by Joy Blood
“Quit fuckin’ crying,” Ringer grumbles, shooting a glance back to where I’m watching, somewhat baffled as to who the hell she is. “I got an idea. Get on.” She backs up just a fraction of a step, most likely ready to run, but the pinned stare Ringer shoots her must change her mind. She hops to and climbs on the back of his bike. He starts up his engine, as do I, and we drive through town, stopping at a dive bar—one I remember Gin getting his ass kicked out of some years back. The owner hates Riders. What the hell is Ringer doing?
“The hell are we doing here?” I ask under my breath after we park the bikes, being sure to park them for a quick getaway.
“Got an idea,” is all he tells me while hooking his arm around Paris and leading both of us into the bar.
Inside, there are only three people at the bar and one bartender serving drinks. Luckily, not the owner. “Three buds,” Ringer instructs, pulling out a stool for Paris, then getting on one himself. I follow suit, taking the beer placed in front of me. Paris sits to the left of Ringer, giving me the chance to talk to him. “Mind letting me in on that idea?”
“You know who this bitch is?” he refers to Paris.
“Couldn’t tell ya,” I answer honestly. Never seen the woman before in my life, and I would have remembered if I had.
“Wells’ woman. Or at least was, ‘til she got away from him. Used to make a habit of smashing her face in on occasion.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” I lean forward, looking her over. Obviously not dead, but from the faint bruising around her neck, she might have been close not too long ago.
“Yeah,” she squeaks, then takes a sip of her beer, clearing her throat after. “I am dead.”
“Well…” I gesture for Ringer to continue, the confusion of all this shit starting to piss me off.
“More of a story for another time. Let’s just say we ran into each other some years ago and have kept in touch.” Ringer winks and lets his devilish smirk shine from behind his beard. “Right now, I’m thinking that fucker, Wells, has eyes on us. He sees us with his old lady and—”
“Shit. You think he’s gonna just come stomping up into the club ready to make a trade?” Paris sucks in a sharp breath, clearly not wanting to be traded back to the maniac.
“Nah. But it might piss him off enough to make him slip up.”
“Or piss him off enough to go off the deep end with Brook.” This is such a bad fucking idea.
Forty-Four
Brook
A hand wraps into my hair, pulling me from the floor before I’m even awake. I let out a screech, and Peter’s palm comes down heavy on my cheek. “Shut it!” he yells before tossing me onto the bed. “Those motherfuckers think they can just…goddamn it! That bitch is supposed to be dead,” he mumbles to himself, pacing the floor, gripping at his hair. He’s clearly upset about something, and a pit starts to form in my stomach at what this will mean for me.” “Give me your hand!” he yells, his voice burning with the edge of insanity.
“No,” I snap, holding my arms close to me, being sure to hide my hands best as I can, but it doesn’t matter. He’s on me even with the kicks and slaps I try to inflict, overpowering my already spent body. My stomach has, for the most part, stopped rejecting all food, but I’m still recovering from the few days where I couldn’t keep anything down. I stop struggling when he pulls a knife from his back pocket.
“Quit struggling, bitch! Or this will be worse,” he sneers, gaining purchase of my left hand. Before I can take another breath, he presses the sharp blade into my pinky, right below the knuckle. The screams I let out pierce my own ears and he presses a pillow over my face, holding it with his knee while he pins my hand to the headboard and proceeds to hack off my pinky finger. The act is unimaginable, and the sickening crunch of the bone breaking brings a whole new meaning to the word pain shooting right though me. My breaths are limited, and when I think I’m about to pass out, he lifts off me and tosses my disfigured hand aside. Blood covers me in gushes as I roll to the side and vomit the food I had kept down all day. Clutching my hand to my chest, I try my best to stop the bleeding and apply pressure. I don’t even notice him leave the room as I get myself off the bed and to the bathroom where I try to stop the bleeding with the toilet paper. It doesn’t help. I only end up with a ball of bloodied, worthless tissue. My head is swimming and back dots spot my vision. I’m losing too much blood and I need to get it under control or I am going to bleed to death. The last thought that crosses my mind before I collapse to the floor is how white and pretty it once was. So new and clean now covered in my blood.
