I pulled into the Santa Cruz wharf and drew in a deep breath. The smell of the ocean always calmed me, but my body was an ebbing sea of anger and hatred. Now, my parents didn’t teach me much growing up. Mom was always strung out on coke and Daddy Dearest enjoyed prostitutes more than he did my own mother, but there was one thing they taught me out of all their foolish ways that stuck with me.
They taught me never to hate anyone.
And I understood why. The thrumming vibrations of what I’d do to these men clung to my muscles and burrowed into my bones. I felt myself transforming into something else. Something ethereal. Some demon not of this world. I dreamt of hanging each and every one of them from their necks before slitting their wrists and watching them bleed out before they could suffocate.
And if they harmed Raven, God help their families.
No Brooks. You don’t hurt women and children. Don’t be like Chops.
“Hey! Brooks!”
I spun around at the sound of Cole’s voice before my eyes darted around. Him and Tanner walked up, their bikes still parked at the end of the wharf. They looked at me as if I had lost my mind, so I rode back up to the shoreline and hid my bike out of sight.
Then, the three of us ducked behind an overflowing dumpster.
“The fuck were you just sitting out there for?” Tanner hissed.
I shook my head. “No time to waste. I need to fill you guys in on what’s going on.”
Cole nodded. “Yeah, that would be great.”
Tanner snickered. “Everything about this smells like a setup.”
I nodded. “Because it is.”
Cole slapped Tanner’s chest. “You owe me twenty.”
Tanner rolled his eyes. “Whatever, dude.”
I snapped my fingers and pointed to my eyes. “Focus. We don’t have much time. We only beat Sid here by about ten minutes.”
Cole blinked. “Who the hell is Sid?”
I spoke as quickly as I could and gave them the bullet point. I told them that Porter and myself were convinced that Chops was working with the Black Flags to take the club down. I told them they had captured Raven and they were holding her somewhere. Probably here, at this wharf. I told them who Sid was and the fact that he’d had his hands on Raven, and that was enough for anger to flash behind both of their eyes.
But when I told them that I had a feeling that Raven was being watched by them, Tanner almost exploded.
“Please tell me we can kill them on sight,” he glowered.
I shrugged. “Far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever the fuck you want, so long as Raven isn’t harmed.”
Cole scooted closer. “I got three guns on me right now. Tanner’s got four. You need anything?”
I nodded. “Another gun, ammo for a small pistol, and help.”
We started exchanging everything and Cole even slipped me a grenade. It felt like victory in my hands and I slipped it into my pocket just in case I needed an “oh shit” button to press. I knew I was putting these men directly in the line of fire. Risking their lives for a woman that wasn’t theirs to have. But watching their loyalty as we divvied everything out and seeing them trust me without a shred of evidence other than my own damn word gave me hope.
It gave me hope that this club would survive Chops.
“All right, do you have any idea where she is around here?” Tanner asked.
A bike engine revved way off in the distance and my back tingled with anticipation.
“My only assumption is that—hold on.”
My phone vibrated against my thigh and pulled it out. I figured it was a text from Chops, trying to deter me. Or distract me. Or possibly Porter, updating me on his status while him and Archer cleaned up Raven’s place. However, that wasn’t the number that flashed up on my screen.
And I couldn’t get the damn message open quickly enough.
“Who is it?” Tanner hissed.
Cole peeked over my shoulder. “Oh, shit. Come here.”
He pulled Tanner over my other shoulder as my eyes darted across the text Raven somehow got out to me. From her own fucking number.
Raven: I smell water. They have me tied up. I hear waves, too. The wall is cold, possibly metal? That’s where I am.
My jaw clenched. “She’s here.”
Cole pointed. “You got your Bluetooth on?”
I peeked over at him. “Yeah. Why?”
Tanner chuckled. “You know how to use that to find someone?”
I blinked. “Huh?”
Cole took my phone out of my hands. “Give me ten seconds. This number, is it Raven’s?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, but I don’t know how you’ll—”
Cole exclaimed “yes” triumphantly before peeking above the dumpster. “She’s in that warehouse right there. The one with the busted window facing the ocean.”
Tanner peeked his head up as well. “That might be why she can hear the waves.”
I ripped my phone out of his hands. “Give me that. What the—”
I stared at my phone screen that had a small white map in the shape of the wharf. I saw a dot blinking right on the map where Cole and Tanner were looking, and I poked around for a bit on the screen to figure out what the hell he had done. Then, I saw it. Cole had opened up a “Find Friends” feature and entered Raven’s number into the search bar as the number to locate.
And damn it, she was right there. Less than sixty feet away.
“Holy shit, thank you,” I whispered.
Cole ducked back down. “Anytime.”
