A Sinful Vow: Inked Angels MC (23 page)

He blacked out immediately, the pain too much for his body to handle. Adrenaline tore through my body, lifting me up and sending new life surging into my muscles.

“Fuck you, you scum bag piece of shit,” I told him. I spat on his face as I stepped over his dead body to grab the gun he had set down when he entered.

Fuck him. Fuck this. I wasn’t dying here. I was going to survive, I was going to make it back home and I was going to see Blaze again. Fuck the world that kept trying to stop me—I was an Inked Angel’s wife, and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

Right then, of course, was when I felt a gun press against the back of my head.

“
Princesa
,” hissed a voice that I had hoped never to hear again. The eerie stickiness of his ever-present gloves wrapped around my throat. His face was pressed against my ear while he held a gun against my temple. The metal was cold, but the tendrils that wrapped themselves around my heart at his touch were even colder.

Lobo.

“I cannot let you leave,
mi flor
,” he said to me. “I have gone through too much to bring you here.” He spun me away from the door that led outside and towards the hallway that went further into the main building. “Walk,” he commanded, prodding the gun against my spine. “I want to show you something.”

He guided me down the hallway, towards where a long, thick rug ran over the tile. “Pick it up,” he said, pointing at it. I bent over and tugged the carpet to one side. I felt my dress ride up as I did, and knew that Lobo was staring at the exposed curve of my ass. My throat was dry. What kind of dungeon was he taking me to? And what would happen there?

Under the rug was a trapdoor, designed to blend into the pattern of the tile. I looked up at Lobo. “Open it,” he said. I grabbed the cord and yanked. A section of the floor moved up on silent, greased hinges. Below, darkness yawned.

“Climb,” he ordered. I had no choice. I turned and began to climb down the ladder.

The air below was cold and carried a faint chemical undertone. I sniffed, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I could hear Lobo leap to the ground behind me. A dozen feet overhead, the rectangle of light we had crawled from clanged shut, blocking out all the sounds of gunfire and dying men.

Our breathing was loud in the dark. I squeezed my hands into fists and stood still, trying not to move. Hoping that this wasn’t the end.

“Would you like to see my candy?” Lobo asked, his voice soft among the shadows.

Candy? What the hell was he talking about? I barely had time to wonder before I heard him flick a switch and rows of lights roared into life.

I let out a gasp. The underground room was massive, stretching several hundred yards from the end where we were standing to the distant wall. Filling every inch of space in between were countless vats and test tubes, bubbling with strange concoctions. I saw lab tables that ran unbroken from end to end. Each of them bore identical containers filled with a bubblegum pink crystalline substance that shimmered in the fluorescent lights overhead.

Lobo lowered his gun, unconcerned that I would be able to overpower him. He gestured for me to follow him to one of the tables. We walked down a few steps and into the midst of the factory. Approaching a desk, he reached into the bin and picked up a shard of the pink glass. He held it up to the light so I could see, showing me the beams refracting through.

“It will change everything,” he said. There was a bizarre pride in his voice, and I knew that this was the drug that Luke had been talking about, the one that Lobo planned on bringing across the border and using to flood cities everywhere.

Lobo gazed into the container and ran his hands through it, letting pieces of the drug fall between his fingers. He was a proud parent, a kid in the sandbox dying to show the world his creation. He was also too distracted to hear the muted thumps above us.

The fight was right upstairs.

My heart was hammering in my throat, but I couldn’t let him know. If I stalled long enough, maybe Blaze would somehow find me down here. If not, I didn’t know what would happen.

Lobo turned to look at me. His black eyes caught the banks of buzzing light overhead. He licked his lips.

Hurry
,
Blaze,
I thought to myself.
Hurry.

Chapter 12: Fire Meets Fire
Blaze

I took off sprinting towards the compound as the explosion shattered the serenity of the night. Tongues of fire licked at the air, throwing off heat in waves, as the crunch of burning adobe settled in with a sigh.

I tried to control my breathing as I crossed the five hundred yards between my hiding place and a little raised bunker that lay to the east of the Diablos lair. It was just a small bump in the field that hugged this side of the complex, but it was enough cover for me to lay up and take out the snipers patrolling in this direction.

I just hoped that the explosion had been enough distraction for me to make it there. I was all alone over here; the rest of the Angels were pouring in from the west and north to draw the bulk of the Diablos’ attention. If the sentries posted on this side were still looking to the east, I would be an easy target for them as I crossed over the wide-open field. My breath was huffing as I ran. The air was sticky warm. It felt like it was caking the inside of my lungs.

Reaching the bunker, I dove behind it. Safety. The diversion had worked.

I lay down on the sparse grass and touched a finger to my neck. My pulse was pounding like a drum. I had to calm down so I could get off a steady shot.
Breathe,
I told myself.
Calm. Focus.

I thought about why I was here: Olivia. I pictured her giggling, saw every line in her face that crinkled up when she laughed. I pictured the veil sliding over her hair as she stood before me in that white dress that bared her delicate shoulders. I imagined a bump growing in her stomach and a life laid out like a sidewalk from here to infinity.

Slowly, my heartbeat eased into a steely staccato. I opened my eyes, locked in. I was a warrior, and I had a mission. There could be no failure.

I rolled onto my stomach and pulled the sniper rifle off my shoulder. Its open mouth was tight and pursed, eager to do its job. I propped open the stand and set it up along the gentle rise of the hill. Scrunching one eye closed, I pressed the other against the laser sights and looked through.

The rooftops were crystal clear, magnified a thousand times over in the eyepiece. I scanned slowly from the left side to the right. There—a head sticking up. I wrapped my index finger around the trigger, let out a long sigh to steady my lungs, and squeezed.

As I watched, the head erupted in a puff of liquid spray. One down.

