CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Axe
The miles seemed to drag on, the towns passed in a slow blur. I couldn’t get to the coast fast enough.
I thought about Allison. How I already missed her touch. Her laugh. Her smile. I just plain fucking missed her. I wanted to hope that we weren’t too late but at the same time, I didn’t even want to entertain the idea that we could have been.
I thought about Neiryn and how that kid had dug a soft spot into my heart without even trying. I hated that I had to leave him, but at least he was in good hands. I knew Reagan and Ellie wouldn’t let anything happen to him.
As much as I wanted to promise him that I would bring his mother home, I didn’t. I didn’t ever want to make a promise to that kid even if there was a sliver of a chance I would have to break it.
So, I left him with a hug and the biggest smile I could muster. And let me tell you, that fucking sucked. To not tell him that I’d see him again. To not let him know that he would see his mom again. To not be able to reassure him in any fucking way broke my damn heart.
I wanted a life with them. If I had any doubts before, they were gone the moment that she had been taken away from me. She let me have my darkness and she tamed the demons inside of me. She understood my thoughts and needs without me having to tell her what they were. I loved that fucking woman. And the first chance I had, I was going to put a ring on that fucking finger and make her my forever bitch.
I didn’t claim her to save her. I claimed her because she saved me.
We pulled up to the meet spot one street over. There was a thick line of trees that we could make our way through and go in unseen. The sun had set long ago and the moon was only a sliver hanging high in the sky.
We loaded up and strapped down. We came prepared and this was only going to end one way because we were going to make damn sure that Savage went down.
“All clear. There were three men on the gate. All taken down,” Cal said as he tucked his phone back away. “The trailer was empty. Let’s move.”
And like some freaky horror movie, we emerged from the shadows and walked with a purpose through the front gate. The very one that Bocca had managed to disable and open. We all formed a line at the door and waited for the others to assemble at the back. Once we were all set, we busted the fuck in and started shooting.
I was second in, followed by Tank. His hand hit my shoulder, letting me know that he was with me as we moved.
The music was blasting so loud that I felt like I was going deaf. But hey, that could give us an advantage in the way that maybe it would keep them from hearing us coming.
The doors opened directly into the huge warehouse. It seemed that they hadn’t done too much with the space. The front part looked like it was made into a pathetic excuse for a lounge and bar area. Shitty old couches were strewn about in no real order. A few recliners that looked like they had seen better days and had been left out by the side of the road. A TV was mounted to the wall on one side and had been left on. Big, fake tits filled the screen and I had to really try hard not to roll my eyes.
Two members were passed out on one of the couches and Seven was quick to put them down without using his gun.
There were oddly walled off sections that only seemed to go about seven feet high. As we moved through, it seemed like they had been meant to section off different rooms, though they provided no kind of sound barrier because there was no ceiling on any of the rooms. It felt more like I was on the set of some movie than in a clubhouse. Maybe that’s why the music was so loud, so they couldn’t hear what the other person was doing in the room beside them.
I rounded a corner to find more couches and a beat-the-fuck-up pool table. Two guys were playing a game and as soon as they saw us they reached for their guns, but I was quicker. I had one down with a bullet straight to the brain, while I tossed my knife into the other’s neck. The first one dropped in an instant, his head smashing against the side of the table and leaving a wet splatter mark of blood. I tried not to stop and look at it for too long. Though I seriously had an urge to go and swipe my finger through it.
Yeah, I know, focus.
The other struggled to pull the knife out of his neck and I wasted no time hopping up on the pool table and doing it for him, only I gave it a pull in the direction that sliced his throat clean open. Then, for good measure, I kicked the fucker back. With a smile on my face, I dropped off the table onto my feet.
I wiped the blood off of my knife using his shirt as I leaned over his twitching body. His gargled scream barely touched my ears. I turned my attention over to Tank. He simply shook his head at me and then motioned to the next room.
We had a good dance. He had my back and I had his. We dropped at least ten people. The cubicles eventually turned into what were supposed to be rooms. The small, open space held a bed and a some had dressers. Some of the rooms even had actual doors.
Lucky for us, we found a few members passed out in their beds, some of them still had a hold on the bottle of whatever the hell they’d been drinking. To say that this was going pretty smoothly would have been an understatement. Because this shit so far, had been a piece of fuckin’ cake, but I wondered when the hell the bomb was going to drop on us.
