King turned sharply and stepped into the hallway, his voice booming with command.“Gear up!Best shooters only.We move now!”
The clubhouse erupted into motion.
Boots pounded on concrete.Voices rose.Lockers slammed.The easy noise of drinking and cards vanished, replaced by the unmistakable rhythm of men preparing for war.
Brick barely registered it at first.His thoughts were still trapped in that alley.The broken phone.The blood on the pavement.The drag marks that told him she’d fought like hell.
He forced himself to breathe and dragged himself back into the present.
He moved to his assigned crew on instinct alone.No words were exchanged.They didn’t need to be.Everyone could see it in his face.The rigid set of his shoulders.The murder burning behind his eyes.
Weapons were checked with practiced efficiency.Magazines slid home with solid clicks.Knives were strapped to thighs and boots.Vests were tightened.Each sound felt like a countdown.
When they stepped outside, the night swallowed them whole.
Engines roared to life one after another, the sound rolling across the lot like distant thunder.Headlights cut through the dark in sharp white beams.
Brick mounted his bike at the front of the line.His spine was locked tight.His knuckles were bone-white around the handlebars.Every muscle in his body vibrated with barely restrained violence.
Somewhere out there, Tessa was terrified and she was waiting for him.The Iron Serpents had just signed their death warrant.
Chapter Ten
Tessa woke to pain.It was the first thing she registered.There was pain in her wrists, shoulders and throat.Her head throbbed like it had been cracked open and stuffed with cotton.
For a long second, she didn’t know where she was.Only that she couldn’t move and that cold fear was already sliding through her veins.Tessa forced her eyes open and noticed concrete ceiling, a flickering fluorescent light, and rust-stained walls.
Then there were the chains.They were wrapped tight around her wrists and bolted to a metal ring in the wall above her head, forcing her arms painfully overhead.
Her ankles were bound, too, rope biting into her skin.Someone had gagged her earlier, but it was gone now, leaving her mouth dry and her throat raw.A low whimper slipped out before she could stop it.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself not to panic.Panic wouldn’t help Dillon or Brick, it would only make this worse.She was in a basement, or a warehouse, or somewhere forgotten.The air smelled like oil and damp concrete and sweat.Somewhere nearby, a drip echoed steadily.
Time felt wrong and slow.Her memory came back in broken flashes.The alley.The text.The van.The threat.
Dillon.
