Page 21 of Pain (Kiss of Death MC #6)

Pain

Some motherfuckers just didn’t know when to quit.

The rage that had been building in my chest for the past two weeks finally reached its breaking point when I saw Roscoe’s smug face on the security feed, standing over Nadine like some kind of predator who’d just caught his prey.

Fuck waiting for Tonio to handle this. Fuck protocol.

Fuck everything except getting to that bastard before he hurt my woman again.

“Go,” Knight urged. “I’ll send some guys to get rid of the garbage.”

He’d called me to his office when he’d noticed Nadine leaving the premises.

An hour after she’d left. Not only had she slipped past the police, she’d made it past Knight’s security.

Which was whole ‘nother problem. Knight called me to his office the second he’d realized what had happened, but Nadine had already been gone over an hour.

I’d been looking over his shoulder while he moved through city camera feeds trying to find her.

I tore out of the main clubhouse and jumped on my bike. I’d normally never disrespect my bike or anyone else’s by peeling out in the gravel, but I was past caring. Nadine was the only thing that mattered.

I knew exactly where the break in the fence was, and that it was the perfect place to slip out of the compound.

Or into it. I’d been watching it since I got out of prison.

Because I strongly suspected the rat in the club who’d let Riot’s woman’s ex-husband inside the compound had been the one to cut the fucking hole in the fence, but that was something I’d deal with later.

And confront Knuckles. I revered the man, but we had a traitor in the club, one with an unknown agenda who was willing to sell out our women, and Knuckles had let the guy live among them for months.

But I couldn’t think about that right now.

Getting to Nadine was my only priority at the moment.

The break in the fence was the only way to get out with any hope of not being stopped immediately by the police. That being said, I wasn’t going to be subtle about this.

Once I was free of the tightest gathering of warehouses, I opened up my Hog and sped toward the fence where I knew the break was.

I had to duck and grit my teeth. The first to avoid was the horizontal aluminum bar running through the middle of the fifteen foot fence from taking my fucking head off.

The second because the break in the fence wasn’t a hole.

It was just what it sounded like. A vertical break in the fence from the middle bar to the ground.

So both sides of my body got gouged and torn by the edges of the cut metal.

Once free, I raced to where we’d seen Nadine on the camera. She was on the very back end of the property, where she should have been safe. Yeah. There was no way Benjamin Roscoe found that hole in the fencing accidentally.

I rounded two corners in time to see Roscoe and Nadine facing each other just on the inside of the gate. The second I processed I’d found her, Roscoe backhanded her with a brutal, full-bodied swing. Nadine staggered backward and my world narrowed to the two figures ahead of me.

I. Saw. Red .

My vision tunneled, everything beyond Nadine and Roscoe fading to black. The world slowed down as I watched her stumble, her hand flying to her face, a plastic bag tumbling from her grip. Something inside me snapped. That final thread of restraint I’d been clinging to since prison fucking let go.

I gunned the throttle, the Harley’s engine screaming as I closed the distance. Roscoe’s head whipped around at the sound, his eyes widening as he registered me bearing down on him. Smart enough to recognize danger, he shoved Nadine hard and reached for his weapon.

Had we not been on the edge of a motorcycle club compound, with dozens of motorcycles moving around inside the place at any given time, I doubt I’d have had enough time between him recognizing me as an immediate threat instead of a distant bystander to reach him before he shot me.

Roscoe managed to get off a shot, but a fraction of a second after I hit him with my bike. Fortunately for me, his shot went wide. Unfortunately for him, I hit him dead center.

Roscoe’s body flew through the air over my head.

I braked, cutting back to swing around to face Roscoe again.

This time, I ran over him. Probably wasn’t enough to kill him, but he wasn’t going to be able to crawl to his gun where it landed on the ground when he was hit, and he wasn’t going to be able to get to Nadine.

Again, I whipped around. This time, I shut my bike down, barely managing to get the kickstand set before I stalked over to him.

Roscoe was sprawled on the asphalt, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle, blood seeping from a gash on his forehead. But the bastard was still conscious, still breathing. “You fucking psycho,” he wheezed, spitting blood. “You just assaulted a police officer.”

“You put your hands on my woman. Again.” My voice was deadly calm, which seemed to scare him more than if I’d been screaming. “That was your second mistake.”

“What was the first?” He tried to sound defiant, like he could give a fuck, but I could hear the fear creeping in.

