Hell Fire Riders MC: The Complete MC Series, page 63
Calico was getting ready to say something when Jolene half collapsed in his arms. Sobbing she begged, “Please, Clancy, please let him help bring our baby home?”
Calico’s arms wrapped around his woman, the only woman he’d ever loved. When they came together a while back, he realized that he’d never stopped loving her. He sighed heavily. “Ok I’ll accept his help until we can talk to Sawyer.”
Jolene placed her hand back on his chest and whispered, “Thank you.”
Calico glared at Priest. “Ok, Mr. Priest, where is my daughter? You said you knew where she was. Why don’t you tell us where that might be?”
Bastian looked around at the group of men standing there waiting for his response. “She’s on the boat near Griffin Park on the Sabine River. Aboard a boat originally called the Sea Serpent. The name Retribution is not the original name. There are eight men in the surrounding area keeping watch and two men, plus Sawyer aboard the boat.” Looking around again, he noted, “I’m assuming its Tomas and Enrique aboard the boat. They are the only ones my guy didn’t photograph, otherwise he got pictures of the other eight men and their positions.”
Pappy snapped his head around to stare at Bastian. “Your man? You actually have a man taking pictures of the area?”
Bastian nodded. “Where do you think the pictures we got came from? This isn’t his first rodeo and he’s very good at what he does.”
“And if he gets caught? We lose the element of surprise.” Dewey growled.
Bastian scoffed. “Jim will not get caught. He may be older like you but he’s trained as Special Ops. He’s just watching and passing along intel.”
“Is he someone you trust?” Pappy asked as he watched Bastian.
Bastian turned his head carefully to stare at the group of men behind Pappy. “I trust Jim with my life. And I trust him to keep watch over Sawyer until we can get there to bring her home. I’ve known and worked with this man for years.”
Pappy nodded once. “That’s good enough for me.” He looked over at Calico and then his own men. “Let’s go raise some hell and bring her home then.”
Bastian raised his hand and commented to the entire group, “We take no prisoners. These butchers get no mercy. They took my woman and by doing so, signed their death warrants.”
Pappy stared at him. “I got no problem with that.” His words echoed in the room. “As long as you understand something here.’
Bastian stared at him.
“We’re here to stop any and all threats to our country. To do so, we need to know what the Barrone brothers are doing. From what Calico has told us, I have a feeling they are up to no good. But we need solid proof, we need evidence we can use to find out what their mission is, who is behind that mission and if need be we have to stop that mission from happening.”
Bastian nodded. “I can get behind that. You all know what I do for a living. I get secrets from people. You may not like that fact but I’m very good at what I do.”
Pappy nodded. “We may need those skills. I mean we’re good but I have a feeling you’re better at that sort of thing.”
“Indeed,” Bastian agreed.
“Can we just get going?” Calico ran his fingers through his hair. “Every moment Sawyer is with them, they could be hurting her.”
“My car is outside the gates, just inside the woods. I’ll need to grab my bag.” Bastian glanced over at Pappy and suggested, “I think you should use silent weapons. We don’t want to bring the police down too early and we don’t want to warn the Barrone brothers we’re there.”
Pappy smiled. “We’re prepared for anything and everything here. Surprise is on our side. They won’t even see us coming. These people are expecting a front on attack. With the information we have we can take them out before they even realize we’re there.”
“That would be the best way.” Bastian nodded. “Do you have night vision goggles? Jim said he would paint the targets and that can only be seen with night vision.”
Pappy nodded and walked over to a table holding small crossbows. He took his choice, then picked up a pair of light weight glasses. Hooking them in the front of his shirt, he looked at his men. “Let’s dance.”
Chapter Six
Bastian went to his car and opened the trunk. Grabbing the small carryon, he watched as the men inside the compound got into several vehicles. They headed for the gate and one vehicle stopped beside him. Bastian got into the car. When it took off, he noted his vehicle held Pappy and Calico. Pappy was driving and Calico sat next to him in the back seat.
He could almost feel the waves of rage coming off Calico. Bastian knew he had to break into Calico’s fury in order to get past it. Their mission was too important to ignore and he didn’t want Sawyer to pay for his mistakes. “I never hurt your daughter,” he spoke quietly in the darkness surrounding them. “I can do a lot of things that some people might not understand but I could never hurt her.”
Calico turned his head to glare at him. His hands were clenched into tight fists.
Bastian raised his hand to silence the other man. “I know you don’t want to believe me and that’s your right as her father, but know this, I would put my life on the line to protect her. I got there too late over a year ago when those animals beat her in that fucking warehouse in New York. If her brother hadn’t rescued her, I would have killed them for what they did to her.”
“They paid for hurting her,” Calico reminded him.
“Yes, they did,” Bastian agreed.
“And so will you, if you ever hurt her,” Calico vowed. “I don’t know what you did while you had her but you can bet I’ll find out when we get her back and if did harm her in any way, I will hunt you down and take great pleasure in killing you.”
