by V. Theia
Texas recognized the chick from the desk fucking.
She clocked eyes with him and he felt his gut lurch because she looked so miserable, almost pleading with him with her sad, bottomless eyes.
He could have told her he was as useless as she felt.
He tore his gaze away.
“So you’re pushing pussy. How do you want me to fancy that shit up into dollars?”
Like hell he’d help, but he played well.
“I need permits. Better location, bigger sets. You know people, da?”
“The mayor not big on signing this away for tax purposes I take it?”
Grigori smirked yet didn’t answer.
“I am better suited to like-minded people to do business with.”
Fuck, what the hell did that say if he was kicking Brex Mahoney to the curb? Because the last time he checked that fella was crooked as they come.
“I make money. I buy shares and stocks. I invest. I don’t hire buildings for porn locations and not this type of porn. Ever heard of romance, man?”
The Russian laughed quietly as he watched a scene being filmed. That chick’s pussy and ass was gonna be sore as hell later with the amount of dicks plowing into her at once.
He just about kept his stomach so he could get through this.
He wanted to bury this guy more than ever.
“I cater to a select audience, my friend. You should give it a try; I give you free subscription.”
“Thanks, but I’m good.” the tour continued and was as grim and vile as anyone would expect. He was seeing the sex industry in a whole new depressing light.
He wanted to get all the women out of there, single handed if need be.
No way were these women there voluntarily. And Texas was Jesus Christ if they were receiving payment for the degrading acts they were put through.
Grigori really was aiming for an all-time low with his reputation.
“This place is shit,” he remarked.
The man smirked, not pleasant at all. “You see why an upgrade is necessary. You, me and your brother can do a lot of good things, Mr. Hunt, once we cut through red tape.”
Texas snorted, rolling a quarter inside his pocket to keep his hand from patting the gun tucked away in the holster against his ribs.
He learned on day one in the MC to be safer than sorry.
“You’re shit out of luck if you think my brother would get involved in the sex trade. He’s a fucking cop.”
“Ah, but a cop who knows how to look the other way, am I wrong? He has access to channels that we need.”
There was no we. This guy was crazy.
“Sit. Enjoy.” Grigori said. “I will return in a moment.”
He strode off and left Texas among the misery and the ruined.
He turned away; he’d throw up if he had to watch this shit.
There was porn, then there was whatever this was.
He noted all the security men with their guns were enjoying every second of the three sets going on simultaneously, more than one grabbed his own crotch.
Cutting his gaze to the left, he rested on a wall furthest away from what was going down. He desperately wanted to call Poppy and have her goodness cleanse his ears and feel how she laughed at something stupid she saw on TV.
He made like he was texting, when in fact he was recording the assholes with guns. He didn’t wait to transfer it to Charlie Timmons later, he uploaded the file with a few taps and sent it to him via email.
Let Grigori get out of that one.
Ideally he wanted eyes on something official, a paper trail that said this guy was bad news and had his fingers in a lot of bad shit. For now all he had was photos so he kept sending them to the only trustworthy cop he knew.
Time was, that would have been Malachai. How times had changed, he thought, when he couldn’t put trust in his own blood to do the right thing.
Lifting his head, he slipped his phone away in time to see one of the heavies yanking a skinny malnourished chick in miniscule red underwear by her arm, almost dragging so she tripped on the floor.
Fury filled Texas’ eyes as he rushed forward and knocked the guy back with force.
“Get the fuck off her, you asshole, she’s a woman, not a bag of cement, would you drag your sister like that?”
The woman who’d burrowed into Texas’s body for shelter like she thought he was Jesus and Thor combined, was mumbling upset in thick Russian.
This pissed off the goon and he pointed his gun and he too spoke in Russian.
This brought two of the other goons.
Turns out, maybe today was the day Texas died.
But he’d do it by not witnessing a woman being treated like she was shit.
He petted the back of her dark hair and told her it was okay.
“What is going on here?” The authority voice spoke and had heads turning. Texas didn’t look away from the gun pointed at his temple.
Russian conversation was exchanged between his men.
“This asshole was almost dragging her arm from the socket.” Texas informed.
Eyes cut like steel, Grigori said the woman’s name very softly and Texas felt her shiver before she ambled over.
More Russian exchanged, only from Grigori. You could be mistaken if you thought he was soothing the girl with his soft words. Her trembling was a big giveaway as to what her boss/captor was saying.
Putting his hand in his pants pocket, Grigori held a white pill between finger and thumb when he brought it back out. “Open, malen’kaya. Remember to use your English, we are in the free world now.”
Like a well-trained puppet, the dark haired woman fell into order as if deflated, opened her lips and Grigori dropped the pill inside. Her voice was broken when she spoke. “da, ser.”
The hair grab came out of nowhere and the women cried out.
“What?”
“I mean to say yes, sir.”
“That’s better. An uneducated woman is a stupid woman, malen’kaya. Go now. Work, earn that pretty face.”
Wow, this fucker really needed a bullet to the temple.
Texas held onto his temper, there was not much he could do alone against four armed men hovering around.
At this point, he just wanted out of this cesspit.
