Without Forever: Babylon MC Book 5

by James, Victoria L.

  There was nothing more I could do other than hang up the phone and slide it back into her hand.

  “I promise you, I’ll die before I let anyone lay a single finger on you, Ayda.”

  “Don’t.” Ayda let her eyes flick to the mirror where I assumed she could see Walsh with his hand pressed against his shoulder, his face creased in pain. They dropped to her lap and unlocked the phone, her delicate fingers navigating through screens quickly. She barely looked down, her chin still high with that stubborn tilt. “We’re not doing the goodbyes this time. We’re not giving up before we’ve gone in there. You understand me?”

  Ayda angled the screen my way. There was a small marker in the middle of the highway just about where we were with a speech bubble that said SOS above it. With a swipe of her finger, the screen was on a menu and in her lap again.

  “Now, let's go deal with this sadistic fucker. And then, let’s go home.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  AYDA

  Sending the SOS out through the phone-finding app was a risky one. Slater had walked me through it a dozen times. After the last couple of confrontations with our enemies, and after having been isolated, it had been a good call. Now, I hoped this worked as quickly as Slater had said it would because I knew they were up to their eyeballs in shit, too—a whole other kind than we were experiencing.

  I stayed quiet as Drew drove, hating that we couldn’t talk, that everything we said and did was being scrutinized.

  My eyes moved between Drew and the mirror that reflected Walsh’s face. The mayor had his hand pressed against his bullet wound, his face creased in pain, but it was hard to avoid the smug smile that curved the corner of his mouth when he dropped his head back on the leather and stared up at the roof of his car. I was sure he knew what was about to go down.

  My heart was flip-flopping between fear and impotent rage. I felt so helpless.

  Like Chester Cortez, Travis Gatlin had a mean streak as wide as Texas. Unlike Chester, Trigger was, in all actuality, batshit insane in the most clinical sense of the word. The memory of him shooting his half-brother Jacob, without so much as a blink of an eye made my stomach roll. Travis was volatile, feral, and hungry for something he couldn’t see. He was searching for that high that would sustain him. He had nothing to lose, no conscience to speak of, and was a vindictive son of a bitch to boot.

  We turned onto FM fifty-five and saw four Nav bikes and riders sitting on either side of the road, on the shoulders, like sentries, just as Travis had promised.

  Four.

  “If I remember rightly, you guys never travel anywhere in big numbers because you prefer to slip into the background and shoot people in the back of the head rather than fight them up front.” Those were Drew’s words spoken to Travis on that fateful night at Rusty’s, and I remembered them then. Four, we could probably handle.

  I glanced at Drew, noted the rigid line of his jaw, and hoped to God he had a plan.

  “Our escort,” Walsh started and broke off to drag in an exaggerated panting breath that ended in a sardonic laugh.

  Drew’s face was still, his eyes drifting to each rider and their bikes. Ever the tactician, he was fascinating to watch. I just had to wonder how many more times we were going to have to see each other this way, on the frontline, about to go to war.

  “This is too rehearsed,” Drew muttered in a barely-there whisper, his attention jumping from Nav to Nav. “It’s been planned for a while. All of it.”

  “You should have been dead a long time ago,” Walsh croaked through his pain.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Drew sighed.

  Once the Navs spotted us, the lead rider, who was sitting atop of a Chopper, turned his bike around, and the others stayed in place until Drew had driven through the middle of them. They formed a diamond formation around the vehicle we were in: one up front, two at the side of us, and one at the back.

  Drew never stopped eyeing every rider around him, his forearms tensing as he twisted his hands around the steering wheel over and over again.

  He was right about it being planned. You didn’t have to know the rules these guys set in place to see that, and when they eased us from the road to a dirt turnoff, the building that sat at the end of it brought another round of ice to my blood

  A warehouse that was almost identical to the one in Babylon we’d blown up.

