THE DEVIL’S BABY

by Naomi West

  Shocked, I backed away from the bookshelves. And as I did, my foot caught on something, and I fell backward onto my rear. I scanned the floor to see just what had caused my fall. It was a slat of the wood floor that wasn’t flush with the rest; it looked as though it’d been removed recently. I crawled towards it and pried it up. It easily lifted, and once it was removed I looked down at that area it’d been hiding.

  It was the small space beneath the house, and down in it were more drugs than I’d ever seen in one place, even in the movies. And around the drugs were small wooden boxes filled to the brim with weapons. It was worse than I’d ever imagined. Not only had Dakin taken over my home, he’d turned it into a base of operations for just about every seedy enterprise that he had a finger in.

  But before I could consider the matter for too much longer, I heard the door to my bedroom open.

  “Hey girl!” shouted Dakin. “Where you at?”

  My blood ran cold and my heart pounded. I scanned the room for anything I could use to defend myself. I considered the books, but there was no way I’d be able to fight him off for long with those. And before I could form a plan, Dakin appeared at the door leading from the study to the bathroom.

  “There you are, missy,” he said, unsteady on his feet, a hungry, animal look in his eyes. “Come here—I’m gonna get what I almost paid half a mil for.”

  He had one thing on his mind, and it was clear as day what it was. Luckily, he seemed to be on one drug or another, so he didn’t appear to be at his full strength. But I was sure he’d still be able to overpower me.

  “See you found the stash,” he said, his eyes on the opened slats and the exposed books. “Maybe I’ll let you take a little sample of the good stuff once we’ve, ah, consummated this little relationship of ours.”

  “We don’t have a ‘relationship,’ you pig,” I said. “You’re nothing to me.”

  I didn’t know where those words were coming from. It was like I had some kind strength that I’d never before possessed. I was almost shocked to hear the words come out of my mouth.

  And so was Dakin. His eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “Got a little more spirit than I remember you having,” he said, moving towards me. “Good. I like a girl with a little spunk.”

  Despite his intoxication, he closed the distance between the two of us in a split second. He grabbed me by the upper arms and shoved me against the bookshelves. I cried out in pain as the shelves dug into my back.

  “Now, I’m gonna make this real clear,” he said, his breath hot on my face as I winced my eyes shut. “I’m gonna take what I want, and you’re not gonna do a damn thing about it. You can make this easy, or you can make it rough. Either way, you’re mine—now and forever.”

  I think he wanted me to submit, but the strength emerged once again. Instead of collapsing into a weeping, scared ball, I lunged forward, my mouth wide open. Like some kind of savage beast, I sank my teeth into the muscles of Dakin’s bare shoulder, my mouth filling with the coppery taste of blood.

  “Ah!” he shouted, stepping back and looking at the ragged bite on his shoulder. “You goddamn … bitch!”

  I spit out the blood in my mouth and prepared for a fight. Dakin stood across from me with murder in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if he wanted to rape me or just kill me out of anger. Either way, I wasn’t going down without a fight. Dakin squared his shoulders and prepared to do his worst.

  But before he could, a series of bangs sounded out from somewhere outside of the house. Dakin ran to the window to see what was going on, and as he did, a pounding thudded from the door leading into the study.

  “Dakin!” called out the voice on the other side. “Open up!”

  Dakin rushed to the door and pulled it open, revealing a very worried-looking biker.

  “What the fuck is going on?” demanded Dakin, his hand covering the wound I’d given him.

  “It’s … the Warhawks!” said the man, panic gripping his voice. “They’re attacking!”

  A small glimmer of joy alighted in my heart.

  Tank was here for me. And he was going to make sure Dakin and all the rest paid the price.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tank

  The boys and I weren’t fucking around one bit. Oslo and a smaller squad of men who could shoot the straightest managed to fire a couple of clean shots at the men on the front lawn. They dropped like sacks of wet dough, and just like that we cut the numbers of Dakin’s crew by a fourth. This gave away our approach, but by the time they were able to get their shit together and cobble together a defensive effort, we were already tearing ass up to the house in our bikes like a squad of horse-mounted Huns.

  The house grew larger and larger by the second, and I could see Dakin’s men forming up in the windows to take potshots at us. I breathed a small sigh of relief as the defense formed up and I realized that our gamble had paid off—Dakin’s numbers were low, and they didn’t appear to be expecting any kind of attack.

  The crisp crack of rifle fire cut through the roar of our engines, but taking out moving targets like us would be hard enough for a squad of Army Rangers, let alone a liquored-up crew of roughneck bikers. Not a shot of theirs hit home, and the main thrust of the attack, a spear point with me at the tip, pulled onto the front yard of the house. Off to the sides, I spotted Oslo’s crew on one end, the squad led by Bowie on the other. They were lying in wait, the pincer attack to the offensive.

