Page 19 of Pearl (Royal Harlots MC, Phoenix, Az. #1)

Pearl

T he minute he loosens my hands and feet and pushes me from the van, my body is on high alert.

The van takes off. He can’t be alone or at least won’t be for long.

These bastards aren’t going to give me a chance to escape with so much at stake.

I’m going to have to make my own opportunity.

And unfortunately, it’s going to hurt like hell.

I wrench my hand from his grip. “Take it easy, fuckwad.”

The greasy haired guy’s eyes turn to slits, looking me up and down and then homing in on my cleavage. “You should keep your mouth shut or I may find a way to shut it up for you.”

The dumb fuck gives me the perfect opening. “I don’t think your dick is big enough, asshole. It’s probably so limp it would fall out.”

He backhands me right across the cheekbone where the pain is so blinding it takes my breath away. But with that, a chance. One I’m not about to give up for a little pain. “You hit like a fucking girl.” I spit at him for emphasis, and that does it.

The bastard is so focused on getting in my face and teaching me a lesson that he leaves his groin wide open, and the heel of my boot finds his ball sack dead center.

His eyes close and his mouth opens wide, groaning with pain as he grabs his junk and almost sinks to the ground.

“Fucking bitch,” he groans, but I shut him up with another heel to the face, a quick one because I’m not about to let the fucker catch my leg midair.

The slimeball grabs his face, allowing me just the time I need to reach the pocketknife at my ankle sleeve.

Kept just inside my boot for occasions like this, or for guys in back alleys who creep up on you unexpected and don’t want to take no for answer.

This fucker’s going to end up just like the last one, dead as fuck, because I’m not waiting around to become somebody’s punching bag while they try to get me to give up the ladies’ location. No fucking way in hell.

I inch toward him with my knife, but the unexpected rumble of bikes in the distance sends a chill of dread through my blood. Especially when this asshole gets a huge fucking smile on his face.

He’s safe for now, because there is no fucking time. Until he signs his death warrant. “When I find you, I’m going to cut the skin from your body slowly, curve by curve, and watch you bleed out, just like the others.”

The evil fucking bastard is expecting me to run as far away as possible, but monsters like that, they have to be stopped, and I don’t give two fucks about the end of me, all I want is him wiped off the face of the earth.

I lunge, landing my knife deep into his heart.

The monster about ready to take his last breath as blood begins to gurgle from his mouth, still tries to smile as the bike engines get louder.

All I have time to do now is run, which hurts like a mother.

A huge Harley Davidson Road Glide is sitting near the house as I reach it. I just hope the fucker left the keys in his bike and he sure as shit did. This guy’s ego wouldn’t let him think someone would dare be stupid enough to take his bike. Now it’s my turn to smile.

I kick it into gear and roar into the desert, creating as much distance as I can before his crew finds him dead and tries to catch me.

The dust of the desert stings my eyes without goggles or a helmet, but I push on, weaving among the cactus and tumbleweeds blown in from a recent storm.

The minute I reach the blacktop highway my heart sinks as I glance in the rearview and see the Desert Riders come barreling out of nowhere, heading straight toward me with more bikers than I’ll be able to fight off.

My heart and chest pound. No fucking weapon, and all alone against eight riders hell-bent on torture and revenge.

I squeal the tires as I burn out, accelerating as though my very life depends on it because it fucking does.

Faster and faster I move, but the rumble behind me doesn’t stop, just gets louder.

My only chance is to outrun them. I keep the engine wide open, letting this badass bike do what it was made to do.

Ride the open road like a bat out of hell, and it does that so well I’m able to put a little distance between me and my chasers.

And then my chest swells with hope and relief, and so much fucking pride as I see the Harlot colors bearing down on the open road toward me.

Onyx spins to a stop and I turn in next to her as she grabs two rifles from her bag, one for me and one for her, while the ladies line up in a row of deathly deterrence.

Let the fuckers come, if they dare.

The Desert Riders slow their approach, but they’re sneaky as fuck.

One gets a shot off with a pistol, but without much aim.

It misses Briar’s bike as she pulls up next to Onyx.

Our road captain isn’t worried at all. She signals the order, and the slowdown of the crew, allowing Briar and Shine to take aim.

Briar aims for the Riders’ road captain, while Shine, as sergeant of arms, takes aim, once, twice, and three times, leading the fire while all of us shoot to kill the motherfuckers once and for all.

Flame, our tail gunner, yells from the back of the line. “Incoming! More Riders on our ass!”

