“Sergeant,” I say, voice level. “What’s the plan here?”
Movement in my periphery pulls my attention. The remaining two Raiders have inched their way closer.
“Where’s Dixon?” one of them asks.
Allen nods at the hangar behind us. “Dead. You can thank Donovan for that.”
Neither seems fazed. The other one simply shrugs. “So long as the Sinners lose their prez and we get paid, ain’t no problems between us. And we want the girl. Bitch owes our club a debt, and we plan on collecting.”
“No one’s taking Grace,” I say. “And no one’s killing her. She’s not part of this, Allen. The women never are. You know that.”
He shrugs. “Casualty of war, Decker. Just like my brother was.”
“She’s ours. We’re taking her,” one of the Raiders says.
“No. You’re fucking not,” I growl. “But you wanna try your hand at making me give her up, come get her.”
“Enough.” Allen points his gun at me. “You’re full of good ideas. Tell you what. You wanna hold on to that dirty little cunt you like so much, then fine. Fight them for her.”
I arch a brow. “Come again?”
“You’re a fighter, aren’t you? You said so the first day we met. You want me to spare your whore, then prove to me how badly you want her, how far you’re willing to go. Kill them and keep her, or they kill you and drag her back to the shithole they camefrom. Either way, no skin off my back.” He nods to the two men already stalking towards me. “You win, you can have her. No guns, but everything else is fair game.”
“Doesn’t really seem fair to me,” I say as the bikers advance.
As one pulls out a knife, I push Grace to the ground. He lunges, but I manage to sidestep the blade. I’m not lucky enough to get in a takedown before the other starts swinging a bat at my head.
“Allen.” I dodge the sharp edge of one weapon, then the blunt end of another. “Call this off. Now.”
“Don’t ruin the fun,” he says. “I’m giving you what you want. You just gotta work for it.”
Another slash of a blade, a swing of a bat. I feint left, then right, then as a flash of silver slices at my throat, I jump back. The bat again, but he swings too hard. When he misses, the momentum propels him to the side.
I take the opportunity to strike. Jab to the side of his head, knee to the ribs, there’s an audible crunch as bones break. I slam my elbow between his shoulder blades, and he folds in two. As he goes down, that knife sweeps by the side of my face again.
I twist out of the way and maneuver around a rusted-out car. But he’s quick on my heels.
“Don’t run away, little piggy. I promise I’ll make it quick,” he taunts as he backs me into a stack of pallets.
I snort. “I bet you make everything quick, huh?”
“Not with your girl I won’t, pig. We’ll all take our time with her. Every single one of us. We’ll fuck every hole until she’s a dirty, used-up cum rag, and then we’ll cut open her throat and watch her die.”
Fists clenched, I let the anger I’ve been pressing down burst to the surface, let my temper unleash. My pulse jackhammers in my ears, molten rage flowing through my veins as the fury takesover. Blood boiling, need-to-kill-someone sort of anger. And I really need to fucking kill this guy.
This time, when he lunges, I throw up my arm and block, forearm to forearm. In one motion, I twist him around, get control of his hand, and slam it against the wooden pallets. The knife drops. Knee to stomach. He coughs as he collapses to the ground.
Then the blade is in my hand. But it’s not me holding it. Not really. It’s like I’m watching. I watch my hand as it grabs a fistful of his hair, as it jerks back his head, exposing the column of his neck. The blade slices across his skin. Deep. Cutting through flesh and muscle and cartilage. That hand holds tight as he chokes on blood, as his eyes widen, as understanding hits him. He won’t survive this. There’s no way out. He dies today.
Snapping back to myself, I level my gaze to his. “You don’t matter enough for me to watch this.”
He chokes as I throw him to the ground and turn around, letting him bleed out alone.
The other Raider is lumbering to his feet as I approach. His focus drops to his fallen friend, then to the bat lying on the ground ten feet away. He makes a run for it, but I run for him. He makes it to his weapon just as I slice into the back of his neck. When I make contact, his body seizes. I twist, and then there’s a snap. A crunch as his skull separates from his spine, and then he goes limp.
I close my eyes.
Deep. Fucking. Breaths.
