Page 1 of Puma's Pride

CHAPTER ONE: PUMA

“This fucking sucks.” I gripe as Pete takes the tractor trailer around another corner. I never realized how hard it is to stand inside a moving vehicle until I find myself jostled around like a ball on a trampoline.

“Sit down before you topple over like a Redwood.” Dante snarks at me.

I scowl at Dante but don’t sit. He may be my President but I want to be ready when we stop. Dante, Chaos, Scar and I are all inside the trailer heading for the rendezvous with Gareth Standish, his son, Gerard, and Colin Chambers. They’re expecting Tally, Evie, Caitlin and Kingsley when they open the trailer door. But they’re getting us instead. We need to be ready and I’d rather not get caught sitting on my ass when we stop.

“Feral said we’re driving through the gate now.” Dante adds. Feral is up in the cab with Pete, but he’s hiding in the sleeper. He and Pete drove the distance from San Diego to Chicago, taking turns so they could arrive early. We used the extra time to set up this ambush, with the help of our Chicago Chapter.

Chrome and his men worked overtime preparing for this day. He enlisted the help of other MC’s in the state as well as a few gangs who don’t condone human trafficking. Once we’re done with this op, every facet of Standish’s operation will cease to exist. The plan is a simple one. Once they open the trailer, expecting to find four, terrified and broken women, they’ll find us. Chrome and his men have the meeting place surrounded and they’ll close in and capture everyone. The goal is to take it all without a shot fired, but if one of the perverts gets shot, well I won’t be feeling any remorse.

The truck comes to a stop so we all get in position. We’re all aware that Pete may be in the middle of the upcoming ambush. He’d done us a solid by agreeing to drive the truck, once he discovered his boss had him transporting women without his knowledge. He has a wife and daughters, so he was understandably appalled to find the women trapped inside. He agreed to help us set the bastards up. He knew how close he came to either dying by our hands or convicted of human trafficking if the cops stopped him. We don’t want him to be a casualty, so we’ll take care to not shoot him.

The trailer doors open and we’re in luck. Standish and his son are looking at Pete, listening to him tell a story about almost getting pulled over. Pete played his part perfectly by opening the door and stepping to the side, out of the way. Colin is the first person to see us, but he barely gets out a squeak when all three of them find no less than a dozen guns pointed at them. Demon Dawgs surround the truck yard, leaving our targets nowhere to run.

“How the fuck did you get in there?” Gareth sputters as Chrome’s SOA and Chill zip tie their hands behind their back.

“Standish and little Standish, good to see you both again. You left town without saying goodbye, very rude.” Dante says with a malicious grin that he then turns on Colin. “You must be Colin, my future brother-in-law. Let me congratulate, you’re going to become an uncle soon. Of course you won’t be around to enjoy it.”

“You’re telling me my sister is a whore?” Colin sneers. “I already knew it.”

Dante calmly steps up to Colin, so close that Colin either has to raise his chin to see him or stare at Dante’s chest. When Colin makes eye contact, Dante slams his fist into Colin’s gut. The air whooshes out of him as he doubles over with pain. Dante steps to the side in time to avoid Colin spewing all over his boots.

“You don’t look very bright.” I tell Colin who glares at me. “Tally and Caitlin are fucking goddesses. You are a piece of shit. Amazing really that you share DNA.”

“Must be the extra X chromosome.” Chaos adds. “Makes all the difference.”

I nod in agreement. “Must be. So I’ll dumb this down for you. You are about to spend three days riding in the back of this trailer all the way back to San Diego. Now you have a choice. You can either ride back in the shape you’re in now, or you can ride back with several broken bones.”

“You’re a doctor.” Scar takes on the narrative. “So you can imagine the pain you can experience if you piss us off enough to start breaking those bones.”

“We’re not riding in there!” Gareth protests. He has enough sense to cower when Dante turns his attention to him.

“Accommodations aren’t good enough for you?” Dante asks, his voice spooky soft. “Well too fucking bad.”

“As Puma said, you have a choice. Riding with or without broken bones. We have some questions for you. For every question you don’t answer, we break a bone. For every one you do, we don’t. See? Simple?”

“Oh, and in case you’re thinking about lying to us.” Dante cuts in. “We already know some of the answers, so you try to fuck with us…” He leaves the threat hanging as Chrome joins us.

“You!” Gerard snaps, glaring at Chrome.

“Yeah, me.”

“But you work for us.”

“I can’t help it if you fuckers don’t bother vetting the companies you hire. Dumb shits.” Chrome replies. “Now, give us the details about every auction house and brothel you have.”

In the end, each of the three men sported two broken fingers and at least one cracked rib. We had confirmation on every target we needed to find and shut down. Chrome and the army he put together left us to take care of that task, leaving us with our prisoners. Chrome has one of his men take Pete to the O’Hare so he can fly home first class. Feral and Ghost are driving our prisoners back to San Diego. Chaos and Scar use their knives to strip the men down to the underwear while Chill collects their phones and wallets. None of them are carrying weapons.

“You won’t get away with this.” Gerard spits at Dante. “I got away once, I’ll get away again. We have friends. Friends that will destroy your stupid club.”

“Shut up!” Gareth snaps at his son.

“Are you talking about the men who are waiting for our women at the playground you created?” Dante asks and grins when Gareth pales. “Yeah, we know about that, too. We have eyes on it. Once all the men are inside, we’re blowing it up. Make it seem like you led them all into a trap. Probably a good thing we’re getting you out of Chicago, huh? Get them inside.”

“Since you went to so much trouble to create this prison, we figure somebody ought to get some use out of it.” Chaos tells them as he and I drag the men to the back of the trailer. As we’re carrying Gareth, one of the phones dings. I glance at Dante who’s studying it. His expression is murderous.

“My mother-in-law wants to know if her daughters made it safely.” Dante growls, glaring at the three men who at least have the sense to cower under the heat of it. “So she knew of your plan? What was supposed to happen? Was she supposed to meet you?”

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