Shot to Hell (Four Horsemen MC #7) (28 page)

He pulled at his earlobe. “Just in case.”

“Okay.”

Then they stood, staring at one another awkwardly until Ash turned and stalked away—before she did something stupid like hug him. She jumped into the Forrester outside and took off with Beauregard in the passenger seat.

And forced herself to not look back.

***

“This is it.”

The third GPS blip led Steele and Justice to the remains of a yuppie subdivision two counties over. Wakefield had been hit hard by the housing crises, and many of the homes had been foreclosed on. The years showed on the aging buildings and cracked streets— just the sort of place to be overlooked. A large house crouched at the end of a cul-de-sac, set back at least a mile on a large tract of land—the perfect hiding spot. The street was quiet, lined with sparse, dry trees and long fences.

Justice tapped his phone. “We’re right on top of it, brother.”

When Steele pulled up, he noted all the blinds and curtains were closed—another good sign. No eyes in or out.

If Coyote were here, he’d be checking network signals or some such shit—laughing about the fucked-up irony of hiding a place like this amongst middle class suburbia and making some sci-fi reference Steel didn’t grasp.

After poking around, Steele found a half-dozen motorcycles concealed beneath the back deck.  He couldn’t tell if the sick feeling in his gut was from wishing his friend was in the house or praying to whatever God would listen to him that he wasn’t.

Justice took point as they rounded the house and lined up with the back door. They met each other’s eyes, guns and flashlights at the ready. They didn’t have to say it.

For Yo.

With Justice at his side, Steele exploded through the front door. They flipped the switch on the wall by the door, but the lights didn’t flicker on. Flashlight and gun in hand, Steele marched into the living room…and nearly slid on something wet and thick beneath his feet.

Blood.

He raised the flashlight to reveal pools of it on the floor. Suddenly, the metallic odor washed over him, along with other smells—urine, loose bowels, and the acrid trace of gunpowder. He made out the slumped forms of at least a dozen bodies. The murders had been recent. Because the power, along with the heat, had evidently been shut down to the foreclosed home, Steele could feel the warmth of the blood radiating off the floorboards, steaming the air. 

No, please, no.

Once again, he was too late to save his friend. Steele’s vision blurred, and he gritted his teeth. The sour tang of vomit rose in his throat, and he swallowed it back down. He forced himself to pull it together, put away the pain to deal with later.

The cartel had come calling.  

Steele stood on the edge of a massacre, and whatever had gone down here was over. Raptors, some of them identified by their cuts, lay slumped on the ground. Their bodies were pierced by gaping wounds. Someone had shot the place up real good—the room had been peppered with automatic fire, judging by the holes in the floor and walls. Discarded on the bloody floor, Steele found the credit card skimmer.

Steele texted the information to Axel and then to Ash. Ash texted back, saying she and Beauregard would be there momentarily.

 “We need to see if Coyote’s here,” Steele said matter-of-factly, but he couldn’t bring himself to face Justice. He couldn’t bear seeing the sympathy he knew he’d find in his brother’s eyes.

Steele didn’t deserve it.

Instead, he focused on the task and ignored everything else. The blood and gore made it impossible to tell if Coyote was among the dead from a distance. He’d have to walk around and take a good long look at all their faces. In Afghanistan, he’d stored too many horrific images in his memory bank. At night, they flicked through his mind’s eye on a loop. He didn’t need to add to his collection, but he had to do this.

Steele slowly walked around the room, starting with the perimeter and moving inward. He held his breath every time he came to a new corpse.
Please don’t be Coyote.
He hoped the words would somehow protect his brother.

Many of the Raptors were on their stomachs, so Steele had to toe them over to see their faces.
Steele glanced at a corpse’s arm, noting all his fingers had been removed. He nearly gagged when he turned the guy and saw the digits tucked in the guy’s gaping mouth in a grisly display. Evidence of torture marred nearly every body.

The cartel must’ve been after information.

Another body had long, stringy peels of skin hanging from the bare chest. Again, he swallowed the gorge rising in his throat. He wouldn’t be eating Voo’s spaghetti with homemade marina anytime soon. Steele pressed a hand to his own chest wound, remembering the grinning, bearded bastard kneeling over him, slicing at his flesh.

Karma is cruel bitch.

