Sweet Revenge (The Nighthawks MC Book 2) Read online

  He stumbled, and caught himself on the sink. He sat down heavily, nearly taking Ghost down with her.

  “You drunk?” Ghost said. She held the bottle to his lips, and he finished it off.

  He leaned his head back against the grimy wall, and started to snore, ignoring the phone ringing in his pocket. Ghost took it out with the tail of her shirt and put it on vibrate, then put it back. Ghost rinsed the liquor bottle in the sink, and, using a gray towel, put it back in his hand.

  Ghost made thumping noises on the wall and sink with her hand covered by her shirt, then ripped her own shirt. She slapped herself in the face twice. She stumbled out of the bathroom, eyes on the floor, and snagged her near beer bottle. He’d thrown the one she’d given him out into the desert.

  She stumbled past everyone, weaving back and forth, eyes on the floor, letting tears fall out of her eyes. She got out the door and past his lieutenants, and ran out into the desert. They let her go, because they started receiving phone calls. They stood and moved inward, towards the bathroom.

  She streaked out into the desert towards the road, and made it to the end of the road.

  Bonnie zipped towards her, and handed her a bike helmet, “You okay?” she asked Ghost, fear in her voice.

  “Barely copped a feel,” said Ghost.

  She pulled out her own burner, and started crying into it about being dragged to some meth house in the desert, and a book hidden in a couch with a gun, and she gave the name of the road the meth house was on. She shut down the phone, and hopped on the bike.

  “Let’s get gone,” she said.

  They drove to an overlook as the sirens blared, circling the meth house as people tried to swarm out; like ants, they left. Half-naked counting girls and people in white suits. Some got arrested. Two guys in biker’s leather got shot trying to drag a third one out the back door.

  Ivy came up on their hiding spot, “Beautiful,” she said, “good, he’s coming around.”

  Claw was trying to sit up, and had his knife out. An FBI officer shot it right out of his hand, and cuffed him, “Get out of here,” she said.

  Ivy turned, grabbed Ghost, and hugged her, “I am so sorry I put you through that. You hurt?”

  “Naw, she said, tears streaming down her face, “Them dogs…”

  Bonnie stroked Ghost’s back, “We’ll see if we can adopt some,” she said in Ghost’s other ear, “you know how the Nighthawks like dogs. We’ll find out where they took them, and we’ll get all the members to take one.”

  Ghost sighed, “Be real hard,” she said, “they be scared, need a lot of love.”

  Bonnie tried to comfort her.

  Ghost stood back and wiped her eyes, “We gotta get ourselfs a, we need a ranch, to raise ‘dem right.”

  “Got a great real estate agent,” said Ivy, “I’ll text you the number. Now, get gone, both of you.”

  She handed an envelope to each of the women, “Five hundred each,” she said, “go put a down payment on something.”

  She watched them go, then waited. She saw him being taken to a police car. She got on her bike, put on the brain-bucket helmet instead of her full-face one, and went down to the main road. She waited until the car with Claw in it passed her. She went forward, then held back. When they pulled off and stopped at the light, she pulled up next to them and stopped. Claw was glaring at the officers.

  She revved her engine. He turned, expecting to see one of his crew. She flipped her twisted hair at him, and smiled. He began kicking the seat, and she pulled ahead at the light and was gone.

  The club was still going strong at midnight. Reva was asleep at Ivy’s desk. Ivy moved the receipts from the locked drawer to her safe, and woke up Riva. She had her unwind her hair and change her top, and then she sent her home.

  Ivy strode in, and went behind the bar. Ace was popping the tops off beers and taking money as fast as his hands could move. Ivy danced with a patron, and then went behind the bar. Her fingers moved fast. She joked and laughed, and opened a new bottle of whiskey.

  “How did it go?” asked Ace, in her ear.

  “The wind was at our backs,” said Ivy, she poured out whiskey, got some money, and poured herself a shot, “to new friends!” she said.

  “To new friends!” said those at the bar that could hear her.

  The rest of the bar drank with her. She went out to dance with the dancer on her plinth, laughing, her hair flying. It was a good opening.

