“Not for long,” Rat assured him.

  Right on cue, the roar of motorcycle engines could be heard in the distance. The sound shot up Torque’s back and sent a pinprick of pain into his neck. He had been around bikes for a long time, and even before they were in sight he knew they were in trouble.

  The first bikes came around the corner, riding in tandem, and then another rank came after them. There were more and more, piling into the cul-de-sac with their dark leather and shiny chrome. Even as they pulled to a stop, they revved their engines, creating a thunderous roar that bounced off the siding of the family dwellings around them and crashed against Torque’s ears.

  He kept his focus on Blue, trying to decide how he was going to pull this off. He could shoot forward on his bike, grab her from Rat, and make an escape between the houses if there weren’t any backyard fences to stop him. But he knew the odds weren’t on his side. Rat could hurt her before Torque ever got to her, and he could easily shoot both of them as they took off. His chances of winding his way out of the residential neighborhood and onto the open highway before the Bastards caught up with him were too low. Worst of all, he would be leaving his men behind to finish a fight that he had started.

  Still, he kept his gaze on her, trying to send her mental messages of strength. If Torque couldn’t protect her now, then she needed to protect herself. She was the key to all of this, and he couldn’t lose her. Blue’s hand drifted slowly up as Rat watched his backup fall in line, her fingertips resting just inside the pocket of her jeans.

  Rat laughed, his left hand clutching at his big belly. His men laughed with him, but less heartily. “I guess our numbers look a little better now, don’t they? You didn’t really think I would be stupid enough to show up here and take a hostage if I didn’t think I could keep her, did you? Now, are we ready to talk?”

  Torque’s finger itched, longing to wrap around the trigger of his pistol and take Rat out once and for all. But he knew, just as everyone else here did, that the first shot would be the start of something terrible.

  “We’ll give you one last chance to settle this without spilling any blood,” Acer called out. “Just let go of her and let her walk over here. Then you can leave with your hide still covering your ass.” Several of the members of Satan Seed laughed at the joke, but Rat shook his head.

  “You’re not hearing me, old man. I’ll give you the girl, but you’ve got to give me Torque. He did this to my eye, and I’m going to pay him back for it. I haven’t quite decided how I want to do it yet. I could shove a beer bottle into his face, but that’s already been done. Maybe I’ll slowly cut his eyes out, one by one, with a dull knife. Or I could cut off his balls and make him eat them.”

  “I didn’t know you were in such a hurry to touch my nuts,” Torque retorted. “No offense, but I’m not really into that shit.”

  A few snickers issued from behind him. Torque was glad they appreciated the humor, but he knew it wouldn’t do anything to hold off the inevitable.

  “Flatter yourself if you want to, Torque, but you’ll die before this is all over.” He yanked on Blue’s arm, bringing her in front of him. She cringed away, but he pulled her close. “Now, are we ready to trade or what?”

  Acer, sensing the anger building up in Torque, put his hand out to him to hold him off. “No. No trade.”

  “All right. You wanted war, and now you’ll get one.”

  “Wait!” Blue’s words caused the entire assembly to pause as her voice rang out. “Not here!” She looked at Torque with such desperation in her eyes that he wanted to run to her, to hold her in his arms, to tell her that it would all be okay. But her gaze flicked to one of the houses and back to him.

  He understood. “She’s right,” he muttered to Acer, low enough that Rat couldn’t hear. “There are too many innocent people here. They’re probably all hiding in their houses, but you and I both know that bullets travel through walls. I don’t want to know what everyone will think of us for shooting up a neighborhood.”

  The president’s hands clenched and unclenched at his side, the King and Queen of Hearts shifting as they contemplated the situation. “I agree with you, but what else are we going to do? How do we know the Dirty Bastards won’t try something tricky if we move this shindig elsewhere? How do we know they won’t hurt Blue?”

  “Trust me, I’ve been plenty worried about that myself.” Torque’s guts twisted inside his body. Changing their battleground would mean the Bastards would have more time to plan. They could have a better assessment of Satan Seed, and perhaps even gain an advantage if they got to the new destination first. Most of all, it meant Blue would have to ride over there with Rat. He would never hand her over unless he had to. Torque hated the idea of leaving his woman in Rat’s custody for even a second longer, but he didn’t see another way out of this.

  “We’re just going to have to do it. What about that empty lot on Industrial Road?”

  Acer scrubbed at his chin. “It’s not a bad idea. Nobody should be there, and I don’t think the city will have any complaints about collateral damage on the nasty old buildings nearby. You think he’ll actually go for it?”

  Torque glared at Rat. “I don’t see that he has much choice. His men have surrounded us here, but that means they’ll catch their own members in the crossfire if they start shooting. They’d be idiots not to take a chance at reconfiguring themselves.”

  The president nodded. “Sounds good to me.” He hollered out the suggestion to Rat.

  The other man conferred with Flame and Stubble, who nodded their agreement. “All right,” Rat called back, “but only because I want more room to maneuver. And don’t try anything funny, or the girl gets it.”

