His Favorite Color is Blood - Coffin Nails MC (gay biker dark romance) (Sex & Mayhem Book 8) (15 page)

“You ask, Bob, you got us lost.
I’m gonna go take a piss,” said the man on the other side of the cab before
jumping out of the van. He was dressed in a red-checkered shirt, like a
stereotypical lumberjack—or maybe it was currently fashionable.

Bob sighed and looked at Grim
apologetically. “We were heading for Knappsville, took a wrong turn I think.
Would you know how to get to Calvan? We will handle it from there easily.”

Grim frowned. The van had an
Arizona license plate, so maybe the men had no idea that driving a dirt road
into the woods would take them nowhere. It pissed him off that he had to deal
with this shit. Lumberjack hid behind the van to relieve himself, and Grim
wished he would just do it somewhere in the woods, not in his and Misha’s Goddamn
front yard. To add insult to injury, the guy wearing uncomfortable-looking
black clothes, who traveled squashed between the other two, was now moving
toward the door as well. What was this? A public toilet?

“If I were you, I wouldn’t go off
the asphalt if you want to get to a town. I’m just a tourist, so the best I can
do for you is tell you to go back to the nearest crossing and maybe try
stopping a local’s car. Or drive on until you reach the gas station. It’s a few
miles north.”

Bob nodded, listening to each of
Grim’s words as if he said something especially clever. It was just common
sense. But Grim’s body went rigid the moment Lumberjack emerged from the back
of the van pointing a gun straight at him. An armed robbery? In the middle of a
fucking Tennesee forest?

“Don’t move, and you might
survive this,” Lumberjack hissed, and the guy dressed in black was already
circling the van.

Grim’s muscles turned into barbed
wire, scratching his bones and piercing skin. The fucker was lying. It would
make no sense to let them leave after he and Misha saw their faces. His
thoughts immediately wandered to Misha, but he didn’t dare look away from the
glistening metal around the dark hole of the gun’s muzzle. Lumberjack was
relaxed, so it seemed this wasn’t his first time using a firearm to intimidate
someone. He held the grip right, with both hands, and he was pointing it
straight at Grim’s forehead. He was far enough to put three pieces of lead into
Grim’s brain before they clashed. This was bad.

“What do you want?” he asked
calmly. “I paid for the house in cash, but I don’t have more than a a few
twenties.”

To make matter’s worse, the man
in black left Grim’s sight, no doubt heading for Misha.

“Grim?” Misha called in a
high-pitched tone.

“I’ll get more than a few
twenties for the boy.” Bob snorted as he opened the driver’s door and stepped
on the narrow ledge above the wheels. His closeness was almost palpable, and
Grim’s fists itched for his throat. But he couldn’t risk it, not with
Lumberjack being so sure-handed with the gun. If Grim died, Misha really would
have no hope left.

Gloom fell on Grim’s shoulders
all at once, piercing his stomach and twisting between his guts. Those people
must have tracked them because of the damn photos he took at the hotel. He’d
told Misha he was being unreasonable back then, laughed at him, but Misha had
been right. There was no other way for a team of men to target Misha somewhere
in the middle of the forest.

“Let me go! Let go!” Misha yelled
behind his back, making Grim long for blood.

Grim’s chest heaved, calculating
patterns, routes he could take, but nothing made sense. It was three armed men
against him, and if they got their way, Misha would be back to the horror he had
reluctantly told Grim about. Without Gary, he would be public property again.
He would burn somewhere in another basement, and no one would ever trace even
the ashes that remained of him.

Gunshots made birds in the
surrounding trees screech and flee, and for a split second, Grim was sure he
was dead but didn’t know it yet. But the three shots came from behind him,
along with Misha’s scream. Lumberjack lowered his gun in confusion.

“He needs to be alive, you im—”

Grim dove forward, his body tense
like an arrow sent straight into Lumberjack’s heart. The bastard blinked, shock
briefly replaced by fury as he pulled the trigger.

Grim threw himself at the van and
changed his direction, charging straight at the enemy, grabbing Lumberjack’s
thick wrist. His brain screamed for the gun in his hand. What if Misha was
hurt? Already dead?

