Chapter 25
Ace
About an hour into our search I decided to take an overpass, and I was rewarded for following my gut. Maniac was a stupid fuck. The van had been parked at a storage facility and was easily spotted from the bridge. Thank fuck it was parked at a unit at the back, where it would be unlikely that they would hear our approach. We made our way there and parked our bikes just outside of the front office.
"How we gonna do this?" Joker asked beside me.
"Let's go inside first." I dismounted my bike. Heath and Sully followed suit. "Find out what the staff knows."
The four of us stomped inside the office, taking the cute little girl inside by surprise. It was clear from her expression that we scared the shit out of her and that she was intimidated by us. She couldn't have been more than twenty. As her gaze flicked back and forth between us, her frightened eyes settled on me more than once.
"Relax, sweetheart. I might look like a monster, but I'm usually harmless." She made an attempt to relax. "We just have a few questions."
"Okay," she said shyly.
"That orange van parked in the back, it just get here?" Joker asked.
She nodded. "A couple of hours ago. They rented a storage unit about a week ago."
I knew exactly what they planned to use that unit for. "Did you get a look at anyone? The driver?"
She shook her head. "Renters aren't required to stop in here once they have their own keys."
"Got any cameras around?" Sully questioned.
She shook her head again.
I hadn’t thought that they would. The place was old. "You're going to close up for the rest of the day."
Her eyes rounded. "I can't do that! I'll lose my job!"
I gave her a hard look.
She blushed and looked toward the floor. "I need this job," she murmured beneath her breath.
"You know who we are?" Heath questioned, drawing her gaze to him.
"Yes."
"Then you know we're the good guys, but there are some people out back who aren't. We just don't want you hurt, okay?" She nodded. "You lose your job, you find one of us." He reached inside his pocket and pulled out his wallet. "This is to make up for cutting out early." He peeled off a hundred and handed it to her.
She reluctantly took the money. "Thank you."
"Now get your purse, lock up, and get out of here," I ordered lightly. "And don't come back today, yeah?"
"Okay." As she began moving around the office, gathering up her things, we stepped back outside.
"We'll leave our bikes here and approach from the other side of the building."
We waited for the woman to leave before we made our way down the end of the storage units from the other side. We hugged the side of the building, coming to the corner we would have had to take to get to where the van was parked. I peeked around the corner and recognized the man who was standing guard as one of the Hellraisers. I pulled back.
"There's one outside, but he's facing the front. Everyone else must be inside." I wished we knew how many we'd be dealing with. "Heath, you're the stealthiest one here, you think you can sneak up on him and take him out?"
Heath peeked around the corner, and then nodded his response. "No problem."
"As soon as he's out we'll be right behind you. We're going to have to act fast, brothers. We don't know how many Hellraisers are inside. Sure as shit they'll try to use our brothers as leverage once they know we're here." I took out my gun, locked eyes with Heath, and gave him a nod to go.
He sprinted to the back of the van, crouching low as he made his way down the side toward the front. The Hellraiser was at the front of the van, which was parked directly in front of the unit. The bay door was down. That would give us better coverage, but the single door leading into the unit was open.
Heath snuck up behind the man, wrapped his arms around his neck, and got him in a headlock. He was fast and efficient. A struggle ensued, but Heath managed to maintain his position until gradually the Hellraiser went limp and sank to the ground. Heath turned long enough to give me a thumbs up, and then quickly removed the man's belt and used it to bind his arms behind his back.
"Let's go."
I sprinted toward the van with Sully and Joker behind me. We were almost there when the back door to the van opened up. It was a tossup as to who was more surprised--me, or the Hellraiser who was getting ready to exit the vehicle. He hesitated for a second with indecision, but I continued forward, knowing that our lives depended on keeping control of the situation. Before he could raise the alarm, I reached for him and yanked him down by his cut. At the same time, Joker appeared with a knife and slit the fucker's throat.
