The door is unlocked as well, and the car starts dinging when I open it, showing the keys are still in the ignition. I grab them out, then gather Everly’s purse and phone, moving quickly back to my bike. I stow them before jumping on and roaring down the street, heading back towards town to find my girl.
A little over two miles later, I see the dark outline of a car pulled off into an unused driveway. The owners of the place abandoned it about ten years ago and no one uses it. At least not for legal purposes.
There’s no hiding the roar of the bike, so I don’t even try. Instead, I kick it higher, flying up the street as the moonlight reflects off the lights on top of the cop car. No fucking way am I not checking this out. If the cops were just sitting out here waiting to give tickets, they’d try to run me down in a flash. They’d love to put any of my guys in jail and if they got me…they’d throw a fucking parade.
Hell, they came looking for answers when Hinton and the others disappeared, but after the rest of my brothers backed me up against the few that’d tried to jump me for killing him, no one would dare utter a single word. Hinton and the handful of guys that were looking forward to getting rich off that shit are all scattered around the woods back beyond where our clubhouse is. No one goes out there, so no one’s coming across any shallow grave. Not that there’s likely any grave left after the animals went and scavenged the area. Which is precisely why we left the remains out where we did.
There’s not a single flicker of light coming from the car and I turn down the driveway, knowing whatever the fucking hell they’re doing, isn’t their job. I slam on the brakes, spraying gravel over the car, and I finally see a head pop up from the front of the cruiser. It’s outside it and I put down the kickstand, hopping off, and the sound of a scream comes to my ears. It’s muffled, but not by my helmet or the roar of my bike as I shut it off. No, that’s the muffling of someone’s hand against a mouth and I’ll kill the bastard if it’s on my Everly.
One of the pricks from the squad car comes my way but before he reaches me, I get a flash of long red curls as a scream breaks the into the quiet of the night. It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull and I lay out the cop with a single punch. No way do they have their dash cam recording and the town’s too corrupt to begin to get them body cams, which means I can do whatever the hell I want to them, and no one is going to know it.
I quickly make my way towards the bastard that pulls Everly up, letting me see her tear-streaked face, the way the buttons on her top are popped open, the fabric that’s ripped, but what pisses me off the most is the red shaped handprint on her face. I’m twice her size, a good fourteen inches taller than her little five-four height, which is also at least half a foot taller than the idiot that touched what’s mine. Meaning I have a hell of a lot longer reach than he does, and I can easily grab his neck without him landing a punch to me.
In his attempt to fight back against me, his hold on Everly loosens, and I move quickly, gently guiding her behind me while moving towards the dead bastard. He squawks as I cut off his air, his hands trying to claw free of my grip but all he gets are my gloves. I hold on until his eyes are rolling backwards, then drop him against the hood of the car to get my girl.
“Everly,” I call out, turning to check on her as well as ensure the other asshole isn’t back up yet. I almost fall over her, surprised that she’s so close, and yet, I love that she’s right there, staying by me. That she knows I’ll keep her safe. “It’s okay, baby,” I assure her, seeing the fright still in her gorgeous green eyes. “They’ll never touch you again. Did they hurt more than your pretty little face?”
She lets out a little gasp, sucking in a deep breath but I’m not about to back off now. The only way to keep the rest of her light from dimming is to ensure it’s always protected, which means keeping her entirely safe and secure. That’s only going to happen with her next to me, destroying anything and anyone that threatens her, her peace.
“Baby, I need you to answer me. If they…raped you,” I force out, the mere thought of it enough to make me want to rip off their dicks and choke them with them.
“No…they said they were going to, but you got here just in time,” my girl answers me, and I pull her into my chest, holding the back of her head as to calm my own racing heart. “I don’t know how…” she starts to add, and I lift her face to mine, so I can see her eyes.
“I saw your car off on the side of the road. Saw the flat, then your stuff still inside it. I knew you hadn’t passed me on the road headed towards your place, knew it didn’t make sense to leave your bag behind, and I caught sight of the car pulled off here. I wasn’t about to let anyone hurt you if I could stop it. Your stuff is in my bag on the bike. Let me take care of these bastards. You be a good girl and stay with the bike.”