He wasn’t squeamish, and he’d pulled the trigger before. Killing didn’t bother him, especially when he did it in service to a larger goal like taking down terrorists—but torture freaked him the fuck out.
Shoot someone in the head who’d earned a real good killing. Hell yeah. Remove some dude’s molars with pliers? Fuck no.

It took a real sadistic son of a bitch to do this kind of damage. Someone who got off on pain and suffering. Steele scrutinized the nearby faces, studying the expressions forever frozen in fear. Was he actually starting to pity the bastards?

He shook it off.

They’d brought this on themselves and their club. He wouldn’t go so far as to say the Raptors deserved this, but they’d willingly gotten into bed with psychopaths. Dying bloody came with the territory.

Finally, Steele checked the remaining bodies in the center of the room. Only two left. He checked the second to the last and recognized Junior from Daisy’s description—barrel-chested with a ragged, graying beard and long rusty red hair. At least he could tell her the bastard who’d tried to rape her was dead. The devil had given Junior his due.

Down to the last body—a man with long black hair lying face down. He didn’t wear a cut, and he had a lithe frame—a dead ringer for Coyote. He bent over and gently grasped the man’s arm, turning him over slowly.

So slowly.

Please don’t be Coyote.

Chapter Nineteen

Steele gasped as the corpse’s unfamiliar features came into view.

Not Coyote. Thank you, God. He’s not here.

He pressed his palms against his eyes and blew out a long breath. His knees nearly buckled. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he didn’t even bother trying to hide it.

Maybe Coyote hadn’t been here in the first place. The Raptors could have stashed him in another house. Who the fuck knew? Steele still had hope of finding Coyote alive.

After the panic subsided, he realized Justice hadn’t said a thing in ages. 

“You okay, brother?” Steele shined the light in Justice’s direction.

His brother stood just inside the door, like his feet had rooted to the floorboard. His back was pressed against the wall, face ashen.

“Brother?” Steele slowly made his way across the room, picking through the carnage to get to him. “Answer me.”

Justice didn’t make eye contact. Instead, his gaze darted around the room. Steele recognized the wild-eyed look instantly. He’d seen it on the faces of his brothers in arms after Abe had been gutted and strung up like a six-point buck. And Steele had seen it on his own haunted face in the mirror.

“Justice, look at me,” Steele said softly. “I need your head in the game. We haven’t finished our mission.”

“I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t be here.” Justice edged toward the door but slipped in the blood and fell to his knees. He braced himself on his arms and then his bloody hands, staring at his own fingers as if they’d become foreign objects. “Blood’s hot,” he muttered. “Scorching me.”

“Easy now. Let’s get you cleaned up, brother.”

“Blood don’t wash out. It soaks into your skin, sinks in there and sets up.”

Arms raised, Steele continued his approach, trying not to spook Justice further. His brother scrambled for the door, slipping and sliding as he hauled ass the hell out of there. Steele couldn’t run after him without falling in the carnage himself.

Oh, fuck.

Still not making any sudden movements, Steele methodically searched the house until he found Justice seated on the second floor in what must’ve been a child’s bedroom, judging by the giraffe and lion painted on the walls. He sat in the corner, revolver in one hand and a finger on the trigger, holding it beneath his chin. Despite the chill in the air, sweat drenched his temples, running down the sides of his washed-out face. His eyes were closed, and he muttered to himself.

Oh, shit.

“Justice, whatcha doin’?”
No, I can’t do this. I can’t lose another brother.

But Justice had left the fucking building. He kept moving the barrel over his skin, almost stroking his face with the weapon, as though it comforted him. Steele knew the attraction—peace was only one bullet away.

Steele crept closer, arms outstretched to indicate he hadn’t pulled his gun and wasn’t a threat. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s goin’ on.”

“Get away from me.” Justice pointed the gun at him. It wobbled in his grasp, and Steele feared his brother might accidently shoot his ass. “Don’t make me.”

“Easy there.” Steele sat in the corner on the opposite side of the room, giving his brother space.

A long minute passed, and Justice didn’t say a word. Steele let the silence ride while he gathered the necessary words.

Ages later, Justice spoke. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?”

“I’m dead. I already died.” Justice stared at him hard, then put the weapon down. But he hadn’t put it away, merely laid it on the ground in front of him. The piece was still within easy reach.

