Knight (58 page)

Brew swore, but the man tucking a knife a little too close to Gold’s neck shoved him into a seat. The asshole twisted his ugly face to look at me. Two other members of Ex’s crew stormed through the door.

A gun cocked behind me. The cold metal pressed against my skull.

Priest grinned. He hadn’t replaced the teeth I knocked out since the last time he shoved a gun in my face.

“Prez.”

Brew and Scotch motioned to flip the table. Priest shook his head. Gold grunted as his attacker pressed the knife harder against his back. The bastard didn’t look up, but I recognized his shaved mohawk. Tommy. Some slimy ass prospect we didn’t patch in. Apparently, Ex took all kinds, including child molesting ex-cons.

“What can I do for you?” I grunted. The gun jammed harder against my head.

“You’re in our territory,” Priest said.

I frowned. “No. You’re in
our
territory. We donated a few streets for you to spread your filth.”

Priest practically jerked the gun off into my skull. “You owe us a little toll. Fully refundable, once we’re done with our sweet-ass collateral.”

Brew launched out of his seat. Gold yelled, but I silenced them both with a stare.

“You fucking touch Rose, and I will rip out your goddamned heart.”

“You make a move, and Miss Centerstage gets a curtain call as the homicide on the local news.”

“What do you want.”

“From you?” Priest’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the message. “Absolutely nothing. Exorcist got what we came for.”

The gun cracked against the side of my head. My vision fragmented black as Brew and Scotch leapt over Gold and aimed for the prospect with the knife. I collapsed on the floor. Priest slipped away. I reached for my gun, but my vision darkened, lightened, and fucked with my stomach before I could get a decent shot.

A woman’s scream tore across the club, cut abruptly short.

I surged to my feet and pushed aside a cowering waitress and fleeing people from the bar. She didn’t scream again. I kicked the door behind the stage and aimed my gun.

Nothing.

Nothing but a thin trail of sickeningly red blood splattered from where someone cracked a head against a wall. Brew shouted from the back entrance of the club. I tossed the door open only to see the van peel away and the two bikes chase after.

Exorcist’s men were gone.

And the bastards stole Rose.

Only one person ever aimed a gun at me, but Dad wouldn’t have pulled the trigger.

I stared at the monster lining the handgun with the center of my forehead. I didn’t recognize him, but I recognized his colors. The design on his cut and tattoos on his arm were familiar. His vest read
Treasurer
, but he wasn’t Anathema’s rightful officer. He held the gun with a righteous determination and spoke with the amusement of Hell’s demons set loose in a prison.

“Exorcist is requesting an encore.” His one eye clouded with a ragged scar, but he stared at me with ruthless attention. “Don’t make a sound or I’ll string your guitar with your guts.”

“Wouldn’t tune right.”

He didn’t get the joke. I gripped the guitar’s case. I offered the envelope the bar manager stuffed in my hand without a word, thank you, or contractual offer.

“That’s four hundred dollars,” I said. “Will it buy me a head start?”

The gun tilted. He moved close, took the money, and pressed the gun to my temple.

“You’re gonna have to do better than that, baby.” His eyes drifted over my dress. “Much better.”

My stomach roiled with sickness. “No thanks.”

The gun butted against my head. “You’re gonna learn real quick that Ex doesn’t believe in the word
no
. Better start practicing nodding with a mouth full of cock now.”

My chest tightened. I screamed and cracked the guitar case up, aiming for the cloudy, sickly scar slicing his face and eye. I wasn’t strong enough to pummel the man, but the blow staggered him. I ran for the door. He caught me after only a few steps. His gnarled fingers bruised my arm, and he tossed me into the wall.

My head cracked against the drywall.

I thought he killed me.

The crash rattled everything inside my head. My brain. My thoughts. My teeth. Worse of all, he shook loose every forgotten memory, every lost fear, every suppressed bit of knowledge that hid within the darkness of my mind.

