Wild Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 2) Page 3

  “I do. It's about time someone did.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “What are we doing here if not to start a war? We're moving in on Copperhead territory. They know it. Howitzer knew it when he sent us up here. In fact the only person who didn't seem to know it was you.”

  Ace stood right in front of Beretta. “You got a fucking problem with the way I'm leading this outfit, why don't you just come out and say it straight?”

  “Hey,” said Locke, his voice weak. “Not to break up your little lover's quarrel, but I think I really need to get sewn up, and fast.”

  He was pale, his lips turning blue. Sweat poured down his body.

  “Goddammit,” said Ace, sitting down over him. He snatched up the bags that Beretta had gathered and started shuffling through him.

  From his time in the military way back when, Ace had a decent understanding of first aid. But Beretta suspected it wouldn't be enough. That was why he had picked up Helen.

  Sure—he told himself. That was why I picked her up.

  In the bags he had brought together were some smelling salts. He broke one open under Helen’s nose, lightly slapping her face to get her awake.

  “Hey,” he said. “Get to work.”

  She took a moment to adjust herself, to sit up and scramble backward. Her hands were still tied together and her movements were awkward and slow. Ace, sighing and standing up from his place next to Locke, moved in from behind her. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You fucker. You absolute fucker. I’ll fucking...I’ll call the cops! You let me go, right now, or I call the cops!”

  “Our brother is hurt,” said Beretta, like she hadn’t said anything. “You’re gonna fix him. Okay? His name is Locke.”

  “I’m not doing anything for you,” she said. “You fuck. You fucking choked me out! What the hell is wrong with you? I’ll—”

  She got the idea, then, mid-sentence, to run. She tried, limbs flailing all over. Ace tripped her and Beretta lunged forward and grabbed her before she fell down. If he hadn’t, she would have busted her chin wide open.

  He took her in his arms, shaking her until she was still. “Nobody here’s going to hurt you if you do like we say.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Ace.

  Beretta glared at him. Ace frowned and looked away.

  “You’ll be fine,” Beretta insisted. “But you gotta do what we say.”

  She squirmed again. Beretta most certainly did not feel how good she smelled, how soft her skin was, how deeply her blue eyes pierced down into his soul.

  He didn't feel any of it, dammit. He didn't remember any of the good times with her. There was only right now, only the emergency.

  If he didn't have a past, then he couldn't have hurt in his soul. That's how it worked.

  “Do like we say,” he said again. “He’ll die if you don’t. You can help him, can’t you?”

  She shifted away from Beretta, swinging her arms out wide, and then walked over to Locke. He was pale and bloody, and looked at about the end of his rope. For several long moments she examined him, circling, biting her lip and tonguing at her cheek.

  “I can’t help him if my hands are tied.”

  There was sense enough there. Beretta cut her loose.

  “Try anything,” he said, “and you’ll regret it.”

  She knelt down over Locke, emptying out the supply bags Beretta had put together. She searched through them, grabbing what she needed.

  “This has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with being a good person. You understand?”

  “Girl, I told you when we first met. Being a good person isn't something I know anything about.”

  Chapter 4

  Just a few hours had passed since she had arrived in the warehouse. It did not take long to patch up the young biker, Locke. He was handsome in a movie starrish way; that, combined with his bike, probably meant that he had all kinds of girls swooning after him.

  Not Helen’s type, though. She didn’t go for pretty boys.

  No, she had to be the sort who was attracted to the exact wrong sort of man—the kind who kidnapped her and put her to work, the strong and silent type with a jaw like a lantern and a body built like a mountain.

  It drove her fucking crazy that even after all this time, even after doing her best to sever him from her life, she had feelings for him. They were convoluted and confused and illogical, but they were feelings all the same, and they couldn't be fought off with cold logic any more than she could remove sunlight with a scalpel.

  Locke’s shoulder had been punched through with a bullet and he had multiple contusions up and down his side and back. The contusions would heal on their own; all she had to take care of was the bullet wound. She stitched it up without too much trouble and then sat back, looking up expectantly at the two biker brothers above her.

