Kings of Asphalt (Club Chrome 1)

Zoe shuddered in spite of her attempt to appear unaffected by his threat but he was scary in a psychotic way, which made her realize that neither Jax nor Hunter had ever truly scared her. There’d always been something about them that she’d been drawn to and it wasn’t the fact that they were supposedly bad men. This guy, with his permanent cold sneer and rough, callused hands, was scary and bad — terrible combo — and she was going to leave with him. Her hands shook as she quickly jerked on her clothing, trying to move at the speed of light so that the creep couldn’t get a nice eyeful of her private parts but his leering gaze caught plenty. She swallowed her mortification and prayed that somehow, someway Jax and Hunter figured things out before she ended up

eating dirt in a shallow grave.

Hunter burst into Jax’s place, nearly taking the door off the hinges. Jax, quick with his gun, had Hunter in his sights within seconds but Hunter ignored the gun and went straight to Jax, ripping him from the old, ratty recliner to shout in his face, “Dimas has double-crossed us and he’s going after Zoe!”

Jax pushed Hunter away with a scowl. “What the fuck are you talking about? Are you drunk?”

“I wish I were,” he answered. “Come on, we gotta find her.” “What makes you think it’s Dimas?” “I can give you details on the ride. We’re taking your truck.” Hunter wasn’t the kind of guy who cried wolf. If he thought Zoe was in danger,

chances were, he was right. Jax grabbed his keys and they sprinted to his truck. “Dimas? Are you sure?” he asked as they climbed in and he throttled the engine. The lifted truck

was a mean-ass piece of metal. There was no sneaking up on anyone in that rig but there was also no stopping it either. Jax could squash anything in his path if need be. “I don’t understand. I was just with Zoe three hours ago and she was fine. Have you tried her cell?”

“Yeah, no answer.” Jax nodded and he pressed the gas pedal harder. Within fifteen minutes they were

at Zoe’s apartment. Sprinting the stairs, they found Zoe’s apartment door unlocked, which didn’t give him a warm and fuzzy feeling. They walked in and knew within seconds that her tiny apartment was empty.

Hunter went to Zoe’s bedroom and came out with a tense expression. “There’s evidence of a struggle,” he said, showing Jax several broken cat figurines. “Something went down in this room and she’s not here. I’m willing to bet my left nut Dimas has her.”

“Why would Dimas take Zoe?” Jax asked, his gaze searching the living room before snagging on a small note taped to the television. He ripped the note from the screen, reading it to Hunter, “Meet me at the warehouse. Come alone or you’re going to end up with one dead reporter.”

“Fucking Dimas, you back-stabbing piece of shit,” Hunter swore under his breath. “This has to do with the shipment.”

Jax agreed, though he still didn’t have a clear picture of why Dimas would do something so fucked up. Why now? There were countless times that Dimas could’ve killed them and taken over the club before this moment. Apparently, the fucker had been biding his time, waiting for the most opportune moment to completely ream them in the ass. “Let’s go,” he said tersely. “There’s nothing left to see here.”

Hunter followed and they strode away from Zoe’s apartment, head and hearts in sync with one another. They climbed back into the truck and Jax told Hunter without an ounce of hesitation, “If he hurts her…I’m going to kill him.”

At that Hunter barked an ugly laugh filled with the promise of pain as he muttered a dark oath, saying, “I’m going to kill him regardless.”

Jax had no reason to disbelieve Hunter.

And he had no reason to stop him either.

#

A million different scenarios were ripping through Hunter’s mind as they approached the warehouse. What if Zoe were already dead? What if they were showing up too late to stop what was going to be inevitable from the start? The last words he spoke to Zoe were mean. A sick twist in his gut made him want to puke. Zoe, sweet, spunky, irritatingly sexy Zoe…how did someone get attached so quickly? He felt as if she were the missing puzzle that he’d forgotten he’d been searching for and now that someone else was holding that piece hostage, he wanted to do some major damage.

