Devil's Advocate: Vlad (The Bedlam Horde MC Book 1)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  Once Han makes her sandwich selections, she joins us as we create a custom box of a dozen sweet, doughy gifts from heaven. Fritters, long johns, crullers, old fashioneds, chocolate glaze. We’re about to embark on the sugar coma to end all sugar comas. I grabbed Greer and me a bottle of OJ and each of us a big-ass to-go cup of convenience store coffee. They even have the stuff to make it a latte.

  We have a good haul sitting on the counter for the clerk to cash us out when Blood walks in with Greer. She still wears her unnerved, ‘I’m with a strange guy’ face, but she pushes through it.

  “Thought she could use bathroom time before we hit the road again.”

  “Bathroom time, really?” I say sarcastically, then turn to her. “Let’s sing our potty song.”

  Even Greer chuckles. “Just come with me. No song necessary.”

  I stop to stare at her. Those are literally the first words she’s uttered since I found her under the crawlspace at the safehouse.

  “You got it, chickee,” I say softer. “We got this.” Hannah comes with, I’m sure to keep close for the men. It’s a quick stop and with our business done, we head back to the men waiting for us with bags in hand, and with one in front and one behind, they lead us back to the Jeep.

  Hannah’s car has Sirius XM satellite radio and even with all the choices, Blood lands on some horrible eighties, hairband, metal station. He’s the driver, which means I don’t get to complain. Everyone knows the driver picks the station. I think it’s written in the constitution. Thankfully, after only a few songs in, Bon Jovi comes on. The entire car rocks out to “Born to Be My Baby.”

  With the first few bars of the melody, we go from a rescue/escape to five friends on a road trip. Maybe not in real life, but for those precious minutes at least. Once the song ends, it’s back to the business of being cautious despite the good company we’re keeping. The life I’ve lived thus far demands it.

  Speaking of cautious, about an hour into the drive, I clock a very nondescript black SUV that I swear has been following behind us, same distance between cars, same speed, since we left the gas station. I didn’t think anything of it then. Why would I? I think something of it now.

  I lean up. “Hey, Blood.”

  “Yeah, Nic?”

  “Take this next exit, but don’t use your blinker.”

  “Why? What’s up? It’s two lanes over. Not using my blinker—not good.”

  “It’s probably nothing, but there’s a black SUV behind us. He’s been following at the same distance for like an hour.”

  “I’ve seen it, but the driver hasn’t made any aggressive moves. Your gut telling you something?”

  “Yes, something doesn’t feel right. Sorry.”

  Blood glances over to Blue, who nods, then veers the Jeep across two lanes of traffic to take the exit. Cars swerve and lay on their horns at us. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone calls the cops thinking Blood’s drunk.

  “Shit,” Blue says, and ‘shit’ is right. The SUV swerves, almost clipping the tail end of a royal blue Prius in front of it to follow us down the exit ramp.

  Blood cuts a left, taking us away from people. If we’re about to face a confrontation, it’s the smartest choice. Predictably, the SUV continues to follow.

  “Any idea?” he asks me.

  But I shake my head because no. “You know what I do. It could be anyone after us. My very existence has pissed off a lot of powerful men, men afraid of being fingered because of the role they play in all this. And I mean that in every way you can think of.”

  “Prison’s a bitch,” Blue says and I shoot him a halfhearted smile.

  “Right. Time to end this.” Blood speeds up and slams on the brake, turning the steering wheel at the same time so the Jeep skids into a 180-degree turn, facing the oncoming SUV, and Blue rolls down his window. Leaning out, he shoots at the vehicle, hitting the front passenger tire and it explodes. Rubber bits go flying as the driver swerves to the right and left in an attempt to gain control without luck, ploughing into a tree, hitting hard enough to knock the trunk askew. The airbag detonates in a giant puff of white and powder.

  “Stay in the car,” he says to Hannah. She nods. “I get out, climb in the driver’s seat. Be prepared to shoot if it comes down to that—but get yourself out.”

  On the count of three, Blood and Blue open their doors, guns aimed at the SUV. Hannah climbs into the driver seat as the brothers make their approach. They pull the driver out, where he falls to the pavement in a heap of unconscious person, bleeding from a cut on his head. Red tinges his white-blond hair giving it that in-the-middle-of-dying appearance. Blue uses his boot to roll the guy face up. I don’t know his face, though it appears he knows ours if the mini arsenal that Blood pulls from the vehicle along with a manila folder holds any significance.

