by Mary Potter
“For fuck’s sake, Chains! You know what they’re like. Just get here already!”
Chains? I know that name.
“That bastard is like a dog with a bone. And you know Reaper will come after her. Send your guys here soon. They were supposed to be here. We had to move ahead without them!”
Reaper. I know that name, too. Chains’s name makes me uneasy, but Reaper’s makes a feeling of safety and guilt spread through me. A ruggedly handsome face swims into view. Right, yes, Reaper had saved me.
All at once, memory slams into me. I gasp at the force of it, and all the pain in my body seems to get worse all at once as the world around me returns. I groan, slamming my eyes shut again as bright light assaults my vision, making my headache even worse.
“Shit. She’s waking up. I better see you here soon.”
I slightly open my eyes to see Mandy shove her phone in her pocket. There’s an irritated look on her face, which doesn’t sit right. Gone is the open, friendly expression she wore before. Now she looks bitter and resentful, and I realize that I saw hints of this when she was talking about Reaper before.
“You’re awake,” she comments as I open my eyes more.
“Mandy?” I groan. “What?”
My awareness of the world around me is returning. I can feel that my arms have been pulled roughly behind my back, and a coarse rope is wound tightly around my wrists. I move my legs to discover that they, too, have been bound together, rendering me immobile.
Then I notice that we’re not alone. Two others, another woman who is standing in the kitchen, watching out the window, and a man who is standing guard at the half-broken door, are with us. Dimly, it occurs to me that one of them must have been the one to hit me over the head as I entered.
“Sorry about this,” Mandy says with a shrug, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “I had a deal, and I couldn’t let you get in the way of it.”
I shift slightly and wince as pain lances through my skull.
“Why?” I manage.
“Why what?” Mandy asks, bemused.
“Why have you betrayed us?” I ask, shifting as I try and find a comfortable position, all to no avail.
“Betrayed?” Mandy raises an incredulous eyebrow. “You’re accusing me of being the betrayer? Look, I’m sorry you got caught up in all this, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with you. If you hadn’t gotten caught up with fucking Reaper, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
I frown.
“You’re… Aren’t you the sister of one of Devil's Mayhem?” I demand. The pain in my head is finally starting to fade. “You’re Fury’s sister, aren’t you? You’re betraying your own brother!”
Mandy drops to the ground, and I freeze as her hand goes around my throat. She doesn’t squeeze, simply rests her palm there, but the threat is very clear.
“Don’t speak of things you don’t understand,” she says in a low voice. “What I’m doing has nothing to do with my love for my brother. It’s just unfortunate that he threw his lot in with Reaper. If he’d stayed away from him, he wouldn’t have to worry.”
She removes her hand, and I stare up at her, trying not to let on that my heart is beating a mile a minute. When it calms down a little, I stare up at her, making a mental note not to rile this woman up any further.
“Look, we have time, right?” I try. “I heard you on the phone with Chains. He’s going to be awhile. I just want to know what’s going on. Everyone is telling me something different.”
Maybe, if I can keep her talking, I can keep her talking long enough to get myself out of this. Though gingerly testing the knots, I glumly think that might not be possible.
At least hearing her talk is helping to keep my panic at bay.
“Yes, everyone’s saying different things, aren’t they?” Mandy muses. I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed before how unhinged she is. “Fine, I’ll tell you the story. I told you about Reaper’s girl, right?”
“The one who got killed?” I ask.
“That’s the one,” Mandy scoffs. “She was murdered by Hell’s Riot after Crusher humiliated them one too many times. They went after her because she was vulnerable. She was friends with everyone, but she wasn’t one of us. None of us cared because she was sweet. But then she died, and Reaper went off the fucking rails. He wouldn’t lead jobs anymore. He didn’t speak up at church. He didn’t seem to fucking care about any of us. Then, one day, he was just gone. Leave, Crush called it.” She snorts. “More like he just ran away.”
