The Hunters Rage

by Elizabeth N Harris

  Akemi walked towards me and drew me into his arms and kissed the top of my head before ruffling the kid’s hair. Falcon took it in his cool little dude way, but Nova scrambled all over him, climbing him like a monkey.

  “Home for a while?” Akemi asked.

  “Yes, I’ve taken a two-week leave. Kids have finished their tournaments for a few weeks, so I thought we’d go away.”

  “That’s a good idea, Stacy.” Mrs Humphries said frying bacon and eggs at the stove.

  “Thought we’d all go.” I said, looking at Mrs Humphries and Akemi. They both looked shocked. “Oh, come on,” I said laughing, “we are family, right?” I saw tears in Mrs Humphries eyes, and Akemi lost his usual stoic look.

  “Where do you want to go?” I asked everyone sitting at the breakfast bar.

  “Anywhere is fine with me, dear.” Mrs Humphries said, turning back to breakfast. The kids began an immediate argument about where to go. Akemi raised his eyebrows and then jerked his head towards the office. I caught his non-verbal command and excusing myself went to my office.

  “People are running searches on you. I’ve heard from Master Hoshi. He’s blocking every effort, but something small may slip through.” I rocked back on my heels, and my eyes narrowed.

  “Poxy Drake Michaelson.” I snapped at Akemi.

  “Indeed. Master Hoshi is on it, none will meet fruition. But, power players of Rapid City have been utilised. A Dylan Hawthorne and Detective Antonio Ramirez.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Master Hoshi is on it.” Akemi repeated and drew me into his arms. “They may be the best, but no one is better than Master Hoshi.” I heard running footsteps.

  “Let’s hope not.” I said as the kids burst in laughing.

  Later that night, I tucked the kids into bed and kissed them goodnight. They fell to sleep worn out at last. After a hectic day of packing and booking flights and hotels, they were whacked out. Nova had got her choice of destination after she pinned Falcon three times.

  Leaving the night light on, I left their adjoining rooms and made my way downstairs to my office. Akemi sat there watching me, his elbows on his knees and his fingers pointed upwards, and he leant his chin on them.

  “Artemis, are you sure you want to do this?” Akemi asked. I nodded. I dialled a number I learned off by heart and a soft voice answered.

  “Phoe, it’s Artemis.”

  “Hey honey, how are you?” She asked.

  “I’m good, but I’ve some bad news for you.”

  “Oh my god Artemis, what’s happened?” She exclaimed. I heard rustling behind her and a soft murmur from Drake. I narrowed my eyes and squared my shoulders.

  “Did you a favour, one I didn’t want to do when you asked me to get involved in Rage’s business. Made it plain I didn’t want to work with Rage, and you begged me to work with them.

  Now they’re looking into me, that’s unforgivable. Rage and your husband’s friends, Hawthorne and Ramirez, are running searches on me. You and I both aware, I’m off-limits. As of now, I’m unavailable to you, and I won’t be taking any calls from you ever again. Our business ends tonight.”

  “Honey, no!” Phoe exclaimed shock colouring her voice. I felt a pang of guilt and then pushed it away.

  “Goodbye.” I said and hung up the phone. Akemi hugged me, and I left the room and headed to bed.

  ◆◆◆

  Phoe sat her ass on the bed and stared at her husband in undisguised shock. Drake walked over to her and crouched in front of her.

  “Baby?”

  “Artemis just cut me.” Phoe whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Drake asked although he’d a good idea.

  “She’s told me never to contact her again. Artemis has cut the Trusts and me. Drake, you have any idea how much work Artemis did for the Trusts? How invaluable she is? Without her, we won’t get half the leads we did!” Phoenix’s voice began to rise.

  “Baby.” Drake began.

  “No! No baby! Artemis was my friend, I trusted her, and she trusted me. She did me this favour, and you blew it up into more than what it was. You went after her, and now she’s walked away. You cost me a friend.”

  “Artemis knows more than she is tellin’.” Drake thundered, Phoe blinked at the evidence of his anger.

  “So fucking what, you’ve leads follow them up. Find the truth on your own backs.” Phoe finally shrieked at him.

  “This is about Rage, you have no say in Rage baby, and you know it.” Drake roared back. Phoe’s eyes narrowed on him.

