Chapter 7
Tango
(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
The prospect I brought with me, Ashton Davidson, hopped a flight back to South Dakota, taking Liza’s belongings with him as his baggage just in case he was tailed to the airport. He never made contact with the girl so the King’s Demons wouldn’t have any reason to suspect she knew him or was headed his way. So far, it seemed to have worked out beautifully.
By the time I got the call from Frankie letting me know that the KDs were back at the Expo, and sniffing around the space I’d occupied the past two days, I knew we made the right decision. I also knew we had a good damn head start since they assumed I’d show up again today. We had left at five this morning, and I was ever thankful the Prospect and I had driven the truck down so I’d have a place for all the equipment I had to tote with me. It would have been too damn cold for Liza on the bike since I didn’t think she was used to riding. Sure, her brother had a bike and did his fair share, but from what he had mentioned, he wasn’t one to take her, and she’d avoided being associated with men with bikes after what happened to her when she was younger.
“So, you never been on a bike?” I don’t know why I felt the need to ask, but it was bothering me that she hated my world so much.
She smirked, and I only just caught it out of the side of my eye as we bumped down a road that wasn’t well cared for. I had chosen to take some back roads, and deviate the route I’d normally take home, because I didn’t want to leave traces of our journey behind where the King’s Demons might find it. The first part of our plan was to lay low with the woman; the second part was to fight if necessary to protect her. Hell, once Charlie overheard the guys talking about Liza’s situation it was all the woman could do to force Rage’s hand and tell her to come help. It hadn’t been too long ago that Charlie herself was on the run from her husband and from Charlie’s own sister who had planted the idea in the man’s head that he wanted his wife dead for the money she would leave behind.
Needless to say, a woman having to go in hiding was something of a trigger for Charlie, and now Liza had a champion on her side, even if she didn’t know it yet.
“I never said I hadn’t been on a bike before, I just said my brother never took me.”
“When did you get to ride?”
Her smirk completely disappeared as a frown marred her otherwise beautiful face with the telling tightness that pulled Liza’s lips in together and furrowed her brow. “When I was nineteen,” she explained. I remembered her saying that she’d been nineteen when the King’s Demons got a hold of her before.
“You don’t have to yet,” I reassured her. She was going to have to tell her story, but I wanted her to feel comfortable with me before she did. I needed her to understand that I would only put her through retelling her horrible ordeal if it was absolutely necessary.
“I do, and we both know it. Might as well be now.” She leaned back in the seat, getting comfortable on the beat up leather seat of the old Chevy Blazer we occupied. “My brother has always had a stupid streak,” she started her story, and I had to refrain from chuckling, having known her brother for quite a few years considering we ran in some of the same circles with the tattoo conventions. Plus, there was the fact that I was originally from Carson City, so heading into Reno and running in some of the same circles, as another artist wasn’t unheard of.
“He was into some even dumber shit back then. I’m pretty sure he had a coke habit he couldn’t afford, but he also liked to gamble.” She scoffed then. “I think the gambling was originally just a means to an end. When it paid off he could get more drugs, when it didn’t he was in need of way more money, and he started playing for higher stakes. Unfortunately, he was playing for those higher stakes in one of the King’s Demon’s establishments. It was there that he lost really big for the first time. You know how these things go. He went somewhere else to try to win bigger in order to pay that debt off. Everything snowballed, and when the KDs came to collect, my brother was flat broke and being evicted from his apartment.”
Shit, now I understood how the sister had gotten involved in the first place. “He came to see you?” I asked the question, but I already knew the answer she was going to drop.
“Yeah, he sure did. I was at the University of Nevada – Reno, living in the dorms and he came there to see me. I don’t know why he thought I’d have any money, but he asked anyway. Then he asked if he could crash for the night.”
She sighed and glanced out the window for a long moment before she managed to continue. “The next day, I guess someone saw us leave the dorm. I hugged him goodbye, he took off one way, I went the other and never made it to class that day or for the rest of the week.”
“So someone threw you on the back of their bike and no one noticed you putting up a fight?”
“No, someone snatched me into a van that was waiting by the curb, and only after they bashed me over the head with something, a bottle I think, and knocked me out long enough to get me out of there without making much of a scene.” She nodded at the wide-eyed look I toss her way briefly as I continued to drive even while I want to pull over and just hold her, because I don’t think she should have to relive her story without someone doing it.
I noticed her move her hand to just behind and above and her left ear. She shivered, as if a cool breeze just blew across her. The memory of her attack and imprisonment was clearly having an affect. “Were you still in the van when you woke?”
I could tell from my peripheral vision that she shook her head indicating, no. “I woke in a dingy room with no furniture outside of a small mattress. You know the kind they put on kids’ bunk beds?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Well, I was lying half on, half off of one of those things in this room with peeling paint on the walls and enough dirt on the floor that I almost thought it was actual dirt floor. I figured I was in an old root cellar or something. My head was a jumbled mess of pain and confusion, and I was so thirsty that my mouth was literally sticking together. I didn’t remember being hit, or stuffed into the van at first. I still don’t remember being stuffed into the van, just that it was there.
