Burning Road (A Devil's Cartel MC Series Book 1)

by Skyla Madi

  Until my feet begin to blister.

  Until it feels as though my soul is being drawn from my body by the heat, promising relief from the pain. In the distance, there’s a bang, multiple bangs, and the sound of gunfire. At least, I think it’s gunfire. I let my head loll to the side. Maybe it’s rain…or the distant sound of thunder. The noise brings Creed to the forefront of my mind, and my heart aches. He’s a lot like thunder…

  Whatever the sound is, I welcome it.

  SIXTEEN

  C R E E D

  It’d come down to this. Jonathan Laurent, the mayor of this town, was a dead man. So were all that followed his instruction. There’d be no mercy, no captives, no fucking bargaining, and we’d take the fallout as it came. Judge agreed. Blondie was mine, and after tonight, everyone in this town would know it.

  We showed up on our motorcycles, in full colors, our insignia displayed proudly on our cuts, and exploded through the crematorium, without fear, throwing stealth to the wind. Before their deaths, these assholes would learn the Devil’s Cartel MC hit their enemies like a freight train and left no survivors. They’d learn we didn’t hide behind hidden agendas, laws, or political arguments, that we weren’t afraid of repercussions or death, and we protected what was ours from anyone who threatened it. Like an avalanche, we were an unstoppable force that left nothing but rubble in our wake.

  I stormed through the building without thought to what was waiting around any corner I passed by. I killed cops, bikers, anyone who stood in my way, and I did it without hesitation. Sweat bubbled along my skin and not from the fight I’d put up since arriving. It was damn hot in here, and I prayed to a God I didn’t believe in that I wasn’t too late. If I was…

  If I was…I didn’t even want to think about it.

  I stepped around a corner, and the butt of a shotgun slammed into my face. Blood gushed over my tongue and out of my nose. Grunting, I stumbled backward, cupping my face, only to be caught by the back of my cut. What the fuck?

  “Fuck, Creed!” Judge boomed as he yanked me out of the way.

  Bang! I winced as my left eardrum exploded, and a ringing sound pierced my brain. The guy with the shotgun hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. Judge shouted in my ear, and I shrugged out of his grip.

  “Pay more attention,” he snapped, his nostril flaring. “I’d rather a dead Blondie over a dead VP.”

  I wouldn’t.

  “You seen Jonathan?” I asked, rolling my shoulders to get my cut on right.

  “No.” He swiped at his forehead. “Is it fucking hot in here?”

  In my stomach, dread piled on top of more dread. I nodded, wiped blood from my face, and marched forward, stepping over the dead body. Ahead, two big doors stood tall, and there was a glow around the edges of the round windows in the center. Was Izzy in there? I barreled forward and kicked the doors open. The room was hot, and the air was thick, feeling heavy in my lungs.

  I saw it then…the casket on the conveyor belt and the flames that flickered at the foot of it, heating the big chamber.

  Then I heard it…her screams.

  Her goddamn screams.

  The terror in her voice sent chills down my spine and a gross ripple through my blood. I rushed forward, shouting her name. I called to her over and over and willed my legs to carry me faster than they were. It fell quiet quickly. Dead quiet. I called out for her again and, still, nothing.

  My name was shouted from somewhere behind me, then I was hit, tackled to the ground. Air was knocked from my lungs as I crashed to the floor, and I lost my gun on impact. I didn’t have time to recover. The asshole who jumped me pinned me on my back and straddled my hips. I tried to buck him off, but he held my wrists captive to the tiles beneath us and sneered down at me with his rat face.

  “Mayor’s gonna cook her,” he said and laughed. “Serves the whore right, sleeping with the enemy.”

  Motherfucker. I shot forward, crunching my torso, and I grabbed him by his collar. I yanked him forward and slammed my fist into his face, tossing his head to the side.

  “Shit!” I heard Judge swear, then the sound of crashing ceramics hitting the tiles ricocheted around the room. “Where’s a frying pan when you need one?”

