All too soon, however, they were on the streets of Sioux City, and this time the bus depot was located in a nice area of the city. New and modern, with clean lines and sleek angles, it lacked the seedier quality of the two other stations they’d been to.
Boone and Gabby filed into parking spots and shut off their bikes. Kaiya dismounted and took off her helmet as the men did the same. The sun shone warmly on her skin. The cerulean tint of the sky held big fluffy clouds that lazily drifted by. Gabby tapped Boone’s arm and pointed, and when she followed the line, she saw they were directly across the street from a police station.
“Vicious wouldn’t dare strike with the cops right there,” she signed. “This should be a piece of cake.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Gabby signed back. “Believe me, Vicious and Cipher won’t let the police get in their way. And this is the last step in finding us.”
She shook her head. “You’re being paranoid. This place is so peaceful.”
She held her arms open and half twirled as she lifted her face to the sky. She breathed in the fresh air and turned to smile at her men. They both stared at her skeptically.
“Let me get the bag,” she signed. The faster she got it, the faster they could get to a hotel.
But Gabby held her arm and shook his head. “This time we get the bag.”
“Why?” she asked with her fingers. “I thought you’d want to keep a lookout.”
“The last time you went inside, Eagle found you,” he said.
She read his lips and frowned. “You cannot compare this situation to Omaha. There are no Whiskey Knights around here. Come on. I will be in and out in five minutes.”
Gabby glanced at Boone, who shrugged.
Kaiya smiled, stood on tiptoe and kissed Gabby’s cheek before dashing up the steps to the depot’s entrance. Large skylights allowed massive amounts of sunlight into the station. Lush, green plants decorated the lobby, next to nice vinyl seats and large television screens playing various soap operas and news reports. The lockers were located on the opposite side of the check-in counter, and she headed in that direction. The faceplates were bright orange, and she traced the numbers until she came to number ten. Digging the key out of her pocket, she quickly unlocked it and opened the door to grab the duffel that waited, only there was one other thing inside the small compartment. Draping the bag’s strap over her shoulder, she picked the object up and realized it was a book. Or specifically, a journal. Her heart thudded with excitement as she flipped through it and noticed it was full of handwritten notes. A ledger. Perhaps the missing ledger she needed to connect all of Cipher’s dots?
Kaiya flung her own backpack off her shoulders to stuff the journal inside just as a hand grabbed her arm and a gun barrel pressed against her ribs. She stiffened, knowing without looking who held her captive. He yanked on her arm and, helplessly, she followed.
A moment later, the entire place lit up as fire ripped through the serene interior of the bus depot, completely shattering the tranquil setting.
* * * *
Gabby watched her leave, his gaze focused on her sexy ass. Emotion swelled inside him, yet he hesitated calling it love. Who was he to know what love actually was? Besides, he was the last man on Earth who was worthy of anything as monumental as that feeling. He wasn’t even worthy of being in Kaiya’s shadow, let alone thinking of a happily ever after with her. Still, he didn’t think he could let her go. Not now. Even though she deserved better.
The club…he understood that life. It suited him. When he’d come home from the military hospital, he’d been a mess. Homeless. Wandering. There was no way he could’ve functioned normally in society back then, and a few years later, Boone had come to find him. If it hadn’t been for the club, he would have been lost in the darkness.
“Stop it,” Boone ordered.
Gabby tore his gaze off Kaiya’s lush ass to look at him. “Stop what?”
“You don’t think I don’t know that look?” Boone asked, pointing at his face.
“What look?” Gabby scoffed.
“Don’t go back to that place, Gordon Dixon. You are not that man anymore. Hear me?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Gabby said sharply.
“I will never shut up about this,” Boone said.
Gabby turned away and reached for the crumpled pack of cigarettes in his pocket, trying to convey without words that he was done with the conversation.
After a pause, Boone sighed. “So after this we have a meeting with Red Eye.”
“Yep.”
“Figured we’d rest up today, head out tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
“Jesus,” Boone muttered. “I fucking hate it when you get moody.”
At that moment, the world simply shattered as an explosion rocked the ground, emanating from the station. The acrid smell of gunpowder permeated the air as glass rained down. Gabby and Boone were blown back and fell into their bikes, which toppled over from the force of their bodies. Car alarms shrieked through the unnatural calmness that suddenly descended. Gabby shook his head, trying to get his bearings, and looked at Boone to make sure he was okay, then he whipped his head around to the bus depot. Panic descended into his heart as fire licked from the windows.
“Kaiya,” he whispered brokenly.
He and Boone both pushed to their feet and ran to the entrance. By this time, the shock of what had happened turned into horror and people from all around began to rush forward to help. Cops poured out of the police station.
“Kaiya!” Boone bellowed. But, of course, she wouldn’t be able to hear him.
