by Sweet, Izzy
Once Coy gets here, he’ll know what to do.
Until then though…
Mikhail continues to curse and spit, calling me all the names in the book. Bitch. Whore. Slut. Cunt.
I let it feed me.
Feed this endless pit of anger opening inside me.
Then I walk over to the wall where a few buckets and tools have been left.
Grabbing a crowbar, I lift it up and heft it in my hand as I turn back to Mikhail.
His face darkens with rage as I remind him, “If you touch me, Luke is going to shoot you in the balls.”
Shifting the crowbar into both hands, I stalk back to him.
I feel a little stitch in my side, but I’m not going to let it stop me.
Mikhail glares up at me with defiance in his eyes and a smirk curving on his lips.
Stupid fucker still doesn’t think I’ll do it. No, he’s so used to beating me into submission, he doesn’t think I have it in me.
Gathering up all the hate and loathing I have for him and letting it wash over me, I scream in rage and swing down at him. “This is for Robert, motherfucker!”
“Fuck!” Mikhail yells as the crowbar connects with the hands he throws up to protect himself.
Undeterred, I lift the crowbar and swing down again with everything I have before he has a chance to defend himself.
“This is for my parents!”
I crack him right across the stomach and he tries to ball up with a grunt of pain.
Chest heaving, I stare down at him, my lips doing the smirking now as worry washes over his face.
His pain is giving me life.
Filling me up with buzzing energy and making more of my own pain fade away.
“Ah… looks like I’m late to the show,” Jude says, his voice sounding a little strained.
I tear my gaze away from Mikhail to see Jude stumbling through the door.
“Shit, are you okay?” Poster Boy asks as Jude has to stop and lean and against the wall.
“Yes,” Jude answers and his lips stretch into a sardonic grin. “It’s just a little flesh wound. Carry on.”
Mentally shrugging my shoulders, I turn back to Mikhail to find him breathing heavily and glaring up at me now with murder in his eyes.
Oh, I know that look.
I’m going to knock that fucking look right off his face.
“The balls, Luke. Shoot him in the fucking balls if he runs,” I pant before I swing down again and crack Mikhail across the kneecaps.
Mikhail lets out a howl of pain.
That one was definitely for Levi.
“Don’t think he’ll be running now though!” I laugh, lift the crowbar, and swing down again, aiming for his head.
Sensing my intention, Mikhail rolls and manages to throw his hands up to protect his head as I swing at his face.
I only connect with his arms and the side of his head.
“Motherfucker!” I vent in frustration.
Almost frantic now with the need to cause him pain, I swing again and again, not even caring what I’m hitting.
“How does it feel? Huh? How does it feel?” I pant as the crowbar cracks against his arms, stomach, legs, and back as he tries to roll and scramble away from me.
Each time the crowbar connects, I’m paying him back for something he did to hurt me.
I’m literally taking my pound of flesh from his flesh.
But he’s not nearly afraid enough.
He continues to curse me and promises retribution through his yelps and howls.
I get one last hit in on his ribs, but this isn’t doing it for me anymore. No, he’s bleeding and busted up, but he’s not scared and he’s not fucking crying.
I need to find a way to put the fear of God in him.
If it’s the last thing I do, I want him to know what it was like for me every time he laid into me.
The helplessness. Knowing if I tried to protect myself or fight back, I’d—
“Change of plans, Luke,” I huff, my eyes locked on Mikhail’s eyes. “If he fucking moves shoot him in the head.”
“Got it,” Poster Boy chuckles.
He’s totally enjoying this.
And I am too, to be honest.
“You hear that, Mikhail?” I say, and I can feel my eyes gleaming as I step up to him. “You move, you’re fucking dead.”
Pushed up on his elbows, Mikhail’s sweaty and flushed face contorts as his eyes blacken with rage. “I’m going to kill you for this, Allison. I’m going to fuck you and kill you in front of Levi. Then I’m going to slit his fucking throat and let him bleed out all over your dead body!”
