by April Lust
Fiona refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was hurting her.
He drew his fist back, ready to beat her until she and her brother looked like twins, when there was a low rumble. The chandelier tinkled gently as the noise reverberated through the room.
“What the…” Vlad said, slowly lowering his fist, staring at the ceiling.
Urgent pounding came from the trap door. Vlad looked at Fiona with a desperate, angry desire, then dropped her and went to the stairs. Fiona tried to listen in, but whomever Vlad was talking to was speaking in Russian.
Vlad came back down the stairs to stand in front of Fiona. “There is a matter outside that requires my attention at the moment, but don’t think for one second that we won’t pick up right back where we left off.” He roughly pulled on her ropes, double checking they were secured. He didn’t bother with Niko—the boy was half dead, after all—and headed back up the stairs.
Fiona immediately began yanking and twisting at her restraints. “Niko!” she whispered, keeping a close eye on the door. “Niko! Are you okay?”
“Never…better,” Niko wheezed.
“Can you move?” Fiona tried to pretend she couldn’t see how terrible Niko looked right now.
She watched his fingers close into a weak fist. “Barely,” he said. “Walking…doesn’t look good.”
“If you can get free, and come to me, then I swear, I will carry you out of here, Niko,” Fiona said desperately.
Niko’s already thin arms feebly struggled against the coarse twine. “I’m sorry, Fiona,” he whimpered. “I can’t. I’m not…not strong enough.”
“That’s okay, Niko,” Fiona comforted her brother. “Hey, that’s okay. We’ll figure something out; we always do,” she said, turning back to her own bindings, trying to hide the tears streaming down her face.
“I tried,” Niko continued between labored breaths. “I tried to buy us some time, in case Ace…I just wanted to take care of you for once.”
“Ace’s not coming,” Fiona said after a moment. “It’s just us.”
So fucking what he’s not here to save me, Fiona spitefully thought, now tearing at her restraints with her teeth. I’m here to save me.
Chapter 13
The bikers had all perched atop the same abandoned warehouse overlooking Alexei’s warehouse; it was there they had seen Alexei and three other men peel out of the garage.
“If we go, we should go now,” Katie urged. “We will never get another opportunity like this.”
“You’re not worried about why he left, or when he’ll be back?” Ace asked.
“I’m worried about why you sent one of our best members away when there are already so few of us,” Katie said, glaring at him.
“Look, I know you think it’s a useless risk, but it might very well save our lives, so do me a favor and shut the fuck up about it. If we die, you can say ‘I told you so’ in the afterlife.” Still, he gave a low whistle, indicating it was time for The Hell Brothers to move out.
They climbed down the warehouse and split up into groups of four and two, circling the block to come up behind Alexei’s warehouse where a couple of his men were patrolling outside, William being one of them. Spotting the dirty cop, Ace looked down the block where Lucky and Riley were hiding and gave them the signal.
Lucky immediately ran out onto the sidewalk, crying for help. “Someone! Please! Oh, please, someone help me!”
William whirled around to see who was yelling. Seeing the beautiful, chesty young woman, he instantly announced himself to be a police officer. “What seems to be the problem, miss?” he called, jogging across the street.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Lucky cried dramatically. “Someone just stole my purse!”
“Why don’t you come with me and I’ll see what I can…” William trailed off as a large shadow fell across him. He turned around to see an enormous, incredibly dark black man standing behind him.
“I don’t think she’s going anywhere,” Riley said.
Ace watched as Riley physically picked up William and took him down a dimly lit back alleyway. Confident they were going to be able to handle that part of the plan, Ace decided it was time for Step Two.
Riley met up with the rest of the gang a few minutes later, holding the keys to William’s police cruiser aloft.
“Lucky?” Ace asked.
“She’s getting the rest of the information we need from our friend,” Riley replied, grinning. “Car’s parked down the block,” he told them.
The members of The Hell Brothers walked down to William’s car. They drove it around to the abandoned warehouse they had been using, and, after a few short minutes, were piled inside of it, bandanas firmly wrapped around their noses and mouths.
Ace gave a questioning thumbs-up and was met with four thumbs in return. Giving a silent prayer to whatever god there might be, Ace drove down the back passage to Alexei’s. He approached the garage door, the engine echoing loudly as he anxiously waited to see if his plan would work, or if they were all about to be massacred.
The garage door rumbled upwards, and there was a collective sigh of relief in the car. Ace pulled forward, the tinted windows casting a grayish tinge over the inner warehouse. Ace took the time to spot the security office dead ahead, then gave Diego and Lianna in the backseat the signal.
Ace pulled the trunk lever, and they leaned against the small barrel, shoving it out of the car where it thudded heavily, its contents glugging across the cement floor.
The two guards standing at the edge of the garage door craned their necks to look inside the trunk where the barrel had come from. There was just enough time for them to see Diego and Lianna waving merrily to them before Diego produced a match and threw it on the puddle in front of them.
