Among the Chaos: Book 2 of the Soldiers of Chaos MC Series (13 page)

“What kind of sick fuck gets off on this shit?”
Tex exclaimed.

N
ikki would’ve had half a mind to be offended if she hadn’t thought the same thing herself.

“Is this what he was into too?”
Tex emphasized the word he in such a way that there was no mistaking who he meant.

“No. This shit is extreme. It’s designed to maim and permanently damage people. That was not what he was about.”

“Really?,” Tex paused his eyebrows raised at her, “He whipped you till you bled Nikki. I don’t know if you remember it but I do. The blood and sweat pouring down your back, the horrible moans you made every time we moved you and when Doc tried to treat you, god the screams, the horrendous fucking screaming,” his voice broke on the last word causing her heart to ache.

“
Tex lay off,” Trace warned him.

She remembered it alright. The flashes of lucidity she’d had that night remained embedded in her memory. Her back still itched and burned from time to time, the flesh memory repeating itself. It messed with her head constantly. She hated Cole and even feared him a little for what he had done to her. She also felt guilty as she had driven him down that path by promising him more than she had to give. And even though she didn’t want to acknowledge it deep down parts of her still called out for him with a faint and distant yearning. She had always known that playing with that fire was going to get her burnt and it did. She couldn’t entirely blame Cole for that.

Tex was looking away from her when she finally had the courage to look at him. She knew him well enough to know he was choking down whatever emotion had crawled its way up to the surface. She had done wrong by so many people through this whole thing and she didn’t want to drag anyone through that shit again. She also knew that in this life you often had to do things that you didn’t want to do regardless of the consequences. She turned back to the cupboard in front of her.

“I don’t want to remember it,” she said firmly as she reefed the sliding door closed again.

As she turned to walk away s
omething caught Nikki’s eye. Something inside one of the ventilation grates on the wall. Was that a light flashing? She moved to it and as she reached up she noted that the screws were missing, the grates seemingly just popped in to place. She slid her nails between the grate and the wall prying it loose.

“Cameras, fucking cameras,” she said as she whirled around to check the other grates.

The boys were
already at it, pulling off the grates one by one to reveal a throng of cameras covering the room from all angles. Nikki frantically searched the room for where the feed might be running to. She ran her hands over the walls but found nothing.

“You’re sure there was nothing upstairs?” she asked Tex.

“Just that safe. Maybe Black or the Ninja guy already got the evidence?” Trace replied.

Shit.

“Maybe the recording device is gone but that doesn’t mean the footage is right?”

Tex nodded at her.

“Search the whole place again. Look for discs or thumb drives anything that might hold video footage. Maybe these sick pricks play together,” Nikki
commanded as she began rifling through the few draws in the room.

Between the t
hree of them they would turn this place upside down to find anything that would lead them to the man who killed Rat and ultimately the man who killed her mother too.



They’d scoured the place from top to tail every single draw, cupboard, piece of furniture or any other crack and crevice that presented itself. They’d found nothing and Tex was getting frustrated to say the least. He yawned as he leant back against an empty dresser in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He’d been up for over 24 hour, he’d been confronted by the sick and twisted playground of a man who’d wanted the woman he loved dead and he’d hurt her again. On top of all that he’d run the gamut of all the emotions he could think of lust, love, anger, sadness, disgust and frustration.

He could hear the sounds of tinging metal in the next room as he paused in his search. Nikki entered the room in a hurry heading straight to the wall vents.

“What are you doing?”

“If the bastard is hiding his cameras in the vents maybe he's hiding other shit in there.”

She had a point. As Nikki set to work with her knife undoing the screws on one vent
Tex did the same to another. Nikki growled in frustration as she came up empty and moved on to the next one.

Tex reached inside the vent and ran his fingers over the inside surface. Nothing.

“There’s something in this one I can’t quite reach it,” Nikki stated.

Tex quickly rushed over to help her. Reaching further back into the vent his hand swept over the metal surface. Something was taped to the bottom of the duct. Tex tore off the tape and brought it out.

“A key?”

“What for?
The safe maybe?” she asked.

Tex
shook his head the safe was a combination lock not a key lock.

“There has to be something around here,” Nikki said the look in her eyes one of complete determination.

Tex
scanned the space for the hundredth time. There was nothing here, no locked draws or secret doors or hatches.  They were clutching at straws here desperation driving them forward. The key could’ve been for anything. Hell, it could’ve been here before Lenny even lived here.

“
Got you, you bastard. In here,” Nikki called from the closet.

“Did you find something?” Trace asked as he entered the room.

Tex watched as she stepped down from a small wooden step stair in the corner of the closet. The manhole in the roof above her was open and as she turned to face him she held a small lock box in her hands. She placed the box on an empty shelf and held her hand out for the key. He let her do the honours and when she opened it, the box was full of thumb drives just as Nikki had suggested.

Tex’s lip curled up in disgust as he stared at the little black items. The last thing he wanted to see was that twisted fuck at work and he certainly didn’t want Nikki watching that shit.

He grabbed the box of the shelf in front of her, “Not that I’m in a hurry to look at this shit but let’s get out of here.”

He turned and walked out of the room before she could argue with him.