“When the door opened and more light poured in than what had been seeping through the crack on the floor under the door my whole body locked up. Everything froze for a moment in a time before I took that next breath and scuffed, dirty motorcycle boots came into view. The guy standing there moved forward a little then toed me in the ribs. I moved, inadvertently then, and his laugh skated across my skin like a thousand needles pricking me all at once. It was a thing that let me know I wouldn’t be around much longer if I didn’t play along with whatever he wanted from me.”
“Was it Random?”
“No, it wasn’t. It was his second in command, Vanquish, I think. I just know they mostly called him Van.”
I nodded my head knowing exactly whom she was talking about, and dreading what was to come in her story, because a man like Van didn’t leave young women untouched.
“Once he realized I was alive and awake he reached down and grabbed me,” she flinched as she said that and her arms curled around her body as if she were protecting herself all over again. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he’d grabbed her breast. “When he realized I was still wearing a bra he got angry, and started ripping at my shirt, tearing it off of me, and then my bra was next, but I started fighting back, because honestly I’d rather be dead, or at the very least passed out again if I was going to have to go through what he was about to do.” She shook a little making me wish I could stop her story. The only thing that kept me from doing so was that I knew her brother had said she hadn’t been violated that way. I wondered briefly if he’d just been given a watered down version of events to spare him.
“Since I was fighting he got rougher and slapped me while he continued to try to get my bra off of me. He was laughing the entire time telling me he preferred when they put up a good fight for him. I punched him in
the dick then, and he doubled over holding on to himself for a moment. I tried to get passed him to the door he’d come through, but before I could get too far he reached out and grabbed my ankle, yanked me back so that I fell flat on my face and then he kicked me.” Her whole body shook again with the memory. “I ended up with three broken ribs from those kicks. He had my pants down to mid-thigh before I finally found my voice, scratchy and dry as it was I started screaming, and before he could get my pants down to my knees when another man came in and threw him off of me.
“At first, I thought someone was there to save me. Then he started yelling at the Van guy, and telling him they needed me to not look like I’d been through the ring just yet. I honestly thought they meant a boxing ring or something, but I found out later that wasn’t the case.”
“Sex slaves?” I asked, having heard the rumors of what those bastards were into. She nodded. “You meet some of them?”
She nodded again. “One.” A far off look in Liza’s eyes accompanied her single word. I let the rest of her story ride there with us for a few miles, unfinished.
“Was it Random?”
“Yeah, he was the one that came in and threw Van out. When he finally saw the damage that had already been done to me he cussed, and basically threw a fit. Once he left the room no one else came in for two days except this one slip of a girl who was barely wearing clothing, and what she wore was practically falling off of her, because there just wasn’t enough of her to hold anything up. I felt so bad, until she told me they fed her just fine, she just refused to eat it, or when forced she ate, but then threw it all up immediately.”
“What the hell?” I asked, not understanding why any woman would do that to herself.
“She was trying to look less attractive so they’d let her go,” Liza’s soft voice spoke of a conversation she had with the woman that wasn’t going to pass her lips again. I understood. Some things were best left locked away.
“You said she was the only one allowed to come into the room where you were being kept for a while. Do you know how long you were there?”
“For the next two days she was the only person I saw, and I don’t know her name. She never would tell me. She told me the girl with the name had died a long time ago, and she was just nobody now. She nearly fainted in the room with me that second day, and after they took her out I never saw her again. Then on the fourth day Random came for me.”
My whole body tightened at that statement. “Who took care of you after the girl left?”
“There wasn’t anyone,” she informed me.
“What about food, water?”
I noticed the shrug of her shoulders then. They’d left in alone in a room with no food or water for two days. My body began to vibrate with anger. “What happened when Random came to get you?”
She cleared her throat and then turned so that her body faced mine. “He took me to a room where a bunch of the guys were waiting. They were all in various states of undress, and the fear of what was about to happen to me had me shaking inside and out. He took me to the center of the room where they had this iron tool sitting on a table. They sat me in a chair, strapped my arms to the table, palms up, and then he used some kind of torch to heat up the end of the iron bar I’d seen. It was a brand.” She rolled the sleeves of her hoody up and it was the first I’d seen the scars displayed there. One was placed right overtop of what must have once been a tattoo, but was now a scar that stamped KDS into the once tender flesh of her forearm.
“It was just after they got through with the second one that Random got a call, and when he did he looked angry, but conceded to whatever the call had been about. Then, he scooped me up, held me in his arms all the way out of the warehouse we had been in, and he took me to his bike. He didn’t say a word until he commanded me to get on. Then he told me, ‘I’m taking you to your brother, so get the fuck on or go back in there with the rest of them.’ He was referring to the club brothers of his that had been salivating over the pain those brands caused me.”
“They branded you,” I whispered while trying to contain my anger.