  “I see. So, you can mess with the Trusts and walk away, and it doesn’t matter that our mission is saving lives. But god forbid that I know something or someone that can help Rage? Rage is more important than what I’m doing?” Drake spun around and narrowed his eyes.

  “Think on what you sayin’ baby. Nothing comes before Rage.” Phoe paled at his words, and she stared at Drake in disbelief.

  “Nothing?” Phoe asked, touching her stomach. Drake’s eyes narrowed on her stomach and then Phoe as she paled even further.

  “Don’t fuckin’ go there, woman.” Drake snarled. Phoe shook her head.

  “I think I said it plain enough. You don’t give a toss you’ve messed with the Trusts. You think my friend is hiding shit from you, and you didn’t care who or what got hurt when you set your hounds on her.” Phoe said weakly.

  “I set my hounds on her as you put it, baby.” Drake sneered. “Because that bitch knows more than what she said. Artemis knows more about Kayleigh than she let on. I want answers. Ace deserves answers.”

  “Yeah at the cost of my friendship and my work.” Drake ran his hands through his hair. Why couldn’t Phoe see he had to protect the club, he had to get answers for his brother? Drake glanced at her and saw she was paler than ever. He felt a twinge of guilt, and then anger pushed it away.

  “Goin’ for a shower.” He said and walked away, Phoe stared at him with her mouth open. Drake didn’t care. Her husband knew what the Trusts meant to her, and he didn’t give a damn. Phoe grabbed a bag and shoved clothing in it before he got out of the shower. Quickly, Phoe grabbed a piece of paper and wrote on it.

  Phoe understood what Rage meant to him, and this Kayleigh thing had blown shit wide open. There was an undercurrent in Rage, and everyone was aware of it. She’d tried to be strong and give Drake and the MC what they needed. But this shit with Artemis was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Drake simply didn’t care that he’d hurt the Trusts. Drake had just made Phoe’s position in the grand scheme of Rage very clear, and it was way at the bottom.

  Phoe left the room at a run, tears sliding down her face. She snatched her car keys and her purse, as she left the home, they called theirs and got in her car. Drake exited the shower and walked into the bedroom.

  “Phoe?” He called. Drake’s gaze drifted to the open drawers, and he felt something twist in his gut. He turned to the walk-in closet and saw clothes scattered on the floor. A piece of paper lay on the bed, and Drake picked it up.

  “Nothing means more to you than Rage, you said. Which means our child and me. You put your club before us. Not even your child means more to you than Rage. You don’t respect my Trusts or me, I’m not your whore. I was meant to be your wife. Goodbye, Drake.”

  He read out loud and sank to the bed. Shock caroused through him as he realised his words and the impact on his wife. The woman who lit up his life and brought light to his darkness. Drake’s pregnant wife. His child, who he’d never thought to have. He’d fucked up. Seriously fucked up. He’d wait for her to calm down and talk to her, explain that the club had to have answers.

  Phoe had to understand what Rage was to him, he wouldn’t let her leave him. She was his, and so was his kid. The woman just had to understand her place, he’d clear it up with her and sort this shit out. He loved her, she knew that. Phoe just had to learn that if she had shit, that could help the club, then he’d use that shit.

  “Phoe?” He whispered into the dark
night, there was no reply. She was gone.

  Chapter Three.

  21st October 2014.

  Three weeks later, I sat on a gurney as a nurse tried to convince me to take an injection as she eyed the slash on my arm. I raised my eyebrows at her as she waved the needle in my direction again.

  “Just stitch me up.” I said, exasperated. I’d got cut bringing in a pimp, there’d been a nice bounty on his head. Not too high a prize, but considering what he did to his girls, it’d been a pleasure.

  He hadn’t been a legal bounty. The brother of one of the girls was an underground player with pull. He’d taken offence that his little sister's boyfriend had forced her into prostitution. He hadn’t liked the fact that the boyfriend/pimp had beaten and cut her to obey him. It’s had seriously been a real pleasure to bring the asshole in.

  The idiot managed to cut me once, and that was an accident, he’d slipped on his fake tiger fur rug. Idiot now sat behind bars after I beat his ass. I was currently in North Dakota, sitting in a hospital in Grand Forks. My phone rang, and I saw the dirty look, the nurse gave it and me. Deliberately ignoring her, I whipped it out and hit connect.

