Ruthless

by Tory Richards

  “Yep.”

  We began to walk back to our bikes. “Thanks for your help today, brother.”

  “Anytime,” Ace responded, mounting his Harley, which was huge and solid black but for the Sentinels logo on the tank. “I’ll let Tanner know.”

  We headed out together, but at some point we parted, going our separate ways. I headed toward the hospital, anxious to see Ginger and tell her that it was over.

  I never made it to the hospital.

  ****

  Ginger

  “We gonna take her to the Kings clubhouse?” The man who asked was around my age, and the only one of the three men who hadn’t shaved his head. His hair was buzzed close to his scalp, leaving just enough to show that it was red.

  “Naw, too many people around their piss-poor excuse of a clubhouse. I don’t want any chance of there being a witness to the screams,” Rocky grinned sickly, giving me a long look. “Or any shootings. Remember the abandoned house on Tomoka Lake? It’s the perfect place for what I have in mind.”

  “How we gonna lure Rebel there?”

  Rocky wasn’t the only one who laughed at that question. “No luring, asshole. Once he knows we have his woman he’ll come. Give Wicked a heads up and tell him to meet us there. He wants in on this, too. Then take off her fucking boots in case she gets any ideas about escaping.”

  The redhead made the call. As he waited for someone to pick up on the other end, he glanced over at me and gave me a wink. I quickly looked away, trying to hold it together. All I could hold on to was the thought that Stevie had seen them take me, and that someone knew. She’d got a look at the van, maybe she’d been savvy enough to get the license plate number.

  More importantly to me was that what was happening now had nothing to do with Della. She was safe from this.

  How had my life become such a mess?

  I couldn’t help feeling relieved that they didn’t already have Rebel tied up somewhere.

  “Yeah, hey, man, we have her and are headin’ to the house on Tomoka Lake now.” The redheaded man paused while the person on the other end of the line spoke. Then he began to laugh. “From what Deezer said, Daryl didn’t know what hit him.”

  Daryl? It sounded as if they’d done something to him.

  “Yep. Payback is a mother, brother,” he laughed. Rocky and the driver laughed as well.

  “Tell him to bring some beer and shit. We’ll have a real party.”

  “Hey, Rocky said to‒” He stopped abruptly. “He heard you,” he said to Rocky after a second. “Ok, man, see you there.” He pinned his gaze on me once the call was over.“Get that pussy ready, baby! It’s gonna get a workout tonight.” He grabbed the front of his pants. Then, as if just remembering, he came over and roughly tugged off my boots, laughing.

  If they thought my bare feet was going to prevent me from trying to run when the chance presented itself they were in for a surprise. Once he was done I turned away and focused my eyes on a bolt on the floor, watching it roll around from the movement of the van. I was frozen with fear inside, but determined not to let them see it. Some people got off on the fear of others, and as Red Devils, I knew what they were capable of. They’d been a cruel, sadistic bunch, and they’d mistreated their women. I tightened my arms around my knees. I had to come up with an escape plan, but all I could think about was whether or not Rebel and I would survive the night.

  I didn’t see how we could.

  It would be all of them against the two of us.

  We turned off the main road onto a dirt road. I couldn’t see it, but judging from the shaking of the van, the road was definitely not paved. Looking toward the front of the window, I was able to see that we were in the woods, and the road was so narrow that branches scraped along the sides. Pot holes kept the vehicle bouncing from side to side, and one particular hole brought us to a jarring stop.

  “Fuck!” the driver swore as he looked over at Rocky. “We’re stuck.”

  “Really, asshole?” Rocky smirked. He opened his door, shooting a glance back at the redhead. “Come on, Todd, let’s push this bitch out.”

  Left alone with just the driver, I felt a momentary excitement. The other two men would be busy at the back of the van. Maybe I could slide the door open, jump out, and run fast enough to get away. Could I outrun them? We were in the woods. All I’d have to do was get far enough ahead of them to find a tree and hide. But there were three of them, and no doubt they’d all be on my tail once I made my move.

