CHOKE: A Dark Bad Boy Romance

by Ella Wolfe

  “You know, old man,” Slash said as he opened the closet and reached inside, “them not coming over here is probably why you're still alive, old man.” On the right, just behind the door frame, was a small catch. He searched with his fingers, probing the area, until he found it. He pulled the latch till he felt a click, then shoved back a false wall they'd installed years ago. A small portal lead through the back.

  He glanced back at his second-in-command, just to check on him, then pushed through the stacks of towels and sheets, and into the small secret compartment. The Battleborn had built this room a couple years after Slash had joined up with the MC. He'd noticed while taking some measurements, and looking at the floor plans, that there was this small vacant space in the wall. Even if you were paying really close attention to the dimensions of the outside versus the inside, and really looking for a secret cubbyhole like this, you'd still have a real pain in the ass trying to find it.

  Together, they turned it into their stash, the place where they kept their guns, ammo, and other contraband. It was a good hiding spot, Slash thought. After all, what cop was going to look in the linen closet for a machine gun? He reached up and grabbed the pull cord for the single bare bulb that hung from the ceiling. It flared into brilliance, washing the small room with stark white light. Shotguns, submachine guns, handguns, rifles, pistols. They had it all, here, with crates and crates of ammo.

  All untagged, untaxed, and completely illegal. And, most importantly, it was more than enough to take down a small banana republic.

  Chapter 37

  Lacey

  Lacey didn't know how long she'd been out. Her sleep had been like a blanket of darkness, with no dreams or ideas of how she'd gotten there. All she knew about now was that her head was pounding, and the world seemed to move in slow motion behind her eyes. A slow spinning overtook her world, like she was laying back in the center of a merry-go-round and staring up at the sky. She didn't open her eyes, just squeezed them tighter and prayed the spins would go away.

  With her eyes still shut, she reached out with her other senses to try and get her bearings. The smell of mildew and damp filled her nose, and she could hear dripping water off in the distance. At least that was a start. She couldn't tell where she was, but something about the place, about the resonance of the area, just made her feel as if she were in an old building. Perhaps in a basement, or a cavern of some sort, like one of those old speakeasy tunnels from the 20s. She remembered going down into one on a tour, back when she was a teenager. All the bricks, and the lights, and that cloying feel of the damp on her skin.

  “You think she's coming to?” a man growled somewhere out there in the darkness, just beyond the edge of her senses. She didn't recognize the voice, but it reminded her of Slash or Tiny. It gave her the impression of cruelty, though. Like the man who spoke was the type of kid who plucked the wings off houseflies.

  “Nah, not yet,” another man replied.

  “Tired of this bullshit, yet?” the first man asked.

  “Long time ago, man. But, hey, this lawyer says he's gonna give us the run of the town. So, I'm fine sticking it out.”

  Silence, for a moment.

  “Think he'll give us a run of the girl, too?” the first man asked after a while.

  “Dunno if Walker will, or not,” the other admitted. “I like 'em to be awake, personally. They got more fire in 'em, that way.”

  One of them laughed as she drifted back into unconsciousness. This time, the dreams did come. Dreams of Slash, with his strong hands running over her naked body. Of the two of them riding on the back of chopper, ripping and roaring over the scenery. They rode together through the day, through the night. The stars and planets spun over their heads in a surreal symphony of celestial movement, like it was a choreographed dance composed for just them. Then, as the sun rose again, Lacey looked around and took in the sights.

  Except, now, the landscape had been transformed into a twisted hellscape. The world, all ashen gray and bright fiery yellow, seemed to burn. She asked Slash where they were, where they were going, but he didn't reply. He just kept riding. She pounded on his back, a feeling of dread filling the core of her being. She hit him again, over and over. Finally, he looked back but it wasn't Slash, like she'd originally thought. Instead, it was Wayne's laughing visage.

  She screamed to herself, tried to realize it was just a dream. To not worry, to just wake up and be done with it. Some deeper voice within herself warned her against waking, stopped her struggles to come up from her slumber. Here, Lacey was safe. The world could pass her by, and she could wait for everything to be better. Because, here in the land of dreams, there was nothing to truly fear. Everything was nothing more than a figment of her drugged out imagination.

  Another voice whispered, in the world of the waking, that the nightmares were real.

  Chapter 38

  Slash

  “You're dead serious about this, ain't you?” Tiny asked as Slash piled up on the rec room table the last of the guns and ammo he'd selected. This was his fourth and final trip from the stash and he'd brought out every possible gun he thought he might use, along with a couple heavy duffel bags to haul all them in.

  “Should I not be?” Slash asked as he set a pump action twelve-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip on it.

  “Just looks like you're fucking Rambo, or some shit.”

  “At this point,” Slash said as he picked up one of the rifles and took it over to another, less cluttered table and began to break it down, “really wish I was.”

  “You scared?” Tiny asked as he set a hunting rifle, complete with scope and suppressor, down on the table next to him.

