Sid chuckled. “Cute. Really, it’s astoundingly cute.”
“Pretty big word there for someone who hasn’t answered my question.”
“The deal is simple: turn in your jacket and step down from your club, and Raven goes home safe and sound. Refuse to comply? And, well…”
I slowly looked over at Porter, watching his face turn beet red before the voice sounded again. “Let’s just say her day care will need a new employee if you don’t wish to play nice.”
Porter shook his head, but it was Raven’s life on the line. And as far as I was concerned, it was my decision and mine alone to make. A bike approached us from behind and Porter drew his weapon at lighting speed. But when I looked into my rearview mirror, I recognized those faded black jeans.
Archer had finally caught up to us.
“So, what’s it gonna be?” Sid asked.
Archer rushed up to my side and whispered in my ear. “Whatever he’s asking, don’t do it.”
I looked over at him. “They’re going to kill Raven if I don’t leave the club.”
He blinked. “You’re fucking kidding.”
Sid chuckled. “I’m really not. You have ten seconds.”
Porter shook his head. “No idea.”
“Nine.”
I licked my lips. “I want proof of life.”
“You’ll get it once you turn in your jacket. Eight.”
Archer leaned toward the phone. “We will figure you out. We’ll figure all of you out, I hope you know that.”
Sid barked with laughter. “Are all of you so cute? Six.”
Porter leaned forward as well. “Wait, wait, wait, you missed—”
“Four.”
I growled. “Let me speak with her.”
“Three. Do you really want to see how quickly I jump to one?”
“All right! All right, I’ll do it!”
The world around me fell silent as I heard shuffling on the other end of the line. There was whimpering and sniffles, and anger unlike anything I’d ever felt in my life shot through my body. My hand trembled as I gripped my phone so tightly I thought it was going to crack. I hung onto every sound, wondering if maybe—just maybe—I’d hear Raven’s voice.
“Say it,” I heard Sid command in the background.
Then, I finally heard her. “I’m home, Brooks. I’ve been home this whole time.”
I nodded at Porter and Archer to get the fuck down there and they rushed back to their bikes.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
She sniffled. “Just my pride.”
“It’s gonna be okay. Everything is going to be just fine, all right?”
“Are you close?”
Raven cried out and Sid’s voice reappeared. “You have two days to hold up your end of the bargain. Failure to do so will kick in a Plan C. Got it?”
Holy shit, Raven had been their Plan B. “Got it.”
“Good. And I hope your men rolling up onto the scene were told to stand down. Because let me tell you, if they start shooting? Tsk tsk, I’d hate for friendly fire to take out your new girlfriend.”
I shook with fury. “Get the fuck out of her home. Now.”
“Meet me at the Santa Cruz wharf. If you’re smart, you’ll hand that jacket right over to me.”
Then, the line went dead.
“Fuck!” I roared.
Before I even struck up my bike again, I shot a text message off to Cole and Tanner. I wanted them to hunker down at the wharf as quickly as they could get there, and I wanted them to come stocked with guns. I knew we had some grenades in that back closet somewhere, and I wanted everything we had down at that fucking wharf. No one was stripping me of my cut, and no one would lay another fucking finger on Raven.
As far as I was concerned, this was war.
My phone rang and I saw Porter calling me. And I knew damn good and well it wouldn’t be good news when I picked up the phone. But when I heard gunshots popping off, my eyes widened.
I answered the phone call and heard Porter screaming at me. “Set up! Don’t come down—”
More gunshots popped off and I heard Archer yelling some incoherent nonsense.
Porter continued to yell. “She’s not—”
My stomach churned with the red that dripped around my vision. All of this had been a set up. Raven is nowhere fucking near her place. The gunfire seemed to go on forever and it took all I had not to plunge down into that complex and pick off every single last one of them myself. But I knew that was what they wanted. They wanted to draw me into that trap before someone took one well-timed headshot and ripped me out of the game for good.
Then, the gunfire stopped. “Porter?”
I waited for him to respond. “Archer?”
The silence was deafening. “Anyone there!?”
The sound of rustling finally appeared before Porter coughed. “We’re good. Archer and I are good. There were five of them waiting for us.”
I shook my head. “Get a clean-up club in there. Pick up your casings. The whole nine. I’m headed to the wharf with Cole and Tanner.”
“You know it’s a set up, right?” Archer asked.
I licked my lips. “Yeah, but I also think that’s where they’ve really got Raven. She was always their target. She was always their target to get to me.”
Porter growled. “Then, you get over there and fuck them up. We got it here.”
Archer’s voice appeared again. “And when we’re done here, we’ll come to the wharf if we don’t hear from you first.”
I nodded. “And if you hear cops, get the fuck out of there sooner rather than later. We don’t need anymore of us going down because of these fuckers.”
I hung up the phone and slid it back into my pocket, then I revved my bike engine. I burnt out turning myself around, pointing the front of my bike in the direction of the wharf. I hunched down and focused my pulsing gaze, feeling the anger fueling me as I kicked off from the ground. And as I soared through traffic, weaving in and out as quickly as possible, I prayed that Raven was still alive.
