Retaliate Read online

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  BONUS SCENE OF WHAT’S NEXT!

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND AUTHOR NOTE

  ALSO BY M. N. FORGY

  STALK HER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RETALIATE

  Copyright © 2017 M.N. Forgy

  Edited by Ellie McLove

  Cover Photography Sara Eirew

  Proofed by Kim Ginsberg

  Formatted by Max Henry

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  This book in no way displays the law enforcement in Las Vegas, though there are details that are accurate it wouldn’t be any fun if we didn’t twist it with some fiction.

  A past never told to the innocent, until whispered by the convict.

  PROLOGUE

  Brown 5

  Age unknown

  MY RIBS HURT AND my head is pounding. I’m so cold my teeth are starting to chatter. I’m in the far side of my cage where the light – a naked light bulb hangs from the ceiling of the corridor- doesn’t reach. I want to sleep, but that’s when the rats get you. Pulling my finger up I inspect the cut on my thumb from the rat that bit me last night when I was sleeping.

  Scooting across the dirt floor, I pull my bloody matted hair away from my face and rest my head on the metal bars that contain me in my cage. I can hear a girl crying across from me. I don’t cry anymore, it doesn’t help you none. It just seems to piss the handlers off and dehydrate you. Seeing as we don’t get food or water very much, it seems like a waste to cry over something that won’t change. Flies land and fly around the bucket behind me, which is where I use the bathroom when needed and hasn’t been dumped in days. My stomach cramps with a loud growl and I hunch over in pain. I lost my last fight and haven’t eaten in days, and I need a bath. I should have tried harder, but I hate hurting other people. Especially Black A. She has dark hair and the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. She is skinny from not eating, and weak. Digging my toes into the dirt floor, I wonder what awaits me when I’m next taken out of my cage. Will I fight again? Or will I be instructed to shoot that gun again? I hate the gun, it’s too big for my hands.

  Sighing, my head falls to my knees, and I begin to a draw the sun into the mud with my fingernail. I can’t help but wonder what the purpose of all this is. Why am I here, and what they want with me? I stopped thinking about my parents a long time ago. I don’t remember their faces, and like someone who died you begin to slowly forget even if you don’t want to.

  I was so excited to see the M&M store that day. Closing my eyes, I remember getting pulled back in the crowd of people on the sidewalk, then a cloth shoved over my face. Black took over my fear before I could scream, and I woke up here.

  That was a long time ago though.

  “Brown 5, up!” Black Hat snaps me from my blurred memory. That’s what I call him as I don’t know his name and he’s always wearing a black hat. I asked him his name once and he got so mad I was put on a leash. I’m also not allowed to look him straight in the eye but I sometimes sneak a glimpse when his hat is pulled up just a little. He has dark beady eyes and tanned skin. It makes me jealous to think he gets to play in the sun as much as he wants while I only get to see it when I’m brought out to train. Black Hat is my caregiver and trainer. There is someone higher than him, but I’ve never met him. I just know all this is for him. That he is preparing for a war and we are his soldiers.

  “I said up, Brown 5!” Black Hat snaps, slamming a metal baseball bat against the cage. The sound of metal against metal makes my ears ring.

  I stand on shaky legs and await my next command. Looking under my thick lashes, I wonder what it would be like to kill Black Hat. Let him see what it’s like to fight for his life. Quickly I look down, scared he can read my thoughts and I’ll be punished.

  “You’ll be training with an opponent today, so turn around.” Black Hat twirls his finger indicating he wants me to turn around, so I do.

  “Who am I fighting today?” I ask with a scratchy voice, wanting water so bad it hurts. He ignores me, and fists my mud-plastered hair, braiding it. “You got this one Brown 5,” he whispers as his fingers make quick work of my dark hair. I bite my bottom lip to not smile, but it’s useless. Black Hat is fond of me - or I like to think so anyway. He thinks I have potential to make the Boss happy and I long for that approval.

  Following Black Hat, we pass the other rooms - cages. Girls and boys pull and tug on the barred doors, screaming and yelling for food and water. The sound used to bother me, but now I find it to be soothing - like a lullaby. If I don’t hear it, I can’t sleep at night. I need to hear the fear and terror in their screams. It drowns out my own despair.

  I follow him down the dirt tunnel where the coldness that usually bites into your bones begins to dissipate into something much warmer. We must be closer to the surface, to the desert floor. We are underground, I know that much, the only escape I know of is the big break in the dirt ceiling where we battle one another.

  Sunshine illuminates just down the path, and my feet begin to pick up the pace in excitement. I want to feel the rays of sunshine, feel its warmth on my skin. They tell you hell is a hot place filled with fire and terror, but I’m here to tell you it’s dark and freezing cold.

