Page 45 of Deadly North

Footsteps sound outside in the corridor. I climb up on the toilet, hold my breath, and start to pray.

The footsteps stop. The door opens.

“Imagine that.” Blaze’s amused voice cuts through the silence. “All this time, I’ve been trying to get to you. And in the end, you come right to me.”

22

MACK

When I get the text from Gigi, the first thing I do is lean over and heave my guts out.

The second thing I do is call Fury.

“They’ve ambushed Gigi and the prospect!” I shout into the phone, already running for my bike. “Where are you?”

“At the clubhouse!” he yells back. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“I’ve got the address. I’ll text it to you! Get all the men, now! We’ve gotta get her out before it’s too late!”

I hang up and almost fumble the phone as I screen shot Gigi’s text and send it to Fury, then to Magnus, Norse, and Elmo. I crank up my bike and get moving, calling Elmo with one hand and driving with the other. “Get a drone to the address I just texted you!” I shout. “Gigi and Tramp are being ambushed at that location. Need to know who’s there, how many of them, anything you got! I’m headed there right now! The other Bastards are right behind me!”

Elmo says he’ll call back. I fly through town, burning through intersections and ignoring traffic lights. The minutes seem like hours. Elmo calls me back. “Not much movement outside, but there’s a bunch of Harleys and a van outside the building. Looks like whatever’s happening is happening inside.”

“Call Magnus, tell him what you see. I’m almost there, tell him that, too. I’m not waiting for the other Bastards. I’m going in alone if I have to!”

I can’t wait. God knows what’s happening to Gigi right now. A dozen scenarios play through my mind, each one of them worse than the last. Rage burns low in my gut, climbing steadily higher. If Blaze has hurt her — ifanyof them have hurt her — I will burn that entire motherfucking club to the ground.

I’m the first to arrive at the scene. I can’t tell what the building is, but it looks like some sort of abandoned industrial building. I’m off my motorcycle and running toward the building, gun drawn. I’m half-expecting to be shot by a hidden sniper but I don’t have fucking time for caution. I have to get to Gigi. Behind me, I hear engines, and I know that the Bastards have arrived. Someone shouts my name, and I slow down enough to look back. It’s Fury.

“Mack! Hold up!”

“Catch up!” I turn back around and keep running. When I get close to the building’s door I try it, expecting it to be locked, but it’s not. The footsteps are close now. I turn. “They’re in here!”

“You sure?”

I set my jaw. “They have to be.”

Magnus, Norse, Reed, and Money are here now. All of them look determined and ready for war. Magnus looks at the building, then at me. “What do we know?”

“Not much. She’s in there. We gotta get her out.”

“We’re going in blind,” Magnus says to the others. “Watch your six.”

I go first through the door, followed by Fury. All the lights are off inside, bathing the interior in a gray half-light. From here we communicate with hand signals. There are noises inside the building, doors slamming, metal against metal. No voices yet. Norse signals to me that he and Reed are taking the first floor. I signal to Fury for us to make our way up to the second. It’s fucking driving me crazy that I can’t be everywhere at once, but we gotta make choices. My brothers have my back. I gotta believe that. They want to find Fury’s sister safe and sound as much as I do.

There’s an elevator to the right of the entrance, but the electricity might not be on and besides, it’s too risky. We head for the stairs instead, leaving our brothers on the ground floor. As we climb, voices reach us from above. I freeze at the second floor, cracking the door open just wide enough to listen for the source of the voices. I glance back at Fury, and he shakes his head and points up. I nod in agreement. The voices are coming from one floor above.

We keep climbing. Just as we’re about to reach the third floor, the stairwell door crashes open. A guy with a gun pushes through. He aims at us and fires just as we leap back down half a floor. I fall backwards, catching myself with the railing. Three bullets fire into the wall where I was just a second ago.

“Shit!” Fury shouts. He drops back and aims his gun, waiting for the guy to chase after us, but he doesn’t appear.

“You motherfuckers are fuckin’ toast!” the guy yells. “This place is surrounded. You’re fuckin’ done!”

“Where is she?” I yell back.

The answer is another volley of gunfire into the wall.

Fury grabs my sleeve and pulls, gesturing at the second-floor door. We drop back through that door. There’s gotta be another stairwell on the other side of the building. We clear the floor as we go, backs to each other with our guns drawn. Down below us, the crack of gunfire tells us that our brothers have met some of Blaze’s other cronies.

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