A wall of flames erupted between them, and the guards jumped back, running out the door. They remembered how the girl downstairs had barbecued their friend Nikolai. Thick black smoke quickly began to fill the room.
All five of them jumped out of the car, Ace and Riley providing cover for Diego, Lianna, and Katie as they ran out into the room, each one of them holding a Molotov cocktail.
“Hurry up!” Ace cried. The initial surprise of the explosion was beginning to fade, and the two men were starting to get shot at in return. He bent down to reload his gun and saw a man aiming at him from above.
There was no time—Ace was considering his chances of dodging the bullet, when the man upstairs suddenly collapsed. Ace looked behind him to see Lucky, a literal smoking gun in her hand.
“Careful there, boss,” she warned, winking.
“What happened to William?” he called, finishing reloading his gun and shooting a woman creeping up on Riley’s left side.
Lucky thought back to the alleyway where she had held the cop at gunpoint.
“What do you want my keys for?” William had asked, nodding to Riley’s rapidly shrinking form. Riley had taken William’s handcuffs, and handcuffed him so that he was hugging a large telephone pole.
“None of your business,” Lucky had smartly replied, shoving the gun in his face. “Here’s the deal. I need to know some stuff, and you’re going to tell me, okay? And the more you know, the more blood you get to keep in your body. Let’s start with where all the entrances and exits are located.”
William had chuckled. “I’m not scared of you,” he had said, spitting at her.
“Well, then. We’ll just have to see what we can do to change that,” Lucky had said, firing the gun directly next to his ear, then pressing the searing hot muzzle to his forehead, burning his tender flesh. William had screamed, but a dull explosion prevented anyone nearby from hearing it. “How are you feeling now?” she had whispered in his good ear. “What if the next time I pull this trigger, I put that red-hot muzzle right here.” Lucky had lowered the gun and nudged between William’s legs suggestively. “Will you tell me what I want to know then?”
A dark stain had spread down the small man’s jeans as he wet himself
in fear.
Lucky had laughed loudly at him. “I wanna know where Alexei went, I wanna know where they’re keeping Fiona, and I wanna know all the ways in and out of the warehouse,” she had demanded, “or I’ll shoot you right in the dick. It might take me a few tries—from my perspective it’s a pretty small target.”
After that, William had told Lucky pretty much everything she needed to know, and a couple of things she didn’t.
“Now what are you going to do with me?” William had asked sullenly once Lucky had called in all the info. His fear was quickly subsiding into a hot shame.
“I’m supposed to just sit on you until things are pretty much over,” Lucky had said. She wasn’t looking forward to it, watching a pathetic loser ranked pretty low next to “set off an explosion inside your arch enemy’s home base,” but that was the gig sometimes. “So just don’t do anything stupid for the next hour, and we’ll all be just fine, okay?” Lucky had slapped a bright, false smile on her face. She had quickly dropped it, rolling her eyes.
“I guess that makes you the flashy whore they send to distract a man from his job,” William had spat contemptuously. His shame was rapidly becoming anger.
Lucky had sighed and looked at her nails. “Yup. That’s me. Lucky is actually short for Jezebel,” she had replied sarcastically.
“You think it’s funny?” William had said, infuriated at Lucky’s lack of response. “People are going to die today and you’re, what, cracking jokes? Well, I’ve got a joke of my own: that bartending bitch you love, burning alive. You and the rest of your women, chained up, free for all to use.” He began to laugh in Lucky’s face; a great, big mocking laugh that went on and on until spit drooled from his lip and onto his shirt.
“You know what?” Lucky had said to the hysterical man. “You’re right. I don’t have time for this.”
And with that, Lucky had pulled the trigger and fired a bullet directly into his brain, thereby freeing Lucky up to go and help the rest of her family in the warehouse now that she didn’t have to watch over that insufferable idiot.
She had come in just in the nick of time, as well, shooting a man that was aiming at Ace from the upstairs balcony while Ace attempted to reload.
“What happened to William?”
“I decided he was worth more dead than alive,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye.
“Can’t argue with you there,” Ace said cheerfully.
The three others returned, having used their Molotov cocktails to start fires in trashcans around the building. They set the fires over the vents in order to smoke out the whole warehouse—including anyone potentially hiding inside any secret back rooms.
Between them, The Hell Brothers had taken out at least five of the hired security guards and one of the mobsters. Now that the other members were back, the gang was able to start pinning some of the mobsters down.
But Ace still didn’t see the secret entrance in the floor that would lead to Alexei’s private area that William had told them about after Lucky’s gentle urging. Even worse, they were beginning to sustain their own injuries.
Diego’s arm had been grazed by a bullet, and Katie had gotten into a scuffle with one of the mobsters. The man had managed to break her nose, and possibly even her eye socket, before Katie finally got her gun out and shot him.
