Savage Kind of Love

by Nicole Snow

  Blaze stiffened, gun in hand. “Watch it, asshole.”

  “This is a fucking trick. I got a real good feeling I'm looking at Mom's killer right now. Devils always were manipulative pricks.”

  Blaze reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. I wondered what he was doing, especially as he flipped it open and dialed.

  “What the fuck?” Jordan took the words right out of my mouth.

  “You don't believe me. Fine. But I think you'll believe it when you hear it from the horse's mouth.”

  Jordan's face went white.

  “Fang? It's Blaze. Missoula. Look, I know this isn't the standard procedure with Throttle and all, but right now I don't give a fuck. I've got a valuable lead on your renegades and I need you to tell this piece of shit with me that his boys aren't real Grizzlies anymore. Yeah? Here you go.”

  Blaze pushed the phone aggressively to my brother's ear. Jordan's jaw dropped, and I heard a low, sinister sounding voice flowing through the speaker.

  “Yeah...yeah...Jesus Christ. I didn't...know. Work with this asshole?” Long pause. “You're sure about this?”

  The conversation dragged on. My brother looked like he wanted to puke. Who could blame him?

  Jordan iced up and stopped responding. I had to lean in close to find out when the call ended.

  “How 'bout that? You believe me now?”

  “Fucking monsters...I'll...I'll kill them all myself.”

  Never thought I'd welcome such evil words. Blaze lowered his gun, this time for good, and stepped to the other side of the room to let his guys know what was going on. Just in time too because Reb and Roller came thundering through the door.

  “Welcome home, Jordan. It's not too late. You'll be okay.”

  I hugged him tight. He was too dazed and sick to hug me back, but I saw pain and promise in his eyes, the same determination I'd shown Blaze a hundred times.

  He wanted the men who did this dead as badly as I did. If that gave him a reason to clean up and live, then it was good enough for me.

  Jordan never moved. Blaze and his men surrounded us. He had them pick my brother up and carry him into Mom's old room like a piece of wood.

  I listened to the intense shouts through the door for the next full hour. Each time my brother got pissy or came close to blubbering, Blaze roared, giving him no mercy until he had everything he needed.

  Harsh, but necessary.

  Their voices grew quieter toward the end. More guys rolled in, Tank and Moose, giving me quick nods of recognition as they stood like sentinels near the front door.

  I jumped when the bedroom door burst open. Blaze and the others filed out. The hellish determination on his face chilled me to the core, but only for a second.

  The longer I stared at it, the more I heated. First with desire, and then with shame for thinking wanton thoughts at a time like this. Sometimes, I hated Blaze almost as much as I loved him.

  His rough expression proved beyond any doubt that my panties got wet for a monster, even if it was a monster who funneled his rage in the right places.

  Blaze was talking to the guys near the edge of the living room in a low, firm tone. I didn't want to interrupt. I got up off the couch and began creeping toward the bedroom when his eyes locked on me.

  “Where do you think you're going, baby?” He stepped past his brothers, breaking up the circle that had formed around their leader.

  “I need to see Jordan...is he all right?”

  “Honestly, I don't trust your fucking brother as far as I can throw him. You leave him to us, baby. We'll figure something out. Gotta check in and verify what he's given us isn't bullshit.”

  I steadied myself. It took a lot to muster up the energy to meet his wild gaze without flinching.

  “He gave you what you wanted, didn't he? I get it. He needs to be in your custody. I can live with that.” I swallowed. “But Blaze, I need to try to help him. He's my brother. At least let me do what I can to do get him clean.”

  Blaze's lips twisted. I watched them pull at his face in frustration, his eyes piercing straight through me with the devastating heat he carried as his trademark.

  I should've been used to it by now, but I wasn't. The same chills swept through me, pulsing with defiance, fear, and desire simultaneously.

  “Fine. Take this fuck to a pharmacy and get him what he needs.” He watched my eyes grow wide. “Don't think I'm letting you go alone. You and your bro aren't getting out of my sight for a single second.”

