Stolen: Hell's Overlords MC (30 page)

He laughs. “Wasn’t part of the plan, but I don’t hear you complaining.”

He’s got me there. “Well, still. You’re a stranger. You’ve saved me twice now, so I owe you my life. But I still don’t know anything about who you are.”

He tilts his head and looks at me strangely as he replies, “I’m saving you more than twice. I’m saving you from everything that’s happened before. I’m saving you from everything happening now. And I’m going to keep saving you for the rest of your life. That’s what I meant when I said you’re mine now.”

I shiver. Who talks like that? I’ve never heard anyone say something that is simultaneously so ridiculous and yet so bone-chillingly sexy. He’s not joking, either, judging by the look of him. There’s no hint of a smile on his face. Only a scowl, the kind of brooding darkness that tells me he believes every word he says. It’s haunting in a way.

He lays back down to rest his head on the pillows and pulls me against his side. “Let’s sleep for a few hours,” he said. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning.” He starts to close his eyes.

When I hesitate, he can feel it in the tension of my muscles resisting his fingertips. I’m not sure what to make of all this. He has been there two times already, in the most random of situations, times when I thought my life was truly in danger. What weird kind of karma is playing out here? I’ve never believed in fate, but this entire situation has that same kind of unsettling, coincidental air. I’m still struggling with what to think about it all.

“Vince,” I say in a wavering, unsure voice. He opens one tired eye and looks at me. “Can I trust you?” I bite my lip.

He sits up straight. At first, he looks angry. His fingers are wrapped tightly around my wrist, squeezing close to the point of causing pain. I wince and shy away, but he’s got me held tight. I’m not going anywhere.

“You can’t trust anyone in this world,” he says firmly. Then his whole face softens. His grip on my wrist slackens, leaving a tingling sensation where he had held me. “Except for me.”

He motions for me to lie down with him. I curl up with my head on his chest, his heartbeat thumping quietly against my ear. For the first time in days, I feel like I’m safe. Like I’m protected.

Like everything is going to be okay.

Vince

The first crack of splintering wood interrupts the dream I was having. The second one jolts me awake in bed. The third crack is not wood at all, rather the shattering of my back molar as a pistol butt slams into my jaw.

The taste of blood rinsing over my tongue is acrid and sharp. One side of my face is riddled with pain and blossoming bruises from the strike to the teeth. I start to try to struggle up, in spite of the stars twinkling in front of my eyes, but a leather gloved hand wraps around my throat and shoves me back down. I feel the point of a gun press between my eyes.

“Don’t move, motherfucker,” growls a vaguely familiar voice. I hear a scream. My eyes blink open through the pain. The scene swims into life.

Early morning light streams through the wreckage of what was once the door to the motel room. It is now little more than fodder for matchsticks, thanks to the axe work of the two men who are standing in the room. Their snarls are identical. Both are wearing black boots, black jeans, and long-sleeved black shirts, along with leather gloves on their hands. The one pinning me to the mattress by my neck has a short-nosed pistol in his hand, aimed squarely at my face. The other has a gun held to Rose’s forehead.

He’s holding her back against him so that she faces me, while keeping an arm looped around her neck. Her face is a patchwork quilt of terror. Eyes bugging out, hands scrabbling for purchase on the man’s bulging forearm, bare skin riddled with goosebumps.

“Get the fuck away from her!” I roar, trying to leap towards where they are standing at the foot of the bed.

But the man with the gun pointed at me slams me back into the bed by my throat. He raps the gun on the bridge of my nose to get my attention. “Stay still, you stupid son of a bitch,” he says. “You want a fucking bullet in the eye?” I’m seething, chest rising and falling with every angry breath, but there’s nothing I can do. He’s got me trapped.

Fuck, how could I have been so stupid?
Focus.
No time for that. Figure out how to save her.
I glance around, but nothing presents itself. They outmaneuvered me, found us when we were vulnerable. I’d thought we would be safe here for the night. How fucking wrong I was.

Rose is still naked, squirming in her captor’s arms. All I want is to reach out and comfort her. She can trust me. I told her she could. What is this, then? They found us anyway. I was wrong.

He sees the way I’m looking at her and laughs. “What a nice bitch, eh? I cannot wait to see what it is like to have her.” He looks at his partner, and they both cackle evilly.

