by Addison Jane
“Everything?” she murmured tiredly, followed by a long, drawn-out yawn. It was like watching a damn puppy or something else as equally adorable as they tried to fight sleep, but you just knew they were going to have to give in at some point.
“Yeah, Rocky, everything.”
Her eyes slipped closed, and she smacked her lips. Two seconds later, everything was silent, and I simply shook my head as I grabbed my jeans, my cut, and my gun and rushed out of the room.
I wasn’t going to tell her where I was going. Even if she had been coherent, this was just something I felt like she didn’t need to know. I knew she’d worry. She would stress. It was up to each brother as to how much information they gave their old lady when it came to club business.
Some told them everything.
Others chose to protect them from the darker side of club life.
I was somewhere in the middle.
If Laken was going to be my old lady, she was going to have to understand there were things I wasn’t about to tell her, and that I believed it was for her own good. She wasn’t stupid, she knew there was shit that went down, that the club’s income wasn’t just from the nightclubs or the garage.
But in my mind, there was a whole lot of difference between lying to a police officer and being blissfully unaware.
And at the end of the day, it was my job to protect her.
Even in ways she didn’t like.
The boys were all waiting for me downstairs, most of us still trying to get our heads together and not look like we needed five cups of coffee and a slap on the face to wake up.
“How we doing this?” Rip rasped, flicking half a cigarette into the bushes.
We were leaving some guys here with the girls, they’d hang out by the elevators and stairs, and Ty was up in the hall outside the rooms pacing like a toy soldier.
Wrench, Eagle, and Leo were joining us. Eagle and Leo having useful experience from their army days which could come in handy.
Shotgun, Shake, Auron, Repo, Ripley, and Texas, one of Rip’s Exiled Eight brothers, were joining too, making us a hunting party of ten.
“We’ll park down the street,” Wrench announced. “Go in the back of the building and up the first stairs. There’s a loft two flights up which overlooks this abandoned factory. It’s like a bird’s nest. He probably likes to be up high, see everything, feel like he’s looking down on the world.”
And if that wasn’t Jester to a T.
“Any chance there will be a few surprises?” Eagle asked curiously, pulling a pair of leather riding gloves over his hands and strapping them at the back. “How crazy is this asshole?”
“Crazy enough that he might try to blow someone up,” I answered without hesitation, realizing that Eagle was probably right. There could be some scary surprises, and we needed to be fucking careful.
“Okay, we’ll watch for tripwires, false floors, all that fun stuff,” Leo noted, nodding toward the line of bikes parked illegally on the footpath at the front doors. “Shall we?”
We rumbled through the city streets. They were completely dead, a stark contrast to the overflow of people who filled L.A. during the day. But it was exactly what we needed to get in and out without disturbing the peace or drawing too much attention.
Attention right now was the last thing we needed more of.
Shake had already thrown two reporters out of Meyah’s room after they had snuck in, dressed in stolen nurse’s outfits and all. They were desperate, searching for something—anything. And after the headlines yesterday and the way Laken’s dad was throwing her weakest moments out into the world like fucking confetti, she was ready just to give them what they wanted.
A story.
A very real, very true probably-not-appropriate-for-television story.
But why should she be forced to share a part of her she hated simply to get her freedom?
It didn’t make sense.
Once I had Jester out of the way, though, I was moving on to her dad.
And I hadn’t decided yet whether I was going to prepare the hole beforehand and just be done with it, or whether I was going to make him dig the fucking thing himself like he’d basically had done to Laken’s mom.
I followed Wrench’s lead, switching off my motor and rolling down a dimly lit back street that seemed to be nothing but scrap yards and dumping grounds—a long forgotten about part of the city. The large factory with massive windows at the end of the street caught my eye, not because of the size, but because of the lights on inside.
No other building was lit up.
Everything was dead.
But it was sitting like a fucking Christmas tree waiting for Santa to come visit.
We edged the bikes off to the side, backing them in against a wall and dragging a large dumpster in front of them so we could make a quick escape if needed, but so no one driving past would get suspicious to the long line of polished Harleys sitting in an abandoned street.
My heart raced as we hurried down the block, keeping to the shadows but moving quickly and sharply.
Eagle pulled ahead, his plan to have a good look at where we were going before we got there, so he could make a strategic plan.
Get in.
Get out.
I had nothing to say to Jester. I wasn’t about to stand around and argue about who was the best or to entertain his evil villain monologues. He threatened my family, so he needed to be removed, and there was nothing else fucking to it.
We reached the outside of the building, Eagle holding out his arm and pulling us to a stop just around the edge from the entrance. “Lights are on, no lock on the door. But I pushed it open just enough to see there’s something sitting over it,” Eagle explained, pointing to the run down, dilapidated steel entrance.
“So, he’s Kevin from Home Alone?” Rip snorted, earning him a jab in the ribs from my president.
“I’m gonna kick it open,” Eagle continued. “But it means that’s our surprise gone. We’re gonna have to move fast.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
Shotgun nodded.