  “Easy, Brown 5,” Black Hat warns, and I slow my pace. At the end of the tunnel, it opens to a wide circle. The ceiling opened to a bright blue sky. I walk into the sun splayed along the blood-splattered ground, and lean my head back, soaking in the heat. It feels so good, so warm I close my eyes and inhale the fresh smell, the slight breeze that swirls down from above.

  A fist to the back of my head snaps me into the moment. Pain racing through my skull and pounding behind my eyes until they water. My brows furrowing, and heart beating hard I turn with a high kick to whoever my opponent is.

  It’s Black A. Her hair is cut choppy, and she’s covered in as much dirt as I am today.

  “Get her Black A!” a man yells on her side. Her trainer, no doubt.

  She screams and runs at me, knocking me to the ground. My head slams on a rock as I fall. Stars dance behind my eyelids, pain drilling into my skull. I want to cry, but warriors don’t cry, that’s what Black Hat told me.

  The girl slams her fist into my eye over and over, a flash of white light and pressure with every fist to my face as warm blood presses from my face. A piece of me wants her to win, she looks so hungry, but if I lose too many I will disappear like the others.

  “Come on Brown 5!” Black Hat shouts. Using the last bit of strength I have, I reach for the rock behind my head and pull it from its purchase in the ground.

 
Opening my injured eye, Black A straddles my body with both hands fisted in the air ready to pummel me. Before she can lay another hit on me, I slam the rock into the side of her head, throwing her off me.

  She falls to the dirt floor in a tangle of bony limbs. I rush over to her with the rock in my hand. I straddle her body and begin to beat her over and over with the small rock in my hand. The sound of skin ripping, bone cracking not bothering me at all. The cut on my thumb from that stupid rat, bleeding and stinging not slowing me down. All I can think about is food, the praise I’ll get, and a maybe a warm bath.

  Instantly a hand is cupped around my neck and it’s like a numbness washes over me. Relaxing me. I’m lifted off the girl and onto my feet. The bloody rock falls from my aching fingers as I stare blankly ahead at nothing in particular out of my good eye. A haze of compliance surfing through me like I was injected with a drug they used to give me when I was defiant.

  I lift my chin, blow out a steady breath and push it down deep hoping one day I’ll forget this world.

  Forget what I’m capable of.

  Forget the savage acts I’ve done to survive.

  Just like I forgot who I was before I became Brown 5.

  Alessandra

  Present

  Peeling back the warm foil enveloping the burrito, the smell of chicken, beans, and rice dance in a rhythm that has my stomach growling with mercy. My eyes nearly roll into the back of my head as I double fist it, and shove as much as I can into my mouth.

  I don’t take dinner breaks lightly, and I certainly don’t take burrito breaks less than serious. The passenger cruiser door opens, and Raven slides into the seat with a bag from We Love Coneys.

  Raven is my new partner. She has jet-black hair that is pulled into a tight ponytail. High cheekbones with a natural glow, and hard brown eyes. So naturally, she’s beautiful. But with that flawless package comes her inexperience with the Las Vegas Police Department. She’s a fucking rookie, and I got stuck with her.

  Nobody wants the new guys. Why? Because they’re a stickler for the rules, and still wanting to make the world a better place. That will end quickly the first time she has a homeless guy throw his shit at her, or when someone tries to stab, shoot, or spit on her. Her view on being a police officer will go from trying to make the peace, to just trying to make it through the fucking day.

  “Anything on the MDT?” Raven asks, deep throating her foot-long hotdog. I raise a brow at her skill, before eyeing the terminal. The Mobile Data Terminal is a computer that relays messages from dispatch and other law enforcement in the area. I can look up anyone, and see who they are in a matter of a couple of clicks.

  “There is a 413, and possible 420,” I inform around a mouthful of food. My chocolate brown hair that escaped my bun gets in the way of my eating, and I blow it out of the way.

  She looks at me with a puzzled look, conveying I might as well have been speaking in a foreign language.

  “Person with a deadly weapon and a possible dead body,” I tell her, not one-hundred percent sure that is even right. I have only been on the force for little over a year.

  “That’s right,” she sighs, shaking her head.

  “You’ll get them, just takes time,” I coax her. We used to just say what the hell was going on, but we moved to codes. Why, I don’t know. To make our lives harder.

  “I’ve never seen a dead body,” she says softly, licking the cheese off her thumb.

