by Jani Kay
Chapter 40 — Cobra
This was the place. Savage had turned the engine off and now we waited. I knew enough about how the cops operated to know Savage wouldn’t make a move till they’d staked out the place and Summers had arrived. Why the fuck he couldn’t just take Ryder in and get my kid out was beyond me.
Fuck them. I was going in to find my kid. If I’d known the location earlier, it would’ve all been over a long time ago. I wasn’t waiting one fucking second more.
First I needed to hide my Harley. Since I was watching from a distance, I decided to find an empty driveway to leave my motorcycle at. I got off the beast and slowly pushed her fifty yards back, away from the SUV, to what seemed like an abandoned property across the road from where I’d been hiding between stinking dumpsters. I couldn’t stand the stench a moment longer. My stomach was already roiling and I felt sick.
Met with surprise to find an old red car parked there, I placed my hand on the front hood to find the engine still warm. Alarm bells went off in my head. Where the fuck had I seen this car before?
Searching my memory, it came to me. This was Tanya’s car. The busty redhead who lived down the road and always tried to seduce me when Mia wasn’t looking. The reason I remembered the car so well was that she’d tried to get me to fuck her in it. In front of Mia she was her best friend, but behind her back, the woman came on to me hard-core.
It was easy to resist her. For one I hated fucking in cars. Way too cramped. I like fucking on my black beast, with freedom to move. Never would anyone catch me doing it in a closed vehicle that felt like a coffin.
But that wasn’t the only reason. When a man had a woman like Mia, no other pussy would ever come close. I loved my woman fiercely. I just wasn’t interested in any other pussy as long as I had Mia.
I sucked in a ragged breath. I’d bet that Mia was here. How the fuck did she know about this? Fuck. I didn’t have time to work out the details; I had to get to her before Daemon did. Because I knew what Mia was trying to do. She thought she could get Jamie out by herself, and that no blood would spill that way.
How wrong she is.
If Daemon found her there, he’d have double the power over me. I had no illusions what he’d do to Mia to torment me further. Christ, I’d rather die than let my wife go through that again. Daemon would fuck her to death. Literally. That way he’d kill me twice.
Lightning struck and rain came pouring in bucket-loads from the skies. I had to find Mia. It was even more urgent than finding Jamie.
Fuck. The night had just gotten so much worse. If anything happened to Mia, I had no reason to keep wanting to breathe. She was my air.
I kicked the tire of the old car and cursed. This was men’s business.
Why was Mia so fucking stubborn? She should be home with Isabella, taking care of our daughter. A pang speared my heart. I should be there too, holding her and telling her everything was going to be okay. Instead, here we both were, stubborn assholes trying to take matters into our own hands. How could I judge her for doing exactly what I’d planned to do?
Where was Mia? Had Savage and Ryder seen her? Maybe they’d stop her from doing something stupid. Like taking Daemon on by herself. Fuck.
I removed my helmet and hung it on the handlebar. I checked for my knife and my gun, fear flooding my body. I hope I’m not too late.
Chapter 41 — Mia
“Jamie?” I whispered in a hoarse voice. What if I was mistaken and it was someone else? The room was dark and smelled dank and moldy. Water leaked through the ceiling and dripped onto my arm, causing me to shudder.
“Mama?” A tiny frightened voice came from the corner.
“Hush baby, Mama is here to take you home. Don’t make a sound, okay?”
I followed along the wall in the pitch-blackness, the stone rough and damp beneath my palms as I moved toward the sound of quiet sobs. Lightning struck again, lighting up the room through a small high window. It lit Jamie’s precious face for a flash.
Jamie stared at me as if I were a ghost. His brown eyes were larger than I’d ever seen them in his small sunken face. My child was virtually a skeleton, just skin and bones, making him look even smaller than he was where he sat huddled in the corner of the room.
My heart filled with rage. Daemon would pay for this. Nothing warranted treating a child this way. He was shivering, cold and dirty, and no doubt starving. I reached him in two long steps and folded him into my arms.