Tanner fell to the ground as well. “Being old is rough, huh?”
I glared at him. “Call me ‘old’ one more time.”
Tanner rolled his eyes. “So sensitive.”
Cole elbowed him. “You would be, too, if your girl was in there.”
I paused. “You got a girl?”
Tanner snickered. “Not anymore. She dumped me a couple of weeks back.”
Cole furrowed his brow. “Wait, why? I thought you two were good?”
Tanner shrugged. “Eh, we were drifting apart.”
I blinked. “You were only together for a little bit.”
Tanner nodded. “Yeah, and we drifted apart!”
Cole grinned. “You fucked another girl, didn’t you?”
Tanner scoffed. “I was drunk, it doesn’t count.”
I swallowed down my chuckle. “All right, let’s focus. So, we know where Raven is, and they don’t know we know that. That’s a good sign.”
Cole blinked. “How do you know they don’t know we know?”
Tanner sighed. “Isn’t it obvious? If they knew that we knew what they knew, then they’d obviously be moving her right now. And they’re not. It’s completely silent.”
Cole furrowed his brow. “Right.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, change of plans. I don’t know if Porter and Archer will be joining us, and we can’t take on an entire club—or even half a fucking club—just the three of us.”
Cole scoffed. “Thanks.”
Tanner chuckled. “He’s right, though. We don’t have much ammunition, nor do we have any other guns to switch out once we run out of ammunition.”
I pointed at him. “Exactly. So, we move on the one thing we do know.”
Cole studied my face. “You want to sneak Raven out.”
I smiled wickedly. “Even better. I want to play them at their own game. I want to sneak up on them while they are all together, get Raven out, chuck these grenades, and get the fuck out of here. Oh, and I want to kill Sid.”
Tanner smiled. “That’s my kind of plan.”
Cole shrugged. “All right, we’ll follow your lead.”
We jumped from cover to cover, slowly inching our way toward the warehouse. And I prayed with all my might that we had the upper hand. For all I knew, they were using Raven’s technology as a way to lure us in before they took us all up in flames.
But for Raven? It was worth the risk.
“Want to throw the grenades through the broken window?” Cole whispered.
I shook my head at him. “We find Raven first. Then, we unleash.”
Tanner nodded. “Got it.”
Cole sighed. “Fine. No fun for us.”
I chuckled. “It will be fun once I know Raven’s safe.”
We crept around the warehouse and I heard muffled footsteps. The guys and I pressed our backs against the outside metal of the building, trying to shrink our bodies as much as possible. I was sure we looked ridiculous, a handful of massive, muscle-bound men in leather jackets seated next to some rusted-out warehouse. Sounded more like a movie than anything else. But the footsteps turned to move in the other direction before disappearing altogether.
So, I motioned for them to start moving with me again.
We traveled around the outside of the place once and noticed there weren’t any security cameras. I mean the Santa Cruz wharf wasn’t necessarily known for their security measures. It was the exact reason why this damned place was so popular with people such as myself. However, it gave me hope.
Because if they expected me to come, wouldn’t they have put cameras out?
“Just shut up and listen, would you?”
The familiar sound of Sid’s voice stopped me in my tracks. I held my hand out, telling the guys to stop, and I slowly looked up over my head. Hovering above me was a small windowsill, and judging by the harshness of Sid’s voice, the damned thing was open.
I put my finger to my lips and shushed the guys before they silently made their way toward me.
“But boss. What the hell are we gonna do—”
Sid interrupted the foreign voice. “You leave our president to me. Right now, I’m the one in control of you, and you’ll do as I ask. Anyone checked on the girl lately?”
Another voice spoke. “You said to leave her to you, and only you.”
Side paused. “Right. Well, I’m gonna go check on her and then one of you assholes is going to get food. I’m fucking starving, and I ain’t heard shit yet.”
My eyes widened as heavy footfalls fluttered outside of the window. I contorted my body until I had myself in a crouching position. I counted in my head the number of seconds it took for Sid to get back. Those numbers would give me a fairly rough approximation of just how far away Raven was from this room.
And when I surpassed fifteen seconds in my head, I dipped my hand into my pocket.
Cole’s eyes widened with joy as I pulled out the grenade. I flashed it to him and Tanner, who both pulled out their grenades in return. I pointed to my grenade before pointing to the open window and the two nodded in unison. Then, Cole thumbed behind him before pointing to his grenade.
“The door?” he mouthed.
I cocked my head. “Can you open it?”
He nodded. “Propped open. Door stop.”
I gave him a thumbs up before turning my attention to Tanner. I pointed behind me and he moved as silently as the night in order to poke his head around the back of the building. He shook his head, telling me there wasn’t anything else to throw a grenade into.
