by Zoey Parker
Only a few of the booths in the joint were filled, and all the seats at the bar were empty, save for the one in which my sorry ass was currently deposited. The bartender stood a couple feet away, wiping down glasses and pouring me another shot whenever I raised a finger in his direction.
“She sure was one hell of a fuck, though,” I mumbled to myself, hardly realizing I was speaking out loud.
A warm voice spoke up from behind me. “Who was, baby? I know I am, but I don’t think you and I have had the pleasure before.”
I looked blearily over my shoulder. The drink was hitting me pretty hard already, but I saw that it was a curvaceous Hispanic broad with an ass that a lot of men would kill for. Her dress could barely keep her tits from spilling out, although I’m sure that that wasn’t unintentional. I looked at her face and saw plump, pink lips that were begging for special attention. Her tongue darted out and licked them, leaving behind a wet sheen that only increased my hunger.
I’d come back for pussy to cure my malaise, and this was exactly the remedy I was looking for.
The woman sat down next to me. She hiked the hem of her dress up well above her knees, so that a long expanse of creamy thigh was showing. I could just see the edge of her panties—bright pink lace. A thing like that deserved to get ripped right off.
She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m Bella, baby, nice to meet you. What’s your name?”
Shit, I was already nearly ten shots deep, but even blind drunk, I could always recognize when a woman wanted to fuck.
“They call me Blaze,” I told her.
“I see why,” she said, throwing her hair back over one bare shoulder. “You’re hot as hell, darling. Let me get you another drink.” Bella whistled down the bar and gave the bartender a flirtatious wave. He sidled down.
“Sí?” he asked.
“Let’s get another couple tequilas. One for me and one for my new friend, Blaze,” she said.
The man nodded and produced a second glass from underneath the bar top. He set it down and filled up both our tumblers. Bella wrapped her manicured fingernails around it and held it up to clink against mine.
“To love in the air,” she said, smiling alluringly.
“To anything but that,” I replied, smug.
We touched our rims together and then threw back the shot. I sighed. It felt good to burn my throat with the stuff.
Bella reached out a hand and brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over my forehead. “Something the matter, Blaze?”
“Not a damn thing,” I growled back. I was drunk and feeling low, but I still wasn’t some pussy getting ready to confess my troubles to some whore at a bar.
“Woman trouble, I’m betting,” she said knowingly. She nodded her head again, convinced she was right. “I know it when I see it.” Bella leaned in further and cupped a hand to whisper into my ear. “Come with me,” she said in a hushed voice. She let her lips brush against my ear. I felt my dick begin to harden in my pants. “I’ll take all that right off your mind.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she plucked the glass from my hand and put it to rest gently on the bar top. She intertwined her fingers with mine and tugged me behind her.
I was drunk enough not to give a fuck. If this bitch wanted to fuck me, then I wasn’t going to resist. I wanted to wipe everything off my skull, go back to a clean slate. I had the alcohol I needed in my veins. All I needed was some pussy to complete the process.
I didn’t care if she was a hooker, a horny random, or anything in between. I’d have paid a million fucking dollars right then to slip my cock into a wet cunt. Anything to give a warm fucking goodbye to all thoughts of Olivia.
I followed her down the street and into a shabby apartment building a block or two away. We went up the rickety stairs and into a small room. When we stepped inside, she leaned back against the stucco wall and pulled me towards her.
Our lips met. Her kiss was sopping wet, and she used her tongue like a whip, thrashing against my teeth and mouth. One of her hands seized mine and brought it to her breasts, which she freed from the thin fabric of her dress. She used her other fingers to stroke at the bulge of my cock.
A drunken haze clouded all the sensation in my body. I wanted that; I wanted everything to fucking dissipate in a fog of pussy and liquor. Dead nerves, dead thoughts—fuck it all. I didn’t love any bitch. I never had. I never wanted to.
I know who you really are, Blaze.
Fuck that voice.
Bella wound her fingers in my belt loops and pulled me towards a chair. With a playful shove, she pushed me into it.
“Stay right there,” she said, running a lingering fingertip down the length of my dick. “I’ve got a surprise for you. I’ll be right back.” She turned and went behind a patterned dressing screen.
I stared dumbly at my hands. They sat in my lap, mute and stupid, like dead spiders. Then, rising up through my drunken buzz like a shout from the bottom of a well, You loved her.
“Fuck you,” I whispered to myself.
I saw a flash of motion behind the screen. Then Bella emerged.
She wore an outfit of black leather straps that ranged over her body, crossing and zagging like shooting stars. The straps wound over her curves, hardly able to contain where her tits and ass threatened to explode from their restraints. I could almost see her pussy, straining to be set free of all fabric and pounded mercilessly.
