Page 26 of Spade

He stayed on at the Road Reapers as one of the club’s enforcers, and he loved being able to do that for his brothers, but his time at the club was limited. He promised Mace that he’d try to find more time to hang out down at the bar, but thetruth was, he didn’t want to leave Violet. Some nights, he even took his daughter to the club with him and let her hang out in Mace’s office. He’d set her up with earphones and her favorite movie, and be able to attend church. Sometimes, it felt like old times at the Road Reapers when he’d get to hang out with the guys. But then, he’d go home with his kid, and not some sexy bar bunny—not that he minded. He wouldn’t trade his time with Violet for any of the bar bunnies who hung out at the club. Since Tori’s death, he didn’t have time for another woman, not that he wanted one. He missed her every day, and no warm, willing woman was going to make him forget the pain of losing her.

He was on his way to work when he spotted a woman limping down the side of the road. Razor wasn’t sure, but he thought that he actually groaned when he decided that he should stop to check on her. He was never one to play the good Samaritan, but since having Violet, he couldn’t get through a day without feeling the need to help someone. It’s what he’d want someone to do if it was his daughter in need of help.

Razor pulled over to the side of the road, in front of the woman, and cut the engine. He hopped out of the truck and pasted on his best smile for the woman. She was skinny—too skinny, as though she hadn’t had a good meal in weeks. Blood stains covered her jeans on the right side, and she was limping.

“Hi,” he said. The woman didn’t even look at him as she tried to go around him. “Hey, I’m trying to help you,” he insisted.

The woman didn’t stop walking as she passed him. “Don’t need it.” She looked like she needed a whole lot more help than he’d be able to give her, but he still planned on trying.

“Your right leg is covered in blood and you’re limping. Just let me give you a ride somewhere,” he offered. She turned, her long dark hair framing her face as she stared him down with her empty brown eyes.

“You’re not listening,” she spat. “I said that I don’t need your help. You’ve done your good deed by stopping to check on me. Now, you can be on your way.”

“That’s not why I stopped. I don’t have a hero complex, and you’re hurt. Just take the help—no strings attached.” She put her hands on her bony hips, and he could tell that she was thinking about his offer.

“You don’t expect anything from me?” she asked. Her whole demeanor seemed to shift as she took a step toward him. Her eyes went from dark to pleading, but for what, he had no idea.

“No, why would you think that?” he asked. That was a dumb question. She had probably experienced men offering to help her in return for something that she might not be willing to give. “Never mind, don’t answer that. Listen, I just want to give you a ride. Look, I even have a car seat for my four-year-old in the back of my truck. I don’t want any trouble, and I’m sure that you don’t. I have to get into work, and then, pick up my daughter from preschool.” She peeked around his body at his truck and then looked back at him.

“Where do you work?” she asked.

“I’m a cop,” he admitted. “I’m heading downtown to the precinct, but I can run you where you need.”

She almost smiled at him, and he wondered what he had said that was amusing. “You should have led with the fact that you’re a cop,” she insisted. “Of course, that means that you know where to hide the bodies.”

“I promise you, hiding bodies is a thing of my past. Getting a babysitter for my kid is a pain in the ass, so I don’t get out much anymore to hide any bodies,” he teased. She giggled, actually giggled, and he was beginning to think that stopping to help her was the best idea he’d made in a long time. “So, how about a ride?” he asked again.

She nodded her agreement, “I’m Ella,” she said, not giving him a last name.

“Razor,” he said, holding his hand out to her.

“Do I want to know how you got that name?” she questioned.

“It’s a long story,” he said. He led the way back to his truck and she followed him. Razor pulled open the passenger door and waited for her to get in. Ella climbed into the cab of his truck, and he shut the door. She still seemed skittish, but at least she had accepted the ride. She looked to be down on her luck, but his cop instincts had kicked in and he had a feeling that her story was more involved than someone just down on her luck. He just wished he had time to figure her story out, but that would mean he’d have to get involved with Ella, and that wasn’t something he was interested in doing.

Ella

Ella Rainwater wasn’t sure how she was going to keep running, but she had to. The Devils were probably looking for her as she stood on the side of the road, talking to a stranger. There was no way that she’d go back with them—she’d die first because living in a cage for the last six months was unbearable.

