Della nodded.“I do.And it may come to that.”
Saint smiled.“Not on my watch, not on my watch.If they come looking for you, they will meet resistance that’s for sure.”He opened the door and ushered them inside.
The rest of his brothers were all there along with Lucifer and Demon.All of them looked up when they came inside and several of them had their arms crossed over their chests.
Della swallowed hard and stepped back against Snake.
Snake glared at the men and cautioned, “Down boys.”
Lucifer let his arms drop but he still glared at her.“Do you have any idea what you brought to our front door, lady?”
Della nodded.“Yeah, I do and if you can’t handle it, I can always leave and go off on my own.”
Lucifer snarled.“I never said that but you got one of the worst group of people looking for you.”
“I do and one of those creeps is my own brother,” Della whispered.“And he wants me dead if I don’t comply with his demands.”
“Just what is it that he’s demanding you to do?”Demon asked with a frown.
Della reached for Snake’s hand and explained the shameful truth, “He offered me to his leader and I’m not sure I would have even survived that meeting.And despite the fun name, Jazz Paully is not a very nice guy and he likes using knives on people he doesn’t get along with,” she announced.
No one said a word but there were a lot of looks going on between them all.
Lucifer pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit.“Tell us what you know.”
Della sat down in the chair.“My name is Della Gregory and my brother’s name is Jesse Gregory although these days he goes by his gang name of Hell Spawn.He joined that group a few days after Jack entered the service.Jack left to finally get the hell out of Chicago and Jesse wasn’t going anywhere.He wouldn’t join the service when Jack did.Jesse changed almost overnight since the two of them were best friends.They grew up together and Jack was always over at our house because his mom had to work two or three jobs to keep everything together.I think the reason Jesse joined the Red Devils was because he lost Jack and that meant everything to him.”She paused and tears glimmered in her eyes.“My mom was fiercely protective of us and we lost my dad a few years before.So she went and told Jazz off and told him to leave our family alone.Then the next day, she was killed outside of where she worked.T-they...stabbed her.”
The men in the room, all shook their heads.
“I barely had the time to bury her before he came home with a few members of his gang and told me that I now belonged to the Red Devils, more importantly to their leader.Well, I’d seen Jazz Paully around town and he was the worst man I ever met.Tall and skinny with long greasy hair.”Della shivered as she paused.“Thinking he's the man when he’s really only a pimp.Once he used and abused me I would go to the next man down the line and I wasn’t having that.I was only seventeen at the time and Jesse had no right to involve me in anything.He told me I didn’t have a choice.That I was going to be his way into the club.I waited until he fell asleep that night and I packed whatever I could carry, making my way out of that damn town.I didn’t have a car so I walked.”She shook her head.“But I was careful about where I went and I had to be very observant.I almost had to have eyes in the back of my head as I moved from job to job and town to town.I took almost any job I could find and lived from payday to payday.Sometimes I called myself different names and I only accepted cash.I didn’t want to leave a paper trail that they could find.It happened the following month right after I left, so I learned the hard way to never go legit with work.”
“Did they find you before now?”Demon asked.
Della nodded.“Three times over the years before last night.I noticed them before they noticed me and I was able to get away clean but last night they got too close and Bucky protected me.”She motioned at her dog.“Jack and I had just gotten back to my place and Bucky began going crazy.Jack let him outside and there were sounds of a struggle.When Jack went outside he found a Red Devils patch.”Shaking her head she added, “I don’t know how badly the other guy was hurt.”
Snake nodded at his brothers.“Yeah, there was blood on the sidewalk there so Bucky got a piece of the guy but he was gone by the time I got to that spot.I wasn’t about to leave her on her own so I brought her here.Then I asked Thrasher to find out what he could about the Devils.”He sighed hard and went on, “I did some research of my own and it won’t be easy to flush them out but it has to be done.I won’t let them have her and her brother stopped being someone I knew as soon as I got on that bus to go to bootcamp.”
Saint shook his head.“Thrasher told us some of what he found last night and we’d be doing Chicago a big favor by taking these gang members down.But you know for everyone we take down, there will be three more stepping up to take their places.That’s the way this game is played.”He looked over at Snake and Della.“And a certain Hell Spawn has been making his bones big time over the years.He’s supposedly in charge of something big over there and it’s said that he earned his standing by shedding other people’s blood.We’re not quite sure how he did that but however he did it, it isn’t good.”He paused to look at Della.“And Jazz Paully is still in charge.Then we found a wanted poster for you on the dark web, so there’s that as well.”
Della’s face went pale and she trembled.Bucky came up to her and leaned into her so she would know he was there.Della reached out and she began working her fingers deep into his fur.