I dropped him and stepped back when blood began to spew everywhere. Fuck! I snapped my eyes to Joker and glared. He shrugged, bent and wiped his blade on the man's pants, and then sheathed it again. Sully took a glance inside the van to make sure that there would be no more surprises. We dragged the two incapacitated Hellraisers to the back of the van and tossed them inside.
I didn't have to tell my brothers to be quiet as we headed toward the opened door. We crowded against the wall on either side of it. Heath and Sully were across from me and Joker. I listened at the doorway to gauge what was going on inside.
"Ready to talk now, pretty boy?"
"Fuck you." I recognized Dawson's voice, even though it was low and weak. A grunt revealed that someone had hit him.
"Maybe I'll get one of my boys to fuck you," someone laughed. It had to be Maniac. "I have a few brothers who swing both ways," he laughed.
Someone snorted. "Maybe he likes sucking dick."
As laughter echoed inside the unit, I carefully peeked around the door jamb. The room was dark, but they'd rigged up some lighting that gave the interior a yellowish glow. I saw all three of our brothers hanging from the ceiling by a rope attached to a pulley on the wall. Dawson seemed to be the only one who was still conscious. Hock had been beaten to a pulp and now resembled a slab of hanging meat. It was obvious that the Hellraisers had used more than just their fists on him.
Jiggers was dead. That much was clear. He still had a knife sticking out of his gut. It didn't appear that he'd taken much of a beating. The bastards had probably killed him to serve as a warning to Hock and Dawson that they could expect the same if they didn't talk. Dawson was barely hanging on, I could tell. They hadn't shown him any mercy either.
Fuck. Our brothers had come to help us, and we'd let them down.
I counted five Hellraisers. Maniac and his VP were there, as expected. The other three were standing off to the side. I was about to move back when Boomer stepped over to Jigger.
"Maybe he wants to suck on this." He yanked the knife out of Jiggers' belly and moved back to Dawson, the blade dripping blood. My gut clenched.
I pulled back and signaled to Sully and Heath to indicate how many Hellraisers there were. When I heard Boomer say, "Maybe we should just fuck him with this instead," I knew that we had to move.
I rounded the edge of the door jamb, firing my weapon in Boomer's direction. He went down, but chaos ensued. Before I could fire at Maniac he'd pulled his weapon and had jumped behind one of his men, using him as a shield. He fired in my direction. The searing, burning pain that followed the impact of the bullet nearly brought me to my knees. I ignored the pain, firing back, knowing that the bullet would go right through the man he was cowering behind. I didn't let up with one shot, either. I walked toward Maniac, firing until my gun was empty, confident that my brothers would have my back.
The echo of gunfire lingered once the shooting had stopped. Smoke filled the small unit and burned the eyes and lungs. I clutched at my side, feeling blood instantly slip through my fingers.
"Fuck!" I heard Joker swear.
I swung back around to find him furiously working to free Jiggers from the rope that held his limp body. Sully and Heath were helping to get Hock loose. I went to Dawson, but the wound at my side prevented me from raising my arms. "Jesus, fuck!" I snarled, stumbling back with pain.
Sully caught my eye and quickly assessed the situation. "Fuck, you're hit, brother!"
I snorted. "Yeah, I know."
They lowered Dawson to his feet, but he immediately sank to his knees. "Just give me a fucking minute," he said weakly. Hock was unconscious but still alive, groaning from the pain of being moved.
"What happened, brother, how did they find out who you were?" I wanted to know in case we had to take care of a snitch.
He snorted, before it turned to a cough, and spit out a mouthful of blood. "Jiggers," He paused to take a breath. "One of the fucking Hellraisers recognized him." He gave his head a shake as if he were confused. "Something about a job they did years ago. I don't know."
He was showing signs of having a concussion.
"They need a hospital," Joker said.
