Wolf (Black Angels MC Book 2)

by A. E. Fisher

  The second man, the darker haired of the two, stepped out from behind his employer; he was large, muscled, and plain and simple a goon even without his all-black attire. This one I knew wasn’t a part of the Black Jacks or ex-military of any kind, and I was convinced even more so as he rounded the vehicle, popped open the trunk, and dragged from it a man with a black hood over his head, covered in all the prison tattoos, jewelry, and scarring I knew made him ex-Bratva.

  The goon shoved the man at my feet, pulling off the black cloth from over his head.

  Two green-blue bloodshot eyes ringed with dark circles into a face rugged with a partial growth of stubble on his hard jaw and an almost gray, pale skin tone looked back at me. He looked young, but I could tell that was deceptive as my eyes read his tattoos as well, knowing he was of the older world. What surprised me the most, though, was the green snake curling up over his forearm, red beading eyes like rubies over the top of his wrist.

  I felt my blood rush with heat as I put two and two together. “You,” I growled, a red film threatening to descend over me as I realized who this fucker was.

  “A gift for your troubles.” The older man gestured to me, his wrinkled hand pointing down to the guy on the floor.

  The man snarled at me, his eyes feral with aggression to hide the concern for his life lurking behind them. I saw his palms flatten on the floor in front of him despite the ties around his wrist, knowing he was preparing to attack me if I made even a single move toward him.

  But despite the rage wanting to take over, the caution ringing as low as the bells at Perebor I had often heard back home in Russia prevented me from taking my revenge against the bastard for stabbing Anna. They were the bells that rang out during a funeral as a body was carried from the church building to their grave. I couldn’t help but hear them ringing in the back of my mind as the silence continued to stretch between us.

  It was only as I heard the sound of small footsteps beside me that the tension around me snapped.

  I turned to look down at Ash as she shook away Lamb’s grip around her wrist, shaking her head at him. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but stopped with a single look in my direction. He pulled back his hand, his pale brown eyes glowering at the small brunette as she pushed passed him.

  I saw each of the other boys’ bodies stiffen as they all fought against their urge to stop her, but a single glance at my back prevented them from moving.

  Ash continued to step toward me, the small ponytail piled on top of her head swaying with her careful steps as she moved to my side. And then suddenly, she stopped. Her head snapped toward me, mouth parting as a force refused to let her move any further.

  “Wolf,” she said, her head then moving down to her arm, to where my hand was clamped down hard around her tiny, thin forearm.

  Her father’s eyes flashed with annoyance before letting a calmer, confident demeanor take over, waiting.

  “You can't back out now.” Ash’s voice was softer, almost lighthearted, as she said the words to me, but it wasn’t that easy.

  I turned to look at her, making sure that I met her eyes beyond her tinted lenses and held them, desperately trying to see any splinter of emotion that would somehow stop me from doing the one thing I knew would ruin everything for me.

  “She won’t forgive me,” I said, looking at her, watching her expression falter, her soft smile flattened into a small frown. “If I let you go, let you do this, she won’t ever forgive me.”

  “‘Mistakes are forgivable if one has the courage to admit them,’” was all Ash said in return, reaching as she pried loose my hand, my eyebrows scrunching at her words. “It’s Bruce Lee,” she added, then she reached over to her free arm and tapped it. “It’s Anna’s tattoo.”

  Her Elvish tattoo. I had always wondered what it said, but never had the courage to ask her.

  “She had it inked so she would never forgive herself for not saving me sooner,” Ash said, a sad shrug rolling from her shoulders. “Maybe forgiving someone else can help her learn to forgive herself.”

  With that, she walked away from me, her back held straight as she headed toward her deepest fear.

  She paused in front of her father. His hand gripped tense around his cane as he regarded her with a disgusted snarl.

  “Wait.” She paused, her eyes looking up at her father. “How did you find me?”

