Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC (68 page)

"Taste better than all that cock you had stuffed inside your mouth and up your ass over the last eight years?"

Ricky chuckled. "Comes pretty fucking close." He winked. "Wasn't as comfortable though -- You know, cock goes down pretty smooth. You wouldn't think so but, it does. Also helps if you've got a wide enough throat to take it all in." He grinned. "As a matter of fact, maybe you should finally know what it's like before I finally take you out." He inhaled his cigarette one last time before tossing it aside and moving close enough to River to draw a finger up the side of his lapel. "Why should Mia get to have all the fun with you, asshole?"

River stared down at Ricky's hand and reacted in a way he normally wouldn't have had he been thinking, in tossing his guns to the ground and throwing out a hand to slap around Ricky's throat. Within seconds, he had jacked him up by his feet, which hung high in the air like some kind of rag doll, and threw him down flat on the ground so goddamn hard that he could feel that shit shaking beneath him. Ricky groaned and blinked rapidly as the dust around him flew into his eyes, which were turning red by the second due to his retina becoming detached.

River leaned his face down to his, sneering, and squeezed Ricky's neck until he could feel every drop of oxygen being released from his lungs. But Ricky was a quick thinker, as always; so much so that River hadn't even realized he had a knife jammed directly into his goddamn gut until he felt the sting of the metal burning and peeling against his flesh.

"AHHHHHH!" River roared as he quickly released his nemesis and dropped back to the ground.

Ricky rolled over, coughing and wheezing as he attempted to stand, but River leaned to his side and threw the bottom of his foot into the back of Ricky's knee cap, which sent him falling straight back down to the ground and screaming out in horrific agony. He grabbed the back of his leg and mumbled something about it possibly being broken with how hard River had kicked him. But River was more focused on the blood pouring out from his stomach and pooling inside his hand and the ground than any goddamn thing that motherfucker had to say.

Until...

"You fucking son of a bitch," Ricky cried. "You've got no goddamn idea how much this suit cost me to get made!"

River scrunched his brows, then wiped his hand down the front of his pants and with every ounce of strength still left inside of him, he leapt to his knees, wrapped his hands around either side of Ricky's head and slammed his face down into the ground. And he kept slamming until blood gushed from his forehead and mouth, and teeth flew out from either side; he kept slamming even as Ricky bit down on his tongue and choked on his own blood and dirt. He kept slamming until that motherfucker threw an elbow into his stomach, directly against his opened wound, which sent him flying back and groaning in a goddamn heaping amount of despair.

"FUCK!" he grit out, grabbing onto his stomach again. More blood pooled out into his hand, but the motherfucker was determined to stay alive for more than just himself.

Ricky rolled over to his back, and seeing River in pain, began laughing. And that son of a bitch just kept on laughing despite blood continuing to spew out from his mouth and nose, despite his own goddamn teeth falling straight to the back of his throat, despite the value of his mouth decreasing by the second. He turned his eyes up to the clear blue sky and swallowed.

River struggled to move, but stopped when he heard the incessant bellowing. "What the fuck is so goddamn funny, asshole?" He stared down at his hand again, which was now completely covered in his own blood.

"Nothing," he replied. "Just you coming all the way out here, killing two of my men, trying to beat the shit out of me and thinking that it's somehow going to get you closer to Mia."

River turned his eyes toward the house. His worry started to kick in when he realized just how the hell long Blue had actually been inside. "You plan on torchin' this place?" he asked him.

He moved his head left to right. "I got her spooked in thinking it though." He rolled his eyes down to stare at River. "Sounds like I got you spooked too--"

"You ain't done shit to me, motherfucker."

"Oh. How about to your mother then?"

"What?"

Ricky attempted to sit up and spat out a tooth along the way. "Shame things didn't go as well for her as she had hoped with that motherfucker at the bank--"

"What the fuck, asshole?!"

