by Atlas, Lilly
“Nah, you ain’t my type. Apparently, we have the same type.” He winked and Jeremy lunged uselessly.
Screw knocked him back against the truck without breaking a sweat. “Where the fuck you think you’re going?”
Jeremy seethed, breathing through clenched teeth. Drops of blood and spit sprayed from his mouth with every exhale. His body vibrated with bubbling rage.
And then he snapped, struggling against Screw’s unbreakable hold. “I hope he destroys her,” he screamed at Gumby. “Hope he fucking kills her for being a dirty fucking slut. She’s disgusting. I hope he carves her up until there’s nothing left this time.”
Gumby froze until Screw whispered, “Paul.” He shook Jeremy—hard. The man’s head banged against the truck with enough force to have him groaning. “Is it fucking Paul?”
The twitch of Jeremy’s lips was all the confirmation they needed.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Screw whispered. “You’re a goddammed monster.” He yanked Paul from the truck and passed him off to Jigsaw. “Put him in the box. I’ll deal with him later.”
Gumby was already pulling up a number on his contacts when Screw faced him. “How the fuck do we find him? He’s got way too much of a lead on us.” Screw asked running his hand through his hair.
Gumby grabbed Screw’s fingers and pried them away from the strands before he balded himself. “I’m on it. I’ve got a guy back home.” He pressed a kiss to Screw’s knuckles as he lifted the phone to his ear.
“Hey, G! Hear you’ve been a busy man,” Acer said in greeting.
“I need your help. Right fucking now,” he barked into the phone, aware of the near hysterical thread to his voice.
Acer’s voice lost all its teasing. “Anything. I’m at my computer now.”
“Jazz’s brother Paul somehow got out of lock up and he came here. He’s got Jazz. I need everything you can find, Acer. Hotel room, rental car, credit cards if he has ’em. I need to know everywhere he’s taken a shit over the last week.”
“On it. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”
“You need his last name?” Gumby asked.
“Nah, I got it.”
They hung up without any other words. Now that there wasn’t anything to do but wait, all the emotions he’d been squashing over the past ten minutes came rushing to the surface.
“Fuck,” Gumby whispered as he and Screw walked back into the clubhouse. A heaviness born of intense grief had settled over the men. No one spoke. Most sat staring at nothing with hard eyes and clenched fists while they waited for some word on Jazz. Waited to take action. Waited for blood.
“I’m gonna skin him alive.” The croaked vow was spoken with deadly assurance as Screw began to transform his pain and fear into fury.
“And I’ll hand you the fucking knife.” That was if Gumby could keep himself from using it first.
Screw drifted closer, just a fraction of an inch, but the intent was clear. Gumby didn’t think twice about wrapping his arms around his man and kissing him right in front of his entire fucking club. So much had fallen into perspective over the past day. What mattered and what didn’t.
Screw mattered.
Jazz mattered.
Family mattered, but if they couldn’t get on board, then they weren’t real family. This group accepted him with open arms, and he’d be damned if he was going to lose another member of his newfound family.
They’d get Jazz back or he’d fucking die trying.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
JAZZ COULDN’T STOP the shivering. Her muscles trembled and her body shook with an out of control fury. She’d bitten her tongue twice with the force of her chattering teeth. Blood had been pouring in rivers down her face since the explosion in the diner. A clumsy touch with her frozen hands revealed a gash along her hairline. She must have gotten hit in the blast. The volume of blood coating her face, clothes, and arms seemed tremendous.
Breathe, you know head wounds bleed a lot.
After driving into the mountains for fifteen minutes with the windows down, Paul threw her over his shoulder and carried her into a house.
She’d fought, best she could, but her limbs had grown clumsy and inefficient. Struggling wasted what little energy she’d mustered. Still, the feeling of skin gathering under her fingernails as she’d raked them across his flesh had been satisfying.
He’d sat her on a couch before opening all the windows in what was actually an adorable house. Quaint, with a modern farmhouse feel, the home could have come straight off Joanna Gaine’s TV show.
