Taking Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 1)

by Wild, Nikki

  Hours?

  “Surprising, huh? Time flies when you’re having fun,” Hannah smirked, planting the cigarette between her lips again. “Anyway, how are you feeling? Is the kid kicking yet?”

  I glanced up at her from the floor of the storage unit in confusion. “S-seriously?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Hannah took another drag from the cigarette between her fingers. “The pregnancy, doll. I was hoping you’d be asleep. That’d help with the nausea.”

  She glanced into the crate over me.

  “Kind of surprised you haven’t been puking your guts up back here, especially with the bumps here and there in the road… I mean, that’d really suck for the two of us, but especially you.”

  “Anything I can do to help,” I groaned bitterly.

  “Hey, this is more your fault than mine,” Hannah tried to lecture me. “Remember, you gave me the information I really needed. Once I knew Talon dumped the container in the ocean, I was all ready to swoop in and move this thing where it belonged. And after I had my little chat with him, I was ready to let you right off the hook… if you’d just given me the fucking time to text you after the meeting, you’d have known that.

  Hannah shrugged, taking another drag. “Sorry about the whole Daddy thing, though. I was just fucking with you, Sarah. I didn’t think you’d go sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Still, I kinda admire the up-and-at-‘em initiative there. Real brave, kid.”

  “That was you?” I wheezed, groaning in mounting horror and rage. “You’re the one who texted me? You fucking hired me?”

  “Trying to kill two rotten, pain-in-the-ass birds with one stone, Sarah. You know, Hunter just hasn’t been the same since you left. He keeps sending me these sad fucking letters. I thought maybe I’d help you out…”

  “Forgive me for not being thankful,” I growled lightly. My chest still heaved with the touch of Death’s embrace, as narrowly as I’d escaped it.

  Hannah haughtily tsk-tsked.

  “You know, I could have killed you on the spot, Sarah. Wouldn’t have been any problem to put a bullet in the back of your head, or send you to the bottom of the port.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” I asked.

  She looked hurt. “Why? Because I like you.”

  “…What?”

  “Shouldn’t it be obvious, kid?” Hannah shrugged nonchalantly. “You make my little brother happy.”

  I was absolutely speechless.

  “And you’ve got convictions,” she continued on. “Sarah, you’ve got a strong spirit. When Hunter wasn’t willing to go a single step further, you decided to leave without him. You pushed the two of you forward. That was all you.”

  “But you… you pushed me to be independent,” I reminded my captor in rising confusion. “And you fucking threatened my family…”

  “It was a distraction,” Hannah noted, taking another solid drag. “Sending you off to Talon gave me time to work on my end of things, you know? You and my brother rolling into town gave me the breathing room to do my job.”

  “So, me working on the case…”

  “Helped me, yes,” Hannah observed as she cut me off. “And that’s another good reason to spare you a cruel death. I like to repay kindnesses.”

  “Like the way that you repaid Hunter for saving you?” I recalled. “He signed his life away to a motorcycle club and roared down to Mexico to save your life. You’ve repaid him with lies and bullshit!”

  Hannah snuffed out the cigarette beneath her boot before reaching down and grabbing me by the hair sharply, painfully twisting my head.

  “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again,” she growled menacingly. “Or it’ll be the last that you ever speak. Are we clear?”

  “Jesus, Hannah,” I groaned. “Okay!”

  “Good,” she snarled, releasing her grip. “Don’t make me overlook the help you’ve been in getting my hands on this fucking container.”

  “So you’re… you’re sparing me?”

  “Of course I am,” she replied offhanded, glancing around the passing vehicles for any suspicious activity.

  “But what happens when we get where we’re going?”

  “If you’re talking about what happens to you,” Hannah shrugged. “It’s out of my hands at that point.”

  “But I thought you were sparing me!”

  “You’re right,” she smiled. “I’m sparing you. That’s the distinction that I’m trying to make here… but then, it’s up to her…”

  “Her?” I asked in panic.

  “That’s right,” she answered, closing one of the doors and locking it into place. “Right now, you’ve got me to contend with, and I like you. As a token of my appreciation, I’ll stop once or twice again before we get there to replenish your air…”

  She readied the other door.

  “But when we arrive, you’re probably going to have to beg for your life.”

  “Why is that?” I asked, dreading the answer that I knew was already coming.

  Hannah tilted her head piteously.

  “Because you get to meet Soroka Sarkonov.”

  With that definitive note of terror, the other container door locked into place, the sounds of whirring locks filled the air, and the outside world was silent and lost to me again.

  Hunter

  The race took us a few hours away from Los Angeles, deep towards the foothills to the east. We shot past Temecula and Homeland, heading out of civilization and off the Interstate down dirt roads with mountain vistas in every direction.

  It was actually quite pretty out here, even if it was a bit remote. I wasn’t opposed to settling down in these parts…

  Talon had elected to stay behind, of course. The bastard didn’t want to dirty his hands. Whatever was about to happen, it was going to be on me… I was leading the cavalry out to throw down our final stand. I was the one who would take down Soroka Sarkonov.

