Dax was holding the bleeding man by his throat. He had tried asking nicely, but the man was refusing to tell him where he could find Sam. The guys tied him to a chair and Dax knocked him around a little, hoping the son of a bitch would give in easily. He was about half wasted on beer and weed, though, so he wasn’t feeling the pain the way Dax had hoped. Now as he shoved him back in the chair with his hand around his throat he said:

“You listen carefully, motherfucker. That pig that you’re protecting has my wife. If he so much as pulls one of the hairs out of her pretty head, I’m going to cut you up in little pieces and feed each piece to the pigs out on my ranch. Where the fuck is he?”

The man was gasping for air and couldn’t talk if he wanted to. Dax felt the hand on his shoulder and heard Hawk’s voice say, “Boss, you’re gonna have to let him breathe if you want him to talk to you.” Dax wanted to crush his windpipe. There would be something so satisfying about feeling it turn to dust in his hand. But Hawk was right and he knew it. He let go of the bleeding bastard and as the man’s head lolled backwards and he began to cough and sputter Dax said, “Last chance. You tell me where to find Sam Winters or I will crush every bone in your fucking throat.” The man gasped something unintelligible out and Dax lowered his head next to his and said, “Try again, asshole.”

“He might be at the cabin. I don’t know for sure.”

“What cabin?” When the man didn’t answer him right away, Dax went back for his throat. As soon as he touched it, Hawk put his hand on Dax’s shoulder again and said:

“Why don’t you take a little break, boss, while he gives me the address?” Dax hesitated, but he let go. When he turned around, he saw that the eyes of all his men were on him. Most had never had the opportunity to see him really lose his temper. Their eyes were filled with a mixture of awe, worship, and fear.

“Saddle up,” he said. “If this motherfucker doesn’t tell Hawk what we need to hear, I’m tying his ass to the back of my bike and if he’s still alive when we get up to the hills, he can tell us which cabin it is.” The men began moving out of the small double-wide trailer. As Dax was stepping out into the cold morning air he heard the man begin to rattle off directions to Hawk. His body felt like it was coming apart from the inside out. If Angel was hurt…or worse…someone was going to pay, and pay big. He’d just slid onto his Harley and was pulling on his do-rag when Hawk came outside and headed for his bike. The men didn’t speak, they just all started their bikes, and Dax let Hawk take the lead.

As they drove up toward the foothills, his mind wanted to imagine all the things the fucker may have done to her. If she was dead, or hurt, it was his fault. He was the one that had made Cody’s father pay for what he’d done to Cody and Keller all those years ago. He was the one that had somehow allowed someone to see him doing it. When he finished with the old man, he’d used a vat of acid to make sure that no one would ever find a trace of him. But someone had watched him…and now Sam wanted Angel to pay for his sins. Poisonous rage seeped through his veins at the thought. He had spent the past few years cleaning up his life, mostly for Angel. He’d learned how to control his rage and he’d practiced eliminating people from his life without eliminating them from the world. He’d done all of that for Angel, or most of it, anyways. But if his past sins were going to come back and threaten her, then the old Dax Marshall was going to resurface along with them…and this motherfucker was going to feel like he’d been confronted by the devil himself.

* * *

Angel woke up with a searing pain in her face and behind her eyes. She realized her eyes were swollen shut as she tried to pull them open. For several long seconds, she couldn’t remember where she was, or what had happened to her. It wasn’t until she saw the man with the blue eyes looking down at her that the terror returned to her heart.

“About fucking time. I was getting ready to just do you, but this is going to be so much more fun.” Angel tried to pull her hands and legs up. She wanted to fight…again. She realized with a whimper that he’d tied them down to the bed while she was unconscious. She couldn’t move them at all and they tingled with the circulation trying to return to them as she tried.

“You motherfucker. My old man is going to kill you. He’s not just going to kill you…he’s going to torture you first…” She started choking up when she remembered that he might be dead. She wasn’t crying for herself, it was for Dax, and Susie. Poor Susie…she was going to be an orphan. For a second she closed her eyes and prayed that Zoe and Levi would take care of her. Susie loved them and they loved her. If Angel was going to be able to think straight and possibly come out of this alive, she had to believe her little girl was going to be okay.

