The Devil's Due (20 page)

“Pauline!” Desperately, I grabbed her by the shoulder and ran my finger across her forehead.

She blinked and the light returned to her eyes. Immediately, she covered her head with her hand. “What the fuck?”

“I don’t know. Get your clothes. We have to move.”

She sprang from the bed and threw her tank top over her head. I shimmied into the clothes that Moloch had folded neatly on top of the dresser while I was drugged. The lavender top smelled like it had been laundered. My stomach roiled at the perverse image of him washing my clothes as if he cared about me.

I made it to the door first and put up my hand. She fell behind me.

Carefully, I poked my head around the doorframe. The house was quiet, but the muffled sound of swearing came from somewhere outside the walls. I crawled across the hallway floor to peer down over the balcony.

Muddy boot prints marred the pristine white hallway. A vase lay shattered on the floor, the fresh flowers scattered and trampled on. I heard a shout from outside.

“I’m going to see,” I whispered back to Pauline.

Her huge eyes were glassy with fright. “No. Don’t you leave.”

“I’ll come back for you.”

She shook her head mutely, pressing her lips together in a thin line. Her chest rose and fell so fast she was almost hyperventilating. The sick realization that I was abandoning her just like everyone else in her life made me want to vomit. As much as I hated to have to drag her with me, I couldn’t bring myself to leave her like Cade had.

“Okay, but we have to be quick and quiet.” I reached out my hand to take hers.

She nodded and crawled out of the bedroom. I grasped hold of her hand and stood up in a crouch. We darted down the hall.

I stood at the top of the grand staircase. The floor to ceiling windows of the first floor showed me nothing. The bluish light of the early morning cast long shadows across the lawn outside. I couldn’t see anyone.

Nodding to Pauline that the coast was clear, I led us down the stairs. We had just reached the grand hallway when another shout made me freeze. I yanked Pauline over to the kitchen and we crouched together behind the big island in the center.

Three more loud bangs pierced the air, one after another. My stomach dropped to the floor before my mind registered what they were.

Gunshots.

Pauline clasped her hands to her mouth to muffle her shriek. I heard footfalls on the doorstep and motioned her back. We slid out of view just as the door opened.

“You’re fucking certain? On your life?” The stoicism was gone from Moloch’s voice. He was practically shrieking.

“On my life,” I heard the slow, sneering voice of Tiny the guard. “We searched the whole development, top to bottom.”

“How many did we lose?”

Tiny’s voice caught slightly as he recited. “They got Manny, the guard at the shack. He wasn’t a Devil, but he was a good guy. Shot him right in the face, the fucking Rat bastards.”

“Was that our only loss?”

“Bear caught a knife in the side. Gomez is taking him to the club right now for help. Otherwise, we’re clear.”

“And you guys got the fuckers?”

“You saw yourself.”

I heard Moloch’s furious breathing from across the room. I huddled closer to Pauline, whose eyes had gone dull again. What was happening?

More boots stomped into the hallway. “How’s Bear holding up?” I heard Tiny ask the newcomers.

A voice I didn’t recognize replied: “Don’t think that Rat fuck got anything important, but he’s gonna have a wicked scar. Why the
fuck
are the Rats attacking? Thought we had a truce!”

My heart leapt. The war had started.

Then a voice I
did
recognize came oiling into my ears.

“Fucking Turner broke the truce,” I heard Wyatt sneer. “We had to cross the tracks at Porter Crossing to find his little choice cooze.”

“Turner did this?!” Moloch was definitely shrieking now, hysterical spittle clouding his words.

Wyatt’s voice was tight. “He’s my brother and I would die for him. But he fucked up, boss.”

“I’ll say he did! Where’s he at?”

“Last I saw him, he was asleep at the club after dropping his little cunt off with you.”

“Get her,” I heard Moloch screech. “We roll out, now.”

Heavy boots crashed up the stairs. If they looked over the balcony, they would see where Pauline and I crouched, quivering. My heart thudded in my throat.

“She ain’t here!” came the shout.

“We need to move!” I squeaked to Pauline. Spying an open door, I yanked on her hand and sprinted across the kitchen towards the unknown room.

But just as I was about to cross the doorway, heavy arms crushed me, knocking the wind from my lungs as they lifted me from my feet. I lost my grip on Pauline’s hand and screamed.

“Hello again, little bitch,” Wyatt hissed in my ear. “The fuck you think you’re goin’?”

“T
hrow her in the car. The other one, too.” Moloch ordered. His hysteria had died away and the flat affect was returning. Having Pauline and me back under his control was calming him down. The thought made my gorge rise again.

Wyatt lifted me easily and slung me over his shoulder. All the blood rushed to my head and I couldn’t see anything except Pauline’s obedient feet following us.

Wyatt stepped heavily over the doorstep and we were out in the cool morning air. I twisted my head back and forth, trying to get my bearings.

I stiffened when I saw him. There was a man sprawled face down on the walkway. A dark, spreading stain oozed out from underneath his shattered head. He was dressed in riding leathers. I couldn’t see the patches on his cut from far away, but in my heart I knew there would be one with a red-eyed rat.

“Grab the scout and throw him in the trunk!” Wyatt yelled. The huge guard threw a blanket over the body of the dead Rat King and hoisted it into the air. I twisted to watch him, but he disappeared from my line of sight. I heard the trunk of a car open.