  What? My attacker pulled free and cocked his arm back, but I grabbed his fist and held it prisoner. I hit him again, and pleasure rippled through me. All my stress, fear, and anger were the driving forces behind my strength as I punched him repeatedly, rocking him to his core. When his arms went limp at his sides and his spine curved weakly, I rolled him off me and hit him some more. I wanted to destroy him, to smash him into tiny pieces, for getting in my way, but I had my woman to save. So I left him an unconscious bleeding mess on the floor and made my way toward her—toward the casket that contained her battered body. I fought enemies as they came, one after the other, until I was cut, beaten, bruised, and bleeding worse than I’d ever been. Whatever was thrown at me, I gave it back tenfold while my men swept through the room like tornados, ripping everything apart. Bullets whipped passed me as I approached the casket with a bloodied face and a severe limp, and the chamber spewed out more heat than I could stand.

  Tonight, Exeter’s crematorium was deafeningly loud, crashing and bashing, but it was background noise to the thumping of my heart. I held my breath as I reached out and touched the wood. It was hot to my fingertips, and I yanked my fingers back with a hiss. There’s no way she’s alive. I shook the negative thought away, licked my lips, and rubbed my fingers to my palms then snatched the lid and pulled as hard as I could. It cracked, splintered, then snapped in half, and I tossed the piece over my shoulder, uncaring where it landed. All my attention was on her, on my severely beaten, overheated, helpless little woman.

  “Christ,” I whispered, moving to the head of the casket.

  Strangely, the anger I accumulated since we were pulled over drained out through my shoes. None of it mattered. What mattered was getting Isabelle help. Even if it meant I had to come back for Jonathan another day, I had to get her out of here. I had to take her home.

  I reached in and forced my hands underneath her fragile frame, hooking my hands around her armpits. She was hard to keep a hold of. Her body was slick with sweat and blood, and I couldn’t get her to bend the way I wanted her to bend. Her head lolled back, and panic struck me. She looked…well, she looked dead. I gritted my teeth and tugged harder, desperate to get her out of the casket, but she wasn’t budging. Armi approached first and slammed the butt of his rifle where the lid met the base. On the other side, Stoic rushed up and did the same. While they worked on the lower half of the lid, Modo slid in beside me to help support her torso; Judge did, too, and spared me a sympathetic glance I didn’t acknowledge. With one final ram, the remaining piece of lid popped off, and Casino, Ayr, and Amani pushed in front of Armi and Stoic to lift Isabelle’s lower half. She whimpered, a sound I barely heard, and hope ignited in my chest.

  “Izzy?” I called to her, and her eyelids fluttered. “Izzy? Baby?”

  We crouched, lowering her to the floor. Her tattered hospital robe was torn, exposing her entire left leg up to her bruised hip where Judge kept the fabric pinched together in his dirty hands.

  “Her feet…” Amani whispered and covered her mouth. “Creed…”

  I glanced at her feet, and well, they didn’t look much like feet. They were blistered, unlike anything I’d ever seen. I laid her head against the floor and stood up. I didn’t know the extent of her injuries, if her neck was snapped or her spine shattered, but I knew I needed to get her to Harlei, our doctor, now. I stepped around her, moving in front of Modo, who couldn’t stop staring at her feet, and I bent low to scoop her into my arms.

  “I don’t think so,” a familiar voice snapped, and I lifted my head as Jonathan Laurent sauntered out of the shadows from behind the chamber, a handgun pointed directly at my face.

  He sauntered slowly, and even though he was outnumbered, there was something smug about his gait. I cut my eyes at him and slowly
straightened, leaving Blondie where she was. No one else made a move to kill Jonathan. They could, easy, but I made them promise to leave him for me. It made sense. Hell, it was fucking poetic I be the one to end it because, for once, I wasn’t the villain of the story. I was the hero. He wanted me to be his daughter’s destroyer, but I was her savior.

  Her lover.

  Her fucking everything.

  “Wait for me outside,” I told the crew, not looking at any of them.

  They’d follow my orders, at least, everyone except Judge would. As expected, Judge remained after the others left, like a pain in my ass.

  I stepped toward Jonathan, ignoring the invisible ties to my ankles that pulled on me, begging me not to leave an inch of distance between Isabelle and me. Jonathan smoothed a hand down the front of his navy tie as the hand that held his weapon trembled. He wasn’t a fighter; turned out, neither were the men he hired. He made a mistake turning on us. We’d have kept him fed, kept him in that big old house of his, and kept Isabelle out of harm’s way, but no. He betrayed us. We told him betraying us was a death sentence, no exceptions.