Forty-Five
Sage
“How the fuck did you find her?” I ask Ringer when we get back to the clubhouse, where he also brought Paris, who clearly didn’t want to come.
“You remember when I got the shit beat out of me?” I nod, recalling a bloodied Ringer getting dumped off at the clubhouse a few years back when Ari and College had gone missing, “Well, I might have gotten a little too dependent on painkillers.” He shrugs when I raise my brows with a ya think? look. I remember his stupid high ass. I had to lay him out a couple times myself. Rock made him leave the clubhouse until he got straight. “Fuck off. So, I’m down there on shit row when this woman walks past me and into one of the apartments. She didn’t look like she belonged there, but I tried to get her to suck me off anyway. Bitch slapped me.” He laughs, almost sounding amused. “Had to find out who the fuck she was, so I did some digging. Found out she wasn’t anybody. The apartment was rented to some guy who died twenty years ago, clearly not her. Cornered her one night and got the truth, and a little something else.” He wags his brows up and down. “Had her in my back pocket, but didn’t think she would ever come in handy, her old man being dead and all.”
“You don’t think she’s helping him?”
“At first I did, but she convinced me otherwise,” he says with a cocky smirk. “When I told her Wells was still alive and kickin’, she went white as a sheet. I thought I had killed the girl with my words alone. When she came to, she franticly tried to leave. Of course, I wouldn’t let her. She promised to stay put. The guy thinks she’s dead anyway, didn’t figure he would go lookin’ for her.” He shrugs and takes another swing of his beer.
“What the fuck would she come to Cental for?”
His shoulders lift again. “Don’t know. Haven’t figured out that piece of the puzzle yet, but I’m working on it. The woman is a vault, had to damn near kill her last time I interrogated her.”
“Careful, you just might,” I warn, but he only laughs, likely ready to accept the challenge.
“You might be a pro at bombs, but I know how to choke someone,” he boasts, as if he’s talking about being a great poker player.
“Yeah. Not sure that’s something to be proud of.” I shake my head and step away from the quiet bar. It’s well past midnight and all the kids are asleep. While passing the common room on the way to mine, I catch a flash of jet black hair and decide to get her side of the story. Paris sits at an empty table eating out of a box of cereal, nearly choking on her current bite when she sees me walk in.
“He told me to wait in the room, but I was so hungry.” I hold up my hand, telling her to stop, and sit down across from her.
“It’s fine. You want that in a bowl? We got milk,” I offer, but she shakes her head.
“I like it like this.” A shy smile ghosts across her lips before popping in some more cereal.
“He give that to you?” I gesture to the fading bruise around her neck, and she blushes.
“Told you to wait in the room,” Ringer’s voice cuts in before she can answer, making that blush deepen.
“Sorry.” Her faint voice is barely audible as she gets to her feet, abandoning the box of cereal. She starts his way, head bowed, as if in some Dom/sub kind of respect. The hell? Ringer leans down and says something to her I don’t hear. I only catch the nod of her head before she leaves the common room.
“Do I even want
to ask what the hell that was about?”
“Nope, probably not.” He shoots me a grin that is quickly dashed away when College comes into the room, a grim expression on his face.
“Someone slash the tires on that thing you call a truck?” Ringer quips, but College doesn’t pay his jab any mind, walking right up to me instead.
“Someone left this at the gate.” He holds out a small box wrapped in brown packing paper with my name scrawled across the top. My stomach coils at the sight of it. The bloodied fingerprints staining the tape and paper holding the packing together are enough to indicate what could be inside.
