Damaged & Dangerous: The Sacred Hearts MC Book VI (22 page)

Red-XIII…

“What the hell you got in there?” I asked Doc as Dani’s true
blue eyes glazed over and she stared off into space. She’d turned her head to
the side, her arms on the table, and looked like she was lost in the Land of Oz
somewhere. A tiny, drugged-out, creepy as fuck smile on her sensual lips.

“Horse tranquilizer, I left the elephant tranques in my
room. She just ain’t that big,” he commented with dry sarcasm. Revelator paused
the buzzing of his gun and chuckled, refreshing the needle with bright pink
ink. He’d started right in on the lilies on her lower back. Trig and Dis looked
on in fascination. This was the first project they’d done, the three of them.

They’d taken pictures the whole process. Shown Dani when
she’d rejoined the land of the living and asked if they could keep them. Do
some big framed job in their shop to promote their business. She’d agreed,
which had surprised me and pleased the hell out of the guys.

“She out?” I asked softly, and Doc nodded. Her eyes were
heavy, lidded but still open. He knelt and shined a light into first one then
the other.

“Yep, she ain’t gonna remember a fuckin’ thing. You just
best take care of business and get your ass back here in one piece,” he
grumbled.

“Copy that.” I threw the guys a mock half-assed salute.
Trigger gave a wry twist of lips and the middle finger as I backed out the
door. I laughed.

I found Reaver and Dray out in the common room. Duracell and
Blue were checking over their guns.

“She good?” Reaver asked.

“Yeah, Man, thanks for asking.” I smiled wide. Data stepped
out of his little ops station and laid out several printed pages side by side, Their
edges matching up to form a map like from satellite imagery or some shit. I
raised my eyebrows.

“So the safe house is this one,” Data ringed it in red
Sharpie, “You leave the bikes here,” made an ‘X’ along what was obviously a
road, “You can creep up on ‘em this way without even being seen.” He used the
pen to make an arrow for direction of travel.

“There are no windows on this part of the house. Should get
right up in it, take them out easy peasy lemon squeezy.” He beamed at us.

The four of us gave him blank looks.

“You are such a fucking nerd,” Duracell commented dryly, and
Dray and I cracked up while Blue smiled big, and Reaver hooked an arm around
Data’s neck and shook him back and forth.

“How did you find all this out, anyways?” Duracell asked,
looking over the images on the table. He took several more sheets out of Data’s
hands, all pictures of the outside of the house from every different angle.

“You can find anything on the internet, Man, it’s what I
do.” The narrow dude shrugged his shoulders and tossed his head back to get
some of his lank brown hair out of his eyes.

“Hell if I know how he does it, who cares? I want to finish
this and get my woman back home.” Dray pulled back the slide on his gun,
chambering a round, popped the clip, and added another round to the magazine
before slamming it back home and tucking it into the waistband of his pants up
under his jacket and cut.

My eyes automatically went to Reave, whose woman still
thought he was dead. His eyes were as distant and cold as ever when his monster
was let out play. He said nothing, just shoved off the edge of the table where
he’d had his foot propped, tying and tucking the laces of his shoes.

“Good to go?” he asked, all humor whisked away.

“Good to go,” I affirmed after looking from one to the other
at each of the guys. We trouped out the front door and got astride our bikes
and rode out.

The house we were headed out to was in the middle of the
country. An old, abandoned farm, way out in the far reaches of East County.
After our assault on their club, the remaining Suicide Kings had pretty much
gone to ground. It was just Bandit, Pipes, and Skid, along with Griz now.

Evening was coming on, the afternoon gloaming starting hard.
We pulled off where Data had indicated and parked our bikes at the edge of the
road, backing them in a line under a huge old oak.

Reaver used his gloved hands to yank up hard on one strand
of wire while he planted the sole of his sneaker hard on another. We carefully
utilized the gap he provided in the humming electric wire fence to duck through
to the other side. Duracell repeated the process from this side for Reave to
get through but the smartass Reave was, he planted a palm on the nearest fence
post and vaulted himself neatly over.

Dray snorted a laugh, “No denying it. You’re feeling
entirely too chipper for what we’re about to do.” Reaver’s eyes got real wide,
showing entirely too much white, and he grinned, nodding his head rapidly.

