“Your proposition? I assume you have one?” His voice sounds bored.
“We fuckin’ destroy them. I know everything, I was the fuckin’ VP. I know where their armoury is and exactly what’s in it. I know where the bodies are buried. I know everything about their strengths, weaknesses and how to get to them.”
“Sounds like they made a fucking mistake letting you walk away. I’d have killed you instead of allowing you to leave.”
“It came close, they did nearly kill me. But as you said, I’m family. Their old ladies wouldn’t let them.”
“Fucking bitches. If the Devils have handed their asses to their women, sounds like they’ll be easy to take.” Women mean nothing to Archangel. We know that only too well. That he can’t understand the lengths real men will go to for their old ladies only strengthens my position at this point.
“Give me back my wife, and I’ll help you.”
“I’ll think about it. Oh, Olivia and I have been getting on famously. I’m not tired of her company yet. I’ll just hang onto her for a little while longer—”
“You hurt one hair on her head,” I threaten, my voice deadly cold, “and all bets are off, Archangel.”
“Hmm. Sounds like you’re as pussy whipped as all the others.”
“Hah,” I bark. “She’s my property. Mine, you hear me? I want her and my baby back unharmed.” Property and ownership. Words a man like Archangel will understand.
“I don’t believe you’re in a position to threaten me, Hawk. But I’ll think on your suggestion. Keep this phone on you. I’ll use this number if I call.”
“Call me Eli,” I correct him. “I don’t go by Hawk anymore.”
He chuckles into the phone. “And you can call me your darkest enemy.”
The line goes dead.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Olivia…
I awaken confused and disorientated while slowly how I got wherever I am starts coming back to me. Gabe. He gave me something. It must have been in my drink or in that cake. I hold my breath and my hands go to lie on my stomach, terrified as I can feel no movement there. Suddenly, when a hard kick reassures me, I almost cry out in relief, but still I’m afraid. I’ve been so goddamn careful throughout this pregnancy, terrified to even have one cup of real coffee, doing everything that the doctor told me. Now, despite my greatest care, I’ve been subjected to some kind of chemical.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
I don’t waste time on pleasantries, not that I’d have any to share. I hate this man who’s taken me. “What did you give me?”
“Rohypnol,” he replies, casually, not even pretending to misunderstand.
“What if it affects my baby?”
“You sound like you think you’re talking to someone who cares.” He shrugs off my question and sits on a chair. “Seems we have a few things to get straight between us. Firstly, I never was your friend, you were just too stupid to see that. Secondly, you can’t appeal to my conscience, I haven’t got one. You’re not going anywhere. You can’t escape, so don’t try to.”
“Who are you, and why have you taken me?” I try to keep the panic out of my voice and refrain from asking what he wants with me. I have an idea I don’t want to know.
“You really don’t have a clue who I am?” His eyes widen slightly.
“No. but I suspect you’re not called Gabe.”
His shoulders rise then fall. “Gabriel isn’t my given name, but it’s useful to go by at times. I’m mainly called something else though. Surely you’ve heard of Archangel?”
I dig deep into my memory, but shake my head. “No, I can’t say I have.”
He smirks. “So the Devils really do keep their women out of club business.”
I’ve grown up in the club, heard those words more times than I can remember. I know the club thinks the reasoning behind keeping us in the dark is sound. Though I’m scared, I feel a burst of anger. Had I been warned a man called Archangel was after the club, had I been given any description of who to watch out for, I’d have run a mile the first time I’d seen Gabe. I should have realised the same man popping up time after time was more than coincidence. I’m a fool, but then, I’ve always had people watching out for me. I never looked out for myself.
As I look at the face I had thought endearing at one time, I now realise his natural expression is hard. He must have been acting. Every time we met. Now he’s removed his mask, this is the real man sitting in front of me.
My baby kicks again, as if reminding me to be strong. I’m a Satan’s Devils’ woman, I should act like one. Keeping a picture in my head of Drummer’s old lady, I channel my inner Sam. I won’t give this man the satisfaction of seeing me fall to pieces. “You still haven’t said why you’ve taken me. Eli and I don’t have money. He won’t be able to pay to get me back.”
Archangel throws back his head and starts laughing. “I want nothing from your husband. Instead, I want my revenge on your club.”
The club. At the speed of light my brain starts working. “Revenge? Revenge for what? Anyway, it’s not my club anymore,” I spit at him. “Eli and I are living citizen lives. We’re nothing to them now.” Mentally I cross my fingers. Dad will be frantically doing what he can to find me, but Archangel might be better off not knowing that. I doubt he’ll be worried about having the wrath of the Devil’s heaped down upon him. He’s far too arrogant for that.
Something tells me downplaying my importance to the club will serve me best. If it’s revenge he wants, I’ll have to convince him that won’t work.
He chuckles. “I think you’re wrong. You are theirs. And to answer your question as to the reason?” Once again, his face hardens. “Thanks to them, I was sentenced to life without parole.”
“But you’re here.” I don’t understand. Had he been waiting to start his sentence?