  “I won’t let you screw this up for me,” he said, his eyes wide and fearful. “I won’t let you ruin everything I’ve worked hard for just because you want to fuck my daughter.”

  Judge simpered and kissed his teeth. “He already did.”

  Jonathan grimaced, and I smirked as I eased closer.

  “They’re like rabbits, the two of them,” Judge added, finally lifting his damn shotgun. “Always fucking.”

  He adjusted his stance, and I smirked when Jonathan realized we had the upper hand. Sure, he could shoot me with his little handgun, and it’d hurt, but Judge would blow his skull to nothing with his shotgun. I shot forward and snatched Jonathan’s thin wrist. He shrieked as I twisted it until it made a sick popping noise and he dropped his gun.

  “Wait—”

  I kicked him in the knee, and he collapsed with a mighty yelp and stared up at me with pleading eyes, eyes that looked so much like Isabelle’s. Was that how she looked at him before he hurt her? I gritted my teeth and growled and grabbed the mayor by his face. He struggled, and his jaw clicked as he tried to yank his head free, but he wasn’t going anywhere. I moved my thumbs and found his eyes. He squeezed them shut, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I pressed my thumbs into his sockets, and he hollered, but it was nothing compared to the horrific screams I heard coming from the casket he put Isabelle in. To me, his screaming was a lullaby, a peaceful melody that soothed my soul. He was going to burn Isabelle alive. I gritted my teeth and pressed harder. He scraped at my forearms, my wrists, and my face. He clawed me, deep. I felt chunks of my skin ripping off as he raked his nails over me. The pain breathed life into me. I wanted more, to torture him more…but I knew Isabelle wouldn’t want him to suffer, as much as he put her through. I released Jonathan and he fell to his knees, clutching his face and sobbing. Dark blood ran between his fingers and down the back of his hands.

  “You won’t hurt her again,” I told him. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  I held out my empty hand, and Judge moved close, placing his shotgun in my grip.

  “You sure you want to end it so quickly?” he asked, not letting go of the gun. “Could always take him back to the shed.”

  “Nah.” I pulled the gun out of his hold and kicked Jonathan onto his ass. “Tilt your head.”

  Resigned, he lifted his chin, and I stared into his bloodied eye sockets as I placed the barrel to his forehead. I wanted him to die here, the place he intended to murder Isabelle. I straightened my shoulders and tightened my grip. I began to squeeze the trigger when I heard it.

  A whimper.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Isabelle as she stared at her father kneeling at my feet. Her face was bloodied, bruised, and twisted in pain, but her eyes were enough to give me pause. She dragged her gaze up to me and caught her lower lip between her teeth. She didn’t need to have a clean, clear face for me to see she didn’t want me to murder her father. If anything, she looked mortified, disgusted even, and for the first time in my life, being the way I was felt gross in my veins. I hovered my finger over the trigger. I wanted to pull it and get my revenge. If I didn’t, I knew it’d keep me up for the rest of my life, an unresolved problem that’d bug me relentlessly.

  I needed the closure…but I didn’t want her to be afraid of me.

  I needed the closure…but I needed her love more.

  I was whipped enough to admit her admiration fueled me more than revenge ever would. I could live with the torment of not taking Jonathan’s life if it meant keeping her.

  I handed Judge the shotgun and dipped my chin. Wickedness flashed in his eyes, and he nodded his head. I didn’t have to verbalize anything. He knew what I wanted. I didn’t want my revenge, but who was I to take it away from someone else?

  “Give me that.” I flicked my head toward the sweatshirt he tied around his hips.

  He did without question, and I took it to Isabelle and draped it over her. Her chest heaved, and blood trickled from her mouth. Baby. I cursed and lifted her into my arms, and her little whimper evolved into sobbing as I carried her out of the crematorium and climbed onto my bike. Armi and Modo helped position her in front of me, her chest to mine, her legs over my thighs. She continued to cry as I took off my cut and turned it around. I put my arms through the holes and pulled it on backwards. It held her close to me and supported her back, like a sling. Then I grabbed my handlebars and eased out of the parking lot. Minutes into the drive, she went limp, and I was flying low, desperate to get her home…

  …where she belonged.