He hooked his arm around
Lumberjack’s head and squeezed it hard. A scream tore out of his mouth when
sharp teeth emerged from the curly bush of the man’s beard, pulling on Grim’s
flesh as they struggled, falling against the side of the van.

“He shot me! The fucking cripple
shot me!” the guy in black screeched from behind, and Grim’s chest filled with
pride. As worry over Misha subsided, he focused all of his strength on the man
in his grasp and made them both topple into the dirt.

Blood rushed through his brain
like a flash flood, turning his vision red as he squeezed Lumberjack with his
thighs while holding the gun away. The man was frantically hitting Grim’s side
with his fist, but it only made the fight rawer, more real. Grim had been
itching for a bit of action, and now it came to his doorstep. As they said, be
careful what you wished for.

With a hoarse cry, he twisted his
body, scrambling on top of Lumberjack, and used his whole weight to turn the
fucker’s head as if it were a soda cap. With a sharp popping sound, Lumberjack
went limp.

“Stay put, motherfucker, or I
will blow your head off!” Bob yelled and cocked his gun, but there was panic in
his voice that Grim could lick up as easily as a wolf could a sheep’s bleeding
leg.

He grabbed Lumberjack’s gun and
fired straight into Bob’s right hand. Bob fired as well, but the bullet hit the
van and ricocheted somewhere between the trees. He gasped, soundlessly dropping
his weapon and ducking behind the van like the pussy he was.

Grim swallowed a big gulp of air.
“Misha?”

“I’m fine! He’s down, and I’ve
got three more bullets for him if he fucking moves!”

Grim’s lips spread into a broad
smile. Only now could he think straight. With Misha safe, he was allowed to
enjoy the hunt. “Good boy!”

The sound of the van’s side door
sliding open pulled all of Grim’s attention back to his immediate surroundings.
Bob could have anything in that van, so Grim needed to act fast.

He picked up the gun Bob left and
briefly wiped the slick blood on his sweats before looking into the cab. There
was a white wall between the front and the loading space of the van, so he
quickly put his foot on top of the wheel, climbing on the hood. With one
firearm in each hand and Bob’s blood clinging to his skin, he felt as if he
could conquer the world. He leaned back and jumped across the windshield,
straight to the roof that thudded when he landed.

The moment he took one more step
forward, a bullet flew through the roof of the van and barely missed his foot.
Grim became the epitome of wrath and steadied himself as his fingers worked
simultaneously on the cool steel in his hands. Recoil was pushing him back
toward the hood, but he would fight against gravity itself if it meant he’d get
his vengeance. No one would slight Grim with a blind bullet.

“You’ve got enough, Bob?” he
yelled and ran along the roof, jumping off from the side of the back door. He
had one last piece of ammo left, and it would be his key inside.

He shot the lock in the door to
open it and reveal Bob on the floor with blood all around him. His fingers
still twitched, and he seemed to be gasping for his last breaths.

Grim put his hand inside and was
about to enter and make sure the fucker was dead when a gunshot came from the
other side of the van.

“Grim!” Misha yelled, and the
other assailant's scream followed.

All of Grim’s attention hung on
that single call that seemed to pull him to Misha by the throat. He immediately
ran straight to their outdoor gym. His legs were flying so high it felt as if
he could reach his bird within seconds, but he was still so far, far away.

The man in black was struggling
with Misha on the ground, and Misha was putting up a fight, but the gun lay far
away in the dry dirt. Misha’s stumps were kicking at the man’s sides, but
despite all his attempts, he was still on the losing side.

Grim fell down on Black like a
harpy. He hooked his elbow around the man’s throat and pulled so hard he could
have broken his bones if he went a bit farther. “You’re the only one left, you
piece of shit,” he growled, pulling Black off Misha. The scratches and bruises
forming on Misha’s arms and chest had Grim tumble into a fit of rage, only
fueled by the blood dripping to his fingers from the red mess of flesh in
Black’s eye socket.

“More will come!” Black spat,
writhing in Grim’s grip.