  “Artemis don’t hang up. It’s Carmine. Ma’s been shot.” My body stiffened. What the fuck? Phoenix shot?

  “Details.” I snapped out.

  “Things been volatile between Ma and Drake last three weeks. Real bad, she’s not been home, when he’s here. Yesterday Ma went to Rage, and someone shot her on the forecourt, Drake’s lost it, and shit’s hitting the fan. Ma’s seriously hurt Artemis, she’s back in surgery. Chance is kicking in so many doors the cops are involved.” Carmine whispered.

  I closed my eyes, and the image of Carmine hit my lids. A tall teen, now eighteen, who played for the Cubs, completely baseball mad. The second eldest of Phoenix’s many kids.

  White father and black mother gave him a beautiful mocha coloured skin. Phoenix adopted him four years ago when her feet hit the States. Carmine had been a street kid and struggling to look out for his now brothers and sister. Phoenix hadn’t messed around, she’d adopted the lot of them.

  “Okay.” I said and snapped my phone shut. “You got five minutes to stitch me up, and then my ass hits the door.” The nurse grunted.

  I arrived at the command centre, in Sioux Falls just under six hours later. Buzz got me a private flight home that was waiting for me by the time I hit the airport. The flight plan was pre-filed, and we took off twenty minutes after my arrival. My bike was at the airport, so I grabbed my rucksack and swung up on it.

  The six hours I’d given Buzz meant he’d been busy. Akemi and Master Hoshi had been contacted, and their eyes and ears hit the ground. Buzz called in a hacker friend of mine, on his day off. Nigel was crazy mad at computers, there wasn’t an organisation he hadn’t hacked into, yeah, including ones such as the FBI and NSA. I swung through our office door and strode into the computer room.

  Nigel was drinking coffee and punching away at his systems. His eyes were wide, and I saw he was on a caffeine high. He pointed towards Buzz, who was shuffling things around and on the phone.

  “Angel and Kristoff are on the ground in RC. (Rapid City) Nigel’s on the ‘puters and Akemi is chasing a lead.” Buzz updated me. “Simone and Butch have an ETA of an hour.”

  “You pulled them in?” I asked, knowing the answer. Of course, he had. Ex-military himself, what Phoenix did meant a shitload to him. Buzz worked for me but he’d two loyalties, his brothers in arms and us. And Buzz’s own history made it a no brainer.

  We operated off the books, you didn’t find us in a phone directory. We built a solid reputation up by word of mouth. I’d started this on my own, whatever you want to call this, a bounty hunting service, kidnap and rescue service, mercenaries, mayhem and murder. Whatever.

  At first, it had been me alone with Akemi taking my back when I needed it. Buzz came along next. I found him putting up a damn good fight outside a bar in Wyoming, trying to kick the shit out of six men. Brave Buzz might have been, but he was losing. I intervened. That night he followed me, then he tracked me three nights later. I hired him. Buzz was a paranoid nutcase, but his creativity with weapons was unsurpassed. He’d been a weapons specialist in the army. Which explained his crazy skills.

  Angel was one of Master Hoshi’s little projects much the same as me, only he was more fucked in the head. Dangerously fucked. Angel had no line he wouldn’t cross, apart from innocent women and children. Master Hoshi realised that and gave the man to me. I kept him busy.

  Kristoff was a career criminal and had been on the streets since he was six. He’d survived many things others wouldn’t. Kristoff excelled at what he did, and we’d crossed paths a few times. When I realised he’d come to the attention of the cops and they planned to nail him, I swooped instead.

  Buzz wiped everything on him, and Kristoff was clean. Buzz earned good money, and he liked money. His bitches liked money, and so he was onto a good thing with me.

  Simone was my twin, she thought like me, acted like me and had the same morals and ethics as me. We were though, night and day in looks. Butch was the only one she’d work with and vice versa, Simone was another of Master Hoshi’s projects.

  If I thought Angel was certifiably insane, Butch wiped the floor with him. A big man who moved like a ghost, Butch had special force training. He’d been held hostage and tortured for two years by the Taliban. The minute he got free, he killed everyone in that camp, in cold blood. Over forty men died. As a by your leave, Butch brought home, six marine hostages, alive. Akemi found him and helped him channel his anger before it broke loose on an innocent population.

