Melted Iron (Blue Bandits MC Book 3)

by Michelle Woods

  Roz still wasn’t sure what the hell was going on here but she knew Patricia might take her anger with her out on Iron and she didn’t want to be the cause of that. She waited while Patricia spun the bow around on the little end table again and watching it as if she was mesmerized by it. Roz just wanted her to get to the point because Patricia must have a reason for kidnapping her and Iron.

  “I’m not really sure what you think he ruined, Patricia,” Roz said, waiting for the woman to bring her attention back to her. Patricia glanced up at her with a faraway look in her eyes as if she’d been so caught up in the spinning of the bow that she’d forgotten where she was. Roz was disturbed by this behavior. Patricia had always been a little strange but she hadn’t seemed crazy; but right now that’s how Roz was seeing her.

  “Right, Jumper,” Patricia said, her eyes clearing as she looked at Roz. “He kidnapped you instead of Tara. If he’d grabbed her instead then you would have done what I wanted you to do.”

  Roz was quite sure she wouldn’t have but refrained from arguing with her because she was obviously out of her mind. She knew you were wasting your breath when you argued with a crazy person. She shifted on the armchair, feeling a spring that was loose press into the back of her leg hard. It was uncomfortable and she tried to find a way to sit so that it wasn’t pressing into her.

  “What would I have done?” Roz asked, curious as to what the woman thought she would have done for her. She knew they’d talked about what they would do if they got a hold of the person responsible for kidnapping the locals.

  “Oh, well, you would have killed Reaper of course,” Patricia said, laughing wickedly before adding, “But no worries, I figured out a way to get you to do that anyway.”

  Roz stared at her in disbelief because Patricia really thought she could have killed an innocent man without proof that he was the person behind the kidnappings of the local women. Roz thought back to her conversations with this woman in the past.

  When she was in Grandyville, she remembered talking about who they thought was behind the missing women. They had thought it was the Blue Bandits MC taking them when in reality it was the Headhunters MC. Now Roz began to remember the way Patricia was the only one she ever heard talking about the Blue Bandits and how terrible they were. She had Roz almost convinced that they were violent beasts that were hell bent on killing anyone who opposed them.

  She still wouldn’t have gone after Reaper without concrete proof he was the man behind the kidnappings. Tara being taken would have spurred her into action looking for her but she wouldn’t have gone after a possibly innocent man on hearsay. Patricia didn’t know Roz as well as she thought she did.

  “I think you’ve lost your mind.” Roz couldn’t prevent the words from flying out of her mouth. She expected anger or at least disbelief at her statement but what she didn’t expect was the wild laughter that Patricia let out.

  She even threw her head back like a cartoon villain and that was the moment she realized that Patricia was insane, like needed to be in a loony bin insane. Roz saw Iron and her chances of surviving this slipping away because this woman was crazy and that meant she was unpredictable.

  “Rozzy, Rozzy, you’re so funny! I had you almost convinced you should go after him before Jumper stupidly took you and not the bitch. But like I said you’ll do it now,” Patricia told her grinning.

  “I don’t think so. I’m not killing a man who’s done nothing wrong,” Roz told her, disturbed by Patricia jumping to her feet and dancing around the room singing.

  “You’re gonna do it. You’re gonna do it.” Patricia seemed to sober when they heard a knock at the door, then grabbed her arm jerking her to her feet. “Come with me.”

  She tugged at Roz’s arm and Roz stood following her out of the door. Patricia paused in the hall, allowing her to see into the room but blocking her from entering. Iron was in a chair on the other side of the room tied down and two men were with him. One of the two men held a knife to his throat and four others were standing near her and Patricia. Roz’s breath caught and she went to rush over to Iron but Patricia’s arm stopped her.

  She turned meeting Roz’s eyes with her own. “Agree to shoot Reaper and I will let him go once it’s confirmed you killed him. And I mean with a body, not someone’s say so, Roz. But don’t agree and you watch him die right here when they slit his throat.”

