Chapter 1
Tar
I get out of the clubhouse, adjusting my earpiece. I take a cigarette and I light it as I pace outside, the sun barely up.
“Tar, check in,” Wood says in my ear.
“In position,” I grunt. “I know they call them dawn raids, but do they literally need to be at dawn?”
“Look alive, man. The ATF will be here soon for our… unannounced inspection. Just a fucking formality to keep the deal we have with them intact. They’ll be gone before lunch.”
“I’ll do one last round on the perimeter,” I huff.
“Good man.”
I inhale my smoke, and I go by the alley on the left of the clubhouse to make a full round, make sure everything is squeaky clean for our annual fed-fest. That’s when I hear it. A pained moan. If I find one passed-out hang-around behind the bins, I will kick his ass.
I throw the cigarette away and go behind the huge garbage bins. And that’s when I see it. At first, it looks like a bundle. Then it moves. Fuck. This is not garbage. This is a person, a woman.
I stride closer, and through the weak sun, I can see what my mind doesn’t want to register.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
There, on the cold concrete, is a woman covered in blood. It soaks her blonde hair, matting it to her scalp, and blooms across her white t-shirt in grotesque Rorschach patterns. Most of the damage seems to be done to her body, her arms bruised, tied behind her back, her bare feet beaten bloody.
A thousand thoughts pass through my mind, but one, the one that matters, prevails. A blood-soaked woman on our doorstep during a compliance raid? That is a one-way ticket back to the bad old days, a violation of our hard-won truce with the Feds.
“Wood, we got a problem,” I say through the comm.
“Feds, ETA 5 minutes,” Stig adds to my panic.
“What kind of problem?”
“A bloody one,” I curse under my breath.
“Get fucking rid of that.”
“The problem is a fucking person, Wood,” I hiss. “A woman.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
I don’t think, I act. I crouch down over her and take out my trusted Swiss Army knife and saw through her restraints. She moans lightly. Goddamn it! I roll her into my arms, and I get up.
“What the fuck is going on?” Tor is probably informed of the fuck-fest outside.
“I am taking her inside. My room.”
“Are you crazy?”
“I got a plan, Tor, don’t yell in my ear. Just have Tom on call.”
“Feds incoming 2 minutes.”
I push the door to the clubhouse with my shoulders and run to my room. It’s the one further down the corridor, just across the stairs up. I run inside and place the tortured woman on the bed. My hands are gentle, but my mind is a battlefield.
Whoever it was, they did a real number on her. This is not an accident. This is a straight-on torture. Her feet had been beaten, mangled, and her back is a map of deep lashes. Motherfucker. She is out cold, and I wish I could do more for her, but I have to think of the club first.
I run and bring towels and a water-filled basin. I put a towel under her head on my pillow, and with a smaller one, I wipe the blood off her face and hair as best as I can. I rip off her top and clean her wounds as softly as my trembling hands allow.
“Tar?” Wood demands a report.
“In my room,” I answer. “I am going to hide her in plain sight in my bed. Pretends she is some club whore I had there. I’ll make sure they come later. We’ll move her then.”
“Good thinking, bror,” Wood says. “We will move her as soon as the feds get out of your room. Just makes sure they don’t take a second look at her.”
I grunt as I hear the feds swarming our clubhouse. I let as much of her bare back show to imply she is naked under there, and I strip down naked. People tend to back off in front of a man, butt naked with his dick dangling between his legs.
I have just gotten rid of the bloody towels and water in the bathroom for now, when the door to my room bursts open. Shit.
I get out of the room from the bathroom, dick in hand and yawning, pretending to stagger drunk. The two feds freeze as I eye them. The man takes one look at the blonde naked woman in bed. The female agent just ogles me, down my body, to the dick I am still holding.
“Shit,” I grunt. “That was for today?”
I sway a little, putting my hands up, the man averting his gaze, the other biting her lips.
“Makes sure she's out of here in 10’,” the agent grunts. “And put some goddamn clothes on.”
“10?” I joke. “I ain’t gonna be done with her in 10’, chief.”
The female agent chuckles but hides it as a cough.
“Quit fucking around and prepare to have your room inspected in 10’, asshole.”
I shrug and grab my underwear. The female agent throws one last look at me. I wink at her back. I am betting that she will be the one coming back for my inspection. I will make sure it is thorough.
But first things first. I got a real fucking problem in my hands.
“Clear for now,” I report to Wood. “They will be back in 10’, though, and she has to be out of here.”
“OK,” Wood sounds super calm and calms me down, too. “Follow my instructions. Tom is waiting in his van in the back but we have a small window.”