  “Go!” someone yelled from outside.

  The driver floored the pedal and revved the engine, but other than the van filling up with gas fumes, nothing happened. He cursed, “Fucking push harder!” The driver continued revving the engine. The van struggled, but remained firmly in the hole, rocking back and forth. “Harder!” he yelled louder, as if that would make a difference.

  “You get your fat ass out here and fucking push!” Rocky hollered in an angry tone. “Todd will drive!”

  I swallowed. Todd replacing the heavier, older driver might work in my favor. Todd was more like a boy, and he was gangly. He had no muscle that I could see. I feigned disinterest as the door opened and the two men made the switch. Todd barely gave me a look when he settled himself into the driver’s seat, totally focused on the task at hand. I searched around the van for something that I could use as a weapon. Relief flooded me when I spied a lug wrench lying on the floor next to the spare tire. Smiling to myself, I relaxed and waited breathlessly for the right time.

  “Go!” Todd yelled out the window.

  While he was focused on getting the van out of the ditch, I scooted over and snatched up the lug wrench, and then quickly sat back down in my spot. He never looked behind him.

  “Almost there!” Rocky yelled. “One more push should do it!”

  I knew I had to move. I jumped up and hit Todd on the back of the head. Not too hard, I didn’t want to kill him, but hard enough for him to grunt and fall forward. In the next heartbeat I jumped to the sliding door.

  “Floor it, asshole!” My hand was on the handle to slide the side door open.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I could tell that Rocky was getting closer to the driver’s door from the tone of his pissed-off voice.

  I slide the door open and jumped to the ground, knowing that as soon as Rocky saw Todd slumped over the steering wheel he would look in the back and find me gone. I hit the ground running, straight into the trees, and didn’t look back. I debated on tossing the lug wrench, but decided that I may need it.

  “She’s fucking gone!” I heard Rocky scream, just as I disappeared into the woods. “Goddamnit!” he swore again. “Find her, Carl!”

  They sounded closer than they actually were. I ran blindly through the woods, hearing the heavy sound of my breathing and realizing that I was making enough noise to wake the dead. I couldn’t help it. I would be dead at the end of the night if I didn’t get away. I ran and ran, as if the ground was soft grass and not the stones and branches that carpeted it, cutting into my feet. I ran until the blood had rushed to my ears, turning them hot, until I was covered in scratches, and my clothes were torn.

  Eventually I stopped feeling it. My feet were bruised and bleeding, but the more distance I put between me and them, the less it mattered. I was going to win or die trying. I could hear them crashing behind me from different directions and realized that they’d split up. They called out to one another, too stupid to realize that it gave their location away and enabled me to change directions. I had no idea where I was going, where I’d end up, but none of that mattered. I could find my way home later, after I’d lost them.

  Oh, God, I kept on running, but ultimately I had to stop to catch my breath. I doubled over and clutched my legs above my knees, the lug wrench still in my hand, panting and sucking in air. I was so close to throwing up, so close to keeling over. I knew that I had to keep going, but I couldn’t do that with empty lungs or the sharp stitch in my side. And then I heard it, the snapping of a
twig. It was too loud to be an animal, and I froze, holding what little breath I had left. I did the only thing I could think of and dropped to the ground, lying as flat as I could among the tall grass.

  I slapped my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound of my heavy breathing. Please, God, I prayed, my heart racing so fast that I was sure they would be able to hear it. I heard another twig break and closed my eyes tightly, feeling the sweat dripping down my face.

  “I don’t fucking hear her anymore!” the man named Carl panted.

  “She has to be here somewhere! We have to find her!”

  “She kill Todd? I’m gonna fucking kill her if she killed my boy!”

  “I think he was just knocked out,” Rocky responded. He was out of breath, too. “It’s his own damn fault, I told him to make sure there was nothing in the back of the van that she could turn on us.” I heard him hock up a goober and spit it out. “You might as well come out, little pussy!” he shouted. “We’ll find you sooner or later, and we ain’t gonna be nice!”

