Page 21 of Rider Daddies (Venom Vultures MC #6)

I stand up, brushing myself off, and take back my knife, when I hear my name.

“Ryder?!”

It’s a female voice with an Italian lilt to it.

I almost break my neck from how quickly I snap around. There she is, in all her glory…matted hair cascading over bare shoulders.

I squint, trying to see her through the darkness. She’s in her underwear, a long rope tied around her. She sticks one hand up into the air and waves at me, the other curled around the edge of the balcony.

My heart is suddenly in my throat.

I take off and make my way into reception. A long corridor trails off into the distance. I don’t waste any time darting through it, weapons close to my chest in case of any further danger.

I make it to the staircase and take the stairs two at a time until I’m pushing through the double doors and running through the second floor.

If I had time to properly smell the stench of this place, I’m almost certain I’d be throwing up.

Mold clings to every single wall. It’s even dripping down from the ceiling.

“Lucia?!” I shout, running across numbered doors. “Open up! Where are you?”

A door flies open, almost knocking me off guard.

She shoots out, fear lacing her eyes. “In here.”

I dart inside. “We’re getting you out of here.”

“No.”

“What are you talking about? This is an emergency situation. You sent that card, right? Do you want us to get your ass out of here or not?”

“What about all the other girls?”

Trust her to have a caring heart, unlike the rest of us.

“What?”

“What happens to them?” Her eyes are sharp, studying my face.

I huff out a breath, adrenaline leaving my body for a moment. “Lucia, it’s impossible to save everyone. The club has been trying to stamp Manual out for months. We’ll succeed one day, I promise, we always win, but right now, my focus is you.”

“This isn’t the time to boast about your one-hundred-percent success rate.” Lucia crosses her arms over her chest. It takes everything in me to not stare there. “You need to get everybody out of here.”

“Lucia.” God, I hate how much I love saying her name. “There are three of us and twenty-something of them.”

“Who cares if it’s one against one hundred? You’re supposed to be fucking killers.”

God, she doesn’t like to make anything easy for us.

Why am I still trying at this point?

I give her my best pissed-off face, which is hard when she looks like that , all golden-eyed, screaming a good time. “Don’t make this difficult.”

I don’t have much choice anymore. Reaching forward, I grab her hand before she has time to throw me off, dragging her through the doorway…

Where a man with a gun has been so patiently waiting for us.

The bullet goes off, barely missing us and sending Lucia into a fit of screaming.

“This way.” I drag her back into the room, leaping out onto the balcony with her looped around my arm.

Whipping behind, I spray a few bullets blindly, but the attacker is still on us, barreling through the sliding door to join us on the walkway.

Continuing to act up, I have no other option but to lug Lucia over my shoulder, carrying her fireman-style. I run from one side of the walkway to the other.

All hell breaks loose down in the parking lot. Ash and Saint are still holding themselves strong, warding off attackers from entering the motel…but their great efforts come with repercussions.

Saint is now limping, staggering about on one working leg.

“Ash?!” I yell, grabbing his attention. “I need you to catch Lucia.” I fall into a sprint, dashing to the other side of the walkway.

“You’re not throwing me,” Lucia gasps.

“You unfortunately don’t have a choice in the matter, sweetheart.”

“I fucking don’t have a choice. I have to save the other girls.”

Another bullet sails our way, the angered man behind us catching up. “You wanna get out of here alive?”

“I want to shut this shit show down and murder Manual.”

How does she intend to do that with a law degree?

“You need to have faith,” I tell her. “All of those things will happen, just not right this second.”

“They can’t wait any longer.”

“No,” I say. “And neither can I.”

Getting the signal from Ash, I throw Lucia down to him. He catches her, and I allow myself a second to catch my breath. She looks perfect in Ash’s arms—like she was meant to be in them.

What the hell am I thinking?

Snapping out of it, I turn around, but it’s too late. Manual’s man already has me at gunpoint, a smug smile lifting his ancient features.

This bastard…

“Thought you could get away.”

There’s still a chance…

I turn back toward the parking lot, measuring the distance between here and the ground. How likely am I to break a bone or tear something? Chances are high if I land wrong.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to debate this for much longer.

Gun close to my chest, I launch myself over the railing without a second thought and prepare to bend my knees as I land.

Fortunately, it’s an upright landing.

Unfortunately , I can’t feel one of my legs.

“Fucking stupid,” I mutter to myself, unsure why I didn’t just do what any normal bastard would and shoot him in the face.

Instead, I chose flight.

Literally.

I straighten up and waste no time attacking more people. Bodies litter the ground now. Too many to count. The men here must breed like rats because they keep on coming, one after the other like there is no end. We’re doing well to hold them off…but I don’t know how long we have left.

Yes, when it comes to physical strength, the three of us have advantages, but anything in big amounts can cause destruction. If you put a million ants up against a lion, the ants are winning.

Death by a thousand cuts.

Ash, now with Lucia in his arms, faces a severe handicap, especially since there are now five coming at him.

“Take Lucia to the bikes and come back,” I yell across the parking lot.

But he doesn’t hear me.

Even if he did, it would be too late.

Lucia, the gorgeous liability that she is, wriggles out of Ash’s grip when he’s preoccupied with his gun and jumps down to the ground, running diagonal across the lot to get to…Manual?

Is this a joke?

She’s such a stubborn woman, and way more hassle than she needs to be.

We shouldn’t have come out here. That would’ve been the most sensible thing to do.

If we lose this, which, let’s face it, is looking likely, all Tristan has to do is make a report to the right person about us molesting his so-called “wife,” and we’re done for.

Suddenly we’re the bad guys.

But we knew all of this could’ve been a possibility. We knew the risks.

And we took them anyway.

I blame Tristan for fucking up his own wedding. Thanks to him, he’s now fucking up our lives. Lives that were blissfully peaceful before the runaway bride entered and cooked up a storm.

I watch Lucia run into Manual’s arms and know that this is a fucking lost cause. Her anger toward him means nothing if she doesn’t have a…

Knife.

Don’t bring a weapon to a fight if you don’t know how to wield it.

“Lucia!” I yell.

She charges toward Manual with the knife like she has a detailed plan of how she’s gonna kill him.

Stick ’em with the pointy end.

Sounds easy until the pointy end is being flipped against you.

“Lucia!”

I cock my gun and fire bullets, but Manual is too fast and manages to dodge them all.

“Lucia!” I yell again. “Stop what you’re doing! You’re gonna get… killed .”

Is she sure that she’s a lawyer?

I watch in awe as she thrusts the blade straight into Manual’s chest. When the entire thing is inside him, she takes pleasure in twisting the blade like she’s trying to make several incisions.

Like one isn’t enough.

She’s crazy.

But I’m coming to realize that I love it when my girls are little wack.

The worst part about this is her face. She doesn’t look scared. There’s no hint of regret in her eyes, just gleaming satisfaction. Her face shines with pleasure in the cold moonlight as she faces Manual, watching his dead body slowly drop to the ground.

Her move has everybody starstruck. Even Manual’s men don’t know what to do. They stand like bodies with no brains, confused—the same as Saint, Ash and myself.

I turn back to Lucia, watching her chest rise and fall, like she’s out of breath. Her face remains calm. She’s confident with the choice that she made.

I suppose we should be too.

The blood isn’t on our hands.

It’s on hers.

Venom Vultures might be safe from the cops, but that doesn’t mean Lucia is…