I knew too much about Anathema. Whatever biker club or motorcycle hobbyists or road enthusiasts they pretended to be during charity runs or while raising money for the children’s hospital existed only in the shadow of the true demon.

Drugs. Theft. Murder.

I remembered the stories I heard from Dad, and I imagined the truth in the rumors whispered when the crimes were too horrible to repeat.

Keep, Brew, Thorne...they were nothing compared to the monsters that lurked within the ranks. They lived life outside society with little regard for rules and laws and standards, but they never targeted innocent people. Their battles never impacted those outside the club.

But Exorcist’s men were not Anathema. Not anymore. They had no rules or conscience. They thought nothing of threatening the family members of their enemies. The bastard threatening me didn’t care that he slammed my bleeding head into a wall. He backhanded my cheek and laughed as I crumbled to the ground at his feet.

The first kick to my stomach taught me to behave. The second offered him a bit of fun. I coughed, but he didn’t let me catch my breath. He hauled me up by my hair and tossed me over his bony shoulder, slapping my ass with utter cruelty.

I hadn’t the strength, awareness, or breath to fight, but I scratched until I earned another smack. Thick tears caught in my eyelashes, and I stuttered over a hiccupping sob as he kicked open the club’s door and pitched me into a windowless van.

My weak shout squeaked as a pained gasp. Not that screaming would have helped. My captor slammed the doors. His scar glowed in the dim light, shining like the threat of a rabid animal lurking beyond the darkness. Even when he thrust the bag over my head and tightened it with rope coiled around my throat, I felt his clouded leer peering over my broken form.

“Sit down and keep quiet.” He shoved me against the cold metal. They stripped the van of the seats, leaving only bare floors and enough room for Scarred to twist my legs where he wanted them. My dress kicked up in my fight. He slapped my exposed thigh. “I said shut your whore mouth!”

Absolutely not. I kicked again, missing where I hoped to hit but knocking the air from his gut. Scarred coughed, and I braced for the return strike. The van squealed to a stop instead.

“Enough.” The hardened voice bore an authority that constricted my last bit of air and stopped the creeping fingers of Scarred from edging closer to the elastic of my panties. “Back the fuck off her. She’s already fucking bleeding everywhere.”

“You saw her. She fought me.”

“Pull her damn dress down before I cut off your balls.”

“Drive the fucking van.”

“Let her go.”

Scarred shoved me away. A sharp edge of metal tore across my shoulder, but I didn’t care. I scrambled toward the commanding voice and braced myself against the driver’s seat. My fingers curled over something heavy. A weapon I couldn’t reach or wield. The wrench might have been perfect to bash against the head of the pervert who wanted to touch me, but I doubted I’d have the opportunity to crack the vulgar intentions from his head.

“Not gonna hurt her, Luke. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

“Or hers.”

My captor chuckled. The sound rasped sharp and ugly over the Journey song whining from the radio. “We’ll see what Ex says.”

“He’s not here.”

“Getting a little carried away with that VP patch, aren’t you, Knight?”

Luke gunned the accelerator, and the van roared against the road. He didn’t answer Scarred. I didn’t expect him to. The authority in his voice. The raw confidence.

He sounded familiar. Like my brothers.

Like Thorne.

I huddled in the corner with a swirling head, curdling stomach, and aching ribs, but the sincerity and sanity in Luke’s words soothed me more than any ice pack or safe haven he might have offered.

It wasn’t often anything made sense within the MC world of sin and depravity and savagery, but even the worst of the animals operated under a code of rules, regulations, and rankings. Luke wove power. Not as much as Thorne, but the club respected him like Keep and Brew.

That I understood.

But I didn’t like it.

The nausea pitting my stomach churned against the betrayal. Maybe the other members of Anathema, the ones with motor oil in their veins and leather patched into their skin, could love my brothers, but not me. I’d never trust them again. Not after they forced me into the club, traded me to their president, and then let their enemy steal me from my gig.