  They weren’t unusual in this part of Texas. They popped up on the horizon no matter what direction you went in. This one, however, was too familiar, and it held a foreboding that sent chills down my spine, aches through the long-healed scars, and my hand to squeeze Drew’s thigh before I could think about what I was doing.

  “Drew,” I whispered.

  He turned the wheel in the same direction the bikes led him, coming to a stop outside a huge entrance that was only partially lifted from the ground. Drew wasted no time in reaching out for my hand and squeezing it tightly, leaning in closer as he looked all around.

  “Whatever happens, Ayda, do what I say.” His eyes found mine, his face stony and serious, the look he gave me warm—contradicting the rigid form of his shoulders and jaw. “Do you understand me? No heroics. Not this time. No trying to save anybody but yourself and…” He drifted off, swallowing hard.

  I nodded, the action followed by a mumbled verbal acceptance of his request. Fear should have been the most prevalent reaction, but that had begun to fade as we’d neared the building. I’d somehow managed to file that away and replace it with trepidation and a small bubble of anger that simmered under the surface. Staring up at the red brick and mortar, holding Drew’s hand, a small mantra started playing in the back of my head like a whisper. One I was determined to ignore for now.

  “What now?” I asked quietly.

  He raised my hand to kiss the back of it, looking up at me through heavy eyes. “Wait here. It’s me they’ll want to speak to first.” Then he turned back to look at Walsh. “You lay a finger on her, and the next bullet hole in your body will be straight through your head.”

  Drew left me no time for anyone to respond. He opened the driver’s door and climbed out, his hand on the roof to pull himself up before he slammed the door shut and walked around to one of the Navs who had now jumped off his bike. For a short time, it was just one and one, and Drew was walking closer, looking more confident than I knew he felt. He hitched up his jeans, expanded his chest, and walked to the hood of the car, glaring at the Nav closest to him. He looked like he was about to say something when the other three drew closer, each one drawing out their guns, aiming them at Drew’s head, forcing him to stop in his tracks and raise his hands above his head.

  My whole body leaned forward at the scene. I scanned the men around him, swallowing the groan when Walsh let out a coughed snort of laughter from the back seat.

  “You brought this on yourself, Ayda. Messing with trash like Tucker.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I muttered, watching as one of the guys checked Drew for guns and pulled out a couple of Glocks he always carried on him.

  “Was it worth it? They’re going to kill you both. They’ll make him watch as they torture you first.”

  I was beginning to understand how Rubin was able to shoot the man with such detached precision. If I’d had a gun on me, I would have done the same. For someone with a hole in his shoulder, he talked a lot of shit, seemingly ignorant to the fact that Travis would shoot him with just as much ease as he would shot any one of us.

  “You know—”

  The mayor didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence before there was a butt of a gun knocking against the glass of his door. The guy at the other end of the gun shook his head. With the brief reprieve from the narrative from the back, I turned my head to find Drew again.

  His eyes were wide, staring right at me until one of the Navs pulled his arms behind him, held them together, and pushed Drew forward with a hard shove at his back. A second later, my door was opened by a rough looking man who had to be in his
late forties, at least. His beard was wiry and wild, all the different shades of it covered in dirt like he hadn’t washed for months.

  “Time to join the party, blondie,” he said roughly. “Get up. Make it quick.”

  I dropped my cell phone between the seat and the center console, hoping to God that if they took Drew’s phone and shut it down, The Hounds could at least follow mine. I slipped from the car, my eyes scanning the building again as the guy gripped the top of my arm roughly.

  He started leading me forward, and I played the scared woman part as best as I could, stumbling over my own feet as he forced me up the couple of steps to the front of the building. With a quick glance at the car over my shoulder, the mantra in my head started playing again and again, only louder this time. Loud enough that I couldn’t ignore it now.

  This can’t be the end.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  DREW

  Don’t fuck this up.

  Stay calm.

  What the fuck ever.

