by Penny Dee
The biker stepped forward. He was big. With broad shoulders and arms that were all muscle. From afar he had been impressive. But up close, he was spectacular. Inky black hair. Strong jaw with the right amount of scruff. Full lips. His good looks were savage. I couldn’t see his eyes because he was wearing dark glasses. But I was pretty sure they would be just as spectacular as the rest of him.
“Listen, sweetheart—” he started.
But I cut him off. Because I had reached my quota for nicknames today.
“While I’m sure women get all hot and tingly whenever you call them sweetheart, I assure you, I am no sweetheart, especially when it comes to strangers talking to my kid brother. I’m also not impressed, or am I appreciative or interested in who you are, what you do, and how fantastic you think you are.”
Just then the biker took off his glasses and dear God, his eyes really were as spectacular as the rest of him. More so. Like sapphires fused with the brightest white light.
“What about hot and tingly?” he asked with a heated, sweeping gaze up and down my body.
My eyes narrowed despite goose bumps prickling along my skin. “Just stay away from me and my brother.”
“But Taylor…” Noah protested.
I ignored him, momentarily locked in battle with the biker. I knew I was being slightly over the top. But I was still frazzled from my run-in with Sleazy Breezy. Not to mention, now even more worried about the bullying.
And when Noah wasn’t where he was supposed to be…
The biker stepped forward, one perfect, dark eyebrow arched, his voice low and smoky.
“The kid needed someone to help him. That someone was me. You’re welcome.” He swung one long leg over the Harley, and with a flick of a switch, brought it to life. He slid his glasses back on.
“Remember what I said, kid. The best way to avoid a fight is to talk your way out of it. But when that doesn’t work, think about those moves I showed you, okay?” He nodded at Noah, then pointed those dark glasses in my direction, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Catch you later … sweetheart.”
With a roar he was gone.
And I was left standing there reeling.
I was always going to meet the president of the Kings of Mayhem motorcycle club.
I just never imagined it would happen like this.
We were both silent during the ride home.
Noah, because he was angry at me and my overreaction.
And me, because try as I might, I couldn’t get the biker out of my head.
I was irritated with myself for giving him a moment’s thought. The man was too self-assured for his own good.
Not to mention, confident and charming.
A dangerous combination.
I gripped the steering wheel. I had been ambushed by his charisma. I hadn’t expected him to radiate so much… maleness. Or for my body to react so voraciously to being so close to his.
He was the kind of guy who made all the panties drop with one flash of that perfectly wicked smile. But I didn’t plan on dropping mine. I didn’t care how delicious he looked.
My life was complicated enough without fantasizing about those big hands and how they could make me… nope, nope, nope. I wasn’t going there.
I didn’t care how long it’d been since I’d felt a man’s touch.
If he thought he could just flash that amazing smile at me and think I was going to turn to putty, then he had another thing coming.
Christ. There goes my body again, pulsing in all the right places because of that stupid smile.
But he was the president of the Kings of Mayhem motorcycle club.
And I had no business thinking about him that way.
Besides, I had more concerning matters to think about. Like the assholes who thought it was okay to bully my kid brother because he was hard of hearing, and the ignorant fools who thought they were better than him.
I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. When Noah went to climb out, I stopped him.
“I know you’re angry at me. But why don’t you let me teach you some more moves? It might be fun. Like old times.”
Growing up, I did martial arts for eight years, and when Noah was a lot smaller, I had taught him the basics. Because even before the bullying, I wanted him to know how to protect himself.
Because of my past.
Because of who I was.
Because someday, he might need to know how to fight.
To survive.
“How about I take you through some Krav Maga like I used to when we were living in Charleston?”
“Because I liked him and I wanted him to show me,” he said angrily.
“But we don’t know him.”
“I do. I know him! And he was nice to me.”
When he looked away, I gently turned his chin to face me and was gutted to see the disappointment in his big blue eyes. “You know better than to talk to strangers.”
“He stopped Tommy Albright from kicking my ass.”
“Hey…!” I reprimanded him. But my face softened. “We don’t talk to strangers because not everyone is a good guy.”
“He was!”
“He was a biker, Noah.”
“So?” My brother’s face was tight with anger. “If he was so bad, why did he help me? You weren’t there. He was!”
Again, I felt guilty for not being there when he needed me.
“We don’t know him.”
“I don’t care.” He frowned at me. “You want me to make friends, but then stop me from being friends with who I want to be friends with.”
“You need friends your own age.” I knew it was hard on him. He was a shy kid. He was also self-conscious because he wore hearing aids. I sighed. “Will you let me walk you through Krav Maga again?”
Anger was bright in his eyes at the suggestion.
“Why is it always just you and me? Why can’t we be like the rest of the kids in school who have a mom and a dad?” Noah climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him, then yelled at me through the open window. “Why can’t we have a normal family?”
He threw his bag over his shoulder and stormed away, while his words rippled over me like a violent gust of wind.
Wow! Okay.
That was a new argument.
He’d never said anything like that to me before, and I wasn’t going to lie, it stung like a slap to the face.
