Savage Mercy (Savage Saviors MC #1)

by Timothy S. Allen

  He gave a pronounced sigh, but I suspected that was only because he had run out of oxygen to continue his rant. It was clear—he’d start calling funeral parlors in advance if I decided to go.

  “So, by all means, Derek,” he said, on the cusp of shouting at me. “Tell me how ya plan to get at this guy without getting yerself dead first. ‘Cause from where I’m standing, kiddo, ye’ll be dead ‘fore Rock even knew ya was there.”

  The truth was, I had no good plan. Given that we had a couple of days, I’d be spending a shitload of time thinking about it. I’d look up the building, I’d gather intel on the client list, I’d look for anyone else I could use to smuggle myself in.

  But right now? I had no plan, no ideas, and no real hope.

  Well…

  That wasn’t quite true. I was willing to gamble this idea on one hope, but I already knew Roost wouldn’t have it.

  That didn’t mean I couldn’t.

  “Maybe so,” I said. “But damnit, Roost, I’ve waited two fucking years for a chance at this. Two goddamn years! That’s over seven hundred days of seeing Maggie at the end of every intersection. Seven hundred days of never being able to see any woman as anything other than Maggie in different flesh. Seven hundred nights of nightmares, horror shows, and death wishes. Seven hundred days of wishing I was dead. And guess what? Maybe within another seven, no, not seven hundred, just seven, I might be dead.”

  It was close as I’d come to acknowledging it was a hope, at least around Matty.

  Although, honestly, the death wish wasn’t as strong in me as it was just two hours ago.

  “But if you tell me right now I’ll have to wait another two years, another seven hundred days, another ten thousand plus hours just for a chance—not even an open shot, just a chance—at seeing Rock, you’re out of your fucking mind.”

  I looked outside. The sun was on the verge of rising. I didn’t realize we’d talked for so long.

  I knew Roost needed sleep. His mood was crankier by the moment, albeit probably for reasons that had nothing to do with a lack of sleep. But it also meant he was likely to acquiesce to my wishes while he told me to fuck off.

  “Just give me the address,” I finally said. “And know that I’m sure the Saviors will be left in good hands if things don’t work out.”

  I don’t think I’d ever seen Rooster look so sad at that moment.

  But I also hadn’t felt so sure of anything since that day.

  This was, one way or another, my final stand.

  If I survived and didn’t kill Rock…

  Well, I probably wouldn’t be surviving much longer anyways.

  I was signing up for death, either that night or at one of the following nights as the inevitable war would escalate.

  I just didn’t know who would win. I wasn’t even sure if I knew who I wanted to win.

  And now you know why I said I may not see you again, Eve.

  12

  Eve

  I found it odd to be walking out to stores in the middle of the day.

  I found it odd to feel like a normal, functioning member of society, even if it was for reasons even worse than my current condition.

  I found it odd to be holding more than twenty bucks to my name, even if not spending it was a death sentence for me.

  But even though I found it odd, I still relished the appearance of freedom to move about the mall, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, the only clothes I owned that didn’t look like they belonged to a professional whore.

  Granted, I wasn’t that stupid. I knew Rock would have his cronies watching us in some fashion, even if it wasn’t overt and obvious. I knew I was under surveillance at all times, no matter what.

  But like I said, I relished the appearance of it, if not the actual nature of it.

  And you know what?

  I have to say, my mood was quite elevated by my encounter with Derek.

  Yeah, it wasn’t a “date.” It wasn’t whatever you wanted to call it.

  But when you’ve been told you’re worse than dogshit for six long months, when you hear women murdered a door over from you, when you spend every waking hour wondering if you’re going to live through the next one, when you know only a miracle will get your life back to normal…

  You take a man who treats you like a lady, even if it is to Waffle House.

  Crystal, of course, had picked up on it immediately.

  “You get laid or something?” Crystal had asked when she saw me at the bus stop.

  “That’s a stupid question to ask,” I chuckled, half trying to deflect the question, half just acknowledging there was no way that was possible. “When do I not get laid?”

  “You know I didn’t mean that kind of laid,” Crystal said. “You look like you just got laid-laid. Like, Prince-fucking-Charming just turned your pussy to pure gold atop his well-hung and noble stallion. As in, the sort of toe-curling goodness that you would pay him for. You know, the kind of ‘get laid’ that normal people have.”

  I had to laugh. Why?

  Because I had all the sensations of that, and it was precisely because I had not gotten laid.

  “Well then, no, I didn’t,” I said, feeling myself go hot with a full-body blush. “But I did… uh…”

  “Oh sweet titty-fucking Christ on a cracker, girl,” Crystal gasped. “‘But’ what? Don’t you go word-shy on me now, bitch; not you! No! Start talking! Spill the beans, girl!”

  And I did. I told her everything—except his name, which Derek had seemed so cautious on unveiling.

  I watched Crystal’s expressions go from pure excitement to worry then back to excitement. The look on Crystal’s face seemed to perfectly represent everything that I was feeling. As I finished the story, I could just see that Crystal had been waiting to interject.

  “First off: he sounds awesome. Does he have a brother?” Crystal joked. “Secondly, did you agree to go with him tomorrow? You better have!”

