“Fucking Junior,” Cowboy bit out.
Steele remembered the name. Junior had been the bastard who’d tried to rape Daisy at the Raptors’ now defunct strip club, the Pussycat Palace, when she’d been working undercover, trying to find Rose.
Axel continued on. “I need a couple volunteers to check it out.”
Everyone raised their hands.
Axel pointed to Steele. “You sure you wanna go?”
Steele rubbed at his chest self-consciously. “I went to the last couple spots.” He wanted to be involved in the search party. Steele couldn’t sit around waiting for a miracle. “I’m fine.” He glanced at Duke for some backup.
“His wounds are healin’, so I don’t see no harm in it. Speakin’ of, I need to check the bandages when we’re done here,” Duke said.
Steele nodded.
Duke had been a medic in his Special Forces unit. Before he joined the military, he’d been in med school. While he hadn’t graduated, his brother served as the club’s official doctor. Despite his lack of bedside manner, Duke knew what the hell he was doing, although he was a creepy son of a bitch.
“I’m all over this, Axel,” Steele put in. “If you’re cool?”
Axel got a pinched look, the one he used when he was thinking real hard. “Fine by me, but pick a brother to go with you.”
“Seriously, I got this. I can do one bitty scout mission on my own.” He’d already fucked this up real good. Damn if he’d let those asshats get a hold of another brother.
“Yeah, lone-wolfin’ it ain’t an option,” Axel said. “Choose or I choose for you.”
Fuck it all. Steele pointed to Justice. Both of them had military training and were good shots.
Justice had been a Navy SEAL, though he almost never talked about his time in the service, which was a shame. Steele bet Justice had some damn good stories. If Steele had made it through BUD/S training, which was rumored to be a real bitch, he’d never have shut up about how he’d come out on top.
“We’ll meet at my place at nine,” Steele told Justice. “Then we’ll head over to Canyon City.”
His brother nodded. “I’ll be there.”
Justice stood around six feet with light brown hair and blue eyes. The dude had shadows beneath his eyes and smelled like weed most of the time. He had a couple days’ worth of stubble and wore a gray shirt beneath his Horsemen hoodie and cut. His clothing was rumpled like he’d picked them up off the floor moments before he’d put them on. Steele didn’t have a clue how old Justice was, but he appeared to be in his thirties.
“Go in stealthy—no cuts and no bikes. I want you to take a club cage and keep it quiet-like,” Axel ordered. “And I’ll text you the address later today.”
“Got it, Prez,” Steele said.
“Good. Anyone else wanna add somethin’?” Axel asked.
No one piped up.
Get us the fuck out of here. Steele finally had a lead, and with any luck, he’d get something to hit.
“Meeting adjourned.” Axel brought the gavel down. The brothers filed out of the room, but the president grabbed his arm before Steele made it. “Not so fast.”
Steele sank back down into his chair. Damn. When the boss man wants to see you all private-like, it’s never a good sign. “S’up, prez?”
“You doin’ okay, Steele? Need anything? I know you and Yo were tight.”
Fuck, he hated this sympathy crap. Everyone had been tiptoeing around him since he’d been found unconscious and bloody. They should be pissed him at him for failing the club and his brother. If he’d been watching his flank, none of this would’ve have gone down. They would’ve delivered the heroin, and Yo would be fine. He’d put everyone in danger—but then again, Steele had a bad track record. He’d been a screw-up all his life, so why would this situation be any different?
Axel should’ve kicked his ass out of the Horsemen, but he hadn’t even read him the riot act he deserved.
Steele sucked in a breath. “Are. Not were. He ain’t dead.”
The president clapped him on the shoulder. “If you ever need to talk….”
“Thanks, man. I’ll let you know. Anythin’ else, Axel?”
“No, we’re good.”
Steele beat feet the fuck out of there and met up with Duke in the hallway. As per usual, his brother was dressed from head to toe in inky black to match his soul. He had dark hair and eyes, stood an inch or two taller than Steele, and was also in his thirties.
