I go after him. I don’t give a damn about anything right now. My blood’s rushing through my head with a wild whirr and I’ve already come closer to dying three times already, but there’s no future for me, nothing past this moment.
Eric follows me upstairs as I reach the bedroom door. I kick it open and let it slam against the opposite wall, and the fucker takes another shot. I stay flat to the side and it misses, and this time I drop to my knees and fire into the room as he shoots high.
I take him in the thigh. He staggers back and I’m on my feet before he can bring the gun up again. A woman in the bed screams bloody murder as I tackle the big bastard that’s been shooting at me. He’s burly, covered in gray hair, and thick as an ox. He doesn’t go down easily, but I manage to rip the gun from his hands and throw it aside.
Fucker dishes out a good beating. He hits me hard a few times before I strike back, cracking his nose and nailing his chin twice. He topples onto the bed, grunting as he does it, and before he can come up swinging, I shove my gun against his face and hold it there, snarling, blood dripping down from a cut above my forehead.
“Go ahead and move,” I say in his face, my hot breath blowing into his eyes. “I’ll cover this fucking screaming bitch with your blood if you so much as twitch right now.”
The second-in-command of the ORB stares back at me with pure loathing.
Nobody moves. The woman in bed is topless, her tits out, her body pressed against the wall like she’s trying to crawl through it. Eric shows up and throws a blanket at her. “Shut up and cover yourself.”
She obeys, wrapping it around her body.
I stare at the ORB fucker. His name’s Hugh Tondo and he’s one nasty piece of work. Lifelong biker, criminal, killer, thief, drug dealer, gunrunner, and all-around piece of shit. In another life, I might’ve ended up like Hugh here, except I’m faster and smarter and I’ve got nothing left to lose.
“I have questions for you,” I tell him quietly, speaking each syllable like it’s the last he’ll ever hear. “I want you to answer them. If you want to live, you’ll answer fast and you’ll tell the truth.”
“Ask.” His voice is a low rumble, gravelly like he’s been smoking since he was twelve.
“Where is the ORB’s main headquarters? Where does your club meet?”
“Fuck you.”
“Careful, Hugh,” I say and can’t help but grin at him. “I’m not in the mood for games.” I reach back and hit him in the face with the gun, snapping his neck sideways. He grunts and I grab his hair, force his mouth open with the barrel and shove it down his throat. “I’ll gladly knock your teeth out and make you choke on this fucking bullet. Where do you operate?”
He grunts something and I have to pull the gun from his mouth to hear it. “Packer’s,” he says and coughs. “There’s a fucking meat processing plant outside of town called Packer’s. That’s where we meet.”
I glance back at Eric and he only shrugs. “How’s that work?”
“The boss owns it. The whole thing’s a fucking front, they barely process any meat there at all. It’s just one big chapter house. Works too, since nobody ever wants to get close.”
“Well, shit. You motorcycle assholes can be clever sometimes.”
“And we’re going to murder you for this.” He grins and I hit him again hard enough to crack a tooth. He moans and spits blood onto the sheets.
I press the gun against his temple. “What did you do with Cora and Kady Stone?”
“Who?” He looks genuinely confused. “Are those some girls that work at your club?”
“They are not strippers. What did you do with Cora and Kady Stone? Where is Jaxson?”
“Jaxson ran the fuck off and I haven’t heard from him in days. I don’t know a damn thing about Cora or Kady Stone, whoever the fuck they are.”
“Nolan,” Eric says from the doorway. “We need to go.”
“Last chance to save your life. Where is Jaxson? Where are Cora and Kady?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Hugh says and he sounds scared now. “Jaxson has a cabin. He talked about it once or twice. It’s just some rundown piece-of-shit place his uncle owned. He used to go fishing there. I don’t know where it is or anything like that, all I know is it exists.”
I hold the gun there, seething. I’m not going to get more out of this man. Cora and Kady clearly weren’t important targets to the upper leadership of the ORB, and Jaxson was never important enough for Hugh to pay much attention to him. That he knows there’s a cabin at all is a miracle. I look up at the girl, a pretty young thing, clearly scared out of her mind.