Sirens wailed in the distance, quickly coming closer. Victims stumbled out of the front of the station, disoriented, streaked in soot and blood. Gabby and Boone tried pressing forward but the swarm of bodies made it difficult, and when they finally made it inside, Gabby’s stomach bottomed out. Smoke hung thickly through the air, constricting his breathing. He coughed and raised his arm to cover his face as his eyes watered from the lingering heat. Even though debris and soot lined everything, a blackened explosion pattern ran next to the main window, which had been the glass that had shattered all over them. Two bodies lay in pieces next to the destruction, and Boone clutched his shoulder, pointing. Gabby swung around and saw the lockers, which hadn’t been damaged. They hurried over, dodging debris, to find Kaiya. Only she wasn’t there.
Firemen poured into the scene.
“Out! Out! Everyone, out!”
A few moans came forth, and some firemen moved toward the sounds. Another man grabbed Gabby’s arm.
“You have to get out now!”
“Fuck!” Gabby yelled. “Kaiya! Where are you!”
“Sir, you have to leave!”
Gabby pulled away. “Kaiya! Kaiya!”
“Sir…”
Gabby ducked away from the firefighter, turned and shoved him back. “I’m not leaving here without my girlfriend! Kaiya!”
He stomped forward until he found locker number ten. Seeing the key in place let them know that it was empty. The merchandise inside was gone. He glanced toward the victims still inside and studied their faces. She wasn’t among them.
“Maybe she made it out before the bomb went off,” Gabby said. He looked up at Boone. “Maybe we missed her coming out.”
“Maybe,” Boone said, although his tone implied that he doubted it.
“You have to leave!”
The fireman was persistent, Gabby would give him that. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “We’re going.”
He needed to hold onto the hope she hadn’t been inside when the place exploded, but it was as if she’d simply vanished. They hurried out of the interior and bent over at the waist, coughing up a lungful of black residual smoke. Gabby stared at each victim, looking for Kaiya, but she wasn’t among them either.
“He was waiting for us after all,” Boone said.
Gabby tore his gaze from searching the battered and bruised people. Boone’s fists were clenched so tightly the whites
of his knuckles stood out in stark relief.
“You mean Vicious,” Gabby clarified. It wasn’t a question.
“Stone Cold said I would need his help. Fuck!” Boone yelled, breathing hard. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in a number. As the call went through, Boone captured his gaze. “We find that motherfucker and tear his fucking heart out.”
It was a burning pledge, one that Gabby felt in his own soul.
Chapter Eighteen
Although Kaiya couldn’t hear what was going on, she saw the devastation raining around them just as Vicious shoved her into an old van. He’d dragged her quickly outside a moment before the building seemed to explode, and her heart nearly burst from fear. Had Gabby and Boone stayed outside? She hoped to God they had, because if they’d been inside…if anything had happened to them… It made her heart ache painfully.
Cipher’s gleeful face suddenly popped in her line of vision, and Kaiya vowed to kill either or both bastards the first chance she got.
“Give me the journal,” Cipher demanded.
She read his lips, but she stubbornly refused to acknowledge him.
He grabbed her jaw between his fingers and applied enough pressure to make her squirm in pain.
“The journal, bitch!”
She couldn’t control how her gaze flickered to the backpack she clutched, and he followed her eye movement. He let her go, pushing her back to grab it up and open it. She watched in fury as he pulled out the leather-bound book and skimmed through it. From his pocket, he withdrew a square device and it took her a moment to figure out it was a GPS locator.
Vicious got into the van and started it up.
She looked helplessly out of the passenger mirror and watched the bus depot getting farther behind. Almost immediately, they were lost in the sea of fire trucks and ambulances arriving, along with people hurrying forward either to help the bombing victims or just to get a thrill from everyone’s suffering. She wanted to weep for those who had been caught in Vicious’ debauchery. She’d seen the euphoric pleasure plastered on his face that he’d taken in hurting all the innocent people, poor souls who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Why hadn’t she taken Boone’s warning more seriously?
She stared at Cipher, consumed with hate, as he ignored her to focus on the journal in his hands. He simply didn’t give a shit that so many had been wounded, possibly killed, by his actions. How could this piece of shit have been part of the Men of Hell? Sure, they were no angels, but they didn’t destroy innocent bystanders just for the hell of it. And her club didn’t betray one another. She didn’t even blink at the thought that she claimed the Men of Hell as her own. She had come in as an outsider, a promise made by Chloe, and reluctantly agreed to by Romeo, but Kaiya stood firm by Gabby’s and Boone’s sides, and she’d do anything to protect them. Kaiya took a deep breath and embraced the knowledge that what she would have to do to survive might be soul altering, but she wouldn’t hesitate to do what she had to for herself and her men—or for the club.
“You’re going to die today,” she signed to Cipher.
Her hand movements must have caught his eye because he looked at her. “I can’t read sign language.”
She knew that. That didn’t stop her from continuing. “I’m going to kill you, Cipher. For me. For those people who you just hurt. For the Men of Hell. I’ll find some way to kill you.”
Kaiya stared at him in the eye, trying to convey all the hate she was feeling. Slowly, she smirked at him. Cipher’s nostrils flared with his anger and before she knew what he planned, he backhanded her. Stars exploded through her head just before darkness descended.
* * * *
“You called,” Stone Cold said mockingly as soon as he picked up the call.