“I know the feeling, Brother!” Duracell crowed and slapped
Reave on the back of his cut. They started up and across the field, the tall
grass swishing against their leathers and jeans. I exchanged a look with Dray,
who rolled his eyes. Blue, grinning, shrugged his shoulders and drifted through
the tall grass after the two resident psychopaths.

“Gotta love those guys,” Dray said ruefully, head bowed and
shoulders shaking with silent laughter. We set off after them, crouching low
and staying there when the house came into sight. It was a one-story rambler, the
once dark blue paint on the clapboards cracked and faded from the elements.

Data was right. There was only one small window, set high in
the side. A small, narrow thing a squirrel would even have a tough time getting
through. The glass was frosted, which told me it was likely a bathroom. We all
lined up, crouched low, on our knees in the dirt, waiting for the sun to sink
just a little bit more before making our move.

To the right was a wide back deck, to the left, the front of
the house. Dray scraped his bottom lip between his teeth and looked to Reaver,
who raised an eyebrow. Dray’s eyes widened and he shrugged his shoulders. Blue’s
shoulders shook behind Reave and Duracell, who was between me and Dray, rolled
his eyes and sighed, a quiet but harsh exhalation of breath. I bowed my head
and shook it, a grin of my own splitting my face. 

Reave snapped his fingers quietly and we all stopped,
suddenly alert. He pointed at Blue and Duracell, and to the front of the house.
He pointed at me, Dray, and himself, and jabbed a finger at the back. He held a
hand up at Duracell and Blue, a classic sign for hold up and then looked
pointedly at me and Dray and rolled his hand at the end of his wrist, index and
middle finger pointed, indicating we would be the ones to go in through the
back and flush anyone inside out the front and into Blue and Cell.

Reaver came around to the left and stilled, his face as
serious as I had ever seen it, blue eyes cold, calculating, and totally
inhuman. We waited and he gave the signal. We kept low and made for the side of
the house, back against the wall, and edged along it. Reave peeked around the
corner and drew back. He gave us the thumbs up and loosed two throwing knives
out of his tactical vest beneath his cut. Dray rolled his eyes and frowned.

We all had body armor on but only Reave would bring fucking
knives to a gun fight. I moved from the end of the line, leap-frogged them both,
and put my body up front. Reave grinned and bounced his eyebrows, nodding with
excitement for me to go ahead. I scowled at him and brought my weapon out from
the back of my waistband. I was hot, between the body armor, leather, and
adrenaline, I was sweating and more than ready to finish this and get back to
my girl.

I sighed out counted down from three and, with Reave and
Dray at my back, went around the porch, ghosted up the few back steps, raised
my weapon, and blew out the rear glass slider. You never follow your own
breach. It’s a rule. So Reaver went in first, letting fly with one then the
other of his knives. There was someone, by the glimpse of build I’d say Skid,
who stood from the couch in the living room, but he immediately went down. When
I got a good look, he had a knife in one shoulder and one in his thigh. Not
killing blows. Another appeared in the other shoulder when he reached for his
gun but I had mine up and trained on him before he could clear his holster up
under his arm.

Dray stepped in behind Reave, who was on his knees in the
glass. He’d thrown and then gone down so Dray could fire up over his head,
which our VP did. Five times into Bandit’s chest, the man jerking and wobbling
on his feet like a damned marionette before falling back onto the loveseat.

Pipes went out the front door, the wood panel swinging on
its hinges, and we heard a single shot from out front. Blue appeared in the
doorway a second later and disappeared down the hall. Cell followed him up.

I held my gun on Skid while Reave went to clear the rest of
the house with the other two. Dray turned and had my back so no-one could sneak
up on me. Skid looked up from where he knelt on the floor, hands in the air, a
resigned look on his face.

“Clear!” The shout came from the back and was echoed a
second later, and then echoed again by an unfamiliar voice that must have been
Blue’s. They returned to the front.

“Where is he?” Dray demanded at my back while Duracell took
up position. Blue went back to the front door, looking out.

“Ain’t here. Went to handle some business of his, didn’t
tell us what.” Skid was looking me over carefully, “She alive?” he asked.