Unlike Axel, Duke kept his trap shut and hadn’t said a fucking word about the situation, which was unusual. His brother typically didn’t mind busting his chops over a screw-up.
But then again, Duke was a dick. Although, ever since he’d gotten hot and heavy with Daisy’s baby sister, he’d been…nice. Well, not nice—Duke would never be nice. But less of a dick. Dick Light.
Sometimes Steele caught the man smiling. Smiling! It gave Steele the willies—like watching General Patton do a dance number or something.
That just ain’t right.
They strolled into the main room together, and Duke kicked a chair toward him. “Have a seat, brother, and take off your shirt.”
Steel obligingly sat down and lifted the fabric over his head, wincing at the movement.
“How ya feelin’?” Duke peeled the gauze from the wounds to examine them.
Steele hissed as some of the gauze stuck to the edges of a cut. “Like some dickhead sliced up my chest with a Ginsu knife.”
Sometimes when he closed his eyes, Steele could still feel the knife sinking into flesh. Two men held him down, sitting on his legs, pinning his arms. As he’d thrashed, trying to break free, a grinning, bearded bastard had sliced him up, Freddy Krueger-style.
Steele had to hand it to the Raptors, it’d been a well-executed blitz attack. He’d never heard them coming. He’d been exhausted from the drug run and not paying attention to the surroundings.
Like a dumbass rookie.
The last thing Steele had heard was a grunt coming a few feet away and a dragging sound as the Raptors had carted Coyote off. He’d passed out afterward from blood loss and exhaustion.
Duke continued examining him. “This all looks good. You’re lucky they didn’t cut you any deeper.”
“Yeah, I’m real lucky.”
His brother ignored the sarcasm. “I don’t see any sign of infection, and you’ve stopped bleeding. You’re takin’ the antibiotics according to my instructions?”
“Yeah.” He’d written it all out and slapped them on his fridge.
“And the painkillers?”
“Yeah, takin’ those, too. Steele can read,” he grunted, caveman-style.
“Really? Because I wasn’t sure.” He grabbed a few rolls of gauze and some medical tape from his black leather doctor’s bag and tossed them to Steele. “Keep washing the wounds and changin’ the dressings twice a day.”
“Will do, brother. We done here?” He stood as if Duke had already agreed.
“Yeah, you’re good to go. You should be healed in a few weeks.”
“Yup.” Though Steele seriously doubted the prognosis. He had a feeling this wound would never heal.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, when you get back from your op, for another checkup.”
“Speaking of, you better be on standby. I might have Coyote with me.” On the battlefield, Steele had learned about the power of positive thought, and he tried not to drown in all the negativity. “Tried” being the operative word.
“Sure thing, brother.” His brother’s mouth creaked into a serial killer-like rickety smile. Duke thought Coyote was dead, and the bastard was humoring him.
Steele marched out the door without another word. He wasn’t giving in until he saw the body, and tonight, he had the opportunity to make those sons of bitches pay.
***
Several hours later, under the cover of darkness, Steele and Justice stood in the tree line near a dilapidated Victorian home. After parking the truck down the road and performing
a perimeter check, they decided to approach the house.
It had a crack den sort of ambiance.
Steele had met up with Justice at Inferno earlier in the evening, and they’d taken a cage from Perdition to Canyon City as instructed. The club used the trucks to make deliveries and the like. He hated riding in a cage, but they needed the element of surprise to confront the enemy, provided these bastards decided to show their ugly faces, of course.
They’d driven to Canyon City in silence. Normally, he didn’t mind shooting the breeze, but he hadn’t much felt like it lately. Lord knew Justice was terse, so he hadn’t minded the quiet.
The Victorian home had once belonged to rich people, but now it looked like the set of a horror movie. The house had survived all this time, and now it stood empty at the end of a dreary country lane outside the city limits. There were a good three or four miles between homes so this would be the ideal place to stash a prisoner. No witnesses and not a lot of foot traffic.