"Did you assholes really think her meeting up with him at the goddamn grocery store was some kind of 'happy coincidence'?" He chuckled. "You really didn't think about me having that bitch followed for about as long as the rest of you the minute I learned you had Mia and my kid? I paid that motherfucker ten grand to swoop in when the time was right for your bitch mother, and then told him to swoop right the fuck back out when I got what I needed from him. Funny how that shit works, right? Even funnier that you never thought to check your mother's purse for any bugs that he might've stuffed in there each time she spent the night at his place. She's kinda slutty. Almost gives Mia a run for her money in that department."

River glowered and rattled his head. He flared his nostrils and spat out, "Son of a fuckin' bitch--

"That'd be your mother," Ricky said with a weak laugh. "You know, the minute you stormed out of your house earlier this morning when she told you that Wolf was your old man, well... I was sure as hell that you weren't coming back. Which gave me reason to believe that I could get to Mia without any problem. But that obviously wasn't the case, and so here we are. Me bloodied and fucked up just like she was eight years ago and you trying like shit not to die from a stab wound." He wiped his arm across his face, smearing the blood. "It's a shame, honestly, because the one night she actually managed to be alone -- which would've been perfect -- your little prospect got to her first. When I heard about that gunshot being fired between the two of them, I figured one of them was dead, but I didn't realize at the time that it wouldn't be her, which was a shame for me, really. Since she's better off dead to me than alive."

"She could say the same thing about you, asshole," River shot back.

"That's possible." He laughed again but quickly stopped this time. "But I've got a better chance of making it out of here in one piece than she does right about now." He pulled a tiny remote from his pocket and slid his thumb over a bright red button. "You asked me if I planned on burning the place down and I thought, ‘Ricky, that's too fucking cliché, man, you've gotta be more original than that shit.’ So instead, I had the two idiots that you killed, which really did me a favor by the way, line the entire place outside with explosives. On the inside... get this, because it's pretty fucking clever,
gasoline
," he whispered. "So when the place blows up, everything else inside disintegrates before it even collapses to the ground."

A panicked River turned back to the house again. "Mia." He jumped up from the ground, forgetting all about his opened wound and the blood pooling out and raced toward the house.

But before even reaching that first step, Ricky shoved his thumb against the red button.

A sharp blow, followed up by a harsh ball of smoke and fire sent River flying back into the gravel and dirt past the van. His head bounced back, but he kept himself from being knocked out by holding his neck up and stiffening it to keep from slamming directly into the ground. He struggled to move as the blast weakened him, and though he was shaking, with blood pouring down his face, he turned his eyes back up to the house and hollered out, "MIA!" His bloodcurdling scream was so goddamn loud that it could be heard for fucking miles; though he had trouble hearing it for himself thanks to the blast fucking up his hearing. "MIA!" he called out again, his voice going hoarse as his ears remained clogged. He dug his fingers into the dirt and crawled over on his knees, then shot his eyes over to a smug Ricky, who had somehow made his way up to his feet without any problem.

"If the bitch could fucking hear you," screamed Ricky. And then he stopped to rattle his head, as the blast affected his hearing in a way he wasn’t necessarily expecting, despite being so close to the house. "Maybe if you look hard enough around here, you'll find her ears someplace on the ground!”

And once he started laughing again, once River saw his head lean back and those bright white teeth flash against the sun, and that smile creep up on his lips as he relished in the idea of Mia actually being dead… that was fucking it. That was all that motherfucker needed to find his strength for the second goddamn time that morning. He jumped up from the ground in a flash and barreled into Ricky hard enough to force him back down to the ground on his ass. He snatched the remote from his hand and shoved it inside Ricky's mouth as hard and as harsh as he could, then enclosed his fist and threw it against Ricky’s jaw until he could feel that piece of plastic jamming into the back of his goddamn throat.

