by Franca Storm
And we weren’t leaving here until every single one left standing was put to ground.
“You got this?” I asked Finn, scrutinizing him.
I’d asked him that over and over for the last couple of weeks.
“Yeah,” he assured me, just like he had every time I’d put it out there.
Still, now we were here, seconds away from taking those bastards out, I had to make sure Finn weren’t having second thoughts. He’d made a deal with himself to stay away from all the killing and here we were about to carry out a massacre. It messed with his head when he let that darkness in. I’d thought about leaving him behind a number of times since he’d found out about everything with Knox and Hammer, but he knew these fuckers better than anybody. His expertise was needed on this mission. It overrode any risk that he posed. I just hoped like hell that he’d live up to it and could hold it together through it all. Otherwise, we were both fucked.
Sucking in a centering breath, I readied my gun, then inched open the door.
I pushed through, Finn flanking me, walking out onto a catwalk that spanned the length of the main room of the warehouse. There was a set of stairs at either end. It was a good vantage point, the only area not visible was the closed office door over by the rear wall.
We took in the sight of three of the team members sleeping on cots below, down for the count. There were three missing. I made an educated guess that Hammer was holed up in the office, likely with Knox. Maybe the other team member who we’d seen patrolling outside earlier was in there with them too. We’d know soon enough.
“All right, you head east. Plant the explosives. I’ll take out those three. Then we move together on the rest,” I whispered to Finn.
He gave me a chin lift, then took off down the steps to my left.
I went right, hauling ass down the ladder.
Moving soundlessly, I closed in on the three sleeping disgraced soldiers.
Taking aim, my finger brushing the trigger, I was about to start blowing each one of them away when an alarm went off, somebody’s phone alarm clock.
Come on!
It had the one closest to me jolting awake. He reached over and switched his phone off.
And that was when he saw me.
“Hey!” he yelled.
His shouting woke up the other two and they snapped into action in split seconds.
So, we were gonna do this the hard way then.
They launched themselves at me.
I slammed my boot into the gut of the first one who reached me, kicking him back hard. It sent him crashing into one of the cots. He recovered quick, though, pushing back to a stable position.
But the second one was on me before I could do anything about it.
He launched into a rapid-fire series of blows. Kicks, chops, punches. He was hella fast. But so was I. I’d trained guys like him, for fuck’s sakes.
I met him blow for blow, then managed to get in an uppercut to his jaw that had him wavering and dropping his fists. It was all I needed to take him down.
That was made way more difficult than it should’ve been as I sensed an approach from behind me. The third guy. I spun out of the way. Grabbing hold of the second one, I used my hold on his arm as leverage to spin him around and force him into the third. They slammed into each other brutally hard, losing their balance as they collapsed on top of each other.
They wouldn’t be down for long, though. These guys were well-trained. A bit of pain and a setback wouldn’t stop them.
The first one came at me before I could catch my breath. He jumped into a flying kick. I threw my arm up to block it and grunted as it made contact, the heel of his boot scraping across my forearm. It drew blood and as soon as he noticed, it seemed to spur him on, because his eyes flashed and he snarled.
He launched into another series of kicks.
I held him off, then finally got the shot to dodge a roundhouse from him. Using the opportunity, I swept my leg at his ankles, ripping him off his feet.
As he was going down, I fired off a kill shot, his body nothing more than a corpse by the time it connected with the concrete.
Before I could get off another at the remaining soldiers, one of them grabbed my shooting arm, twisted, and fought to shove it up my back trying to break it.
I kicked the other one back, but he recovered quick and came at me again, punching me in the face. One. Twice. Another plunged into my gut. I grunted, but wouldn’t let up on my hold on my gun. I kicked at the guy behind me, missing on the first try as he dodged out of the way. But, even as the guy in front of me didn’t let up on his brutal beating, I forced myself to focus on the one holding me, on breaking his grip before he was able to use my own weapon against me.
Finally, I managed to hook his knee. I pulled hard and his grip loosened. It was enough for me to spin in his hold and swipe at his throat with a vicious chop that had him choking furiously.
I fired a shot into his chest, hitting his heart dead-on. He stilled and slapped his hand over the wound. As he went down, dropping to his knees, I turned and shot the other guy right in the throat. Blood spurted wildly. He clutched frantically at the wound. There was no hope. I’d severed an artery. He’d die fast.
I scanned the carnage, waiting until I was sure they were all dead, no chance of recovery.
Satisfied, I staggered away, bloodied and bruised. Thanks to a shitload of adrenaline, all that was pushed into the background, as I focused on the life-and-death shit still ahead.
Or, so I thought, until the office door flew open and Finn strolled on out.
His eyes were dead, his gun held tight at his side and as I looked past him into the office, I saw a body ripped apart inside, dead to the world. The soldier who’d been patrolling earlier.
“Explosives are set,” Finn reported in a clipped, all-business tone.