  They knew the dangers we faced.

  They knew the enemy we dared to oppose.

  And they knew what was at stake.

  Whatever was going on with that container, it wasn’t our fight. But when my girlfriend – when the woman I had loved all of my life, carrying our child in her womb, had been taken away from me…

  It had become very, very personal.

  I was out for blood.

  My warpath was set before me, and I was prepared to bring down anyone who dared stand in my way.

  There will be absolute hell to pay.

  My Dragons had seen a lot of action in the last couple of years. Armed protection being our legitimate forte, we weren’t strangers to gunfire. Things had seriously amped up when whispers of my old nemesis, the Viboras Verde cartel hit the wind.

  Suiting up and hitting the trail to fight some dangerous enemy with untold resources in unfamiliar territory was becoming something kind of routine for us.

  And that weighed heavy on me.

  I didn’t want to subject my men to this much trouble at once. They stood behind me, they rode at my side, but I didn’t want to put their lives on the line as often I had been lately.

  It was time that this came to an end.

  But I was starting to think that this was all I really knew. Sure, I led them to a safer path, taking a motorcycle gang notorious for gun smuggling to a legal profession that even merited some lenience from the local fuzz, but that didn’t stop the rain of bullets.

  Putting together the Outlaws meant that I could count on others to step foot where I didn’t want to send my men, choosing dangerous criminals to help sniff out the real threats to the Southwestern Desert…

  But no matter what I did, danger followed.

  Sarah was right, I realized as we rode up into the hills. No matter where I go, I risk putting others in danger. I rush headlong into battle…

  Is this what I have become?

  I told myself, time and time again, that this was for the greater good. Before, it was kidnapped teens. Now, it was for a kidnapped woman. My woman.
>
  That was another rising pattern that I was growing to despise.

  Hannah was kidnapped.

  The girls were kidnapped.

  Now SARAH has been kidnapped.

  Merciful Christ Almighty, was everyone I ever came across going to be kidnapped at one fucking point or another?

  What happens when it’s my child?

  Things started to shift into place. Pieces of a puzzle that I never knew were there were moving around in my head, changing configurations and bringing half-thoughts to the surface, fleshing it all out into a coherent picture…

  I have to give up the Devil’s Dragons.

  The resolution came clear as daylight to me, and the force of it almost cost me my balance on my motorcycle.

  It made perfect sense.

  I’d thrown myself headlong into building up this gang, and forming my little alliance in the desert, but now there was more to worry about.

  I had a fucking family on the way.

  The Devil’s Dragons needed more than I could offer them. Even before I had this new set of circumstances thrust upon me, I had been leading them astray… sending them careening towards danger.

  If things didn’t change soon, I was eventually going to get my entire little band of heroic mercenaries killed, one way or another.

  I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders.

  There needs to be a change in leadership.

  My focus cleared. I could think straighter now, concentrate on what really needed to be done. I wasn’t clouded by judgment, restrained by appearances, or locked by necessity.

  I was going to save Sarah Buchanan, ensure the livelihood of my heir, and then I was going to give up leadership of the Devil’s Dragons to whoever rose to take the mantle.

  But it didn’t matter, because I already knew how the pieces would move. After all, the rest of the club respected and loved him, too. What better candidate than my trusted second-in-command, Grizz?

  I glanced over at him while we hit a rolling ascent. His pale, otherworldly eyes remained focused forward, but he briefly turned to acknowledge me before concentrating on the road.

  Grizz had been a damned blessing.

  The biker had come into my club years ago, not long after we had been crippled by betrayal. He practically wandered into our club off of the street, a forlorn, quiet, and methodical biker with uncanny aim and a heavy biblical streak.

  Grizz had taken to us almost immediately, and particularly displayed support for me. Without his presence, I might have never risen to take over the scattered, damaged club.

  It was his authority and backing that allowed me to pull the motorcycle club back together, steer us away from the damaging trades that had fueled their coffers before, and rise to carve out our own niche in the dried, arid crags.

  And from then, I was able to start building upon my wicked predecessor’s ambitions, taking his dream of uniting the criminal underworld of the desert towards power consolidation and guide it to something better…

  I built a small but powerful alliance of biker clubs, criminals, and thugs. With Grizz at my back and the rest of my club behind me, I’d laid down the foundation to form temporary treaties, unify supply lines, thwart rampant in-fighting, and begin consolidating a real force of good out here…

  Of course, the Outlaws were all still criminals at the end of the day. But when a worse threat showed up, I could count on them to unite – at a price – to help kick ass.

  Not this time, though…

  The sun was already setting as we came closer to our destination. I’d originally been a little off the mark with how long we’d be off the Interstate, but we were edging closer and closer to the rendezvous point.

  If Talon’s word had been right, and the tracker he’d left in my hands held true, then we were still going to beat Sarkonov’s proxy here, to this little arid landing up in the hills…

  His coordinates brought us to a suspicious area, partly up the side of a mountain. It was the husk of a destroyed armory of some sort, or maybe even a church. Only the sides remained, battered and ruptured brick walls that formed a circle around the area.