“His girlfriend had just died,” I can’t help but remind her.
“And?” Mandy rolls her eyes. “We followed him because he was stronger than us, but he was just a weak-willed coward when it came down to it.”
I eye her. She sounds personally offended by this. Again, I have to wonder if anything happened between Reaper and Mandy, or if Mandy had once held feelings toward the man that had twisted beyond comprehension when she felt he had let her down.
“When he left, Crusher started caring for his wife, and the whole place went into turmoil.” Mandy sits back, looking up at the ceiling. “No one knew what to do. Then Chains stepped up. If Reaper and Crusher weren’t going to do their jobs, he’d do it for them. He made contact with different suppliers, got us jobs to run, and led church. A lot of us began to feel that we’d be alright. It wasn’t the most legal work, but we had work, and we had each other. And then Reaper fucking returned.”
This must have been when Reaper was dragged back, I would guess. From Reaper’s side, he was pulled back into the life that he had left after his girlfriend’s death because Devil's Mayhem, which was falling further and further into darkness, needed him.
It seems Mandy is one of those who doesn’t appreciate his attempts to bring everyone into the light.
“We had it all, but then he came along and kicked Chains out,” she scoffs. “Then he makes all these stupid changes. Some of the guys weren’t prepared to do that. So they left. I helped them contact Chains. They joined Chains of Glory, but they pretended they were still with Devil's Mayhem, just in case. Not that I needed them. Fury is one of yours. I got all the information I needed.”
My head is spinning. The politics of all this astounds me. I’d never before thought of a motorcycle club being so in-depth when it came to how everyone worked together. But maybe I should have. It’s a different side of the world, and I can’t help but feel fascinated by it all.
Then I shake myself. I can admire all this later when I’m not in a dire predicament.
“Look,” I try. “I get that you’re angry that things changed so quickly on you. But you said before that I’m not involved in all this. I just want to go home to my daughter and forget about all of this.”
Something flashes across Mandy’s face, the same emotion I had seen on her briefly before we walked into the house. This time I can pinpoint it. For the first time, I see guilt. She hadn’t seemed guilty when she was talking about betraying Reaper, her brother, and the entire club. She hadn’t even seemed remorseful when talking about how I’d gotten myself tied up in all this. But mentioning Emma has brought it out of her.
I don’t know why Emma makes her feel guilty, but I’m definitely going to press this advantage.
“I promised Emma that I’d be home soon,” I push on, and Mandy looks away. “She’s probably at the house, worried sick about me. I know we’ve been gone longer than—”
“Stop.”
I shut my mouth at the comment, shocked. Mandy looks up, eyes narrowed. She withdraws a gun from her pocket, and I stiffen as she points it toward me.
“I know what you’re doing,” she comments. “But it isn’t going to work right now. I’m not going to let you go. I feel bad doing this to Emma because she’s a sweet kid, but you know way too much. And you’re in too deep with Reaper. Fuck, you slept with the bastard. I have no sympathy for you. It’s better for you to disappear.”
She snorts at the horror on my face.
“We’
re not going to kill you,” she scoffs. “We’ve got something far better planned for you. Your buyer has been very eager to meet you.”
A thrill of fear goes through me. Honestly, it might be better if they did kill me. The last thing I want is to be someone’s sex slave for the rest of my life.
“You know about all that?” I croak.
“Know about it?” Mandy laughs. “Darling, I’m one of the main players. If it wasn’t for me, we would never have snatched so many of those girls from the club. It was easy when they were so desperate to talk to someone who understood them, even if they never saw my face.”
It was Mandy. I could kick myself for not following my instincts. I’d gotten so caught up in believing that our friend at the club couldn’t possibly be Mandy because she was one of Reaper’s people. But she was that woman. Like Jessica, she had betrayed us all.
“Why would you do that?” I ask, devastated. “A lot of the girls trusted you. They went to you when they needed help.”
