Page 28 of Wild Devil

I want her safe.

I need her to be…

As if Ben is exerting his influence even from the other side of the building, I feel some sense slam back into me. What I need to be doing now is staying focused.

“Where?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t have an exact location, just educated guesses, but the real danger comes from the fact that I know this place will be armed to the teeth. Getting in will be a suicide mission. Could be better to wait it out and see if you can spot El Diablo.”

But time isn’t on our side, and there’s no way in hell I’ll sit aside, and watch Frey marry someone else.

“That’s not all,” Marco adds. “There has been an uptick of people disappearing from homeless shelters. Usual customers who have vanished.”

“Let me guess, more rumors?”

“Ah, but I haven’t told you the best, most salacious one of them all.” Marco crosses his arms over his chest and leans in. In the dim lighting, his eyes fucking glow, and I feel like some dumb kid, listening to a ghost story. “They say that to honor his presence, El Diablo would demand a sacrifice. A grand display to show that his loyalty has been appreciated.”

Sacrifice. I think of Frey with some bastard ripping out her beating heart.

“Jesus Christ. But that’s just a bullshit rumor, right?”

Marco shrugs. “Who the hell knows. But if you want to go after them, we need to move now.”

“Give me the locations. I’ll handle this with a team of men. We can sneak past their defenses somehow?—”

“You don’t think I brought you here just to sip tea and for the pleasant conversation, did you?” Marco says. “Oh no, pretty boy. You’re taking me with you. I need to see this shit for myself firsthand.”

I raise an eyebrow at that. “So, you can kiss the ring of your creepy ass rival?”

“No. So I can see for myself if the rumors are true. If they are, you might find yourself with more allies, biker. No one wants this kind of weird bullshit in our city. If not stopped, we’ll all wind up on that altar, one after the other.”

He has a point. Only a fool would turn down more willing hands. At the same time, the offer sounds too good to be true. There has to be a catch lurking somewhere. Am I desperate enough to ignore the danger for now?

Maybe.

“How does that saying go?” I rasp. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Then it looks like we have a deal.” Marco extends his hand.

And I have no fucking choice but to take it.

By the evening, the warehouse no longer looks like a refuge for the homeless. Within a few hours, Damien and his boys have moved equipment in, and our ragtag band is performing various tasks like some demented boy scout troop.

“Lex thinks he made headway on your missing reporter,” Damien calls out once he’s finished unloading a black crate filled with weapons. “I’m sure your buddy will want us to be subtle and do shit all stealth-like—” He nods toward Ben, who scoffs and waves him off. “But I’m down for a rougher introduction.”

“There isn’t time for games,” Ben warns. “Shit’s gonna get real soon, and we won’t have a lot of time to fuck around. What the golden boy here—” He jerks his chin in my direction, “—has signed us up for is basically a suicide mission.”

Knowing Damien, there’s no need to go into the specifics. All I have to ask is, “You in?”

He grins, his teeth bared. “Hell, yes.”

“Ah, but that’s before he mentions the cannibal aspect.”

Damien raises an eyebrow. “Seems like you’ve been having more fun in this city than you let on.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not a joke,” I admit. That makes every man in the nearby radius turn his head in our direction. “Looks like our dear preaching politician got himself involved in way more than we thought. We gotta find where they are tonight.”

Before it’s too late for Frey.

---