I begin kicking and hitting, anything I can do to get away from him. No way did I survive a car accident just to die at the hands of this man, for whatever reason. But his words stop me dead in my tracks.
“You’re feistier than your friend was. What was her name again? Mmm, that’s right, Angel. Yes, she was a sweet little thing too when I took her, though that didn’t last long. But I’m thinking you might taste even better. Mmmm, I can’t wait to find out.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Amy
All the fight leaves me in an instant. This is the man the club has been looking for. The man I’ve been having nightmares about. The man who kidnapped Angel. Who raped and tortured her, and then sold her.
With my body now limp with utter fear, he’s able to get me into the passenger seat of the SUV. I want to fight, scream, run, but I can’t move. It’s as if I’m paralyzed, glued to the seat.
“Now, what do ya say we get out of here? I’ve got someplace quiet and secluded so you and I can get to know each other a little better,” he says, putting the vehicle in drive and peeling out of the parking lot. My head turns to look out the window and right before we turn the corner, I see the prone body of the aide who wheeled me out of the hospital, a puddle of blood pooling around him. He’s dead and it’s because of me.
We drive out of town for about fifteen minutes until we get to an old cabin that looks like it’s seen better days. Weeds are overgrown on the driveway and up around the porch. The grass is tall, like in an open meadow. It looks like the door is halfway off the hinges and a few of the windows have been busted out. Is this going to be the place I die?
“Come on now, babe. Let’s get inside so the fun can start,” the man says with a sneer. And something inside me knows this is my last chance. If he gets me inside that cabin, I won’t be coming out alive. I won’t allow him to do to me what he did to Angel. She’s stronger than I am. And I know it’s a hypocritical thing to say, but I won’t be able to live with myself if he rapes me.
He walks around to the passenger side of the SUV, still pointing the gun at me. And when he begins to open my door, I take the chance. Pushing my whole weight into the door so it flies open faster than he intended, it hits him hard in the head, knocking the gun out of his hand and forcing him back, which causes him to stumble and fall backwards.
I don’t waste any time looking to see if he’s knocked out or to try and figure out where the gun is. I won’t last if he hits me, and I don’t care if he shoots me while I’m running. That would be the better option than him forcing me inside that house and doing whatever he wants with me.
I run at full speed, but I’m weak and my head is beginning to pound. I’m not sure if it’s from the adrenalin of the situation or if all this moving is shifting my healing brain too much. But again, I don’t stop to consider, I only flee.
Making it down to the end of the driveway, I turn left. The main road we turned off of isn’t far, I can see it from here. Cars are zooming past, and if I can just get there, I’ll be safe. Someone will stop and help me get somewhere safe.
I can hear the man who took me, Jordan or something I think his name is, running after me, grunting and swearing, yelling what he’s going to do to me when he gets his hands on me, but I pay him no mind. My eyes are on the prize and I’m almost there.
Just as I make it to the edge of the highway and I start to feel a shred of hope, I’m knocked down from behind. “No,” I yell, flinging my arms and legs around, just hoping I make contact with something important. But nothing is working. He’s able to get my hands secured together in his and turns me over to face him.
There’s an evil looking scar on his face, making him look more terrifying. “Now that wasn’t very nice, sugar. Here I was planning to cook you a nice meal before we got to the fun stuff, but now I’m thinking you don’t deserve to be wined and dined,” Scarface says breathlessly.
The way he’s on top of me, he’s in the perfect position for me to hurt him where it counts, so I rear up my knee to make contact with his berry bag, but he must see it coming because he moves out of the way, making it so my knee connects with his inner thigh. I can tell it hurt him by the grimace on his face and the way he grits his teeth, but it’s not enough to do any damage. It only pisses him off more.
He pulls one of his hands away and brings it down hard across my face. My whole head whips to the side, my lip splits open in the same place it was cut from my accident, and my head feels as if someone put my brain in a blender. I feel sick to my stomach with the pain in my head.
“Enough,” he yells, but I’m having a hard time focusing now. I think he really messed up my head this time. There may be no coming back from this.
He lifts me up without difficulty, throwing me over his shoulder and making his way back to the cabin in a hurry. I turn my head a little to the side and see the cars getting further and further away, no one stopping to help. I’m a goner. No one will find me now. Not until I’m cold and dead.
My eyes grow heavy and my head goes foggy. The pain and stress of everything is too much. I let the blackness take me far, far away from here.
***
When I wake up, my head is still pounding, but at least I don’t feel as foggy as before. Though, I might take that over experiencing whatever Scarface is going to do to me fully.
Opening my eyes, it hurts at first. The lights are brighter than I would have expected in an abandoned cabin. Or maybe it’s just me and they aren’t really that bright, it’s just from my head hurting already.
Taking stock over myself, I look down and see I’m still fully clothed. That’s good. That means nothing happened while I was passed out.
I’m seated on a wooden chair, my legs and arms both tied up so I can’t get up or even really move for that matter.