  It looked worse than it was because he had lost so much blood; luckily, the IV she set up would help him out rather quickly. Part of what Beretta had stolen had been a small cooler full of blood bags from the ambulance. Locke would be back on his feet in no time, especially if he let his shoulder rest for a good six weeks or so.

  Meanwhile, the other outlaws watched her. They wore their vests, their “colors,” identifying them clearly as the Wrecking Crew. From growing up in Marlowe, she knew what the Wrecking Crew was—and was surprised to see Beretta as part of them. He had been in a different gang when she was with him last.

  The only thing that these members of the Wrecking Crew seemed to agree on was that Helen was a source of potential trouble.

  Well, good for fucking them for finding out the obvious. As soon as she could call the cops, she would—weird mind-fucking crush on Beretta and his ungodly hot body or not.

  The farthest away from them she had been was to wash her hands on the other end of the warehouse. There was a long trough-like sink there. Next to the sink had been a door—chained shut. She checked twice.

  The black outlaw, the one clearly unhappy about everything—life, its origins, and his present situation as a result of all the rest of existence—that was Ace. The less she said to him, the better; he seemed displeased especially that she was there as a hostage.

  That makes two of us, doesn't it?

  One more outlaw had walked in while she worked. He was the largest of the four bikers she had seen so far—big enough to live inside of. His torso was three Helens wide, but he wasn’t fat. His shirt was off, only wearing his leather vest with all its patches, so she could see there wasn’t much fat to him. Just thick bulk, stretched out tall. Ink swirled on his arms, his chest, like it did for Beretta. His mouth was wide enough to swallow a book whole.

  This was Tank.

  “What happened to Locke?” he had asked. His voice was deep and booming, like those old cartoons of abominable snowmen.

  Beretta sat on a plastic lawn chair. He didn't look quite well. In his hands he had a candy bar, mostly-unwrapped and half-eaten. She remembered he had a sweet tooth, though it was impossible to imagine a man with a body like his ever eating candy. In times of stress, though, he would always have some kind of sweets on hand. It might have been kind of endearing, in a way, if she didn't so absolutely hate his guts right then.

  “We got into it with the Copperheads,” said Beretta, swallowing down a piece of chocolate. “I take responsibility.”

  Tank seemed very unhappy with this. If Helen had been the subject of such a look from a man like that, she would have run. But Beretta just stared him down.

  “Who's the girl, then?”

  “That's the nurse,” said Beretta. “I picked her up. She's here to fix Locke.”

  “Oh.” Tank looked at Helen then. She gulped. “He gonna be okay? My friend?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Almost certainly.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  He wasn't dumb; she could tell that immediately. She could tell he was used to people thinking that he was because of the
way he sounded and the way he looked. But there was real, true intelligence in his eyes, and she knew that though he was grateful, she wouldn't be able to use his gratitude to get free.

  Not that she wouldn't try if push came to shove. Even a slight chance of freedom was more than the zero that she was currently operating with.

  Meanwhile, Ace argued with Beretta.

  He didn't seem to like the fact that Beretta had known Helen before kidnapping her. He said that made him a suspect if the cops came around.

  “We dated six months ago,” said Beretta. “Besides, we're not gonna have her here long enough for the cops to come sniffing around. Are we?”

  And what did that mean? Were they going to let her go? Or did that mean...the other, far worse alternative? That she wouldn't be alive long enough?

  She had noticed so far none of them were particularly concerned with her staying alive. And why would they be? That bastard Beretta had taken her from the hospital like he might have grabbed a bunch of bananas from the grocery store. No one knew she was here.

  No one knew she would be with these men. Probably there was security camera footage from the parking lot, but what if there wasn’t? What if Beretta had been smart enough to take out the cameras before he started working on the ambulances?

  It would have been the smart thing to do. And while Beretta was a lot—brutal, strong, laconic—stupid wasn’t one of them. If anything, he had a real canniness to him, a cunning that made him feel dangerous to her on top of the already inherent danger of everything else about this situation.