  Nigel was a geek. He spoke computer and lived computer, and he didn’t care who knew it. Wiry and slender, which disguised that he was tough despite the fact he was a geek. Nigel and Buzz had hacked into every single system in the world. Those two together on a problem meant nothing was safe. Of course, the logical thing was to put them together.

  I’d ended up running a business with people I paid a fuck load of money to. Master Hoshi sent his projects to me if they needed direction. Between us, we’d formed a company named Artemis. When people asked what Artemis looked like, they received varying stories. No one knew who Artemis was, no one knew whether I was male or female.

  Artemis coasted the legal bounties which my guys hunted. When various different people turn up claiming to be Artemis, well, that’s why there were various descriptions of me. No one had a lock on the real Artemis.

  My guys took the ninety percent of the bounty money for their catches. The other ten percent paid Buzz, Nigel and any equipment we needed. Artemis coasted the illegal bounties, and we took what we wanted. Every one of us had a shit load of money in our banks and hidden bank accounts. And we did, I repeat, what we wanted. Artemis was the best.

  No one knew we’d a home base and offices. It wasn’t known that Artemis comprised of more than one person. Suspected? Sure. But no one had proof. No one had contact with us outside our identity as anything other than Artemis. I know agencies and P.I’s such as Hawthorne’s investigated us. FBI, NSA, CIA, M15 looked for us.

  Thanks to the dynamic duo they got shit on us. Not even a photo. Anything electronic disappeared, including cop footage of us in their stations. Cops gave up bitching that their systems went haywire when Artemis entered their domain.

  We’d earned our reputation of being ghosts. That’s all I wanted. Buried deep in layers upon layers of bullshit, we’d wiped our true identities. Every single one of us lived under aliases, and that’s how we wanted it. Only one thing had ever slipped out. I’d been linked to an organisation known as Revenge. Sounds dramatic, right? It wasn’t.

  Less was known about Revenge than Artemis. It had only slipped out because someone Master Hoshi had taken in, betrayed us. Traitor spoke to the cops, but we were three minutes too late in taking him out. To clarify, I didn’t take him out, Revenge did.

  Rumours of Revenge went around the circuits. When the traitor’s tale couldn
’t be confirmed, everyone dismissed Revenge as a fable. One of those bullshit stories made up to frighten people. No one knew it was real. Rumours of Revenge died a quick death. We made sure of that.

  I eyed the whiteboard that Buzz scribbled on. Next to his handwriting was Nigel’s with arrows and shit pointing at Buzz’s stuff. I turned back to Buzz for the update he’d have. Buzz hung up the phone and looked into my eyes.

  “Phoenix is stable but critical. She may need further surgery.” The snake that had been in my belly loosened. I may have cut her loose, but I still admired, respected and yeah, I cared about her.

  “The baby?” I asked.

  “Alive for now, it’s being monitored closely.”

  “Guards?”

  “Phoenix has Rage on her door, and Hawthorne’s on the entrance to the ward. RCPD is showing a high presence. No one will get close. The info we have comin’ in isn’t good woman. Since you landed your bombshell on Rage, they have been turnin’ Rapid City inside out. Kickin’ in doors and upsettin’ folk.

  Word got back to various players and Thunder acted. Angel is tryin’ to track whether Thunder called in the warnin’ hit or did the hit himself. Thunder’s gone to ground with the whore of the year with him. Now RC has Hellfire rampaging through the city, it’s a goddamn mess out there.”

  “Gonna shower and eat. I want answers when I get back.” I muttered. Buzz nodded.

  Half an hour later, I sat my ass on Buzz’s desk, eating pizza as he informed me that Thunder had called in the hit. Fucking gangbangers, four guys Thunder hired, did the hit. One followed Phoe, the second and third both shot at her and the fourth drove the get-away car. I’d names, faces, and I’d places to be. I shifted towards the door.

  “Get some sleep, then I want Thunder and Misty found. Boots on the street, I want them.” The snake returned to my belly at the thought of them. Raping and torturing a teenage girl to death hadn’t been enough for their black souls. No, they’d shot Phoe, who was pure goodness, an angel. A woman who did no harm.