Then, it dawned on me. “Footsteps?”
Tanner furrowed his brow. “What?”
I pointed to my boots. “Do you hear footsteps?”
I watched him strain his neck around the corner to listen before he shook his head at me.
“The broken window,” I mouthed as I pointed to his grenade.
He gave me a thumbs up before I heard a door crash open. In came the heavy footfalls before Sid ranted and cursed up a storm. I grinned at the idea that I’d actually catch this son of a bitch off guard. And while I didn’t feel totally confident that Raven would come out unscathed, I knew she’d come out alive.
It’ll have to do.
I kept mouthing to my men until we had a plan in play: they’d wait for my grenade to be tossed in, and then they’d scurry to their positions. Once Cole heard men charging down the back hallway toward the door, he was to open it up and toss his grenade in before slamming the door closed. And Tanner? Well, he was to wait until Cole’s grenade went off before tossing his through the window.
And I hoped to heaven on high Raven was protected from these blasts.
“One, two, three, go,” I whispered.
I unpinned my grenade and tossed it into the broken window before making a run for Cole. Already, I heard men cursing and yelling to get it out before the grenade went off. The massive explosion rang my ears as Cole and I wrapped around the front of the warehouse. And as Tanner made his way to the back, Cole ripped the door open.
Before I pulled the pin on his grenade.
We both shoved the door closed until it went off, then we drew our weapons and opened it once more. The screaming of men pierced through the ring and the hazy fog of smoke as we stepped around their bleeding bodies. Legs and limbs had gone flying. A couple of men laid there with their eyes wide open as their arms catapulted themselves down the hallway. And pretty soon, there was a third explosion.
Which took Cole and I to the ground.
“Raven!” I roared.
The ringing in my ears was so loud and so dense that I had to close my eyes. I had to rely on the vibrations of the air around me in order to know whether or not something was heading my way. I felt a rumbling beneath my feet and focused my eyes down the hallway. I lifted my gun toward the shadow barreling forth until I saw a pair of hands go up.
“It’s me! Brooks! It’s Tanner!”
I felt a hand on my shoulder and it ripped me from my startled trance. The ringing faded to almost nothing and the smell of ripping skin filled my nostrils. With Cole behind me and Tanner in front of me, we cased every room. We threw open doors and checked all of the dark, dank closets in this fucking warehouse while sirens sounded in the distance.
“You stupid bitch,” I heard Sid sputter.
I dipped into the kitchen and saw the pathetic pile of shit mangled while lying on the floor. His leg had been blown off and shrapnel distorted his face. Yet somehow, he was still alive.
“You rang?” I asked, pointing the gun at his head.
He smiled through the blood in his mouth. “You don’t have the guts.”
And without another word, I popped two right between his miserable eyes.
“I found her!” Tanner exclaimed.
Cole pulled me out of the kitchen, and we went crashing down the hallway. I followed the sound of Tanner’s panicked voice before I swore I could have heard Sid’s again. But that wasn’t possible. I had just killed him.
However, when I turned the corner and found Raven focused on her wrist watch, I realized that the sound I heard came from that thing against her skin.
And the more I listened, the more infuriated I became.
“Holy shit,” Tanner breathed.
Cole dipped down to look at Raven’s face. “She needs a doctor.”
That statement ripped me from my trance. “Come here. I gotcha. You’re safe now.”
But she stood with all of the strength and determination her body had to offer. So, I showed her respect by not grilling her on who the hell cut her and gave her those bruises.
“I have it all right here,” she said breathlessly.
She replayed the snippet of the conversation I had apparently missed and I felt sick to my stomach with frustration.
“I have proof that Chops set up you to land in jail. He set all of you up to land in jail. And this entire club? They’re happy Gage and Hyde are dead,” Raven whispered.
I cupped her cheeks. “You did so good, beautiful.”
I kissed her passionately before I scooped her into my arms. “You did so fucking good.”
Cole tapped my shoulder. “Hate to break it to you, but the cops are coming.”
Tanner slipped out of the room. “I’ll get to the bikes.”
Cole followed quickly behind. “I’ll pick up the shell casings.”
Raven looked up at me. “I mean he didn’t say Chops’ name, but it’s him, right? Chops is the one behind all of this?”
I kissed her forehead. “Let’s get you cleaned up, then we can really sit down and listen to it. Okay?”
She sniffled. “I love you, Brooks.”
I walked her toward a side door. “I love you, too.”
“But promise me you’ll find out what happened. Promise me we won’t stop looking until we have the truth.”
I grinned. “I promise you, with everything I am, that we’ll find out what happened. And by the time we’re done with those Black Toilet Paper asshats? We’ll have every single answer we could have ever wanted from them.”
And I meant every fucking word of my promise.