  No mantra was going to help him or me if that son of a bitch pushed me in the back one more time. No words of my own wisdom were going to save any of us if they didn’t get their hands off Ayda.

  We made it to the rolling door, where one of the Navs pressed a button to send it creaking all the way up. He turned to me and smiled, half his teeth missing and eyes creased with fucking dirt. He was a giant among men, placing himself as Goliath and leaving me to be David, but I’d faced bigger men than him before and lived to tell the tale.

  Just.

  I rolled my head to the side and checked over Ayda, making sure she hadn’t been harmed already. Her chin was standing proud and her eyes, even though scared, were determined.

  I couldn’t believe we were here again. After so many promises to keep her safe, we were back in another enemy’s grip, being thrown around like chew toys. I was tired of it all. Sick, tired, and motherfucking angry. Looking down at my feet, I took a moment to try and control my breathing as it picked up speed.

  Kill them all.

  If any mantra was going to stick, it was, without a doubt, that one, but I even shook that one away when a smartass Nav smaller than Rubin came to stand in front of me like he could take me if he wanted to. He was young, dumb, full of come, and messing with guns he sure as shit better know how to handle if he was going to aim one at me. The guy was in his early twenties, with flopping black hair that fell past his ears, and a face thinner and longer than a fucking horse’s. His eyes were narrowed, and he ran a thumb under his nose, parting his lips to say something.

  I probably should have given him time to speak, but he was there, and I was angry, and when he took a step closer to me—so close that I could feel his whiskey-coated breath on my face—he left me with no choice. I drew my head back only to snap it forward, smashing my skull into his with a force that knocked that little fucker straight to the ground while I stood there watching over him, barely flinching.

  “You fucking—” the kid spat out as he rolled around at my feet, but the rest of what he had to say was drowned out when the Nav to my left threw a precise right hook straight across my jaw, making me stumble to the side until I could hear nothing but a wild ringing noise in my ears for a few seconds.

  I then blinked hard and shook my head, unable to help the playful smile that tugged on the corner of my mouth.

  “Sorry. My head slipped,” I croaked out, only to be pulled back by my bicep by the giant, my hands yanked behind my back hard before he twisted them up, making me rise on my toes and grit my teeth against the painful stretch of my limbs.

  “Next time you lash out, we’ll hurt the girl,” he growled in my ear. “We might fuck her, too.”

  If I got hold of a gun during any of this, I made a vow to kill that motherfucker first.

  There was a grunt from Ayda behind me, but it wasn’t the kind that told me she was in pain. More than she was unstable on her feet and struggling on purpose. Reminding me that she was there and witnessing everything—yet again.

  When the rolling door reached its full height in front of me, I found myself staring at nothing other than rose petals on the floor in an open, empty space, their path in a neat little line that led around a dark corner I couldn’t see.

  Whatever was about to happen, Trigger intended to put on a show.

  I swallowed down the sharp stabbing in my gut that warned me this was going to be bad, and I found myself moving when Goliath pushed me into the path of the petals.

  The inside of the warehouse was much like the one we’d burned to the ground with The Emps inside of it. Muted light filtered through from dirty windows up high, out of reach. The floors were covered in debris with a few boxes stacked up here and there. The four Navs led Ayda and me around the corner, and when we turned it, I froze in place, unable to move.

  The path of rose petals led to a white altar with a flowered arch over it. Two rows of chairs were set about ten feet in front of it, the whole scene surrounded by pillars and ropes that made it seem like a wedding ceremony had been set up inside a ground-level boxing ring.

  Beyond all the details, the white decorations hanging from the high ceilings, and the ribbons that hung off the back of the chairs, there were two things that turned my stomach into angry knots of nausea.

  One was Travis Gatlin, standing beside the erected altar, wearing a crisp white shirt and a black tie under his leather cut. A smug smile dominated his face as he stood there watching me, his hands clasped together in front of him.

  The second thing to turn me sick was my father.

