Too fucking bad a man only gets one death. If I could've killed him a hundred more times, I would've.
When they finally slammed me against the wall so hard the whole storage shed echoed, what little I'd left attached to his neck couldn't be called a head in any proper sense.
“Let me up, you fucks! I have to set her free!”
“Calm down, brother. Rabid's working on it.” Brass covered his mouth with his sleeve and coughed. “Shit. Fuck. We've gotta grab the girl and get the fuck outta here.”
He turned to Line. “Was anybody else here tied up with you assholes?”
The Tacoma VP shook his head. I looked at my Veep and told him the same, said these boys were the only ones I'd found.
We knew exactly what happened to the others. The nasty pile of carved up brothers we'd found in the cafeteria told the entire story.
The fuckers let me down just in time for Rabid to finish cutting my girl loose. I knocked one of the Tacoma assholes flat in my rush to get to her.
“Fuck, baby, you're safe now.” Rabid jumped outta my way as I pulled her into my embrace, sweeping low, reaching for her jeans.
I pulled them back up where they belonged with a growl. No man ever undressed her except me – and if I hadn't already brutally killed the motherfucker who'd tried, I'd have done it all over again.
“God. I thought I'd never see you again,” she moaned, burying her face in my chest. When she lifted it a second later, we both started coughing.
Fuck, the smoke. It wasn't getting any thinner.
“Come on!” Brass' voice rang out through the haze. “Let's move our asses out right fucking now, before we all suffocate. This place'll be crawling with cops any minute too.”
Elle Jo heard the man. She tried to follow me when I jerked on her hand, guiding her over the mess of the dead mobster on the ground, but she tripped on the fuckhead's dead body.
I spun, caught her, and swept her into my arms. I wasn't taking any chances.
I wouldn't let go, despite her protests. Just threw her arms around my neck and carried her all the way out, crushing her face into my chest when we went through the thickest smoke, holding my breath 'til my eyes bulged.
A couple of beat up Tacoma guys staggered through it and almost collapsed. Rabid helped them up, and we headed toward the service door, hoping none of the fires had fucked up our bikes.
Fresh air never tasted so sweet. I threw my girl on the back of my bike while the others got themselves set for the ride out. Sirens screamed in the distance. Big, loud fire engines judging by the sounds of it.
The Veep wasn't kidding, cops would be close behind the firetrucks, if they weren't already.
Shit! Blackjack and Roman gestured wildly by the gates. The look on their face said it all.
Move. Your. Asses.
We had to get the fuck out. There was no dealing with any of this shit the proper way, covering it all up. The club was gonna have to pull every damned string in the book to get outta this, especially when the officers found human bones inside.
“You hang on tight, woman,” I told her, tucking her arms around me. “We're gonna be home soon, Elle Jo.”
“Where's my dad?” she said, pressing her face into my shoulder as I started my bike. “You didn't find him, did you? Oh, God, he's not...dead, is he?”
I shook my head. “Dunno, babe. There wasn't any sign of him in there. You and three Tacoma boys were the only ones we found alive. We'll sort all that out later. Promise.”
My words weren't much comfort. She cried for the first solid mile after me and my brothers crashed over the flattened gate.
About a mile later, we needed a whole different kinda comforting for the world shattering blast that billowed up behind us. Thought a stick of fucking dynamite blew out my eardrums. Rabid almost wrecked his bike, regaining control a second before he smashed into a concrete divider.
The lone civilian bread truck in front of us came to a total stop, and we all weaved around it in the nick of time. Elle fought to keep one arm around my waist, covering her damaged ear with the other. Her eyes in my mirrors were just as bewildered as mine, wondering if the fucking world just ended.
It hadn't, but the warehouse was toast. Whatever the fuck caught fire in there was big enough to leave a steaming crater and a small mushroom cloud that lingered in the sky for half a minute. Then the hot, orange death faded to nothing.
At the next light, I caught Blackjack's reflection. The Prez looked like he didn't know whether to smile or grimace.
That explosion had probably blown the fuck outta everything there that would've raised too many uncomfortable questions, but the Tacoma boys still had the club's name on this property. We'd be answering questions about hazardous substances and weapons of mass destruction, rather than the chopped up dead men and the mafia asshole whose head I've obliterated.