One with a long-ass shotgun and one with a double-barreled shotgun get the assailants organized.

They spread out in formation and one of the enemies rides closer, but for his trouble, Shine shoots him straight in the chest with the double-barreled shotgun that seldom leaves her side, setting off a battle for our life.

Onyx doesn’t miss her shot, and neither do the rest of us, blowing the fuckers off their bikes and onto the black tar of a long, lonely road one at a time with the utmost of skill.

The rumble of bikes from the distance catches my attention. “More coming!” I yell, reloading and setting my sights into the distance of the desert. “Friendlies! Don’t shoot!” I scream as Carver races like a bat out of hell over the desert yelling something indecipherable into the wind.

I wait for him to get closer but something’s not right.

He’s agitated as hell even though our rivals are dead on the ground.

Flame’s warning shot from the back gets my attention and as the rumble of more bikes from behind permeates around us, I fear there may not be enough of us.

I glance behind me and my heart sinks, because no amount of fire power from our crew is going to outweigh the thunder of death that comes barreling toward us.

But Harlots don’t give up and we don’t die in vain.

We fight to the death for what we believe in, and I’d rather be dead than give up the location of those women, and they can write that on my fucking grave.

Shine gives the order to face off and hold just as I knew she would.

Everyone turns on a dime in orchestrated fashion. “Hold strong, hold it, ready but wait…”

She keeps one hand down, palm side back in a gesture to continue holding until her command but her rifle is balanced on her handlebars ready to take at least one or two bastards down with an instantaneous shot as Carver, Capone, Ryker, and crew join us in the fight.

The Riders twist their throttle grips simultaneously, the revving of the engines from their powerful machines a signal that their wait is over, they’re ready to go head-to-head with us.

We’re ready too, and not all of them are going to make it to see another day, that’s for sure.

But Carver isn’t the waiting type and takes three of them out single-handedly as we unload on the others.

The screaming thunder of more bikes coming up behind them causes their tail gunner to turn, and he fires the first shot in that direction, but the Phoenix Crew doesn’t back down, blowing the Desert Riders off their bikes, one by one.

Every single one of the Riders drop to the road in a bloody spray of gaping wounds and blood.

“Fucking Hawg,” Carver yells as the Phoenix Crew weave in and around the blood-soaked bodies strewn all over the highway and the Rivals begin arriving in the distance.

Hawg and Lucky are the first to get to us.

“Sorry we were a little late. Some of us went to the Harlots to make sure they were safe, and the Riders had a whole ‘nother crew waiting for them. We had to take them out, then we went to where we sent you, only to find one dead motherfucker with a knife sticking out of his heart, heard shooting so circled back to come in from behind.” He nods toward the distance.

“Got a message. The Rivals were busy taking out some Riders from the north who would have closed in on us.”

Carver extends his hand over the bars of his bike. “We can’t thank you enough, man.”

I nod in agreement, as does every Harlot here. We’re known for taking care of ourselves, but these fuckers want the women’s location in the worst of ways. “They sure were determined to get the women back. I wonder who they worked for? Who was bankrolling them to take them?”

Ryker and Capone exchange a glance before saying a word.

Capone breaks the silence. “The DeSantis family in Vegas. They were warned against continuing their pursuit of moving women, in or out of Vegas by the Larussios. They were using the Riders to do their dirty work and thought they wouldn’t get caught.

The Rivalry will deal with the others,” Capone says.

I exhale a deep breath. It’s been one hell of a week. “On behalf of all Harlots we really appreciate everything all of you did.”

Capone’s eyes meet mine. “You’re welcome.

We appreciate what you did for the women we were trying to safeguard.

” He pulls my knife, the one that my daddy gave me years ago, and hands it to me.

The intensity of his eyes tells me everything.

He knows my secret now. I would have pulled the fucking knife out of the chest of the man I killed if I was thinking straight. But I fucking wasn’t.

His almost black eyes don’t waver. “Hawg found a knife. I assume this is yours? And there’s a reason you still have it after all these years?”

I nod, my heart starting to beat just a little bit faster.

“That knife was used on one of the Larussios quite some time ago. There’s a sketched image of it in Salvatore’s office, a reminder of the attack on his cousin. You’re going to need to explain that to Renzo and Matteo, Pearl.”

I always knew the skeletons from the past would raise from the dead, come back to haunt me sometime in the future, but it’s a sick and cruel deal of the hand when the very weapon that just saved my life again is the very one that will end up putting me in the ground when the Larussio cousins come to call.