  Roz stared into Patricia’s eyes for a long moment wondering why the hell she’d ever thought this crazy bitch was her friend. She mulled over what was happening and she realized that she would have to choose between living, or giving Iron a chance to get away.

  She didn’t have to think long. Roz couldn’t bear the thought of him dead so it was an easy choice for her. At least if Patricia took her and most of the men away from here he would have a chance at survival, but if she said no she knew there was no chance in hell Patricia would let him live. She would have those assholes cut him open like a deer right in front of her.

  “Fine, I’ll do it,” Roz whispered, but she knew she was only playing along until she could manage to get away from this crazy bitch. Roz also had a plan. One that ended with her death most likely but if she took this insane woman with her, she’d die happy.

  “See, I told you you’re going to kill him for me,” Patricia said, smiling from ear to ear. Then she turned back to the room looking at Iron. “Let’s go give him the good news, shall we!”

  Chapter 21

  Iron glanced up when the door to his prison opened. Three men stepped inside walking over to him. One of them punched him in the face while another one grabbed his arms.

  “I can’t wait to kill you. You fuckers are really starting to cramp our style with all your raids. The boss has his favorite girl working on it though. Me, I think the bitch is crazy, but she somehow has the big man believing she can win this battle for him,” the one with a pockmarked face said near his ear as he held him.

  The tall one was unchaining his ankles and then he was being lifted to his feet while they steered him into the hallway. He tried to get away and grab one of their guns but the fat one with a beard held a gun under his chin making him freeze.

  “Try it, motherfucker, and I will kill you right here even if it makes Patricia mad,” he said, smiling a toothless grin at him.

  Iron decided not to push him because he still needed to get Roz out of this mess. They dragged him down the hall and into a larger room, pulling him across the room from the hall and shoving him into a chair where they tied him up. Iron was glad they weren’t chaining him. He would be able to get out of the rope. He was double-jointed and it made escape from that type of confinement easy. Cuffs were the same because he just popped the joint and slipped out, then popped it back.

  Iron didn’t know how long he sat there with those three assholes standing nearby but he didn’t think it was long. There were four more men on the other side of the room and when they had him tied to the chair, one of the three who’d brought him out of the little room to tie him up in here left. Walking down the hall, he knocked on a door and waited. A few minutes later Patricia came down the hall with Roz behind her.

  Iron felt the cold kiss of the knife as it was slipped up against his jugular and he froze. His eyes were trained on Roz as she tried to rush to his side but Patricia wouldn’t allow it. He saw them talking but he wasn’t able to hear what they were talking about. He could just hear muffled voices and see Roz’s face fall and her nod.

  Then the two women were coming towards him and he could tell by Roz’s face that something was very wrong. Iron felt a muscle in his cheek throb as he waited on the woman with her to speak.

  “Hello, lover boy!” Patricia crowed, seemingly excited about something. “I just had a nice chat with Roz here.”

  Iron noticed that Roz was now dressed in the clothes that she’d worn to the bonfire last night. That surprised him because they hadn’t only kidnapped them but they’d brought her clothes along with them. That did not bode well for them because
it meant they wanted something from her and Iron knew it wasn’t something good.

  “You see, she’s agreed to do what I asked in order to save you. Isn’t that sweet!” Patricia said and Iron saw Roz flinch. He watched her carefully trying to get her to look at him because he knew that whatever she’d agreed to had something to do with the knife that only a moment ago had been at his throat.

  “Really, you don’t say,” Iron said dryly, trying to get Patricia to the point because no matter what she said it wasn’t something his Roz wanted to do, he knew that much at least.

  “Yes, I do say. She’s going to walk into Ink Bandits and kill Reaper for us and all to save little old you.” Patricia grinned at him.

  Fuck, well that wasn’t what he’d expected her to say.

  For a minute he thought that Roz was really going to try that before he discarded the thought. No, this was a way for her to warn the club that they’d been taken. Smart to agree to their plan then turn it on them.