“She will be very fun, yes,” the second one agrees. Then he adds, “Until we’re bored with her, that is. Then she will be not much use to us at all, I am afraid.”

Rage is clouding my vision. I want to murder these men, rip them apart with my bare hands. How dare they touch what is mine.

“If you hurt her, I will hunt you both down, and you will wish you had never met me,” I grit. “I swear that to you.”

The man above me loses his smile. He wipes a band of sweat from his forehead. “You would be very stupid to follow us, amigo,” he says. “Very stupid indeed. You and she will both end up in a great deal of pain.”

I’m lying deathly still, biding my time, hoping against hope for an opening to present itself. It seems fruitless though. There’s no way I can move quickly enough to avoid the man filling my skull with hot lead. For Rose’s sake, I need to stay alive. Head clear. Patience. The seconds are ticking by frustratingly fast. They won’t linger here for long. Maybe they’ll kill me before they go, maybe not. I might only have one chance to act.

I look at Rose. I’m trying to tell her with my eyes to do something, anything. All I need is a sliver of opportunity and I can try to buck the odds. I rescued her twice before. Third time’s the charm, right?

She’s staring back at me in abject fear. She looks frozen, rooted to the ground and completely incapable of motion. I’ve never seen something so fragile before. She deserves better than the rough hands of the cartel scum wrapped around her throat.

I blink hard. The only thing I can do is stare at Rose and urge her to move. Run. Get the fuck away from here. Please. I see a flicker of something in her eyes. It’s hard to decipher. Is it adrenaline? Courage? Pure animal instinct? I can’t say for sure, but the shell of her panic seems to begin crumbling.
Come on, Rose.
Fight.

As if she hears me, Rose opens her mouth and sinks her teeth hard into the sleeved arm of the man holding her. He curses and flings her away from him. She careens into the wall, smacking her skull against the plaster. For a moment, her knees buckle. The impact must have snapped her head back. She looks dizzy, confused.

In the midst of the chaos, I see the Diablo pointing the gun at me glance away for a split second. I surge upwards, knocking his weapon aside, although he manages to keep his fingers wrapped around the grip. I slam my forehead into the crook of his nose. He stumbles backwards, one hand covering the torrent of blood erupting from his nostrils.

I can hardly believe our luck. I made a mistake, but they won’t catch me sleeping a second time. No one is ever going to hurt Rose again. We’re going to get out of here. Against all odds, we’re going to fucking make it.

For a moment, I truly believe that.

Then everything comes crashing back down. The Diablo that Rose bit comes to his senses. She reaches her hands towards his face as if to claw at him, but he bats her outstretched fingers aside and delivers a brutal backhand to her right cheek. Her lights go out instantly. She slumps to the floor.

“No!” I bellow. I try to jump from the bed, but a sheet wraps around my ankle. I get a foot in the air before it pulls tight like a leash and yanks me to the floor.

No. No. This can’t be happening. We were out! We were almost fucking gone!

The man I headbutted struggles to his feet. I try to roll over to protect myself from him, but it’s no use. He cocks his foot back and swings one steel-toed boot directly into my temple. The world goes black.

The next moments are brief flashes surrounded by darkness, like a film reel with all but a few scenes cut out.

“Tick tock,” says the Diablo standing over me. “Time for us to go.”

Black.

Rose screaming as she’s dragged out by her hair. “Shut up, cunt,” snarls the Diablo towing her out the door.

Black.

Rose and one of the men are gone. The other one is looking down at me. His face is hazy, distorted by what is without a doubt a hideously bad concussion. “I told you not to move, motherfucker.”

“Stop…” I mutter. Everything hurts.

“I should kill you right now.”

All I can do is groan in response.

“But we’ve got a job for you to do.”

A job? What the fuck is he talking about? My pain-addled brain can’t make sense of it. I can still hear Rose, though her screams are becoming faded and muffled. When they choke off suddenly, my heart freezes in place.

The Diablo pulls something from his back pocket. He drops it towards where I lay on the ground, still tangled in the sheets from the bed. The thing, whatever it is, hits my chest with a thump and a crinkle.

“Take this back to your friends in Texas,” he says. “Tell them the Diablos are coming.” He walks out the ruined door. Then he is gone.