  He snapped his fingers and slowly turned to his guys. “Moose, Reb, Roller. Follow Saffron to the pharmacy and make sure they both get to the clubhouse after that. Tank and I'll meet you back there tonight for church. Call in all the brothers. We've got to move fast before his buddies know he rolled on them.”

  Blaze turned away. I smiled and nodded in his direction, and then walked toward the dark bedroom.

  “Wait!” he said at the last second, crossing the room to me. “Give me that gun. Gotta get you some shooting lessons, babe. Until then, the guys with you are gonna be the only ones packing heat so you don't take somebody's fucking head off.”

  I smiled sheepishly. Only took me a second to hand him the weapon and unhook the holster. Then he nodded, freeing me to continue on my way.

  God, it still smelled just like Mom in the old room still, even when it was stripped bare. All the years she'd suffered and hurt in here left its stench like angry phantoms.

  My heart cracked when I saw Jordan sitting on the dusty spot where her bed used to be. His head was pressed tight into his hands. It hurt to see a big man in a near fetal position – especially when he was my own flesh and blood.

  I rested one hand gently on his shoulder. He didn't move, even when I crouched, sinking next to him.

  “Hey...it's going to be okay. The worst is over now. Let's go get you some food and plenty of water, Jordan. I'll see about getting you off this crap tomorrow. I'm here.”

  I reached for his hands and squeezed. Slowly, he lowered them, and I held my shock when I saw how bad he really looked.

  He'd been tortured. Not by the Devils, but by his own mind and body, traitors who'd sent him straight for hell while he was alive.

  “I fucked up,” he said, voice like rustling leaves. “Best thing you can do is let me die in peace, sis. I'm never gonna live this down...never gonna feel a working brain in my fucking head ever again.”

  “Not true.” I squeezed his fingers harder. “It's going to be hard, no BS. But we can get you whole again, brother. Let's try.”

  He looked at me for a long time with his dead, sad eyes. Then he jerked away, shaking his head.

  “I'm poison. Mom saw it before anybody else. Why can't you? Stay the fuck away from me before something horrible happens, sis.”

  My heart nosedived. I wanted to throw my hands around his neck and hug and cry, but we were way passed that.

  If he had a chance, I needed to rehabilitate him gradually. He wasn't kidding. Jordan had brought me a lot of pain and his club destroyed our family. But I wasn't giving up.

  This wasn't unforgivable or irreversible, not the way it had seemed at first. As long as he was breathing, he'd always be my big brother, no matter how fucked in the head he was. If I could un-fuck him, just a little, then there was hope.

  Maybe I was being stupid, crazy, naive. But when your junkie brother is shivering beneath you like a sick animal, lost and helpless, you'd be a bitch to turn away. Mom's murder ripped through my heart, killing distant parts even Blaze or Jordan would never bring back to life, but it wasn't all gone.

  I had my family and my future. Becoming Blaze's old lady was a stark reminder. As long as I was breathing, I wasn't giving up, no matter how dark or hopeless or impossible it seemed.

  “Come on,” I whispered, taking one of his hands in both mine and pulling. He stood on shaky legs. “Let's get the hell out of this miserable place. We'll remember the good times with her. We don't need to remember this, and you know it.”

>   I waved in a half-circle, taking one more deep breath of the stagnant, sickly air in the old apartment. It was the last time I'd smell my family's pain in this hellhole, and I didn't miss it one bit.

  “Let's get this done. Blaze doesn't want us away from the clubhouse too long with him hanging around.” Moose pointed at my brother.

  “Gotcha.” I smiled politely.

  I tried to move fast, practically dragging Jordan along with me by the hand. Whatever had broken in his head caused him to revert to a child-like state since we'd climbed into the car.

  The pharmacy was weirdly empty and it wasn't that late. I saw a long line of people waiting at the register with nobody behind it.

  I started to throw things in my little basket while our bodyguards hit the bathroom and went for snacks. Didn't help that I was totally ignorant about how to help my brother. I needed to call Emma for some real advice.

  I went down the aisles, adding aspirin, food, and plenty of tissues and toilet paper to the basket. Jordan took several big gallons of distilled water in his arms when I pushed them into his hands.