I kick his legs apart, resisting the urge to stomp my boots down on his busted kneecaps.
Again, I have to fight through my rage to do this right. If I don’t do this right, he won’t suffer. He’ll get off easy.
Jabbing the crowbar into his throat and forcing him down flat, I grit out, “You know, I think this is the only time in my life I’ve ever actually wanted to touch your cock.”
His brows pinch in confusion as I nudge my way up to his groin with my boots.
“Remember,” I say and jab against his Adam’s apple with the crowbar. “You fucking move, you fucking touch me, you die. Right, Luke?”
“Right,” Poster Boy agrees almost gleefully. “I’ll blow his fucking brains all over the place.”
I grin as Mikhail’s expression grows downright psychotic with anger and worry as I keep his head pinned to the floor with the crowbar.
“Allison—” Mikhail starts to growl but I cut him off.
“Wait. Do you hear that?” I ask, my ears picking up the sound of motorcycles rumbling in the distance.
“The cavalry is almost here,” Poster Boy snickers.
“Just in time,” I grin as I lift my boot and then press it down on Mikhail’s groin.
Mikhail grabs my leg to protect himself, just like I knew he would.
Gleefully, I grind my boot a little and remind him, “You’re going to die if you don’t let go of me.”
“In the head, right?” Poster Boy asks, sounding deadly serious now.
“Yes, in the head,” I confirm.
“Fuck you, Allison!” Mikhail roars as he lets go of my leg and drops his arms back down to the floor.
Pushed past the last of my self-control, I lift my leg and scream, “Fuck you, motherfucker! How does it feel to know if you fight back, you die?!”
Then I slam my boot down into his balls, using my heel to grind them into the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Coy
Somewhere deep in my fucking gut, I know shit ain’t right. If Allie was running from danger, she’d have taken my son with her.
And knowing that, I’ve got this awful feeling that she’s running to danger, especially with Jude in the fucking van with her.
“God fucking dammit,” I snarl as I tear out of the parking lot of the crematorium, feeling the ass of my bike fishtail to the side.
Flashbacks of Allie lying in a coma slam into me from all sides.
I experience the pain and anguish of the one person in this world who meant something to me, who understood me, who got past my walls, lying broken in a hospital bed, all over again.
Her brain locking the world around her out.
Throttling the gas harder, I feel the wind ripping at my face, tearing away all the happiness and clarity that I’d finally fucking found.
Behind me, I hear the loud roar of the bikes keeping pace with me. Each man behind me following their leader into what could quite possibly be a certain hell.
Hell for me at least, because if I lose my Allie again, I’ll fucking crumble.
Graveyard, Whitey, and Grem follow me down the long, winding back roads of Kentucky. The hills echoing the howling around us.
I feel fucking naked as I get closer to Allies house. I don’t know what I’m getting into and Poster Boy had to cut the call when he got closer to her van.
I don’t
know anything, and I feel fucking naked for it.
What I see when I turn up the drive to her house doesn’t make sense. The whole bottom floor of the house is brightly lit, and her van is literally sitting on top of a body. Another corpse is laid out on the side of it…
What the fuck?
Heart pounding, I throttle up the bike again as I race to the front door of the house. Slamming on my brake, I shut the engine down and hear Allie screaming about something from inside of the building.
There are even more corpses dressed in suits around the front door and in the yard.
I can hear Poster Boy shout something while laughing.
What. The. Fuck.
The rest of the guys pull up behind me, and I motion for Gremlin and Graveyard before I point to the surrounding area. “Check the perimeter, figure out who the fuck these guys are.”
“On it!” Graveyard says and slinks off, disappearing into the darkness.
Graveyard’s a creepy motherfucker like that. Spent too many years in the military doing shit he won’t talk about.
Grem trots in the other direction, leaving me and Whitey alone.