For her sake, for my sake, and for the sake of Chops. Because if she died today, I’d torture him slowly. Silently. Out in the middle of nowhere until he begged for death.
While smiling at him as he drowned in his own damn blood.
Twenty-Four
Raven
I sighed as I leaned against the cold, unforgiving wall in the room they had tossed me into. It wasn’t enough that they had chased me down. It wasn’t enough that they had run me off the road. It wasn’t enough that they blew out all of my tires with bullets and shot up my car until the engine almost exploded. No, ruining my life wasn’t enough for them.
Now, I was their captive.
The lies I had to spew with a gun to my head made me nauseous. But I also knew Brooks was smart. He’d figure it out. He’d figure out where I was, and he’d come save me. Just like I knew Gage would have if he were still alive.
I simply had to keep myself afloat long enough for Brooks to find me alive.
The guy who called himself Sid finally stopped talking on the phone and the world went silent again. If I strained really hard, I could hear what sounded like water of some sort. Or possibly waves. Was I near the ocean? Maybe in a storage facility somewhere?
I shook my head and relaxed against the wall, trying to imagine where they might have taken me.
I relived the accident in my mind as I closed my eyes behind the blindfold around them. How they ganged up on me, flanking me on either side before the other guy cut me off. The bullets that flew in the air and how fearful I was for my life would always stick with me, no matter what. I had no idea why the fuck I was in their line of sight with a target on my forehead, but I was over it. I was done with them and done with all of this shit.
And I’d let Brooks know once he came to find me.
Come on, please find me.
With my hands tied in front of me, I tried to wiggle out of my bonds. But with the zip ties cutting in
to my skin, the more I struggled, the tighter they became. At least they hadn’t bound my ankles. I would’ve been fucked had they bound my ankles as well. But I must’ve been making too much noise shuffling around.
Because the door to the room I was stashed in ripped open before a pair of boots stepped into the room.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sid asked.
I snickered. “Holding back my shit since you won’t let me take a dump. That’s what.”
He came closer. “You think you’re slick, huh?”
I grinned. “I think I shouldn’t have had tacos for lunch.”
“Stupid bitch.”
I heard the whooshing of the air even before his knuckles cracked against my skin. And the force of his backhanded slap took me to the ground. I tasted blood on the tip of my tongue and I spat onto the floor. But my spitting earned me yet another slap.
Sid fisted my hair and pulled my face up before slapping me again, and tears stung the backs of my eyes.
“Learn your place, and maybe you can go to the bathroom,” Sid grunted.
He tossed me back to the ground and I swallowed the blood in my mouth. “Or I’ll just piss on myself.”
He snickered. “And for every drop that hits the floor, that’s another smack I’ll be happy to deliver.”
I resisted the urge to call him every name in the book as he stepped out and slammed the door closed again. My jaw ached, and it felt like one of my teeth had come loose. I played around with it with my tongue until I figured out that my tooth wasn’t look, but my gum had been scratched so badly that a flap of skin had fallen away from one of my back molars.
That’ll be an expensive dentist trip.
I eased myself back up, swallowing my sounds of pain as I leaned against the wall. My bound hands fell against my lap and I sighed, wondering what in the world I could do to help myself. Maybe I simply needed to follow instructions. Maybe this wasn’t about staying afloat but staying silent until further notice.
But then, I felt it.
My Apple wrist watch was still against my skin.
“My God, are they that stupid?” I whispered.
I twisted and contorted my fingers until, finally, I felt them run across the small screen on my left wrist. I shook my head at the stupidity of these men and started pressing buttons, thanking my fucking stars that I’d put this damn thing on vibrate instead of silent. I focused on the sequence of buttons I had at my disposal, hoping and praying I was pressing them in the right order.
Then, another thought occurred to me.
The wall. Use the wall.
I shuffled myself around until my temple sat against the wall. Then, I pressed my head tightly against the metal and slid down. Something raked against my skin and I forced myself not to cry out in pain as blood seeped slowly down my skin. It took three tries before the rough part of the wall caught the blindfold, and I inched it up enough to be able to peer through the small lower slat and see my phone.
So, I quickly shot off a text to Brooks on where I thought I might be.
For shits and giggles, I also toggled on my Bluetooth. If Brooks knew anything about phones at all, he’d be able to use my number in any “Find My Phone” application to track down my wrist watch. It took me a few times to press the right combination of buttons, and a couple of times I silently cursed the screen for being so fucking small. Nevertheless, I got it turned on, and I knew I had done all I could do there.
So, I turned my attention back to my wrists.
“Come on,” I glowered.
The second I made that sound, bootsteps charged down the hallway. Tears sprang to my eyes as I stopped struggling and started fiddling around with my watch again. I heard Sid cursing lowly to himself as I thought on my feet, so to speak. And just as the knob on the door creaked with its turning, I pulled up the voice recorder on my phone.
Before hitting the red button and placing my wrists between my legs.
Please pick up the sound. Please pick up the sound.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sid demanded.
I squeezed my thighs. “I’m telling you, I really have to pee.”