“Easy prey,” Mandy grins. “Do you know how lucrative sex is? You see it all the time at Night Pleasures. All those assholes, salivating over your bodies as you strip for them. That’s a moneymaker. But sex? When they know that they’ll have you however they want you? They pay the big bucks for that. Night Pleasures is just a side business, our picking grounds for new blood.”
I stare up at her. The words that leave Mandy’s mouth are pure poison, and there’s a glint in her eyes, half madness, and half hysteria. She truly believes in all of this.
“Chains promised me a cut if I went into this with him,” Mandy continues. “And Griffin, he oversees us. He’s always there, making sure we’re doing the right thing. We were this close to giving him the fucking land before Reaper stepped in, and we would have been laughing all the way to the bank.”
This woman is an utter fool. She’s being played, just like Jessica was, just because of money. Does she not hear what she’s saying? She doesn’t own this business. She’s just a player in it. And I’ve already seen how expendable those players apparently are.
“Mandy, listen, you can stop this,” I plead. Her gun is still pointing unwaveringly at me. “Please. It isn’t worth it. Chains just wants money. Same with Griffin. They’re going to drop you as soon as you’re useless to them.
“I know.” Mandy flips her hair over her shoulder, her tone flippant. “But that’s easy. All I need to do is make sure I’m never useless.”
There’s no way to get through to her, I realize, and my stomach sinks. There’s no way out of this. Mandy is utterly mad, and I foolishly followed her out of the house. I’ve brought this on myself.
I only hope that Emma will forgive me.
Chapter Twenty: Reaper
I’m on the road as soon as Thor gives me a direction, barely hearing Viper call for me to wait before cursing and following, shouting orders to Tex and Fury to get the others after us. I speed down the main roads, weaving through the cars before turning west. If I could, I’d run all the traffic lights, but I have no desire to be arrested.
It briefly enters my mind that getting the police involved might be a good thing, but I have no desire to bring them out to the desert when they’re chasing me. I’ll leave Thor and the others to contact them.
Viper is following me, sticking to my tail, kicking up dust as we head onto the bumpy roads of the outer city. I see people on the street looking up as we roar past, but I don’t slow. We have a location. We know where Kyra and Mandy are.
It isn’t until we reach a small gas station on our way out of the city that logic finally returns to me, and I slow down. Viper pulls up beside me as I come to a stop and tears his helmet off.
“Finally!” he exclaims. “It’s about time you calmed the fuck down.”
I scowl but don’t refute it.
“We need a plan, or they’re going to see us coming,” Viper continues. Thor is contacting the police, and Tex and Fury are gathering everyone we trust. This is about more than just Kyra and Mandy.”
“I know,” I answer with a short nod.
Kyra and Mandy are my primary objectives right now, but today is about things so much bigger than them. We have our plans. In one fell swoop, we’ll mobilize and shut both Night Pleasures and the mansion we rescued Kyra from, hopefully, saving all the others that have been taken there. But first, we need to take out Mandy, who is apparently a key player, and get Kyra somewhere safe.
“It looks like they’re not far from here, but we don’t know who else is around,” Viper warns. “We need to go slow.”
“I hear you,” I return. “Let’s do this.”
We jam out helmets on and pull out into the desert once more, leaving the city behind. We haven’t gone far when, in the distance, we see an old, run-down house, making us both pull to the side, half-hidden in a dune.
“I think that might be the place,” Viper comments, glancing at his phone. “Thor’s coordinates are pointing in that area.”
There’s a flash in the window, and we duck down behind the dune. Even though we’ve stopped some distance away, there’s still a chance that we’ve been seen. There are very few places to hide out here. There’s a shadow at the window, and I can see the sun gleaming on metal. The person in there might have a gun.
“There’s someone at the front door too,” Viper murmurs. “We should head around the back.”
We trudge the last mile toward the back of the house, on edge as we wait for someone to sound the alarm. All they would have to do is glance out the window, and we would be caught. But luck seems to be on our side, and we reach the back of the building with no trouble. We can’t hear any raised voices, and they don’t seem to be panicking, though that means very little, especially if they’re confident in their ability to take us down.
