People begin to bolt from the smell of the gas into the night on both sides of the building. Raze fires the first shot as we unleash a firestorm of bullets raining down around them. Man after man screams as our lead tears through their bodies; men fall to the ground in piles, writhing in agony. Blood spurts from each shot and sprays behind them into the air. Several minutes pass by after the last man stumbles in a haze from the building. Raze signals for us to move forward. The tear gas fog dissipates by the time we make it to the building. Twenty or so men lay dead or dying on the earth around us.
“Check them,” Raze bellows, “If they aren’t wearing an officer’s patch, shoot them in the head if they aren’t already dead.” His order brings back memories of my tour of duty in Iraq. Insurgents would target convoys with officers and hold them hostage while killing the other men to make a statement. Raze motions for me to follow him into the building as we search for Enrico. As we step into the doorway, I keep my gun drawn. The building is basically furnished at best. We search each room, only finding two women inside, neither of them ours.
We move to clear the building when a scuffing sound comes from behind a dresser. Shoving it aside, we find Enrico huddling behind it in fear. His eyes are wild as he realizes Raze is standing before him. He scrambles to move farther away, but Raze pistol whips him in the head. Enrico falls to the ground unconscious. Raze grabs him and drags him out of the room. Something just doesn’t sit well with me about this room. The vibe coming off this place rattles me and I know I need to sweep it one more time before I leave. I’m completely missing something here. Searching under the bed and behind the other furniture doesn’t dig up anything. I’m about to give up when I see a tiny light shining underneath a hidden closet door. Prying it open, it reveals rickety staircase going underground.
“Raze!” I yell out the door. “You might want to come see this.”
He quickly joins me, along with Ratchet, Voodoo, and Tyson. We descend the dimly-lit stairs single-file and make our way underground. I find a swinging light switch and pull the metal cord. As the light clicks on and illuminates the room, we find twelve dirty women shackled together along one wall. A few of them look to be dead already, but a few of them move. Holy shit, we found Ace’s women. Voodoo and Tyson break away from us to free them from their bounds while Raze, Ratchet, and I move farther into the room.
“Jesus Christ,” Ratchet exclaims as we make our way through the next doorway.
A wooden table is centered in the room with a naked woman shackled by the legs. She’s covered in dirt and blood. Walking up next to her body, I check her pulse. It’s faint, but she’s still alive. The blonde woman has been brutally beaten and gang-raped from what I can see. I’m not even sure Doc could save her in this condition, but we’ll have to try. As Ratchet moves to release her wrists from her bounds, she stirs and moans in pain. Good, she’s still got fight left in her. That might save her life in the end. He quickens his pace and finally frees her. Gingerly lifting her from the table in his arms, he starts for the door to carry her out when her hair shifts from her face.
“Holy shit,” says Ratchet. “It’s Ricca.”
Hearing the name makes me freeze. “Ricca as in Dani’s missing roommate?”
“Yeah, man, this is her. We’ve got to get her back to the clubhouse.”
“Take her in the cage and take Slider back with you. We’re going to need a couple of cages to transport these women back,” I order.
Ratchet leaves with Ricca in his arms. The thought of finding Dani like this makes my blood run cold. Ricca was Enrico’s fucking girlfriend, and he let his men gang-rape her in his basement. No woman deserves that kind of treatment and for that alone, I will take pleasure in ending him. I hope Doc can fix her before I have to tell Dani her roommate was tortured at the hands of her attempted kidnapper.
Leaving the room behind Raze, we make our way outside. Trax has Twisted Tribe’s President and Road Captain kneeling side by side in the dirt. Raze punches Enrico in the face multiple times before pulling out his gun and shooting him in the dick. Enrico cries out in agony as his femoral arteries spurt blood on the ground around him. Raze puts the barrel of his gun to the Road Captain’s head and pulls the trigger, sending blood and pieces of his brain rocketing out behind him, falling to the ground like hail stones. Enrico continues to scream when Trax pulls him back into a seated position.
“I may be ending you here, Enrico, but you’ll be sent to a special kind of hell in the afterlife,” Raze says while putting the gun to his head. “A bullet to the brain is too humane for a man like you, but I don’t have time to rip your life away from you like you deserve.”
“Wait, Raze,” I say, trying to stop him from pulling the trigger and ending it all. “I need to ask him about Dani.”
Crouching down to Enrico’s eye level, I stare into his agony-stricken eyes. “The girl you kidnapped from Ricca’s apartment. What is she to you?” He moans and bellows, leaving me unanswered. “Answer me, motherfucker. Who is Dani to your club?”
“Just another whore we picked up,” he screams. “Took her as collateral when my bitch tried to leave me with my drugs.” Satisfied with his answer, I nod to Raze and move away from him. Raze puts one in the chamber and presses the barrel back against his temple.
“I’ll see you in hell, motherfucker,” Raze declares as he pulls the trigger. The bullet enters Enrico’s head and explodes brain matter on all of us within close range. It’s finally done. Jagger has been avenged, and Dani is exonerated from suspicion.
Looking over the remains of the men that surround us, my memories of the war flood back to me. Sadness and guilt wash over me as the vision of my fallen men settles onto the cocksuckers kneeling around me. The nameless faces of these men become my fallen unit as their clubhouse is replaced with the sand-brick homes of Iraq. Walking around their bodies brings me back to checking my brothers for signs of life just as one of Trax’s men pumps a bullet into a man’s head, silencing his moans. I have to force myself to not kneel beside them and press my fingers to their necks, searching for a pulse. These aren’t my men and they do not deserve to take another breath on this Earth anymore. The gunfire shocks me back to present day. We killed in the name of revenge, but deep down I question what kind of blowback we’ll get from this. We may have won the battle, but was the war really over for our club and for me?
Slider pulls in minutes later with a work van and helps Tyson and Voodoo load the rescued women into the van. He walks over to me to tell me that Doc is already at the compound and doctoring Ricca.
“Dani doesn’t need to know about her until we know for sure she’ll pull through, do you understand me?” I order.
Slider nods and walks back to the van. As he pulls away with the brutalized women, Dani enters the forefront of my mind again. She could have been one of them in their basement of pain and I wouldn’t have even cared about her when we rescued her because she would have been just another no name woman in my life. The decisions I’ve made lately could have turned this situation completely around had I not pulled my head out of my ass about her. On the other hand, my head up Dani’s ass sounds like a good fucking time. Jesus, I am a fucked up man.
We clear the scene as the sun begins to rise. Raze orders the building and the bodies to be torched as we walk back to the woods to retrieve our bikes. As I mount my Harley, orange and red flames rise from the remains of Twisted Tribe. Watching their clubhouse burn against the sunrise harbors a disturbing peace inside of me. Raze and I turn on our bikes and ride in silence back home.