Authors: Rie Warren
VIVIAN? VIXXXY?
WHAT?
Hands out in front of me, I rounded the doorway. My eyesight went full radar mode, my body on high alert, every cell humming with danger.
Veronica stood in the shadows, trapped in front of a big man who winched a forearm around her windpipe. That forearm was marked in ink, and the muscles stood out as he fractionally tightened his grip.
“I never told you the truth!” V gasped.
“Let her fucking go now.” The words broke free of my tight lips like shredded bullets.
“Nah.” The extra long barrel of a hushed HK appeared, aimed at her temple. “See, I been after Vixxxy for almost ten years now, since she turned federal witness against the MC.” The man caressed the soft skin of her cheek with the muzzle of his Heck. The touch was sickeningly tender as his nails-and-saws voice softened a notch. “You don’t know your lady half as well as I do.”
He reached down and cupped her mound in a rough grasp.
Rage fired in my veins. “
Do not touch her again
.”
Lifting his hand, the man snickered. “What you gonna do ’bout it, Marine?”
I did not let my shock show. I’d been in worse scenarios, just never with my woman involved, my woman the target.
“That’s right. I know all about you and
Doctor Hartley
here. Got me a whole dossier on the two of you.” He kissed the top of her head. “She’s good in bed, yeah? A fucking wildcat in the sheets.”
“Bo, I—”
“Shut up, bitch.” He slapped her face with a loud blow.
“Get your fucking hands off her.” I barreled forward, slamming the man from the side.
He grunted, his arm still locked around V’s throat.
Crouching low, I pummeled his lower back, aiming kidney-level.
With a deep hiss he spun her face to face with me, her hair fisted hard in his hand.
“
Uh unh.
You don’t wanna come at me anymore, soldier boy.” The Heck waved warningly at Veronica’s T zone.
Curling up to my feet, I stepped back.
“I will goddamn kill you in the worst possible way if anything happens to her.” My steel-plated voice splintered through the pitch black room.
“I’m probably gonna get killed either way, so you ain’t got no bargaining chips. I got one last job to do, and I’m gonna make sure Vixxxy here doesn’t give her final testimony against Saul. You? You’re gonna sit your ass down in that chair”—the man stepped out of the darkness into a shaft of light beaming through the window—“until we leave, unless you want me to drill a bullet into her brain right here in front of you.”
No choice but to comply with the man’s demands, I dropped into the seat. Craning forward, I watched every move he made, noted every spot he placed his hands on V, and vowed to slice him apart limb from limb.
With Veronica wrenched in front of him, the man backed toward the door. His features were indistinct. A skull-cut, tats on his chin and cheeks, the bulky man looked like the devil himself. I snarled at him. The devil would be no match for me once we were on even ground.
Just before he pulled her out the door, I shouted, “Veronica! You stay alive, goddammit!”
He muffled her reply with a hand wrapped around her mouth.
“By the way, Marine.” He turned his head. “Follow us and you’ll be bagging her innards from the side of the road.”
I slammed my head back, counting the seconds, listening to their footsteps—his pounding and loud, hers hesitant and off kilter.
I will kill him. I will kill him. I will kill that motherfucker until he’s dead ten thousand times over.
As soon as the front door banged shut, I shot off the chair. I leaped down the stairs, throwing the door wide open. Taillights disappeared at the end of her street. I managed to tag the last three letters on the license plate. Not that it mattered. The vehicle would’ve been stolen and would be quickly ditched.
Back inside, I turned the place over for clues to V’s past.
When I came up empty, I dialed Hunter
.
“I have a serious situation.”
The man came instantly up to speed. “SITREP?”
“It’s V. They’ve got her.”
“V? You mean Ronnie?” I heard rustling sheets, a low murmuring voice—JB—then Hunter, back online. “What the hell is going on, Bo?”
“She’s a fucking federal witness, and she’s just been grabbed from her house.”
“Hang on. What?”
“Exactly what I said.” I moved through the rooms of Veronica’s house one last time.
“You want me to call in Walker?” Hunter asked.