“Turn on your fucking news,” Boone ground out as he began walking away from the chaos all around them. Gabby followed on his heels. Boone glanced at their bikes, laying on their sides like beached whales. There were too many people around to dig them out of the rubble. He began looking around for an alternative method to get the hell out of there.
“What’s that noise?”
“Your little psycho blew up the bus depot in Sioux City,” he replied. “He took Kaiya.”
There was a short pause. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m fucking sure! Now, you’re going to tell me where he is.”
“How the hell would I know that?” Stone Cold demanded.
“Because you told me I was going to need your help. You told me he called you. You’ve been playing me from day one, you piece of lying shit.” He broke off and took a deep breath, closing his eyes on a fucking prayer. “Please. He has my woman.”
There was some rustling around in the background, as if Stone Cold were moving it around. A muffled voice swam through the connection, then Stone Cold cleared his throat. “Eagle thinks he may know where they’re heading.”
Boone’s heart jumped in hope. “Where?”
“There’s a small town back in Nebraska, off the 77, called Highwinds. He’s probably headed there.”
“Why?” Boone demanded. “What’s there?”
“It belongs to the Knights.”
“What? The whole town?”
Stone Cold sighed. “It’s more like a farm. We store things there, although it’s not easy to get to.”
Something about his tone didn’t ring true. “Are you fucking with me? You send me to some made up fucking place so you can get to him and the fucking cash he has first? If anything happens to Kaiya, I will personally hunt you down and empty my clip in your forehead.”
“Listen, I obviously don’t know what he’s thinking, but if he needs to lie low, he’ll be there.”
Boone locked gazes with Gabby. What was he supposed to do? Trust the one man he couldn’t trust at all? “You said off the 77?”
“Yeah. Down a road called John Zinger Field.”
Everything inside Boone tightened. The conversation he had with Kaiya about the locker numbers rolled through his head. “That’s where she’s at.”
“Now you sound sure about it.”
“I am,” he said grimly and hung up. He nodded to their bikes. “We need to get our wheels.”
Gabby cracked his knuckles and turned away. “Already on it.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I’m going to fuck her in the ass, then I’m going to blow her apart, bullet by bullet,” Vicious suddenly said out of the blue.
He’d been thinking about what to do to the deaf girl for the hour he’d been driving. In his mind, he pictured every single filthy thing he could do to Boone’s bitch. It had been a complete tossup on who was going to be their prisoner, because the way Vicious figured it, any of them would’ve been a good candidate for revenge. Boone to flat out torture and kill, his big mute of a sidekick, or the deaf pussy that road behind him. It just so happened that he got the girl.
“What?” Cipher said distractedly.
“I’m going to fuck her in the ass,” Vicious repeated. “Then I’ll blow out her kneecaps, her pelvis, hands. Break her collarbone. She’ll be a bloody stain on the floor when Boone finally finds her.”
Cipher stared at him, his mouth forming a little circle of disbelief. “You can’t do that to her.”
“Why the fuck not?” Vicious demanded.
“I may do a lot of shit, but I don’t rape women.”
Vicious shrugged. “You won’t be raping her. I will.”
In his head, he played through the scenario and how satisfying a tribute it will be to honor Bizerk’s memory. He didn’t even have Bizerk’s body, having left it behind as he’d fled. There wouldn’t be a tomb or monument dedicated to Bizerk, so the girl would have to do. A sacrifice to appease the ghost haunting him.
“She hasn’t done anything to you,” Cipher stressed.
“Shut up!” Vicious snarled. “Her association with the Men of Hell is all I need to condemn her. If she suffers, then Boone suffers.”
He didn’t add afterward that he would kill Cipher, take all his stash and bury the man in the woods, never to be found again. No one would miss the nerdy accountant, and he’d take the fucking money and go after the Whiskey Knights next. The club was supposed to have his back, be his Brothers, but Stone Cold was only interested in the club’s bottom line. Stone Cold had turned his back on him, so they’d be the next to fall. Then he’d create a club dynasty that would send all men cowering in fear. He could almost hear his future brothers chanting his name. Perhaps he’d name his club after his fallen love.
The rest of the trip was spent in silence. He didn’t care. Cipher was simply a means to an end and once Vicious had what he wanted, that would be all he needed of the man. He’d first approached the man in hopes of ferreting out any information on Boone and Gabby, but once he had learned there was a shit load of money involved, Cipher’s fate had been sealed.
“Turn there,” Cipher said, pointing to a road that was mostly hidden by the woods.
“I know how to get to Highwinds,” Vicious snapped.
“John Zinger Field. I buried the money off this road.”
“You buried money? Are you a fucking idiot?”
“What?” Cipher demanded. “I stole a shit load of money from the Master and the Men of Hell. I had to hide it and I didn’t want to put it all in one place in case it was ever discovered.”
“So you gave yourself a fucking treasure map?” Vicious snorted derisively. “I bet your favorite book growing up was Treasure Island.”
“Shut up,” Cipher said coldly. “And drive one point five miles.”
“Whatever,” Vicious muttered.
Madness Ends Page 13