Rick looked down at her, thinking what a shame it was that he had to hand such a tasty morsel over to that fuckhead Trigger’s asinine plans. He’d enjoy having some fun with Gabi Torres, that’s for damn sure. Oh, well. Orders were orders and frankly, the world had no shortage of pussy for him to pass the time with.
He pushed the ‘talk’ button on his earpiece. “Got her. Pull the car around. We got two minutes, man.”
“Roger that.”
Rick tossed Gabi roughly over his shoulder, waited while Will checked the hallway outside.
“All clear. Let’s move.”
They took the stairs quietly, quickly, ready to tase anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths, but they made it down without encountering a soul. Will ducked out the back, stuck his head back in.
“Car’s here and the trunk’s open.”
Rick nodded and in four large strides, was at the car. He tossed Gabi in to the trunk without even breaking his momentum and slammed the lid down. Will was already in the back seat and Rick launched himself in the passenger side up front.
“Go!” he said.
“Where?” Mort asked. So far, nobody except Rick, Trigger and Ace knew the dump site for the Torres bitch. “Where are we taking her?”
“The fucking middle of nowhere,” Rick grunted. “Seems Trigger has everything ready for us way the hell up in the mountains.”
They drove up the Rockies, first on paved, well-traveled roads then on steep dirt paths that twisted and turned sharply. The trees got denser and thicker and the blazing summer sunset disappeared above as the branches extended overhead. Finally, they arrived at the spot indicated on the phone GPS and as Rick stared at the scene in front of him, he felt his respect for Trigger grudgingly move up a notch.
“Wow.” Will was also staring at the clearing in front of them. “This is brutal, man.”
Rick shrugged. “Not our call. And we can’t deny it’s effective.”
“Hell, yes.”
The men got out of the car and Mort popped the trunk. He hauled Gabi’s inert body out and carried her over to the clearing almost tenderly. He set her down on the ground and then joined Will and Rick; they were already prepping the last few things for Gabi Torres’ final resting place.
Chapter Fifteen
King, Jax and Mac exploded through the hospital doors, scaring the living hell out of every soul in the E.R. A startled nurse stood up as the three terrifying men stormed the desk.
“Aidan Carter,” King growled. “Where is he?”
“In – in surgery,” the woman stuttered.
“What for?” Mac demanded.
The nurse stared at him, a bit confused, sure that she knew this rough, angry man from somewhere. “I’m sorry, sir… are you a doctor here?”
Mac waved his hand. “A consulting neurologist.”
“Oh.” The woman relaxed and suddenly became much more forthcoming with her information. “Mr. Carter was shot in the neck.”
A ringing silence greeted this news.
“It was through-and-through, I think,” she hastened to add. “I – I don’t know how bad the damage was, though.”
“Where can we wait?” Jax said.
“Uh. They’ll take him to the fifth floor after surgery.”
“OK, fine. Thanks, hon.” King gave her a half-smile. “We’ll go up there now.”
They took the elevator, not speaking, not even looking at each other. They were all still reeling from the series of body-blows that they’d been hit with over the past hour and they needed to collect their thoughts. King was experiencing the totally unfamiliar sense of being completely and totally fucking out of control and he did not like it. Not one bit.
Aidan shot in his own living room. Gabi gone. And at the exact same goddamn time, Dillon and Maria were attacked up at Open Skies. Dillon killed one man whose identity remained a mystery. Maria killed that fucker Captain from the Fallen Angels before passing out cold in shock. There was a third man up there and thank God he was still alive because once the cops were done with him, King was going to call in a few favors with the local PD and get some time alone in a room with the guy. King had a few questions of his own to pose.
Fucking nightmare, I swear to Christ. OK, get it together, Kingston. Right the fuck now.
They stood just outside the waiting room, pacing and fidgeting. When the doctor showed up, they almost jumped on him.
“How’s Aidan?” Jax demanded.
“Are you family?” the man said, eyeing Mac.
“Yeah,” Mac said shamelessly. “He’s my brother.”
“Oh.” Dr. Bob Callis said, knowing good and well that Dr. MacIntyre didn’t have a brother, but Bob had always strongly objected to the ‘information for family only’ policy so he went along with the charade. “Well, he’s surprisingly fine. At first we thought it was a through-and-through, but it turns out that the bullet just clipped him. Totally missed the carotid arteries and the jugular vein and that’s just… well, it’s incredible.”
Mac nodded. “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘miraculous’.”
“Indeed. So we stitched him up and he’s in recovery now and we’ll be bringing him to his room soon. You can wait here.”
“Thanks, Bob,” Mac said quietly.
“No problem.”
They sat and stared at each other now, trying to think what part of this full-blown crisis to tackle next.
“OK,” King said, thinking out loud. “Tank and Honey and Quinn are already at the Fallen Angels clubhouse with the cops, talking to the members. Quinn says there’s a huge party there tonight and he says that so far, all the cops have found is oh-so-convenient security camera footage showing that none of those fuckers left the party at all. I’m guessing that every single Fallen Angel will be totally accounted for at the time of the attacks. Even Captain, by the way… they’d have found some stand-in for him, for damn sure, and that’s actually going to be pretty damning in the end. I’m dying to hear how Trigger explains his man being up at Open Skies at the same time that Captain was filmed in the clubhouse.”