  “Fuck yes,” Slash said, glancing up. “But I get scared every time I go do something this stupid. Doubly, now, since Lacey's life is on the line, too.”

  “Scared is a good thing,” Tiny said. “Means you're ready to see tomorrow.”

  They'd had this little pre-war pep talk more times than Slash could count. Tiny was ex-military, Marines. You wouldn't have known it to look at him, but he was one of the best shots Slash had ever seen.

  “Gonna cover me, then?”

  “Looks like it,” Tiny said.

  Slash nodded. “We'll wait till after dark, which gives another hour or so.”

  “Dunno how many men they got, do we?” his second-in-command asked as he began to break down, clean, and oil the rifle with the kind of grace only hours and hours of regular practice can give you. Slash shook his head.

  “Doesn't really matter, does it? You'd be going in either way, wouldn't you?”

  He nodded. “I can't let anything happen to her. And, besides, Wayne needs this payback. Gonna be honest. I don't care if the Battleborn fall apart after this or not. I just want him dead.”

  “Fair enough,” Tiny said, nodding solemnly. “Soon as sunset rolls 'round, we'll head out.”

  “What're we gonna take? You can't ride out with your leg busted. 'Sides, we're bringing a whole goddamn arsenal with us.”

  “Need something stealthy,” Tiny said, deep in thought as he cleaned out the barrel of the rifle with the long swab. “I was thinking we take my Prius.”

  “Quiet, and efficient,” Slash nodded at the joke Tiny had made in spite of the seriousness of what they were walking into. He stopped, though, and looked at Tiny. “Oh, shit, brother. You're serious, aren't you?”

  “Yeah,” Tiny said, locking the barrel back into the receiver. “You think of something that's quieter?”

  Chapter 39

  Lacey

  Lacey came to again in the darkness of her cell. She was more aware this time around, enough so that she realized it wasn't a jail cell, as such. More like a utility closet, in somewhere like a boiler room. She was laid out on a hard cotton cot with a scratchy pillow beneath her head, the kind you'd get at a cheap motel that had complimentary cans of roach spray in each room.

  She groaned loudly, put a hand to her head to try and stop the painful throbbing.

&
nbsp; “Ho, ho,” said one of the voices from earlier, “looks like girly-girl’s awake here.”

  “Oh, man,” added the other, “would you look at that? She is a fine piece, that's for damn sure. Even prettier awake.”

  She opened her eyes, groaning again as the weak light from a burning kerosene lamp shot up a flare of pain in her head. She could make out two barely visible forms standing against the wall, now. Both wore biker vests, like Slash's and Tiny's, but they were all the wrong colors.

  “Don't spook her now,” said one of the men, the one still up against the wall.

  “I ain't gonna spook her,” replied the one approaching her. “Gonna just take it real nice and slow, so she can get used to us. Like a scared kitten.”

  As the man came closer the door handle jiggled. Quick as could be, he came to a complete halt and shot upright. In two long strides, he was back at his old spot next to his friend. His buddy chuckled a little as the door creaked open.

  “Lacey?” a familiar voice asked as the form stepped into the room. “You feeling okay, sweetie? You waking up alright?”

  Wayne. Wayne Walker. Just as dapper looking as ever, clad in his perfectly tailored suit.

  She recoiled, her body instinctively curling up into a protective ball. “Go away,” she slurred. “Just, leave me alone.”

  “Well,” Wayne said soothingly. “I'll just come back in a little while, okay sweetie? Once you're feeling better, and not so loopy?”

  “Fuck off, Wayne,” she groaned.

  He turned to the two other men. “Keep an eye on her,” he snapped, before leaving the room again.

  The men followed him with their gazes till the door shut quietly behind him, then she felt as they swiveled back to her. A grin began to grow on the face of the man who'd come closest to her, but the other man quickly slapped him.

  “Nah, dude,” he said. “Not this time.”

  Chapter 40

  Slash

  A moonless night fell over the small town. Slash and Tiny had scoped out the condemned high school before the sun went down, using binoculars to count men and map out routes. These were bikers, basically just goons, not military or even security guards. They were as undisciplined as any of the Battleborn would have been in the same situation, and neither men expected them to be too much of a worry if they were taken on individually.

  “You figure a trained soldier on guard duty like this,” Tiny had said while he was seated in the driver’s seat with Slash checking out the building, “can keep his attention for just a few hours at a time in a warzone situation. These guys can probably keep theirs fixed for what, maybe thirty minutes?”

  “I see one sneaking a drink from a flask already, Tiny.”

  “Clearly, they ain't seeing you as a threat. If they’re even expecting you at all,”

  “Would you? Hell, we knew Wayne was a threat, and look what happened to us.”

  “Good point, brother,” Tiny had said.

  Then, they'd waited till the sun went down. As it dropped below the horizon, they climbed out of Tiny's Prius and started to unload everything. A suppressed rifle for Tiny, his precious 30.06 that was dropped inside an AR-15 style body.