  Functionally, it was two rings of walling, one inside the other. Stairs and shattered windows meant that I could direct my men to tactical positions with cover along the inner circle, although the falling night would limit our continued effectiveness.

  The ceiling was long gone, and the floor had been long covered with windswept sand. Another problem represented itself rather quickly – our vehicles were all sitting ducks out here, indications that the place was stocked to the brim with armed bikers.

  “What should we do?” Grizz asked, killing his engine next to mine and gazing over the sight of the dilapidated building.

  “Working on it,” I grunted, gazing along the terrain. In every direction besides directly ahead and behind, the world was completely flat. I wasn’t sure how much further up the mountain this trail would take us, and it was soon going to shrink down to two bikers, side by side, and then single file…

  “Ricochet,” I called loudly upon one of my bikers. He pulled forward near me, and I pointed through the building. It would be easy enough to rocket through without any trouble. “Scout ahead. See if there’s a place to stow away our vehicles.”

  “Aye aye, boss,” he nodded.

  Six minutes later, he came back through the shattered building, pulling to a stop before me. “There’re a couple of abandoned houses up ahead. It’ll be a tight fit, but there’s probably enough room to hide the bikes that way.”

  “Good man,” I acknowledged. “Lead the way.”

  Our assembled forces drove to the dilapidated structures he found. We rolled through a wall that had partially collapsed, knocking down our kickstands in what used to be someone’s living room before killing our engines. My entire motorcycle club descended behind me, suited up to prepare for whatever was coming our way.

  Grizz and I directed them to take tactical positions along the outer parameter of the inner ring to the destroyed outpost.

  And then we waited.

  The stars were fully out by the time that we spotted the large truck with a large storage container on the back, cruising up the mountainside towards us. With our vantage point, we were well prepared for the coming battle against Sarkonov’s proxy – one that we hoped would be a quick and decisive one given our access to military grade weaponry.

  The fucker had taken Sarah.

  Now, we were ready for payback.

  It was fifteen minutes or so before the storage truck finally met our position. It came to a halt within the circle, just as we had anticipated, and a shadowy figure descended from the vehicle and opened up some kind of a small, secret hatch on the side of the container.

  After punching what seemed to be some sort of code, the figure walked over to the back of the storage container, unlocking and opening it up. The stranger jumped in and, seconds later, was pulling a woman out and onto the ground.

  It was Sarah.

  “Hold your fire,” I signaled.

  Several of my bikers passed the order down the line with quiet motions, and I quietly crept down to leave my tactical position.

  This was the point of no return.

  The figure had planted Sarah up against the side of the truck and was quickly and deftly binding her up and against the side of the vehicle.

  A bit overkill, but sure.

  Sarah’s gaze was locked against the ground, and I was almost happy to see it. If she’d looked up and given me away, the proxy might have dispensed of her, there and then.

  I was going to get the drop on my mystery opponent. I raised my weapon…

  Suddenly, the proxy paused, listening to the air. I cocked my weapon, and the figure darted around the side of the truck.

  “Fuck!” I snarled.

  The proxy knew that it was a trap.

  “I know that you’re here!” I called out. “Show yourself! Or are you too chicken without Soroka Sarkonov to hide behind,
you fucking coward?”

  Fuck hiding in the shadows. I stepped forward toward Sarah, crossing the distance between us quickly, and only stopping when I heard the sounds of crunching dirt beneath boots.

  That’s right, I growled in my head, trying to see my opponent. Step out and face me, and drop to the ground when my men have a solid visual…

  I don’t know what I expected, but my jaw practically hit the goddamn dirt when my older sister stepped out from behind the storage unit, a dark smirk on her face and a gun pointed right at Sarah’s face.

  “Hey, little brother. Fancy meeting you here...”

  Hunter

  Struggling to keep it together, I narrowed my eyes and calmed down my heaving chest. It took everything I had to maintain my fucking composure as my brain fought the goddamn truth that stared me in the eyes.

  Sarkonov’s proxy is my fucking SISTER?

  Talon had to know.

  That stupid fucking bastard had sent me all the way out here to kill my own goddamn sister.

  “Hunter,” the woman I had changed my entire life to save called out to me. “I should be surprised that you found us but, for some reason, I’m really not.”

  “And why is that?” I asked loudly, trying to keep her attention on me. She wasn’t making any moves to hurt or threaten Sarah, so I maintained my cautious approach. Quietly, I hoped that engaging her in dialogue would keep my men from firing while I tried to get answers.

  “Because you’re a resourceful bastard. Admiration entered Hannah’s voice. “That’s why I needed to get you involved in this. I needed your help getting this container back…”

  “All in a day’s work,” I replied with more than a little sarcasm in my voice. “Now tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  I was close enough to read Sarah’s face in the moonlight… a few more good strides, and I could try to figure out how to remove her from the storage container.

  The problem was, naturally, getting that close without Sarah losing her head in the process. I liked to think my sister wouldn’t shoot her, but she was apparently just full of surprises…