  Only she didn’t realize that even agreeing to this plan was considered a betrayal of the club. He looked at Roz and saw her eyes were trained on him. She thought this was the only way to save him and she was going to go with them, then pull a crazy scheme to try and stop them from attempting to kill Reaper.

  Patricia laughed evilly at Iron who pulled hard on the bonds that bound him trying to break them. Roz stood beside her, her face pale and her eyes clouded with an apology he didn’t want to see. She couldn’t do this.

  “Rozzy, please don’t do this,” he begged because he couldn’t allow her to betray the club this way, it would mean that she would never be allowed back in and that he couldn’t bear. She had to not go along with this crazy bitch’s plan because if she did what Patricia wanted her to do, then she was lost to him forever, even if it was her plan to turn it around on the Headhunters.

  “I have to,” she whispered with tears in her eyes as she stared at him. He could see that she didn’t want to do this any more than he wanted her to. If they could just stall for a little longer then they would be out of here and this would all be over but not if she went with Patricia.

  “I love you, Iron,” Roz whispered brokenly.

  “I love you too, Rozzy, but you don’t have to do this. Please don’t.”

  “Isn’t this sweet but you see, Iron, she’s in love. And a woman in love will do anything to save the man she loves.” Patricia laughed wickedly and waved the gun at him. “This is the only way to save you and she will do anything for you to live. Such a shame too, she had such potential until she fell in love with you.”

  “What are you talking about, you crazy bitch?” Iron growled, not understanding what she was talking about. He watched Roz pale further as she moaned, sagging against the man who held her arm, crying out, “No, no, don’t, Patricia, please don’t,”

  “Aw, look, she wants me to shut up. Should I shut up, Tracker?” Patricia laughed, looking at the man next to her who was obviously Tracker.

  “Nah, man needs to know who she really is,” Tracker said laughing coldly.

  “Hmm, I agree. So you see I was training her. Until that idiot kidnapped her, I had her convinced that all these kidnappings were the Blue Bandits. She was convinced and until that moron Jumper snatched her, she was almost ready to do it for us. That’s when she found out the truth about who was behind the disappearances. He was supposed to kidnap that friend of hers, but he was too stupid and snatched the wrong girl, the idiot.” Patricia let out a disgusted snort.

  “Training her for what?” Iron asked, feeling a cold sense of dread inside him as what he suspected settled into his mind. It cried out in denial because his Rozzy couldn’t have planned to do anything like that. It just wasn’t who she was.

  “Training, my dear boy, for killing of course. Killing that son of a bitch Reaper. Had her almost ready to do it too.” Roz let out a moan of despair and Iron looked at her. She was on her knees now looking at him with eyes filled with tears as more poured down her cheeks. She turned away, hiding her face from him, her wracking sobs breaking his heart.

  She thought this would change the way he felt about her, but it didn’t. He loved her and it didn’t matter that she had been planning to kill one of his friends. Even though he doubted that was the case. Roz wasn’t a killer. She might kill if backed into a corner with no way out but no way in hell would she choose to assassinate someone.

  “Rozzy, Rozzy, look at me, baby,” he begged and when she finally looked up, her face red and swollen, he continued, “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. I still love you. You don’t have to do this, please.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ. Either she does this or you die right here, right now. I didn’t spend months listening to her whining about bullshit and worrying about those stupid bitches I was having marked for kidnapping for nothing. She will be putting a bullet in Reaper or you die, it’s that simple and she knows it,” Patricia told him laughing, but Iron knew that as soon as they left Patricia would order them to kill him anyway.

  He also should have told her the club would be coming for them because she didn’t know that his brothers would be here soon. If Roz went with them voluntarily, the club would never let her stay. He had to convince her to stay here long enough for Reaper and the others to get here.

  “This was fun for a while but I’m getting bored now. Let’s go. Track, you and Killer stay here with lover boy while us girls go and take care of that bastard. The rest of you are with me,” Patricia said, grabbing Roz’s arm to drag her to her feet.