“She’s going to be fine,” Jax assured Hunter and all he could was grunt in response. Jax didn’t know that — he couldn’t make promises and Hunter wouldn’t be so stupid as to pin his hopes on something that couldn’t be secured. “Do you have any idea what Dimas is up to?”

“My guess is it has something to do with the shipment. He’s double-crossing us for the money. Simplest explanation don’t you think?”

They entered the warehouse, the empty space illuminated by one sickly fluorescent lamp overhead that threw menacing shadows on the walls and ratcheted the creep factor to ten. The warehouse, one of the few holdings along with the bar that actually belonged to the club, wasn’t much to look at but it was a convenient, out of sight place to conduct business in a private manner. Plus blood was easier to wash out of concrete than carpet. However, at the moment, the warehouse was stocked with boxes of artillery, waiting for the buyer — five million dollars worth to be exact.

“You come alone?”

At the sound of Dimas’ voice, they whipped around to see Dimas standing above them on the catwalk.

“That’s what you said, isn’t it,” Hunter barked in answer.

“You’re smarter than you look.”

“Why don’t come down here and I’ll show you just how dumb you are,” Hunter proposed.

“I think I’m good right where I’m at,” Dimas said, pulling Zoe from the shadows. “Looking for this?” Her hands were tied and her mouth gagged but even in the milky light of the dim fluorescents Hunter could see her fear. Dimas pretended to push Zoe over the edge and her terrified, muffled scream sent a shaft of pure terror through Hunter’s heart. “Ohhh, careful now…that’s a nasty drop,” he said, chuckling as he pulled her away from the edge. “I’d say a drop like that could kill a person.”

“What the fuck are you doing, Dimas?” Jax demanded. “Let Zoe go. This has nothing to do with her. Hell, I don’t even know what the fuck this is all about. Why don’t you let us in on your little drama and we can sort this out.”

Dimas laughed. “You’re such a dumbass, Hunter. Always have been and always will be. You’re the muscle but definitely no brain. No wonder you’ve always stuck around Jax…does he wipe your ass, too?”

Jax clenched his fists but kept his cool. “You gonna throw insults like a whiny bitch or start talking about the shit that matters? You want a bigger cut of the payday? Is that what this is about?”

“Hell yes, I want a bigger cut. I want it all, jackass,” Dimas shot back.

“What do you think of those terms?”

“I think they fucking suck,” Hunter barked, beginning to prowl beneath the catwalk, violence rippling from every pore. “Get over yourself. What makes you think you deserve everything we’ve worked so hard to gain?”

“Because I fucking earned it! Remember that little stint in prison I did for your ass? Remember when I took the fall when it was your fault that we got caught? Yeah, well, I remember quite well my time in prison and I’m the one who made the contacts for this job. I paid for this job with my motherfucking ass. What did you do but sit around and look pretty while I did the hard work?”

“Are you saying you got ass-raped in prison so now you’re taking the money as your compensation?” Jax asked, disgusted by Dimas’ thought process. “Life is fucking hard, you pussy. If prison was the first time you got felt up or touched ‘in a bad way’ then you got off fucking easy. Give me a motherfucking break. Get some therapy if you’re gonna be a pussy about it but don’t throw everything away like this. We had something good and you ruined it.”

“You got it all wrong,” Dimas said, wrenching Zoe close to him so that he could nuzzle her neck. Zoe whimpered and tried to pull away but he wasn’t having none of that and just jerked her harder to actually bite her shoulder. “She’s nice and soft in all the right places,” he said as if complimenting their taste in women. “But a little too doughy in the middle if you ask me.”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Jax returned in a steely tone. “Leave Zoe out of this. What do you want?”

“I want you and Hunter to know pain,” Dimas answered simply. “It’s not enough to just take your money, which I admit, feels pretty damn good, but I realized, just recently actually, that in order to truly fuck you over, I gotta leave a mark. And that’s where this little pigeon comes in. You care about her. I can see it in your eyes. I could see it that first night when you wouldn’t tell me who she was or who’d been in the room with you. And that’s when I knew the final cog had slid into place.”