Hunter (Black Angels MC Book 1)

by A. E. Fisher

  “Stop struggling, bitch.”

  I hissed, spitting in his face.

  I had never been punched in my life, and I wished I never had.

  My body hit the floor hard, throbbing pain radiating from my cheek across my face and down my neck. My skin split and blood leaked down my chin. I didn’t even get a chance to get up as he grabbed another fistful of hair and yanked me to my feet.

  The guy pressed the gun to my throat, the black van now in front of me and Racer’s body dumped inside. “Now, get in the fuckin’ car, bitch, before I make you.”

  “I—”

  “Mallory!” a voice screeched from down the road.

  I heard a bullet bounce off the car and roars of engines. I turned to see Jax, Wolf, Lamb, and the rest of the Black Angels tearing down the road.

  My phone call.

  Relief hit me so hard that I felt weak at the knees. Then I collapsed, realizing it wasn’t relief that had hit me. It was the butt of a gun.

  Everything became quiet and blurry as I lay on the hard ground, aware of muted shouting and exchanging gunfire. One of my kidnappers hit the floor beside me, blood seeping out of a bullet wound in his head and chest. Then I was hoisted from the floor.

  I looked up in time to see Jax screech to a stop, leaping from his bike with his gun drawn and firing as he ran toward me.

  Then I was thrown in the back of the van, and the engine roared to life.

  I wanted to say I could still hear the bikes chasing me, but I couldn’t. Pain sunk me deeply into unconsciousness, and I was lost in the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hunter

  I looked up at the articles pinned to the wall. Each one was from a different newspaper in this tiny town, all detailing the death of a motorcycle club’s member in a road accident. It was all the information I had gathered over the past four years, yet none of it could tell me who would have the information that could destroy the Hell’s Runners.

  This was the reason I hadn’t let Mallory in my room back at the house. Because it hadn’t just been four walls and a bed. It had been the room that had completely detailed my obsession of revenge spiraling out of control from my brother’s accident. This was what had kept me grounded after Wolf dragged me back from the edge. It had been how I was understanding my brother’s accident. Years and years of information.

  It was all useless.

  “Who the fuck did you give it to, Noble?” I growled, shoving my fist hard into the wall. “This is it. It’s the chance to get rid of them forever. Get that target off Mallory’s back. Give your son the safe home he deserves.”

  I dropped my fist, looking down at the image of Mallory’s face pinned at the bottom. It was her driver’s license photograph. She must have been about eighteen. She looked young and peaceful; a lot to look forward to in her life. Now she was twenty-eight with a three-year-old and a target on her back the size of Jupiter. I wondered what she had been like before I had known her. I wondered if she had been as stubborn, or if that had been what being on the run with a kid had made her.

  The Mallory I knew was a feisty little thing when she wanted to be. Other times, she mewled like a kitten beneath me, submissive and begging me to take her. She had a mouth that surprised me at every turn, and a smile that made me want to keep her locked up. And the way she strutted around after that golden little boy, always on her toes, always putting him first …

  They were the best things to ever happen to me. Probably forever would be.

  And I had just used her to vent my frustrations.

  Regret hit me faster than I thought it would. I was mentally beating on myself for being a dick to the only woman who could possibly handle me. I had told her I was in it for the long run and that I would protect her, but I had no doubt hurt her when I had left her there.

  It was probably best that I had left when I did. Who knew what other stupid shit I would have spouted at her. I had barely been civil to Mint when I had asked him to keep an eye on her. Lamb would get Pipe, the other prospect, to mind the gate. Then I had been out of anybody’s range as fast as possible.

  I had brushed off any club slut who thought she could make a pass and didn’t give a flying fuck when they had whined. Normally, I would have put them in their place; let them know they weren’t and would never be my old lady, that it was Mallory’s spot now, but I hadn’t.

  I had bypassed my room and headed farther down the hallway until I was where I needed to be. I had read the engraving on the door, pulled out the only key, and unlocked it before stepping inside, standing in the middle of Noble’s room.

  One side of the wall was covered in papers and string, and everything that I had hoped would connect the dots for me to find out why my brother had been murdered and who the girl was that he had been so desperate to make happy on his last day alive.

  It was all a lie.

  Now, most of it lay in strips of paper, shredded and torn across the ground, in a field of my grief. This had been what had kept me focused these past few years, and now it was the only evidence of the goose chase Wolf had led me on.

  I looked down at the mess and at the wrecked wall, and then I sat down on the bed. I dropped my heavy head into my hands, my mind raging with an oncoming headache, and sighed.

  “I’m such an idiot.” I hated the feeling of self-loathing. At the same time, I deserved it.

  When I opened my eyes to peer down at the litter on the floor, I saw the shine of a metal key peering out from beneath it.

  I reached down and lifted it with care from beneath the graveyard of my work. The firebird etched into the key stood out like a beacon against the black plastic. It was like a homing device.

  Before I knew it, I had slipped unnoticed through the back door of the compound, out across the yard, and over to the old shed at the back end of the property.

  I stood before it, the door seeming more like fear-forged steel than the thin wood it was. The key was like a heavy stone in my palm.