  “I wish we had the rest of our men,” Acer mumbled just before he started up his bike.

  Torque had to agree. There would have been more had some of the patrols not already been sent out, but as it was, they had to take what was available to them. The Bastards now outnumbered them, but it would just have to be good enough. Unless some of the other members happened to see them as they drove through town, they had all the reinforcements they were going to get.

  The bikers from both clubs were eager to get out onto the road first. Both the Dirty Bastards and Satan Seed understood the importance of having first pick at their stance on the empty lot. As a result, the town was flooded with bikers going in numerous directions. Bastards rode right next to Seeds in a vie for the quickest route around traffic and lights. They bumped up onto the sidewalks to get around each other and took shortcuts through alleys and parking lots.

  As much as Torque wanted to join them, he knew there was a different path he would have to take. He let the rest of his men go, waving off even Acer, as he waited for the black truck to find its way out of the cul-de-sac. Not nearly as maneuverable as the motorcycles and apparently not without exhaust issues, it chugged through the city behind a vast pack of bikes.

  Torque kept his watch on Blue through the rear windshield. She looked so tiny and frail next to the big bikers on either side of her, but she carried her shoulders back and her head straight. Yes, that was one of the many things he liked about her. Even in a crisis, she didn’t let it bring her down. She would fight to the end, and so would he.

  But his hopes about the battle dropped as they approached the empty lot and he realized that the Bastards had gotten there first.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Blue

  Blue allowed herself to be dragged back into the truck and put inside. Rat climbed in after her, settling down behind the wheel, and Flame took the passenger seat. Stubble jogged down the sidewalk to where his bike had been left on the street, his belly and his thick arms jiggling. It would have been a comical sight had she been in the mood for humor.

  But she knew she couldn’t laugh, no matter what was going on. Her life was on the line, and so was Torque’s. The intense look in his eyes had told her everything she needed to know, but there was little she could do about any of it while in the hands of the Dirty Bastards.

  At the very least, she had been able to convince them with little effort not to have their battle here. If it had to happen, it couldn’t possibly be where so many innocents could be injured or killed. She imagined Bri in her home with baby Ava on her lap, hopefully safe and out of the fray. Blue hadn’t been surprised that Torque had picked up on her meaning so easily, but she had been shocked when Rat had agreed. Maybe this would all go better than she imagined.

  Still, she was once again stuffed inside the foul truck with the two Bastards. It churned to life once again, chugging out onto the street behind the bikes. Blue watched as the bikers split off into numerous directions, not always with their own clans. She had never seen such a spectacle, but she couldn’t quite appreciate it.

  A hot hand came down on her right thigh. She flinched and pulled her knees together, but that only made Flame squeeze a little tighter.

  “I don’t know that it was ever a good idea to offer this one up for trade,” the redhead remarked. Sweat ran down his temples, and he reeked of old fast food and cigarettes, mixed with a faint trace of whiskey. “She could be an awful lot of fun for us.”

  “You horndog,” Rat replied with a laugh. “Don’t the club girls do it for you anymore?”

  His lower lip stuck out as his eyebrows came down, making him look like a ginger caveman. “They’re not very cooperative. We need to get some new ones. Hey, that’s what we can do with this one. She can just come back to the clubhouse with us and we’ll forget about the war.”

  Rat let his eyes stray from the road long enough run them appreciatively up and down Blue’s body. The scar around his eye looked particularly pink in this light, making him even more difficult to look at than usual. “She’s a nice piece of ass, I agree. But I’m committed to taking down Satan Seed one way or another. Don’t worry, though. When things go our way, we’ll have plenty of opportunity to have our way with her.”

  “Like I’d ever have anything to do with either one of you,” Blue spat. “You’re disgusting.”

  “You know, Flame, I like it when a woman is a little bit resistant. It makes the chase more fun. She says she doesn’t want to be with us, but she’s already catering to my whims.” Rat let go of the steering wheel with his right hand and draped it around her shoulders, pulling her close.

  Blue whacked at him repeatedly to keep herself from having to get too close to the stench of his armpit. “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man on Earth.”

  “Give me a little time, sweetheart, and you might not have a choice.”

  “Hey, I said I wanted her,” Flame whined. He moved his hand up her thigh.

  Blue swatted him away, but she only managed to piss him off. He removed his hand from her thigh, but only so he could grab her by the shoulders and slam her into the back of the seat. His face turned a shade of red to rival his hair as he put it only an inch from hers, his numerous freckles turning a shade darker. “Don’t you smack me again, you little bitch, unless you want to lose that hand.” Despite his skinny frame, he was surprisingly strong.

  Still, Blue wasn’t ready to give in to someone like this. He was just a low man on the totem pole of a skanky club, and he had no control over her. “If I have to touch you again, I’d rather have it cut off anyway.”

  “That’s it.” Flame pulled a long knife from his boot. The blade flashed in the sun.

  Rat snapped his fingers. “All right, you two. We don’t have time for this now. We’re here.”