  Unconscious.

  Strung up the exact same way the Emps had strung me up in that warehouse of nightmares. Eric’s arms were spread out like he was Jesus, with long, thick, steel chains keeping him in place. The tips of his toes barely touched the raised platform of the altar, and his chin hung down to his chest, the blood dripping from his mouth in slow droplets.

  “The guests of honor have arrived,” Trigger called out. “Come!” He raised a hand and beckoned us forward.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  My eyes were locked on my father.

  Flashbacks of that night in the warehouse tore through my mind.

  The knife cuts through my skin.

  The sound of Ayda’s screams.

  The agonizing ache in my limbs.

  The mental torture.

  The fact I almost lost her. I could have fucking lost her.

  “Move,” the giant behind me growled, pushing me harder—so hard I couldn’t help but shuffle forward, my feet moving on auto. Everything else had stopped working, and my head was still ringing from the punch to the jaw only moments before.

  If we got closer, though, this wouldn’t end the same way as our last performance with The Emps had. We weren’t going to be gifted with a second miracle.

  Digging my heels in, I came to an abrupt stop, holding steady when the Nav behind me smacked into my back and openly cursed me before trying to push me forward again.

  “No,” I growled, my teeth grinding together as I stared at Gatlin. “I’m not doing this. I’m not playing this fucking game, Trigger. You want me? Come and get me. You want to mess with my head? It’s yours. You want to fuck me up and leave a mark. Let’s do it, but we do it without your henchmen around. We do it one on one. And we do it without Ayda.”

  Trigger’s smirk grew, and he tilted his head to the side to study me.

  “You’re such an angry little thing, aren’t you, Drew? Let’s not be angry today. This isn’t The Emps you’re dealing with. I am not Chester Cortez. I don’t need to shout and scream and roar to have fun. I don’t need to see fear in your eyes to know it’s there. Do as I tell you, and maybe, just maybe, some of you will get out of this in one piece.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Your cooperation.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Now, you simply need to listen.” He grinned.

  I searched his face, realizing just
how fucked up Travis Gatlin was. I’d come across so many evil fuckers in my life that I’d almost thought I’d become desensitized to them. But there I was, staring at the greatest psychopath I’d ever encountered, knowing my blood wouldn’t be enough for him.

  He wanted something more.

  Something I couldn’t see.

  Something I wouldn’t be able to live without.

  “The less you resist, the easier this will be,” he assured me, and for just a moment, there was a sense of calm. “Or, we can do this.” He lashed out his right arm, striking it across Eric’s chest and cutting through his already open shirt. Eric was out cold, the only reaction he made being the swing of his body in the chains, but when Trigger peeled back the edges of my father’s shirt, he showed me the damage he’d just inflicted. There was a small knife with a sharp blade curled in the center of Trigger’s palm, and he’d sliced straight through Eric’s skin like butter, causing more blood to pour out.

  My jaw set, my breaths getting heavier and heavier. All I could do was move forward, taking tentative steps closer.

  “Much better.” Trigger smiled like he was fucking proud of me.

  When Ayda and I arrived at the end of the rose petal pathway, Trigger held up a hand, bringing us to a halt in front of him. My arms were set free, as were Ayda’s, and I immediately reached out to grab one of hers, holding it down between the two of us and moving closer to her, my eyes never leaving Trigger’s.

  He moved closer. The guy had always had confidence. Now, however, he seemed on another level. His arrogance was indestructible. He was the dictator, about to execute those who didn’t fit neatly into his regime. The smug bastard stared into Ayda’s eyes for an uncomfortably long amount of time, trying to intimidate her before he turned his attention to me. With a contented sigh, he held his hands up and turned them over, palms facing the ceiling.

  “Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today to witness the union of two lovers. We have a bride. We have a groom. We have a father figure to give his blessing.” Trigger flashed his teeth, his amusement glowing. “The only thing we need now are witnesses. Some guests.”