  The next five nights were a whirlwind. Ivy looked at some condos during the day, but they bored her. She partied with the patrons, drinking too many apple juice shots, dancing and shouting. She danced on plinths and helped her servers get the food out during rush times.

  Gina Jackson got wise to Ivy’s apartment boredom and found her a three-bedroom over a Chinese restaurant. The new owners had a nice house in Henderson with an actual yard, as they now owned four Chinese restaurants and were rehabbing a fifth. There was a deep clawfoot bathtub and windows in the back bedroom that, if you stood in the right place, you could see the round building of the bar. The kitchen was just big enough to hold a small refrigerator, a two-burner stove, a compact dishwasher, and a trash can for all of Ivy’s empty take-out containers.

  The price was small, because it had no elevator, but steep stairs. The whole place permeated with the smell of wonton soup. Ivy pulled out a wad of bills and paid the deposit in cash. She used her cash deposit to negotiate paying to put a cover in the alley for her bike. The owner’s daughter, a Chinese teenager, translated by pointing to Ivy’s Harley out the window. The owner, a tiny Chinese woman, nodded once.

  Ivy had a bed delivered, just a box spring and mattress. The rest of her stuff she kept in boxes. Ivy kept the couch that converted into a bed in her office at the club for times when she didn’t want to walk home.

  She began eating wonton soup and pot stickers for breakfast before walking or riding over to the club. The owner would refuse to let her pay, and told her she was upping the rent to cover the cost of food. Ivy laughed and signed a new lease for fifty dollars a month more. She began bringing white containers of orange chicken, moo shoo pork and crab wontons in for Ace when they opened up.

  She put in an ad for a new server when one got pregnant and moved to Reno. She had no idea that Ace had his own ideas about that.

  “The plot thickens when stirred.”

  2

  Hell

  Hell Night

  “It’s not like it was before, there’s nothing surer.”

  Gregory opened his eyes and reached under the bed for his Louisville Slugger. He heard another crash and another scream. He slipped his cell phone and his wallet into his shorts. He slipped his feet into his tennis shoes, sockless.

  He opened his own apartment door and ran next door, a terrible sound hit his ears, like an animal being murdered. He ran in and saw the man raising a jar over his head, the mother throwing her body over her child. He smashed the bat down on the guy’s arm. He screamed and dropped the jar. It hissed when it met the carpet. He hit the guy in the shoulder and in the ribs and knocked the jar away with the tip of his bat.

  He hit 911 and shouted his address as he ran past the woman into the kitchen. He grabbed an empty pot, filled it with water, and poured it on the girl. She screamed even more horribly as the acid felt hot on her skin. He ran back, filled up the pot, and dumped it on the girl again.

  An old woman poked her head in the splintered door, “What is that horrible noise?” she said.

  The cigarette fell out of her mouth as she saw the moaning man holding his shattered arm, the bloody baseball bat, and Gregory running back and forth with a pot.

  “Need a bucket!” screamed Gregory.

  The woman, holding her screaming daughter’s hand, pointed at the closet. Gregory ripped it open, grabbed the red bucket, rinsed it out in the sink, filled it, and brought it back to the living room. He poured it over the screaming child.

  “What are you doing to that little girl?” asked the wo
man, starting forward.

  “Get the fuck out of the way of the paramedics,” said Gregory, rushing back to fill up the pail again.

  She started to move in the room again, saw the look on his face, and reconsidered. He heard sirens.

  “Go down and direct them up here,” he said. She gaped at him, open-mouthed.

  A skinny Hispanic kid poked his head in, “On it, man,” he said, running down the hall.

  A woman bustled in, with the same brown eyes and the same olive skin as the boy, “Bertha, get the fuck out of the way,” said the woman. She actually shoved the woman, “go on!”

  “I never,” said Bertha, stumbling back.

  “What and how long?” asked the olive-skinned woman, grabbing the girl’s other wrist, “no, honey, can’t touch your face. You might get acid on your fingers.”

  “Two minutes, figure its battery acid,” said Gregory, running back to the kitchen and filling up the pail again. He ran back, dumped the water on the girl, “think the monster over there is Daddy or boyfriend.”

  “Father,” said the woman clutching her daughter’s hand, “we run away, he find us.” She had a strong Russian accent.