Bastian smiled. “Then you’d better pack a lunch. I tried to stay away for both our sakes, but I couldn’t do it. I would never hurt her.”
“You threatened to disappear with her. You told us we’d never see her again,” Calico spat out.
Bastian nodded. “Yes, I did. I have the resources to do just that, but in the long run, it would have hurt Sawyer. She loves her family. I could never take that away from her, no matter how much I wanted to. You, her mother and brother are all she has, besides me. I wouldn’t want to see the light inside her fade away to nothing. That light is what she feels for her family. I could never replace that. For now can we put aside our differences and concentrate our efforts to get her back?”
Calico glared at him for a moment, then he looked away.
“No matter how much you would deny it, she’s a woman full grown,” Bastian added. “I know you spent many years apart from the women in your life. Years you can never get back but know this, you can’t keep her away from me. You may not like that fact but you can’t change it either. She’s my woman now.”
Calico growled but before he could say anything Pappy pulled the car over. Looking outside the windows, both men noted they were close to the park. More vehicles pulled up behind them and the men got out almost in silence. Gathering together, they used hand signals to let the others know where they were going.
Eight men were out there hiding in the darkness. Eight men that would rather slit your throat than talk to you. These men knew what they were up against and they relished in it. They were now hunting the enemy.
Bastian reached inside his bag and brought out a small scanner. He began to type a message then waited for a response. A few minutes later, he got it. He looked up at Pappy. “Jim said he is still watching the men. He’s painted their positions which is why your men will need the glasses. According to Jim the men are watchful but not really that careful.” He grunted. “He thinks they are sloppy.”
“That should make our job easier,” Dewey said snidely.
“Perhaps.” Bastian nodded. “But we still need to do this without alerting the two men on the boat until we’re ready for them to know we’re here. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill Sawyer if they thought they were under attack.”
Calico rumbled from the front seat but didn’t say anything.
Bastian began typing again and when he was done, he looked up at the group. “The targets are painted and Jim in waiting. You won’t see him until this is over. All I ask is that you don’t get carried away and shoot him after the fact.”
They all slipped away in the darkness, leaving only Pappy, Calico and Bastian behind.
Pappy glanced back at Bastian. “Once the targets are taken care of you, Calico and I will go on the boat.”
Bastian shook his head. “You and Calico will go aboard first. Show yourselves and I’ll just hang back and come in when he least expects it. I don’t want to give away everything at once. It’s better if they don’t know about me being there until we know how Sawyer is. We may only get one shot at this and her safety is more important.” He turned to glare at Calico. “Damage the men if you have to, but do not take them out. If they have information you want, I need to get it out of them before they die.”
Calico nodded then moved off into the darkness with Pappy.
Bastian followed a few minutes later. He hid well in the shadows and when he got closer to where the action was, he typed out another message. As he waited for Jim to respond, he kept his eyes open.
To anyone walking past the park they wouldn’t notice anything amiss. But Bastian knew what to look for and which sounds meant what. He heard the sounds of a rustle and start of surprise being quickly covered up.
The screen of the scanner lit and he read the message. “All eight taken out. No one on board checking anything out. Still two in one room and the third in another room.”
Bastian wondered who was in the other room if it was Sawyer she was separated from both men and that might work for him. If he could get aboard, he might be able to get her away before they knew she was gone.
He got closer to the boat. Slipping aboard, he stepped carefully so as not to rock the boat and he kept to the back of it. He knew the others would confront the pair inside from the front of the boat. He wanted to be in place when that happened. As he slipped into the passageway, he heard the brothers talking.
Sawyer closed her eyes and tried to rest but her mind wouldn’t allow it. Her arms were trembling and her muscles were screaming at being stretched over her head like they were. Her head was pounding along with her heart. Her body felt sore because of the accident but that was nothing compared to the fear in her soul.
She knew the men who held her wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her. She prayed that her father or the man they called the Priest would come for her, if they could find her. That was the one thing she prayed for. That somehow the men in her life would be able to find her. She knew if they didn’t come, the Barrone brothers would rape and kill her. She would never see her family again, nor would she ever see him again. Her child would never be born. She couldn’t allow herself to think about that though. She knew she couldn’t tell anyone here about the child inside her either. She had a feeling it would only make them madder than they already were, especially being who she was. They hated her father, almost to the point nothing else mattered. She had a feeling if the one she knew as Tomas found out about her baby, he was be sure to hurt it in retaliation for what happened to his own child.
So far, she’d only heard their version and if life had taught her anything it taught her, there were always two sides to any argument. She couldn’t hear only one side and make up her mind. She knew her father had done some things in his life he might regret but did he really allow a woman to die along with her unborn child? She doubted this very much.
He might have hidden her for her own safety but he never would have hurt her or the baby she carried. At least she hoped he would, but she didn’t really know him that well did she? He’d walked out on them when she was a kid. The fact he came back when she was hurt had to mean something, didn’t it?
The rocking of the boat soothed her and soon, she closed her eyes and fell asleep. She didn’t sleep for long however. Her eyes flew open when the bed rocked as Tomas crawled in the bed with her.