“Jamie, my baby.” My voice broke as I pulled him against my chest, trying to get warmth into his frail little body, but I was wet and cold myself, and the damp air didn’t help either. I kissed his face and hands and went back to his face, hugging him so tightly I was scared I’d break him.
We huddled together in the corner, with him in my lap as I rocked us both back and forth.
“Are you okay?” I breathed. I tried to smile at him to reassure him everything would be okay, but I failed as worry overtook me. “Can you walk?”
He shook his head, tears rolling down his face as a sob trembled through his little body. He looked so damn fragile it nearly broke my heart. He was too weak to walk; I’d have to carry him out.
All thoughts of mercy toward Daemon died in my heart. He needed to pay for the suffering he’d brought my family. For the death of Ratbag. For the hell and shame he’d put me through.
I felt for the small gun I’d stuck into my pants at my back. I’d told myself I wouldn’t use it. Right now, I wanted to storm out there and plant a fucking bullet between the devil’s eyes. See him crumble at my feet and die.
Leaning down, I spoke softly into Jamie’s ear. “You’ve been such a good, brave boy. Mama will get you out of here, okay?” I wiped the long limp hair from his face and out of his eyes, my heart breaking at how neglected he looked. “But first, you have to be quiet a little bit longer. We’re going to play hide and seek with these people, and we can’t let anyone know where we are.” I squeezed his cheek in my palm and smiled down at him. “If we win this game, we get to go home. That’s good, yeah?”
Jamie nodded, his eyes shiny in the darkness. I blinked back the tears that burned in the back of my throat. I’d cried enough over this and everything else. I wanted to move on—it was time to put this behind us, take my child home and get my family back.
If I could get out carrying Jamie.
As I rose to my feet with Jamie in my arms, a bright light shone in my eyes. Lightning?
No. A flashlight. The man from the room next door stood there, naked with a half-mast cock, shining the light on us as he pointed his gun to my head.
“What the fuck? Where have you come from?” he bellowed.
His cock-sucking woman, also still naked, came up behind him. “I thought it was strange the kid went quiet after lightning struck again. See, baby? I knew something was wrong.”
I wanted to slap her. Yes, something was very fucking wrong. My child had been kidnapped and starved, and she thought she was a fucking genius?
“You women and your instincts,” the man sneered.
“Listen,” I said as calmly as I could. “This is my son. I need to get him home. He’s very weak and I need to get him to a doctor.”
The man laughed. “You’re kidding, right? Boss wanted the kid to die so he can send him to you in a box.”
My stomach rolled and bile pushed up to my throat. God, would he really do something like that? Starve an innocent child to death?
Maybe if I appealed to the woman, she’d have more understanding. “Are you a mother?” I asked, swinging my gaze to her.
“Yeah, four brats, each a different father. Fucking hard to feed them all.”
“If you help me tonight, I’ll make sure your kids are fed for the rest of their lives. I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
Bemused, she laughed. “That’s sweet of you, sugar, but I don’t need your charity. I’ve shipped the kids off to my sister. She wants the little bastards, so she can have them. She got her a rich husb
and, but she can’t have babies. So I sold mine to her. Now I’m free to do as I please—”
A tall skinny man, smashed out of his mind, came stumbling into the room. “Oops. Not the bathroom. I need a piss.”
“The next door on the left,” the guy with the gun said, waving the stoned guy away before turning to his woman. “Go get some clothes on, babe. Seems like we have a problem here.”
“What’s the fucking problem?”
Daemon. I’d know that voice anywhere. It creeped me out, hearing it again after so many years. If only I could do magic and fly away with Jamie in my arms. I needed a miracle. Maybe Cobra or Ryder would come to my rescue. But they didn’t know I was here, stuck in hell, with a naked man pointing a gun at me, and my worst nightmare approaching.
Daemon stopped in his tracks when he saw me, and sucked in a breath. Yeah, he sure as hell wasn’t expecting me. Dressed only in boxer shorts, he had the body of a Greek god, the face of an angel and the heart of the devil.
“Alessandra,” he breathed.