  I saw her father’s top lip flinch as he slid his glare away from his daughter’s face to mine before looking back down at her. “It was easy,” he growled, flicking his eyes back up to me for a second time. “I’ve been making connections to move over to the US, using motorcycle clubs since they have the connections to the gun, money, and drug movements, but then one of my connections became troublesome.” He paused for a moment, and we all knew who he was talking about.

  Spider.

  “I looked into the clubs he ended up clashing with, in case they would try cause trouble for me later on for interfering, and it’s a good thing I did because I noticed a familiar face.”

  Anna.

  “I finally had my connection to you.” I heard Ash’s hiss as he release his cane, his vice grip clamping down around her arm. “You have never been a disobedient child, but to have murdered your mother and run away? Do you know how many people thought it had been me? How much my reputation suffered from your disobedience?”

  The urge to run in there and pull her out of his grip grew in my chest as his voice rose and his grip tightened on her arm, turning it pale. But the itch on my skin as he went on and on about his reputation and the accusations rather than the death of his wife, the woman he had a child with, was what I had to fight the hardest as it screamed how wrong this all was.

  I heard the sound of movement all around the room before I even realized my feet had taken two steps forward.

  Ash’s father snapped his head toward me, his anger stuttering as he realized we were all still there, and all I could think about was the rage inside me that wanted to tear his throat out. I suddenly didn’t care, just for a second, how he had his hands around the treasured members of our club, still practically in the palm of his hands; all I wanted to do was end him just to end my absolute disgust.

  “You can leave now,” the old man growled, his goon stepping toward me with wide shoulders and closed fists, drawing my attention. I flicked my eyes back to the old man, now making no attempt to hide his glare, daring me to challenge him, knowing I couldn’t afford to when taking down our club would simply be a case of a single phone call. “And don’t forget to take him with you.”

  I looked down at the shivering, ex-Bratva member as he glowered up at me, trying to look as though he wasn’t about to piss himself.

  I looked back to Ash and felt my anger spike.

  Bang.

  Everyone in the room flinched at the snap in tension as guns were raised and pointed, all of them focused on me as I lowered my smoking weapon to my side. The man’s body swayed before it fell backward, blood oozing out of the hole in his skull.

  “You can keep him,” I growled as I looked one last time at the tanned skin of Ash’s back. She didn’t make a single attempt to look back at us as I turned, and with what must have been all the strength I could muster, I forced myself to walk away, my brothers falling into step behind me.

  I didn’t hear the car start up as we exited out the broken door of the warehouse, my body shaking with so much adrenaline and rage that my logical mind was struggling to keep ahold of it.

  Ash’s last words repeated over and over in my head, and despite what she said about Anna forgiving me, I couldn’t stop Anna’s face appearing in my mind. It was her face as she was telling me about her and Ash. The way she lit up as she pointed out the stars. The way she smiled and spun on the grass. The pain on her face as Ash broke her heart.

  My feet sped up over the pavement as I exited into the chilling winter sun and our bikes glinted at me, parked neatly in a row.

  Ash was the daughter of a dark politici
an-controlling family, and sacrificing her had just saved my club. But Anna wouldn’t forgive me. She wouldn’t forgive me for making this huge mistake.

  Mistakes are forgivable if one has the courage to admit them.

  Fuck.

  My feet came to an abrupt stop on the ground, my eyes bearing down into the concrete.

  “Boss?” came Lamb’s tight voice from behind me.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

  “Wolf?” Jasper called a moment later when my silence continued.

  “This is a mistake,” I growled, shaking my head as I turned to look at my brothers’ faces. “This is wrong.”

  “What do you want to do, boss?” Lamb stepped forward, and with him, the echoing sound of the safety of his gun clicked off.

  Another click followed as Jasper met my eyes. And then it was Polo. Then Ripper. Then Hunter. Moon. Pick. Roy. Talon.

  Each one of them looked at me, and I could see it in their eyes. It would be the same look that was reflected in my eyes.

  Fuck.