“Take care of them? How?” she asks, tensing when the one closer to the bike lets out a groan.
“Depends on how they respond. If they plan to get the fuck out of town or if they think they can touch what’s mine again without consequence,” I tell her, making her brows scrunch together not understanding. “You, Everly. You’re mine.”
“Do you mean that?” she asks, and I cup her face, giving her quick kiss to show just how much. “Tate…” she moans when I pull back, making my cock ache like mad, but I turn her behind me and catch the end of the baton the bastard who’s now up swung towards us. With the way it comes down, if I hadn’t moved Everly, it’d have hit her straight over the head, and that ends any possible outcome other than death for him now.
I land a kick to his gut, putting him down on his knees, and land a swift hit across his face with the baton, sending him back down to the ground. “Go to my bike, baby. I have some garbage that needs composted.”
“Should I call anyone?” she asks me, shooting a quick glance towards the other asshole that’s out cold at the front of the car still.
“Not for this. I take care of what’s mine and what’s threatening what’s mine myself. Stay next to my bike and if anyone comes by, hide behind it. If it’s not one of my guys, I want you to get to those trees there as fast as you can, after yelling as loud as you can for me,” I tell her, nodding towards the thick copse of trees that edge the property.
“I’ll make this as quick as I can,” I promise, giving her another quick kiss, before grabbing the handcuffs from the jerks, and cuff them. The one I choked out rouses, jerking backwards, trying to get away from me, but I pull his belt that I’d wrapped around his throat tight, keeping him from going anywhere.
“Pick up your shitty friend and move your ass,” I instruct, one hand on the end of the belt, the other holding his gun on him. The other guy’s is in the back of my jeans. Neither idiot is carrying a drop gun because they think it won’t matter if they kill someone with their department issued ones, whether they’re in the right or not, so it’s just their patrol weapons and I know a lot of guys that’ll pay top money for a cop’s service weapon.
Another jerk on the belt has him listening and I motion him forward, deeper into the tall grass that’s taken over the drive and on towards the barn. He struggles the entire way there with his friend’s heavier weight, and I give him a sinister chuckle when he drops the fucker onto the concrete ground inside the barn.
“Get on your fucking knees,” I order, grabbing the chain and toss it over one of the beams. The barn’s in better condition than the house, so I have no worries that it’ll come crashing down.
I loop the chain through his cuffed arms, tying the belt in some of the links, then pull upwards on it, straining both his arms and his neck, before landing a direct hit to his balls, making him scream.
“You’re fucking dead when we get out of here. You and that stupid fucking bitch! I was going to be gentle with her, but now…I’m going to make her bleed,” he claims, the dumbest possible thing he could ever say, because I was just going to kill him. Now…now, I’m going to make it hurt even more.
“The only ones bleeding tonight, will be you and your fucking partner. No one’s going to know what happened to you. Your car’s going to disappear, and it’ll take them months, maybe years to find you because you fuckers never have your GPS turned on, so you can’t be tracked.” His eyes finally show fear as I speak, but I’m just getting started now.
He struggles and calls out for his partner, while I look through the items that were left behind, a smirk settling on my lips when I find a cattle prod—two of them actually. One’s electric and appears to have been left on the charger, the indicator lights telling me the barn still has power somehow, which will only make this better. The other is a metal poker, and I take both of them with me along with the old dog chain—the kind that’s a choke chain with spikes for the Dobermans the family used to have. There’s a field machete on a hook that I take as well, letting it swing as I get back into the asshole’s view.
He gulps in a breath, stopping his painful struggles against the chain, as I near him, setting the other items aside, and I quickly use the machete to turn his clothes to rags. His pants are barely two strips underneath his legs, and I turn the blade onto his partner, not caring if I cut them, just making sure it’s not too deep if I do.
I toss the choker around the other’s neck, holding onto the end tightly, then set the electric cattle prod against the jerk’s balls and give him a zap. It brings him awake, pushing up and away from me, which just makes the choker dig into his throat.
“What the hell? You sick fuck,” he screams seeing the state of his and his partner’s clothes, and I give the choker another pull. It makes his words stop, just a pained cry in it’s place as his hands lift, trying to get the choker off him.