Yeah, he was in his killer mode right now, all his emotions locked down, his only focus the mission.
“Hammer and Knox are still unaccounted for, though,” he added, rapidly scanning the main floor for any sign of them. “I searched the office for any clues on where they’re at, but there weren’t any leads.”
“They ain’t come this way,” I told him.
My earpiece buzzed and I tapped to answer. “Go ahead.”
Deviant’s voice came down the line. “We’ve got a present for you.”
“One?”
“Yeah, Hammer.”
“What about Knox?”
“He wasn’t in there with you guys?”
“No.” Fuck. “Keep Hammer there. We’ll be right out. He’s gotta know where his client’s at.”
***
I was gonna lose my shit.
We had to get the fuck outta here.
We’d dropped a load of bodies.
We’d blown their warehouse to hell.
And we were outside in the fucking open trying to reason with a madman.
Finn pistol-whipped Hammer across the side of the head again, drawing blood and a grunt from him as his head snapped to the side and he wavered on his feet.
We had his hands cuffed behind his back, the four of us surrounding him.
The asshole weren’t going nowhere.
Hell, he weren’t gonna get outta here alive.
Problem was, he knew that, and it meant he had no incentive to talk.
He glared at Finn and laughed maniacally. “I thought I taught you better than this. You know this isn’t the optimal way to torture somebody. This is nothing. What’s the matter, Finn, are you so afraid of your own fucked-up darkness that you can’t do what needs to be done here? I mean, lives are on the line and you’re actually holding back. You’ve gone soft.” He hissed, “It’s sickening.”
Keeping his focus on the mission, Finn blew past his toxic words and demanded, “Where is Knox Price?”
“You did a good job keeping off the grid. None of us knew you were alive. We all figured you’d died along with the other four that night.” His eyes narrowed. �
��And you should have. It was what you deserved for fucking us over. You put a target on our backs, turned us into the hunted just because you didn’t like the way we’d started going about doing things. The efficient way, the only way to get things done. The world isn’t perfect and Nemesis knew that and worked with it, bending it to its will. For the greater good. But, instead of seeing that, you sold us out, reported us and ruined, not only our careers, but our lives. Because of you, we’ve been living in shit, hiding, forced into the dark.”
“Enough!” I thundered. “You got one last chance to answer the goddamn question.”
“You’re gonna blow me away either way.”
“The fucked-up choices you’ve made have seen to that.”
“You never should’ve come here, Tate.”
“Was that a threat?” Deviant demanded. “You’re in no position to do anything to anybody.”
“I’m not, no.” He grinned maliciously. “But I’m not the only one left, am I?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Anarchy barked.
Me and Finn exchanged a look.
A fresh wave of adrenaline shot through me as a brutal feeling took me over.
Something was wrong, real fucking wrong.
I caught Hammer straining to look behind him at his cuffed hands, trying to see his watch.
“What are you waiting on?”
“Nothing anymore. I’ve bought him enough time now.”
“Who?” Finn pressed. “Knox?”
Another sickening, unhinged laugh burst from the maniac. His eyes found mine and the dark, knowing look in them had me tensing up big time.
“It’s a shame, really. Tragic, just like your whole life story, Tate. All this time and effort spent tracking us down and Knox still slips through your fingers. Spartan, the big, bad president of Iron Kings. You’ve built one hell of a rep. You’ve come a long way. But you still can’t protect everyone. You see, life ain’t predictable. You can formulate all the strategies you want, but all it takes is a wild card throwing themselves into the mix and all that careful planning ends up meaning shit.”
“Shut the fuck up and get to it!” Finn barked, driving Hammer to his knees with a hefty blow to his gut.
Hammer glared up at him. “You aren’t gonna be safe any longer after tonight. Not after Tate loses his shit and fucking well breaks.” His gaze shifted to me and he smirked nastily as he told me, “You were so concerned with tracking us, that you didn’t stop to consider that we were tracking you too. You think you can step outside your club’s borders without us knowing about it? We know about Ricky’s, that contractor, and the girl. Daniella Moore. Also known as your Old Lady.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Knox should be meeting her any minute now actually. I can’t tell you how much he’s been looking forward to it.”
“Motherfucker!” I roared.
A shot rang out, blowing through his skull, killing him instantly.
He dropped, his lifeless eyes still glaring my way as he hit the ground with a nasty thud.
Finn blew out a breath, then lowered his gun. “Shit,” he said, eyeing me worriedly.
“Spartan—” Deviant started.
I shook my head. There weren’t no time for a discussion.
All I could manage was a croak, “Gotta go.”
It was all a blur as I bolted for the truck.
Dani!
29
~Daniella~
NOTHING.
No suspicious sounds or movements.
No signs whatsoever that anything untoward was going down.
Well, aside from the missing protection detail, of course.
That was worrying.
But maybe it hadn’t been what we’d assumed. It could’ve been something totally normal and pedestrian. Maybe we were just freaking out and being overly paranoid because of the awful mission that the guys were on tonight.