A sound behind Ace made him freeze. He slowly turned around, ignoring the hail of gunfire surrounding him. There was a car in the alleyway. Alexei and his men had returned early.
“Retreat!” Ace’s voice boomed across the floor, and instantly, every head turned to look at him.
“I thought he wouldn’t be back for another few hours!” Katie shouted to Ace.
“Someone must have managed to get a message to him,” Ace said angrily as he pulled Katie to hide down one of the long aisles of Alexei’s products.
The gunfire from the Russians had temporarily stopped so as to avoid accidentally hitting their leader, but Alexei jumped out, pointing wildly at where he had seen Ace disappear and shouted, “Shoot him!”
The mobsters, now with reinforcements, began to hunt down the bikers, searching up the aisles, and under every table. The smoke from the trashcans had filled the room, casting man-shaped shadows around every corner that put mobster and biker alike on edge.
Vlad sneered, watching as one of the security guards heard a noise and began shooting in panic—only for the smoke to clear and realize he had just killed his partner.
He stealthily crept along, trying to steer clear of the chaos and make his way into the basement along with Alexei. Just then, a shadow fell across his shoulder. Vlad whirled around and saw Riley looming over him. He tried to raise his gun, but Riley slapped it out of the smaller man’s hands easily.
Vlad snarled in anger. “I’ll kill you!” he threatened.
“Better men than you have failed,” Riley said, raising his own gun to Vlad’s face.
Taking a risk, Vlad lunged forward, knocking Riley off-balance, but not off of his feet—he was far too large for that. But Vlad didn’t need to knock Riley down, he just needed to buy himself some time. Vlad reached behind himself for anything he could use as a weapon against the towering man. Coming up with a large bag of Adderall pills, Vlad ripped them open and they scattered across the floor causing Riley to lose his balance once again.
Riley grabbed onto a shelf as he slipped on several of the little tablets. He pulled out his gun, intent on shooting the man and ending this once and for all, when there was a loud bang. Riley felt a red-hot point start in his chest and spread rapidly. He sat down, hard, barely noticing the pills that dug into his thighs. He was too busy looking down at the blood on his shirt.
“No!” Lucky screamed from across the room. She had been guarding Lianna, who was trying to clear the blood that was seeping into Katie’s injured eye, when she saw her lover go down.
“Riley! No!” Lucky sobbed, running over to him. She saw Vlad bolt, and she gave chase, firing wildly after him. He was too quick, however, and he disappeared into the smoke. Lucky fell to her knees by Riley’s side. Hooking her elbows under his arms, Lucky pulled with everything she had, dragging Riley until he was sitting up against the wall, shielded from the gunfire that still whizzed by around them.
Her hands trembled as she held his face. “Hey, baby,” she said. “How are you feeling? It…it doesn’t look so bad.” Lucky was lying, to both Riley and herself. Blood was pouring freely from the gaping wound in his chest.
“It’s okay.” Riley nodded. “Barely hurts at all,” he said weakly. He knew if he told Lucky the truth—that he was in agony—she would never leave his side. “You go help the others, okay? I’ll be here waiting for you when you get back,” Riley said, holding her hand as tightly as his failing strength would allow him.
Lucky let out an angry sob. She didn’t want to leave him—she couldn’t let him die alone—and yet, she knew no matter what she did, Riley would still die. But her other friends were still alive, and they needed her help. “I love you so much,” Lucky said, kissing Riley with everything she had to give.
“I love you, too,” Riley said softly. “Now go.”
Taking one last look at the best man she had ever known, Lucky stood up and tore herself away, determined to help end this once and for all. When she ran out into the fray, things didn’t look good for any of them.
Ace was still shooting it out with the guards upstairs; Diego was hiding, unable to use one of his legs; and Katie and Lianna were pinned down behind some large barrels. Lucky was frozen, terrified that she was about to watch all of her friends die, one by one.
Suddenly there was an enormous explosion from the far side of the building that took out the support beams to the upstairs security office. Smoke from the fire poured out of the building through the new opening in the wall.
The last rays of the setting sun pierced Lucky’s eyes as she tried to see what had happened.
The dark outline of a massively overweight man climbed atop the rub
ble.
“Smalls!” Lianna’s voice rose up in a cheer, the other members of The Hell Brothers echoing her cry.
Behind Smalls came a veritable wave of people—all the leftover and remaining members of biker gangs Alexei had obliterated in the past. They swarmed into the building, taking down one guard after the next.
One person stood to the side, only observing the chaos before him—it was Paul. Having spoken to Ace several days ago about the possibility of infiltrating Alexei’s warehouse, Paul had lain in wait for Smalls to approach him. Then, with the help of one of the more experienced bikers, and the C-4 Paul had lifted from Alexei’s stash, the group had blown the warehouse wide open, and in the best strategic spot.