“I am in position,” I hear one of the thralls say.
“Take her in your arms and wait by the door. When the corridor is clear, run to the door to your right. It’s unlocked. Perry, Ignis,” Wood talks to two other thralls, “be ready if we need a distraction.”
“Yes, bror.”
I grab the bloody towels, wrap the poor girl in the sheet off my bed, and I pick her up. I go and wait by the half-opened door.
I hear the agents barking in all the clubhouse, tearing the place apart for guns and illegals. I shake in anticipation as the minutes tick by. I look down at her face. She has a torn lip from an obvious slap, and I feel anger boil inside me. Some motherfucker hit this girl badly. That fucking coward.
And yet, torn lip and bruised cheek, drained of blood and battered, she is a really striking woman. Hang on, I pray.
“Go now!”
I push the door open and run to the door, the thrall there holding it open as I speed through. Tom is by the van's open door, and gestures for me to place the girl on the gurney he has there. A real ambulance disguised as a common van. Impressive. Tom says nothing, just secures the girl as I throw the bloody towels in there, and runs to the driver’s side and drives away as the feds outside are distracted by Tor and Vince chatting them up. for the few minutes it takes for Tom to vanish. I look at the van disappear.
I don’t have time to think of the girl anymore as I rush back to my room, scanning to see if everything seems more or less spotless. And right on cue, the door opens and the female agent walks in. Alone. And closes the door behind her. I smirk and chase the image of the blonde tortured beauty away. I have a job to do.
***
It’s a lot after lunch when the last of the feds load up in their vans and fuck-off. And among them, one particular fed that left literally and thoroughly fucked. And didn’t even look at my room once.
“Tar,” Tor puts one hand on my shoulder. “You’re the man, bror.”
Wood pats me on the back.
“Quick thinking, brother. That was close.”
“Way too close,” Tor says darkly. “Tar, go to Tom’s clinic. That girl was not thrown outside of our clubhouse today by chance. This was meant to fuck the deal up and bury us.”
“I agree,” Vince nods. “If chocolate boy here didn’t think fast on his feet and also fuck that fed away, we would have a real problem in our hands.”
“Another rare occasion where your dicks save us from the trouble.”
I say nothing. The memory of those torn feet and that back… I nod at Tor, and I go for my Electra. Out of the line of Harleys outside, mine is the oldest one, a total black beauty.
I ride straight to Tom’s lair. Tor needs answers, and I do too. Finding her weirdly makes me feel responsible for her, and I feel bad that, instead of getting her immediate help, I used her like a rag doll. I want to think that I did her a favor too. The people who did this to her are nasty.
I reach the little house outside Berkley with the land around. I park in the shed to hide the bike, and I go to the door, looking around nervously.
“Tom, it’s me.” I look up at the camera installed there.
The door buzzes open, and I take the corridor away from the main house and to the lab. Tom never lets anyone in his house. And you tend to respect the guy who has saved half of us. Especially when it is statistically certain that being a Rider means that sooner or later, you will end up under his care. Damn, he took out the bullet I took for Tor.
I push the door to the fully equipped hospital room he has here, courtesy of Tor, who wasn’t having half-assed care for him and his brothers.
The girl is on the bed, still unconscious but looking better, IV in her arm.
“Hey, man. That was intense,” Tom comes in, wiping his arms. “I just redressed her. The wounds were deep. Fuck.”
I go to the head of the bed.
“Who is she? Did she say anything?”
“She is out cold,” Tom reports. “She has lost blood, more than you saw.”
“She was beaten somewhere else and thrown at our doorstep,” I deduce.
“She has a bad hit on her head, either when she was tossed or beaten with something sharp-edged. Nothing too serious. She has one broken rib, and her feet will take time to recover. There was barely any skin left.”
The sound of strained leather fills the air as I tighten my gloved hands in pure rage. Now that the immediate danger for the club is gone, I am focused on finding out who are these motherfuckers that dared do this to a girl just to fuck with us.
“But-” Tom hesitates.
I look up to him, frowning. What could have made Tom sweat? He is one of the most bad-ass men I have known, and he has seen some shit. I swear, if he says the girl was raped badly, I am going to flail the culprit and hang them from their intestines.
“Speak!” I order.
“There are some clues as to what you are dealing with.”
I scowl further as I see him go for the sheet covering the girl’s body. Slowly, he takes it down, her body obviously naked under that sheet. He stops right over her heart, the top of her breast. A tattoo. A single symbol etched on her skin, neat, nicely done. My eyes see red, and my breathing goes heavy. I look back at her serene, cute features, her shining, blonde hair. And then back at the black stain.
The hooked cross of the Nazi.