“I served five fucking years.” His face darkens with rage, then, the mask falls again. “I escaped,” he explains nonchalantly, adding with more than a touch of scorn tinged with pride, “No prison can hold me.”
Which means he must be a wanted man, but that doesn’t mean the knowledge will save me. Not unless the police discover where he is and come knocking on the door. I suspect that’s very unlikely. “The Devils won’t give you anything to get me back.” I say the words which I hope are wrong. Will Wizard do whatever this man asks? Am I still important to them? I am to my mom and my dad, but the Satan’s Devils in general? There’s a question mark about that.
“Who says I want anything from them?” He pauses, waiting for me to ask what he’s doing this for. When I don’t oblige, he continues, his voice deepening, and his eyes flare. “I want them to hurt. Just as they hurt me. By taking you, by taking the one of their next generation, I will break them apart.”
If I wasn’t already scared, I’d be terrified now. He’s suggesting I won’t be returning home, and Eli will never meet his baby. My brain can’t compute what he means to do with me. I’m a wife, a soon-to-be mother. How can all of that come crashing down?
When he sees I’m not going to ask the question I’m not prepared to hear the answer to, his tone changes once again. “I told you about my wife and her unborn baby,” he remarks conversationally, as though we were back in that coffee shop again. “Of course, she wasn’t quite as far along as you.”
I’m wondering where he’s going with this. There’s only one reason I can think of. “Satan’s Devils didn’t have anything to do with your wife’s accident.” While not knowing the facts, that’s something I feel deep inside. Devils go after the men causing a problem, they wouldn’t target a woman or child. Unless there had been a mistake, and they’d thought it had been Archangel driving.
But instead of telling me he wants revenge, again, he laughs. “I know they didn’t cause the accident. I know, because I paid the man who did.”
For a moment I forget to breathe. My eyes open wide as they fix on him.
“Yes.” He dips his head down then raises it. “I arranged
for my wife and that brat of hers to die.”
It’s at that point the thought solidifies that there’ll be no appealing to this man’s better nature. He clearly doesn’t have one. But still, I ask, “Why? Wasn’t the child yours?”
“Sure.” His unaffected response made in such an off-hand manner demolishes any remaining hope my child and I will get out unscathed. “My wife had grown annoying. I decided I didn’t want to be saddled with a woman I no longer wanted, and a kid I never did.” His eyes blaze with fury. “I’m a fucking careful man, Olivia. I make sure to cover my tracks. I knew the feds thought they were closing in, but they weren’t. I was too fucking clever, always a step or two in front of them.”
“But they caught you in the end.” I can’t stop myself saying, “To be sent down, you must have fucked up.”
Twin patches of red appear on his cheeks. “They couldn’t prove shit on the organised crime, violence, drugs, the money laundering, or the slave trafficking. Do you fucking know, Olivia, what brought me down?”
Of course I don’t. I refrain from making an unnecessary comment.
“I’d covered all my tracks except in one area.” His eyes glaze and seem to focus on something past me. “I ran a lucrative trade, only used trusted men. Men who remained loyal when I was inside, and men who’ve stepped up now I’m back out. Real Americans.” He pauses as though it should mean something to me. It doesn’t, except… Have I heard about them on the news? Maybe, but citizen stuff never really concerned me when I was living on the compound.
When he sees his comment hasn’t meant anything, he continues, “Mutual benefit, of course. I can bring the money in, and, I know where their bodies are buried. It was an inconvenience to them when I was sent down, so they helped me escape. I’m resuming my business, of course, but it’s hard picking up strings which someone else has retied. There are always people who step in when a market isn’t being fulfilled.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Or why you feel the Satan’s Devils were involved. They wouldn’t have picked up your business. They don’t deal in drugs, or anything else you’ve mentioned.”
“Feds are stupid. It’s easy to give them misinformation, keep them chasing their tails. It was a fucking game I enjoyed playing. I was running rings around them, and others, the Wretched Soulz for example. Stupid fuckers thought I was going into business with them, instead, I stole theirs. Your fucking club didn’t like the fact I was taking women off the streets in Tucson—which included one of their strippers one night.”
I gasp. I remembering hearing about a girl who had gone missing from Satan’s Angels, the strip club the Devils run. She never turned up. I didn’t think anyone knew what had actually happened to her. But if my dad and Drummer had, they’d have done their best to find her. I could easily see how that may have led to them crossing swords with Archangel.
“When I got out, I wanted to know how I fucked up. Learn from your mistakes, isn’t that what they say? I wasn’t sent down for running drugs or dealing in women. You know what got me in the end, Olivia?” He stands and marches across to me, grasping my chin painfully and making me look into his face. “I was sent down for murder in the first degree. For plotting and arranging the death of my wife.”
He lets me go so violently I fall to the side, then right myself, my arms protectively surrounding my stomach.
He’s pacing the room. “Such a simple thing. Pay a man, set her up. But it wasn’t how I normally did business. There was CCTV, licence plate number recognition. The man I hired was tracked down… Somehow all the information was found and was presented to the FBI tied up with a fucking ribbon.” He takes a deep shuddering breath. “My business dealings weren’t even spoken of in court. All they wanted was for me to be put away for whatever reason would suit their purpose and life for premedicated murder certainly achieved that. I was fucking set up, and your MC was at the root of it.”