The front porch roof bowed in the middle, threatening to cave in any minute, and the windows were boarded up. The grass came up to Steele’s knees, and the mailbox was a rusted lump on the ground. He guessed some of the local teens had played mailbox baseball with it.
Steele currently rented an apartment, but he’d dreamed of buying a house of his own…only less Nightmare on Elm Street than this house.
Steele thought owning property would be a badge of honor as if he’d made something of himself. He’d grown up so poor he couldn’t even afford to pay attention. His mother had never made enough money to pay for her own place, and his father had drunk everything he’d earned until Steele’s mother had tossed him out on his whiskey-soaked ass.
“Looks vacant.” Justice’s voice turned Steele’s attention back to the present.
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“If the Raptors were here, there’d be some signs of life—noise, lights. No point in goin’ in.” Justice seemed agitated. He kept shuffling his feet and checking his pockets.
“You okay, man?”
“Fine.”
He doubted it but didn’t pursue the line of questioning. Even though it looked empty, something nasty might be waiting inside. “Regardless, we should check it out.”
“Let’s get it over with then.”
Flicking on a flashlight, Steele approached the place and stepped onto the front porch. The boards groaned and rattled beneath his feet. He cautiously made his way to the door, mindful of both his surroundings and the fragile wood beneath him. Given his luck lately, he’d fall through the floorboards and get punctured by rusty nails. Then he’d be forced to spend a couple hours with Duke as the bastard poked him with tetanus needles and sewed his ass together again. No thanks.
Justice followed Steele. They tread all the way to the entrance lightly. Justice leaned against the wall next to the door while Steele tried the doorknob—the door hinges gave a rusty, metallic screech as it swung open.
Steele drew his Glock and held up three fingers. Justice nodded, brandishing his own gun. He counted down, mouthing the words—three, two, one. Guns and flashlights out, they walked into what had probably been a parlor. Hard to tell, because it didn’t have a stick of furniture.
Ugh, the smell.
Steele should’ve remembered to bring nose plugs. Ammonia assaulted his nostrils–the scent of piss, as well as the stench of rotting garbage.
Justice coughed and drew the collar of his shirt up over his nose.
He heard the scratch of nails behind the walls. Rats or mice? Or some ’roided up cockroaches?
As a kid, he’d battled those bastards—spraying poison, leaving out traps, and eventually beating them to death on the kitchen floor. He’d cut their numbers down, but he hadn’t killed the horde of insects completely. Steele still hated the scurrying noise they made. It made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.
Suddenly, a memory flashed before Steele’s eyes. Himself as a teenager, hip-deep in trash at the city dump. It’d smelled like this place. At night, when his mother had been working her second job, he’d scrounged for scrap metal he could sell to the recycling place in town. Sometimes he earned enough to buy them extra food, and every bit helped.
Shaking off the recollection, he focused on his current surroundings. A collection of tattered blankets, empty bottles, fast food wrappers, receipts, used condoms, and stray pieces of clothing littered the room, along with an overflowing ashtray and cheap candles, which had welded themselves to the floor. Had the neighborhood kids been using it as a party pad? Or maybe some squatters had taken up residence for shelter. They’d have to be desperate, given the state of this shithole.
Together, they swept through the bottom floor. The kitchen held an assortment of rotten food, which added an extra layer of sickening on top of the urine/garbage combo. While it might be disgusting, the house appeared to be uninhabited now—no bikers, no hostages…no homeless people or horny teens, either.
Although they hadn’t ventured up to the second level.
Steele wandered over to the rickety staircase to find the top portion was crumbling–the wood literally rotting away. The stairs had been carpeted at one point, but he couldn’t tell what color because it’d turned into a grimy black from dirt and fluids of some sort. He really didn’t wanna walk on the unstable flight of steps, and he didn’t hear any telltale noises.
“Any chance someone’s hiding up there?”