I panned the gun a few yards farther. Another head emerged. Same thing—exhale, aim, fire. Just like the last, the guard went down instantly.

Four more times, I repeated the motion. I didn’t miss. I never missed.

I waited one minute to see if anyone else revealed themselves. When I didn’t see anything, I rearranged my equipment on my back and stood into a low crouch. Only two hundred yards separated me from the low wall that wrapped around the compound. I needed to reach it, climb over, and then hunt down the bastard who’d stolen my girl.

The tendons in my knuckles tightened. Drawing in a deep inhale, I took off towards the wall. My guns and blades clanked while I ran, vaulted, and threw myself over the barrier. I dropped to the other side and immediately rolled to put my back against a wall, pulling a gun from its holster as I somersaulted into position.

I found a silencer in my pocket and screwed it onto the barrel. I had to do as much as I could to avoid drawing attention. My job was simple: get in, get the girl, get out.

Again, I steadied myself.

Mismatched eyes looking back into mine while the waves crash around us. Her mouth open in an involuntary O as our bodies rock together.

A noise around the corner. I lunged out, keeping low to the ground, and fired off two rounds. Two bodies hit the floor, oozing.

I stayed close to the wall as I hurried down the slim avenue. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a hunch that Lobo would’ve kept her close to him. The king always stayed in the heart of the castle, and Lobo was no different. I was sure that he was cooped up somewhere near the center of the plot, as far away from danger as possible.

As I passed a silent doorway, I saw a hand flash out. I tried to react, but he was too quick. Knuckles cracked across my jaw, sending me sprawling into the dirt. The bastard knocked the breath out of me as he pounced onto my chest, delivering another two punches across my face.

I struggled under his weight, rolling side to side before I managed to swing my momentum enough that I spun on top of him. The man’s eyes were slitted and violent. Our hands locked as we each fought to gain control over the other.

He used his size advantage to roll me onto my back again. Ripping his wrist free from my grasp, he snatched a knife from his belt. He raised it high in the air, then brought it down brutally. I broke the descent with a forearm, the blade tip just inches from piercing through my eye.

The man grunted with the effort, trying to force the knife into my face. I could see veins standing out in his neck. I wouldn’t be able to hold him off much longer.

Tearing my left hand away, I plucked the dagger hidden in my boot. With the same motion, I shoved it up and under his ribs. Blood spat onto my wrist as I pushed it deeper in his gut and twisted. I watched as the life faded from his eyes and the downward pressure of his arm eased. He fell into a dead slump on top of me.

I threw him off, panting heavily. The bastard had gotten a jump on me. I had to be more careful. Olivia’s life depended on it.

Nothing else moved. Everyone must have gone to fight off my brothers on the other side. Rising to my feet, I kept running towards the center.

Hurry
,
I said to myself.
Hurry.

Chapter 13: Revelations
Olivia

“Do you know why I like you so much?” Lobo asked as he paced towards me one slow step at a time.

He had a feline grace to his motions, slinky and purposeful. Every movement he made was unsettlingly smooth. I could tell that he liked this—biding his time, playing with me. He liked watching the terror take hold in my stomach. With each step he ate up another yard of the dozen or so that lay between us, and the sickening tingle I was feeling grew worse.

“Why?” I asked. For now, I would play along. I needed to let him enjoy the game, let it linger, and give Blaze enough time to find me. I hoped he would be able to discover the trapdoor that led to the drug factory we were standing in.

But for the time being, I was alone.

“It is because we have so much history together,” he hissed. “I have known your family for so long.” He was drawing out every syllable like the words tasted good to him, holding on to each one as long as possible before releasing them to drift through the stale, chemical-tainted air.

History? What was he talking about?

“What are you saying?” I asked him. I was backing slowly away, one step retreating to match each one of his advancing towards me. “My brother made the deal with you not too long ago. There’s no history there.”

Lobo smiled. “No, we go
much
farther back than that,” he said. The tingling had spread over my hands and feet. I was shaking in spite of my efforts to control myself.

Breathe,
I thought.
Just breathe.

He could see the confusion on my face. It only stoked the excitement written on his. He loved this game, knowing he had me trapped. He was a true predator.

“Don’t you know?” he asked. “
Pero
, no, how could you? You were so young.”

A whole new emotion swept through me. As desperate as I was to get away, I felt a morbid curiosity to know what he was about to reveal. Upstairs, the thunking noise of men fighting continued.

Lobo stepped forward. I stepped back, and felt the cool wall against my back. I had nowhere else to go.

I cleared my throat. “Know what?” I asked him. My voice fluttered with a nervous tremor.

He ignored my question. “Do you remember your parents?” he said.

What did my parents have to do with any of this?
I had no idea what was going on, but I had to keep him entertained. I couldn’t move anywhere else. I was at his mercy.

“They left when I was five.” I answered. I scanned around the room, looking for something I could use to fight him off. But there was nothing within reach. The tile against my back was so shockingly cold. He was only a couple of steps away from me.

“Ah, is that what they told you?” Lobo said. He shook his head, as if I’d told him I still believed in Santa Claus. “Such a shame. You should have learned the truth.”

I took the bait. “What truth?”

The room was cold and silent.

Lobo smiled again. Wider, toothier, hungrier. When he spoke, it was like a dagger had plunged into my stomach.

“That I killed your father and took your mother from her home. For many years, I used her as a whore. I had my fill of her. When I was done, I threw her away.”

There was sweat pouring down my arms and sides—a cold sweat, a nasty, creeping sweat, like a fever seizing control of my body.

Lobo stepped forward. He was inches from me. He leaned in and took my ear between his teeth, nibbling, savoring, tasting. I felt his tongue flick against my flesh.

“And I am going to do the same thing to you.”