Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC #5)(2)
A knife flashed in Rhetta’s hand. “That’s f*cking Tony Tormenta in there. I don’t give a shit if he’s an important associate of the club’s. You do not run around beating up on us. It’s just not done.”
Actually, it was done, and often. Bikers drank a lot and had hot tempers. It didn’t take much to set one off, and they weren’t above smacking around their old ladies if it was called for, to keep them in line. It was a very old-fashioned, old school sort of organization.
But with four of us, maybe we could help. I nodded emphatically. “Tony Tormenta is some kind of f*cking flesh peddler. He takes women from Mexico and white women and sells them up north in Utah, sells them into the hooking trade.”
We all gasped as one when Cassie’s shriek changed pitch. It was now a long, low, mournful dirge—a widow moaning at her husband’s grave.
That was it. That was f*cking it. Taking the bull by the horns as I’d been trained to do—I’d spent years learning to help the downtrodden, the helpless, the victimized—I turned the knob and flung the door open. The other three women piled in behind me, propelling me forward into the room.
Oh, dear Lord. It was way worse than any of us expected.
Cassie Hasselbeck was crunched into a pile of bones in the corner of the dirty little storage room. She really did look like a bird run over by a car with her elbows and knees splayed every which way.
Tony Tormenta, that soulless human trafficker, loomed large above her like some kind of puffed-up superhero. He’d been famous for his Facebook page where he’d posed pouting like he’d had collagen injections in his lips in front of piles of cash, guns, and drugs. Facebook shut the page down, but not before Tony Tormenta’s fame had spread beyond the underworld, into the region of ordinary people like me. I had even heard about the poor sicario, the hapless hitman of Tormenta’s who had displeased him in some way. His head had been made into a soccer ball for Tony and his cohorts to literally kick around. These iconic stories always resurfaced whenever Tormenta came into Flagstaff to do business with Leo.
I could’ve sworn I saw a drop of blood flick from the blade of the knife Tony brandished. He’d been hard at work cutting Cassie’s face to ribbons when we busted in, and he took a step back from her. He looked like he admired his handiwork, nodding with pleasure, barely noticing us. Cassie looked like a latticework cherry pie, diamond-shaped pieces of hanging skin leaking blood down her chest. He’d even managed to slash a few canals across her boobs, where they pulsed almost with a life of their own, beating in time with her heart.
Having been trained to assist the needy, I rushed forward and gathered Cassie to my chest. Rhetta was the only one with the balls to actually confront Tormenta. She showed him her knife. “You scum-sucking epic bastard! How dare you come into our clubhouse and hurt one of us?”
I couldn’t resist joining in, although my voice was filled with tears. “You complete and utter dirtbag! Do you know what Leo’s going to do when he finds out you’ve maimed his favorite girl?” But Cassie wasn’t Leo’s favorite girl. Rhetta probably was.
Folding his knife back up, Tormenta actually laughed at Rhetta. “Leo’s not going to do a damned f*cking thing, you worthless slut. You think he’s going to risk our valuable business partnership over some piece of shit sweetbutt who bit my salami? Not a chance in hell, sweetheart. Now get the f*ck out of my way.”
He strong-armed Rhetta so forcefully that she smashed against the wall, not having had the chance to use her knife before he flashed out the door.
I said, “Call Gudrun McGill, Slushy’s daughter. She’s going to nursing school on the other side of town.”
“She’s on her honeymoon,” said Missy, squatting next to us. “We’ll have to get Maddy out of Pure and Easy. She’s the only other nurse I know.”
“Get her!” I snapped, and Missy pulled her cell from her bra. It would take Maddy an hour to get up to Flag. I wondered if Cassie’s wounds would require stitches or plastic surgery of some kind. It was hard to tell, so I told Brenda, “Go get me a washcloth and a bowl of water. And find out why the f*ck no real men have come down here!”
That’s what really pissed me off, the fact that not a single “man” had come to our aid. These men were so violent, so easily riled, so ready to rumble at the drop of a hat when it came to their club. Yet it was becoming painfully evident that anyone hurt one of their sweetbutts and they all turned the other cheek. Especially when it came to Tony Tormenta.
Something weird was going on. As I cradled Cassie’s head to my breast, her blood leaking so profusely I could feel its jammy warmth seeping into my shirtfront, it struck me. Any other guy beat up a woman like this, the brothers would’ve jumped him. Any other hang-around and even a Prospect tried this, he’d come out worse for the wear on the other end. Brothers could do what they wanted with their own old ladies, but now an outsider had slashed a sweetbutt into mincemeat, and not one guy even came to see what was going on?
“It’ll be okay, Cassie.” Cassie had been my BFF in high school, and the reason I’d started hanging around The Bare Bones MC. I had recently lost faith in my training and changed my life completely, returning to Flagstaff where we’d grown up. That was the natural thing to do. That’s how I, a former religious novice, had come to be where I was now, if you really want to know. I’d used my horticultural learning to buy a nursery that was for sale and gotten my own apartment. I’d hooked up with a Sir who trained me to be submissive—a sort of perverse continuation of the faith-filled life I’d just given up—and reconnected with Cassie.