Looking up, I’m in the kitchen of the cabin. It’s actually pretty clean and smells of food. I haven’t eaten anything since this morning, but my stomach is too upset to even growl with hunger. I wouldn’t eat anything from here anyway. There’s no telling what Scarface did to it.
Speaking of Scarface, he’s sitting at the table, eating what looks to be steak, potatoes, and broccoli. He’s looking at me as he eats, and it all seems so very domestic. Well, aside from me being tied to the chair and taken against my will by a madman.
“Why are you doing this?” I finally ask, needing to know. “What did Angel and I ever do to you?” I don’t know why I throw in that last part. I guess I just want to hear his reason why he’d do this to women, and why he chose me and my friend. Though I have a pretty good idea why he took Angel, not like it’s right or anything, but why take me too? Why risk Torq finding him? He must know that I’m as much in with the club as Angel, just not in the same way. More in the sister/daughter sort of way.
Setting his fork and knife down after he finishes his bite, he contemplates the question I’ve asked before answering, “It’s nothing personal, darling, at least not where you’re concerned. You are just a means to an end, but one I’m very much looking forward to.”
“What do you mean?” Maybe if I keep him talking, it will either give me time to figure out what I’m going to do to get out of here, or piss him off enough with more questions that he’ll just kill me.
“Your blonde friend. I found her on the street and I knew I could make some good money off her. But then that brute of a biker ruined that, taking her away from me. So I hid for a while, getting myself back on my feet. Then, I tracked him down, planning to kill him for taking my prize. Only I found her first. It was just frosting on the cake when I saw that she meant something to him. So I took her to punish him. Oh, who am I kidding. It was fun breaking her down, tear by tear, scream by scream. And the way her pussy felt…damn, that was the cherry on top.” He looks as if he’s reminiscing, a satisfied smile on his lips. It makes me sick, even more than I was before he told me that.
Then, he turns serious. “But I knew it was only a matter of time before he
and his club of misfits would track me down, so I sold her off. Made almost a half a mil off her too. But it didn’t last long, because her man just wouldn’t stop until he found me. He came close a few times, but I’m too smart for him. But I can’t be too upset by that, because it ultimately led me to you.” His cruel smile is back, making his scar pinch on his cheek. I wonder for a second who gave him that scar and why. I’m sure he deserved it, and so much more, whatever the case may be. I only wish they would have finished him instead of leaving him to poison this world more with his sick games.
“How do you figure?” I ask, actually a little curious now how all of that brought him to find me.
He’s seems happy that I’m asking, like he’s getting a thrill out of telling me. “I was hiding down in New Mexico, hoping to find a way across the border so I could figure out my next move. You see, it wasn’t enough for me that I took the girl. I wanted the brute to pay for ever messing with me. And that’s when I met a few men in the Latin Mafia. They were trying to take down the cartel so they could take power over Mexico and the drug trade. They also had sights on starting up sex trafficking, and since I knew people in the right places, I offered my services to them, told them I could make them kings of the trade. Of course, I wanted something in return.”
“Protection.”
Clapping his hands like I made him proud with my answer, he says, “You’re a smart one.”
“I’m still not getting how that brought you to me. I have nothing to do with the cartel or this other group. I don’t even have ties down in New Mexico.” I was having a hard time connecting the dots.
“Patience, honey, I’m getting to that part,” he says, taking his plate over to the sink. There he rinses it off, grabs a water out of the fridge, and makes his way over to me. I cringe because I don’t want him any closer, but I have no say in the matter and no way to stop him.
He grabs his chair and sits it right in front of mine. “They needed a way to get close to the cartel without raising alarms. And they needed men that were disposable so they didn’t take the hit when all was said and done. So I hooked them up with a group that was trying to climb their way up the ladder. A biker gang that had their eyes on taking over the gun trade in the south. But they needed to get rid of another group who were dealing to the cartel. It was beneficial to both groups, that’s what we told them. They were too stupid to realize the mafia were just using them as targets to get what they really wanted.
“But they were idiots. They slipped up somehow, allowing the mark to get too close and figure out what we were doing. And then they rode in and took out both the Latin Mafia and the motorcycle group they were working with. All of them, gone. And with them, my one way ticket to easy street.”
If he’s saying what I think he is, then I know how he found me. But I need to be sure. “Who took them out?”
“The Devil’s Crew, along with a few members of the Rough Riders,” he seethes. “I mean, what is my luck that the very man I was trying to get away from until I was ready to kill him was associated with the very club that was working with the cartel? I mean, we were down in Texas, for fuck’s sake.”
Now, he’s up and pacing the kitchen angrily, looking like he’s ready to detonate.
“I’m going to kill him for fucking everything up for me. I had it made in Illinois before he came along and ruined it. He took that all away, and now, he’s going to pay. They all are. I’m going to pick them all off, one by one, until the only one left is him. But first, I need to hit them all where it hurts, make them suffer before I kill them. So I figured I’d start with the Devils first. Kill their president before taking the rest of them out. And when I followed him around, waiting for my chance, I found out he had a weakness,” he says, grinning again and looking me up and down, then licking his lips. “You.”