I could see how Mouse and Wizard could have dug that information up. Seems Archangel, usually cold and determined, failed to apply his normal careful modus operandi to the killing of his wife and child. Passion, maybe? Had she overstepped and he’d arranged it too hastily? But yes, the club has the expertise to follow leads up. I don’t doubt him for a moment. Set up? He’s already admitted he’d done the crime. He just didn’t want to do the time.
“I know nothing about any of this.”
“You don’t need to,” he says, coldly. “Poor innocent kept-in-the-dark, Olivia. Doesn’t mean fuck if you know or not.”
His phone rings. A sadistic smile crosses his face as he walks to the door. I hear him say, “Sure.” Then he listens as his hand turns the doorknob. Just before he pulls the door shut with him on the other side, I hear him say, “You’re just as fucking stupid as your wife is.” Then I don’t hear anything else.
Eli. It sounds like he’s talking to Eli unless he’s stolen another wife away. How did Eli know who to ring? Or has he got Archangel’s number programmed into his phone? But no, he couldn’t. He had to get a new one when he left the club.
Phone. My phone. Where is it? Did I leave it in the café? Has Archangel got it? I can’t see my purse and can’t remember if I had it with me as he helped me out of the shop. That and being pushed into his car is the last thing I remember.
If Eli has my phone, maybe he’ll see I’ve been texting to and meeting with Gabe. My face blushes red, until I remember, I changed my passcode for that exact reason. Though it was totally innocent, I’d felt guilty.
Mouse. Or Wizard. A passcode wouldn’t stop them. Perhaps Eli’s gone to the Devils for help, or my dad anyway. Dad. He’ll be out of his mind with worry. Why, oh why was I so stupid to go out alone?
Because he hadn’t quantified the danger I’d be in.
Damn Dad and his club business. I’m involved through no fault of my own except for ignorance.
Baby, please stop moving so much. He or she is jumping around on my bladder. A need I’d successfully ignored while Archangel was distracting me is returning with vengeance now.
I look around. The room I’ve been left in is some kind of living room, it’s got just the one door. I hadn’t heard a key turning. Perhaps it’s unlocked?
I don’t want to anger the man who killed his wife and unborn baby, but if he’s left the door open, maybe there is a way for me to escape? Or, at least, find a bathroom which, at the moment, is at the top of my priorities.
I stand and walk across the room. Gingerly I reach out and turn the doorknob. It moves easily, but the door doesn’t budge. It’s locked. As I expected.
It would serve him right if I wet myself right on his sofa. Doesn’t he know pregnant women have needs?
“Hey.” I bang on the door and cry out, “Hey. I need a bathroom.”
Perhaps he doesn’t care, if he’s going to kill me, anyway?
“Help!” I shout louder, not expecting my cries to be heard, let alone answered.
But the door opens as if the person behind had been waiting outside. He’s a man with military bearing hair shorn short, shoulders pulled back and, what gives it away, is the rifle slung over his shoulder. Is that a swastika on his front pocket? I cringe, expecting no mercy from him.
“What do you want?” he asks, leering at my body as though he’s got a thing for pregnant women.
I shift uncomfortably, from the way he’s examining me, and from my body’s needs. “I need a bathroom.”
He sighs, then jerks his head with an expression of distaste. “This way.”
I’m conscious of his armed presence behind me as he points out where I should be heading. Would he shoot me if I ran? Well, I’m not going to put that to the test. Or, at least, not until I’ve used the facilities.
He opens the door, then with another movement of his head, indicates that I should go inside. I do. As I throw the bolt, I realise the lock is one of the kind you can open from the outside in case a child shuts themselves in.
Wasting no time, I relieve myself and
take the time to look around me. There is a window with frosted glass, but even if it opened, it’s not big enough for a woman with a belly the size of mine to squeeze out of.
I’ve no other option but to wash my hands, then open the door. The guard is standing outside in a sentry pose.
I decide it’s worth a try. Putting my hands on my stomach to emphasise my condition, I ask, pleadingly, “Will you help me find a way out? I’m pregnant.”
“I can see that.” He leers again. “A nice big target to aim for if you try to run.”
Meekly, with no other option, I let myself be escorted back to the room I’d recently left.
Alone, with no pressing bodily function to focus on, I admit the dire situation that I’m in. The thought I might never see my baby born or my husband or family again, overwhelms me.
The need to cry engulfs me, but I won’t give in. Crying would mean letting my guard down, weeping would mean giving up.
It might be hard for me to escape, overpowering my guard or Archangel an impossibility. But I won’t give up. The only weapon at hand is in my head. The only way out is to keep my wits about me. I’ll just have to think how best I can use it.
It’s hard, but I know once the tears start, I won’t be able to stop.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eli…
Immediately after I speak to Archangel, I take out the burner phone Mouse had given to me and place a call to Wizard. I can’t call him Prez, he’s not that anymore. But for now it’s enough that he’s a friend.
Hawk's Cry : Satan's Devils MC Second Generation #2 Page 20