“Poster?” I shout at the house as I carefully make may way up the front steps.
Everything in me wants to freak the fuck out and burst through the door like a fuckin’ maniac, but I can’t. Not yet.
Not if it risks Allie.
“In here, Pres! Come on in!” Poster Boy shouts out to us.
Thank whatever lucky fucking stars.
Opening the door, I keep my Glock pulled out and down to my side. Just because he says it’s safe doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep my gun ready.
At first what’s goin’ on inside the house mystifies me.
There’s a man in a chair who looks like he’s been tortured.
And there’s a guy in a suit on the floor, getting his balls stomped on by Allie. He’s totally takin’ it like a bitch, too, and he looks like he’s about to pass the fuck out.
Leaning against the wall beside me, Jude is grinning. His face looks almost manic as he watches Allie.
Again. What. The. Fuck.
“How’s it feel to lay there and fucking take it, you fucking bitch?!” Allie screams, her voice ragged and gasping for air. “How’s it feel to not have a choice? Do you think this is how I felt when you raped me?!”
“Allie!” I shout as I move quickly to her.
Ignoring me, she keeps screaming and her words are quickly losing any semblance of coherence. She’s hollering for all she’s fucking worth at the guy on the ground, and when I hear the name Mikhail in her screams, I now know what the fuck just happened.
The Russians have finally come to Kentucky.
“Allie,” I shout at her again while wrapping my arms around her waist.
Yanking her up and away from the man who’s now out cold, I wrestle her around in the air as she keeps kicking at some invisible foe, all the while screaming nonsensical words.
Fuck, I had no clue Allie could fight as well as she does though. She keeps kickin’ and tryin’ to claw her way out of my embrace.
She’s not Allie right now. No, she’s that hurt woman who ran from her tormentor. She’s the woman who’s been beaten, raped, and mentally fucking broken for the last however many years she was under his thumb.
Shaking her back and forth, I twist her around to face me as I feel her range of emotions finally clicking over to tears of rage.
Now that she’s not going to accidentally beat the fuck out of me, I kiss her cheeks and bring her hands up, clasped between my own fingers. Her tears are hot and salty as she tightly closes her eyes. Even with her eyes closed though the tears keep leaking out of her.
It’s like she’s some kind of faucet that doesn’t know it can turn off yet.
Pulling us to the wall closest to us, I sink to the floor as she weeps into my arms.
“Coy… Robert, oh my god!” she wails as she starts clawing her way back out of my arms, headin’ for the guy passed out in the chair.
Fuck. Dude’s got knives sticking out of him in all kinds of places, and that shit don’t fucking look good.
“Grem,” I shout as loud as possible.
“Here,” Grem says as he comes through the door. “Everything’s good outside, but Graveyard’s on patrol. Gonna keep us locked down.”
Moving to get beside Robert, I ask Allie, “Who is he, baby?”
“He’s my uncle,” she says with new tears leaking down her cheeks. “He’s… he’s dying.”
“Grem, see what you can do,” I say and then look over to Whitey. “Get on the phone with the Sheriff, we need this place locked out. I don’t want anyone comin’ in here except the Bastards.”
“On it,” Whitey says.
Grem moves over to Robert and starts gently probing around the knife wounds.
I have to pull Allie away. She’s only going to be in the way now.
“Poster, secure that motherfucker,” I say pointing to Mikhail. “We’re gonna need his ass soon.”
Nodding his head, Poster Boy starts laughing and points to the fucker’s feet. “Don’t think we’ve got much to worry about there. Allie took care of it.
“Jesus, Allie Cat,” I say with a laugh as I pull her to a standing position.
That’s some damn good aim. She was a natural with a gun back in the day when I taught her at the range…
Looks like she hasn’t forgotten everything.
“He… he deserved it,” she says through her tears as she keeps looking at Robert.
“I hate to be a burden,” Jude says quietly and it’s like a shadow just moved.