  I nodded slowly and then bit my lip, thinking about his odd promise.

  “He wants to, but he said he’s not sure if he’ll be able to, which…”

  “Figures,” Crystal said, although I wasn’t quite sure if that was true. In any case, though, I still held out hope. “But if he does come around, girl, he’s a hot, honest guy who obviously likes you and can look past the whole prostitute-thing. As your whore-ttorny in this case I have to insist that you marry him right away!”

  “Whore-ttorny?” I asked.

  “Mm-hmm, like one part ‘whore,’ one part ‘attorney.’ Whore-ttorny. C’mon, I thought you was good with this speaking shit and such.”

  “Look, there’s definitely something between us, but…”

  “No ‘but’s ‘cept the one you’re letting your Prince Charming fuck if he comes back, got it? Now get to bed! You need your beauty rest for tomorrow! Git! GIT!”

  “Alright!”

  But then, the morning had come, and the reality of waking up alone smacked me.

  Still, I had something that I didn’t have for a long, long time.

  Hope.

  Even if, at this moment, I was at the store for reasons other than hope.

  I found myself splurging on a red, silky dress that cost all but two hundred of the two grand Rock had given us. I bought myself a necklace that cost more than the remaining two hundred, putting the remainder on cash I had gathered from my own collection. I’m sure it looked like the opposite of classy, shopping in a high-end store looking like the whore I was, but hey, I could dream for just a bit.

  Right?

  Crystal accompanied me, perhaps Rock’s way of testing us to see if we’d be loyal to each other or try and abandon the other. Who knew? Rock played cruel games, and trying to guess at his intent was a foolish exercise. But for right now, we stayed in the same store but shopped separately.

  It wasn’t so much that we wanted space from each other as we just wanted space, period. Any coworkers, operating in the same environment, would have grown weary and old of the other
in short order. To have it felt like the ultimate in fresh air.

  The first thing I had done when I got in the store was give myself just a few minutes to just… gawk at all of the clothing.

  I felt like a little girl all over again, wearing a beautiful dress for a handsome man. I would have sequins and sparkles and glitter all over me, and he’d be wearing a skinny black tie and a suit that perfectly conformed to his body. Or, if we were still in my youth, he’d be wearing the clothing of royalty. I’d be his princess, and he’d be my prince.

  And by he, I mean Derek.

  Derek…

  Happily ever after together…

  “You a whore or not?”

  And just like that, reality smacked me in the face.

  That, above all else, was the curse of working for Rock. It wasn’t the rapes, the whoring out, or the degrading treatment, although those were certainly factors.

  No, it was that even when I was alone, even when I thought I was on my own, my profession had a way of bringing me back down to Earth. I could not escape it, no matter where I went and what I did.

  With a sigh, I grabbed my bag of clothes and looked for Crystal. I didn’t find her anywhere in the store. Rock was testing our loyalty, but as much as I admired Crystal, I wasn’t going to be late getting home just for her. If she had run off… well, it was up to me to survive.

  Fortunately, I found her outside.

  But not so fortunately, I found her sobbing her eyes out, slumped against the wall of the mall, looking so pitiful in the middle of the day.

  “Crystal?”

  She didn’t respond to me. Feeling a sense of duty to help her—just as she had helped me so many times in the past—I knelt beside her, embracing her. She didn’t say anything for the longest time, and I was in no rush to push her to do so. We’d both experienced too much hell for us to pretend that anything except a release of all these tears could happen.

  Finally, she spoke.

  “I-I… I st-still c-c-can’t be-lieve i-i-it…” she stammered. “D-dead! They… they’re dead! G-Gal and… and Megan! Dear god… F-fucking Christ, Eve, they’re really… they’re really dead? Fucking ODed on some of that… that… god, oh god! They were two of his… Eve, they were like his prized whores! I… I’d have thought he’d trade a hundred like you and me—thousands like you and me—for just one of them! They were the crown jewels of the girls that Rock waved around when he wanted the big money to roll in and they… and he…”

  She was shaking her head. It was the frantic, desperate shaking of a person trying to convince themselves that some fresh terror they’d just witnessed wasn’t real—a person in the grips of a terrible haunting trying to remind themselves despite the howling specter floating before them that ghosts weren’t real.

  But everything we experienced was real. Even the things we dreamed were real too, given the very fact that they affected us when we woke. By now, I expected to wake up screaming and crying, some neighbor banging on my wall, telling me to shut the fuck up.

  If dreams weren’t real, then why did they always make sure my days started out so poorly?

  And if dreams were real, then why couldn’t my good ones ever come true?

  This was the heartbreak. A dream of mine had come true, and I was surrounded by death. Some people had great lives with moments of sadness—I had a shit life with one moment of uncertain joy.