  “Let's go—”

  I didn’t even have time to finish my sentence as I heard the resounding crash of gunfire echo across the warehouse.

  I was sprinting as fast as I could back to the warehouse, my gun by my side, grabbing the hole-filled door and tearing it off its hinges just as the car’s engine rumbled through the room.

  I watched in slow motion as Ash’s straightened body crumbled to the ground.

  “No!” I bellowed, my roar echoing through the room as I saw her father’s head snap up.

  He didn’t even blink as he handed his gun back to his goon, and before I could even raise my gun, he was in the car and slamming the door shut.

  My brothers came up behind me, guns firing at the lesser members hanging around the sides of the warehouse, half of them having disappeared in the moments we were outside.

  I lifted my own weapon and fired, the recoil burning my hands as I popped off shot after shot at the black SUV as it squealed away, the bulletproof glass deflecting each bullet as I ran in their direction

  Lamb came up beside me, his gun aiming with that deadly precision as he aimed lower on the car, but the car made it to the open gate just as Lamb popped a tire. It swerved, slamming into the side of the wall, chewing up the metal but not stopping as the driver regained control and the car spun out of sight.

  I reached Ash in what must have been a few seconds but felt like so much longer. I dropped down to my knees, seeing her shirt soaked in blood as her chest was spilling it. Her eyes were already closed, her chest still, and her face slack as she lay in a pool of her own blood. The red was so stark against her pale skin that I hesitated to look down at her, stunned.

  Lamb, beside me, wasn’t so shocked as he grabbed her shirt with both hands and tore it straight down the middle. The thick blood clung to the material, and just for a few seconds, we had a clear view of the six bullet wounds riddled across her chest before blood oozed up out of them and covered her skin.

  Lamb slung his cut aside, the leather smacking against the concrete floor as the gunfire silenced around us.

  The other brothers rushed over just as Lamb pressed his shirt to the wounds, soaking up the blood before dropping his head to her chest, the side of his face being coated in a sheen of red.

  The only sound was the cold wind cutting through the holes in the metal walls as we all waited in a never-ending moment for Lamb to open his mouth. I prayed, for the second time in the last decade, that we got here in time. That we had a chance.

  I wasn’t that lucky.

  Lamb lifted his head and said the two words I knew would bring everything crashing down around me.

  “She’s dead.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Anna

  Dead.

  The foreign man hit the ground, my skin and hair getting covered in the splatter of blood and other juices as his head shot back, a bullet hole perfectly between the eyes, Jax’s gun raised just over my shoulder.

  As his body hit the floor, there was a brief moment of silence that took over everything.

  Then, all hell broke loose.

  Black Angels appeared from hiding spots all over, firing off round after round as the girls screamed and leaped for cover. Jax swore violently beside me, leaping out into the fray as Mint and Pretty jumped up from the ground, pulling out guns hidden under the floorboards and under the table and firing off round after round at each unfamiliar face turning on us.

  Mallory screamed, and I lunged for her, my body covering hers as we rolled behind one of the couches, my gun clattering on the wood as it slipped from my grasp. Her chest heaved over and over as she floundered beneath my body. I pinned her to the floor, my hand fumbling for the gun as it slipped on my blood-soaked skin.

  “Fuck!” I hissed as Mallory’s nail dug into my skin in fear as I helped pushed her up against one of the back of the couches, a bullet bouncing off close to my head.

  Mallory’s eyes went wide, and I could only think of the memories this was bringing back for her, but I couldn’t attend to my own psychological state, never mind hers, as all I could think about was survival.

  I peered over the edge of the couch, hoping to spot a second redhead, but ducked straight back down as cotton burst from the cushion, the bullet almost breaking through the interior wooden frame, the sound ringing in my ears. What I had seen was a girl lying on the floor, and I immediately recognized her as Sweets.

  I didn’t waste a second look to confirm that she was dead. There was no need to with her brains splattered across the floor.