  * * *

  At the clubhouse, Harlei and her mom, Pearl, were on standby to receive Isabelle. Within ten minutes of me arriving, they had Isabelle stripped naked and hooked up to different machines, different drips. It was overwhelming. They rushed around the room, like Izzy’s life depended on it, talking gibberish. I couldn’t keep up. All I did was watch the numbers on Isabelle’s machines climb high and sporadically dip low with every breath she took. With every inhale, the machine beeped and told us she wasn’t taking in enough air, but Harlei didn’t seem worried. She said she had more important things to worry about, things that directly impacted whether Isabelle would make it or not. So I tried not to worry about it, but it was distracting. Every beep, every ring, had my heart clenching in my chest. If she died, I was going to regret not pulling Jonathan apart.

  A pointy mass hit me in the stomach, and I grunted and stepped back from the bed.

  “You’re too big,” Harlei grumbled, elbowing me out of the way so Pearl could stick a needle and a tube in Isabelle’s slender arm. “Get out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Then do something useful,” she ordered, pulling open the drawers on a stainless-steel cart. She reached inside and dragged out a clear bag of liquid and a syringe with a strange plastic tip. “Flush her wounds so I can see which ones need stitching. Mom, grab the peroxide.”

  “What about her feet?” I demanded.

  I noticed some of the blisters had ruptured and were bleeding.

  “Only got two hands, Creed. I’ll get to her feet when I can.”

  I flicked my stare over Isabelle’s body. She was naked on the bed, her hospital gown completely open. Horrific bruises spotted her body and made mine ache all over. A light layer of smoke and ash covered her from head to toe, and it was hard to tell what was dirt and what was blood.

  I swallowed hard and filled my first syringe with saline. I gently squeezed, and the saline squirted out the tip and cleaned her body, revealing scratches and cuts. By her ribs, a thick line of ash and blood gathered, and it took a syringe and a half to clean it out. Fresh blood seeped out when the debris was cleared, and I crouched lower to get a better look. Inside, more debris was caught, so I held the tip to the slice and I emptied the syringe, flushing it out. When the last drop hit the wound, a shadow fell over me as Harlei put her head
beside mine to get a closer look.

  “Shit,” she swore. “Didn’t see that.”

  “Knife wound?” I asked, my blood simmering.

  “Possibly.” She straightened and turned to her mother. “We don’t have a thoracostomy tube. Get me an occlusive bandage and call Grant.”

  Pearl nodded and rushed off. I frowned. Grant was a surgeon who owed us after we helped his son out of a tough spot years ago. We were still dealing with the repercussions of attacking the Ventillis in Las Vegas. We didn’t call Grant often, only when shit got serious.

  Grant arrived seventeen minutes later, all scrubbed up in navy. He didn’t greet me. He just went to work on Blondie, and I let him go, unbothered. I stood there for hours, holding an extra bag of…whatever it was. The sun was up and the rest of the men had returned by the time Grant was done. When he was done, he left immediately while Harlei slept against the far wall, her hands clean, but her shirt was spattered with blood. In the past, Harlei and I frequently butted heads. I even demanded Judge get rid of her more times than I could count, but in this moment, I was thankful for her. She shot around this room for hours, trying to save someone she didn’t know, someone who didn’t have any ties to the club. For that, she had my respect.

  I watched the last of the liquid in the bag I was holding drain down the tube and into Blondie’s arm. Thank fuck. My back hurt and the muscles in my arm screamed from holding it up, but I didn’t mind it. It was the least I could do. Isabelle was clean, thanks to Pearl, and draped in a light blue gown. Her hair still held remnants of her awful time, but I’d wash it for her as soon as I could.

  When her blood started to travel back up the empty tube, I pulled it out and bandaged her up, like Harlei instructed. Then I pulled up a chair and sat by her bed. My eyelids grew heavy, my limbs felt like bricks, but I couldn’t drift off. There was a shitstorm coming, and I had to protect her from the fallout. But how? I kept my attention on her. I watched her eyelids flutter and her chest rise and fall with sluggish, painful-looking breaths. I wished I could switch out with her, to give her my breaths, and it was an odd feeling for me. Confusion invaded my mind. Was I in love? I didn’t know. Didn’t even know what it felt like to be loved. I didn’t chase friendships or romance. I preferred to chase the road, to chase danger and money…until that night in Isabelle’s room. From then, she was always a lingering thought in my mind. I knew I cared for her, knew I’d do anything for her, and I knew I couldn’t love her alone. I needed my men to love her, too; she’d be safe then.