“Yeah,” Jax said glumly. “But two of the guys up at the ranch were from away, so this means that Trigger contracted the jobs out, just like when they tried to grab Gabi at Curves.”
“Except that those guys who grabbed her at Curves were incompetent, bumbling idiots and this was professional. Quick, clean, fucking slick, man. These boys know exactly what they’re doing and I can’t believe that they screwed it up so bad up at Open Skies. I can’t understand that at all, actually, based on how things went like clockwork here in Denver.”
“Wait.” Jax’s brow was furrowed. “You mean… they didn’t hit Aidan by accident? They meant to leave Gabi alive to grab?”
“I’d lay money on the fuckers wanting Gabi and Aidan still alive,” King said, his voice grim. “Otherwise, why not shoot them in their heads when they kicked in Aidan’s door?”
“So,” Mac said slowly. “That means that they have something else planned for Gabi. Right?”
“Right.” King shut his eyes for a second, trying to not imagine what they could be doing to her. “I’d say so.”
“Goddammit,” Mac said. “What do we do now?”
King stared at his hands. “We wait for Aidan to wake up. We wait for the cops to leave the clubhouse and then my people grab Trigger and bring him to the safe house for questioning. We wait for Maria to regain consciousness and for Dillon to report in.”
“We wait?” Jax said, feeling such a strong sense of déjá vu, he could almost taste it. Less than a year ago, he’d been standing in this same damn hospital listening to Mac tell him that he had to wait for Sarah to emerge from her coma.
Fuck. I’m bad at waiting.
“We wait,” King said. “We wait until it’s time to not wait anymore.”
“And then?” Mac asked.
“And then we go for blood.” King’s gray eyes were cold steel and his friends almost shivered; they’d never seen him like this before. This was a man who was inches away from letting go of any and all of civil society’s trappings. “We do it without pity or hesitation… and we don’t expect any fucking redemption after. Or ever.”
Chapter Sixteen
Gabi hurt all over: her head, her chest, the back of her neck. She groaned, then wished that she hadn’t. Uttering even that small sound made her dry, aching throat throb.
How long have I gone without a drink of water?
She turned her head, forced her eyes open, tried to turn her whole body. Her shoulders hit something above her and it suddenly occurred to her that even though her eyes were open, it was pitch black. She lay down on her back again, noticing now how hard the surface below her was.
Carefully, she reached in front of her, reached in to the darkness. Almost immediately, her fingers touched something smooth, hard. She flinched back, took a breath, touched the surface again. She stretched as far as she could in both directions – over her head, down to her waist – and the wall or whatever it was had no breaks or corners in it. Puzzled, she opened her arms and stretched them to her sides. Again, almost right away her hands touched the same surface.
Is that wood?
She wriggled down a few inches, then a few more. The bottoms of her feet hit something and she paused. Then she moved up again until her head bumped the top of whatever this place was. It was coming to her now that this was a small space – very small. She couldn’t sit up, couldn’t fully extend her arms, couldn’t even turn over from her back to her stomach.
She took a breath, noticing the smell for the first time: musty, damp, earthy. And that was when her brain finally acknowledged what it had been stubbornly refusing to admit it already knew.
Earth.
She gave a cry and punched the surface above her with her fists. It barely made a sound – the noise was smoothly swallowed up and she was plunged in to a deafening silence. She screamed now, screamed and screamed until her sobs forced her to stop. Her voice didn’t leave the box, she knew: she was totally insulated and cut off from the world. She was under the world, in fact… physically closer to hell than heaven.
Will I ever see the sky again?
That was her last thought before she passed out.
**
The first thing that Aidan felt was pain. He groaned, then wished that he hadn’t. Even that small sound made the side of his neck vibrate with shrieking, blinding jabs of sharp glass and he wondered if Gabi would bring him some cough medicine. He clearly had the worst sore throat known to man.
“Aidan?”
He cracked his eyes open, confused.
Why is Mac in my bedroom?
“Aidan? Can you hear me, man?”
Aidan tried to speak and instead made a horrible, croaking sound. He grimaced as the pain burned his throat. That was when he felt something taped to his neck. He raised his hand to his throat and paused as his fingers met thick gauze. He blinked, confused.
“Aidan… look at me.”
He forced himself to focus. Mac looked – well, the man looked awful. Every trace of his usual jokey and irreverent vibe was gone and what had taken its place was something darker, angrier, more restless.
Frightened?
“Don’t talk, OK?” Mac said. “Just nod if you can hear me.”
Aidan nodded, still touching the bandage on his neck.
“You were shot, man. Do you remember?”
Aidan stared at him, his mind suddenly going a million miles an hour.
“I love you, baby. You know that, yeah? That you’re my everything?”
“Yeah.” Gabi’s eyes so soft and beautiful, staring up at him. “I know it. I love you too.”
Then – a gunshot. Breaking glass. Pain. Blackness.
