Rush (Carolina Bad Boys, #5)(37)

I didn’t particularly want my MC brethren all up in my past bullshit so that was not an option.

I shoved all further head-fuck thoughts from my mind when we roared into a gas station on the outskirts of Jacksonville on Bo’s insistence for a quick pit stop.

Pit stop and pick-up, it turned out. Because a hard-looking motherfucker on a Harley V-Rod slowly unstraddled when Bo exited his truck. Bo’s face grim and bleak, he stalked to the other dude and grabbed him in a backslapping hug.

“Oo-rah, Marine.”

“Damn glad to see you, my man.” Bo pulled back to bump fists with the dark-haired man.

“Hey, send me a call to arms and I come running, right?”

“Who’s he,” I asked the guys standing beside me.

“Killian Slade, First Sergeant,” Hunter supplied, watching the reunion of comrades. “The last two men to make it out alive after ten days of torture in the Helmand.”

“Fucking hell.” I had nothing but respect for the two Marines.

“Now you know why Bo was a little bit unlidded when he first joined Retribution. Been through hell. And Ronnie brought him back from the brink. So we’re gonna save her no matter what.” Hunter handed down the doctrine like it was law.

“Copy that.” Walker squinted at the pair as if he knew Slade as well.

Turned out he did. Both he and Hunter had pulled some hair-raising Hail Marys the rest of us weren’t totally privy to all in the line of duty, in order to save men and women who served our country.

With Slade enfolded in our ranks, we continued on our path with one single mission: save the lady doc, the love of Bo’s life.

I didn’t know how he kept his head together through the rest of the evening while we staked out the Iron Nails compound from a close by hillside in the shit-side of Jax-ville slums.

I’d have been off the wall if Shy was held inside, with no idea what was being done to her, but the man cranked down on his rage just enough to rein it in. We kept a quiet watch from that heat-beaten vantage point for a final hour before moving quickly and quietly into place outside the tall chain-link fence surrounding the concrete spread of buildings.

Coletrane dug out the wire cutters—because everyone carried those around as part of their freakin’ accessories—and started the metallic snip-snip through the fence. He stopped when the kind of guttural growling that only came from foaming-at-the-mouth, bred-to-kill dogs rumbled from beyond the fence.

“Cujo much?” Walker was the number one smartass on the scene.

“What now?” Cole sent a questioning glance around as four sleekly muscled Dobermans ranged into view.

“Make the hole bigger.” Tucker tweaked his mustache. “I got this.”

“He’s the fucking dog whisperer now?” Hunter asked, watching the big man slip through the opening Cole made.

Squatting down, Tuck started talking in soft tones, and the dogs’ vicious-killer heads quirked toward him.

The growling stopped. The ferocious bared teeth retreated. The stumpy tails started wagging.

I rolled my goddamn eyes. “Looks like it.”

“Aren’t they sweet?” Tuck straightened up, scratching one of the beasts behind its ear until it stretched out at his feet.

“Don’t fucking believe it,” Brodie said, stepping through the hole in the fence.

The rest of us followed.

And suddenly it was go-time. I headed off with Brodie, Boomer, Tail, Cole, and Tuck.

Walker, Hunter, Bo, and Slade took the opposite side of the dirty-to-the-core MC compound.

Bo had advised us to use nonlethal force. The detail was to infiltrate, locate Ronnie, get her the hell out.

If she was even here.

If she was even still alive.

Breaking into the main building, the stench of musty sweat, stale beer, and even staler spunk assaulted my nose.

“Glad we got Probies 1.0 and 2.0 to take care of our digs.”

Fucking hell. My eyes are watering.

With a finger held to his lips, Boomer cautioned us forward down a hall at the opposite end of the compound Bo and his team snuck into.

Listening like my ears were on high alert, I tracked right behind the Steele brothers, their steady guard. Tuck, Tail, and Cole took the rear, and we moved as one silent body through the hall—each room quietly opened, quickly cased, and closed shut in our wake.

Until we reached the motherfucking epicenter of action.

The bar.

Which looked like a down-and-out hooker had puked up all over it. Empty needles on tables. Empty bottles rolling on the floor. Empty-headed losers looking up like all WTF?

And that particular stench?

I almost gagged. Before I reached for my knife because the shakedown was suddenly on.

Boomer rammed the first man out of his seat into the nearest wall. And big Boomer’s rage had to hit the redline when the crooked-toothed, crazy-eyed cunt nutted him, forehead to forehead.

I didn’t catch the end of that brawl because an assclown with waaay too much fumes fueling his fight rose unsteadily and tackled me across the floor. We went skidding, smashing bottles, overturning tables, slamming against walls until the doorway caught my shoulder and halted our slippery slide.

I’d lost my blade somewhere along the way, but I still had my fists.

That was when the ape on top of me pulled out a mean-looking pistol and shoved it against my temple.