I knew our situation wasn’t ideal, but it was better than the alternative.
To keep the sudden surge of emotion at bay, I sucked in a deep breath and slowly exhaled, remembering the things from my past that kept us running. That kept us living in our own little bubble. That kept us from making any real attachments to people. Hoping that someday, we would be free from living life on the run, and that Noah would be safe and happy.
Fighting the guilt, I turned back to the window and watched him stalk across the driveway to the front door and disappear inside the house. He deserved better than this. But unfortunately, this was how it had to be for now.
I’m sorry, bud. But one day it’ll all be over. I promise.
BULL
It was early morning dark when I met Cade and Ruger at the clubhouse. Sitting in my office, we went over the plan. This morning’s business was going to be gruesome. But it was necessary and unavoidable, and it would send another clear message to Gimmel Martel.
I’m coming for you.
It needed my focus. Because at the end of the day, we didn’t know what we were about to see. Yet somehow, sitting there with my brothers, my mind wandered back to my encounter with the kid and his big sister the day before.
I’d be lying if I said it was the first time I’d thought about her.
Because it wasn’t.
In fact, there wasn’t an hour since I’d met her that I hadn’t thought about her.
And it was no secret why.
She was wildly beautiful, with eyes as dark as black stone and hair the color of redwood tumbling down her back in a thick ponytail
. And that mouth on her. Jesus. She wasn’t afraid of me. Hell, I didn’t think she’d be afraid of anything. She was a strong woman, and just as fiery as her blazing hair. I admit, seeing the passion in her eyes as she yelled at me had made me hard. And seeing those perky nipples pressing against the soft fabric of her black tank top had almost driven me insane with lust.
Now I couldn’t get her out of my damned head.
But she was much younger than me. At least by a decade and a half. And I wasn’t into young ones.
Hell, wasn’t that one of the arguments I’d had with Ruger when he’d fallen in love with Chastity? He was sixteen years older than her, and I thought that was too much of an age gap.
And yet, here I was fantasizing about a woman who was at least that much younger than me, like a hypocritical asshole.
I told myself it was because I hadn’t been laid in weeks. That the mayor and I were done, and without the regular release I found in her bed, my body was sending crazy messages to my brain.
But I needed to focus.
Needed to keep my head on straight.
Draining my coffee, I forced her out of my mind, telling myself that later, when I was alone, I would fuck her out of my head with my hand. Because I didn’t need any distractions. The club had put a lot of effort in tracking down Martel’s associates, the ones who continued to help him as he marinated in perverted bliss during his exile, and I couldn’t afford to be distracted by a woman.
Even if that woman was a five-foot-seven redhead with wild eyes and a killer body.
“Are we ready to do this?” I looked at my sergeant-at-arms and VP.
Cade and Ruger nodded. “We do what we gotta do,” Ruger said as we left the clubhouse and headed for our bikes.
We rode through the gray dawn to the seedy motel outside of town. It was a lonely place where the scum of society moved about in blatant sordidness, marinating in bad choices, and festering in their resentment for the hand life had dealt them. Here they robbed, lied, cheated, and scammed, passing their misfortune and disease onto whoever had the bad luck to cross paths with them.
Long ago, back when Nixon was president, the motel was the jewel in the crown of a thriving motel chain. It was clean and well-kept, a popular place for families to vacation, for respectable traveling businessmen to stop on their travels, and for respectable young women to lie by the pool in their modest bathing suits and big, floppy hats.
But those days were long gone.
The decay began when the highway bypass was built back in the early eighties, cutting traffic past the motel by more than eighty percent. Eventually, the families stopped coming, the pool turned green, and the respectable traveling businessmen only dropped in to bring their mistresses or paid-by-the-hour hookers.
The emptiness and little traffic also attracted the kind of people who liked to live in the shadows so no one could see what they were doing. They wanted the seclusion. The quiet. The anonymity. It was a melting pot of drug dealers, black market concierges, and killers.
When Ruger, Cade, and I pulled onto the gravel driveway, the only noise was the crackle of stone beneath the tires, and the tired hum of a neon sign that blinked, T E PINES M TEL.
We entered through the side door, slipped into the office and met with the manager who was waiting for us. No words were exchanged, only the three promised Benjamin Franklin notes I had agreed to when he’d contacted me the night before. I passed over the cash and he passed me the key.
Room 17.
It was on the second floor.
We crept up the concrete stairs, and the stench of piss and puke violated my senses. You could see the nicotine stains on the walls and feel the depravity hanging in the air. Nothing good ever happened here.
My disgust registered in my brain. I would put a bullet in my head before I lived a life that led me here.
Outside room 17 we paused. From inside, we could hear the distinct grunting and panting of emotionless fucking. Apparently, we had caught Scud Boney in the middle of getting rid of his morning glory.
I looked at Ruger and Cade. They were as ready as I was to make this shit stain pay.
For a brief moment I thought about Scud Boney and what I knew about him. We had never met. Never spoken a word to each other. And until I’d walked through the ashes of Eagle’s Nest, I had never known what he had done.
To them.
Six women in six videos.