We all reached for our weapons and followed Eagle’s lead, creeping toward the entrance. My heart was beating a little faster, the adrenaline rushing and whooshing through my veins, making my body feel lighter. This was where it took all my effort. The adrenaline increased the urge in my brain which screamed jump in, head first, who gives a shit if you break your neck.
I already had to fight hard to keep my impulse controlled.
But with the chemical shooting through my bloodstream, it was twice as hard, and I had to make sure I had my head in the right place because if I screwed this up, it wouldn’t just be me going down.
I could lose a brother.
I could lose all of them.
I forced my feet to follow in line behind Eagle, making a point to keep him in front, make sure he was taking the lead and not allowing myself to rush forward.
It was hard, the need to kill this bastard burned so fucking strong.
BANG.
Eagle slammed his foot against the steel door, sending it almost flying off its hinges.
For all of a half second, I thought maybe he was wrong. Nothing was happening, I was expecting something to fall.
BOOM!
But I was not expecting a spray of bullets from a shotgun to fill the floor.
“Let’s go!” Leo urged, pushing on my back.
I held my breath as I rushed through the doorway behind Eagle, my heart leaping up into my throat as I passed under the double barrel that was pointed downward, a thick string wrapped around the trigger and tied to the door so when it opened, the gun fired.
If you’d walked under it, you’d be filled with lead instantly.
And thankfully, probably dead given that the gun was pointed right down the center at the top of your head.
We rushed through, the thump of our heavy boots as we stampeded through the short entrance was already bouncing back at us off the factory walls. The four
stories looked so fucking tall when there was nothing up there, nothing but windows and air.
To the left, though, was the bird’s nest type platform that Wrench had mentioned.
There was no movement or sound coming from the top as we found the staircase and tramped up it, leaving Shake and Auron at the bottom to watch our backs. My blood was burning, I was ready for this, ready to end him and his ridiculous torment on the world, and suddenly, it seemed like maybe that was being taken away.
“Fuck!” Eagle cursed diving forward and grabbing hold of the stairs in front of him as we watched the stair he’d just had his foot on give way and fall to the floor below. “You guys good?” he called down through the cracks, Shake and Auron peeking their heads out from below.
“Holy fuck,” Shake cursed. “You hit the ground from up there, and your road name is gonna be pancake.”
I jumped the crack, helping Eagle to his feet.
We rounded the corner to the top of the platform, and we both froze.
I felt the boys all pull up behind us, everyone just staring at the wall to the left.
“Well, shit,” Rip laughed. “He’s a fangirl.”
I tried to ignore him and the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that was telling me there was something very fucking wrong here. There was a strange desk set up—an old computer, a television, a fucking DVD player, and a stack of DVDs that looked like they were probably ten years past their rental return dates.
The entire wall above was… me.
Pictures of me from magazines, news articles from when I was on the circuit, newspaper cuttings and articles about my arrest and about losing the title. Then beside them, far more recent ones from what looked like only a few days ago at the compound.
“He hasn’t been gone long,” Wrench announced, his hand pressed to a coffee mug that sat on a little makeshift table in the center of the small space. “It’s still a little warm, so maybe twenty minutes. But he left his phone, so I may be able to see where he’s gone if he left any clues.”
“Do it,” Eagle agreed.
A growl rumbled in my throat, and I grabbed hold of the newspaper in front of me, scrunching it up in my fist.
“Looks like you weren’t his first love,” Shotgun announced while crouched down at a trash can in the corner. He reached in, pinching out some crumpled pieces of paper and a couple of snapped DVDs. “Isn’t this our friend from box two, no eyebrows guy.”
I released the newspaper in my hand and walked over, kneeling beside him.
The trash was full, image after image of him.
Walking down the street holding hands with a woman, getting ice cream with his kids.
“Oh, and here’s box number one, the cobra tattoo.” Those pictures came next, adding a heap to the pile. “So, you weren’t his first obsession. Sorry.”
“And won’t be his last by the look of this list,” Rip added as he moved along the desk, suddenly reaching out and snatching a notepad from beneath a pile of food containers. He dusted it off and squinted his eyes. “Cobra King, The Damage, Myth and Legend, Stinger, Knock Out, Ra—”
“Did you say Knock Out?”
His finger traced the names back, and he nodded. “Yeah, you know him?”
“Yeah, that’s Atlas, Laken’s brother.” Damn! I needed to catch this asshole today, so I didn’t have to explain to Laken that her brother was looking at having his body reconfigured next.
Rip snorted. “Original name.”
“I got something,” Wrench announced, the sharp bite to his tone and the way his eyes directed straight toward me was everything I needed to know. I stood, rolling my shoulders and fighting the itch in my skin, the fire building. “He’s had four phone calls in the past few days, all from one number.”
“Who?” I snapped anxiously.
He pressed his lips together, hitting a couple of buttons and putting it on speaker before holding it up.
We all held our breath, not wanting to miss a thing, but I couldn’t help but shuffle back and forth on my toes, the energy in me building, and my own fucking fault for not running before we did this to try and ease the anxiousness.
It rang, at least three times before it clicked over to something else, a different ring.