  Before we'd left, Blaze said something about him being burned out. Crystal, weed, and God knows what else circulated in his system, frying his nerves.

  Crap. Will this be enough to do anything?

  I took one last inventory of the stuff in my cart. No clue, but it was better than nothing.

  The line had only grown longer when we got to the front to checkout. We stood next to the guys, and Reb was the first to turn and look at me, his brow furrowed.

  “This is bullshit.”

  Moose overheard him. “Everybody wants to stand here like goddamned cattle. There's gotta be somebody in this drugstore to ring us up.”

  The guys took off looking for an employee. I followed behind them, making sure Jordan stayed close. We couldn't have gone more than thirty steps to the other side of the store where the little pharmacy window waited.

  When I looked back, my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

  My brother was gone.

  “Shit!” I froze, and the guys whipped around to find out why I was cursing. They joined me with much stronger words when they saw him missing.

  “Fan out. We need to find wherever the fuck he went,” Moose growled, casting a hungry eye at the beef jerky he had in one fist. “Don't have time for this shit.”

  None of us did.

  I stayed by the pharmacy with Roller, gripping my stuff. He grabbed me by the shoulder when I started to move toward the Employee's Only door. I didn't think Jordan would wander back there, but who the hell knew?

  “I'm just trying to find him!” I whined.

  Roller smiled and shook his head. “Not alone, you're not. Let me take the lead.”

  Okay, I could live with that. I followed the tall man through the thick doors. I was so sick with worry and distracted I just let the grinning devil on his cut lead me along.

  In a split second, the horned character on his patch wasn't smiling anymore. It wilted and went down, along with the rest of him. Roller collapsed.

  I spun, and ran right into a hard chest. The stink of bad tobacco and unsavory stuff I couldn't identify hit me.

  “Come on, little girl. Don't make me hit you with the same shit we gave him.” His rough hand covered my mouth. I still tried to scream as I looked at the dirty man towering over me in his leather.

  My eyes went to the ground. A skinny dart was firmly planted in Roller's thigh, right through his jeans.

  I struggled for breath, trying to scream a second time. Big mistake. The man's hand pressed tighter, and my face went over the shoulder.

  Several people were in the corner, their hands behind their backs, gags in their mouths. A couple pharmacists in white coats plus the cashiers were slumped against the wall, knocked out and breathing as shallow as Roller.

  Oh, God. Jordan, if this is you...

  My heart started to pound. Bile churned. Betrayal stung worse than the fear of what was going to happen next. But betrayal didn't make sense. There's no way my brother could've had contact with them since he came to us.

  “Hold her, Twitch. Bitch is hyperventilating all over you. We need to keep this thing swift and silent. I'm gonna give her the shit...”

  His grip relaxed. I jerked around. The same bald, cruel looking man who'd stabbed Tank outside the clubhouse was coming toward us.

  He stepped over Roller's limp body. When he got to me, he looked me up and down, and then snorted.

  “Fuck. I don't see any resemblance. Your mother must've whored herself out plenty to end up with two fuckups who look so different.”

  I shook my head. Couldn't comprehend what he was talking about, and it didn't matter either.

  Jordan was slumped in a puddle of water behind him. One of the jugs had fallen and broken open when they hit him with a dart.

  No, he hadn't betrayed us. He'd been taken too.

  Small consolation. A second later, the bald man shook his head, signaling to more rough looking men near my brother.

  “Believe me, honey, I don't like doing it this way neither. Too bad. Least I'll hear you scream plenty later tonight...”

  He cut me off just before I tried to make another sound. Brutally.

  A thing that looked like a gun went up, and he didn't hesitate. It made a gentle popping sound after he aimed it at my stomach.

  I screamed, thinking I'd been shot. But a bullet would've burned worse, right?

  Sharp pain turned to numbness in less than a second around my tattoo, and everything began to blur.

  I went limp in the brute's arms and felt myself being passed to the bald man, clearly the leader. Then the black tidal wave roaring up in my brain snuffed out all the light. I couldn't feel anything but a great nothing eating my whole universe.