White hot anger rumbles up from my chest escaping through my throat in a screeching pain I don’t register when I open the box to see a severed finger lying inside. My eyes take in every detail of the digit. Translucent skin spattered in blood, covering what must be a pinky its so small. The thing that my mind focusses on though is the chipped polish spread across the nail. Small remnants of silver polish. Fucking silver. “Motherfucker!” I roar, clutching the small box in my hand. Someone takes it away, but it doesn’t register who does it before the red mist covers my vision and I go for the one person I hold responsible. “I told you! Told you showing her off would piss him off! Now look at what the fuck happened!” I call out, going after Ringer, my fists flying into his gut and face before someone pulls me off him.
“Calm down, brother.” I catch another voice in my ear, but I don’t place them. I have tunnel vision, Ringer being my focus, and I go at him again. Only this time, someone gets me first, and I go down, seeing nothing but black.
Forty-Six
Sage
I wake with a start, ready to bust anyone in the face if they dare to speak, but I find myself alone. Standing from the bed, I check the clock and see I’ve lost a whole day. The hell?
The memory of Brook’s finger comes crashing back, and I want nothing more than to break Ringer’s jaw. “Sage?” Ringer’s voice on the other side of my door sounds out, along with a knock before he opens it and enters. There’s a darkening bruise under his eye and his nose is crooked. I almost punch him again right then and there, but the prick standing next to him has me delivering my fist to him instead. The thwack of my knuckles meeting his flesh is almost comforting. The man lands with an ‘oomph’ hard against the wall of Ringer’s chest, who promptly shoves him away. But he is able to catch himself
“You know if I have to endure that from all of you I might not be of use to you before you give me brain damage,” Brock says, recovering from the hit. When he steadies himself, I notice he’s already been hit, maybe more than once, making him and Ringer both match. If I wasn’t still fuming about the situation, I would laugh at the comparison.
“That’s what you get, turncoat,” Ringer says with a chuckle. “Already been delivered the same greeting from half the brothers.”
“The fuck is he here for?” I hiss, gripping my cut from the bed and pulling it on over my black Riders sweatshirt. Guess they were nice enough not to let me sleep in my leather. Assholes.
“Says he can help find Brook and Wells,” Ringer divulges, smacking Brock upside the head. “Guess it’s good Gin didn’t kill you, huh?” He laughs and jerks his head for me and Brock to follow.
We walk to Chapel where Rock is standing at the head of the table shooting a glare my way. “When we get her back, you are suspended from the clubhouse for a month. No pay. Shit you pulled don’t fly.” I nod in agreement.
“Only if she stays with me,” I say without even thinking. Questioning looks and narrowed eyes from everyone in the room focus in on me.
“You statin’ somethin’, brother?” Jake rasps from Rock’s right, directly across from where Gin’s chair is. The only empty one at the table.
“Yeah. She’s mine. Ain’t going to—” my words are cut off with a hard hit directly to my face from my VP who is up and out of his chair before I can even finish the claim on Gin’s daughter.
“For him, ‘cause he ain’t here to do it himself.” His voice a mere whisper right in my face as I right myself.
“Got it,” I grit through clenched teeth, sucking down the blood pooling in my mouth.
“Well, now that that’s out of the way, sit your asses down. We got shit to discuss. Brock, you want to let us in on what you know?” With that, Brock starts talking.
“I have been keeping to myself, staying out of trouble and the club’s way, like Eagle instructed. Well, two days ago, I ran into someone, some prick I knew when Wells had set up shop here. He had himself a little band of goons who would do his grunt work—shit he didn’t have us do.”
“Get on with it,” I snap, wanting him to get to his fucking point and tell us exactly how the hell he is supposed to help us.
“Well, this prick recognizes me right away, don’t know shit about the whole fall out and starts bragging about this chick with shiny blonde hair he kidnaped for a job.” My fists clench together as I try to root myself to my chair. “Said it was for someone who paid him big. Said he dropped her off at some apartment complexes. He didn’t see who hired him, just stuck her in the trunk of a car and took the money he was owed from the front seat. I asked him where the job went down, and when he said Cental, I knew it had to be her.”
“Didn’t I fucking say she was in some place clean? He’s got to be talking about those new apartment complexes,” College states, making us listen once again to his theory. “She has to be there. Wiz has some of that fancy tech shit, probably has some heat tech to see if the building has anyone inside it.”