  “Fuck!” I heard Jax yell from behind the table he had tipped onto its side as he bashed his gun into the wooden floorboards.

  “Jax!” I yelled, catching his eye as he turned, and I slid my gun across the floor toward him. He gave me a grateful nod, discarding his own jammed gun, and began firing off shots into the other side of the room, followed by the sounds of bodies dropping down on the floor.

  Their side held the doorway. I counted women hidden and tucked away. I could see Baby next to Pretty, her body covering Georgia and Ember as they both shook with silent tears, their hands covering their ears, flinching with each gunshot. Baby remained impassive as she leaned out and around the tipped-over pool table, clocking where enemies lay, so Pretty could get them without wasting the bullets.

  I thanked God the clubhouse was practically empty. After the brothers had headed out to make the deal, anybody not club had left straight away, leaving only the club girls and the old ladies.

  I tried to reach for my knife in my boot, but from my awkward position on top of Mallory, my arms bracketing her in as I kept her close against the back of the couch where I knew a thick wooden panel was hidden inside, I couldn’t reach it.

  “Mallory,” I said, trying to rouse her brown eyes pinned straight ahead, in this case, at my chest as she fell into her shell-shocked world. “Fuck!” I kept my arm compact, but with all the force I could muster, I slapped her hard across the face.

  She let out a yelp, distracting Jax for a second before he turned back to the bullets flying his way. But my hit did the trick as Mallory’s brown eyes leaped up to mine.

  “Mallory,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady and calm, but the second I heard the creak of the floorboard so close it overrode the sound of the gunfire going off all around me, urgency overtook everything. “Knife. Boot. Now!” I screeched, and Mallory lunged for my boot, her finger hooking into the side of it and pulling.

  I heard it clatter against the floor just as I saw the pair of dark eyes leap from the side of the couch.

  Mallory let out a screech as a gun pointed at her head, but I was faster.

  I leaped low against his side, my compact force sending the man stumbling away from us, the gun going off into the ceiling, and both our bodies colliding with the wall. I grunted in pain, my hand and leg bursting with a excrusiating heat as my adrenaline couldn’t beat it down any longer.

  The man beside me didn’t sta
y down for long, however, as his hands wrapped around my shoulders and he rolled as he shoved me beneath him. His hands went around my small throat, their huge, meaty paws closing tight around my esophagus, stopping oxygen from reaching my head.

  Dark stars rippled at the corners of my vision as I reached with my nails to gouge the man’s eyes out, but my arms couldn’t reach, and the panic set in as my sight got darker and darker and the floor rocked beneath me.

  I patted my hand around for my knife, but fuck, it might as well not have fucking existed, because I couldn’t find it. My limbs grew heavier and heavier, my movements weaker and weaker.

  It was only in the last few seconds that I felt the cool touch of metal, and for the life of me, I didn’t know how I moved. How I managed to lift my arm from the ground. How I managed to find the strength to swing it forward.

  I breathed first and foremost before I felt the hot wash of thick blood pour over my chest and stomach as I saw the deep gouge sliced across the man’s jugular. Pints and pints of the stuff washed over my rippling chest as I struggled to take in oxygen without drowning in the man’s blood. My eyes closed on instinct, burning as the liquid splashed into them, as the body collapsed down in a heap on top of me, his huge weight crushing my small body.

  “Anna!” Mallory yelled, her eyes desperately searching for life as she lay crouched on her hands and knees, ready to lunge forward. I realized she had been the one to throw me the knife as a streak from the already red-stained blade left a trail from her to me where it had skidded across the floor.

  I went to open my mouth, to tell her I was fine, but it was at that point that I realized that she hadn’t been calling me in concern. She had been calling me in fear.

  I only had seconds to see the metal barrel pointed at my face.

  No.

  The man opened his mouth to speak, but blood spewed out as his gun dropped from his hands and the man followed after it into a dead pile of the floor.

  I looked up, and for a second, my mind screamed Devil.