagle. Cross assigns each team a house and a target. Me and Blaze will be bringing in a younger guy who has no wife. Of the two nights we were staking out the town, he spent both of them in the company of three club whores in the upstairs bedroom of his house, with the windows open and the lights on.

  “Rook will be in charge down there,” Cross says. “But you, Colt, will be the eyes and ears.”

  His words dispel the vivid memory of the moans and groans that echoed in the nighttime silence from our target’s house.

  “He’ll direct you to the houses and he’ll call a retreat if things go sour. I want you all to listen to him.”

  The look in Blaze’s unblinking eyes as he stares at me is part shock, part happiness, and part dumbfounded surprise.

  “You’ve got an eye for detail and the presence of mind to put two and two together even when you don’t like the answer,” Cross says to me. “And you tend to improvise with good results. So I’m counting on you to know when it’s time to get out down there.”

  I nod, swallow hard, and wish I could blink because I’m sure I must look as stupid as a fish right now.

  “I won’t let you down, Cross,” I assure him and mean it completely.

  He nods. “I’m holding you to that.”

  Then it’s time for the nitty-gritty of the planning. Hawk produces a whole new set of photos and outlines the path we’re to take into the town for each of the teams. We’re getting there in two vans, while a third, driven by Hawk, will be waiting to transport the prisoners back to the bunker. Hawk meticulously points everything out on the photos and a map. It takes a good forty-five minutes before he’s finally done and looks up at us, grinning. “Of course, you might have to wing the whole thing. So memorize the face of your target, know him well enough that you’ll know him anywhere. I really would rather not repeat this mission. It’s gonna be much harder the second time around.”

  “Is everyone clear on their tasks?” Cross asks, and everyone either nods or says yes.

  “Then stay safe out there, as always!” Cross says, and this time the agreements from the crowd of my brothers are louder and more heartfelt.

  He tells us to be ready to ride at eleven PM and to tell none of the others about our mission tonight. Keeping secrets from the brothers? When did this happen? Then again, Cross has always handled everything on a need to know basis, so I let it go. As we leave the room, Hawk hands us night vision binoculars and some fancy looking walkie-talkies and shows us how to use them. He also gives us soft, transparent earpieces through which Cross will be able to address us all at once.

  “I really should’ve used these on the last job,” Hawk mutters as he fits mine into my ear.

  He seems to be talking more to himself than me, so I stay silent.

  I have the time to call Brenda now, talk to her for a couple of hours before I have to leave. A huge part of me wants that and nothing else. But this job is too important to let distraction in. As Cross said. There will be no repeats. But once it’s done, nothing will keep me from spending at least a month with Brenda. Preferably naked.

  21

  Brenda

  Monarch sat me on the back of his bike, smiling as he hissed dire warnings for me to sit still, do as I’m told, and not even think about running. I did think about running, thought about the thick, hissing shrubs that scared me enough to turn back hungry the other night. They’d be thick enough to hide in, but then what? Who knows when Colt is coming back. I have no money, since all my belongings are stuffed into Monarch’s saddlebags, and between him and his three cronies, they’d find me before I got very far.

  If I sit still and do as I’m told, for now, I might yet get a chance to escape.

  About five miles out of town, heading towards Nevada and Vegas, twenty more Kings joined us. Clearly, they’ve been looking for me for a while. But how the fuck did they know where to look? And why the fuck didn’t they come sooner?

  Not that I wanted them to.

  The hot afternoon air is barely cooled by the cold one created by our passage. Monarch smells of old man sweat and just plain old sweat since he is not in the habit of cleaning his leather jacket very often. I never found his smell appealing, and it’s making me downright nauseous now. My hair is flapping every which way under the too-big helmet he plopped on my head none too gently before we took off.

  I fully expected us to stop in some remote area, far from anywhere, far from anyone to hear me scream as Monarch attempted to get the truth about Josh out of me. But we rode straight into the night, the air turning from hot, to warm, to cool to downright cold. He only stopped to piss and even that he did fast. He didn’t speak to me at all.

  It was as though they were running from something, rather than returning home having caught me. And after a couple of hours, I was sure we weren’t stopping for long until we reached Vegas. Good. I can make a run for it once we get there. I still know people there, and some pretty good place to hide.

  I fell asleep against Monarch’s after the third time he stopped to take a leak at the side of a dark road, empty save the twenty-odd bikes of his club members.

  “Rise and shine, princess,” Monarch says in his harsh, guttural whisper. “We’re almost home.”

  I open my eyes to light and movement, but it’s far from morning yet. We’re stopped at a large intersection, with a fair-sized column of cars passing to and fro in front of us. Vegas never sleeps. Most cities sleep, but not Vegas, something is always going on here.

  And I know exactly where we are. The corner of Valley View and Oakey. If I make it to the end of this street, I can get lost in the alleys beyond this intersection.

  My heart is thundering in my chest, my throat is so dry I can’t unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth, but this might be my one and only chance. I think there’s only like two more traffic lights before we get to the Kings’ clubhouse.

  I loosen my grip on Monarch’s waist, pretend to stretch and bolt. It’s only by some miracle that I manage not to trip over his bike as I slide off it. Then I start running as fast as I can. Straight across the street, dodging cars and bikes and ignoring the angry shouts.

  Monarch downright roared as I got away, and that animal sound is still reverberating in my ears.

  But the darkness of the first cluster of alleys is just up ahead. I will my legs to go faster, even though my heart is already beating so fast I’m sure it’ll burst at any moment.

  But I’m almost there. Almost in the dark, almost safe, almost home.

  Something hard runs into me from the back, propelling me forward through the air. I’m flying, no lo
nger in control of the movement of my body. My forehead hits first, pain so great and all-encompassing I only feel the very edges of it racking my entire body before everything goes black.

  Colt

  The drive to the hill overlooking the abandoned town passes in the blink of any eye. We took a different route, not the one past Brenda’s motel, and as sorry as I was at first, I now think it’s better this way. There’s no room for her in my mind for this job.

  The responsibility Cross gave me weighs like a bull sitting on my chest. And for the first time ever, I feel like I’m up to par. Like my best will be good enough. Like the promise I made Cross was a prophecy, not just empty words.

  We arrive at the site, trek up the hill where me and Blaze spent our stakeout, then lay low behind the two boulders.

  Sounds of partying in town are loud, boisterous, and deafening, though that might just be because my nerves are red hot and frayed in anticipation of the work ahead. I point out the houses and the likeliest routes, speaking in short sentences just above a whisper, though I doubt anyone down in town can hear anything. The main street is full of people, lights are shining in most of the houses, and you’d think they were celebrating New Year’s or something with the amount of noise they’re making.

  Even by one AM, the partying doesn’t seem to be letting up.

  “At least they’ll be drunk and tired by the time they finally go home,” Ace remarks to no one in particular, since we’re probably all thinking the same thing.

  The children and wives leave first, and by two AM, the street finally starts clearing. The lights in the houses start winking out one by one.

  “That’s your guy,” I say to Eagle and Mac as the old, portly guy they’re supposed to be bringing in limps and stumbles along Main Street, making a left turn towards his already dark house on the second row over. His wife never came down to the party, and that house has been dark since we got here.