  For Slash, a pistol with a suppressor, extra clips of ammunition, and one homemade canister of tear gas he'd bought off some anarchist kid about a year back. He'd purchased two at the time, and used one as a gag during a hazing ritual. It had, surprisingly, worked pretty well. Almost too well, actually, and had ended up scaring off one of the prospects. He hadn't been able to find a use for the second one grenade until now.

  Then there were his knives. They hadn't nicknamed him Slash for nothing. As he crouched in a tangle of shrubbery near one of the side doors, with two Lightning Kings hanging out and nominally guarding it, he realized that this was the moment their assumptions about these guy's capabilities were going to be put to the test.

  Tiny was off in the distance, crouched up on a hill with a clear line of the sight on the building. He'd been a pretty stellar shot in his USMC days, and he'd kept up the practice over the years. But, if he was off by just a little bit, this could go very wrong for Slash, very quickly. As Slash crept through the brush, his blackened knife gripped in one hand, he prayed Tiny was as good of a shot under pressure as he was on the range.

  His eyes fixated on the two men, who were laughing and jostling back and forth, he crept closer. Tiny would be able to see him from this vantage point, and they'd agreed that it was up to him to start this little shindig.

  Tiny fired. His rifle wasn't any louder than a cap gun, and all Slash heard was the sound of mosquito whizzing by. The man farthest from Slash reached up, almost idly, and put a hand to his neck. Even in the dim light, Slash could see the look of horror on his face as he pulled his bloody hand away and looked at it. His eyes were wide in terror, and he clutched his hand back to his throat as his partner stared in shock.

  The man Tiny had shot stumbled a little, landing against his buddy. His friend tried to steady him. “Dude? Dude! What the fuck, man? What happened?”

  Slash came up out of the bushes in a flash, his dark knife not even glinting in the low light. It was like cool black ice on a winter night as he came up behind the uninjured man and put a hand over his mouth, pulling him back into the bushes. The man screamed into his hand, but his wordless cry was muffled as Slash pulled him out of sight.

  He didn't bother speaking to him. Didn't bother threatening, or asking for information. He brought his knife up, cut deep into the man's throat, and slid it across in a horizontal arc. He opened up his jugular artery, unleashing a warm flood of blood, as he kept his hand clutched across his mouth. The man kicked, once, twice, and struggled for a long, tense moment before falling silent and ending his struggle.

  Slash had killed before. Sometimes, in this line of work there was a certain amount of murder that had to happen to get a point across, or to protect what was yours. This, though, felt personal to the Battleborn president. This man had been at least partly responsible for taking Lacey, whether he knew it or not.

  He dropped the fresh corpse to the ground, hiding him in the bushes. He slipped out, checked the man Tiny had shot, then pulled him back to join his comrade. With both of them hidden away, he gave a thumbs up to the unseen Tiny, and slipped through the side doors. On his way through, he glanced down at the concrete. A few drops of blood had splattered there, but nothing overtly noticeable. If anyone else came through, they'd just think the two guys had fucked off for a beer or something.

  Now in the hallway, he dropped to a crouch and listened. From here on, he was going to be alone with no cover from Tiny. Nevertheless, Tiny had his own part of the plan to carry out. He was to start dropping any singular out of the way Lightning Kings he happened to see. Maybe he could thin out the herd a little bit before word got out that Slash was in the building.

  Chapter 41

  Lacey

  “Sweetie?” Wayne asked, his voice high-fructose levels of sweet. If Lacey could have eaten his words, she would have gotten a cavity. “You feeling any better?” He was sitting on the cot, now, with his arms protectively over her. Behind him, the two men still flanked the doorway, their expressions a mix of dourness and boredom.

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You almost ready to come home?” he asked, reaching out to brush the hair from her face.

  She flinched back again. “Wayne,” she said, “I don't know why you think I'd want to go home with you.”

  “Well,” he said, “because we love each other. We need each other. Isn't that right?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. “You don't get it, I left you. For Dustin.”

  He smiled and shook his head, laughing. “Oh, sweetie, he just had you fooled, like he has everyone fooled. He just wanted you to get to me, that's all. I started going after that biker gang of his long before our wedding, before you left me.”

  “Maybe that's true-”

  “No, it is true. Why do you think he was e
ven coming to our wedding? To see you?”

  That much was true, at least. Damn him. She hadn't sent the invitation, and Slash was only coming because Wayne had had two of his guys arrested in twenty-four hours. She frowned a little, shook her head again. “Well, it doesn't matter why, he's been protecting me.”

  “Protecting you?” he asked, reaching out again to stroke her hair.

  In her confused state, she didn't see the hand coming. She felt his soft fingers stroke her hair, just like he used to when they'd first gotten together. Between the drugs and the confusion, she almost began to forget what this man had put her through.

  “Don't you mean keeping you locked up?”

  She slowly blinked her eyes. “That's not ...”