Page 1 of Devil's Queen

REMY

“Stay the fuck down,or I’ll show you which part of your body my friend here will cut off first.” I press my boot tighter against his larynx until he chokes on his own spit and coughs before he can breathe again. He trembles so hard that I feel it radiating under my riding boot.

“Cat got your tongue, asshole?” Cheyenne coos at him. The ten-inch blade of the knife she’s holding glitters under the moonlight. She crouches down to the man, showing him the weapon. “They say you can gut a man with a knife like this.” She expertly twirls it in her hand. “Maybe I should test the theory.”

“No!” the man gasps under the pressure of my boot. He tries to squirm but stills when Cheyenne presses the knife to his throat. His lips press tightly together.

“That’s better now.” She smiles at him. Women like Cheyenne scare men into submission faster than I ever could with just my size and strength. Where I am lean, Cheyenne is built with muscle and grit courtesy of her mixed martial arts training and being the only female bounty hunter in Louisiana. Being scary kind of came with the territory. “What should we do with him?”

I shrug at her. “This guy deserves worse than a sore throat if you ask me.”

“I agree. Maybe I’ll take a pound of flesh for what he’s stolen.” Her knife cuts into the thin flesh of his neck. A trickle of blood trails onto the dirt beneath him.

The man tries to jerk away, but I press even more of my weight into him.

“Please,” his raspy voice begs for mercy, although he knows it’s a worthless request.

“Didn’t work the last two times you asked, but please do keep trying, Mr. Gacy,” I chastise him while increasing the pressure I have on his throat. The man writhes against my grip and releases a guttural sound from deep inside his chest as if he were an animal caught in the trap of a predator. “Where are the girls? They inside the house?”

He doesn’t answer at first. With a nod, Cheyenne digs her blade deeper, the blood flowing more freely from his throat.

“Yes,” he finally hisses. Cheyenne shifts, pressing her knee onto the small of his back.

“I’ve got this. Do what we came here to do.”

I turn to the rest of my club behind him, and with a nod, I signal them to move in on the house. Tinley, Maya, and Harlow move toward the front door, guns drawn. Harlow and Maya move to either side of it while Tinley turns her back toward the door. She rears back, and donkey kicks it twice. On the third attempt, the wooden door explodes off its hinges and slams against the wall. Harlow and Maya move in first with Tinley behind them. Time slows the longer they are inside.

We’d been lucky to find this place with it being so deep in the swamplands to the south of New Orleans. People who lived this far off the beaten path did so for a reason—to be away from people or hide. His reason is the latter.

“Please be alive,” I mutter to myself with a watchful eye on the front door. It had been two weeks since the girls went missing. The police had nothing to go on, but their mother didn’t give up on trying to find them, which brought her knocking on our door. If the law couldn’t find her girls, she didn’t really have a choice. We were her best and only option.

This case has been difficult, and I had to call in a favor to my stepbrother’s club, Heaven’s Rejects, for a little virtual assistance. With Raze’s blessing, it had taken my stepbrother Beau, who I affectionately call BoBo, much to his chagrin, over a week to track down this asshole. He watched cameras from the kidnapping and accessed dark web child pornography websites that still make my stomach turn just thinking about them, finally getting me a name.

William Gacy. A man with a rap sheet a mile long. Domestic abuse. Battery. Kidnapping. How this man isn’t still in prison for his crimes tells me just how badly our justice system needs an overhaul. This situation could have all been avoided had they kept his ass behind bars. Kidnapping is one of the most heartbreaking crimes to befall an innocent person. It is a crime that destroys families, rips communities apart, and makes people hold their loved ones closer than they had ever done before.

The sound of screams coming from the house draws my attention to the open doorway. Harlow and Tinley rush from the building, ushering out two young girls from the inside of the ramshackle swamp shack. Maya brings up the rear and nods to me.

The girls are visibly shaken, but that all changes when they see their mother where we had left her and her SUV near the driveway’s edge.

“Mama!” they cry when they see her and bolt away from Harlow and Tinley. The impact of their collision nearly knocks them all to the ground. I watch as their mom brushes their matted hair off their faces as they squeeze her tightly. Safe at last, away from their kidnapper after two weeks of hell. A collective sigh of relief from all of us finally coming to fruition with their safety. Both girls are dirty and bloody, but otherwise, look to be okay.

Tinley stays with the now-reunited family while Maya jogs over to me.

“How bad was it?” I ask, knowing damn well he didn’t kidnap them with good intentions.

“Worst I’ve seen. Those girls need medical care and food. They’ve been starved and beaten from the looks of it.”

“Did he?” I ask sheepishly, knowing that the answer isn’t one I want to hear.

“I don’t know.” The thought of what they could have been put through churns in my stomach. If he had, both of them would have a long road of recovery ahead of them, effectively changing the rest of their lives. But I can’t focus on that. I have to focus on the fact that they would have those lives to live now that they’re safe. “They need medical care.”

“Take them. Make sure the mother has her story straight.”

“I will, Prez. She knows the deal.”

One we’d made time and time again since the formation of our club. We do what the law can’t. We go where they won’t. We protect those who can’t protect themselves. Just as I had to do from my father’s club eight years ago. My past gives my life and club purpose in an ironic sort of way.

“What do you want to do with him, Prez?” Cheyenne smiles evilly as she lays a knee kick into his ribs. The man screams out in pain and writhes on the ground. “Men like this don’t deserve prison. Not after what he’s done.”

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