by Hazel Parker
I’d always sworn that I was never going to sell the club for as long as I lived. But maybe, it was more accurate to say as long as the lifestyle I had lived.
Just make these kinds of decisions when you’re detached. You’ve had a weird week. Just get some distance.
Having that sobering thought, though, was not enough to make the thoughts go away. If anything, it only intensified the ideas for me even more.
“Whatcha thinking about, hun?”
Mama snuggled up to me, resting her head on my shoulder as we stood near the back of the burlesque theatre, watching the show unfold before us. A couple of hours had passed so far. The audience, as usual, loved the show. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen hundreds of times, though, so I could predict the movements of the girls well before they even got in position to execute the move.
“If I told you here, I’d be the center of attention, and not in a good way,” I said. “Sorry, beautiful.”
“Oh, stop it,” Mama said. “Don’t let your self-worth get inflated just because you’re having a woe-is-me week. We like you, and we’re sorry for what you’re going through, but we ain’t gonna pity you. Get some balls and stop acting like the world owes you a favor.”
I chuckled, wrapped my arm around Mama, and kissed the top of her head. God, I loved that woman. It was too bad she was more like a sister and really wasn’t looking for kids at this point—I could have spent my entire life with her if I didn’t feel so platonic toward her.
Hell, maybe in five years, if we were both still single, maybe we’d just say fuck it, shotgun wedding it, and live it out like so. It probably would sputter out in divorce five years later, given that our stark personality differences only didn’t matter because our doses of each other were limited, but at least we could both check off “married” on the boxes of life to-dos.
“You know, I always feel like I’m telling Dom and Barber to keep their hands out of the cookie jar here,” Mama said. “Goddamn idiots don’t know the meaning of moderation. But maybe you need to treat yourself to a sweet here.”
“Oh, Christ, Mama, seriously?” I said with a groan. “You know I set that rule myself about club members going after girls here. This wasn’t something you implemented to protect them from me.”
“Yeah, but I also know that rules exist to be broken,” Mama said, raising her voice slightly as the crowd applauded a routine. “If you make it clear to these girls you just need something to move forward, it’s not like they’ll quit when you’re done. And if they want to, old Mama here has a way of helping set their heads straight.”
“You’re sweet,” I said. “But it’s not like I’m twenty anymore. I’m not going to just fuck my way past my feelings.”
“Yeah but getting your dick wet might help you develop some new ones,” she said with a squeeze. “You got until Monday. I’m being nice. If you’re still acting this way by the time our party rolls around Tuesday, I’m calling Libby. I see it on your face you don’t want Dom and Pork’s sloppy thirds, but tough luck, kiddo.”
“You’re so supportive,” I said with an eye roll.
With a brief pause in the action, I slipped my phone out of my pocket.
I had a missed call and a voicemail from Natasha.
I wasted no time slipping into the meeting room, shutting it tightly, and putting the phone on speaker. My heart was racing, and my hopes were getting up. Maybe she had called to say she wanted to see me. Maybe she’d called to say she wanted to give things a second shot. Maybe—
My expression went sour as soon as I heard the first three words of her call.
“Richard, it’s Natasha.”
Her tone was not cheerful, optimistic, or even cautious. It was panicked; I could hear noise in the background of the call, but more than that, I could hear her heavy breathing, the edge to her words, the sound that something bad had happened.
“I need your help bad. I’m at my father’s place, the Sinners…”
Oh, fuck no. No. This is not happening.
“They came and robbed and are holding us hostage. They’re going to rape me and kill me, they—”
“Hey, boss! I found the fresh meat you’re looking for!”
The line went dead shortly after that. I slammed my fists on the table in fury. The Degenerate Sinners had done a lot of things to piss me off, but they had not yet unlocked this level of anger. This wasn’t just something where I had to retaliate. This wasn’t just an attack we had to answer.
This was an act that merited the complete destruction of all of the Sinners. I would see all of them killed at my hand, all of them suffering slow deaths, all of them paying the price for what they were probably doing to Natasha right now.
I went outside, grabbed Mama by the sleeve, and practically yanked her inside.
“The hell—”
“The Sinners are holding the Sokolovs hostage at her father’s place,” I said. “You get every fucking Saint here on a bike and everyone who isn’t here to come here as soon as they can. We’re going to rescue her.”
“But The Red Door—”
“It’s Natasha, damnit!” I roared. “Make an announcement that due to an emergency, the club is closed for the night. Issue refunds, we’ll pay the girls, I don’t give a fuck, but we need all hands on deck for this one,” I said. “You need to go and do that while I get to the Sokolov’s house. If you don’t do that, then I’m going to do it. And if you think I’m—”
“OK, OK, hun,” Mama said. “Relax. I’m on it.”
She went back inside, and I immediately began looking through online records for the Sokolov’s house. Thankfully, Igor had not been too subtle or too quiet about where he lived, making it easy for me to see that he lived in the Summerlin area, in a gated home far removed from the nearest house. It was the perfect place to throw a private party, but also the worst kind of place to get held hostage.