He was going to kill Ice Man. And Reggie. And the rest of their club. And then he was going to kill Bear, Crusher, Leroy, Torq and Angel, and everyone else I care about.
But then I remember I wasn’t even there when this all happened. At least, I don’t think I was.
“I could see he was upset about something from the way he was moping around everywhere he went. At first, I thought it was just because in the fight, he lost some of his guys. But it was more than that. And when he boarded a plane to Reno, I followed. I followed him all the way to the apartment complex where I took your friend. And then I saw she was there, with him. I thought she had moved on with him, which gave me the sick satisfaction that she wasn’t with the fucking brute anymore. Oh how that would have pained him to lose her, not only to me, but to a man he was friends with. I wanted to rub it in his face too. I was going to take the new guy out, and then take her for myself. I’d keep her around until I could kill the fucker after taking care of everyone else. I was going to take him out right then and there, and then take her for myself again.
“But then they started talking about you. God, you should have heard him when he found out you were in the hospital from a horrible accident and that you might not make it,” he says, confirming that what Angel said was true. He was there for me the whole time. Not because he felt sorry for me or because he felt obligated. He was there because he cared for me and wanted to fix things. But I don’t have time to beat myself up over it because Scarface continues, “Here he had come all that way to get you back from some shit he did, only to find out it might be too late. It was all too perfect really, especially when I heard you woke up and you were getting released soon. So I waited until the right moment, when you were alone. But not to worry, after I’ve had a little fun with you, I’ll make it quick and painless for you. No reason for you to suffer needlessly. I just need your man to think your last few days on earth were torturous. After all, what good would killing you do if it didn’t make him hurt?”
I cry silently, because I know my time is about up. There is nothing left for him to do except get on with it. So I cry for Angel, for what she went through. I cry for Torq and Bear, for the pain this will cause them. And finally, I cry for Ice Man. For the man I fell in love with but we were both too scared to believe enough in that love. And now it’s too late.
***
Ice Man
A few hours before
I’m sitting at the Rough Riders’ clubhouse with Bear. He wanted to go over some things and talk to me about an idea he had.
“I know you suffered a great loss when the air cleared after what happened with the LMs. And I want you to know I appreciate how you went above and beyond to make sure that our deal with the cartel still holds strong. It was in grave jeopardy and you really stepped up and took care of the problem. Our contacts in the cartel are very happy with what we did to get rid of the threat permanently. At least, for now. Someone else will probably rise up out of the dust, but that will be a problem for another day,” Bear says.
“We made our bed with the cartel. It was up to us to make sure nothing got in the way of that. It’s going to take a little while for my club to shake this off though and get back in the game. We’re too thinned out to be of any use to you right now, and I’m sorry about that.” And I mean that. I hate that I can’t hold up my part of the deal right now, but with the men I lost, there is no way I can do what needs to be done safely.
“About that. I talked to Carlos and he agreed to give us a few months to get our crew back in order, recruit more guys, and get them up to speed on what’s needed.”
“That’s good. I know Rack has a few guys in mind. I’ll have to put it up for a vote, but they’ve done work for us in the past. I think they should be able to forgo the prospecting period and become a full match member. But we’ll still be short-handed, even after that. I’ll have to put the word out there that we need more bodies. I just don’t want to get ourselves into a situation where we’re accepting just anyone, and risk business and more brothers.” We can’t just let anyone into the club. It’s never been that way. Usually they hang around the club for a while, get the feel of everything be
fore they decide if they want to prospect. Then, once we agree to let them prospect, they go through that stage for at least a year, unless they really prove themselves to the club, and at least one member vouches for them.
“I’ll put a call out to see if anyone has some men they know are looking to become a member of our club and that they have references. We might be able to get a few of our other chapters’ prospects to jump over,” Bear says, but some of what he’s saying doesn’t make sense.
“I know you guys suffered some losses too, and need to refill spots like I do, but I thought we were discussing the Devils?” I sound lame, I know, but I’m trying to get a handle on what he’s trying to put out here. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep I’ve had lately or the constant worry about Amy, but I’m not following.
“Sorry, I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.” He laughs, shaking his head. “The main reason I wanted to talk to you is to see how you feel about doing a patch over between our clubs. With everything you boys have done for the Rough Riders, I don’t see why we can’t all be brothers and join together under one cut.”
I’m speechless. Never in a million years would I have guessed this is what he’d want to discuss.
“Wow. Uh, I don’t know what to say,” I tell him.
“I know, this is out of the blue, but just bring it to your table and let me know what they think. We can move forward from there. And if the consensus isn’t in favor, that’s fine too. I’ll still help whatever way I can with building up your men again. But Ice Man, I really think this is the best way to go for both our clubs. Just think about it,” he adds on, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded behind his head.
“I wi—” I begin to say, but am interrupted when Wheels comes running into the room.
“Prez, we got a problem. Torq just called, there was a shooting at the hospital. Amy’s missing.”
The Biker's Religion (Rough Riders MC Book 2) Page 23