The evil was mind-blowing.
When we had ransacked the ruins of Eagle’s Nest, Maverick had found the metal box of flash drives in the burned-out study, tucked away in a small floor safe that had been partially breached by the fire.
They had been hard to watch.
Hard to stomach.
I was the president of a motorcycle club, and I had seen some sick shit over the years. Bad shit. Crazy shit. Shit that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up and your eyes bleed.
But I’d never seen the type of depravity like what I saw in those videos.
What Scud had done to them made my stomach turn. He was a sadist.
And Gimmel was a sadist for purchasing the videos from him.
As I continued to unravel his business interests, I was learning more and more about the sick fuck I knew as Gimmel Martel. He thought he’d covered up his sick, twisted pastime, but he was wrong. He liked to watch pain. Specifically, he liked to watch pain being inflicted during sex. And even though I tried not to imagine it, I knew he’d sat in front of these videos and pulled his grubby little cock out as he got off on them.
Scud had been careful to wear a mask. To disguise his voice. But after months of investigating the videos, we finally had the full picture of who was involved and what the arrangement was…and now we were here to make them pay.
Gimmel had met Scud at a sex club in Jackson, and was delighted to hear about the amateur filmmaker’s lust for homemade pornography. But Scud’s movies weren’t your everyday porn, they were dark porn, the darkest, where the most deviant of minds reigned, and every dark fantasy was possible. It wasn’t long before the two sickos struck up an agreement for Scud to make videos customized to Martel’s vile fantasies. For Scud, it killed two birds with one stone. Martel was giving him the cash he needed to get high, and at the same time, he got to play out his own fantasies in real life, and make bank because of it.
Before I burned down Eagle’s Nest and he fled underground, Martel had received six videos, each containing an unfortunate woman enduring Scud Boney’s disgusting acts.
The first five women were still alive.
But the last woman was dead.
Her name was Annie Stonebrook. She was a prostitute and heroin addict, who plied her trade at the truck stops along the I-55. But she was also a mother. A sister. And a daughter.
One fateful spring evening, she climbed into Scud’s car, and he had driven her to his very own night of horrors.
After abusing her during sex, both physically and psychologically, Scud had given her a hot shot of heroin before filming her dying of her overdose. The visual was horrendous; the audio even worse.
That video earned him ten-thousand dollars of Martel’s money, and sent Scud on a trajectory that needed to be quelled. Because Scud had found a lucrative forte. His gravy train. Snuff films. And it wouldn’t be long before he was going to be paid to make another one.
Ready to kick in the door, I could taste the disgust in my mouth as I recalled Annie’s video.
I had no doubt, once Martel was settled in his hidey hole like the predatory spider he was, he would want to indulge in his fantasies again, and he would make contact with Scud.
I was here for two reasons. To stop Scud from hurting any more women. And to make sure Gimmel never got to enjoy another one of his sick videos again.
With a powerful kick fueled by my lust for revenge, and revulsion for everything that was Scud Boney, I burst into his room, taking him by surprise, mid-climax. He leaped up from the bed, his cock swaying like a sticky little tree b
ranch in the wind.
He went for his gun, but I had mine rammed into his shoulder before he could reach it.
“You don’t want to do that,” I warned him, my voice was deep and dark, a direct reflection of how this guy made me feel. “Now, drop your hand to the side and stand up real slow, you understand me?”
“Who the fuck are you?” he yelled.
Resisting the urge to put a bullet in his brain, I took a step toward him and fixed my eyes to his. He shook with a dangerous mix of agitation and fear. Any second now, this stupid fuck was going to think he could reach for a second gun or weapon he had somewhere in this room.
“I’m the guy who’s going to kill you.”
His eyes widened. “W-what…the…f-fuck?”
The girl on the bed who was now quivering in the corner, started to scream.
Ruger pointed at her. “Get dressed and get the fuck out of here.”
With a terrified whimper, she grabbed a dirty t-shirt off the floor and fled out into the early morning. She wouldn’t raise the alarm. She would run back to whatever flea-bitten hellhole she’d come from and hide until this was over. And from the look of the track marks and scabs all over her skin, the heroin she enjoyed would take her out within the year.
I looked around the room. It smelled sour, like rotting garbage, rancid sheets, and old sex. Cigarette butts floated in near-empty beer bottles, and discarded needles and dope baggies were scattered across the floor. Most likely leftovers from previous occupants…or just from Scud, because I was starting to think that room 17 was his permanent address. Either way, I could guarantee you that cleanliness was not part of the hourly rate at this establishment.
In front of the closet, looking very out of place in the derelict room, was an expensive camera set up on a tripod.
“What do you w-want from me, m-man?” Scud blubbered.
But I ignored the question. “Where is he?”
“Who? I don’t know what is happening…who the fuck are you t-talking about?”
The image of a dying Annie Stonebrook swung before me.
“Your perverted buddy, Gimmel Martel.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name—”
I shoved my gun under his chin. “Don’t waste my time lying. Tell me, and I won’t kill you. Now, one last time. Where the fuck is Gimmel Martel?”