“It’s Mia now. Mia, meaning that I’m Cobra’s wife. This is my son, Daemon. How could you take him from me? What kind of man are you?”
“I think you already know the answer to that, my sweet. But in case you forgot, I’m the man who takes what he wants.” His gaze raked up and down my body, his pupils dilated so that his eyes were almost black.
“Jamie is an innocent child. He didn’t ask for any of this. He doesn’t need to be part of the revenge you’re plotting against your brother. Leave him out of it. I’m taking him home, and you’re not stopping me.”
“Ahhh . . . still the feisty little bitch.” He rubbed his chin. “You know what, babe? I’ve never met another woman like you.” He took a few steps closer so that his warm breath rolled over my cold skin. “I want you, but for keeps this time.”
He reached out and dragged a finger down my cheek. Jamie buried his face in my neck, trembling and afraid.
“Shhh, it’s okay sweetheart. The man won’t hurt us,” I whispered, keeping my voice steady.
“The man?” Daemon lashed out and slapped me across my cheek, the same one he’d caressed just moments ago. “Wrong, babe. On both counts.”
I stared at him with disgust, barely able to stop myself from lunging at him and scratching his eyes out. “You hurt women and innocent children. That makes you a real hero, doesn’t it?” I taunted him, against my better judgment.
“Jamie,” he said, gripping my son’s chin and turning his face toward him. “Remember how I told you I was your daddy? Did I hurt you even once while you were here?”
What the hell had he been telling Jamie? No wonder the child was so frightened. The boy shook his head slowly. I wasn’t convinced.
He moved closer still until our bodies touched. I backed away until my shoulders hit the corners of the walls. Daemon laughed, gripped my chin and licked my cheek with a flat tongue. “But I like hurting you more. In the bedroom while I fuck you. Pleasure and pain go hand in hand, beautiful. The more pain, the more pleasure.” He kissed my mouth brutally and then let go, taking a step backward. “But most of all I like hurting big grown men, like my motherfucking brother and his buddies.”
I flinched. I hated that Jamie had to hear his cruel words. If only I could cover the boy’s ears.
“Daemon, let’s talk. There has to be a way we can fix this between you and Cobra without anyone getting hurt. Let Jamie go.” I lifted my chin. “If you really believe you are the boy’s father, why on earth would you treat him this badly?”
He smiled at me. Goddamn smiled.
“To get to his mother. My brother is too much of a pussy to fight his own battles. You on the other hand—you have fire in you. The kind of fire I crave in a woman and have never found in anyone but you. I want you, Alessandra.”
I shook my head. “I call bullshit. You only want me because I’m Cobra’s, and you can’t have me the way he has.”
Daemon turned to the man with the gun, snatched the weapon from his grip and dismissed him with a wave of the hand as he stuck the gun into the front of his boxer shorts.
“How you’d love to pull the trigger? I can see it in your eyes. You’d love to see a hole through my cock, wouldn’t you?”
I snorted. “Your head and your heart too,” I agreed. “You don’t deserve the air you breathe.”
“Now see, that kind of talk turns me the fuck on. Feisty. Unafraid. God, you’d be perfect for the kind of fucking I have in mind.”
Chapter 42 — Cobra
A light turned on at the far end of the building. Could that be where Mia and Jamie where? Why did I have this gnawing feeling that something dreadful was happening? I wasn’t like Ryder, yet my own instincts were screaming in my head, urging me to get inside.
If Mia could get past the cop and Ryder without being seen, I should be able to do the same. I’d sneak into the back yard and jump fences until I found the right place. It was probably how Mia had managed to get past all of us.
Just as I made my way to the side gate I’d seen earlier, I had to hide behind a bush as another vehicle turned up and parked behind Savage. Summers and his men. Fuck, why not just put a bulletin on the news that they were raiding the place tonight? This wasn’t the way we bikers took care of business.
Quick in, quicker out.
Leave no witnesses.
It had always been Malone’s motto, one he’d drummed into me for years. “No point in delaying the inevitable. Never stretch a battle out. It gives the enemy too much time to think. Strike hard, and strike fast. If they don’t see it coming, you’re halfway to winning already.”
