Page 48 of Pike
The sooner I got to Steel City and handled the Ghost Riders, the sooner I could get back to Chloe and Gemma. But thirty miles from Vegas, that unease became reality when I spotted the black muscle car trying to keep its distance on the deserted highway. At first, I thought it was just another car on the road, maybe a traveler trying to avoid daytime traffic, but when I sped up the black car sped up to keep me within his sights and when I hit my brakes, they slowed down too, as if theywanted to keep a certain amount of distance between me and them. It was too fucking consistent to be a coincidence.
I scanned the road in search of a quick exit, anything that would allow me to put more distance between us. I sped up through a curve and went full throttle, hoping to get off the highway and take an alternate route and lose them for good, but the car kept up.
Stupid fuck that I am, I was too focused on the black car that I didn’t see the real threat until it was too late.
A glint of light flickered on the side of the road, just off the shoulder. A man crouched down near the brush that was too small to conceal him completely. That’s when I saw it, the rifle resting on his shoulder.
“Shit.” I made a rookie mistake, hitting the gas and locking up my brakes so that the fucking bike went down. Asphalt tore through my jeans and then my skin, and I bit back a groan. My shoulder screamed like a motherfucker and my ribs burned as I rolled to a stop.
But I didn’t stay down. Didn’t think.
I couldn’t. Hesitation in this instant was certain death.
Adrenaline pumped through me, and I jumped to my feet, charging the bastard on the side of the road with his gun aimed my way. He squeezed the trigger, the sound echoed in the empty desert a second before it grazed my shoulder. That didn’t slow me down, I was too fucking pissed off to stop, and I took that anger and slammed into him as hard as I could. On top of that asshole, my fists rained down on him even as my shoulder screamed in pain.
The fight was a blur of arms and fists, slamming and blocking, grunts and groans as we beat the fuck out of each other. I was angry and that anger caused me to make another mistake. I was too focused on one asshole to worry about the others.
Hands grabbed my shoulders. Boots slammed into my sides. A fist pounded against the side of my head. It was a beatdown and I could take that shit like a champ, but then a bag fell over my head, plunging me into darkness.
The familiar zip of plastic ties tightened around my wrists before my arms were raised. I kicked out at the attackers I couldn’t see, but there was nothing there, just concrete beneath the heels of boots as my body was dragged and then lifted in the air before my back hit the cold, hard metal that I knew instinctively was a van, even before the door slid shut.
My heart raced but I refused to show any hint of doubt or fear, knowing these motherfuckers—the Ghost Riders, no doubt—would use it against me. I kept my breathing slow and even, trying like hell to count the turns and listen to any familiar sounds, hell I even tried to count out the minutes to figure out how far we’d gone.
To figure out where the fuck they were taking me.
But despite the fact that they were stupid fucks, they knew what they were doing. This wasn’t their first kidnapping, and they made sure to keep me confused and disoriented. One asshole shouted nonsense in my ear while loud metal music blasted from the speaker beside me. Someone kept fucking touching me to keep me out of sorts. There was no rhythm to it, nothing but complete and total fucking chaos.
When the vehicle finally came to an abrupt stop, I couldn’t say if I was back in Steel City, Red Rock, or somewhere else altogether.
Two sets of arms hooked around my shoulders and dragged me from the van. My boots slammed on the ground and then dragged again, but I noticed that gravel broke up the flat cement. Instead of freaking out, I tried to calm myself down, the way I used to when my folks were high and fighting, destroying the apartment. That’s when I noticed other shit, the smell of motor oil and that slightly rusted scent of old metal. The metallic scent of blood, a large quantity of blood, ran underneath all the other smells.
The zip ties were cut but I couldn’t see fuck all so there was no point making a move. Yet. But then I felt the cool touch of metal against my skin, wrapping around my wrists and even before the clanking of metal tore through the air, I knew what was happening. Chains bound me, dragged me up in the air until my feet dangled freely beneath me.
My shoulder burned like a son of a bitch and my ribs throbbed enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I kept my fucking mouth shut.
I let them think I was broken. Defeated.
I pushed away all thoughts of my MC. Of Chloe and Gemma. Of Ashley. I shoved it all down deep and focused on the moment. The sounds and the smells, so that I could come up with a way out of this shit.
A door opened and then closed in the distance, followed by footsteps, heavy and slow. And then I heard the voice of the man who I didn’t know until recently but was now my sworn enemy. “Look at what the fuck we caught.” Amusement coloredhis voice, but I didn’t react. Vendetta was an asshole, but he also loved the sound of his own voice, thought he was always the smartest motherfucker in every room.
He was the new President of the Ghost Riders MC, the one who thought shooting his way into power made him king. It wasn’t a way to earn loyalty and as soon as I got the chance, I’d use that shit against him.
The hood still covered my eyes, but I heard his slow, heavy-booted steps circling me below like a goddamn vulture. But the more he walked, the more details came into focus. Concrete floors and the sound of cars and trucks in the distance said we were in a garage or warehouse, so not in the city proper.
“Been waiting a long time for this, Pike.” I didn’t need to see his ugly mug to know he was smiling. “Pretty fuckin’ stupid of you, traveling alone right now.”
He wasn’t wrong but I said nothing.
He snatched off the hood eventually, his need to get a rise out of me was building. “I was sorry to hear about your sister.” He smacked his lips and shook his head as if he was really fucking sorry. “It didn’t have to go down like it did.”
He thought he could rile me up, but he was wrong. I was still angry as fuck about Ashley’s death, and I knew I’d never stop grieving her, but I also knew that my goal for the foreseeable future was vengeance.
Vendetta’s nostrils flared, angry that he wasn’t getting a reaction out of me. “Funny how she never said a word, never gave us what we wanted.” He flashed a devious smile, getting off on reliving this shit. “She begged a little but only at the very end.She never gave up the little girl,” he said with a hint of pride. “Too bad it didn’t save her.”
Yeah, too fucking bad. My hands curled into fists above me, more to keep some feeling in my hands than suppress my anger. “That’s what this is about,” I asked, my tone incredulous. “Revenge because the big man can’t get his hands on a little girl?”
He stopped in front of me, his jaw clenched tight. “This is a message.”