At first, she’d attempted talking to Paul. Tried begging, pleading, rationalizing, promising him the world. Anything that could possibly trigger sanity and get him to release her. But as she’d known from the other times he’d gotten his hands on her, conversation was another useless endeavor.
All he’d done in response was mumble some sort of prayer of defense against evil spirits.
So now she sat in someone’s house, shaking on the outside and screaming on the inside.
Viper was dead.
He’d died protecting her.
Viper was dead because of her. She could barely muster fear for the pain Paul would inflict because the agony of Viper’s death exceeded anything her stepbrother could do to her.
“I know it’s cold. It has to be that way.”
“F-fuck y-you,” she said, teeth clanking.
Paul moved faster than she’d have thought possible considering how he’d been gasping for breath after hauling her into the house. He was pale, sweating, jittery, clearly not in good health. Maybe even coming down from his latest high.
He yanked her up from the couch. “Your words can’t hurt me, devil,” he said as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her, hard.
“Paul! Stop!” The room spun as her brain rattled around in her head.
He released her and took a step back. “This is the last time, you hear me?” He spoke as though truly communicating with a demon spirit present in her body.
Jazz took a step back, but he’d fucked up her equilibrium. Her vision flipped upside down as she tumbled to the floor with a cry.
Paul came at her, knife in hand. The familiar scene caused terror to rip through her.
“N-no.” She shook her head, scrambling backward on numb hands and feet. “No, P-Paul. P-please.”
As she clambered, crab-walking away, he kept coming.
“S-stop!” she cried as her bloody hand slipped. Paul came closer. “P-please.” She scooted her ass along the floor, pushing with aching thighs. Terror overrode the cold but her limbs still moved with a slow inefficiency.
Her back hit the wall. God, she was trapped.
Nowhere to go.
No one to save her.
Helpless to stop him.
Her heart pounded, increasing the gush of blood from her scalp.
Paul bent over her and grabbed the front of her shirt. She tried slapping his hands away, but only managed to nick her forearms on the sharp blade. With her hand and arms numb, she barely felt the knife slice her skin. But more blood ran from her body.
As she struggled and whimpered, Paul slipped the knife under her shirt, sawing through the fabric. Once he’d gotten halfway up her torso, he gripped the fabric and tore it straight in half.
“It’ll be better soon, Jazz. It’ll be all over soon.”
He grabbed her flailing arms and lifted them above her head. One hand held her wrists anchored to the wall while the other brandished the knife.
“N-no.” She tried to yell but it came out as a whimpered plea. Cold sweat broke out all over her body. “P-please, d-don’t do this.”
He pressed the knife to her sternum. Right between her breasts. He stared straight at her, a maniacal grin matching the bloodlust in his gaze.
She flattened her back against the wall. Anything to get even a millimeter of space between them.
The tip of the blade bit into her skin. Paul slowly dragged his arm downward.
Jazz scre
amed as the hot slice of burning pain made her vision blur.
“It’s working Jazz! It’s going to work this time,” Paul shouted with a wide grin and gleeful tone. “Can you feel it?”
He dug the knife into her side. Not deep enough to sink beneath her skin. But enough to have her screaming again.
There was only one devil in the room, and it wasn’t inside of her.
MOST OF THE patched members of the MC waited with him and Gumby in the clubhouse in various stages of grief. Some railed at the universe and promised violent retribution against any and every member of the CDMC. Some sat in silence, lost in their anguish. Others moved about, pacing with a restless agitation. Copper sat in his office, no doubt mentally beating the fuck outta himself.
Shell could have been in that diner just as easily as Jazz. And to top it off, Copper had lost one of his closest friends today. And they’d all lost a brother. Screw rubbed a hand over the ache in his chest. It wouldn’t be going away anytime soon.
Gumby checked his phone every two minutes or so even though the volume was cranked as high as it would go. Every few moments, he’d run a hand up Screw’s thigh, giving a little squeeze before settling but not severing the connection. That touch, the tiny link to Gumby was the only thing keeping him from flying into a million pieces.