  I swallowed a deep breath and did what I hadn’t in almost four years.

  I opened the door and stepped inside.

  Through the broken windows, the afternoon sun burned through the heavy dust. It danced in a thick fog, stirred from my entry, and an arc of floor had been uncovered from the layer that had settled over time.

  And within the small space, it remained.

  Until the time came that I could face it, it had remained untouched. Covered in a thick sheet, its shape crippled and unrecognizable.

  It had been brought here when Noble had been lain to rest.

  Many of the kids would ask about the shed at the bottom of the yard, but none of the adults would mention it. And the kids who did know, didn’t tell. Nobody went near it. Not until today.

  With a numbing calm, I reached for a fistful of cloth, squeezing the key one more time before I pulled.

  A hail of dust showered over me and clogged my lungs. I coughed up a storm, beating my hand against my chest until the dust settled, its thick layer now banished and forced out the door by the draft. I waved the last particles out of my face and looked down, the thick sheet now in a pile by my boots.

  There she was.

  Laid in a tangle of cobwebs and dust, in the corner of an old shed of a biker’s compound, was her.

  Painful images flashed through my mind. Not of the accident, not of the grief, but the joy. Noble’s face when he had first ridden her. His howls as he had sailed the wind on her back. The sweetness he had paid to her while he kept her buffed and tuned, and the viciousness of anyone who had harmed her.

  No biker quite had a first love like Noble and Ruby’s. Although it was silly as shit to name your bike, it had also been very Noble.

  Ruby was a classic Harley with a ruby red body and the same orange and yellow firebird painted across the frame, wheels, and the exhaust. She was a one-of-a-kind. Or, she had been.

  The tattoo on my chest ached as I crouched down to her height, reaching out to touch her.
/>
  She was warmer than I had expected, but cooler than I remembered. She was a little more than scrap metal now, her paint long since dulled and chipped. Most of it had scratched off on the asphalt from where she had skidded across the road. Her chromes had rusted, and her oil tank had burst, a dark stain on the floor where the last traces must have leaked.

  I had fixed bikes in the past. I was good at it, too. But this old girl, even the most skilled mechanic would retire her. At least she had seen a life.

  I had often bitched about Noble’s obsession with Ruby, but I had also always known where he had been coming from. The bike was a legend. She hadn’t roared to life; she had cried like the firebird painted on her body, and the way she had flown on the roads had been smooth and effortless. Hell, I would have loved to have shown Adair this girl in her prime.

  Since the accident, I hadn’t looked at her. I couldn’t bear it. She had been shoved to the back of my mind like she had into this shed. Just like the letter.

  Days after Noble’s death, a letter had been sent to me. It had been arranged should anything had happened. It wasn’t much.

  Look after Ruby for me, bro. She means everything, was all it had said.

  Noble hadn’t been the most literate, but I had expected a few more words. The location of the information would have been nice. Never mind the letter or the information to take down our number-one enemy, just make sure the bike was okay. However, I had no doubt a Runner’s spy had long since checked the contents before I had even known of its existence.

  Noble, you dipshit. You only ever loved Ruby.

  I remembered Mallory had told me that Noble had given her a ride. I wondered if she knew how much that bike had been worth to him. How much her memory meant to me now.

  I ran my hand across her seat. “Adair should have inherited you,” I said, the image of it woven into my mind with ease.

  I bet he would grow up to be a spitting image of a young Noble. He would have fit on Ruby like a glove, like Noble had. He would have offered to take all the girls for a ride, like Noble. Get crazy stalker fans, like Noble.

  Except, Adair would have Mallory, and she would fuss at him, and the girls would all laugh until Adair shooed her away. Then Mallory would huff before walking off and into my arms where I would assure her the boy would be fine.

  “You can never know that for sure,” she would say. And no matter how old we got together, I would never be able to convince her otherwise. That was the kind of mother, the kind of woman, she was. Too compassionate for her own good. Too caring. Too kind.

  Too sweet for all this shit on her shoulders.

  I pulled my hand back and sighed again. “Brother, you’ve dropped me in a huge pile of shit. Worse than even that time during Christmas dinner.” I reminisced about all the trouble Noble had managed to drag me into as kids, always leaving me to clean up after him. “If your ass were here, I’d make you sort this shit out yourself. Maybe you’d do better by Mallory than me.”

  A big part of me knew that, even if Noble were to walk through that door, I wouldn’t give her up. She was mine now. And I was hers.

  Somehow, looking at the bike gave me strength to move on.

  “Never look back.” That was Noble’s motto. He even had it tattooed across his shoulder blades. So, for now, just this once, I would listen to my idiotic, wild, big brother. I would swallow my pride and put all my shit with Wolf to rest. Wolf would get his punishment later, but until this Hell’s Runners shit was over, I needed a brother. I needed my president.

  I also needed my girl.

  That meant it was time for an apology. A big one. One that would result in hot make-up sex and her moaning as she took my cock so deep in her …

  My brain shorted as my knee knocked into Ruby’s side. The pile of metal wobbled on wrecked wheels until it came crashing down against my calf and knocked me to the ground with a resounding crash.