“Thinking you could walk away from it.”

“Pain!” Nadine’s voice cut through the red haze clouding my vision. “Oh God, you’re bleeding!”

I glanced down at my torn shirt, the gouges from the fence weeping blood down my arms and torso. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except finishing this.

“Stay back, honey,” I said, my voice deadly calm as I pulled the suppressed pistol from my jacket. “Don’t watch this.”

“Please,” Roscoe wheezed, rolling onto his back. Blood frothed at the corners of his mouth. “Don’t… I was just --”

“Just what?” I stood over him, the gun trained on his chest. “Just hitting my woman? Just terrorizing my family for weeks? Just being a corrupt piece of shit who thinks his badge makes him untouchable?”

“Having that gun is against your parole -- what do they call you? Pain?” When I didn’t answer, he pressed on, his eyes hard and defiant even as he lay broken on the ground. “This whole fuckin’ club could go down.”

“You think I give a fuck about my parole right now?” I stepped closer, pointing the gun at his leg and fired into his knee. The silenced pistol made a small crack , but Roscoe’s screams echoed throughout the area. Blood and bone fragments splattered across the asphalt.

“What do you want!? What do you want!?” Roscoe screamed as he tried to scoot away from me, dragging his injured leg and holding one arm up to fend me off.

“I want to know who the fuck told you about the break in the fence where you got inside this compound.”

His eyes got wide in shock despite the pain before he recovered. “I cut that fuckin’ fence myself.”

I shot his other knee. Roscoe’s screams and shrieks had drawn attention, but from my club, not his officers. I have no idea what those fuckers were doing, but so far I hadn’t seen any of them.

“What the fuck!”

“Who told you about the break in the fence?” I repeated my question calmly.

He took several deep breaths but didn’t offer an answer.

“You’ve got several other joints in your body, Roscoe. Your elbows are next.”

“All right! All right! Bitch calls herself Silk! OK? Her name’s Silk!”

“Why would one of our club whores let you inside?” I shot him in the elbow.

I was acutely aware of Nadine behind me.

She had a hand on my shoulder now, but she wasn’t trying to stop me, and she stayed on my weak side and behind me.

Behind us, the roar of my brothers’ bikes built as they grew closer.

“How would I know!?”

“How did you meet her?”

“She came to me! I swear! She came to me!”

“Why would she do that? Why come to you specifically?”

“Because I offered a reward! She came to me because I offered her money!”

I barely heard him over the roar as five of my brothers pulled into the area. When they shut down their bikes and came to my side, I stepped away from Roscoe.

“Pain?” Knuckles stepped beside me as I backed up.

“Did you ever find the person who let in Violet’s ex-husband?”

Knuckles stiffened. “ She let this bastard in?”

“If you knew who your rat was, why is she still here and still able to attack us from the inside?”

Knuckles’ face went stone cold. “Because we didn’t know for sure it was her until right fucking now.” His voice was deadly quiet. “She’s been careful. Real careful.”

“Where is she now?” I kept my gun trained on Roscoe, but my attention was split between him and this revelation about Silk.

“Clubhouse. Last I saw her, she was with the other girls by the pool.” Knuckles pulled out his phone. “Xavier, I need you to find Silk. Now. Don’t let her know you’re looking for her, just locate her and keep eyes on her until I get back.”

Roscoe tried to push himself up on his good arm, blood still pouring from his wounds. “You can’t just execute me in broad daylight, you psycho fucks.”

“Watch me.” I aimed the gun at his head.

“Pain.” Nadine’s voice was soft but firm. “Let Knuckles handle Silk first. This piece of shit isn’t going anywhere.”

She was right. Roscoe was done, but Silk was still a threat to everyone back at the compound. Still, every instinct inside me wanted to end him. Now. I lowered the weapon slightly, my jaw clenched tightly.

“I need answers first,” Knuckles cut in, his voice deadly calm as he crouched beside Roscoe. “Why are you so interested in us? This ain’t just about busting a motorcycle club.”

Roscoe laughed, a wet, gurgling sound that ended in a cough. Blood sprayed from his lips. “You think you’re so fucking smart. You think your Miles family protection means shit. I control the police presence in this fuckin’ town! I can make your life very unpleasant.”

“What do you want?” Knuckles crossed his massive arms over his chest. I was muscular, but Knuckles was on a different level. And, as much as I hated to admit it, he was much more intimidating than me.