  Dakin’s boys fired a couple of blind shots off at us from the windows; not a single one hit its mark. I watched as one of the boys hopped off his bike, pulled out his sidearm, took aim, and fired a pair of shots all in the same fluid motion—some real action movie shit. The pair of shots hit home, and one of Dakin’s thugs came tumbling out of the window, landing on the grass with a sick thud.

  One down.

  Dakin’s crew poured out of the front door and swarmed around the sides of the house, all roaring with rage as they joined the fight. It was too dark to get a good count, but I was sure that there had to be a couple of dozen—about an even fight.

  Too bad they didn’t have a fraction of the discipline that my boys did. Not even their advantage in firepower could make up for that.

  Soon, the fight was on in full force. Dakin’s men had no tactics of any kind, aside from trying to swarm us. Stupid move, since their biggest advantage was the distance they could get with their rifles. If they had any sense, they’d have had men posted on lookout

  Oh well, I thought as I drove my fist into one of Dakin’s thugs, his boy crumpling underneath my blow, their loss is our gain.

  We fought hard, the hand-to-hand combat sounding all around me. Dakin’s men were dropping, but more swarmed out of the front door. Not many, but enough to keep us on our toes. Once they joined the fight, I realized that it was time for Oslo and the rest to come to our aid. I shoved my hand into my pocket and send off the pre-written text to Oslo. Moments later, I heard the revving of engines from both sides of us. The headlights of the two groups closed in, wild whooping sounding out along with the roar of the engines. Dakin’s men were taken by total surprise, and Oslo and the rest piled off their bikes and rushed in on the two flanks. It looked like the plan was going to work.

  But before I could get too carried away, a series of bangs sounded out from inside the house, explosions that shattered the windows of the house. The attention of all the men was seized for a moment. Looking in through the window, I saw the dancing form of fires that’d broken out. Dakin wasn’t in the fight, so I knew it had to be him.

  Star … I thought, realizing that she had to be in there with him.

  “Oslo!” I shouted out, getting his attention in the middle of the fight. “You take over out here! I’m going in!”

  Oslo nodded in understanding before dropping his fist down on the head of one of Dakin’s men.

  I ran through the front door, the heat from the flames already warming my skin. Smoke began to pool above me.

  Daki
n, you insane fuck. What did you do?

  I rushed through the house, scanning the place for any sign of Star or Dakin.

  “Star!” I shouted. “Where are you?”

  “I’m he—”

  Her cry was cut off, and my heart began to pound. I swore that if Dakin so much as laid a hand on her he was a fucking dead man.

  I kicked open a shut door, which revealed a bedroom that looked to belong to a teenage girl.

  Must be Star’s room, I thought.

  I cut through the room and emerged in a study. Flames had begun to circle the room, and in the center of it all were Dakin and Star. Dakin’s forearm was crossed over Star’s neck as he held her close; a gun in his hand was pressed against her temple.

  “Dakin, you crazy fuck!” I shouted. “Let her go now! This place is gonna burn to the ground around us!”

  “So what if it does!” he shouted. “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you take what’s rightfully mine—the guns, the drugs, or the woman!”

  Star struggled against Dakin, but his grip was just too strong. But if I didn’t do something, and fast, this little inferno that Dakin had started would snuff us all out.

  Right at that moment, when I thought all was lost, Star calmed herself and made eye contact with me. I drew her attention to my hand, where I held up three fingers.

  Then two.

  Then one.

  She knew just what I had in mind.

  Right when my hand clenched into a fist, indicating “zero,” Star pulled her arm forward and then back, the hard tip of her crooked elbow driving hard into Dakin’s gut. His eyes went wide and the air rushed from his lungs as the blow connected. His muscles loosened up enough that Star was able to wriggle free of his grasp. And as this all went down I dropped into a crouch, pulling my buck knife out of my boot. I switched it open and with a flick of my wrist, whipped the knife at Dakin. The blade hit home, punching through the leather covering his upper shoulder and driving deep into his skin.

  “Fuck!” he shouted out.

  Star ran to my side, but before she made it halfway, she stopped as if thinking of something, and ran back.

  “Star!” I shouted, the wood of the house cracking and smoking around us, the flames growing hotter by the second. “We don’t have time for this!”

  Star squatted down and grabbed something off of the floor. I didn’t have a chance to see what it was before she tucked it under her shirt and ran to my side.

  “You ain’t goin’ anywhere!” shouted Dakin, pulling the knife from his shoulder with a hard jerk. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you both!”

  Dakin started into a dash, but before he could, the ceiling above him gave way with a deafening splintering crash, like a huge tree was being felled. The ceiling collapsed on him, the flaming debris pinning him in place.

  He was done.

  I grabbed Star by the wrist and led her out of the doomed home, the smoke stinging my eyes. Seconds later we crashed through the front door. Both of us collapsed on the front lawn in a fit of coughing.

