Snatched

SNATCHED

By

Sharon Cullars

Copyright © June 2012 by Sharon Cullars

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of the e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Printed in the
United States of America

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning

This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult
language
. The author's e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

Contact author at [email protected]

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my special beta readers Rhonda Scales and
Desireé
Dawson, without whose encouragement this story would have remained unfinished and tucked away somewhere in the drawer
s
of my mind where I keep all of my unfinished works.

CHAPTER 1

He'd been made.
All of his senses told him so, including the hairs standing on his flesh.
Still he had a job to do.
As
Dele
walked into the bar, he spotted
Rez
sitting
at the back table
.
The gang leader's eyes
casually
lifted
from the
Bowie
knife in his hand
as they locked
in
on
Dele
.
Clare, w
ho had
been
leaning over the table
yapping away
to a mute Rez
,
also
turned her gaze
on
Dele
and smiled widely
.
S
he
often
smiled
like that
when some poor creature was about to be clipped.
Just the other day, Rez deliberately
ran
his bike into a baby deer foraging near a clearing, several feet wide of the main road artery.
The
small body hurtled
into the air before smashing into the pavement, its head cracked open
, its eyes staring into nothing
ness
.
Rez yelped in victo
ry as he pumped his left fist into the air
leading the raucous crew behind him.
Death was an occasion of celebration for the
Demons
.

Dele
had ignored the
roiling bile in
his stomach
as he averted his eyes from the deer carnage
.
But now
Rez's murderous stare was aimed at him and he couldn't help but remember the wet slime of brain and blood left on the road
.
W
hether a helpless deer or a man, they were both fair game
as far as Rez was concerned
.
The rest of
the
gang
sat at
several
tables clustered together in the small bar
,
their
leather
or
jean clad limbs riding rickety chairs and tables,
bottles of
Budweiser
lifted, weed smoking up the place.
A kilo stash of
powder
sat in front of Roach ready to be inhaled.
Just a taste of the full inventory.
A chorus o
f smirks and smiles greeted him as Lynyrd Skynyrd's "On the Hunt," blared
from
the jukebox.

T
his
afternoon as they had trailed their bikes through the mountains,
Dele
had picked up on some bad vibes that had made his knuckles twitch.
The vibes were
even
strong
er
here
.
Still
he
strolled in as though it were any other after
noon at Jed's Bar & Grill, the
Demons
'
usual turf.
Jed was behind the bar, ignoring the scene
,
watching the overhead set whose volume
was turned down
.
The grizzled bar owner knew it
was healthier for him
not to notice too much
.

Dele
straddled one of the empty stools and Jed
pulled out a
beer
for him
, no charge.
Dele
opened the cold, sweaty bottle and took a swig, feeling the pairs of eyes drilling into his back.

"
Dele
!"

The summons came from the
rear
, as expected.
He
sat for a few seconds before
heeding
the call.
Keeping Rez waiting had its own consequences.

He headed to Rez's table, pulled
up
an extra chair and sat
down
.
Clare's
smeared lipstick bled onto a couple of upp
er teeth, giving her a vampiric
grin.
The grin and eyes were gleeful, sure of
Dele
's fate.
But then s
he had reason to dislike
Dele
ever since he'd thrown off her drunken advances.
That had been nearly four months ago
,
when he first joined
The
Demons
.

Or rather, when
he'd first gone undercover to link The
Demons
to a West Coast drug trafficking ring
that ran from
California
to
Washington
State
. He was also investigating the
several
bodies found buried in
Mojave Desert
.
He'd racked up enough evidence for the trafficking, but not a stitch on the murders of several rival gang members.

Still, the
office
had been about to pull him in.
Obviously not soon enough.
Shit.

The
Glock
he had taped to his back
had a full cartridge
.
But there was no way
he
could
possibly take everyone
down.
That would
take a small miracle.
No, make that a damn big miracle with the heavens opening up and Jesus himsel
f descending to whop some ass a
longside him.

Otherwise, he was a dead man.
He read that much in Rez's eyes.
The guitar twang coming through the nearby jukebox rang out
the
epitaph of a man
going down.
He didn't like Lynyrd Skynyrd, never had
ever since
his father used to
blast
it from
the
stereo
in their two by four shanty
.
That
was a long time ago,
before
Eric
aka
Dele
had
escaped his
Georgia
prison at seventeen
.

"
Dele
,
Dele
," Rez shook his head.
"Now, man, I can get with the idea of
taking sides, you know. In this world, you're either hot or cold
,
but you got to
make a choice
.
"

"Don't know what you're talking about, man."
Dele
took
another swig, his mind on his
Glock
.
He may go down, but he was taking a few of these
ass
holes with him.
And
at least they'd go down for murder this time
.

"I'm talking about loyalty or more specific, disloyalty
…to the family.
"

"
And how've I been disloyal…to the family?"

Dele
's hand gripped his bottle in a stranglehold
that
he wanted to put around Rez's neck.
The cold glass chilled through his fingers.

Rez's face had been indifferent up until this point.
Now anger blazed from his eyes, the irises black as coal.
Dele
had never seen anyone with jet black eyes until he met the gang leader.

"Don't fuck with me, man
!
Don't you fuck with me
!
I got
ten bags
missing, and Roach says he saw you in the supply house.
I wasn't never good with math, but I sure as hell can put two and two together.
You're copping my bags and doing some side trading.
You rob from me, you rob from all of us.
"

God
damn.
He hadn't been made after all, but he was sure to die if he didn't convince Rez that he wasn't the thief here.
And he didn't have to be good at math
either
to figure out who was setting him up.

He didn't turn around but his words were directed to Roach sitting near the front, probably already started on his treat.

"So Roach, when exactly did I take
the merchandise
?
"

"Man, you know it was you!
I saw you!
"
Roach yelled back, his words already slurring.

"If anyone took those bags, it definitely wasn't me.
After all, I'm not the one with the nasal habit."

The chair scraped back and
Dele
heard the sound of boots headed in his direction.
Then Roach was standing behind him.
A click.
A knife.

Dele's next
motio
n was quick and smooth from
years of police training.
One moment Roach had the knife to
Dele
's throat.
It shook, as did Roach's hand.
Too much snuff, not enough grit.
Dele snatched the knife, at the same time his elbow plowed into the fleshy part of Roach's stomach.
Roach doubled over with the sudden pain, and the roles were reversed as Dele held the knife against the man's neck.

"Now, we're going to tell Rez the truth about what happened to the drugs, man, aren't we?"

Roach's high
had
given him momentary courage, but that was quickly remedied by the feel of the blade.
He might fear what Rez would do to him, but he couldn't be sure he wasn't going to die at Dele's hands either.