She wasn’t sure who she could trust, and when Razor pulled over to the side of the road, she was sure that he was one of the Devils. He looked the part with his tattoos and bad-boy biker vibes. When she realized that he wasn’t with the Devils, she wanted to take him up on his offer of a ride, but the men she had known for the past six months would never do anything for her out of kindness. Ella was sure that there wasn’t an ounce of kindness in any of those men.

She felt like a first-class fool for letting her guard down while out with a few of her girlfriends. They wanted to go to a second club, and all she wanted to do was go home and get some sleep. Her shift started at seven in the morning, and as an ER nurse, she needed to bring her A-game. She wouldn’t be able to do that if she was out all night drinking and dancing.

Ella drove home and parked in her allotted spot in front of her apartment building. She quickly looked around, and noticed that there was no one else around, and why would there be? It was almost one in the morning, and everyone with any sense was asleep in bed. But she didn’t look close enough at her surroundings, and when two men popped out of the shrubbery in front of the building, she knew that fighting was her only recourse. She screamed, kicked, and flailed around, trying to get free from them, but that was a fruitless endeavor. One of the guys pressed a cloth to her mouth and nose, and she knew that she’d be out in just seconds. As a nurse, Ella was sure that there was no escaping chloroform, and she was correct. When she woke up, she was lying on a dirty concrete floor in a cage that wasn’t much taller than she was.

She had heard about other Indigenous women being taken against their will, and they either were found dead, or gone forever. The speculation around town was that they were taking the women to sell them off at auction. The sad truth was that most indigenous women weren’t found, and most didn’t even have anyone looking for them. They were the faceless, nameless, expendable women that no one cared about—and now, she was one of them.

Most of the women being held by the Devils were in and out of their prisons within weeks—some even days. She envied them until it was her turn to go to auction. Day after day, her captures bragged about being able to get a lot of money for her. They were correct, men spent a lot of money for a woman with her skin tone and long dark hair. What they didn’t count on was that she’d fight like hell when they tried to touch her. Ella was sold off three times at auction and each time, she was returned in under twenty-four hours for being a bitch. The men claimed that she was too difficult to have to deal with and asked for their money back. Her captures didn’t like having to give a refund toher buyers, but she didn’t give a fuck. She didn’t like being sold off and having disgusting, old men try to touch her.

Ella sunk her teeth into the first guy’s right cheek, drawing blood. She refused to let him kiss her, and when he leaned in to take what she wouldn’t freely give up, she bit him. Being backhanded by the asshole was worth the pain, and when he returned her, she thought for sure that the Devils were going to kill her, finding her not worth the effort of having to auction her off again. But they didn’t. Instead, they set up another auction, and she was sold right away.

She nearly castrated the second guy when he got his dick out of his pants and told her to give him a blow job. He wasn’t going to be able to sexually function for a while, and that gave her some sick pleasure. He took her back to the Devils and they tossed her back into her cell. Ella was sure that this time she had gone too far, but the third auction proved her incorrect once again.

The third guy was careless. He had left the knives out and when she got hold of one, she slashed his arm open when he tried to touch her breasts. He needed stitches and delivered her back to the Devils on his way to the ER. She sat in her cell for God knew how long after that. Ella guessed that the third time was the charm, and she hoped that they’d leave her alone, but she was wrong.

A guy showed up at the warehouse where the Devils held their women, and when he stood in front of her cage and said that he wanted to buy her, she felt sick. Her only option was going to be to hurt this guy enough that she’d have time to escape, but she was sure that the Devils had warned him about her inappropriate behavior. His smile was mean, and from the way that he looked at her, she was sure that he was used to getting his way.

He paid for her, and they left immediately. She watched out the window the whole drive to his place, trying to memorize every detail. Ella knew that she’d need to know those details to make her escape because there was no way that she planned on going back to the Devils—ever. This time, she had to do much worse than bite or maim the guy. No, this time, she had to break her oath to do no harm. As a nurse, she knew exactly what she’d have to do to hurt the new buyer enough to buy her time to escape. Ella waited until the guy was sleeping and did what she had to do, but that didn’t mean that she felt okay with stabbing the guy in the chest. She was pretty sure that she hit his right lung, which was no easy feat. She worked the knife around his ribs and when she heard the hissing sound, she knew that she had hit her mark.

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