  He flips through the pages in the folder, scanning them quickly, then, after handing them off to Blue to get a look, he draws on the man lying on the ground. Blue’s jaw grows tight at whatever he sees in that mass of papers, then I watch his mouth form the words, “Do it.”

  Blood looks to us in the Jeep. “Close your eyes,” he barks. Hannah’s eyes dip. I cover Greer, pressing her face against my shirt, but if this man is part of the group who killed Emily and Tasha, then I refuse to be spared the sight of him taking his last breath. Defiantly, I stare straight ahead and watch my friend put a bullet through the guy’s ear.

  It’s a brilliant maneuver, with the accident, no one will expect he’s been shot unless they do an autopsy. Hopefully, there won’t be all that much left of him after the scavengers pick him apart to do an autopsy on.

  Hannah rolls up next to them and presses a button to unlock the hatch for the guys to load the weapons in the back, covering the duffle bags with a blanket while Han climbs in the backseat again, putting Greer in the middle.

  When they’re finished, they slam the door closed, climb in the front and we take off as if they hadn’t just killed a man. “Good eyes on the SUV, Nic,” Blue says.

  “What’s in the file?”

  “Nothing good,” he responds seriously.

  “Obviously. Hand it over. If it’s about me or my girl here, I need to know.”

  Blue extends the folder back to me without any argument. These men know me and so they don’t even try any of that chauvinistic bullshit of trying to keep it from me for my own good. I’m their friend, but I’m no one’s old lady. They don’t get to shield me from the truth to protect me.

  Though I don’t exactly understand what I’m looking at. It’s photos of me taken from back in Halfway. Then there’re photos of a younger Greer. I’ve got no idea where or when those were taken. Finally, there are instructions.

  Instructions? “Was this guy like some sort of information courier?” I ask, scratching my head. “It looks like he was just supposed to have eyes on us, if I’m reading this paper correctly. Then deliver the info he collects on us to this address, along with the guns you seized.”

  Hannah gasps. Greer sniffles.

  “That’s how I took it, too,” Blue agrees.

  “Then we can’t take them back to the compound,” Han says. “If he’s had eyes on us, it’s possible there’ll be eyes on the Lords before we get home.”

  “Fuck,” Blood grumbles. “Any ideas where to take ‘em?” he asks the car at large, gripping the steering wheel to the point of white knuckles.

  “I’ve got an idea, though you probably won’t like it,” she says.

  “I don’t like any of this shit, babe. But it is what it is.”

  “Okay.” She pulls her phone from her jean pocket, swiping up to unlock the screen, then hits the green phone button. She hits contacts and scrolls until reaching the bottom. I watch as she presses on a contact labeled Vlad.

  It rings twice. “Hey, sweetheart, how’s it going?” The voice speaks through the car from the Bluetooth connection.

  “Vlad,” she says. “We’re in a bit of a pickle.”

  “Blood with you?” he barks
—yes, barks.

  “Yeah. Here,” Blood answers.

  “The fuck?” the Vlad man says.

  Hannah takes over again. “Listen. You know about our work at the safehouse in Texas.”

  “Talk to me,” he says.

  “It was hit. Most of the girls are gone. We’ve got two with us, but we were made and it’s not safe to bring them back to Thornbriar. I need you to help us hide them for a while.”

  “Goddammit—this isn’t a good time, Han. We’ve got shit going down here. Big shit. Serious shit.”

  “Please,” she begs. “It’ll only be until we can figure something else out.” But fuck that. He clearly knows the situation and still refuses to help? Asshole.

  “It’s fine,” I bite out.

  “Who’s that?” the asshole on the other end asks.

  “My name’s Nic and I’ve kept us safe this long. We wouldn’t want to put you out.”

  “Kind of mouthy for a woman asking for help,” he says and I think a mushroom cloud of anger explodes over my head.

  “Fuck you very much. I’m not asking for help—at least not from you. If it’s not safe in Thornbriar, then Gee and I’ll take our chances on the road. I’m not helpless.”