  He was nothing but danger, in fact.

  So, no one was going to plead her case but her. That meant she had to get on it—because there was no part of her ready to die in some warehouse in the middle of Stockland just because she’d been chosen to save a life.

  As she stood up to start to try and argue with them to save her life, Beretta and Ace were in the middle of a heated, quiet discussion that was getting louder and louder.

  “Well, fucking take care of her then!” Ace shouted. “You’re the one brought her in here. Mister fucking responsible. That’s what you want me to think of you? Why don’t you just fucking—”

  He stopped yelling, concern flashing his face, as Beretta’s face twitched strangely. Then, from nothing, Beretta collapsed down to one knee, grabbing his side. His hands were covered in blood.

  “Christ,” said Ace, dropping to a knee with him. “Tank, help me here.”

  Slow and lumbering, Tank bent over and picked up Beretta, dragging him over to a bed next to Locke.

  “Nurse, you gotta look at him,” said Ace. “Fix him up.”

  “Him too, now?”

  “Yeah,” said Ace. “He’s the only one here really thinks you oughta stay alive after seeing all four of us here, so either you fix him up, or you’re out of allies. How about that?”

  Beretta was moaning, trying to say something. Helen dropped down and shushed him.

  “Save your strength,” she said. “Apparently, I’m going to need it.”

  The cloth of his shirt was soaked in blood. Hidden under his colors, she hadn't seen the full extent of the damage. Scissors in hand, she cut his shirt off. Beneath it was a landscape of pain and muscle. Harsh layers of ink covered over his pectorals and abs, telling a story too complex, too intricate for her to understand right away. All that she knew was that it was sad.

  Some of the scars were new to her. Others she had seen before, in the darkness and in the mornings, tracing the long lines with her finger. The ink was just how she remembered it, still as black and thick, still capable of driving her wild with just a glance across its shadowy depths.

  A long, jagged gash was in his side, opening up his hips. She felt around for a moment, adjusting the flashlight in her hands.

  “He's been shot,” she said. “Why didn't anyone tell me he was shot?”

  Ace and Tank both shrugged. “We didn't know.”

  She went to work. As she did, she was all business. She did not let her mind wander to the sexual bonanza that was his torso—the eight-pack of hard abs, the solid density of his pectorals, the thick, beautiful shapes of his shoulders.

  Nope, didn’t think about that at all. Didn't log a single sight away for herself later on. She was pure business.

  He’d lost a lot of blood, but just like with Locke, there were some spare bags of it in the cooler from the ambulance. He was lucky to be alive, and luckier still that Helen was there to treat him.

  Chapter 5

  That was weakness, falling apart in front of Ace like that. That was weakness and Beretta hated that he had shown it.

  Ace wasn't man enough to lead this Crew and Beretta had been hoping to prove that with his little stunt with Locke. Too bad he couldn't take out Rattler to really drive the point home. Still, three enemies dead against two friendlies wounded wasn't a bad result.

  Beretta had only been able to land this mission in Stockland because Ram had vouched for him. And the only reason that Ram had vouched for Beretta was because even when they were on opposite sides of a war, Ram had respected him.

  A long time ago—years ago—Beretta had been Ram’s brother in the Wrecking Crew. So close, in fact, that Ram had no trouble at all with Beretta claiming Ram’s sister, Madeline, as his old lady—his property.

  But then it all fell apart.

  Beretta got hooked on smack and so did Madeline. He survived, and Madeline didn’t. Ram, justifiably furious, got Beretta kicked out of the Wrecking Crew and so Beretta, heartbroken and alone, got sober and took up with the Black Flags—the Wrecking Crew’s worst enemy.

  Then it turned out that the leader of the Black Flags, Acero, was cooperating with the cops. There was nothing worse to a badass biker like Beretta than working in tandem with the cops. His own hatred of the police, of authority, was a key part in why he was a biker in the first place. So, Beretta teamed up with Ram one last time and took Acero out.