Seconds later, I heard Mama’s voice booming from the stage with collective groaning. Someone said they had never seen The Red Door act like this, but I’d sooner tell our patrons to suck a dick than I would to explain what was going on. I went outside when I had the full address and hurried people out, apologizing half-heartedly and saying they’d get a refund and free entry to a future event. Dom and Walker could handle the logistics later. Mama cleared out the girls, urging them to go home, and within five minutes, all fifteen members of the club had gathered in the meeting room.
“I’m going to make this quick,” I said. “My woman is being held hostage at the Sokolov’s house by the Degenerate Sinners. We’re going to go there, kill the Sinners, and rescue the hostages. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes sir,” they all said.
“Let’s go.”
I didn’t need a massive plan to discuss operations. I didn’t need to split us up into teams. Yes, we were undermanned, but we had the advantage of better weapons, presumably hostages who would help us, and much more. I didn’t need a fucking dissertation paper to know we needed to move now.
I grabbed an M4, hurried to the back, revved my bike, and roared out toward Igor Sokolov’s home.
* * *
The first sign that something was amiss at the house—aside from the obvious phone call—was that numerous vehicles, all of them sporty or luxurious, had their sideview mirrors smashed or their windows broken. At the top of the hill, a couple dozen bikes were parked, all of them in a way that blocked the entrance.
Good. Only a couple dozen. We can take them this way.
Natasha! I’m fucking coming!
The element of surprise was not in play because of our motorcycles, but I didn’t care. We had M4s; at best, they had some old rifles that were not as accurate and prone to jamming.
I parked my bike right at the entrance, killed two Sinners at the front, and hopped off, sprinting inside.
“Natasha!” I roared.
Behind me, fourteen Savage Saints hopped off, roaring into battle with their guns held aloft. We broke in and fanned
out as several Sinners held positions, trying to pick us off.
I hid behind a thick, wooden table that I knocked over. I probably broke tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of fine China, candles, and other decorations, but dollar amounts never entered my mind. The table took a pounding from the bullets, but it withstood almost all of the fire—for now.
“Natasha!” I roared as I peeked over and fired at a couple of Sinners who had their guns trained elsewhere.
They both fell quickly, bullets lodged right in their fucking skulls. Around me, one of my men fell, wounded too badly to keep going. I grimaced, but I had no time to worry about potential deaths within my club. They were well-trained not just in combat but in emergency medical care; someone else would help out.
When I saw an opening, I then moved over to a pillar, pressing up against it. I turned and tried to take out a Sinner, but he was well positioned just by a flight of stairs. His angle made it nearly impossible for me to hit him and all too easy for him to hit me.
“Goddamnit!” I groaned.
I turned and fired, but his fire came hot and heavy. I could feel the heat and rush of the bullets passing me by. A brief pause came among all the firefighting as each side either had to reload or tried to find a new position.
Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a neck snapping.
I looked around and couldn’t help but smile at what I saw.
Igor stood where the man who had fired upon me just was, having snapped the man’s neck and killed him.
“Glad you didn’t pull that one on me,” I shouted.
“You didn’t try and rob my home,” Igor said. “I—”
Then a bullet rang out, hitting Igor in the chest. Igor collapsed to the ground. I found the target, a Sinner who had hidden between us and taken him out and laid him down with a single bullet. The other Sinners in the area soon fell as my Saints moved into the room, clearing the area.
“Clear!” Dom shouted after a few moments of looking around. “Check all the hostages and make sure they are healthy and safe! Treat any wounds!”
I hurried over to Igor, kneeling behind him. He was breathing heavy, but his wound didn’t look immediately fatal. Still, he was not someone who could go without treatment for long.
“Bastard got me in the rib,” Igor said with a groan.
“Here,” I said, grabbing the shirt of the slain Sinner and wrapping it around Igor. He let out a loud groan and grimaced like a man under torture. “Where’s Natasha?”
I’d hoped that I’d just missed her somehow in the chaos and the madness of everything going on, but I knew that that wasn’t the case. I would have noticed Natasha amongst the crowd of the hostages with ease; she wasn’t someone I would have missed ever.
“I don’t know,” Igor said with a grunt. “Scar took her. Somewhere upstairs.”
Scar. The leader of the Degenerate Sinners. An evil sociopath, a man who had no conscious and no fear of committing the most atrocious of acts to get what he wanted.
“He’s a dead man.”
I left Igor and the rest of the violence and the insanity behind. I ran to the top of the stairs, opening every door, leading with my gun. Where was she? Where the fuck was she?
And then I heard a scream.
It was Natasha’s scream.
And it was coming from outside.
Chapter 18: Natasha
When the ugly creep grabbed my arm, he hoisted me up with such force that I couldn’t even think about resisting him.
At some point, I was going to fight back. I was going to kick his ass or someone else’s ass; I wasn’t going to just lie down and let someone rape me. I may have been a rich girl, spoiled in many ways, but that didn’t mean I was afraid to get dirty and scrappy as needed.
But fighting against a burly man while I was on the ground of the bathroom, with several more men behind him ready to kill or attack me, seemed like a losing battle. So I begrudgingly went along with it as he brought me before the man they called Scar.