He sat straight up in the hospital bed, ignoring the stabbing pain in his neck. “Where is she?”
Mac winced at Aidan’s broken, raspy voice. “We don’t know.”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“I’m going to tell you everything, but you need to lie down.”
“No.” Aidan threw the covers off, swung his legs over the side of the bed, reached for his jeans on the chair. “You’re gonna tell me everything while I get dressed.”
“Aidan –”
“Start talking, Mac, or get the fuck out of my way so I can find someone who will.”
Mac paused as he realized that there was no reasoning with the man right now. “OK, OK.”
Aidan yanked on his jeans and t-shirt. “I’m waiting.”
As Mac filled him in, Aidan felt all the pain and soreness just leave his body; it was replaced by pure, overwhelming, black rage. Rage that it hadn’t been over after all, rage that someone had taken Gabriela away from him, rage that she was all alone and scared to death. And when Mac told him about Dillon and Maria also being shot at, about how Maria had shot and killed one of Trigger’s own men, the rage reached breaking point.
“Where the fuck are Maria and Dillon now?” He stood up, holding on to the bed as the room spun, righted itself.
“At Maria’s place not too far from Open Skies.” Mac hesitated. “She passed out after shooting Captain in the face and Dillon took her home. Last King heard, she was still out cold.”
“She knows about Gabriela being missing?”
“Not yet. Dillon knows.”
“OK.” Aidan tried to collect his scattered thoughts. “Who’s grabbing Trigger?”
“Quinn, Tank and Honey.”
“When?”
“The second he steps out of the Fallen Angels clubhouse.”
“Don’t take Trigger. Grab Ace instead.”
“Ace?” Mac was baffled. “Why?”
“Just because. Trust me, OK?”
“OK. I’ll tell King.”
“And in the meantime…” Aidan’s voice trailed off.
“In the meantime, we hold on,” Mac said firmly. “They didn’t kill Gabi on the spot and that means that there’s leverage and value in her staying alive, yeah? Maybe Trigger wants to use her as a bargaining chip of some kind.”
Aidan shut his eyes as dizziness washed over him. “Fuck.”
“I know. I know.” Mac touched his shoulder and it was surprisingly gentle. “So. Where do you want to go now?”
“Where’s King?”
“At the safe house, waiting for his people to bring Trigger – I mean Ace – there.”
“Then that’s where I want to be too.”
Mac nodded. “OK. Let’s go.”
Chapter Seventeen
Six hours later, King looked at Aidan, exchanged glances with Honey. Aidan was staring through the two-way glass of the safe house interrogation room, his hands clenched, his whole body tense.
“Aidan?” King said quietly.
“Yeah?” Aidan rasped, not taking his eyes off Ace.
“What’s the plan here, man?”
“He’s going to tell me where the fuck Gabi is.”
“And what makes you think he’s going to tell you?” Honey said, baffled. “You going to say pretty-please? Or you going to go all bad-ass and beat the crap out of him?”
“I’m going to do neither.” Without another word, Aidan left the room and they followed him.
King entered the room, saw Ace’s sneer of contempt and Aidan’s scary calm. The man had something up his sleeve, no doubt about that, but King had no clue what the hell it could be.
What do you have on him, Aidan? And if it’s that good, how did you find out about it?
“Ace.” Aidan sat down across from him.
“Fucker.” Ace leaned back in his chair.
“Where’s Gabriela?” A
idan said, his calm totally unruffled.
“Who?” He blinked, a look of complete innocence on his face.
“You going to make me do this the hard way?”
“Go on, man.” Ace’s dark eyes were crackling with hatred. “Do your fucking worst.”
“OK. If you insist.” Aidan narrowed his eyes, lowered his voice. “Shall I bring Spider in here to join us?”
King and Honey watched as Ace exhibited the most dramatic reaction imaginable. His mouth fell open, his face drained of all color, his whole body tensed up. They looked at each other, stunned and telegraphing their shared confusion.
What the fuck is Aidan talking about?
“Spider?” Ace said, going for bravado and failing badly. “Who the hell’s that?”
“Your ex-boyfriend.”
Honey actually gasped and King thought his jaw might hit the damn floor.
“My – my… fuck you, man.”
“So you want me to have someone drop by his café, bring him over here?” Aidan cocked his head. “Maybe he can help us out?”
“I – he – you…”
“Good usage of personal pronouns,” Aidan said. “But that doesn’t answer my question: should I ask Honey to go and get Spider?”
“You – you can’t.”
“I sure as hell can.” Aidan crossed his arms. “I can also ask him about where the money came from five years ago for him to start up that café.”
Ace gulped.
“Or maybe you can tell me?” Aidan said. “Save Honey the hassle of a trip to The Web Café on Brock Street? Though if she hurries, she’ll beat the morning rush-hour traffic.”
“Come on, man,” Ace said, the pleading clear in his voice. “Don’t – don’t involve him, OK?”
“Why the fuck not?” Aidan rubbed the bandage on his neck. “You sure as hell involved Gabi and Maria.”
Killer Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 3) Page 19