I finger the firearm in my own pocket. I haven’t fired a gun since Lacey’s death. I can only hope I haven’t gotten rusty.
There is no back door, but there is a broken window. Carefully, the two of us pull ourselves through, trying our best to avoid the spikes of glass, though I hiss when one shard catches my finger, slicing it down the side.
“You alright?” Viper mouths.
I nod sharply. There’s no time to look after small wounds. And it isn’t my trigger finger, so I’ll be okay.
Viper draws out his own gun at the same time I do, pointing it to the ground and holding it steadily. There’s steel in his eyes as we creep closer to a half-broken door, sneaking toward the sound of voices in the main room.
Mandy’s voice is immediately recognizable. I feel a wave of fury at hearing her. It’s still hard to believe that she betrayed us so fucking badly. When Fury first joined Devil's Mayhem, she was a mischievous trouble maker, running around and begging for a job, even if we never gave her one. How had she turned into this bitter, half-mad woman that I can see now through the door? There is a wide, almost insane smile on her face as she kneels beside Kyra, who is bound before her.
“Mandy, listen, you can stop this,” I hear Kyra beg. “Please, it isn’t worth it. Chains just wants money. Same with Griffin. They’re going to drop you as soon as you’re useless to them.
“I know,” Mandy replies. “But that’s easy. All I need to do is make sure I’m never useless.”
Never useless to who? Viper and I exchange glances. That’s easy. We’ve already guessed that she’s working for Chains and Griffin. I wonder, for a moment, what they offered her, and then I decide I don’t care to know. Nothing they promised her should have been worth her betrayal.
“Everyone makes mistakes!” Kyra claims desperately. “What happens when you make one?”
“Then I die,” Mandy answers, and the simplicity of her answer shocks me to the core. “Some things are worth dying for, darling. And the money we’re making from all this is definitely worth it.”
It feels like my entire world narrows down to that one word—money. Mandy betrayed us for money?
“Reaper,” Viper whispers. “Stand down.”
For a moment, I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but then I realize just how tense I am right now. My entire body is corded with tension. I’m furious. When I considered why Mandy would have done this, my mind had whirled with all sorts of excuses.
She believed more in the sort of work Chains did.
She was being blackmailed.
She was fucking Chains and felt obligated to go with him.
Somehow, money hadn’t entered my thoughts. It should have. I know how strong a motivator money can be. My father, powerful as he was, hadn’t been able to resist the allure of it, which had led him to be unable to decide which side he wanted Devil's Mayhem to fall on. Lacey, too, had been killed over money because we had stolen from Hell’s Riot, so they stole something precious from me in return.
But I hadn’t expected to hear Mandy confess to money being her primary motive. It doesn’t fit the picture I have of her. How well, exactly, did any of us actually know this woman? Even Fury doesn’t know her as well as he thinks he does, it appears.
“Money isn’t everything!” Kyra shouts.
“It’s close,” Mandy says smugly.
Viper taps me on the shoulder, pulling my attention away from the two women, and he points into the room. There are two others here, standing guard at the window and door, respectively. Neither of them is facing the room, apparently content to believe that no one would be stupid enough to walk through the desert in order to break in through the broken window.
“We need to take them down first and fast,” Viper breathes as he leans in. “But I don’t know if Mandy has weapons on her.”
“She will,” I reply darkly.
It’s a common law amongst all of us. We carry weapons on us at all times, even if we never use them. Ever since Lacey died, I’ve pushed this point hard. None of us ever know what situation we might end up in, and I want everyone to protect themselves.
Looks like that’s coming to bite me in the ass right now.
“What about this?” Viper murmurs. “I’ll take down the hulk over there, and you go for Mandy. Take her hostage. Use her as a shield if you need to. It should surprise the one at the window enough for me to take her down.”