“You sound so proud of him. You spent most of your life being a good little Catholic girl, and then a cop. Now you’re just a worthless biker’s old lady, a slut, really. You’ll get what you deserve tonight, and you’ll probably like it so much that you’ll beg me for more…right before I choke the life out of you.” The pig looked so smug. Angel never wanted to crush the bones in someone’s face with her boot as badly as she did his.

Angel started spitting and cursing at him like a feral cat. He smiled down at her and then bent over to slap a piece of duct tape across her mouth. She screamed into it as he took out a big knife and began cutting off her clothes. He wasn’t careful, or gentle, about it, slicing into her skin several times before he got them off her. She thought he was a sick human being already, but she realized that he was a pathetic animal when he leaned over her and licked off the trickle of blood that was slowly rolling down one of her breasts. Suddenly, she was wishing that she had used that gun on herself. She wished that she had put it in her mouth while she was in the trunk and pulled the trigger. Susie, and Dax if he was still alive, would have both been better off than knowing she’d been raped and mutilated.

The man was taking off his own clothes now. Every visible piece of skin between the top of his neck and his waist was covered in both muscle and tattoo. He looked like he’d done some hard time. Angel recognized prison ink when she saw it. He folded his shirt neatly after he took it off, and laid it gently over the chair next to him. He took off his boots and sat them beside the chair and then took off his jeans and folded them over the shirt. All he had left on were his boxers. He was fucking huge and Angel found herself hoping his weight would crush her to death before she had to tolerate the unbelievable indignity of his raping her. He slipped off his boxers then and for the first time all night, she wanted to laugh. If her mouth hadn’t been covered, he probably would have killed her right then. His dick looked like it was fully hard…and about three to four inches long. Whatever he’d taken to bulk up the way he was had shriveled his member, and it was the only justice she found in the entire night.

The man threw one massive leg over her and she started to struggle against the restraints once again. His face came down toward hers and she realized he was going to kiss her. She gagged on the vomit that rose up in her throat behind the duct tape, just when she heard the most beautiful sound of her life. Harleys were coming. Dax might or might not be alive, but the Skulls were coming for Angel, and this bastard was going to pay for what he did to her brother and what he planned on doing to her.

“Fuck! How did those sonsabitches find me?” He jumped up off her and she wished again that she could laugh out loud at him. It would be worth another punch to the face. As the sounds of the bikes got closer, he gathered his clothes off the chair and grabbed his boots. He looked her in the eyes then and said, “We’ll meet again.” Then Angel watched helplessly as he climbed out the bedroom window and disappeared from her sight.

* * *

As they got closer to the cabin, Dax’s racing heart leapt at the sight of the car. It had to be the one that took her. The trunk was open, but he could see the license plate. He could also see the heavyset man that lay crumpled in the dirt a few feet away from it. He was lying face down and Dax couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not, but he could see the indentation in the dirt and the trail of blood where he’d crawled from just behind the car to where he was. If he was dead, he hoped that Angel was the one that got to kill him. If he wasn’t dead, he would be soon. Dax let the bike skid to a stop and jumped off it without even killing the engine. The kill switch stopped it when he was already up on the porch of the old cabin. He felt the guys behind him as he kicked open the door.

“Angel?” he yelled as soon as he was inside. There was a hallway to his right. He cleared the small living room in three long steps and the hallway in two. The door to the back room was closed. He kicked that one open and his heart was suddenly in his throat. Angel was there, and she was alive. He had to concentrate on that and not the fact that she was almost nude and bleeding, and her face was so swollen that she was almost unrecognizable. He was at her side in seconds and he heard the rest of the guys file out. He knew they’d be out looking for whoever had done this to her; all he was worried about at that moment was making sure she was okay. He took hold of the tape and as gently as he could, he removed it from her mouth. Tears were spilling out of her eyes as she said, in a raspy, heart-wrenching voice:

“You’re alive. Thank God.”

For the first time since he was a little boy, Dax Marshall cried. He cried while he was cutting the ropes that held her to the bed, and he cried as he pulled her battered body up into his lap. He cried even harder when she whispered, “Thank you for finding me.” He knew that sadness he felt was going to brew into the hottest rage he’d ever experienced…and he welcomed it. He couldn’t wait to unleash it on whoever had done this to her. For now, though, he just held her and rocked her back and forth and told her everything was going to be okay. He meant that. He was going to strike the kind of fear into this fucking place that would live forever in legend, and no one would ever hurt her again.