“No, brother. You’re here with me, we’re both stateside. You made it out alive. You’re home, you’re safe, and you’re alive.”

Justice snickered, nearly choking on his own laughter, coughing and sputtering. “You don’t get it. I don’t exist. I’m a dead man.”

What the fuck had happened to Justice? War was hell, but Steele hadn’t seen anyone this bad off before. Justice was going full-on Rain Man.

Steel heard the crunch of gravel beneath tires outside, and he pulled his weapon then took a peek out the window. He recognized Ash’s Forrester.

He turned to his brother. “Justice, we’re gonna sort this out, but I need you to be calm and hold on a few more minutes for me. I don’t want you to freak out, but Ash and that bastard Beauregard are gonna walk in the front door.”

Justice didn’t respond. Instead, he wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth.

“Mind if I take this with me?” He crouched forward, hand reaching for the gun. Either Justice didn’t hear him or didn’t care, because he kept rocking, gabbling to himself.

Steele grasped the weapon, clicked the safety on, and tucked it into the pocket of his cut.

Crisis averted for the minute.
Unfortunately, Justice’s mental state would have to be a problem solved another day. Right now, he had to save Coyote.

As soon as Steele heard the front door squeal open, he backed out of the room and met up with Beauregard and Ash in the front room. Both of them had pulled their weapons.

“The place is clear. You can holster ’em.”

Ash tucked her gun away. “Number one was a bust. Nothin’ but a foreclosed house with a roomful of bodies. The prospect just made it in the front door when he was gunned down.” Then she got a whiff of the living room and pressed two fingers beneath her nostrils. Steele didn’t blame her—the smell would gag a maggot. “Apparently, it happened here too. Is Coyote…?”

Steele shook his head. He didn’t trust himself to speak—showing emotion in front of Beauregard wasn’t an option. “And what about you? Was Coyote…was he…?”

“No, we checked all the bodies.” She gave him a gentle smile. “No Coyote.”

But his brother wasn’t quite out of the woods yet.

Steele’s phone vibrated, and sure enough, he had a text from Ace. He summarized the contents for Ash and Beauregard as he read. “Ten and Ace found bodies too. Along with a Raptor prospect dead in a ditch a block away from the safe house. They had to have found it by searching for bikes.” He waited anxiously for the next text. “Coyote ain’t there either. The Raptors have another hideout.” They had no fucking clue where it was.

“Where the hell did they stash him?” Beauregard waltzed over to the living room to take a gander at the bodies. The mobster didn’t seem moved one way or the other by the gory scene. Although Steele supposed Beauregard had probably seen—or, more likely, caused—worse.

“Gotta hand it to those cartel boys. They’re efficient. Looks like the Raptor problem has been solved, though.” Beauregard dusted his hands off. “Did you find our missing heroin?”

Steele shook his head. “Nope, but if it was here, I’m bettin’ the cartel took it with them on their way out.”

“Pity. We could use a bargaining chip.” Beauregard lit up a smoke. “Now just have to worry about the cartel.”

“You’re talkin’ about goin’ to war.”

“No way ’round it,” Beauregard said flatly.

Unfortunately, Steele didn’t see another solution either.

Ash piped up. “You could make a different deal with the DEA and go into witness protection. If you testify against the
Tres Erre,
you could negotiate for probation or—”

Beauregard cut her off. “Or die in a hail of bullets six months from now when another cartel assassin squad shows up at our new front door? No thanks.”

Steele gripped Justice’s gun. “Well, in the meantime, we’ve got another problem. Justice seems to have lost it.”

“Why? Because of the Jackson Pollock-style stains in there?” Beauregard snorted. “You biker boys and your scruples.” 

“If you don’t have somethin’ useful to say, shut the fuck up.”

Beauregard flipped Steele off but shut his trap.

“Post-traumatic stuff?” Ash asked.

Steele nodded. “I think the blood triggered him. He got some on his hands and just lost it. We’ve handled a lot of ops together, and he’s never been like this. Justice never talks about his Navy SEAL days so I don’t know what went down, but I’m guessin’ it was pretty damn bad. Hey, do you still have Etta May’s number? Justice can’t continue this operation. He needs some professional help.”