  He laughs humorlessly, then sighs. “Bell County, off Highway 1344.”

  I’m glad they’re listening because I’m sort of stuck back at the words Bell County because I didn’t expect him to give in. After rattling off a location, he hangs up without a signoff.

  “So that just happened,” I say to the car unhelpfully, settling in again.

  I spend the next several hours of the trip reading and rereading the papers from the folder, trying to wrap my mind around who might have hired this guy. Usually, in my line of work, this amount of information would be considered a godsend. Knowing which girl to transport out when saves lives. Clearly, with pictures of young Greer, it’s not me they’re after, but at the same time, if it was the men I helped rescue her from, I wouldn’t think they’d have pictures of her as a teen. I spend so much time staring at those words, my head begins to throb and the only thing Greer has to offer on the subject was that they were taken on a photoshoot for her sixteenth birthday. Anyone could’ve gotten their hands on one, as they were given away as souvenir “Polaroids” in the giftbags the staff had put together for guests to take home after the party.

  By the time we hit southern Kentucky, I was ready to be out of this car a hundred miles ago. It’s dark again by the time we reach Bell County. I have no idea how Blood maneuvers through the thick, way-too-dark-for-comfort forest, winding up mountain passes.

  My headache hasn’t eased, causing my stomach to go queasy. Eventually, we turn down this heavily wooded drive at the end of which stands an old hunting cabin, maybe? Blood and Blue get out first, using the flashlights on their phone to check out the property.

  When he gets back to us, he shines the light in my face, blinding me. “C’mon. No tire tracks. No footprints. No one’s been here in a while.”

  Greer and Hannah climb out with me and it’s so dark that I trip on an exposed tree root that I couldn’t see until my foot found it for me. Blue searches out a particular rock. It looks like all the others trimming the flowerbed, but when he finds the correct one, it’s got a false bottom that opens up.

  Made of cement, you’d never know it wasn’t an actual rock when it’s among its rock brethren. Blue dumps a dull, brass key into his hand, then walks over to unlock the door.

  “Wow.” I cough and choke, waving my hand in front of my face to clear away the dust swept into the air from opening the door. “I’m tired, but we can’t sleep in this.”

  “Sorry, Nic. He didn’t say it was uninhabitable,” Blood says.

  Fine. “I’ll search out a broom. Greer can remove the sheets from the furniture. You guys go get us cleaning supplies and maybe some food?”

  “Got it,” he says, turning to walk out the door.

  “Oh—” I stop him. “Some sinus medicine and a bottle of ibuprofen wouldn’t go amiss, either.”

  “One of your headaches?” Blue asks, knowing how I suffer from them.

  “Yes. I’ll be fine.” And I would be once I got the meds.

  “You want Hannah to stay?” Blood asks.

  I look at Hannah. “I will if you want,” she says, “but these guys shop like guys. I’m afraid they’ll forget something important and instead show up with a family pack of Twizzlers and a case of beer for dinner.”

  I laugh despite my headache. “Right. That would be horrible. Everyone knows Ho Hos go better with beer.”

  After they leave us to go to the store, leaving Hannah’s Baby Glock with me for protection, Greer sets to work carefully pulling the sheets from the furniture so as not to disrupt too much of the settled dust, while I, after finding the broom and dustpan in a small closet, begin the massive job of sweeping this mess from our lives.

  By the time they make it back to us, we’ve got the dirty sheets outside and the place has been thoroughly swept and dusted. It still requires a cleaning, but this’ll work for tonight.

  “Where’s Blue?” I ask when only Hannah and Blood come back inside.

  “Out back filling up the generator with gas so you all don’t run out. We’re leaving the gas can just in case you need to fill it up again.”

  That was so nice of them. Hannah helped us put the food away and then Blood handed me a new burner phone. “Got it set up. My number. Han’s. Blue. Carmen. Need us for anything, just call.”

  Blue steps inside with us. “You want one of us to stay here tonight?”

  I so love him. My brother from another mother. “That’s nice and part of me says yes—but I worry that if anyone with eyes on the Lords sees you coming and going, that could put us in danger here.”

  “True.” With nothing else for them to do, Blue pulls me into a hug, kissing my temple. “I’ll have Car call you in the morning,” he says.