Scar, true to his name, had an ugly cut across his cheek, the kind of thing that formed half of a Glasgow smile. He smirked at me as the burly man held my neck, forcing me forward.
“Such a beautiful girl,” he said, running his hand across my face. “I look forward to—”
Two things happened simultaneously then.
The first was that I slapped Scar.
The second was that my father threatened the full force of our family upon Scar if he touched me again.
Despite this double action on Scar, a physical and a verbal slap of each cheek, Scar just looked at me and shrugged.
“Do you really think your hand hurts when I have this?” he said, pointing to his cheek. “You are gravely mistaken, dear.”
Then he came closer and smiled.
“I can promise you this, though,” he said. “You’ll be hurting when I’m done with you. You’re going to give me pleasure, and I’m going to give you pain. And if you fight back? The pain is only going to get worse. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
I didn’t give him any response; a thug like that didn’t deserve one. But this didn’t seem to anger him. He merely shrugged.
“Take her upstairs,” he said. “Let’s make sure we have all of their valuables.”
“No!” I screamed, but it did little good as another man helped the first one who grabbed me, taking me up the stairs. My father lunged after me, trying to rescue me, but another Sinner socked him in the gut, knocking him backward and making it so he couldn’t pursue me any further.
They took me to my room, randomly guessing the right one, and threw me in there.
“I’ll watch her,” the first one who had taken me said. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“You’re sure, Brick?” the second one said.
Why does he sound Russian? Did my father… did my father know this was going to happen? He certainly seems to know a lot more about them than I had imagined.
“I don’t understand, Scar!” I heard my father yell in the distance. “You would wreck what we had just—”
But then he went silent. I didn’t hear a bullet fire, but I sure assumed the worst.
“Yes, I’m sure, she’s puny and tiny, Jesus,” Brick said with an eye roll. “Go find some jewelry to take, would you? The cops are going to get here eventually. I think the mom was dialing 9-1-1 anyways.”
“OK, fine,” the Russian said.
That left just Brick and me in the room, with me on the bed. Brick spared no shame in eying me up and down, creepily undressing me with his eyes. It was enough to send the worst kind of chills down my spine.
“The only reason I am not fucking you now,” he said, “is because Scar has had his eye on you for some time. But I can assure you that as soon as he finishes with you, I am going to take you for my own.”
“I’m so glad you’re willing to have Scar’s sloppy seconds,” I spat back. “I bet you like being his bitch, don’t you? Just taking his scraps as needed. Just doing whatever you need—”
“Shut the fuck up, whore!” he roared. “You may be Scar’s, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give you a lesson.”
As if to make his point, he pulled out a knife and brandished it before me. I bit my lip, pulled myself close, and lay on the bed.
“Good girl,” Brick said with a snicker.
I had never felt so powerless in my life. I was going to get raped by two of the Sinners, and there was no one here who could help me. Richard hadn’t answered his phone, probably because he was doing club business, and because of that, I was going to lose everything.
My dignity. My confidence. My soul.
I wish you were here, Richard. You would protect me. You wouldn’t let this happen.
I let myself go back to my happy place, the time I had with Richard. I thought about the first date we had at the Bellagio and the second date we had in the mountains. I thought about just how complete of a man he was, and that the only reason he attacked my father was because
he liked me. It wasn’t just a matter of defending himself or making a point; it was about getting to me.
A man like that… I needed a man like that.
No one had ever fought my father so blatantly to get to me.
“Richard,” I whispered. “I love you. Please, come. Please, whatever it takes.”
“I can hear you,” Brick said with a groan. “Do us all a favor and shut the fuck up. No one is—”
And then I heard a sound that was most glorious.
Bikes.
And gunfire.
“It’s you who needs to shut the fuck up!” I said, gleefully laughing. “The Saints have come to kick your ass, Brick. They’re going to kill you and everyone in here for what you did.”
Brick scowled at me, looked out the door, and headed down. I carefully walked to the doorway and saw him standing in the stairwell, positioning his gun. I saw my Dad on the ground at the base of the stairs, groaning in pain, but alive and moving. I saw my mother hiding behind a table, taking cover.
There were a couple of people dead. I didn’t recognize any of them, but this was clearly not a peaceful robbery. I guessed that the Sinners had come in, killed a few people to make a point, and then held my father hostage.
But before I could watch with glee and call to Richard, I felt a hard shove come from the side. I fell to the ground as I looked up at Scar.
“Those assholes always want to ruin anything and everything I do,” he growled. “But not today. You’re coming with me.”
I tried to scream, but he moved so quickly and had his hand on my mouth so fast that between the muffled sound and the gunfire, there was no chance that I was going to make enough noise to draw attention. I was trapped by Scar.
I tried to save my strength, thinking that he was going to rape me in one of the rooms, but instead, he took me to the far end of the top floor, to another flight of stairs. He carefully tiptoed his way forward, his hand on my mouth so hard that it felt like he was going to break my jaw. He carried me down, out the back, and then circled around out front.