“No. Yes. No. Do it.” I was walking circles around myself.
Hunter’s silent partner only put his life on the line if there was something to gain. Then again, he was one motherfucking deadly operative.
“Are you calling backup?”
“Killian might be stateside.”
Fuck. I hope Kill is stateside.
“Slade?”
“Yeah.” My first sergeant. My good friend. The man who’d been with me at the very end.
“Reconvene at Retribution zero three hundred.”
“I don’t want to wake anyone up.” I rubbed my knuckles against my forehead.
“But it’s okay to fuck up my R&R with Jessica?” Hunter gave a low laugh. “Those dudes helped me out of a dicey situation. We’ll get Ronnie back, Bo.”
Damn if Retribution wasn’t all ablaze when I roared up in the middle of the night. I’d locked down V’s house after a last lengthy snoop that turned up nothing and then hauled ass to the MC.
Inside, the usual suspects looked no worse for wear. The clubhouse had been cleared out of all but the officers, who stood present and accounted for. Steaming cups of coffee instead of double shots of alcohol made the rounds. Brodie and Boomer Steele—the VP and Prez. Tuck, the grandfather treasurer. Tail, road captain. Handsome—who was looking less scarecrow and more beefed up.
Coletrane lounged beside them. He wasn’t an officer.
I slid a look to Hunter.
His gold-yellow eyes glowed. “He’s a crack hand at intel.”
“Walkin’ talkin’ Google.” Brodie rapped big silver rings on the bar top.
Cole snorted, swallowing another swig of liquid caffeine.
“Would you rather I call you
Bing
?” Brodie asked.
“Cole will do.”
“Okay, Probie 1.0.”
“Eat me.”
“I prefer pussy, not that you aren’t one.”
Everyone chuckled during the moment of levity, but it didn’t last long.
“What do you know?” Hunter leveled his stare on me.
I relayed everything I’d witnessed from the first time I’d seen V’s obvious MC back piece to the moment she’d been kidnapped.
“Yeah. You know enough to be dangerous.” Hunter slid a shot to me. Apparently I was in worse shape than I thought. “Drink that and get it together.”
The vodka burned a trail down to my empty stomach.
As soon as I slapped the glass down, Hunter placed himself between me and the other guys. “We’re taking this outside.”
Outside the sky was dark, and Hunter and I stood like black shadows in the parking lot.
Hunter hit me in the crosshairs of his eyes. “What else is cutting you up?”
“You piss me off, Doctor Phil.”
“That’s a good one. What else?”
“I’m in love with her.” The loss of Veronica was right there, in my chest, where everything turned hollow without her.
“Hurts, don’t it?”
“Like a bitch.” I laid out the whole truth. “I didn’t tell her. She was trying to break it off with me because I needed more—
Jesus.
I needed all of her, and I knew she was hiding shit. This shit!
“I let her be taken away from me. I didn’t even tell her what she means to me.”
“Did you try to stop the guy?” Hunter asked.
“Roughed him up a little. Didn’t have my blades though.” My nostrils flared and I gritted my teeth. “Couldn’t stop him. He threatened to kill her right in front of my eyes.”
“Then you didn’t let her go without a fight. And the fight ain’t over yet.” He narrowed his gaze. “If there’s one thing about Ronnie? She isn’t stupid. She knows how you feel about her. Now what are you gonna do about it?”
“I don’t know how.”
He slung an arm around my neck. “The fuck you don’t. Follow the trail.”
“They’ll kill her if we’re not prepped, and I don’t even know where to start to locate her.”
“Follow the other trail. Use your instincts.”
THE OTHER TRAIL LED me back to V’s house while the guys at Retribution hit up the Internet, trying to connect what little I knew about Veronica to the soon-to-be-dead asshole who’d stolen her right out from under my nose.
I staked out V’s place, slouching inside my truck, as dawn turned to day. I managed to keep my twitchy nerves at a low hum and refused to think about where she’d been taken, what her captors were doing to her.
She’d been missing almost twelve hours when a sleek black unmarked sedan drew up in front of her house.
