The old farm was well off any main roads, and we weren’t worried about any sort of surveillance cameras picking up our convoy of motorcycles and vans moving through the countryside. We rode through the hot, humid evening without any sort of delays, barely spotting any other vehicles out on the roads.
When the lead van pulled off onto the dirt road that led deep into the overgrown fields, it turned off its headlights and crept down the road, using only the light from our motorcycle headlamps as guides. The bulky cargo vans blocked most of the light our bikes cast, and we were going to stop far enough out to hopefully prevent the noise of the engines giving us away. Once Reece gauged we were close enough from his place in the lead van, he brought us all to a halt and threw open the rear doors to pass out the guns.
“You gonna be cool?” I ask Verek as I place a clip into the assault rifle, then rack the slide.
“I’ll have your back. Don’t ever doubt that,” Verek says as he rams shells into the feeder tube of a shotgun.
“I don’t doubt it,” I reassure him. “I just don’t want you going wild on these guys and forgetting to watch your corners or run out of cover to chase somebody. I know you’re taking this personally, but we’ve gotta let that go while we handle business. Once we capture this little bitch, Joey, you can take out whatever you’ve saved up on his ass.”
“I intend to,” Verek growls. He starts to walk away, before suddenly turning to look back at me. “That Joey fucker was in those videos, you know. With Tessa.”
“Don’t ever tell her you saw that shit, man,” I warn him. “Don’t ever tell her that footage even exists. Hell, it won’t soon. You heard Reece; he’s going to make sure that shit disappears.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s good,” Verek says. We begin walking side by side, falling into step with our Savage King brothers approaching the farmhouse. “The shit they did to her, man, it’s got me all fucked up in the head.”
“Of course it does,” I try to commiserate with him.
He waves a hand in front of him, as if he’s clearing smoke from the air. “Not the way you think, Winston. I mean, of course what they did to her has got me fucking bent out of shape. What I’m talking about though, is trying to figure out how to make this Joey dude pay for it. We’re going to kill a lot of these motherfuckers tonight, and I suppose that’s a start. But I don’t think it’s much of a punishment for guys like this. Hell, spending the rest of their lives in jail, getting treated the way they treated those women, might only be a start.”
“I suppose death isn’t really much of a punishment for what they’ve done.” I nod to him. “I guess that’s why you don’t see many cops or lawyers in MC’s like ours, you know? We’re not interested in ‘deterrence’ or ‘rehabilitation.’ You fuck up around us and we’ll end you, simple as that. The only ‘due process’ we give is a bullet. But you’re right, they deserve worse. Men like these make you hope there’s actually a Hell, don’t they?”
“I don’t know if there’s a Hell in the next life, but I intend to show Joey Simpson hell on earth. It’s twisting my guts up trying to think of shit to do to him that would even begin repaying what he did to Tessa, but I’ll figure something out.”
“We’ve gotta catch him first,” Roman interrupts from the darkness nearby. “You can moralize justice and punishment all you want later. For now, shut the fuck up and wait for Torin’s signal.”
We quiet down and crouch by the road, just out of sight of the farmhouse and its outbuildings. Reece and a terrifying looking, heavily muscled Savage King, who they introduced as Miles, go on ahead to get into position. After only a few minutes, Torin holds up a burner phone with a text message gleaming on the screen. “We’re in position. Go in five.”
“Go in five,” Torin passes the message along. “Everyone, get to your positions and wait for Miles and Reece to take their first targets. Then, you know what to do.”
Without another word, we advance down the road, dispersing into the tall grasses and vanishing into the fields as the farmhouse comes into our line of sight. The only lights on this late are coming from both levels of the main house, where every window is gleaming, and music pours out into the night from the open front door. Several men are sitting on the front porch, smoking and drinking, laughing as one of them gesticulates his way through a story.
As Verek and I creep through the weeds to approach the outbuilding closest to the farmhouse, we pause for a moment as Verek draws my gaze to the yard just in front of the porch. There are half a dozen cars and trucks parked out front. He nods toward them and whispers, “Gotta be at least six people here, probably more. We’ll have to ask, to make sure we get everyone.”
With only a minute to spare before the shooting is scheduled to begin, we creep across the yard behind the outbuilding, making sure to keep the farmhouse out of sight. There is a flimsy wooden door at the back of the building, where Verek and I take up positions on either side of while we wait. I take several deep breaths to calm myself, trying to prevent my mind from wandering back to Zoe. She’s got to be worried sick back at the safehouse right now. What would she do if I didn’t make it back tonight? Would she grieve for me, dive back into the life she had been leading? Would it be better for her if I—
Two gunshots break me free from my dark thoughts, and I immediately throw open the door to the outbuilding and motion Verek through. I can hear screams and yelling from the main house interspersed with gunfire as I rush in behind Verek, nearly bumping into him as he stands frozen, just inside the entryway.
“Move, goddammit, move!” I hiss. “Secure the room!” I feel around for a light switch. It’s pitch black in the back of the building, although I can see a dim light coming from the far side, closest to the house.
“There’s too much shit back here,” Verek whispers back. “I can’t feel a way through! Get the lights on!”
As soon as my hand lands on a switch, I flip it, and Verek leaps backwards into me with a curse before raising his shotgun at a figure standing almost directly in front of him. I stagger backwards, damn near out the door as the blast from his shotgun almost deafens me. I can only faintly hear the pinging of the buckshot on the metal walls of the outbuilding while Verek racks another shell into the chamber, then continues cursing as he moves to the side so I can see his victim.
It’s a damn mannequin. While the head is gone, judging from the leather gimp suit covering the rest of the body, it’s a prop shoved back here to be out of the way. The back of this building is crowded with all manner of props and set construction materials, with no clear pathway to get through to the front.
“Of course they’d be this fucking messy,” Verek growls as he kicks over a stack of metal rods. I have no idea what they’re used for, but the clanging they make as they roll away has me grinding my teeth in frustration.
“Can you at least try to keep a low profile?” I whisper as I advance beside him, shoving a bedframe to the side.
“What the fuck for? I just blew the head off a doll with a shotgun. If anyone’s in here, they fucking know we’re back here. Come on.” He ducks behind a huge roll of fabric. “Once we move around this, we’ll be able to see where that light up there is coming from!”