“Does it look like I care? Oh, wait. You can’t see shit.”
He laughed at his own joke, but I simply grimaced. It felt like I had stepped into an alternate universe of some sort, but Gage’s training kept rushing back. In a situation like this, fighting wasn’t my ally. But my sassiness was.
So, I ratcheted it up a notch. “You think your boss is going to be happy if I piss all over this floor?”
He gripped my hair and pulled my head back. “I don’t think he’s going to give a shit what happens.”
“He might make you clean it up, though. Right?”
He shoved my head off to the side. “Or maybe we’ll torch the place to clean it up and keep you inside.”
His chuckle made me sick to my stomach, but I kept pressing on. “I mean if I’m a dead woman, I at least deserve to know the truth.”
Sid stopped chuckling. “You don’t deserve shit.”
I shrugged. “You mean I really don’t deserve to know what the hell happened to my husband?”
“Gage,” he growled.
I knew I’d struck a nerve simply by bringing it up, but my mind was too clouded with emotions to figure out how to proceed forward. How the hell did I get this man to talk to me while he was being recorded? What was the magical combination of words and phrases to get him to start spilling his guts? This was the part of Gage’s training I never quite understood. This whole flirting thing and “using my body” thing felt foreign to me. I’d never been that kind of woman, and I didn’t want to start now.
But what if it proves my theory?
Do this for Gage. He deserves to rest in peace.
Do this for Brooks. He deserves answers.
And do it for Hyde. Because he was wronged, and he deserves justice.
Side’s voice sounded in my ear. “You really wanna know what happened that night?”
I nodded slowly. “Please. It’s all I’ve wanted for years.”
“Yeah?” he breathed.
I sniffled. “It’s why I’m—”
Jesus hell, did I dare?
“It’s why you what?” he hissed.
I swallowed hard. “It’s why I’m sleeping with Brooks.”
He chuckled. “Well, well, well. What a wild, slinky little girl we’ve got here. Sleeping with the best friend for answers. It does have a bit of a ring to it.”
I’m gonna pull all of your teeth out one by one. “But if he doesn’t have answers and you do…”
I heard him lick his lips. “You think a decent blowjob’s gonna get me to spill everything? Must be one hell of a sucker to have that kind of confidence.”
Come on, I’m so close. “Not really confidence, just desperation. I know what I’ve been told about my husband’s death is false. I know the club is covering up something. I know something else happened, and I want answers. I need them, honestly.”
His hand gripped the back of my neck. “Oh, yeah? And what are you willing to give me for them?”
I felt his breath against my lips as he turned my head. “Anything.”
Silence hung between us for a long time and I panicked. Had I ticked the right boxes? Had I been convincing enough? I swallowed hard as Sid moved. He stood to his feet, his hand falling away from my neck. And when I heard his footfalls before the door closed, I sighed and leaned heavily against the wall.
Before I heard his voice in the room with me. “I was heavily involved with the bust of your little man-piece that night.”
My ears perked up as I sat up. “You were?”
He took a step toward me. “Oh, yeah. It was a great plan, too. Plant a buyer looking for a nice car, lure as many of those Dirty Condoms in as possible, then call the police and let them do our dirty work. It really was foolproof.”
My blood boiled in my veins. “So—so who set them up? Who was the buyer? I don’t—why woul
d—”
I heard his belt buckle tinkering around. “We wanted all of those fuckers in prison, but we got what we got and it was enough for what we were doing. Your precious little boy toy and Hyde got what was coming to them, and Brooks will soon enough.”
My lower lip quivered. “But—but why? What was the point?”
The sound of his belt leaving the loops made me shiver. “Those Dirty Little Scoundrels have land that we want. They have power that we want. They have influence that we want. And until every single one of them is wiped off the face of the planet, our president will never get the recognition he deserves.”
I swallowed hard. “And who is your president?”
He gripped my hair and stood in front of me. “Can’t give away all of my secrets now, can I?”
I felt the heat of his pelvis inching closer and my soul died a little in that moment. I felt myself hardening. It literally felt like my soul was turning into a massive piece of rock. I licked my lips, trying to present myself as willing to hold up my end of the bargain.
But the second I felt the tip of his dick slide against my crusted, bloodied cheek, I head-butted his cock.
And smiled when he bent over in pain.
“What the fuck!?” I exclaimed.
I reared my head back and headbutted him again, sending him stumbling back toward the door. I swiveled my legs underneath my body, fueled by the anger flushing itself through my veins. I stood to my knees. Then, my feet. And just as Sid took a step toward me, I leaned forward and headbutted him for a third time.
Sending him, and myself, soaring through the door I crashed him through.
Twenty-Five
Brooks
I pulled into the Santa Cruz wharf and drew in a deep breath. The smell of the ocean always calmed me, but my body was an ebbing sea of anger and hatred. Now, my parents didn’t teach me much growing up. Mom was always strung out on coke and Daddy Dearest enjoyed prostitutes more than he did my own mother, but there was one thing they taught me out of all their foolish ways that stuck with me.
Brooks (Dirty Misfits MC #1) Page 14