Either way, there’d been no attack, no home invasion.
Nothing at all.
An hour had passed since we’d barricaded ourselves into my downstairs bathroom.
“Are you all right?” Sky asked me from where she was perched on the edge of the bathtub.
I’d been pacing relentlessly for the last ten minutes, unable to return to my seat on the toilet seat. The truth was that I wasn’t all right and the longer we spent in here, the worse I was getting. It was a struggle to hold it together and to swallow down a full-blown panic.
This bathroom was the very room that I’d retreated to after Don had stabbed me. I’d climbed out through the window above the toilet. I could still see remnants of my own blood staining the sill. It was threatening to bring forth an onslaught of memories from that awful night. It was bad enough that my subconscious was going there most every night, without it now also being triggered in my waking hours.
Urgh. Why had I thought that coming back here wouldn’t impact me?
I’d been a fool, overexcited about getting my life back.
I couldn’t deny it any longer, though.
The house was tainted.
And, right now, it seemed it was also cursed.
“I’ll be okay,” I assured her. “It’s just… this isn’t the first time I’ve been attacked here.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“I just wanted to get back to my life and I didn’t want to dwell on what’d happened. I didn’t want to be a—”
“Victim?”
“Exactly,” I said, smiling at her getting it.
“You know, Dani, it doesn’t make you any less of a strong person to admit that it makes you uncomfortable being here in this house now. And getting your life back doesn’t mean things have to be exactly as they were beforehand. Moving forward can mean moving beyond it, beyond this house and accepting a new version of yourself.”
She was impressively astute. “Thank you. I—”
A loud thud silenced me and had the both of us stilling.
We heard it again, this time, followed by a crash.
It sounded like it’d come from the front door.
Heavy, booted footsteps followed, confirming just that.
Someone was storming into my home!
Pressing her finger to her lips, Sky quietly rose to her feet, training her gun on the bathroom door.
I snatched a pair of scissors off the sink base and readied myself too.
“Daniella!” a voice called out. “Come out and show yourself. I wanna see who Spartan’s been stupid enough to make his new Old Lady. He’s really fucked you over, doll. Signed your death sentence! I killed the first one, I’ll kill you and the next and the next, until he finally gives up and damn well breaks! Ain’t nothing personal to you. You’re just collateral damage. Tell you what, you come out now and save me this hide-and-seek bullshit and I’ll kill you quick.”
Knox.
Everything being said pointed to him.
The psychotic, disgraced former MC president was in my home vowing to kill me.
I swallowed down my panic and kept my focus on the only thing that truly mattered right now.
Survival.
His footsteps started to fade away. He was moving away from our location.
Sky and I remained stock-still and silent for a little while more, until we were certain he’d moved far enough away.
“He must be searching the house. Top down is usually the way to go,” Sky whispered.
“The window,” I whispered back. “Let’s go before he comes back.”
She nodded, flipped the safety on her gun, then holstered it.
I pulled a stool out from under the sink and shoved it under the window. “Go,” I pushed.
She hesitated for a moment, clearly worried about going first.
“You’re in this mess right now because of me,” I whispered to her.
She rolled her eyes. “No one’s to blame for this, but that maniac.”
“Please,” I pressed, urgently signaling at the window.
Sh
e sighed in resignation and hurried onto the stool. She pushed open the window, then hauled herself up and climbed through. I heard her feet hit the ground on the other side, the east side of the house.
I was ready to follow suit when those hefty booted steps sounded again. They were moving rapidly this time, coming really fast.
In the next moment, the bathroom door flew open violently, ripping off its hinges in the process.
I jolted, a squeal tearing from me as the guy I’d seen in Spartan’s case photos stood there eyeing me triumphantly.
Knox Price in the flesh.
I tightened my grip on the scissors in my right hand.
His eyes strayed to them as he fingered his gun and he grinned. “You ain’t like Andrea one bit, are you, doll? You got some fire to you. You know, she begged for her life? But you ain’t gonna do that, are you? Gonna fight for it.”
I just glared at him.
To my surprise, he holstered his gun. “So, have at it then. Fight for it. I’ll give you a shot.”
He was a sick bastard, making a game out of killing someone. He was beyond a maniac, that description couldn’t hope to cover the extent of it.
He was a merciless monster.
“Doing this won’t solve anything,” I told him, finally finding my voice.
“It will for me.”
“Why can’t you just leave him alone?”
His face twisted with rage. “Me? I’m here, because he couldn’t leave me alone! All he had to do was keep away and let me go to ground. But he tracked me instead, kept on coming!”
“You think killing me is going to remedy that? He’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
“And it’ll destroy him, break him. He’ll neglect the club, everything, and lose it all. So, either way, I win in the end.”
“You’re sick.”
“Yeah, I am. It’s why I always come out on top. I do what I gotta, no hesitation.” He stepped further into the room. “Let’s see if you’re gonna do the same.”