  “Well,” said Gregory, sliding back on dripped water into the kitchen, “he won’t be hurting her again.”

  He rushed back in. The Hispanic woman turned the little girl’s head so Gregory could pour the water over it. Gregory could see bone. The mother sobbed, and held onto her daughter.

  “That’s enough,” said the woman, “gauze. Now!” The sirens didn’t seem to be getting closer.

  Gregory leaped over the man’s body in his way and ran to the bathroom. He grabbed the first aid kit, pulling the door shut behind him. He clambered over the screaming man again and had the kit opened and gauze fished out before he had time to skid to a stop. The woman pulled out gauze as feet clattered up the steps.

  Gregory pointed at the girl, “She’s first,” he said, to the startled paramedics.

  One rushed to the man, the other to the girl. He grabbed the shirt of the paramedic starting to kneel in front of the man, “I. Said. She’s. First.” Gregory pressed on, his voice a deep growl.

  “Elena,” moaned the woman holding her daughter’s hand. The girl coughed and vomited water.

  “Triage one!” yelled the nurse, “we’ll lose her if you both don’t get your asses over here. We need fluids, stat, and page the burns unit at UMC. I’m Doctor Flores, emergency medicine. And get another bus for Numbnuts over there.”

  Gregory reached for the phone in his pocket. He 911-texted Henry, with one word, “home.”

  He put the phone back when two cops burst in. They caught Gregory covered with blood spatter, the screaming man on the floor, and the bloody baseball bat, and drew their guns on Gregory.

  “Stop that,” said the nurse, “evil guy over there threw sulfuric acid on his daughter. The guy you’re pointing a gun at saved this little girl’s life.”

  One of them holstered his gun. The other kept his trained, right on Gregory.

  “Whoa, dude!” said the Hispanic kid, peering in the door, “point your gun at the right guy, why don’t you? I saw Asshole here break down the door. I called you guys.”

  The girl’s screaming stopped, “Elena!” screamed her mother.

  “She’s still alive,” said Dr. Flores, “but not for long. Why don’t you two idiots stop pointing the gun at the wrong guy and make yourself helpful by bringing in the gurney from the bus? This little girl needs a hospital right now. Move it!”

  The other cop holstered his gun, too. They ran back to the ambulance to get the gurney for the little girl. They helped the doctor and the paramedics strap her in. The woman followed, holding Elena’s hand, babbling to her in Russian.

  The second pair of paramedics arrived and started working on the screaming father, working to immobilize his arm, with bone peeking out, and a lose shoulder. All before strapping him to a gurney.

  The cops stepped over to Gregory. The one who had held the gun on him the longest pulled out a notebook and pen, “Name and address?”

  “I’m taking out my wallet,” said Gregory, “real slow.”

  “Right?”

  He took it out and handed it over, “I was asleep next door when I heard the door being smashed in. Figure he was kicking down the door, but I didn’t see that part. I grabbed my phone and wallet and my baseball bat from under the bed and slid on my shoes and came over here.” Gregory heard the motorcycles and relaxed fractionally.

  “How long did it take?” asked the cop.

  “Two seconds, maybe three,” he said, “I ran over here…”

  “That short of a time?” queried the cop. He was young and blonde, with a caterpillar mustache. His hand shook slightly as he wrote.

  “Ex-military,” said Gregory, “you move fast or you die.”

  “Oh-kay,” said the cop, “then what?”

  Gregory heard motorcycle boots on the stairs, “I saw the guy standing over the little girl. The mother was trying to protect the little girl with her body. He had a jar in his hand. The girl was screaming like she was a horse being murdered. I hit him twice with my baseball bat, on the arm holding the jar and on the shoulder of the same arm. Wanted to be sure he couldn’t hurt the girl anymore.”

  “What jar?” asked the cop.

  “That one,” said Henry, standing in the doorway, “the glass one over there.”

  “Sir,” said the cop, hand on his gun, “you can’t be here.”

  “I’m in the hallway,” said Henry, “and it’s a free country. I think I’ll wait here while you to talk to Gregory.”

  Henry stood aside as two more cops stepped into the room, plain-clothes detectives with shiny badges on their belts. Both were African-American; one was wider than the other one. A fullback and a halfback thought Gregory.