Moaning in agony, I tilt my head up to look at the object dropped on my chest. It’s a brown paper bag. The bottom of it is sticky and wet. Trembling and sweating, I reach towards it and pull it open.

A bloody, severed hand gleams from inside. On one finger is a silver ring. There is a tiny emerald embedded in it.

It’s Cesar’s. Or, rather, it was. I’m guessing that the man this hand once belonged to is no longer among the living.

I turn my head to the side and vomit, whether from the hand, the concussion, the loss of Rose, or the war that is about to erupt in my hometown, I can’t be sure. Some combination of all of the above.

I can’t fight it anymore. The pain overwhelms me, and I pass out.

* * *

Three Weeks Later

I cut a slice of steak, spear it on my fork, and raise the meat to my mouth. The smell grows more powerful as it draws closer to my nostrils. It’s sickening. I see the juice glistening in between the marbling of the beef. Salty, briny, darkly sweet, I taste it before it ever passes my lips, and my stomach churns. I can’t handle it. I set it down, untouched.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, man?” Steezy asks.

“Nothin’,” I grunt.

“Bullshit,” he counters. “You looked at that piece of steak like it had fuckin’ syphilis on it or something. It’s delicious, man. Try it.” He snags it on his own fork and dangles it in front of my face. “C’mon, try it!”

“Get that shit out of my face, Steez.”

“You gotta try it! It’s so damn good!”

“I’m not gonna tell you again.”

“A cow died for your eating pleasure, and you’re just gonna sacrifice it like that?” He shakes his head sadly. “You should be ashamed.” He tucks the steak into his own mouth and sighs blissfully as he chews. He adds, “More for me, I guess. Thanks, cow.”

I slide out and get up from the table. The restaurant we’re at is technically closed, but the owner pays the Inked Angles protection money, so we more or less have the run of the place whenever we want. The empty joint is a little spooky, though, for some weird reason. Chairs are flipped up on the tables and the liquor bottles stand out behind the bar, shining through the darkness. Steezy and I are at a booth in the corner, the only lit light in the whole place shining down on our perch.

“Where you going?” he asks as I walk away.

“Gonna have a cigarette,” I reply over my shoulder.

I walk through the kitchen on my way out back. The industrial equipment looks vaguely threatening. High powered blenders and ovens, sharpened knives galore—it looks like a torture shop in here, something straight out of a twenty-fifth century Inquisition. It’s unsettling.

Weaving between preparation tables and big banks of stove tops, I find the back entrance and kick it open. I drop to a seat on the brick steps outside and fumble the cigarette pack and lighter from my back pocket. I tap a smoke out, bite it between my teeth, and extract it. Bringing the lighter to the tip, it takes a long, frustrating minute to make contact between the flame and the cigarette.

My hands are shaking too badly.

Steezy was right. Something is wrong with me. It’s been three weeks since I got back from El Cruce, and as much as I’m trying to deny it, I’m seriously fucked up on the inside. Food tastes like shit, my hands shake constantly, and I twitch like a madman whenever something startles me out of the corner of my eye. I’m on edge. I know why, of course, but I’m not going to think about it. I can’t. I won’t.

The smoke invades my mouth. There’s something about having that bitter flavor settling on my tongue that feels appropriately masochistic, in a ‘Fuck you, Vince, you deserve this’ kind of way. Like I’m supposed to be punishing myself. And shit, maybe I do deserve it. I fucked up big time. I let them take her.

“Shut the fuck up,” I mutter out loud. No one is around to hear me. The back alley is devoid of any signs of life. It’s just me. Nobody else. I exhale and look down towards where the street opens up. I can see a sliver of beach from here. The air is damp and foggy, with a sporadic drizzle cascading through the night at will. Beyond the sand, dark waves lash angrily onto the shore. It’s a grim scene. Well, sometimes the world knows what you’re feeling and it contorts itself to reflect that right back at you. Tonight, I’m glad for that. After all, misery loves company.

I sit and smoke in silence for a while. Inhale, exhale, ash the tip, repeat. It’s like a mantra, a meditation. No room for thought. Fuck that internal voice. It’s never said anything I ever wanted to hear. I want to tell it to get lost, to take a long walk over a short cliff. It ain’t doing me a damn bit of good.