Not just my gig.

My
life
.

Brew and Keep corrupted everything they touched. My work, my apartment, and now my first shot at escaping the world where I needed a pocket full of drugs to tolerate society and an illegal handgun to protect me from humanity. Keep and Brew did nothing but complicate my life and endanger the family.

Hell, Keep didn’t even
make
it to the gig. I didn’t know where he was or why it was Thorne of all people who burst from his seat to shut down the man mocking my music.

They didn’t protect me now. They hadn’t protected me then.

They didn’t even
know
.

Didn’t even bother to look and see and wonder and
ask
about what was happening to me.

They didn’t stop
him
, but, even if they knew, was there anything they could do?

The van rumbled against the highway. I welcomed the hard grind of the suspension against the rough patches of the road. My arms wrenched behind me, and the bag covered my face. At least my scarred captor and my savior, Luke, didn’t see me cry.

Not for being kidnapped. Not for what horrible, depraved terrors awaited me.

I lived my teenage life in fear—dreading what Dad would do when the alcohol confused him, angered him, encouraged him. And I lived my life in unrepentant hope.

Maybe one day he wouldn’t wake up when he blacked out.

Maybe the district attorney would press for a life sentence.

Maybe I could escape the world and finally take that
one
shower that would make me feel clean and pink and rejuvenated for my admission back into a realm of law, love, and security.

The only hope I carried now was the desperation for the one thing I hated. The roar of motorcycles and the sharp popping of silenced guns. I even longed for the wild, leather, and wilderness scent of Thorne to return me to the only place in the world I feared I’d ever feel safe again. The heart of Pixie, where no one—not the law, not Exorcist—ever dared to invade.

The van doubled back twice. My stomach lurched with every U-turn, hard left, and rapid acceleration as we ducked streets and dodged highway exits. After nearly half an hour, Luke parked us in a rowdy neighborhood, snapping with music, backfiring trucks, and the humming of busted streetlights. I tensed as Scarred encroached. The scrape of a hunting knife rattled from its sheath just under my chin.

“Scream, and I’ll cut out your tongue.” Scarred leaned in too close and inhaled too deeply. “Then you won’t be singing so pretty.”

I nodded, but he didn’t care. Scarred gripped the rope around my neck and jerked me forward. I choked over the tightness and groaned as my foot slammed a rusted bit of metal poking out in the van.

My captor didn’t like that. He tossed me onto the damp cement with a profanity. Luke’s shout prevented Scarred’s kick from crushing the ribs that weren’t already bruised. I heaved but kept the sickness down.

“Jesus Christ, you’re going to kill her.” Luke picked me up from the sidewalk. I kicked, but he hauled me into his arms.

I tensed as he shouldered through a door. His steps echoed against a cement floor. Overhead, rows of florescent lights hummed an ominous welcome. He set me down on a bundle of scratchy blankets.

The rope. The blankets. The storage van. It was like the supplies for a moving company.

I didn’t know if that made me feel any better. Having a sense of the psychos who captured me was one thing. But the possibilities? The trucks and vans, bindings and wrappings, access to the town and empty buildings? Exorcist could chop me into little bitty pieces and Thorne, Brew, and Keep would find parts of me for years.

I didn’t mean to tremble, but I shook so hard my teeth chattered. Kinder fingers wove under the rope. The rancid bag over my head overwhelmed me. Darnells weren’t known for their composure under pressure. I fought against Luke. He dodged a wayward kick with a snorted laugh. The bag popped off my head.

I blinked and swore a rough profanity, something Keep taught me long ago.

Luke tucked blonde hair behind his ears. His cut fit over his broad shoulders, displaying the same design, shape, and symbols as my brothers’. The Vice-President patch didn’t feel right. Neither did his handle.
Knight
. Though he unraveled the rope from my neck only to bind my wrists, Luke was more Lancelot than Mordred.