Bingo.
And so fucking obvious. If it looked like a Feeb, dressed like a Feeb, and drove a black unmarked . . .
yeah.
That.
The tall lean man in the dark gray suit unfolded his frame from inside the car. He’d be fit from training but not as in shape as me. Plus, the suit. Sissy pants probably didn’t want to cause a wrinkle by getting in a fistfight.
I exited my truck and followed softly behind him without making a sound as he strode up V’s steps. A quick fiddle-jiggle with some concealed picking tools later, he creaked the door open.
As soon as he entered, I charged. I was on him before he could even close the door, slamming him face first against the wall.
“I’ve been compro—”
I grabbed hold of the back of his head with one hand and locked my forearm around the front of his throat. “You even think about calling this in, I’ll snap your neck.”
He dropped his wrist with the oh-so-sneaky transmitter.
Not
.
“You tapped?” I asked.
“No.”
Cranking his neck with more force, I heard his breath grow weedy. “Why should I believe you?”
“I’m looking for Ronnie Hartley.” His voice grated out, roughened from the headlock I had him in.
“Funny. Someone else came lookin’ for her last night. And he got her.” I kicked the door shut and shoved him into the closest room, V’s sitting room.
With a quick pat down, I disarmed him of a series of boring government-issued guns, his watch transmitter, and his cell phones one and two.
I waved him into a chair with one of his service weapons held in my hand. “You’re an agent. I’m assuming you’re Ronnie’s handler, and you’re too late to save her so you’re going to help me find her. I want to know everything.”
The agent looked at me from cool bland eyes and a blank face. “I don’t know who you are. I can’t compromi—”
Forcing the man back in his seat with two hands latched onto his shoulders, I snarled in his face. “Look”—reaching down I flipped open his badge—“Jenkins. You say compromised one more time I’m gonna
compromise
your airway with my fist shoved down your throat. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”
After a quick flash of fear in his eyes, he dialed down the emotions and hashed out, “Fuck you.”
“Final chance or I’ll just break your neck.” Instead of going for his throat as promised, I tossed one of his cell phones at him. “Call me in if you want to know who I am and what I’m capable of. I don’t give a fuck. Captain Bo Maverick. Force Recon.”
After readjusting his sharp suit, he placed a call. His piercing gaze never deviated from me as he spoke and listened to the responses.
I held my hand out when he finished the call, and he placed the phone in my palm.
“Assuming you are who you claim to be, what’s Doctor Hartley to you?”
“Veronica Hartley—or Vivian—is my woman. She’s
my
responsibility. Now do you have the balls to do the right thing and help me find her or not?”
Jenkins hesitated.
Squatting down in front of him, I went for pure honesty. “I’m gonna find her one way or the other. When I do, I’m taking out the threat against her.” I raised my eyes, as close to pleading as I’d ever been. “I’ll be saving your ass and the federal prosecution’s trial. So why don’t you suck it up and give me the intel.”
“What do you know about the trial?”
“I know Veronica’s due to stand witness in a few weeks—she told me she had to go away then. That isn’t going to happen if we don’t get her back, is it? And some Saul dude will walk free.”
“Fuck.” Jenkins’s shoulders slumped with defeat. “Fuck!”
“Yeah. Exactly.” I pulled a chair closer to his and lowered into it. “So start talkin’.”
“You can’t let her die.” The man peered at me.
“I have no intention to.”
Jenkins worked a hand through his short salt-and-pepper hair. His lips twitched almost like he wanted to smile. “I wasn’t her first minder. She gave the slip to her agent one too many times. Landed him in hot water.”
“Yeah, I can imagine that.”
“Redheads, you know?”
We both chuckled, but my laughter stuck in my throat.
“You didn’t alter her appearance,” I muttered.
“Like I said. She was,
is
, a tough cookie. After I was assigned to her, she learned how to keep a low profile. She got her life together. The government paid for her education and placed her here, but her career is all her own work. We figured it was quiet enough she couldn’t get into too much trouble.” Jenkins lifted an eyebrow in my direction.