“You got anything else to tell us?” Rock asks, bypassing College’s little giddy moment and staring down Brock.
“Listen, I know all of you would love to see me dead, have good reason to, but Gin let me live. I owe it to him to help get his daughter back—and then some. I’m here to help, not to redeem myself. I know that ship is long gone.” Brock’s words linger a moment, but don’t hold the weight he may have been hoping for.
“No shit it has,” I growl. A flashback of Gin—my then Pres—lying on the floor next to the dead body of his pregnant old lady comes back full force, furthering my hatred. “I want him gone when this is done.” I flick my gaze over to Rock, who meets me with a narrowed scowl.
“Agreed,” Rock nods. “Looks like we are going in. How’s the armory?” he asks, directed at me.
“Fully stocked and ready.” My eager answer comes out as my ass rises from my seat.
“Good. Let’s go get her back and kill this asshole.” The gavel slams down onto the table and I’m out the door heading straight to my room to get my vest and gun.
Forty-Seven
Brook
My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth and tastes like cotton. Bland and heavy. My eyes feel like they’ve been glued shut for days, and when I try to move, I find it hard. Like something is sitting on top of me. Like when my brother used to try to get the remote from me. He always sat on me and I gave it up right away. If it were only him sitting on me now. If only I were at home with Jason and Tanya. Even Grace and Gin would be nice to see right now. The thought of my dad has me forcing my eyes open just so I can get away from the memories that seem to make everything so painful. Bringing my hands to my face, I go to rub my eyes when pain shoots through my left hand. My pinky. I almost forgot.
My eyes focus in on the small nub to find bloody gauze wrapped around the tip secured tightly with a zip tie. The extra plastic flicks across my ring finger as I try to move the stub. “Asshole,” I mumble to myself, then lay back down on the bed. My body just started to feel like it’s going back to normal after he gave me a shot of something yesterday. I didn’t ask what it was; I was too sick to realize he was injecting me with something.
My head moves to the side, catching the slight shine of the sun going down through the cracks in the boarded-up window. He shouldn’t be back anytime soon. He normally doesn’t come at night. Doesn’t mean he isn’t here, though. One night, I tried getting the door open,
but he was there to tell me it wasn’t happening with a smack to my face.
Darkness falls, and I find myself drifting off again, the blood loss needing to be replaced. I have little energy to do anything but lay in bed and maybe crawl to the bathroom. It isn’t until after my eyes close and my body settles into sleep that I’m jolted awake by the pounding of footsteps followed by a heavy kick and splintering of wood.
“Time to go, princess. We have some unwanted guests,” he whispers above me, and I feel the same prick to my neck when this whole ordeal started. Only this time, I don’t have the energy to respond or struggle. I’m completely at his mercy.
Forty-Eight
Sage
We pound through each room, finding them empty. Fucking empty. My anger grows with each door that flies open to another vacant room. No signs of Brook or Wells. “Sage!” Ringer calls out from the other side of the apartment complex. I instantly run toward his voice, coming to an abrupt halt when I see what he’s holding. Bloody sheets. “Looks like the fucker got out before we got here. She’s gone, man,” Ringer tells me as I rip the bedding from his hand. It’s a lot of blood—too much. The beating in my chest speeds up as dread settles like lead in the base of my stomach. The images that flash in my mind are enough to have my temperature rising to dangerous heights.
“Spread the fuck out. He had to have left something behind. A trail. Something.” Looking back at the soiled linen, I toss it harshly to the floor, telling myself the reason for the blood is because of her now missing pinky finger. It’s just from the finger. That fucker hasn’t touched—
My fist slams into the closest wall, causing the drywall to break apart and explode in a plume of chalky dust. My fist lands two more times before I pull back and shake away the powdered covered blood that rolls down my arm. “He took her out the window. Must have had a car stashed somewhere. We didn’t see any when we came up. Probably in a garage or something.” Ringer comes to my side once again. “Jake thinks maybe he had a tip off.”