She was open, eager, and wanting.
I started to speak, but she crossed the room in two steps and pressed a finger against my lips. “Hush,” she said. “Let me.”
I fell silent and watched as she unbuckled my belt, tugged down the zipper, and pulled my cock free from my jeans. She wrapped her lips—those thick, dick-sucking lips—around me and swirled her tongue around the shaft.
“Mm,” she moaned as she sucked. “You’re so big. Get hard for me, baby.”
You loved her. You still love her.
“Fuck you,” I growled, louder this time.
Bella looked up in surprise, my dick still deep in her mouth. She transferred its bulk to her hand so she could speak. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked me, confused. “Is it the outfit?”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t get my mouth to work well enough to form an explanation. It flapped uselessly like a fish.
She tilted her head and asked, “Don’t you like it?”
The memory played in front of me, as clear as a movie on a screen. Olivia, twirling, her pale skin gleaming so bright and creamy beneath the leather straps. Her eyes, so mismatched yet so perfect, set above the mouth that lit me up like nothing else in my life ever had. That giggle.
You love her.
The voice was right.
“I’m sorry,” I stumbled, pushing her back and rising to my feet. I tucked my dick away and zipped my jeans up unsteadily, then clambered out of the room, bouncing off the walls on my way down the stairs. I heard Bella crying for me from behind, but I ignored her.
The air outside cut through everything that was swirling in my head. I felt clear, like the drunk had been swept clean away.
You love her.
Goddammit, I couldn’t run away from the fact that kept repeating in my head. It was as persistent as a foghorn, and every bit as loud.
You love her, don’t you? You love her and you know it.
I did love her. I’d loved her from the second I kissed her in her driveway five years ago. She’d lit a fire in me and there was no turning back. It was either accept it or die; there were no other options.
And what had I done? Let her go. Like a fucking idiot. I’d let her brother drag her back into his clutches, just like he had before. Only this time, he was going to get her killed, along with everyone else I gave a damn about in this world.
I had to do something about it. Fuck, I was a man of action, not a goddamn pansy. I wasn’t afraid to find her and take her back. She was mine, goddammit, my wife. I’d sworn to protect her and I�
�d be fucked if I was gonna let anything get in my way. No, not anymore.
I didn’t need pussy. I didn’t need liquor. I needed Liv, plain and simple.
It was time to go back to Texas.
I ran down the street and kicked in the door of the bar. “Where’s the fucking phone?” I bellowed. The patrons inside looked at me, eyes wide in shock and terror. I knew how I looked—big, angry, and ready to kick some fucking ass.
The bartender pointed a trembling hand at the old school phone that sat squat on the counter top. There was no cell reception in this backwater shitstain of a town, so this ancient junk would have to do. I rang a number I hadn’t expected ever to dial again, not since the day I’d been kicked out of the place it went to: the Austin clubhouse.
The second I heard someone pick up on the other end, I started yelling. “Where the fuck is she?” I demanded at the top of my lungs. “Tell that motherfucking president of yours that I’m coming in, guns blazing, and I’m taking back my motherfucking wife. Do you hear me? Answer, you son of a bitch!”
The voice on the line made my blood run cold.
It wasn’t the Texan accent it should have been. It was not a voice that belonged to any of the Austin Inked Angels.
Instead, I heard a throaty chuckle, followed by a Mexican voice saying, “Your hermanos are with us, my friend. Your woman, too. And they will all be dead very, very soon.”
Then he hung up.
I stared at the receiver in my hand. I hadn’t been scared since I was four years old and thought the boogeyman was in my closet. Through all the fights I’d been in, all the bullets that pierced through my body, I’d never felt an ounce of fear. But this was something else.
This was my wife’s life that hung in the balance.
What had Luke unleashed?
* * *
The Houston clubhouse was silent when I barged in. I ran straight to the president’s office and burst inside. Croak, seated at his desk, looked up at me. I didn’t give him the chance to speak.
“We need to go. Right now, everyone. Strap up. The Austin charter is in danger.”
Croak snapped, “What the hell are you talking about, Blaze?”
I explained my call to him, how a Diablo had picked up the line in the Austin clubhouse. When I told him what he’d said to me, it didn’t take long for the implications to sink in.
“Those motherfuckers are in our clubhouse? Fucking hell,” he swore. “I knew that son of a bitch Luke was up to something, but I didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to bargain with the devil himself.”
“That fucking traitorous son of a bitch. The second I see him, I’m gonna skin him alive,” I ranted. I threw a fist into the wall. I needed contact right now. I was ready for blood.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Croak said. “We’ll deal with Luke when we get there. For now, we need to get our asses on the road and stop a fucking massacre from taking place.”