“They branded me a slave of the King’s Demons. That’s what the KDS means. The girl who had been coming in to feed me before she stopped had them too. I didn’t realize that’s what it was until after they branded me though. If Random hadn’t received that call, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I think I’d resigned myself to going out just like the girl who had attempted to care for me, but I don’t think I could have managed her slow demise. I’m sure I would have found a quicker way.”
“He took you to your brother after that call. Did you ever find out from him what the call was about?”
She shook her head in the negative. “He told me he didn’t know what I was talking about.” I was about to ask another question, but Liza held up her hands to stop me. “He was lying. I know that much, but I could never get him to tell me what he promised them, or what strings he pulled to get me out of there. He would never say.”
“Looks like we need to have another chat with your brother.”
“Good luck with that,” she mumbled before leaning her head back on the headrest and closing her eyes. It was obvious that reliving her ordeal at the hands of the King’s Demons had left her needing a minute to get herself together. I could understand that, because if I were to see any of them riding along near us now, I don’t think I’d be trying to hide from them as originally planned. Instead, I’d be bowling for bikers with my truck until I took out enough of them to make me feel a little bit better about the situation.
Still, when we pulled over to gas up the truck again I took my phone out and filled Iceman in on what had gone down and that Frank Rossi needed to be picked up by someone we trusted, because he had information we were going to need. There weren’t too many things a club like King’s Demons would give up a branded woman for, and that was information we couldn’t do without knowing.
Chapter 8
Liza
(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
Home sweet home was the stuff of biker compound wet dreams apparently. When we rode up into the parking area, after passing through a gate system, we were greeted by eight bikers, one woman, and more bikes than I could account for if our welcome party were the only riders. That told me there were still a handful or two inside or elsewhere out of sight. I have to say, that knowledge made me a little nervous.
The minute Tango turned the truck off and stepped out, two bikers and the woman with the bright red hair damn near ran over to him and hugs were banded about as if he’d gone off to war for months and just returned home. I was a bit confused by the dynamic, but assumed this was Whiskey and Fox, the best friends that he had served with. He had told me about them on our three-day trip to South Dakota from Reno. I also assumed that the woman was the one the two guys apparently shared. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around that one, but to each their own. The woman, I think he’d said her name was Amy, stood up on tiptoes and attempted to plant a kiss on Tango’s lips that he dodged, forcing her to land her thin lips on his cheek instead. I had to stifle a laugh, because he seemed annoyed by her attempted too-familiar kiss while she was put off by him not allowing it. The men he’d described as his best friends each gave the other a questioning glance as it happened to. I wondered if they were questioning her forward and familiar behavior or his rebuff.
“You getting out of that truck any time today, lady?” One of the other bikers asked of me. He was older with paler skin than the men around him; short cropped blond hair, and alert, watchful blue eyes that were pinned on me. Glancing down, I noticed that his patch stated he was President and that his road name was Iceman. I simply nodded to him, gathered the things I had in the front seat with me, and went to open my door. Tango beat me to it though, having made his way around to get the door and offer me a hand getting out. I took it since the truck was on the high side, and while I wasn’t a tiny thing, I was still short enough that it was a task getting down with my hands
full of stuff as they were.
“Everybody, this is Liza Rossi, she’s going to be staying with us a while until we figure out what to do about the situation with the King’s Demons.” From what Tango had told me, he had already informed his club about everything concerning me, including the story I told him about my kidnapping by the KD before. The redhead looked on questioningly as he spoke though.
“If she’s in trouble with another MC why is she here?” The ‘with you’ seemed to be implied in her question.
“That’s club business,” he damn near snapped at her. She stepped back, clearly affronted by how he spoke to her. Whiskey and Fox flanked her sides and scowled in Tango’s general direction.
“It will remain club business only, for now, and until I say different,” Iceman reiterated, as he too must have noticed the interactions concerning the other woman present. She continued to scowl along with the other two men while Tango tossed his arm around me, and started guiding me to the front door of the building that I was just now realizing had very few windows on the ground floor.
“Come on, let’s get you settled in with your things. Ashton brought your luggage already so all your stuff is waiting on you,” Tango told me as one of the other men stepped in front of us and did some bippity-boppity-boo shit to the panel on the door before it managed to open up. We all packed into a smallish room that barely contained all the large, hard-bodied bikers as once again another control panel was accessed before the next door was pushed open with a snick and hiss of air, leading into a huge, open floor room that looked like something you would find when walking into an old school honkytonk. Wooden floors predominated the space. The far wall held a bar that ran damn near three quarters the length of the room. Beyond that in a back corner were several pool tables and other tabletop games. To my left high top tables surrounded a stage off in the corner and a few couches and lounging chairs interspersed all willy-nilly. A set of stairs led up to a balcony that connected to what appeared to be a long hallway that seemed to match one right below it. The lower hallway was located between the stage and pool table areas, effectively splitting them into separate spaces within the large common area.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Aces High MC (Aces High MC - Dakotas Book 2) Page 6