  I remained still and quiet, praying that they didn’t discover where I was hiding. I could hear them moving around.

  “She must have made it further than we thought,” I heard Carl say. “She’s gotta’ be beyond those trees. What are we gonna do if we don’t find her before dark?”

  “We’ll find her,” Rocky said confidently. “I’ve waited four years for revenge. I’m gonna fuck the life out of her, right in front of Rebel, and then I’m going to put a bullet in his head. He’ll pay for selling us out and getting everyone killed.”

  I could hear the grass moving with their foot falls. The need to get up and start running again was so strong that my muscles quivered, but I remained where I was, trying to wiggle myself deeper into the ground.

  “What makes you so sure we’re gonna find the bitch?” Carl asked exasperatedly. “She could be anywhere now. We need to keep moving.”

  “No. She’s around here somewhere.” And then I heard him laugh softly.

  Carl grumbled, “What’s so fuckin’ funny?”

  It was over. I knew what I was going to see when I opened my eyes, and I dared to glance up. Rocky was standing above me, his ugly expression full of smug triumph. He gave me a wink. I let the tears come.

  “Hi there, pretty pussy.” He reached down, clutching my hair brutally as he yanked me to my feet.

  I brought the lug wrench up and swung it around to clobber him, but he anticipated my move and caught my wrist in mid-air. “Oh, no you don’t!” He twisted my wrist mercilessly until I cried out and dropped it. “I’m not a weak boy like Todd.”

  Before I could brace myself, he backhanded me hard. My head snapped to the side, and when I turned back to face him tears of rage burned in my eyes. I tasted blood where my teeth had cut into my lip. I wanted to spit in his laughing face. “You’re a fucking coward, just like all the Red Devils were,” I hissed.

  He laughed harder, twisting his hand in my hair until I winced in pain. “In case you haven’t guessed, we’re with the Kings now.” He jerked me against him. “I can hardly wait to fuck you.”

  “You look like a little boy playing hospital dress up.”

  He snarled. “This shit was necessary so I could get close to you before you recognized me.”

  “You’re not worth remembering,” I hissed back.

  “I’m so gonna enjoy making you bleed, bitch.” He grinned like the sicko that he was. He lowered his face as if to kiss me, and I quickly turned away. He yanked my hair harder and then pushed me in front of him. “Now move!”

  I put one bloody foot in front of the other, knowing that I had failed at my one and only chance of escape.

  Chapter 30

  Rebel

  Vinny.

  Five of his friends.

  Tanner.

  Six of the Sentinels, including Ace.

  Moody.

  They were all riding with me.

  Into hell.

  Without question.

  Without fear.

  We were all working towards the same goal—to save my woman and put an end to Wicked and his bunch, once and for all. We’d be doing everyone a favor, getting rid of a bunch of law-breaking, terrorizing assholes who didn’t contribute anything good to society. It was their own fucking fault that it had come to this. They should have just killed Daryl and called it good. Taking my woman had sealed their fate.

  Stevie had seen it go down. She’d seen a man in a hospital uniform force Ginger into a white van and into the arms of a biker. The driver had been a biker, too, but she hadn’t seen anything that revealed what club they were from. She’d told Skipper immediately, and he’d spread the word. Considering what Ace and I already knew about Daryl and Jack, we’d figured that it was the Kings that had taken her.

  Since Tanner knew that the Kings used Tomoka Farms Rd. when they traveled back and forth from Sanford, and the trucker had seen a few bikers before the accident, we’d thought that that was as good a place as any to start looking. We got lucky. Moody had been keeping his eyes open and had decided to follow a couple of the Kings who’d left a bar in a hurry after one of their brothers had rushed in with news. When they’d turned off onto a barely-there dirt road, he’d kept on going. He knew the area well, and he knew that the road leading in that direction dead ended into Tomoka Lake.