  Dust flew in the fucking air again, relentless in its attempt to suffocate me, as I dug myself out from under her body, shuffling to jerk my leg free.

  I hissed at the blood rising through my jeans and cursed at the throbbing pain. I was bleeding a steady drip onto the floor, a small puddle beginning to form. It stretched across the ground until it met a wall of paper, which absorbed it like a starved desert.

  I looked at the envelope on the ground, its yellowed paper turning a muddied red. It was pinned beneath Ruby’s exhaust, near the torn saddlebag and mangled wheel. It hadn’t been there when I had first come in.

  I reached for it, an old memory resurfacing. It was a conversation between me and Noble, him telling me his crazy idea about secret compartments for Ruby after seeing the new 007 film.

  I could hear my heart thumping in my ears. I felt almost cold and numb as I picked up the envelope.

  Look after Ruby for me, bro. She means everything, Noble’s letter had said.

  She means everything.

  I slipped my hand under the damp lip of the envelope, finding a carefully folded letter inside. I pulled it out, my eyes moving in a smooth, fluid motion across the words. There were more pages than I had anticipated, printed on almost tissue thin paper so they all fit in the one envelope.

  “This is …”

  Ground vibrations interrupted my thoughts as every motorcycle across the lot roared to life. I heard shouts and calls. And then I looked at my phone.

  Five missed calls. All from the same person.

  Anna.

  I screeched to a stop outside the park, almost forgetting to kick down my peg as I staggered from my bike, near scrambling on my feet as I came to Wolf’s side. He stood by the slide, a red pool of blood at his feet.

  “Adair?” were the first words out of my mouth.

  Wolf looked over his shoulder as I heard Jax call my name.

  I whirled around and found Jax holding Adair in his arms. My eyes went everywhere, trying to look past the red for injuries, but all I could see was the blood. He was covered in blood.

  “He’s fine,” Jax assured me, watching the color leak from my face. “It’s Mint’s blood, not his. He’s fine, brother.”

  “Adair,” I whispered as I stepped closer.

  Adair snapped his head around at the sound of my voice, his face a mask of shock, silent tears rolling down his cheeks, eyes circled by white.

  It was devastating.

  The pain, helplessness, and grief I felt as I grabbed him from Jax’s arms and pulled him tight to my chest were unbearable. He was rigid, but I held tighter, unable to stop my own body from shaking.

  He could have died.

  He could have been killed.

  I could have lost him.

  The same thoughts repeated in my mind until I heard the softest sound.

  “Uncle … Hummer,” Adair whispered as if he was slowly realizing I was there.

  “Yeah, buddy, it’s me. I’m here. I got you,” I said into his curls. “Fuck, I should never have let you go.”

  And just like that, the dam broke. Roars of pain and fear echoed through the little boy’s cries. The boy I was supposed to protect.

  The guilt was devastating.

  I held on to Adair, in our own world, until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  Wolf stood there, a mighty icy force with a face of stone when he said, “Church. Now.”

  Wolf’s face told me he didn’t give two shits about our issues. This, today, had superseded it all. Club came first. The guilt could wait until later.

  I thought back to that envelope.

  It was time to end all of this. Once and for all.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Mallory

  The chains were industrial steel and would probably take twice my strength to break. If I had a crowbar and could get it at the right angle, I could maybe loosen a link and make a run for it. However, I didn’t have a crowbar, and my bound hands could never do it. There went escape plan thirty-eight.

  That left me stuck in the center of an empty warehouse, at the end
of a thirty-foot chain from the third story roof, near no potential tools and no feasible escape route.

  Fucking fantabulous.

  Well, at least Jax had arrived when he had. Now I could be sure the boys had gotten to Adair and taken him to safety.

  Probably to Hunter.

  Or maybe he didn’t know yet. He had taken off in such a rage I wouldn’t be surprised if he had gotten on his bike and headed south. He would be halfway to Mexico by now, judging by the evening light streaming through the single broken skylight. It was possible that a day or so could have passed, but I doubted it, considering the last traces of my twenty-four-hour perfume still lingered in a feeble attempt to battle my horrible body odor.

  I sighed. On to plan thirty-nine, then. It would more than likely be a dud, too. Then I would move on to plan forty, because it was the only thing keeping the fear at bay. If it meant coming up with a thousand plans, even if they all failed, I would keep going. The second I caught up in my fear, I would lose.

  My father came to mind then. When I had feared the monster under the bed, or failing my driving test, or asking a boy to prom, he had sat me down and quoted the same verse to me.

  “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” I whispered out loud.

  Though he had talked of God, I had always thought of the words representing my father. He had been first and foremost a servant of the Lord, but that didn’t mean his duties as a father had meant any less to him. After he had passed away, I couldn’t help thinking it was my father looking down on me; my father guiding me through my fears.

  It made me wonder what he would think of my situation now. I always had been a wayward daughter.

  Even so, the passage was comforting, calming, and it cleared my mind. I took a deep breath, jingled my chains, and pushed down the fear. Then I closed my eyes and breathed.

  I will be okay.