Nikki sat in front of the screen her insides churning with revulsion and hatred. The thought had occurred to her that Black and Lenny’s bedroom tastes might run the same way. What she hadn’t considered was that it wouldn’t be Jason Black on the footage but his brother. Those evil black eyes pierced right through her from inside the screen. The idea of the two of them working together was beyond frightening. Only a few minutes in and Nikki had seen more than she’d ever wanted to.

She turned her attention back to the box full of little black thumb drives. The only way to identify them was by the small numbers on the side that Nikki realized were dates. She sifted through the box. A flash of red caught her eye. She picked up the little thumb drive. It was a different brand than the rest of them and it looked older. There was no date on it just two little letters that made her heart jump. M.C. Marcus Cole. Shit.

“Right I’ve seen enough of this shit. Turn it off,” Trace told Tex.

Nikki panicked and pocketed the little red and black thumb drive before the boys could notice.

If it was what she thought it was then what had Roger pulled from the safe? If the ninja even was Roger. God, this just got more and more convoluted the further they dug.

“So I guess that explains the link between Lenny and Black,”
Tex said as he pulled a thumb drive from the computer and threw it back into the box.

Nikki briefly wondered if they shouldn’t let Alex take a look at these files.

“All those women,” Trace said as he looked at the small memory sticks as if they were poisoned.

All those women.
He was right, all of these women. Her blood boiled and her gut twisted up some more.

"Maybe we should," Trace began.

"Burn them," Nikki cut him off.

What was the point if dragging the women in these videos back through the trauma inflicted upon them, if they were even
alive. Even if both men weren't dead their victims would never see justice.

"Nikki, don’t you think," he began again.

"We burn them all," she stated firmly.

It was too late for all these women. Too late for them and too late for her mother. Her rage was starting to build. Nikki's twisted logic started making the links for her and where they led her was straight to Bridges. The man was responsible for all this. He enabled these psychopaths to roam free. She would make him suffer for this, she would. Nikki felt the monster rattle its cage and she cursed at herself inwardly. She needed to take a deep breath and get her shit back under control. She was beginning to realise that it was one thing to cage an animal but it was another thing altogether to tame it.

Chapter
9

Nikki watched the street around her from the comfort of her mustang. Tex and Trace had given her this section of the shipment route. She was supposed to stay in her car and watch for any signs of activity. As she sat there she tried her hardest to avoid all thoughts of Cole and that little black and red memory stick. Instead she focused on the boys and their little interlude in the cupboard. That and the incident in the lounge room and that time in her bedroom at the clubhouse. As the car began to fog up with her breath Nikki decided maybe she shouldn’t think about that either.

Her phone beeped breaking into her thoughts.

*Anything up
ur end?*

It was
Brodie. He was positioned up the other end of the street from her. They’d scouted this section between the two of them and figured out the best positions to be in. She’d been glad the boys had put her with Brodie. He was still a bit pissed at her for the handcuff stunt she’d pulled on him. Mostly it was because it hurt his pride. But he was dealing with it and even joking with her a little bit.

She hadn’t spotted anything unusual. The only people out here were business people in suits moving from one office building to the next. That and a bunch of town cars and taxis.

*Nothing*

They didn’t have enough people to watch the whole route so they were operating in a leap frog style pattern. Each pair had their own section of the route. Once the truck was clear of your section you cut across in front of the other pairs to your next section. They were heading through the city which was not their usual MO either. The tails they were picking up had forced them to go non-traditional routes.

Nikki hadn’t thought travelling right through Bridges playground was a good idea. But the thing that it did have going for it was that it was crowded. No one would be game enough to jump the shipment with this many witnesses around. It was also a pretty popular route for trucks supplying all the shops, restaurants, clubs and hotels in this area. Their truck just looked like one more truck among a bunch of trucks travelling this way. The danger was they were on the enemy’s doorstep. Although that wasn’t the only reason Nikki didn’t like it. They were also dangerously close to the Mint and that made her uneasy to say the least. Not that she was going to reveal that to the boys or anyone else for that matter.

Nikki’s phone beeped again this time it was Trace.

*How you doing Baby girl? We are just about to you.*

Tex and Trace were taking point on this one.

*All good.
Nothin sus.*

By the time she’d sent the reply she caught the first glimpse of the boy’s van moving into their section. The large white truck was a couple of cars behind it. She glanced between the street in front of her and the truck behind but nothing happened. The van and the truck rolled past her without incident.
Nikki pulled out trailing a few cars behind them and followed them until Case picked them up after the turn.

She texted Brodie to make a move to their next location and did a U-turn breaking away from the truck. She glanced up in the rear view to get one more look at the departing convoy. Her mirror quickly filled up with the traffic behind her. She took a quick left searching for Brodie in the cars ahead. She got a brief look at his silver sedan making a right two sets of lights up from her. She sped up to make it through the orange light.

Another quick check of her rear view mirror sent Nikki into a tail spin. A familiar looking black Range Rover was filling up her vision. Jesus Christ. She could not panic, she had a job to do. She went through the next orange and hit the right hand turn just in time. The car behind her followed right on her ass. There was no doubting it now. He was tailing her. Shit. She did not have time for this bullshit. She’d have to try and lose him.