  He had called in the location and where to meet—behind a country restaurant, so that we wouldn’t be seen from the road in case more Kings rode by. It wasn’t a social meeting. We remained quiet, some of us smoking, each of us deep in our own thoughts. This was war. Some of us were going to get hurt, maybe worse, but it’s what we did to protect our own. We were brothers. We had each other’s backs, and we all knew that we could count on each other. Words wouldn’t punish the assholes that had been arrogant enough to take and hurt what didn’t belong to them. The only thing that they would understand was a fight. Killing a few of them would send a strong message.

  I was fucking ready.

  I thought about Ginger in the hands of those men. If they touched her … if they hurt her … I fisted my hands as blinding rage filled every cell of my body until my blood was so fucking hot that I thought I was going to boil alive. She’d been through enough.

  “Brother—” Moody’s voice drew me out of my deep thoughts. I gave him a questioning look. His expression was stone, like always. “Your phone’s been buzzing for a full minute.”

  It was then that I realized that I had been so lost in my own thoughts that I hadn’t felt the buzzing of an incoming call. I dug out my phone. Unknown caller. “What?” I snapped, having an idea of who might be on the other end of the line.

  “We haven’t met‒”

  “Save the introductions, I know who you are, asshole.” His laughter made me want to reach through the phone and ring his fucking neck. “Where the hell is my woman?”

  “Well, that’s why I’m calling,” came his smug return. “My club has her. And we have something special planned for the both of you.”

  “Just tell me what the fuck you want.” I wasn’t about to play his game. “You took care of Daryl, he’s the fucker who owed you money. My woman had nothing to do with that.”

  He snorted as if this was all a joke. “This has nothing to do with Daryl or the money he owed me. We want you.”

  What the fuck? I’d never had any interaction with the Kings before.

  “A few of your friends from Red Devils have joined us. They seem to think you’re a traitor.”

  Fuck! That was the last thing I had expected to hear. We’d always known there had been the possibility that some of the Red Devils hadn’t been present the day of the shootout, but we’d figured that they’d scattered, because we’d never heard from any of them. Who the fuck was “they”?

  “Wouldn’t you like to see your old friends again?”

  I knew then that they weren’t going to release Ginger. They were out for revenge. I could only imagine what that would mean for her. I knew that it would
n’t be pleasant. They’d want to make her suffer, because that would hurt me the worst, and when they were done, they’d put a bullet in both of our heads. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth to draw in the control that I needed to keep a clear head.

  I’d kill her myself before I let any of them hurt her.

  “Just tell me where to go.”

  “You coming from Daytona?”

  “Yeah.”

  “First dirt road you come to on Tomoka Farms Rd., just past the nursery, leads to the lake. About a mile in you’ll come to an abandoned house. We’ll wait till you get there before we start the party.” The sick fuck laughed. “Come alone, and come unarmed.”

  I disconnected before he could. With a snarl of rage I stuffed my phone back into my pocket, making eye contact with Moody, Tanner, and few others. I hadn’t realized it, but as I’d talked on the phone a couple more Sentinels had shown up. We were clustered together, still sitting on our rides, waiting for the next move.

  “That was Wicked. He confirmed they have Ginger, but it’s not for the reasons we were thinking. Far as Wicked is concerned, killing Daryl took care of the money he owed them.”

  “What is it then, brother?”

  “Something from my past. Some of the Red Devils that escaped the fight that took their club out, they’ve joined in with the fucking Kings. They want revenge for my part in the take down.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Moody asked, tossing his smoke. “They have your woman. The reason why doesn’t fucking matter.”

  Murmurs of agreement went through the men. “Ok, then. We ride in about half a mile. I go in the rest of the way alone. Give me a few minutes to get there before the rest of you follow in the trucks. Let’s ride!”

  Moody led the way. Those of us on bikes followed behind him. Vinny and his friends brought up the rear in two massive trucks. I kept going when the others stopped. I knew that I was supposed to go in without weapons, but I purposely kept my gun on me. They were going to frisk me anyway, and having my gun somewhere where I might possibly get my hands on it made me feel better.