“Don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with this.”
“You might be a marine, but you’re also MC. Should’ve known she’d never get free of the lifestyle.”
A shiver raced down my spine. “How old was she when whatever it was happened?”
“Twenty. She’s spent nine years as an outlaw from her own life. The thing is, she comes from a good family. Caring people. They don’t know what happened to her, and she can’t contact them.”
“Jesus Christ.” Everything about V started making sense. The tat on her back, the comments she’d made about my folks and siblings, the little slip-ups about her past that had told me basically nothing at all.
She’d recreated herself. Made a whole new life. And she could never go home.
“Back then she was Vivian Young. She probably wasn’t ever a good wholesome girl, but she’d been brought up right. She just got hooked on motorcycles and tough guys when she was seventeen.”
I rubbed my hands down my cheeks. I fit that description to a T. “Go on.”
“It didn’t take long for Saul Kosnik, the president of Iron Coffins, to make her his old lady soon as she turned legal.”
“Iron Coffins? They were all over the news when the bust went down in Santa Fe.” The ATF . . . meth . . . more than one public shoot-out. Original one-percenters. And now I knew where I’d seen her ink before.
OMG. Not Oh My God, but Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. Fucking hell.
“They had the drug and gun trade nailed shut up and down New Mexico, working with their Mexican counterparts on the other side of the border.” Jenkins sat back with his arms crossed over his chest. “The overlord had his woman. They were living it up for a long time. Until a double sting operation when the DEA teamed up with the ATF. It was a clean sweep from both sides when they tightened the net.”
“V was caught in the middle of it?”
“Veronica was the second suspect. She was one of Saul’s prime dealers,” he said.
“Fucking hell.” I rocked back in my chair.
“She was smart though. Got a lawyer, turned evidence. It was her first offence, officially, after all. Turned herself over to us.”
“For safe handling.” I jumped up and paced. “And you fucked up. Where the hell is she now?”
“Iron Coffins is now Iron Nails. They relocated to Jacksonville, Florida. That’s where I’d start.”
“How the hell did they find her?” I asked.
“It’s not that hard. Ronnie’s smart, but she started getting sloppy.”
Guilt punched me in the gut. “Because of me?”
“It’s better for a witness to remain unattached.”
“I’m low profile.”
“Not judging by your Medal of Honor,” he said. He’d obviously gotten more information on me during his quick phone call than I’d realized.
Yeah, I had a medal, received in full ceremony. Meanwhile, V had a history full of secrets and mysteries, and the only thing that mattered now was getting her back.
I scraped a hand across my jaw, fighting off fatigue and futility. “If I give you a description of the man who grabbed her, you think you can ID him? Because he’s first on my black toe tag list.”
I started telling Jenkins what I’d seen. Two seconds later he stopped me.
“Billy the Barber.”
“Barber?” My gorge rose in my throat.
“He . . . uh . . .” He smoothed down his tie and fidgeted with his cuffs. “He uses an old-fashioned straight razor. He likes to scalp his victims.”
“Not her. Not V.” My jaw turned stony hard. “You got blueprints on the place or any plans of the compound?”
Jenkins complied, emailing me what he had. We walked outside, the bright May
sunlight like a slap in the face reminding me how many hours I’d lost trying to track down V.
“Have her contact me?” he asked.
“Not fucking likely. Once this is done, she’s free.”
“She’ll still need to testify.”
“And then she is
done.
Allowed to live her life.”
He held out his hand, and I grasped it.
“You could have a career with the government, Bo.”
“Yeah. That ain’t gonna happen again. Been there. Not going back.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” A rush of heat swept over us when he opened his car door.
“More than you do. And you better call off any agents you have on or inside Iron Nails because I have my own team. When we go in, it’s gonna be fast and hard, and I do not want to deal with federal jurisdiction bullshit.”
“That’s not legal.”
“Maybe not. But it is how we save lives.”
Veronica’s life.
“Wait.” Jenkin’s eyes skewered me. “Who’s on your team?”
I smiled with an evil sneer. “People you only wish were on the government payroll.”