Justice shined his flashlight up at the plastered ceiling. Chunks had fallen on the floor, exposing the bare wood beneath them. Other parts were disintegrating, surrounded by brownish stains. Still other portions had large holes where the wood had given way.
Steele doubted the second story could support one man’s weight, let alone two…a guard and a prisoner. Or Justice and himself, for that matter.
“Nah.” His brother already backed toward the door. “Fuck this place.”
Dammit. Yet another dead end. “Call it a night?”
“Let’s pack it in. I think this is a lost cause.”
“Yeah, it’s pointless.”
“We’ll find another way. Sorry.”
Steele nodded grimly. At this point, it’d take nothing short of a miracle to save Coyote.
Justice exited first, and Steele gave him space while he navigated the shaky porch, in case the damn thing collapsed to the ground beneath their feet.
Steele was about to step outside when a human-shaped projectile slammed into him, pinning him against the wall.
Chapter Three
“Who are you, and who do you work for?”
Steele could make out his Glock laying on the floor a couple feet away, right next to his spinning flashlight. He tried to focus on his attacker’s face but couldn’t because the glare from the guy’s headlamp blinded him.
Disoriented, Steele shook his head, trying to clear it. He hadn’t been bushwhacked since his first week in Afghanistan. Luckily, he’d survived the encounter, but he didn’t know if he’d be so fortunate this time.
When he could think again, he found himself pressed against the wall. Whatever lived in the rotting wood at his back squalled and scratched as if trying to tear through the panel.
“I said, who do you work for?”
“Where the fuck did you come from?” Steele asked through gritted teeth.
“I’m askin’ the questions.”
“What’s goin’ on in there?” Justice demanded from the porch, but he was smart enough not to run in half-cocked. Running headlong into an attack would be a stupid move.
“One guy!” Steele bellowed. “Armed. Stay outside.” He returned his attention to the attacker. “Where‘d you come from?”
“Upstairs, asshole,” he growled. “You should’ve checked it out. Now answer me.”
What the hell? This guy had somehow scrambled up the ramshackle staircase? “How’d you get up there?”
“Scaled the wall with a grappling hook.”
Steele focused on what he cou
ld determine without seeing the ninja bushwhacker clearly.
His attacker was a short dude and carried a huge Smith & Wesson 460XVR. Overcompensating for a tiny dick, no doubt. From what he’d heard, it shot like a cannon, and it could bring down a bear with only one bullet, but it held five. They didn’t call it a “bone collector” for nothing.
He had the gun cocked and pressed beneath Steele’s chin. He hoped the fucking thing didn’t have a hair trigger—the bastard might accidently blow Steele’s head clean off.
“Nice piece you got there.”
“Thanks. If you don’t start talkin’, you might get an insider’s view of it.”
Steele tried not to think about the cold gun barrel against his chin and took another gander at his assailant. He wore black fatigues and a half-face mask printed to resemble a grinning skeleton, which covered his features from neck to nose.
Steele could hear Justice tromping across the porch, even though he couldn’t see his brother.
“Stay back,” Steele called.
The footfalls stopped.
“Yeah, I’d listen to your friend. If you come in here, I might get agitated and accidently shoot you,” Skeleton Boy shouted. The intruder’s voice was a bit high for a man—girly even—and bizarrely familiar.
Steele had heard the voice before, but where?
“If you do, you won’t make it out of there alive,” Justice snarled.
Steele heard the click of his brother’s gun cocking. Fuck, this could turn into a genuine bloodbath if he didn’t do something. Yet another op he screwed the pooch on. He should’ve checked the upstairs and done a more thorough perimeter check.
Keep it together. Think about this later…after you make it out of here alive.
“Two against one. Those aren’t the kind of odds you wanna play,” Justice said.
“I can always pull the trigger, and we could have us a one-on-one death match. Sound good?” Skeleton Boy hit a button, and the headlamp switched off.
“Come on. I’m done playin’ games. Who are you?” Skeleton Boy demanded again. “Who do you work for?”
Wild Ride (Let it Ride Book 2) Page 15