  That had earned him some respect, indeed. The Black Flags dissolved without Acero, and the Wrecking Crew took in many of their number to keep the peace—and Beretta was one of them.

  But the Wrecking Crew now had to expand or else tear itself apart. With the numbers of two gangs under one city, they were too many to not draw more attention than they wanted to stay alive; they were too many not to start turning on themselves.

  So Howitzer, President of the Wrecking Crew MC, sought expansion. That’s what brought Beretta to Stockland with Ace, Locke, and Tank. Stockland was next to a wealth of oil fields, which meant a lot of workers with spare cash and free time in the evenings and weekends. They spent their money on whores, gambling, and getting fucked up—and Beretta knew that there was a whole lot of money to be made from owning those sources of income.

  They were there to bump out the Copperheads MC and set up shop for themselves. Their objective was to own everything the Copperheads owned—every arms trade route, every drug stash, every meth lab, every gambling hall—all of it.

  Of course, nothing was ever quite that simple. The Copperheads were one of the biggest gangs in the region, numbering close to the hundreds; Howitzer had only sent five men to deal with them all.

  If they succeeded, Howitzer was a genius. If they failed, then Howitzer had rid himself of five problem-children.

  Ace was a hell of a soldier, but he also had a hell of a gambling problem. He'd lost thousands over the past year and was due to lose thousands more when Howitzer stepped in. The slate wasn't quite wiped clean for Ace, but his debts were put on hold until Ace could pull in money from the Stockland operation.

  Locke had been a fresh pledge for the Black Flags—just almost a year of service. He eclipsed his year after the merger with the Wrecking Crew, and part of the terms of the peace was that a man’s time stayed with him. So, a patch holder of the Black Flags became a patch holder of the Wrecking Crew; he wasn’t bumped back down to pledge.

  This avoided a lot of conflicts, and generally most folks thought it was a smart
move on Howitzer’s part. Locke earned his patch just months after the merger and was sworn in to the newly expanded Wrecking Crew—the first of a new breed.

  But being a Black Flag wasn't enough to earn Locke a bad rep all by itself. He was a deep in Marlowe's reserve of available women, and dried up that pool by the day. His habits started a lot of problems, a lot of fights. Lucky for Locke, Tank was there to finish his fights.

  Tank was a new patch holder too, though no one treated him that way. He was too big, too rough, and too damn scary. He'd fought in the Pit Fights for years and years under the Furnace MC. Technically, he'd been a pledge for them. In actuality, they'd kept him under lock and key, never letting him out of his cage unless it was to go fight in another cage.

  Locke had been instrumental in getting Tank free from the Furnace. It was a debt Tank would never forget. The two were thicker than brothers, and a fight with one was a fight with the other.

  But that meant, too, that Tank was on the chopping block. He won so many fights that Locke had started due to his sleeping around that there was a lot of talk about just killing Tank straight off—no more bar brawls trying to get one up on him. That kind of talk was bad for Wrecking Crew business.

  Beretta was second-in-command behind Ace. He’d come up with the idea to push out the Copperheads in Stockland, and he’d scoped the area, and he’d picked out the base. But Howitzer chose Ace to lead as President instead—and that's how the MC voted.

  It was a trust issue, and Beretta knew it. It wasn’t so long ago he’d been the Sergeant-At-Arms for the enemy, organizing attacks on Wrecking Crew men. None of the original Wrecking Crew in Marlowe trusted him anymore.

  At one point, Beretta had been like a son to Howitzer. So that stung. It stung more than Beretta cared to admit. But he knew he deserved it. There was a whole long list of people who had a problem with him surviving, and Beretta himself was first on that list.

  That was why this mission of theirs in Stockland had to succeed. He had to have his redemption. He had to prove to the whole Wrecking Crew that he was worth trusting; worth believing in. Without your brothers at your back, you were nobody. And right now, Beretta didn't have that—and he wanted that feeling again. He wanted to be in that circle of trust.