After what was only an hour but felt like an eternity, Gumby’s phone buzzed.
Screw’s heart rate skyrocketed as he watched his lover flick the screen open. “Jesus, he’s fucking good,” Gumby whispered before jumping to his feet.
He shot up as well, grabbing Gumby’s shoulders. “What? What the fuck did he find?”
Gumby lifted his head, meeting Screw’s gaze, and the deadly grin he wore had Screw’s veins icing over. His lover was out for blood.
“Paul is at an Air BNB about ten miles from here. He’s driving a rental car. I got the address and the plates.”
“Holy shit,” Screw said on an exhale. “How the fuck did he get that so fast?” He’d have kissed the computer genius if he was there.
“Does it fucking matter?”
“No.” Screw kissed Gumby hard on the mouth. “Good fucking work. Come on, let’s go get our girl.” And they would. And she’d be whole.
He refused to allow his mind to entertain any other possibility.
His stomach on the other hand, churned with the knowledge they might be too late.
After arming themselves in record time, Screw, Gumby, Rocket, LJ, Maverick, Jigsaw, and a few others busted ass to get to the Air BNB while Copper and Zach led a group to the diner.
In order to function, to keep his head clear and sharp instead of spiraling down in a pit of despair, Screw had no choice but to force thoughts of Viper from his mind. He couldn’t let the immense loss or the worry over how this would destroy Cassie worm their way in. If he did, he’d crumble and right then he needed to be strong as fuck to get his woman back.
“What’s the plan?” he asked Rocket.
Yes, he was the enforcer, but this kind of operation needed to be run by someone who wasn’t in love with the hostage.
“This guy’s an amateur,” Rocket said as he navigated around a slow-moving vehicle on the one lane mountain road. He didn’t slow as he took a sharp curve, causing Screw to scramble for the oh-shit handle. A glance over his shoulder showed Gumby did the same. With his jaw tight, and eyes focused on Rocket, Gumby seemed as eager for blood as he felt.
“Paul rented the car under his own name and did the same with the Air BNB. That indicates one of two things. Either he’s arrogant as fuck and can’t fathom anyone will figure this shit out. Or he didn’t think this shit through. He acted on impulse without a well-conceived plan.”
“Second option gets my vote,” Gumby said from the back.
As Screw nodded, Rocket said, “Me too. So we’re going in hot. Busting in the doors from the front and the back. Hopefully a loud, startling show of force will knock him off his game and we can easily get Jazz. Those kinda guys tend to break when a bigger, stronger presence is shown.”
“And if he’s armed to the teeth?” Gumby asked.
The same question Screw had been wondering but he’d been terrified to ask.
“It’s a risk.” Rocket sailed around another bend in the road and Screw swore two of the Land Rovers wheels lifted off the ground. “But a calculated one. If he’s not thinking rationally, taking it slow and trying to talk him down probably won’t work.”
Fuck. Rocket had a point.
“All right. You taking point, Rocket?”
“You good with that?”
Screw glanced at his brother. Rocket was focused, calm, cold. Functioning without the riot of emotions Screw was struggling to disguise. Though it pained him to admit, he couldn’t lead this charge. He couldn’t be trusted to make an objective smart decision if shit went bad. Jazz and Gumby were his priorities and he’d make sure they got out alive.
Whatever it took.
Admittedly he’d put their lives above everyone else, his own included. So no, he couldn’t take the lead here.
“Yeah. You need to.”
Rocket nodded once, game-face on. “Three of us are taking front door. LJ and Jig have the back. Mav will position others around the house in case the fucker goes out a window. We care about taking him alive?”
“No,” both he and Gumby answered at the same time without any hesitation.
“Will Jazz feel the same?”
Screw ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. He is her stepbrother. And he’s sick. But, Rocket, he’s fixated on her for years. Violently. He’s hurt her fucking bad and we can’t risk it happening again.”
A grunt from Rocket. He’d have no problem taking Paul out.