As Ricky began to choke on the remote and his tongue, River started swinging on him. And in swinging, he saw flashes of his mother, and of his daughter, and of Mia and Avery and Wolf and Blue and of himself. He saw himself most of all and he saw every fucking thing he ever hated staring right back at him, mocking him, making him believe that every goddamn thing he had done up until that point in his life meant absolutely nothing. Because the only other goddamn person in it that he loved more than himself was no longer there to share that shit with him; no longer there to help him believe that shit didn't have to be as it was and that good overruled every goddamn awful thing that he knew was once again bound to come his way once all this shit was said and fucking done.

He kept hitting that motherfucker, not even giving a shit that he was unable to put up his own goddamn fight and was damn near death, only hanging on like a wounded fucking animal that needed to be put down and out of its misery.

It wasn't until he heard a single shot that he pulled back. Wasn't until he saw blood gushing from the side of Ricky's ear that he lifted his fist and unhooked his fingers. Wasn't until he caught a glimpse of his life staring back at him again from the corner of his eye.

Goddamn, she was the angel sent straight down to him from God Himself; she was still his angel, only this time, her wings seemed to be hidden beneath a flannel shirt.

"Baby?" River peered and gradually stood to his feet. He was starting to become afraid of the idea that she was a figment of his imagination, something that he was forcing himself to see that wasn't really there. Mia stared down at Ricky, then down at herself as Blue's shirt hung like a large, misshapen blanket around her body. "Babe?" River said again, wagging his head as his hearing started to return. Mia’s eyes suddenly shot up directly to his. River saw her face and hands covered in soot and dirt. Even from where he stood, she smelled just like smoke, but shit if it wasn't the best goddamn smell in the entire fucking world. "Darlin'." With ease, he stepped over Ricky's lifeless body and moved closer to the woman who had his entire heart wrapped up inside those goddamn perfect hands. She breathed in deep and dropped the gun to the ground and swallowed hard while keeping her eyes locked on his as he approached. And the moment he touched her, the moment he moved his hands up to her face and wrapped his fingers around her skin, her jaw, her cheeks, just her, he knew that shit was real; he knew that she was fucking real, that the moment was fucking real and that every goddamn thing that happened, as fucked and as twisted as it was, gave him the reason he needed to keep going. If nothing else in his life was ever worth it, this shit was fucking it. "
Baby
," he groaned. He dipped her head back and crushed his mouth to hers and he kissed her like her lips gave him the life he needed to continue on living. As she wrapped her hands around his waist and squeezed down on his shirt, he pulled back. "Thought I'd fuckin' lost you."

"Almost," she said. "But I'd never leave you or Avery without... without--"

He brushed the soot from her cheeks with his thumbs. "Where the fuck is Blue?"

"He's around, um..." She stopped and dropped her eyes down to his stomach. “You’re hurt.” She pressed a hand against his wound and he seethed.

“I’m good,” he told her. “Shit barely even made its way through. Now where the fuck is Blue, darlin’? I see he’s got you wearin’ his shirt.”

“Yeah, um…” She swallowed. “He got me out of the room and out of the house before it shot up in flames and blew--"

"Baby," he started. "Baby, where the fuck is he?"

"I don't..." She rattled her head and then without warning, her legs gave out and she suddenly slumped down in his arms.

"Babe?!" he asked her in a panic. "MIA!” Her head rolled back over his arm and as he grabbed her face and pressed his ear down to her nose and mouth, he realized she had stopped breathing. "No, no, no, baby, don't do this to me." He pressed his ear down to her mouth again and still, nothing. "FUCK!" He gently moved her out of his arms and placed her flat on the ground. Moments later, he saw Blue coming from around the back of where the house once stood and holding the back of his head, which when he pulled his hand away, realized was covered in blood.

"Jesus
Christ
." He made a face and stared down at River and an unconscious Mia. "What the fuck happened to her in the two seconds I spent knocked the fuck out?”

"She ain't breathin'." River pumped her chest more than a few good times both hands and tried blowing air into her lungs. "Come, on, baby, we've come too goddamn
fuckin'
far for you to go out like this." He pumped her chest again, and again, blew into her lungs. "Come on, babe. Fuck, come on."