Then we rounded the corner to another room and there stood a guy with his gun drawn and clearly ready for us. Guessed we had been making too much noise. But then he dropped before I could even aim and pull the trigger. I looked back at Tank to find his attention in the hall, he had missed the whole thing.
So who the fuck had shot him?
My eyes immediately looked up. Though the rafters were dark and I couldn’t make out shit, I did catch a glimpse of something. Those freaky as fuck eyes.
“Killer…” I mumbled.
“The fuck you say?” Tank asked as he turned his attention to where I was looking.
I could see that glimmer retreating then eventually, disappeared altogether. I understood enough to know that she was more than likely repositioning to follow us further into the building.
“She lied to me,” Tank said sounding only mildly angry.
“No, she told you what you wanted to hear. She let you think she was giving into you and then she came here to make sure your ass came back to her,” I whispered as I moved back to the doorway. “Sounds to me like you’re one lucky motherfucker.”
Tank grunted like he knew better than to argue about what I’d said, and then we were moving again.
“Where the hell is she?” I said talking about Allison.
“This place doesn’t look like much. I can’t imagine he would have her in one of these rooms. Doesn’t seem sturdy enough,” Tank said as he fired at some guy coming out of his room. He dropped like a bowling ball and I stepped over his body without a fucking care.
“The back room.” It had to be. “We need to fuckin’ move it, Tank. If Savage is with her…he knows we’re here, he’s going to kill her.”
“Let’s go. Think they can handle this. Move slow, Axe. Don’t do anything stupid,” Tank warned right beside my ear in a harsh whisper.
I caught Bocca’s eyes then nodded in silent communication of what I was going to do. He gave a firm nod back and took over the point where Tank and I were at.
Someone came running down the main hall and before they got too far, they fell into an unmoving lump on the ground.
Couldn’t say that having Killer on our side wasn’t fucking fantastic.
“Oh, fuck!” I said as I felt the burning pain of a blade slicing through my arm.
Then a heavy body was on me, pinning me to the ground. All the air whooshed out of my lungs as he landed a punch to my side. My gun had been knocked loose in the fall and I knew better than to try and go for that shit.
So, I had two options here.
One, pull out my side knife and try to get a good angle in and hope for some blood.
Or two, snap his thick neck.
I needed to get to my woman, so option two it was because it was a hell of a lot quicker.
My hands gripped his head. With one quick jerk and a satisfying snap, he went limp on top of me. Then Tank was hauling the dead weight off of me.
“Good?” he asked
“Yep,” I answered with a jerked nod as I got to my feet.
“Let’s move,” he said as he picked up my gun and handed it back to be.
“Fuck, why does there seem to be more of them,” I said as I noticed a group collecting at the end of the hall. Their eyes were wild and there was no way we had gone unnoticed.
Then the shots rang out. The shotgun blast from the skinny kid who looked like he had a meth problem was heard above the others.
We were trapped. At this point, ducking would only get us so far. We were not only out in the open but we were pretty much standing targets, given that there was only about seven feet between the two hallway walls.
I dove for the closest doorway, only to find two men waiting behind it.
Shit!
Fuck!
Cocksuckers!
I squeezed the trigger, my eyes on the one with the handgun pointed in my direction. A loud thump hit the wall on the other side of the wall and Tank’s grunt filled the air.
The other guy, who didn’t seem older than eighteen, moved to grab something off of the dresser behind him.
I fired, then blinked.
Shit.
I was out, but I didn’t have time to change my clip. I ran at him and with all my strength, proceeded to bash his head in against the cheap, particleboard dresser. I wasn’t sure what was breaking down more, the guys head or the piece of shit furniture.
Blood splattered everywhere and I made sure to keep my mouth closed. The walls looked like some kind of shit art that rich people would pay millions for to hang in their house.
“I think he’s done for,” Brand’s voice cut through my daze.
I released the guy’s hair and let his body drop to the ground.
“Tank?” I asked Brand.
“He’s good. Crow and I just caught up, they’re taking down the last two out there.”
Brand’s body swayed and that was when I noticed he was holding his side and his breathing seemed a bit shallow. He sagged against the wall beside him. Blood and sweat seeped off of him and onto the barely painted Sheetrock.
“Fucking hell, brother?” I said as I rushed to help him lower down to floor level.
“I’m good. You need to go. Save Allison and take that piece of shit out,” he said with choppy breaths.