“BEEP. This is Trenton Clarke’s office. His personal number is not available right now…” No. Fucking. Way. “… please leave a message, and I will make sur—”
Wrench cut it off.
That was all I needed to hear, and my body was already moving toward the stairs.
“Uh,” Repo announced for the first time, forcing me to pause for a second to look back at the paper I’d scrunched in my hand just minutes before. The front page of yesterday’s news.
Laken’s hospital mug shot.
With a circle around it.
“Someone call them,” Eagle snapped, but it was too late.
I was done, leaping down the stairs two at a fucking time, not giving a shit if they caved in beneath me.
Should have listened to my gut.
Now it was going to make me pay.
LAKEN
Ding, dong.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I leaped out of the shower and pulled my pajamas back on, my body still dripping wet as I hopped through the small apartment to try and get to the door before it woke up Brook. She’d stayed with us last night after she and I fell asleep on the sofa watching a movie.
My feet dragged as I made my way down the hall.
I’d reluctantly let Myth leave early, twisting myself like a burrito in the blankets as he stepped out the door. The plan had been to stay there until he got back from training, convince him to climb back in with me—which was usually pretty easy—but that had gone out the window when the need to pee had become too much.
My eyes caught the clock as I passed by the living room, telling me it was a little after six in the morning.
Myth had been out since five, so I expected this was him. Maybe he’d forgotten his key.
I paused at the door, tiptoeing up and peeking through the eye hole to find a bell boy standing outside with a package in his hands. “Mail delivery!” he shouted loudly, making me cringe, so I quickly stepped back and flicked the locks open before pulling on the door.
“It’s really early,” I murmured quietly, hoping this guy would get the message.
“Sorry.” He laughed, the sound instantly unnerving me. “But it’s a special delivery!” He shoved the box at me, slamming it into my gut and forcing me to stumble backward into the room. I coughed, the shock of the sudden pain taking over for a brief moment before I managed to look up at the bell boy.
Only he wasn’t a bell boy.
He saw the instant I recognized him.
The grotesque smile of a madman lighting up his face as he kicked the door shut behind him.
“Get out,” I spat, inching backward, my mind racing as I tried to figure out what was in the apartment I could use as a weapon.
“But I’m your guest,” he teased, clicking his tongue in disappointment as he followed after me. He reached up, ripping the little hat from his head and tossing it across the room. “I find it very rude to tell your house guests to get out. Such bad manners.”
“Lake…” Brook mumbled, rubbing her eyes as she stepped out of the hallway, drawing both of our attention. The room stilled, the air suddenly very fucking cold as Brook paused, studying the situation. “What’s goi—”
“Brook, run!” I screamed, taking the package and throwing it with force at Jester, the box catching him in the side of the face and throwing him off balance for a second.
Brook was quick, slipping on the wooden floor as she threw herself back down the hall, a door slamming a few seconds later, and allowing me to suck in a deep breath knowing that she was safe. For now.
I tripped as I shuffled backward, putting the sofa between us, my fingers twitching as I continued to look for something hard, something with some kind of power behind it.
“Tha
t wasn’t very nice, Leah,” Jester charmed, his finger dabbing at a cut across his cheek, collecting the blood on the tip before swiping it across the end of his tongue. He licked his lips, his eyes watching me as we did this weird dance. He would walk one way, I would walk the other, a little like a cat and mouse.
“What do you want?” I questioned carefully, trying to keep calm, but my heart was struggling to stay inside my chest.
He didn’t respond, he simply came at me, this time not bothering with the cat and mouse games but instead shooting right over the sofa. I gasped, my footing catching on the rug as he flew at me, and I landed on my ass with a hard thump, the jolt of pain shooting straight up my spine.
“Fuck,” I cursed, rolling over onto my side as my body writhed in pain. There was nothing I could do, I couldn’t fight it, I couldn’t control it. It was like every nerve in my fucking body was on fire, and the burn was surging through my veins.
I was going to be sick.
“Aw,” Jester teased, his voice breaking through as the pain slowly began to ease. Pain-filled tears blurred my vision, but when I looked up, I could see him standing above me looking fucking delighted with himself. “It’s no fun when people beat themselves up. You see…” a hand gathered a fist full of my hair, “… I’m really a hands-on type of guy.” He yanked hard, and I moaned in pain as he pulled upward.
I scrambled to get my hands and legs underneath my body. “Come on,” he urged in a high-pitched voice like someone would encourage a small child or a goddamn pet. “You can do it.”
Tears streaked my cheeks, but I managed to get two shaky legs underneath me just before he slammed the front of my body against the living room wall, his hand pressing against my head and making it feel like at any moment it could simply explode like a watermelon.
“Such a good girl,” he praised, pressing in against me. I couldn’t help but gag as he trailed his nose across my jawline, inhaling deeply before suddenly grinding his hips against my ass.
That was the shock my body needed, and I swung my elbow backward, connecting it with his ribs and forcing him to loosen his grip. I lifted the same elbow, spinning with my body and this time connecting with the side of his face as he was curled over in pain.