Tomas chuckled cruelly. “Settle down puta. I’m just here to sleep. I wouldn’t touch you for all the money in the world.” Then he shoved her closer to the edge of the bed. “I need more room.”
Sawyer moved as far away from him as she could get but it wasn’t far enough. He moved around and kept hitting her with his elbow and his knee. If she hadn’t been tied to the headboard she would have fallen to the floor before he was done. As it was, her arms were stretched almost out of the sockets with as far as she was pulled away.
Tomas closed his eyes for a brief time. A short time later, he began to snore and Sawyer eased herself over the edge of the bed. She wiggled her arms and brought the ties that held her down around the edge of the headboard.
Sighing in relief, she rested on the floor half sitting up but laying her head on the mattress. She closed her eyes preparing to rest then she heard a shout from the other room. Her eyes snapped open.
Tomas leapt from the bed. He raced for the door as the boat began to rock violently. At the door, he paused then listened as his brother shouted curses.
Two gunshots rang out.
Tomas turned around and stepped over to the bed. Reaching down, he grabbed Sawyer by the hair and pulled her to her feet. Grabbing the knife, he slipped it under the tie that held her to the bed. The nylon came apart and he pulled her across the bed to stand in front of him.
He forced her to walk in front of him with the knife was pressed under her chin.
Sawyer didn’t dare breathe too heavily as the steel blade bit deep into her skin. She felt a trickle of blood run down her neck and onto her chest.
He forced her to walk in front of him down the hall. When they got to the end of the hall, she could see into the living area. She could see Pappy, Dewey and her father standing over Enrique.
He was bruised and bloody and holding his left arm all the while cursing out her father. “My brother is going to kill your girl for this.” Enrique sneered as Pappy pulled his arms behind his back. Enrique fought against him but the other man zip tied his wrists together behind him. He kicked out at Pappy all the while cursing and screaming obscenities at them.
Tomas cleared his throat and waited for Calico to turn toward him.
Tomas’ hands gripped the knife a bit tighter.
Calico took a step closer to him but Pappy reached out and grabbed his shirt. He hauled him up short.
Calico glared at the only man that mattered at this moment.
“So you did come for her?” Tomas rasped.
“You knew I would.” Calico growled.
Tomas’s lips curled into a sneer. “Yeah, I knew you would come for her. That’s why I took her.”
Calico tipped his head to one side. “How the hell did you find her anyway?”
Tomas chuckled but there was no glee in his laughter. “It was by accident I saw her. If it wasn’t for her hair, I never would have known she was your kid.”
Calico hardly heard the words, as he looked her over for any injury. “Did they hurt you baby?” he asked softly.
Sawyer tried to shake her head but Tomas held her too tight.
He pressed the knife into her throat a bit harder. “I still hold all the cards, you bastard.” Tomas growled. “This isn’t over yet and I will stick this knife in her throat if you don’t do what I say.”
“It’s over Barrone,” Calico told him.
“You are willing to watch her die right here, right now?” Tomas goaded him.
“You willing to die right here, right now?” Calico asked in a cold voice.
Tomas laughed. “You may kill me here today but know if you try, she’ll be the first to die. I will have my revenge for Susan and my child, not to mention Jose.”
Sawyer felt his spittle drip from the corner of his mouth and land on her shoulder. She couldn’t even cringe, all she could do was stared into her father’s eyes. Then something else came into her consciousness. She could feel him. The man she’d spent the day in bed earlier with was nearby. She couldn’t see him or smell him but she knew he was there all the same. She felt a wave of something close to feeling safe again, wash through her and she calmed her fear.
Tomas must have felt her let go of her fear too, because he suddenly alerted to it. “What the fuck?” he swore under his breath as his hands gripped the knife tighter. He couldn’t look around without taking his eyes off Calico and he wasn’t willing to do that. Instead, he told the other man, “If you do anything wrong, I will kill her. I got nothing left to lose here.”
Calico just glared at him. Instead of speaking, he slowly raised his hand away from his sides and stare him in the eye. He was holding a bloody knife in one hand but he was holding it loosely.
No one moved closer to where Tomas stood with Sawyer.
Bastian crept up behind the pair. His footsteps were even and silent. Without making a sound, he pulled the knife from his pocket and flipped open the blade. Raising his hands, he found the spot on Tomas’s neck that would do the most damage. Pressing the tip of the knife into the other man’s skin, he leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
“Move your knife away from her slowly.”
Tomas started in shock. His breath left his lungs as the steel from the blade bit into his neck. He didn’t dare move. Then he snarled, “Release me or the girl is dead.”
“You’ll die before she does,” Bastian promised him. “My blade is sharper than yours and from where my blade is located it wouldn’t take much pressure to severe your spinal cord. When my blade slices through your spinal cord, you will lose all feeling in your body. You won’t know it but your bladder will release and you’ll piss your pants. You won’t feel it but you’ll shit yourself too.”