He simply faded into the background, watching everything.
Looking over to him, I want to fucking shoot him between the fucking eyes for putting Allie in danger, but right now I’m bettin’ he kept her out of more danger than I know.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask him.
“Your friend there,” he says, pointing to Poster Boy. “Interrupted your wife’s and my plans of attack. Things would have gone a bit smoother, I think, if we had more time.”
“Your plans of attack?” I growl out to him.
Raising one hand up to ward off my anger, he says, “I believe it would have gone a lot smoother than well… this. Allie wasn’t supposed to leave the van.”
Nodding my head, I look down to Allie. “Was that you who ran over two guys?”
Looking up into my eyes, she says, “Yeah, things didn’t go exactly as planned. They were torturing—"
“Again,” Jude says, interrupting her. “I hate to be a bother, but I may need help.”
“With what?” I ask him.
I never really looked at Jude when I came in the house. Just took an assessment of the situation and moved on. He wasn’t a threat.
Now looking at him, I can spot something is wrong. He’s got a hand inside of his suit jacket and the other is starting to tightly clutch the window frame.
More telling though is that his face is sweaty as can be and he’s turning pale white.
Jude never fuckin’ sweats.
Letting Allie stand on her own for a moment, I move over to him and frown. “You got hit.”
“I guess it was more than a minor flesh wound,” he says when he pulls his hand out of jacket.
Blood is dripping off his fingers and there’s a fuck ton of it.
Shit.
Moving to him quickly, I say, “How bad?”
“Oh, I don’t like giving myself odds, but I’d say pretty bad,” he says with a small grin.
“Grem,” I call out over my shoulder.
“Busy!” Grem shouts right back and I can hear the tension in his voice.
Fuck.
“Whitey, call an ambulance, we’ll figure out—” I say, and then Jude reaches up to grab my shoulder.
“No hospitals,” he growls out as he convulses.
“Fuck,” I say, and I’d really like to pull the fuck away from him, but I can’t.
“Call Simon, he’ll get someone to us,” Jude says before I can feel his fingers letting go of my shoulder.
Grabbing him under the arms, I help him slide down to the floor as easily as I can. “Alright, just keep pressure on the wound. Did it go through?”
Nodding his head, he looks back at the long bloody streak smearing down the wall. “Yeah.”
That’s not good at all.
“Graveyard!” I shout out the door.
Coming through the door, Graveyard quickly looks at me then at Jude.
“You got any experience with gut wounds?” I ask him.
“Enough to know they ain’t fun,” he says as he squats down in front of me.
“Any idea how to stop him from bleeding out?” I ask with a growl.
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. Gotta be like a shoulder wound, right?” he asks me and then starts ripping the coat off Jude.
Nodding my head, I watch him for a few seconds before pulling my phone out of my pocket and quickly pushing the contact for Simon.
“Coy,” Simon says.
“Jude’s been shot and needs medical attention immediately but he won’t go to a hospital,” I say without preamble.
“Where in the body?” he asks sharply.
“Stomach and it went out the back,” I say.
“Where are you at?”
Giving him the location of Allie’s house, I wait as he goes completely silent.
A few seconds later, Simon says, “I have a trusted doctor on the way. He’ll be there within a half hour.”
“Got another guy who’s been stabbed the shit out of,” I say, and wince when I hear Simon growl at me.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asks.
“How much to get him stabilized, too?”
“I’ll put it on your tab,” Simon snaps at me.
“Knock some off the price, we got Mikhail,” I say, and hope that’ll leverage him into helping us as fast as possible.
He takes a breath before he asks, “Is he dead?”
“He will be soon enough,” I say, and I already know how it’s gonna happen.
“We need him alive,” Simon says coldly.
“Yeah, well… He ain’t exactly alive enough for questioning,” I say with a small white lie. “Besides, this is a Bastards’s issue to deal with.”
“Are any of his men alive?” he asks angrily.