He’d go home and reassess what the fuck he was doing trying to take down the second man of the bratva.
He’d been out of his mind to think he could.
The sound of a backhanded slap echoed with force through the concrete warehouse and had Texas whirling around mid-step. One of the goons was dragging the woman hard enough her knees were scraping on the floor, she cried out and earned herself another slap and a slew of Russian in her face before she climbed to her feet.
She pushed the guy’s chest—big mistake, she got another slap and this had Texas advancing forward.
Grigori’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“Leave it, comrade, it does not concern you.”
“Seeing a woman being beaten is not my concern?” He grated.
“Nyet. Come, we have business to discuss. Marianna is not your concern.”
Texas put Poppy’s face on that woman and his gut twisted sickeningly.
Marianna being beaten was every man’s concern if he had any kind of decency in him.
He hoped to God the sheriff did something with the photos he sent over.
“You have not contacted your brother.” Grigori declared, inside his cold office space. The space was barren save for a desk and a chair.
“I said it would take time.”
“I think you stall me, my friend, and I do not care to be made a fool, da? In fact, I feel anger if I know that is happening.”
As that, the door behind Texas opened and he knew Grigori’s game at once.
It all became crystal fucking clear as his belly dropped.
If he couldn’t get Texas on side to put him in good with his twin, then he’d force his hand by blackening his name further, making it so
every fucking person in Armado thought he was in with the bratva.
Rider, larger than life filled the doorway in his black leather Souls jacket and his shrewd stare looking between them both.
Grigori smiled his lethal cocksucker smile as Texas felt his intestines start to leak blood.
Asshole.
Motherfucker.
He was getting his insurance on Texas good and well.
Played.
“Rider, you’re right on time, thank you for coming, my friend.”
Texas kept his mouth shut but his eyes on his ex prez.
What the fuck could he say anyway? It’s not what it looks like, Rider. I’m not here colluding with the club’s enemy.
The evidence against him was damning.
“Looks cozy as fuck in here and I don’t mean the décor.” Rider remarked, dark and tight with his eyes on Texas before they slid back to Grigori who was standing behind his desk like the lorded fucker he was.
He’d set Texas up.
“Nice of you to come, Rider. Please, take a seat.” The Russian gestured. “I will have drinks brought in.”
“I’m not stopping. This ain’t a social call. I wanted to see this shitstorm with my own eyes and gotta say, you’re about as fucked up as I always thought you were. Some of those chicks out there don’t even fuckin’ look legal. You doping them up?”
Grigori smirked. Unrepentant. But then, the devil doesn’t have a conscience.
“Business, my friend, comes with costs, da? You know this. I think if we all help each other, put heads together, as you say, we will make Denver very profitable. We are smart men who want to own the world.”
Rider laughed. “De-fucking-lusional as always. Consider this place shut the fuck down as of now.”
Rider turned to leave, but not before he stared a hole through Texas’ head. A stare he felt as if Rider had gut punched him. “Nice company you’re keeping, man. From cops to the mafia, seriously fuckin’ nice.”
“It’s not…”
“Mr. Hunt and I have a good relationship. One you and I could have had, Rider, if you realized the potential for this state.”
Fucking hell.
Fire in Rider’s eyes meant he turned back around and started to advance on Grigori. “Told you before, you and I will never climb into bed, dickhead. I gave you leeway because of my Tracker and the state you left him in.”
Oh, that asshole would die twice as painful for the pleased grin on his face, Texas thought to himself.
“It was me who shut your smuggling down. It was me who stopped you peddling pills to kids. It was me who fucked up your relationship with the mayor.” With each confession, Rider’s grin turned smugger.
Grigori’s smirk dropped and his pale skin turned angry mottled red.
“Told you ample times, this is my fuckin’ city. Nothing happens here that I don’t know about. No fucker earns a buck without my say so. Oh and the best.” Now he was directly in front of Grigori, their heights almost matched. “We drained nearly twenty big ones from every undertaking you ever tried to do. That was my favorite fuckin’ part, man. My club might take a cruise on your dime, thanks for that. Why do you think I haven’t drilled your body like swiss cheese with bullets? Now you know, we were making you fuckin’ poor first.”
The air in the tiny office changed, like all the oxygen was sucked out immediately.
Rider better know what the hell he was doing by goading him.
Outside, he heard a muffled scream again.
He turned away for one second, just one.
Russian was spewed out of Grigori’s mouth as if the man was so furious that he couldn’t think in English fast enough to translate his thoughts.
Before Texas knew it, two guns were drawn.
One held by Rider.
The other by Grigori.
“We found your broker and my boy broke him, if you get what I mean. He had all your accounts in minutes. Ah, now that was so fuckin’ sweet, man. Tasted good to smell all that filthy Russian money and make it clean for my own pockets. You really are a simple fuckin’ man not to see it.”
“Rider, you might want to shut up now.” Texas said out of the side of his mouth. Without realizing it, he’d moved closer to his friend.
“When I want you to bark, Tex, I’ll kick your Russian kennel.” Rider bit out, his gaze on the enemy.