I had no problem striking hard and fast. It was my preferred modus operandi. But there was more at stake here—it wasn’t just any battle. It was fucking personal. And the lives of two people I loved and would die for were on the line.
The wind howled and caused trees to sway and bend over. Lightning lit up the skyline once again and thunder followed shortly after. That meant the storm was getting closer. I pulled the hood of my jacket up to fend off the rain that pelted down on my face.
While Ryder and Savage and the other cops were sitting in the warm and cozy comfort of their vehicles, shit was going down inside. I wished I could knock on Ryder’s window and get him to come inside with me, to cover my back as he always did. But of course, I couldn’t. Fuck, I’d even take Razor here with me tonight.
Fear gripped my insides. I’d be a fucking liar if I didn’t admit that I was shitting myself about what I’d find once inside. If Daemon found Mia before I did, he’d have a field fucking day. He’d use my wife against me.
We’d both learned that from Malone, too. Hit a man where he is weakest. Find his Achilles heel and make him suffer. Fuck.
It was a no-brainer what my weakness was. Daemon? I wasn’t sure what his could be. It dawned on me that there was nothing that Daemon cared about enough to have as an Achilles heel. Double fuck.
In a way, I felt sorry for my twin. Having nothing to care about could only be an empty life. Gratitude for having the love of my life and two beautiful offspring filled my heart. I had a reason to live—a reason to breathe. And a reason to die.
Jumping fences wasn’t meant for a muscled body like mine. Although I was reasonably fit, I struggled to clear the higher ones, falling on my ass in the mud of a huge front yard. Cars were parked in the long driveway and filled the yard. There was definitely something going on there judging by the thumping music coming from inside.
Maybe Ryder’s sense of intuition had rubbed off on me, because my blood ran ice cold as I sensed that Mia and Jamie were inside.
Making my way around the building, I looked for an entrance. It had been a long time since a lock could keep me out. I’d learned from the best in juvie, and it was a skill I was plenty grateful for as it often came in handy.
I found a door on the side of the building. Locked. Voices booming beyond the door. Too risky. Keeping close to the wall, I kept going until I foun
d a back door. Fuck me if it wasn’t standing wide open, slamming against the outside wall as each gust of wind took hold of it. The rain came down in sheets and blurred my vision, but I was pretty sure there was no one around, so I slipped inside and hoped for the best.
I stood still for a while, just listening and trying to figure out which way to go. Next thing I heard a man and woman approaching, so I ducked behind an open door, holding my breath in hope that I wouldn’t be discovered.
“Christ, boss took my fucking gun. I hate when he does that,” the man complained. “It’s my fucking weapon, and I should be the one handling it.”
“Baby, stop whining. I don’t care about the gun.” Her nasal voice was irritating as fuck. “Who is the woman? Demon has a thing for her—I can tell. Did you see how he couldn’t take his fucking eyes off her? Dick didn’t even realize I was there.”
“Just as well he was distracted. You being there could get me into serious trouble with the boss, and believe me, it ain’t fun.”
Demon and Mia. Fuck, he’d found her already.
He has a gun.
“Don’t you think the way he said he was gonna fuck her was damn hot? Why don’t you ever talk dirty to me like that, baby? Girls love it, you know.”
He gave her a slap on the ass and then pushed her against the wall. In the dim light coming from the hallway I could make out that she was virtually naked and without underwear under the skimpy top that barely covered her ass. I didn’t have time for this. The last thing I wanted was to watch them fuck against the wall.
“What you want me to say to you? I can talk as dirty as any guy.”
“Ugh . . . if you have to ask it’s not sexy. And Demon’s voice when he speaks to her is like a low growl—like he’s the lion and she’s the prey. Now that’s sexy as fuck.”
She hooked her legs around his waist. “I’m going to fuck you raw bitch,” he said which only made her giggle. Seconds later, the sound of wet kissing, bodies pounding and heavy groans followed. It sounded as if he was making good on his promise.