“A little harder than you might think. Hang on.” The only problem with Sage, who Grier considered a friend now, was his normal laid-back demeanor. “All right. I have a location on the phone. I’ll send it to you.”
“I’ll meet you at the clubhouse. Get the boys ready.” Except for their personal pieces, the guns and ammo were kept locked up in a back room at the club. Grier hung up and went to the door. He looked back at the bed, thanking God he’d gotten Fiona out of there in time.
His head throbbed. Might have been lack of sleep, or it might have been the stress of the last couple of days—saying goodbye to Fiona and the baby, finding out his father was scum, finding out Jez was his mother and could have saved him from the childhood he’d endured—or maybe his stomach churned with anticipation. But tonight, he would put an end to all of it.
He blew through red lights, passed everything else daring to be on the road at one in the morning, and finally swerved down Hell Hollow road. Bikes lined up in front of the old steel factory that had been converted to the clubhouse years ago. Good. Everyone was there. He’d need them all.
Sage met him at the door. “She’s at the compound.”
Grier nodded. Of course she was. Back at the original scene of the very first crime. The former Screaming Demon compound where Max and Carr, Jez and a handful of others had started this club. “All right.”
Grier walked beside him to the bar in the main room. “There’s only one road in.” They all knew it already from the surveillance they’d had on the groups of cabins and outbuildings. “And we’re going in loud because we’re also going in blind.”
Sage was tough, a former Marine, who’d seen his share of battle and wore the scars as proudly as his tattoos, and when he frowned it meant something. But it wasn’t his family on the line, his mother being held in the compound. Still, his opinion mattered. “What?”
“Let me take a couple of guys in through the woods. You need cover.” Sage held up a rifle.
Grier nodded. “All right.” They all knew who had the deadliest aim and she wasn’t here right now, so Grier nodded to Hamilton, Weed, who had once been a cop—and Dirty Carl, a wild man who preferred axe to knife and old-fashioned bow to anything by Smith and Wesson or Glock, but damn he could blow the antennae off a butterfly at a thousand paces, too. “Enough?” Grier turned to Sage almost regretting his quick agreement. He needed all the firepower he could get his hands on at his back.
“Yeah. We’ll leave you the entrance side and we’ll come in north, south and west.” Sage jabbed his finger into the bar once for each word as if there was a map there. Probably was. But only in his own head. “Ham can cover the east as you come in.”
Grier finished the plan, handing out assignments, waiting for the adrenaline to kick in. His gut told him they were riding into an ambush, but what choice did he have. Jez was as much a Demon as any of them and no Demon life was expendable.
And now it was time to go save his mother.
Fiona wrapped the baby in her blanket to ward off the chilly air blowing through the holes in the walls and the broken window. A thousand smells assaulted her nose, not the least of which was the diaper she’d just changed with her hands still tied. Oh, the skills she’d acquired. Grier would be so proud. Aside from the diaper, she smelled ocean—fishy, salty ocean. And she could hear the squawks of seagulls.
The asshat still sat against the door. He hadn’t spoken anymore, nor had he stopped staring at her. He watched her feed the baby, change the baby, lean back against her own piece of wall and hold her baby. It would have unsettled her had she not been so busy trying to figure a way out of here. “I’m hungry.”
“You’ll get food when I say so.”
She chuckled as if she had something to laugh about. “What you mean is, they haven’t given you permission to go get food yet, because we both know the value of the commodity you have sitting in front of you. And whoever you work for needs me alive, so that means I get food. You just aren’t allowed to decide when.”
His eyes flashed and narrowed as his face brightened into a deep plummy red. So, she continued. “Errand boy, right? Got the shitty little job of watch but don’t touch.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “So… which is it? You piss off the big guy or do you just suck so bad they give you all the shit jobs?”
“Shut up, Fiona.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care one way or the other. Although, like I said, it’s a little insulting for someone like me… important enough to be kidnapped and held, to be supervised by someone so low on the totem pole.”
This time he laughed. Threw his head back and made sounds that reminded Fiona of hyenas or maybe a donkey’s bray. “Stupid, bitch. It isn’t about you. It’s your boy we want. And once we get him, we’re going to kill the three of you.” His smile died. “I’m going to make him stand right over there—” he pointed to the corner, “—and watch me fuck you before I take my knife and slit you from pussy to eyeball.” He chuckled. “I heard you like it rough and that’s my specialty. I’m gonna make you beg for me just like you beg him.”
Fiona’s mind spun. She didn’t care about the threats. Well, she did, but the more she talked to this asshat, the more details he revealed. He was someone who’d seen the videos taken in her house. She didn’t know for sure, but she would’ve bet all her money on it. Someone connected to Tyler Sedotal.
“So, what’d you do to piss Tyler off?”
He jerked his head toward her. “What?”
And she had him. Tyler Sedotal was behind this. Probably revenge for the gunshot. Although that didn’t mesh with their wanting Grier. “What did you do? Screw his woman?”
“You’re gonna be his woman.”
“Thought you said I was gonna be dead. Was that just talk to make you feel better about yourself?” She laughed at him and his skin darkened to a deep shade of purple.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She rolled her eyes, dramatically. “Oh, come on. We both know you don’t get to decide anything. You’re just some expendable piece of shit. He knows, and I know, and you know that if I wasn’t tied up right now, you’d be on the ground with the heel of my boot sticking out of your throat. Untie me. Let’s see.” He didn’t move and with each word, she felt braver. “Oh, I get it. You need me tied up so you can live out your pathetic little rape fantasy. Because we both know you aren’t getting a woman without rope and chloroform and that gun on your hip.” She laughed again, and he lunged forward to backhand her.
The coppery taste of blood meant he’d split her lip and goddammit, she couldn’t fight back while holding her baby. She sniffed and swiped her tongue over her lip. He was gonna pay for that one. “I’m gonna like taking that hand.”
He sat on his heels and brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m gonna like seeing you try.”
If he leaned in to kiss her, she would throw up, empty stomach or not. And that breath… Dear God. She had to get out of here soon.
Asshat moved back to his side of the room by the door. “Maybe I’ll just tell Tyler you put your hands on his woman.” The words tasted like hell, but her smile didn’t falter.