“Here is the dilemma, Mr. Hunt.” Grigori spoke, eerily ghost-like.
The palpable standoff with Rider continued. The pair unrelenting.
Rider wasn’t done provoking like a death wish bastard with big balls. “Can’t forget how we took all your men from you. My pigs, man, they ate like fuckin’ fat kings on Russian meat for weeks.”
So that happened, Rider seriously showed all his cards to Grigori.
How the fuck did he expect to get out of here alive?
Turning his gaze to Texas, Grigori’s eyes were fury itself.
No man as him liked to be treated less than a lord.
“Choices are easy, Mr. Hunt. You want this man to live, you call your brother right now and make the connection we proposed. I want it to happen right now.”
TWENTY-NINE
“A bad day to get dead.” - Rider
So many emotions swirled inside Texas.
None of them sided with this motherfucker.
He’d call Mal over his own dead body, but it concerned Rider’s.
“Listen, you mad fuck, this has gone too far, put the guns down.”
Rider chuckled, without humor. “Your fall from grace landed your ass in pig swill, Texas. Congrats, man. Didn’t know you had it in you. Tell him club business, did you?”
“Shut the fuck up, Rider, while you have a gun pointed at you, yeah?”
“Too late to play white hat now.”
“Mr. Hunt.”
“This isn’t the way to get me to heel.”
“So be it,” Grigori said calmly as if ordering from a menu he didn’t care for and one second… just one second, Texas didn’t even see the man move, but he stepped right and fired the gun.
Rider’s gun fired on reflex, it hit the wall and caused a ruckus of noise.
Texas felt the reverberation going through his bones but that wasn’t what caused his heart to gallop.
It was seeing Rider hit the deck like a sack of bricks, falling on his front.
The bullet hitting him square in the chest.
Texas never thought he’d see life go by his eyes in slow motion, but his vision dimmed even as he grabbed his own gun from his holster near his ribs, and advanced viciously fast on Grigori, wrath like molten lava burning his torso with pain at what he was seeing.
Grigori lowered his weapon, uncaring for the one pointed at him now. He stepped out from the desk and came around to Texas, wiping his hands with a white handkerchief from his pocket while he glanced nonchalantly down at the man he’d shot.
“You mad fucking fuck. What the fuck have you done?”
Rider wasn’t moving. Oh fuck.
He wasn’t moving even an inch.
Not a fucking inch.
Texas’ pain increased.
“What needed to be done. Casualties of war. Shall we have a drink, comrade, and make that call, da?”
“You have no clue how dead I’m going to make you.”
The Russian laughed.
He laughed while Rider laid dead on the floor.
THIRTY
“Dead: the sequel.” – Texas
The sound of bullets meant the next loud noise Texas heard was fast approaching feet. His bulls coming to protect papa bear.
Texas didn’t think when he swerved his body and fired at the first person through the door. He hit the guy directly and he fell backwards, bleeding like a stuck pig.
Grigori laughed maniacally.
“I did not think you had it in you, Mr. Hunt. I am proud, well done.”
He seriously was a crazy fucker, the lights were on, but the elevator didn’t go right to the pen
thouse.
Adrenaline like never before kept Texas steady even in the fact that he’d just killed a man. He’d killed someone and his friend laid dead at his feet.
He couldn’t even think about the club in that second.
Or Zara.
Fuck. Zara and his kids. Gia, Jed, Ajax and Annie.
He couldn’t think of any of them or it would tear him apart.
His soul would never get clean after this.
He’d caused Rider’s death, indirectly or directly, the fucking details didn’t matter
He’d tried to play hero, to fix some of his wrongs and only made them a thousand times worse.
Texas’ brows snapped together but his hands were steady holding the warm weapon between both.
He hated not seeing Poppy one last time, he hoped someone told her in the aftermath that he’d been falling so hard in love with her.
He hoped someone told her that so she’d have some comfort.
He wasn’t getting out of this alive, but he’d take this asshole with him first.
“A man with his back against the wall will do almost anything, you bastard, to protect those he loves. You wouldn’t know that shit, you see in dollars and empty power. You think selling those poor fucking women’s pussy’s will make you a man?”
Grigori looked uninterested.
“You’re hard to get rid of, I’ll give you that due. You’re like a case of untreatable herpes, but you’re nothing, man. Nothing. You’ve always been a joke in this town.” Ah, that got a reaction with a tick in the Russian’s jaw. Go for the ego, roger fucking that, Texas thought. “Rider was a good man, he has people who give a fuck about him, he did right by this town and his club. You wouldn’t know a fuck about that.”
“Enough, Mr. Hunt. This is not interesting.”
Texas laughed darkly, moving closer, staring at the man. “I felt violently sick every time I had to talk to you. I would never work with you, you psycho. Never. Those raids? You have me to thank for that. And you were so fucking dumb not to see it. Those investments I passed on? Yeah, not worth the paper they’re written on, how much did you put in, a good few mill right? Ah, man, sorry.” He grinned tightly. “Never trust a Hunt, we’re sly motherfuckers. Only I stand behind my friends, my fucking club, even when I don’t wear the cut. Fuck you for what you’ve done.”