Reaver went to Skid and pulled out his blades one at a time.
Skid groaned and bowed his head, sucking his breath in and out between clenched
teeth.

“Who you talkin’ about?” Cell called.

“Coon, Dani, she alright?” Skid asked. I crooked a sad
smile, my girl’s words coming back to me.

“Yeah, she’s good,” I told him, “Said outta all of you bastards
she might spare you if it was up to her.”

Reaver looked down at Skid and cocked his head to the side.
He sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and moved off to stand with his back to the
wall, leaning against it.

“What’s your problem?” Dray asked.

Reaver fidgeted and, looking slightly uncomfortable, stated,
“He ain’t afraid.” He scratched his back on the corner of the wall, twisting
side to side, and shrugged. Dray let off in a string of muttered Spanish and
Reave grinned.

“Sorry,” he said. But by the light in his eyes you could
tell he wasn’t. Not one damned bit.

Skid sighed and moved, and I trained my gun more solidly on
him. Reaver had two knives fisted, one in each hand in the blink of an eye, but
all Skid did was chuff a laugh. He pulled a pack of smokes and a lighter from
his pockets, the movements causing him obvious pain, his shoulders bleeding
freely inside his leather jacket. He shook one out of the pack part of the way
and grasped it with his lips.

“It’s good she’s alright, I worried about her.” He lit the
smoke and dropped the lighter with a clatter.

“Yeah, she’s alright.”

“Don’t deserve her charitable attitude none. Didn’t try to
help her near as much as I could have.” His cigarette bobbed in his mouth as he
spoke, and he sucked on it. The cherry flared orange and he looked up at me
plaintively, an eyebrow raised, blowing a plume of smoke out of the side of his
mouth. I saw it then, in his eyes, this… just deep-seeded sorrow. Skid had
given up a long time ago and he was totally cool with this being the end of the
line.

Resignation took hold of me. I didn’t want to put him out of
his misery, but all it took to give me the will to do it was the image of Dani,
bruised, crying, splayed on her back on the Suicide King’s pool table. The pain
in her eyes as she’d turned away, knowing that I’d watched it once but Skid…
Skid had seen a hell of a lot more than that.

“No, you really don’t,” I intoned and I leveled my gun and
put one right in his face. He toppled over like a felled tree and shuddered, shaking
on the ground. I stepped up and leveled my gun once more and blew his head
apart in a welter of blood and bone. Tissue and gray matter spattered my boots,
blood misting my jeans. I stared down at what I’d done and the only regret I
tasted was the regret I had for not getting Dani out sooner.

“Jesus.” Dray grunted and crossed himself. I looked at him,
then to Reaver. Reaver’s eyes met mine and they held a deep sorrow for a
flicker of a heartbeat before he nodded. An understanding passed between us and
he pushed off the wall. He threw an arm over my shoulders and we went out
front. Cell and Blue dragged Pipe’s corpse into the living room and dropped it.

“Do whatever the fuck it is you do,” Dray said darkly to the
ginger and Duracell nodded. Blue and Cell policed our brass, meaning they
scoured and searched until every shell casing from every round we’d fired was
accounted for. I shoved the little sandwich baggie with the spent casings into
my pocket after Blue handed it to me.

“Do it,” Dray ordered.

“Gotta go back to the bikes,” Cell grunted.

We did, and Duracell took back off through the tall swaying
grass while we stayed, after he’d fetched something out of his saddle bags.
About a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes later he came back.

“We’re good,” he declared.

Dray snubbed out his fragrant clove cigarette on the sole of
his boot and he put the butt in his pocket. None of us were keen on leaving any
evidence behind. We climbed on to our bikes, me after kick-starting mine, the
rest of them after they’d flipped their ultramodern ignition switches. I was
maybe just a little jealous. My baby could be temperamental to start.

None of us had spoken while we’d waited for Cell to return. None
of us spoke now. We just all went back to the club and, like before, shared a
stiff shot before parting ways. I looked in on Dani. They were still working on
her, her back becoming a riot of color between the flowers and the night sky
they were inking in across the top. The tree was a living thing now and she was
still as oblivious as I’d left her. So beautiful, expression so at peace.