"No hospital." He met my eyes pointedly. "For any of us." His eyes fell to my side and he remained quiet, but I knew from his clenched jaw that he didn't like what I'd said. He understood why, though, that much I knew. We all lived by the same code.
"I agree, brother," Dawson managed in a weary tone. "No hospital, no cops."
"Sully, get that fucking van in here," I ordered. "We'll put all the bodies in the back and get rid of it later. We can send it to the bottom of the fucking swamp." There were plenty of places on my property where we could roll it right in, deep places that were filled with alligators. I clutched my side and winced as pain lanced through me. I had to remain on my feet.
"You need looking after, brother," Heath commented, while Sully hit the button that would lift the bay door. Joker climbed into the driver's side of the van and pulled it inside. "You're losing a lot of fucking blood."
I ignored him, taking out my phone. Tanner needed to be told what had gone down. As the bay door went down again and Heath and Sully took care of loading the bodies into the back of the van, I hit Tanner's number.
"You found them?" were the first words out of his mouth.
"Yeah, but it's not good news, brother. Jiggers is dead. Dawson and Hock are beat to hell. We had to kill the Hellraisers."
"Maniac and Boomer?"
"Yep. It was them or us. We found them at a storage unit torturing our brothers inside."
"Fuck."
Neither one of us mentioned how fucked up the whole operation had gone from the start. There was nothing we could do about it now.
"How's this being handled?" Tanner asked, which told me that he expected me to work out the details.
"Right now we're loading them into the van. We'll drop them into the swamp on my property later."
I heard his snort. "You've got a fucking graveyard out there, brother."
"The swamp tells no tales," I smirked. "Alligators and venomous snakes are better than guard dogs."
We'd dumped more than a few bodies into the swamp near my house over the years. The last time had been a few years ago, some fucker who'd killed Tanner’s pops and had been stalking Ruby.
"What about Dawson and Hock?"
"No hospital, but they need a doc."
"I'll call Rivers. Put them up at a decent motel and give them whatever they need."
"We'll take them to the Reef. I’ll get a couple of rooms there. You might want to call in a couple of the girls to take care of them." I was beginning to feel weak, and leaned against the wall. The sound of the van door being slammed shut drew my attention. I caught the concerned looks of my brothers. "Got more shit to take care of here. I'll be in touch."
"Ace, brother—"
I held up my hand to stop Heath. "I'm good."
"The fuck you are, you're as pale as a ghost," Sully grumbled, walking over to me. He'd taken off his shirt and was ripping a strip off around the bottom. "At least put this on to staunch the flow of blood until Rivers can get a look at you."
I lifted my cut and my shirt and looked down at the mean-looking hole in my side. I'd had far worse, but the truth was that as long as it bled freely, I would grow weaker and possibly pass out. I took the rolled up shirt from Sully and held it over my wound while he tied the ripped portion around me. "Happy now, mom?"
"Fuck you," he grinned.
"Alright, let's finish up here.” I pinned a look on Heath. "Call Mike and tell him to get his truck here. We need to transport Dawson and Hock to the Reef." I swung my gaze to Joker. "You head to the store and pick up some odorless bleach and some towels to clean up the blood, and get those fucking ropes down." He acknowledged me with a nod. I took a breath, wincing as sharp pain stabbed through me. "When darkness falls, I'll take the van to my property." I looked at Sully. "I don't want to take a chance that the girl who was working in the office gets nosey when she returns in the morning."
"What about your bike?"
"Mike can drive the van. I'll follow on my bike."
He snorted. "You're covered in blood, brother. Better you drive the van and he can ride your bike."
I didn't argue with him because he was right, and the cocky bastard knew it, too. We waited for Mike to arrive and carefully put our wounded brothers into the van, including Jiggers. He deserved a proper burial. There was room for Heath's bike, so he could drive the truck and not have to worry about coming back for it. When he took off for the Reef, Mike and I headed out for my property, leaving Sully and Joker to clean up.