  “We gotta move!” shouted Oslo. “That house is going down!”

  I turned, and sure enough, he was right. The house groaned and cracked as the fire ripped through it. My lungs burned like hell from the smoke, but we didn’t have time to sit around and recover. I grabbed Star and threw her over my shoulder, barking out to my men to grab any of Dakin’s crew who still lived and get them out of the area. They complied. Minutes later, just when we all got far enough away from the house, the thing gave way. With a massive cracking noise, it collapsed in on itself.

  I set Star down, I saw that her eyes were wet with tears, the reflection of the house burning to the ground in each of her eyes.

  “Houses can be rebuilt,” I said.

  She nodded in understanding. Then she struggled to her feet, placing her head on my shoulder as we watch the house burn.

  We were safe. That was all that mattered. Now it was time to get the hell out of here.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Star

  Tank’s lips felt like heaven on the nape of my neck. I could barely stand how good he felt—not just his kiss, but all of him. He raised himself over me, and I couldn’t help but let my eyes drift over to thick, tanned muscles.

  Goddamn, he was sexy.

  “Goddamn, you’re sexy,” he said, looking down at me with those killer eyes of his.

  I couldn’t help but let out a little giggle.

  “Now what’s so damn funny?” he said, his sexy lips forming a smirk.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Great minds think alike, you know?”

  The grin stayed on his face as he grabbed onto his cock and slid it slowly into me. As I always did when he entered me, I took in a sharp gasp of air. It didn’t matter how many times Tank and I made love, that first thrust of his cock into me was always heavenly beyond compare.

  “How’s that feel, baby?” he asked, moving slowly in and out of me, his eyes fixed on mine.

  “So good,” I said as I wrapped my legs around his hips. “So goddamn good.”

  He lowered himself again, covering my collarbone and breasts in kisses, paying special attention to my nipples, as he always did. And I loved it.

  Tank’s thrusts grew more intense as we made love, and I beckoned him with my legs around his waist and my hands on the sublime curves of his ass to keep going, to not even think about stopping. And just as always, he knew just the right way to enter me over and over. He seemed to have a sixth sense for making love, to be able to pick up on the subtle cues of my body, from the way I breathed to how hard I squeezed him. I never had to tell him how to make love to me. Somehow, he just knew.

  And I couldn’t get enough.

  Right on cue, his slow, deliberate thrusts began to speed up into quick, shallow jabs. I moaned and sighed as he worked, my hands moving up along the hard lines of his body. He felt as though he were carved out of stone, and the sensation of his perfect body on my fingertips sometimes felt like all I needed to move closer and closer to orgasm.

  But the way he moved in me was such a nice little bonus.

  Soon Tank was laying into me hard, plunging down with the deep, full pounds that I needed to cum.

  “You gonna come for me, baby?” he asked, not breaking his rhythm in the slightest.

  “Yeah,” I moaned. “Just keep going like that. Please don’t stop.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said with a smirk.

  He was a god in bed, and I could tell by his little smirks that he knew damn well just how he could make me feel whenever he wanted it.

  Tank continued to pound me hard, bucking his hips into me over and over. I tried to hold back, to savor the feeling of the build-up just a little longer, but Tank was just too damn good. I came hard, my fingers digging into his firm flesh as he plunged into me.

  Tank’s orgasm wasn’t too long after, and with a heave and a groan, he emptied himself into me. Once we were both spent, Tank collapsed next to me. We lay like that in the lovely afterglow, taking sweet pleasure in simply lying next to one another. My eyes moved around the spacious interior of Tank’s bedroom; I still had a hard time believing that I was here.

  It’d been two weeks since the incident at my old home, and I was only now finding myself beginning to think that I could move past it. Being taken by Dakin had been awful, and I thanked God that I’d had a man like Tank to come to my aid. Thanks to him, not only were he and I safe, but they had lost not a single member of the Warhawks during the assault on the house. Only Dakin and a handful of his men had been killed. The rest of his crew, with Dakin’s leadership now gone, scattered to the winds. They must’ve figured that being spared by Tank was the second chance to end all second chances, and got out while the getting was good.

  The Warhawks quickly filled the power vacuum, and Tank was able to solidify his control on the area. Over the course of the last two weeks, the leaders of just about every gang in the region requested a meeting with him, letting him know tha
t the recognized the authority of the Warhawks. Tank was a little peeved at missing out on the opportunity of the arms deal with Dakin, but with Dakin out of the way, he stood to make even more money than he would’ve working with Dakin for years. And the rest of the gangs in the area were more than happy to have a psycho like Dakin out of the picture.

  Tank tried to keep me away from business matters, but from what I heard, the Warhawks were poised to become one of the most powerful gangs in the state. “King Tank,” some of the leaders from the other gang were calling him, partially as a joke, but partially as an understanding that a man like Tank had what it took to have all the power he wanted.