  “What do we have here?” asked the halfback, “I see blood but no body.”

  “This guy, Gregory…”

  “It’s James,” supplied Gregory, “Gregory Neil James.”

  “… says he saw some guy throwing something in a jar at a little girl. Hit him with that baseball bat, two times, on the arm and shoulder.”

  The knelt down right next to the jar. He breathed in through his nose, “Battery acid,” he said.

  “It seems so.”

  The other cop made a note in a little notebook, “The girl still alive?”

  “On her way to the hospital,” the younger cop said.

  “And the bathtub’s worth of water on the floor was to flush the acid?” asked the halfback.

  “Yes,” said Gregory, “I figured battery acid was the easiest to get a hold of. And it kind of smelled like it.”

  “And the perpetrator?” asked the halfback.

  “The…” stammered the young cop.

  “The asshole who threw acid on a little girl. The the one trussed up like a thanksgiving turkey in the gurney I saw going out of this apartment?”

  “Uh,” said the cop.

  “Simmons,” said the halfback, reading his name tag, “let’s talk in English, shall we? What happened to the man who was here, the one on the floor?”

  “He, he’s on the gurney,” said Simmons, finding his voice.

  “And did you happen to cuff his good arm to the gurney?”

  “What? Uh, no.”

  “On it,” said the fullback, taking out his cell phone, in an extremely deep voice.

  “Now, Simmons, I suggest you give the man’s wallet to me.” He did, in some sort of daze.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Now, go downstairs so we can process the scene,” Simmons stared at him, “go on… and take your hand off your gun, boy. The bad guy is long gone from here.”

  Simmons walked out the door and passed Henry as if he were under water.

  The halfback turned back to Gregory, “Now, Mr. Good Samaritan Gregory Neil James, now that the IQ in the room has returned to normal, please tell me what happened. And, Mr. Whatever Your Name Is in
the doorway, as long as you stay there, you can listen.”

  “Henry,” said Henry, “thank you, Detective.”

  “Detective Jackson. This is Detective Naman. Now, walk me through it, soldier,” he said, passing Gregory’s wallet to Detective Naman.

  “Yes, sir,” said Gregory, “I went to bed early. Been up since 4am this morning. I heard a sound. I think it was the door cracking…”

  He went over the whole horrible scene again as Detective Jackson handed back his wallet, and crime scene techs walked in behind them.

  Detective Jackson held up a hand to stop the crime scene investigators, “That jar over there is probably battery acid,” he said over his shoulder to them, “so be real fucking careful with it.”

  He waved for Gregory to continue. Gregory did, careful to say exactly what he saw and did.

  “Now, soldier, if the boy in the hall says the same thing, and the doctors at the hospital do, and I think they will, you can go next door to your apartment. The crime scene techs will follow you with a bag in which to put your shorts. Take a shower, get dressed, and go somewhere away from here for a while. You won’t be able to sleep with the adrenaline, anyway.” Gregory moved to leave.

  “One more thing,” said Detective Jackson, “you’re a hero. I suspect Wonder Boy at the bottom of the stairs pulled a gun on you. Am I right?”

  Gregory nodded, “Yeah.”

  “Well, don’t let that go to your head. If he survives the ass-kicking I will instruct his boss to give him, he might just grow up and pay attention to a crime scene rather than making assumptions.”

  Gregory grinned a mirthless grin, “We’re all young. Once.”

  “I suspect you were never young, but for five minutes sometime,” said the detective, “good luck, soldier,” he said.

  “Thank you, Sir,” said Gregory.

  Henry and the crime tech with a paper bag in his hand followed them. Gregory whipped off his shorts and handed them to the flabbergasted tech, who didn’t know he’d gone commando. He turned and went towards the shower.

  Henry saw the tech out, locked the door, and sat on the couch. He called the two Nighthawks waiting downstairs in the parking lot and said that they could go, and that he would look after Gregory. He then placed a call to Numa, who had a friend who worked in the burns unit. He had the name of the girl, Elena. That would be enough. The apartment had been clean before the blood spatters and the water soaking the floor. Still a doll on the floor, and a lonely teddy bear.