Grim nodded at Misha and pulled
back one of Black’s arms as he roughly dragged him to their cabin. His heart
was longing for a blood feast, and this man would be it. “You don’t know who I
am, do you?” he whispered, pulling Black’s weakening body up the few stairs
onto the porch.

Misha followed on all fours once
he retrieved the gun, scrambling forward quickly enough for Grim to assume he
was fine. Black on the other hand was bleeding from his shoulder and arm and
getting to that lucid state Grim enjoyed in his bounty.

“Fuck you!” Black snarled at him
and tried to spit on Grim, and the moment the saliva reached Grim’s skin,
disgust made him snarl. He threw Black down, grabbed him by the hair, and
slammed his head against the floor so hard the man was knocked out without the
need for a repeat.

“Shit,” muttered Grim and quickly
rushed inside. He returned with a pair of handcuffs and dragged Black to the
balustrade at the porch. With the man still out cold, it was easy to fasten him
to one of the thick wooden balusters.

“I’m sorry,” Misha said, and his
breath hitched when he reached the stairs. “I shot, but it only grazed him, and
I lost the gun.”

The revving engine of the van had
the hairs on Grim’s forearms bristle. Was Bob not dead? He didn’t get to check
when Misha cried for help.

“Flying fuck,” he growled and
rushed into the house again. He always kept several loaded guns on hand, and so
he reached into the black bag and pulled out two. By the time he burst out the
door, the blue van was disappearing between the trees.

“What do we do? He knows where we
are now.” Misha moaned, following the van with his gaze, but Grim wouldn’t give
up now. He ran for his bike, which stood underneath an awning on the side of
the house. Just mounting it felt like coming alive again, and when the engine
started, it sent octane-rich blood through his veins. “Grim’s going to reap!”
he yelled and rode off at full speed, his brain completely focused on the
bubble of sound ahead of him. He hated being made a fool.

The smell of blood on his skin
had just been an appetizer, and he would not let his prey get out of his grasp.
The bike was quick, maneuverable, and he’d be able to drive into a narrow path
if needed. He moved faster than the van could, with much more space to spare,
and even with the sand floating up from underneath the wheels, he went faster,
voicing his excitement with laughter as he saw the back of the van emerge from
behind the trees.

“Your blood is mine,” he yelled.
Bob might not hear him, but his spirit would know the Grim Reaper was out to
get him. Grim’s eyes were drawn to a tall sycamore tree on his left, and the
smile broadened on his face as he realized where he was. The dirt road led
through low terrain, snaking between the hills, but there was a footpath, a
shortcut that ran past this very tree, and Grim knew, because that was the road
he and Misha took to the lake nearby.

The narrow clearing between the
trees loomed to his left, and he slowed down before taking a sharp turn toward
the hill. The path was narrow, so he needed to keep his bike steady, but it
gave him enough leeway to avoid roots sticking out of the ground. He couldn’t
drive nearly as fast as when he followed the van, but the road was making quite
a big loop around several hills, which gave Grim just enough time to make his
shortcut.

The sharp, warm scent of pine
penetrated his lungs as he rode on, completely focused on the green wall of
trees and bushes on both sides. The tall tree briefly emerged somewhere on the
horizon again, but he didn’t have time to pay it any mind. His arteries were
pumping at a steady pace, and his mind relaxed like when he was young and
assisted his father on a hunting trip. Only now, Grim didn’t hunt innocents.
Every ounce of flesh on the men whose lives he’d taken was soaked with their
brutish character. And Bob deserved to die just like all the others on Grim’s
neverending list. He slowed down when the dirt road loomed ahead of him, and he
quickly dismounted his ride, propping it against a tree on the ground that
seemed more or less even.

The sound of the approaching van
was unmistakable on the otherwise empty road, and to Grim’s advantage, it could
only go so fast if Bob didn’t want to risk breaking his ride and getting left
stranded and bleeding in the middle of nowhere, close to his enemies. Grim’s
heartbeat picked up its pace proportionally to how close he was to impact. He
stood behind a tree and counted down the seconds for the van to pass him. He
wanted Bob alive and telling him all about their plans. How Grim and Misha had
been found. With the gunshot wounds both Bob and Black had suffered, Grim
couldn’t settle for one of them, as they could die too quickly.