  The empty lot the men had spoken of stretched out before them, a sea of broken asphalt. Chunks of concrete littered the edges, almost arranged like a fence. The sun blazed down and bounced off the black ground, creating a rippled effect in the air. Swimming in that ocean of air was a full contingent of the Bastards, who had somehow managed to get there before the members of Satan Seed. They had taken up one entire end of the lot, stacked in neat, alternating rows that meant everyone had a good shot. Satan Seed was just arriving, their bikes downshifting as they slowed.

  “Looks like we’ve got the advantage!” cackled Rat. “Sit tight, little darling. You’re about to see a massacre.” Rat pulled the vehicle over behind a rusty dumpster and turned it off.

  Flame unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door, his hand on his gun. “This is going to be one hell of a showdown. Aren’t you coming?”

  “I’ve got a perfect position right here, protecting my hostage.” Rat picked up his own gun, pulled out the magazine to check the load, and clicked it back into place. “What do you say, baby? You gonna hang out here with me in the VIP box?”

  Blue glanced at the passenger side of the truck, where Flame was standing with the door open and watching everyone filter into the lot. It might have been a chance at escape, but Rat would shoot her on the spot. She didn’t answer.

  “Good enough.”

  With at least a third of the Seeds in the lot, the Bastards opened fire. Shots rang out all around the parking lot, breaking the air and zinging off every surface. Several men fell from their bikes, their arms flailing out as gravity took them down, blood spewing from their wounds.

  Blue crouched down behind the dashboard, ignoring for once the dirt and filth of the truck and trying only not to get shot. Her heart thundered in her ears, providing punctuation for the staccato of shots. She didn’t have any thoughts about what she would change in her life if she managed to live through this. There were no pleas to God. She only thought of Torque.

  What might have happened if she had done what he’d asked? Blue could question the biker’s motives all she wanted to, and she could blame him for injuring Rat in the first place, but what might have happened if she had done what Torque had asked and gone back to the clubhouse? It had been her decision to go to the Hagens’ house, and that had put both Bri and Ava in danger. It had nearly put their entire neighborhood in danger, and it had brought the rivalry between the clans to a head. One tiny decision on her part had changed the fate of many. How many men out there would die because of her?

  “Get on up here. I want you to see your man when the blood drains from his body.” Rat grabbed a handful of her hair on the back of her head and yanked, banging her head on the steering wheel. He whipped her head back, forcing her to look out over the asphalt.

  Blue tried to fight against him, but his grip was too strong. When she heard the sound of an engine roaring past the truck, she realized that Rat was right. Torque was riding into the battlefield, one hand guiding his bike and the other out straight, the recoil of his pistol jerking back his wrist for only a moment before he fired again. He was like a scene from a movie, with his black hair slicked back by the wind and a determined but grim look on his face.

  But he was heading right into the fray. By now, there was so much exhaust clogging the air over the empty lot that Blue couldn’t tell who was who, or even what side they were fighting for. She squinted her eyes, hoping past all hope to see Torque heading back toward the truck again. Blue needed him, now more than ever. But so did his men, and there would be no point in saving her if the Bastards were just going to take her back again.

  A bullet rang out against the dumpster, making her leap back against the seat. It zinged off the top of the truck and ricocheted off into the distance.

  Rat laughed. “Come on, sweetheart. The fight is just getting started.”

  Despite the dust, the exhaust, and the flying bullets, Rat dragged her out of the truck. They stuck close to the trash receptacle as they crept forward, Rat’s hand still entangled in her hair. She yanked back, wanting to take cover somewhere, anywhere, but he didn’t let go.

  “You’re in this just as much as I am. You’re staying out here.”

  A Seed went down. Another stopped to help him, only to get shot in the leg. With blood weeping down the side of his motorcycle and staining the chrome, he fired back. The next bullet caught him in the chest and he fell on the first man in a tangle of flesh and metal.

  Blue cried out. She knew it wasn’t Torque, but it could have been just as easily. She searched through the fray and finally picked him out near the center. He had just reloaded and was gunning down several of the Bastards. Blood ran down the side of his face and his skin was coated with sweat and grime, but at least he was whole.

  “Better watch while you can.” Rat didn’t seem able to keep his mouth shut, too proud of the position he was in as he lorded over the war of the clans. “It’ll all be over before you know it.” Firing into the crowd, Rat attempted to pick off Torque. He was a poor shot, and his bullets pinged off a nearby warehouse.

  “Drop the gun and let her go,” came a growl from behind them.

  Blue turned to see a muzzle pointed right at the back of Rat’s neck. She barely registered the King of Hearts tattoo with the scar through it. Her mind acted so quickly that time slowed down. While Rat swiveled his head away from her to face his assailant, she whipped Torque’s knife from her pocket and flicked it open. With every ounce of strength in her body, she sank the knife straight into the man’s gut. Blood flooded out over her hands, thick and hot and smelling of copper, but as she remembered everything he had put her through she shoved it in a little deeper. The noise surrounding her was drowned out until she could only hear the sound of her hair ripping out of his grasp.