  “Eve, they’re dead and… and he cared more about losing the drugs they ODed on. You saw him, Eve; you saw him! He didn’t even bat an eye at the mention of them. He was more upset that he couldn’t have done it himself! I think I saw him choke up a little over the mention of the drugs, but Gal and Megan…”

  She shook with the mention of their names. It left me more than a little guilty that I didn’t really have much of a reaction to them. It was a defense measure—I just knew that we’d see more deaths in the coming months if we didn’t first die ourselves. And we’re not even sure who the screaming girl was…

  “Dead. They’re dead… they’re dead… they’re dead…”

  Her mouth parted, seemed ready to come unhinged like a snake, and a silent wail yawned up towards the sky as her eyes welled and flooded with tears. All her prior efforts had been in vain.

  We may not have looked like whores, but we sure looked like terrible messes. We deserved to be stared at, to be leered at, to be mocked and muttered about under people’s breath. There was hardly any dignity to be had in our lives, even when we had clothing more expensive than any rent check we’d ever paid.

  “The crown jewels of whores,” she repeated, whimpering her words once more, “and their deaths meant nothing to him. What are we then, Eve? What are we?”

  “You a whore or not?”

  Yes…

  That’s what we are.

  “No!” I said with surprising force.

  I meant to answer the question in my head, but I realized that to Crystal, it just sounded like the talk of a crazy woman.

  Which, let’s be honest, I was at this moment. I was out of my fucking mind. And I wanted to be out of my fucking mind—my mind was no place to be at this time.

  “You want to know what we are, Crystal?” I said.

  I gulped.

  “We’re survivors.”

  I just wished I could believe that and that I had any semblance of understanding what the hell that meant.

  The only thing I could know for sure—if it meant anything, it probably included Derek in some fashion.

  13

  Derek

  In the span of just an hour, I changed.

  I shaved.

  I changed my hair color.

  I bought a suit.

  I put in contacts with different color eyes than my own.

  I was Derek Knight still, but I looked much more like a Danny Kyle, a gruff but strictly professional businessman, than a Derek Knight, a leader of a motorcycle gang going on his worst enemy’s turf.

  But one thing had not changed.

  I was going in to kill Rock.

  Nothing would stop that. Not flashbacks to Maggie. Not Roost’s warning. Not Eve.

  Not a goddamn thing could change my mind at this point.

  Well, besides maybe the fucking heat, which was enough to melt a damn motorcycle.

  As I approached the event, making sure to park my bike outside of ear shot—I figured five blocks did the trick—two thoughts came to mind.

  I am way out of my element here dressing fancy.

  And I am goddamn hungry.

  And when I feel hungry or out of place, I get anxious.

  And this is a hell of a place to be showing some nerves.

  The only benefit to the heat was that no one had the capability of differentiating hot sweat from cold, nervous sweat. I would look just like everyone else did—stuffy, miserable, and making small talk with people we didn’t give two shits about. It was more or less the life I’d tried to escape after two years ago, and now it seemed to accomplish my life goal, I needed to get my sorry ass dragged back in.

  Still, I had never exactly called the CIA for disguise work, and as I approached the guest list, I had a nervous fucking fit that the guards would see right through me. Yes, I looked much different. I doubt Eve, should she see me right now, outside of my Waffle House glory, would not even recognize me.

  However, unlike many of the hotshots here, I did not have body guards. To do so, to bring along Savage Saviors with me, seemed akin to bringing a unit of six into Normandy against the entire German army. But now, seeing that I had no one, I probably stood out like a red-painted man in a green yard.

  I could not exactly pull back and take time to contemplate. While I was far from the worst of the goons—the further in I went, the greater Rock’s coverage would be—I already had eyes on me. Not necessarily suspicious eyes quite yet, but any eyes on me meant I had a part to play, a role to act out.

  So, pretending that an old geezer speaking Russian was the man I was supposed to be with, I fe
igned surprise that I had “lost my group,” put on some sunglasses, and walked over to make his quintet of bodyguards a… whatever the number of six is. I couldn’t think, I could barely believe I’d remembered what quintet was.

  The Russian man approached the intensely muscular bodyguard and handed him an envelope. The steroid-jacked Falcon looked intensely at the contents of the envelope. I hated having absolutely no control over the matter—to think that I might die listening to a Russian accent complain about unfairness was at least morbidly funny, but every other part of me was screaming “bullshit, you let this be your plan?”

  “You come to right place,” the bodyguard said with a terribly fake Russian accent. I could not tell if he was mocking the old man or trying to connect in some terrible fashion, but it drew a laugh all the same—as any half-assed attempt at interpersonal behavior did—and he waved us in.

  I did not dare look anywhere other than straight ahead.

  I had gotten in.

  Fate, for at least the first obstacle in my mission, had smiled upon me.

  Now, only about five hundred and thirty-eight more obstacles to go, and I might even get Rock in sight! Easy peasy!

  I tried to stay with the group I had joined, but I didn’t want to seem too close—the last thing I needed was the guards of the Russian wondering why some white boy with weird hair was tailing them. Once I felt confident that eyes would not track me—or at least not care—I broke off, always making sure to stay reasonably close to one group or another.

  As far as I was concerned, with my sunglasses on, silence was the name of the game. The less I did to draw attention to myself, the better. That meant my motions were limited, my mouth was mute, and my presence was small. There would be a time when I had no choice but to be the center of the party, but hopefully that came after the gun tucked into my pants had fired its first round straight into the skull of that fucking prick Rock.