“Don’t do this to me, man,” I said. “I shouldn’t have let you come.”
“I’m not going out like this, brother. I just need to sit and rest for a minute,” he huffed out and somehow managed to toss me a wide smile. “Now, move your ass.”
I shut my mouth, because what else could I have said to that. Then I was on the move, shutting the door behind me and hoping like hell I’d come back to him still breathing.
And that was when I saw him.
Savage was leaving out of a door in the back corner. I could only assume that was the room off the back and on top of it, I could only hope that was where Allison was.
I ran like hell, the distance seemed to only grow the harder my feet pounded the cold, hard concrete floor. Men in The Devil’s Kings cuts came at me and before I had a chance to take them out myself, they went down. I didn’t stop to look around at how it’d happened.
Savage entered a room just outside of the back door. Just as quickly as he entered, he was walking back out. He looked up, his dark eyes locked with mine and for the first fucking time, I saw fear there.
With a sinister smirk, he lifted his gun and fired in my direction. He was fucking shit shot and I was seriously starting to wonder how the hell we’d been so scared of the fucker for so long. But then again, he considered himself the king and kings didn’t do shit themselves. They sent lackeys out to do their dirty work for them.
His feet moved, taking him closer to the door. I was at least a hundred feet away. I kept going. My heart pounded in my chest.
His fingers moved over a keypad next to the door. Once he was in that room, I knew it would take too long to get in there to go after him. That was time that I didn’t have. That meant that he could do things that I couldn’t stop. So, letting him hide himself away behind that door was not a fucking option. I heard the beep as his hand turned the handle.
With one last sick look back at me, he slipped into the opened space and the door started to close behind him.
I wasn’t going to make it. My window of opportunity grew smaller and smaller each step I took.
“Bocca!” I roared over the noise. I needed him to get that door open.
Something whipped by my head, clipping my ear as it flew past. Then the small, sturdy throwing knife embedded itself in the frame so hard it split the wood and effectively kept the door from closing all the way.
“You’re a Goddamn angel, you know that, Killer?” I yelled out as I ripped the door open. Fuck I could almost kiss her, and if I knew Tank wouldn’t beat my ass, I just might have when this was all over.
Inside the door, my attention was split. Allison was along the left wall. Her body was beaten and only God knew what else. Her arms were chained above her head. But what really got me, was the man bending over her. His back was to me but I knew who the fuck it was. Then there was Savage on the other side of the room. He was moving things around and I half-wondered if he had some sort of secret way to get out because that was the kind of coward he was. He wouldn’t have locked himself in this room—knowing I was coming for him, if there wasn’t some sort of escape route.
“Get the fuck off her!” I yelled and the man over Allison stood tall. “Fuckin’ Vice,” I spat out.
My fist met his face and as he staggered back away from Allison, I hoped it was enough to buy me the time I needed to grab Savage. I had no doubt that any second now, one or more of my brothers were going to walk through the door.
“I got him,” Bocca’s voice called out as I went to make my move towards Savage. Bocca was a step ahead of me and seconds later, he had taken Savage to the ground with a hard tackle. Then he proceeded to pound the fuck out of him.
Knight and Screws from the Gray Fort chapter rushed in right after Bocca. Knight looked a little worse for the wear but at least he was still standing. His blonde hair was streaked with red and I could tell that his face would be sporting some decent sized bruises for the next week.
Screws, on the other hand, looked like he had just taken a shower. He didn’t have so much as a speck of blood on him that I could see. That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t done his fair share, he just knew how to avoid a mess.
Both men moved towards Bocca, their guns trained on Savage. The fucker had no way out, he wasn’t going anywhere.
Knowing that was handled, I turned my attention back to Vice. Knife in hand, I walked up to him, my back tall.
“You think you can touch my woman and get away with it?” My voice was dark and had a bit of a sadistic ring to it.
I was ready to gut him and watch him bleed out. He stayed there on the floor. He didn’t try to move but I could tell that he wasn’t scared of me. The look in his eyes showed no fear.
“No, wait,” Allison’s voice called out and my mind went ‘what the fuck’ for a moment. “He helped me escape. He was trying to set me free just now. He’s not…”
I looked down at the man I knew as Savages biggest bitch. His brow cocked up and there was an amused smile on his face as he held up his hands beside his head in surrender.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Cal asked as he walked into the room.
I was wondering the same Goddamn thing.