A hand squeezed his shoulder and he turned to see Gumby’s fear-filled eyes. “Don’t go in planning to kill, but don’t hesitate if it becomes remotely necessary.”
Okay, Screw could get behind that plan. He’d be down with beating the fuck outta the guy before sending him back to a prison psych ward. This time one he couldn’t break out of.
And then they could move on to Jeremy, who he had every intention of killing.
Christ, how could Viper be dead? How would the club move on from that?
Killing Jeremy would be the first step.
“We’re close,” Rocket announced. “Thirty seconds out.”
Screw checked his weapon. Clicks from the back indicated Gumby had done the same. His heart rate doubled as the house came into view. As Rocket had informed them, the place was isolated, partway up the mountain without neighbors.
Maybe Paul had put some thought into this. Didn’t fucking matter. Going in full force was the only option. No way could he stand by while Rocket tried to convince Paul to let Jazz go.
The rental car sat in the driveway. The passenger side door hung open. One of Jazz’s Converse sneakers lie on the ground midway to the front door.
She was inside.
Thank fuck.
Part of Screw, a part he forced himself to ignore had feared Paul would take her elsewhere.
Rocket coasted to a stop about a hundred feet from the house. Without a sound, the three men slipped from the SUV, leaving the doors open to avoid noise.
Jig’s truck was right behind, and Mav’s behind him. Men jumped out the doors quiet as fucking death, and ready to kill. Some had shotguns, a few carried pistols, but most wore an AK47 strapped slung over their shoulder.
They were fucking ready.
Screw’s heart kicked into overdrive as Rocket and LJ exchanged hand signals. With a nod, LJ gestured to Jig and the two of them took off for the back of the house.
“Too fucking quiet,” Gumby whispered against his ear. “Fucking creepy.”
“Yeah. You good?”
“As I can be,” Gumby said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “You?”
“Same.” Which pretty much meant, “Hell no, I’m not good but I’m ready.”
“Let’s move,” Rocket whisp
ered.
They took off after him, jogging with light, near silent steps across the wide front lawn of the Air BNB. Mav waved his arms, alerting men to their positions while Screw and Gumby shadowed Rocket up the three concrete steps to the rust brown door.
A trail of splattered blood marked the steps. Screw clenched his teeth as he peered over his shoulder. Sure enough, the stains seemed to originate from the car.
“Christ,” Gumby said, voice pure tortured anguish.
Screw’s nostrils flared.
Once in place, Rocket held up a hand. The universal sign for hold up. Screw wasn’t sure he could. His heart pounded out of control. Sweat coated his palms making the weapon slippery in his grasp. He bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, unable to stand completely still with the amount of adrenalin firing through his veins.
In. Out. In. Out.
The measured mantra kept his breathing from running out of control.
Seconds ticked by like hours.
Drops of perspiration rolled down his face despite the forty-degree temperature. The heat of Gumby at his back was the only thing keeping him from splintering into a thousand pieces. If Rocket didn’t move soon, he was going to fly apart.
And then, none of it mattered.
A high-pitched scream of suffering pierced the wooded quiet and all three of them reacted. Quick as a ninja, Rocket lifted his heavy boot and rammed it next to the doorknob.
Thank God for rentals whose owners didn’t give a shit about security. The door flew open and Screw charged forward, ignoring the bite of pain as a wood shard scraped his cheek. He shoved past Rocket, Gumby hot on his heels, coming to a dead stop at the sight before him.
Jazz, bloody, crying, cowered in a corner, protectively hugging her drawn up knees. And Paul, standing over her with a wicked looking knife.
A bloody knife.
Wild sunken eyes stared at them, not sane or even afraid. Paul’s complexion was pale and waxy with dark rings under those eyes. “Don’t move!” he screamed. “It’s not safe. I have to finish. I have to save her from him.”
Jesus.
The guy didn’t give a shit they’d just barged in, guns blazing. The demons in his brain had him so single mindedly obsessed with Jazmine, he couldn’t recognize true danger.