  “Rozzy, don’t,” Iron begged, but when she looked at him he knew without a doubt that she was going to do it because she thought she had to.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have a choice, Iron. I have to do this.” She then jerked her arm from Patricia’s grasp and followed the men who were moving to the door.

  His heart shattered because he didn’t know if he would be able to save her now that she had chosen this path. It was a betrayal of the MC and anyone dumb enough to do that was always dealt with swiftly and painfully and Roz wouldn’t be the exception. It meant that if he did save her, they’d have to run because no way in hell was he ever allowing her to face justice at the hands of his brothers.

  It just wasn’t going to happen, ever.

  Roz climbed into the small car when she was shoved towards it outside, glancing back with a silent goodbye to the man she loved. She just prayed that he could take out the two men without getting killed.

  No, she had to trust that he would live because she wasn’t going to die for nothing. Patricia climbed into the back seat with her and the car started lurching away from the house. Roz turned, looking out the back window watching the fading house, her heart pounding as she thought of the next step in this plan because she was going to take out Patricia if it was the last thing she ever did. She didn’t like the idea of killing her, but she wasn’t going to allow the crazy woman to go after Iron later after Roz was dead either.

  It didn’t take them long to arrive at the little house about five miles away from the first one they’d been kept at. Roz was surprised that they were so close together as the man named Tracker shoved her from the car. She felt the gun push against her spine as they followed Patricia towards the house. Patricia stopped, turning to them and telling them to take Roz to the shed before she moved towards the bigger house.

  Prompted by the gun shoved against her, Roz followed the Headhunters into the small shed that Patricia had told them to take her to. She knew that Iron thought she was going to go after Reaper, but that had never been what she had planned. Patricia was right about one thing, she had succeeded in making Roz into a weapon, she just didn’t realize yet that Roz wasn’t her weapon.

  Roz felt satisfaction fill her as that thought caused a hot spike of adrenaline to slide through her veins. Roz knew Iron and he would likely be out of his bonds and be halfway back to the clubhouse by now. She was grateful that Patricia had only left two guards on him. She’d been worried that Patric
ia wouldn’t take enough of them when they left and Iron wouldn’t be able to get away safely, but thankfully she had only left two with him in that house which meant that he was long gone by this point.

  One of the men grabbed her arm dragging her towards the door of the little shed. She moved into the room, jerking away from the man who held her arm. He let go allowing her to stumble and almost fall if she hadn’t caught herself on a table near the door. He laughed cruelly at her cry of pain when her hip came into contact with the metal table, then slammed the door shut leaving her alone.

  Roz looked around the room for a weapon. Unable to find one, she sat down on the single chair to wait, hoping when Patricia returned she’d bring her a weapon to use against her.

  It was thirty minutes later when Patricia finally opened the door to Roz’s new prison. Roz was pleased to see she was carrying a gun. Roz smiled because that was how she was going to kill the woman who was the reason she’d never see Iron again. It was only fitting that she got to end the life of the woman who’d taken her chance at a life with him away from her. The woman who’d likely made him hate her by telling him lies about how she was in league with them.

  Patricia had no idea she’d lost all leverage against Roz the minute they walked out of that house with Iron tied to that chair. She entered the room walking towards Roz, handing her the weapon she was about to use to kill her.

  “Here’s your gun. It’s only got three bullets so make them count.” Then she turned away, walking to the small table Roz had been thrust against when she came into the room. Roz stared briefly at the weapon the idiot had just given her. She shouldn’t hesitate but she did. Then she raised the gun, pointing it at the back of the other woman’s head.

  “Okay, the plan is for you to walk into the parlor and shoot Reaper in the head, my dear, not anywhere else. He can’t survive or we kill your man. So make sure,” Patricia was saying as she fiddled with the box she was digging around in, not realizing that she was already dead. Roz held the gun on her aiming for the very place she wanted her to shoot Reaper because she didn’t want the bitch to survive this. Patricia was the reason Roz was going to die and she wasn’t going to live if Roz had to die.