  “Can’t wait to talk to her.”

  Blood hugs me, too. He reaches over to squeeze Greer’s hand but doesn’t attempt to hug her. These guys just get it. Hannah does hug Greer, then me, and we walk them to the door.

  For better or worse, we’re on our own.

  5

  Vlad

  I shoot up in bed, scrubbing my hands over my face. Sweating. The fan pointed directly on me does nothing to cool me down. The air does less. It’s been a week since the attack on the farm. So many brothers gone. But not the right one. I think that’s what I feel the worst about. That our rat bastard president got away. The brothers loyal to Rage got what they deserved. Hurt a woman because you’re ordered to? You’ve got to have darkness in your soul to comply.

  Doesn’t mean it sits well. I can’t forget the scene. Men lying bleeding, having fallen where they stood because none of them saw us coming. The smell of death. It was a fucking bloodbath that I orchestrated. Deserving or not, that’s on my hands now.

  The look on the faces of the men left over, the men we sent away to keep Rage from calling them down to the farm to work, when the brothers and I marched into the Horde clubhouse escorted by an army of Lords. The way none of them spoke out when I looked pointedly at each man and said: “We’re under new leadership. Go against us and die.”

  They clapped. The men fucking clapped. Of everything I expected them to do, clapping never made the list, yet there they were giving us an ovation. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but clapping for us meant clapping for the loss of others. Those weren’t the first men I’ve killed. They were just the first ones dead on my orders. I think that’s the thing messing with my mind the most, that I gave the order.

  Since going back to sleep is out of the question, I get up to take a shower. The hot spray hits the back of my neck as I take the time to breathe and clear my head. Completely out of fucking nowhere, I remember I’ve got two women up at my family’s old hunting cabin.

  Have Blood and Hannah been back up there? Do they have enough food? Gas for the generator? Christ
, I can’t leave two helpless women up the mountain alone without knowing if they’re okay.

  Turning off the water, I leave the shower, drying off as I walk to my dresser to shrug on a pair of jeans. Since most of my wardrobe consists of black, it’s not hard to pick a T-shirt. Boots. Cut. Cigarettes. Wallet. I’m ready, like a pussy, avoiding the brothers in the common room because I don’t know what to say. I’m not the president. As of yet, we’re ruler-less. And with burning down the production farm, I took out a big portion Horde income.

  The world’s not free. What do these men do for cash now? Fuck, did I think this through enough? But I can’t even go there. Caitlin’s safe now. Frankie. Hannah. I’ve got to clear my head or this shit will eat me up.

  There’s nothing I like better than being on my bike. Whenever I get stressed, going for a ride usually does the job of calming me more than even taking pussy to bed. I welcome the long drive, and it’s a good drive. Wind blowing through my hair and the feel of the sun on my skin does the trick. The cabin is located on the other side of the county from the Horde compound. By the time I reach the seen-better-days structure, I’m feeling pretty good.

  Without any lights on, I can’t tell if Blood and Hannah picked the women up to take them out for something. That would’ve been an incredible bout of stupidity on their part, seeing as they’re supposed to be hiding out and shit, but what would be the reason for the dark house otherwise?

  Assuming they kept the key from the rock in the flower bed, I use the copy that I keep on my keyring to unlock the door, noticing a few spots on the roof that need to be repaired and some water damage on the trim around the door frame. If people are going to be living here, those things will need to be fixed. And I sound like a goddamn landlord. Still, the shit’s got to get done. The hinges squeak, needing to be oiled, and as I step inside, I do exactly what I shouldn’t do and let my guard down. In that split second, a second that could end up costing me my life, I feel the cold steel pressed to the back of my head and know someone’s got a gun trained on me.

  Slowly, I turn around because if they’re going to kill me, they’re sure as hell looking me in the eyes while they pull the trigger, and fuck me—that’s when I see an absolutely gorgeous woman with what looks like a Baby Glock taking a large step back. She’s like a wet dream come to life. That long, thick, chestnut hair, wispy and messy as if she just rolled out of bed. The kind of hair I like to get my hands into when I’m fucking. Great tits, small waist, rounded ass, but it’s her eyes that get me. Dark, soulful, assessing. There’s real intelligence behind those thick lashes.