  “Wake up, baby doll. Wake up, cunt.”

  The first time he said it, I hallucinated it was Blaze. I registered the last word slowly, and all my hopes melted.

  Blaze wouldn't ever call me that. Jesus, no.

  My eyes refused to open until something cool and sharp pressed against my neck. The adrenaline my heart pumping to my brain almost caused me to pass out all over again.

  He'd pushed me against a wall in what looked like a dank old cellar. No surprise to see these assholes setting up shop in a bona fide dungeon. Of course, that meant torture was a given, and my brain ran through all the scary possibilities.

  His hand squeezed my neck hard. A little above it, his other hand held a knife to my throat. Pain welled up around the strip of flesh where it was poised so viciously. He could've easily killed me in a single swipe. He stopped just short of cutting into anything vital, deciding to choke me instead.

  “The game's simple, bitch. You answer every question me and Ursa have about the Devils' clubhouse, and we let you walk out of here alive. Damaged goods, for sure, but alive anyway. You get to decide how bad we beat you up, baby doll. Understand?”

  I refused to answer. He started to squeeze tighter. I shook my head, and his bald face turned red, rage and surprise flickering beneath his skin.

  “Irons...don't,” an older voice said behind him. “We need her alive.”

  The bald man – Irons – let me go, falling backward in a huff. He stepped back and I saw the VP patch on his cut. The older man came up to me. He was wearing a PRESIDENT tag on his breast, the same as Blaze.

  “You'd best cooperate. I can't keep his thirst for blood under control forever.” Ursa coughed, cleared his throat, and looked at me with mad, mad eyes, lowering his face to mine. “Here's an easy one: how many men they got? We've counted about six or seven. Is that accurate?”

  I stared dully. The undamaged skin on my neck tingled as blood ran down it in little drips, pooling on my shoulders. I watched and bled, reaching deep inside myself to switch off the fear.

  Unlike Irons, I didn't hesitate. I killed my terror. I thought about Blaze. I thought about Mom. Hell, I even thought about Jordan, wherever he was.

&nbs
p; They can hurt you, but they can't kill you. Only when you give up what they want.

  “Fifty guys,” I spat. “And every one of their cocks is a lot bigger than yours.”

  Several guys on the other side of the room chuckled. Ursa blinked. I expected him to hit me, cut me, or maybe push his old hips between legs.

  Instead, he just stared, a long vacant stare that lasted at least a full minute before he shook his head and turned away.

  “Soften her up,” he told Irons. “This is going to be a long night. Brass is too fucked to crack, so we need to break her wide open.”

  Irons stepped up. The knife was on my throat, pressing with just enough precision to feel its sharpness along the cut it made earlier.

  “You're a brave little bitch,” he said. “I'll give you that. Right now, I'm gonna do you a solid and give you one last chance to answer the Prez like a good girl. Here, maybe this'll help loosen up your tongue...”

  The knife pulled away from my neck. I licked my lips, swallowing more anxiety, and stared right at him as he turned his back.

  Over in the corner, I heard Jordan groan. I saw his boots sticking out at the edge of a table where they'd laid him out.

  Jesus. Did they hurt him, or is he just fucked up from earlier?

  Not a clue. All I knew was that I wasn't giving these fucking bastards anything.

  “”Never,” I whispered hoarsely.

  When Irons finished his circle and faced me again, he was holding something else. Now, he looked really pissed. It was a thick glass whiskey bottle, the same kind I'd held dozens of times tending the bar at the Devils' clubhouse.

  God help me, I flinched when he thrust it in my face. I thought he was ready to smash my skull with it, but he pushed the uncapped bottle to my mouth, shoving the glass behind my tongue.

  “I get it.” Irons snorted. “A nasty cunt like you needs to be loosened up to scream and moan. Here! Drink, bitch!”

  The bottle tipped, and just kept going. Bitter whiskey ripped down my throat in waves.

  Too much. Too fucking much!

  I started to choke, feeling the stuff blasting my throat like sandpaper and burning in my stomach.