Panic rose in my throat when I realized I was going to be in the same car. I pushed uselessly against Wyatt’s back. “I can walk!” I yelled.

“Not a chance. I’m enjoying this.” He squeezed my thigh and slid a hand right up between my legs.

Hot shame flushed through me as my mind was wrenched back to my initiation. Nearly raped, nearly killed, and now held captive by a madman who may have killed a man on his doorstep. If I had only known...

Then my heart sank as I realized I
did
know. Cade had told me.

Cade had warned me away. And when I ignored those warnings, it was Cade who had protected me. Cade had broken a truce and started a war to save me.

I only hoped he was still alive.

Wyatt slung me into the backseat of a dark, nondescript sedan. I bounced on the bench seat. I tried to find my footing before he slammed the door behind him, but I wasn’t fast enough. I grabbed the door handle, but the child lock was engaged. I yanked on it for a second.

“Fuck!”

The other door opened and Pauline slid primly into the seat, her eyes still unfocused. She fastened her seat belt as if this was a normal Sunday drive. My heart sank right to my toes. She was as gone as the dead man in the trunk.

I expected Moloch to slide into the driver’s seat, but instead, it was a man I had never seen before. His scraggly hair looked unwashed and his pitted, sallow complexion made it clear he was not in good health.

“Where’s Moloch?” I ventured, scared of this new wild card I had been dealt.

“Shut your whore face,” the pale man snarled, spittle flying from his lips. I shrank back and cowered next to Pauline.

He tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. A luxurious black Town Car rolled out from the driveway. When it pulled out into the road, he peeled out from where we were parked in front of the mansion and pulled in close behind.

I peered out the windshield, moving slowly so as not to catch his ire, and studied the car in front of us. The dark-tinted windows made it hard to see inside, but I sensed that Moloch was there, riding in the lap of luxury instead of on a bike with the rest of the club. I wondered if he even rode at all.

The roar of a bike sounded, and Wyatt thundered down the quiet residential street to fall in behind us. We made an unlikely parade as we wound through the still quiet streets of the gated community and down the hill to the guard shack. The body had been removed, but Manny’s blood still darkened the window.

Once out on the highway, the sallow driver floored it. We wove in and out of the sparse traffic, keeping closely on the tail of the Town Car in front of us. The speed at which we were travelling told me all I needed to know about Moloch’s fear.

When we rolled into the too-large parking lot of the strip club, I saw the fear was well-founded.

The heavy door was hanging off its hinges. I saw the bouncers’ stools shattered into matchsticks on the pavement. The Town Car screeched to a halt in front of us and the huge guard threw open the driver’s side door with his gun pointed. He motioned to our driver, who threw our car into park and bolted from the driver’s seat.

“Hey! Open the door!” I shouted at him, banging my fists against the window. He ignored me and nodded to the guard, and the two of them sprinted for the doorway with their guns at the ready.

I crouched low in the seat and waited for the sound of gunfire. “Get down, Pauline.” I tugged on her arm, but she gave no sign that she heard me at all.

“Pauline, honey, I know you’re in there. We’re in some shit now. Can you come back?” I tugged again, but she just rocked back and forth, as limp as a ragdoll.

“Shit.” I slid up and put my face close to hers. “Pauline,” I whispered, and brushed my fingers lightly across her forehead.

Just like before, she blinked and inhaled deeply, like she was coming up from being underwater.

“Lainey!” she screeched, her head whipping back and forth in confusion.

“Shh, get your head down, honey.” I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled her down low in the seat. We shifted around until we were as flat as possible.

“Why are we at the club?” she whispered.

“Do you remember anything that happened this morning?”

Her huge eyes darted back and forth in panic. “Gunshots,” she finally answered.

“The war I told you about, it’s started.” I listened for a sound, any sound. I thought I heard a muffled shout. Then a crash of broken glass. When nothing followed, I felt my courage start to return.

“I need to see,” I whispered. I expected her to clutch at me like she had in the bedroom, but once again Pauline was gone. The news that her already terrible world was starting to come crashing down was too much for her fragile mind to take.

I lifted her limp hand from where it lay across me and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

I rolled her down until she was flat on the floorboard, tucking her limbs this way and that until she finally rested in a fetal position. Her dazed eyes stared into nothingness.

“I promise,” I added.

Cautiously, I poked my head up and peered across the parking lot.

Both doors of the Town Car were open. That meant Moloch had emerged. He wouldn’t put himself in danger. That much I had gleaned from my time with him.

Emboldened by this realization, I pushed myself up and over the driver’s seat and slid into the front of the car. With one last glimpse to make sure that Pauline was well hidden, I opened the passenger door.

I
crouched low again, keeping the body of the car between the club and me. Squatting by the oversized tire, I listened again. This time, I heard faint snatches of conversation drift across the parking lot.

“Fuckers... no warning... may be more... got ‘im downstairs...”

A gentle breeze ruffled my hair. It felt like the nudge forward I needed.

Mastering my fear, I scuttled low across the parking lot and pressed my back against the wall of the club. Then I peeked my head into the gloom inside.

The scene that greeted me instantly turned my stomach. Two dead strippers lay sprawled across the stage, flat on their stomachs and pointed towards the stage door. They had tried to run from whoever had broken the door and never made it.