“I’ll ride ahead and find out where they took him,” I replied. “Rally the men. I’ll call you and tell you where to meet me.”
Croak nodded and stepped around his desk. Right as I turned to leave, he put a hand on my shoulder.
“Blaze,” he said, his voice cautious. “You need to be ready for anything. We don’t know what’s happened to her, and we don’t know if we’ll be able to get her back.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Listen to me very carefully, Croak: I ain’t coming back without her.”
I flew out of Houston like a bat out of hell, smoke streaming behind me in long, haggard ribbons. My heartbeat was steady. I was prepared to do whatever it took to get Olivia home safe.
It didn’t take long before I roared into Austin. A couple blocks away from the Inked Angels clubhouse, I slowed down and let my engine drop into a quiet hum. I didn’t want any of those Diablo cocksuckers to hear me coming.
I parked my bike behind an overgrown hedge and drew the gun out of my pocket. It felt good to hold its weight in my hand and know that I was ready for battle. Adrenaline had begun to flow through me, as good a high as any other in this world.
I slunk in front of the fence, out of sight from anyone looking out the shuttered windows of the clubhouse. Pausing at the gate, I peeked through the slats to see what I could see. But nothing inside moved.
I took another few tentative steps forward and gently pulled the door open. The hinges swung silently and then a head fell into my lap.
I jumped backwards, startled. It was a young prospect, no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. I didn’t recognize him, but then again, I doubt anyone would have been able to identify the body without dental records because his face was ripped wide open. His throat had been hacked to bits, but it looked like the bastards hadn’t stopped there. From what I could tell, they’d kept going to work on him long after he’d taken his last breath, until he looked more like discards from the butcher’s shop than anything close to human.
Savages.
“You deserved to die better,” I whispered to the kid. But there was no time for sympathy. I dragged his corpse out of the way and crept into the courtyard.
Voices drifted from inside, speaking rapid Spanish and laughing. I heard the occasionally wet smack of something hard colliding with flesh, followed by an anguished yelp. The front door hung open, smashed on its hinges.
I kept moving forward on silent feet, gun at the ready, staying low to the floor in case anyone was looking around.
The voices were coming from the bar, so I crawled to the entrance and stopped just in front, out of sight. There was a mirror hanging across the hallway from me, and if I tilted my head, I could see the reflection of three men in the bar.
“Ay, eres un pendejo, a real stupid motherfucker,” cackled the tallest one. He was rail-thin, and like the others, was clad in all black. I could see that they were gathered around a crumpled object on the floor.
“Un hijo de puta,” said the stouter man to his left. I saw the shine of brass knuckles on his right hand. He raised a fist up behind his ear, then swept it forward into the midst of the thing they were standing around.
I winced at the sound of his fist colliding with flesh. The crack of ribs being pulverized was unmistakable. I heard an audible groan of pain. The object at the Mexicans’ feet shifted and I saw what it was: another young prospect. He was tied to the bar and bleeding profusely. His nose was smashed to hell, and the crater in his skull was sickeningly deep. Lord only knew how long they’d been torturing him.
With a roar, I pounced into the room. It only took three quick shots before silence reigned again. The Mexicans hit the floor with a thud, each bearing a neat crimson hole in their foreheads.
Anger only made me shoot better.
I quickly dropped to my knees to see if I could save the kid. He was moaning in agony, his eyes fluttering back into his head. Babbled whispers flew out of his mouth.
“Look at me,” I told him. “You’re gonna be alright.” But that was a lie, and we both knew it. The kid tried to laugh, then started coughing. Blood bubbled on his lips.
“Nah,” he managed to sputter before the coughing resumed. Based on the amount of blood streaming up his esophagus, I figured his lungs were collapsed. He didn’t have long.
“Tell me where they took her” I urged. “Tell me where they went!”
I could see the kid struggling to spit out a word.
“Un-under…” he wheezed.
I wanted to shake it out of him, but he was starting to slip away. “You have to tell me!” I yelled. “C’mon, kid, where did they go?”
“Under the plant,” he finally got out. “The wa-water plant.”
Under the water plant. I knew there was an abandoned water treatment facility on the edge of town that had been shut down in the ’70s. The club did business there every now and then since it was out of the way of civilians and the police never bothered to stick their noses that far out of the city limits.
I turned back to the kid. I started t
o ask him how many were down there, but before I could even get the words out, I saw his eyelids fall still and his chest stop moving. He’d died in my arms. I’d seen my fair share of bodies, but to have a brother die like that, the victim of sick fucking savagery, it made my blood boil.
If that happened to Olivia, I’d hunt the Diablos down to the ends of the earth.
I left the kid where he laid, but not before I’d unchained him. No one deserved to die tied up to a post. Especially not a young kid like that.