  I shrug. “You get used to it.” I remember my first dead body. The smell, the stoic look on its face, and the color of the skin a hue of purple and black. A woman was held at gunpoint for her car and she fought the suspect off instead of just giving him the keys, granting her a bullet to the neck in front of the local food mart. It didn’t faze me like I thought it would. I thought I’d be up all night with the look of the victim’s face haunting me. I slept like I do every other night; hard. Besides, there’s much worse things out there than dead bodies. Society just doesn’t know it because we keep the monsters hidden from their everyday life. “What my co-deputies don’t understand though, is the best way to catch a criminal, is to become one yourself. Walk amongst them, see things through their eyes, understand them. Then you can separate those who made a mistake from those that deserve to have your Taser up their ass.”

  She cuts me a look that would suggest I’m the Wicked Witch of the West and I just dropped a goddamn house on Dorothy.

  “They’re people, with lives and families, how can you say that?” she furrows her brows offended.

  “Because you don’t see anyone as people on the job anymore, you’ll learn.” I take the last bite of my burrito. “Or you won’t.”

  A loud rumble races past me, and I jump in my seat. A rush of adrenaline tingling through my body as I lose my breath. Jerking my head to the left there’s three motorcycles parking just ahead in a no-parking zone. The Sin City Outlaws to be exact.

  Their bikes are shiny and full of chrome, their bodies clad in leather and tattoos. They’re rugged and instill fear and sexual desire into citizens who come across them.

  They never obey the law and why should they, everyone is in their pocket and if they aren’t, they look the other way because of who they have in their pocket.

  “Oh. My. God. Is that?” Raven sits up in her seat, looking through the windshield like a celebrity just flaunted their way across the street. The Sin City Outlaws are notorious for their ruthless way and reckless abandon for the law. They’re as gorgeous as they are lethal. Their mug shots have been flashed along the TV and newspapers so much they are celebrities in their own way.

  Did I mention my best friend in the whole wide world is knocked up by their president? Jillian, of all people, fell under the spell of Zeek, the King of Sin. I’m the friend with no morals and labeled as slutty, so how this happened to naïve little Jillian I have no idea. Maybe, I’m losing my charm I think.

  “That one has a weapon,” Raven points through the windshield. “And you’re surprised?” I ask, tossing the wrinkled foil on the floorboard. It’s illegal to carry in Vegas, but nobody messes with Sin City Outlaws MC. You fuck with them, it’s the last time you’ll be fucking anything. I stay clear of them, but my patience is wearing thin. Fast. The arrogant sons of bitches break laws right in front of me just because they can and it is starting to get under my skin.

  Looking up, I spot the one that displays a nine-millimeter in a brown-leathered holster. He has long hair pulled into a bun. His shoulders and chest are so broad and built, the leather cut that displays his club’s colors proudly can barely contain it all.

  His eyes sweep across the street like he’s stalking a prey. His stance wide, and arms crossed like he’s looking for a fight.

  He emits control, dominance, peril, and I would be lying if I said deep inside he scares the shit out of me just as much as he excites me. Berating thoughts of lust and annoyance swim in my head causing a tension headache to flare. Why can’t they be fat old guys that can barely reach their handlebars? It would make it easier to avoid them if they weren’t so good looking.

  Two other men step up behind him, gathering his attention and I snap to my duties of law enforcement.

  “The one that looks like Tarzan is Felix. He’s the Vice President. The redhead with the menacing look on his face is Machete, and that David Beckham looking one is Mac. The one with the boyish good looks is Gatz,” I tell her, my eyes sweeping across the sexy, savage crew. They’re death in a gorgeous package, and they control Vegas - including me. Chief of police told me to let a senior officer handle them, meaning they’re a dirty cop and The Sin City Outlaws will get away with whatever they want. I’m not stupid, I also can’t do anything about it. Chief Lopez is a bitch on heels, and you don’t want her up your ass.

  “Oh, I know. We did a class just on the Sin City Outlaws. The president is missing though, where is Zeek?” she observes. Raising a brow, I suddenly notice he’s not with his crew either. Good, he needs to be with his Jillian. She’s ca
rrying twins and is about to pop at any minute. “Is it true you’re friends with the president?” Raven asks with eager eyes. My teeth clench and I shoot her a ridiculous look. Thanks to my best friend, I’m associated with the MC and I don’t even converse with them. It’s great. Not.

  “No, I’m not fucking friends with any of them. They’re the enemy, stay clear of them, Raven,” I advise hatefully. “They’ll eat you up and spit you out in the middle of the desert with the rest of the unmarked graves dug by the Outlaws.”

  Putting the car in drive, I carefully drive around the Sin City Outlaws. Felix’s head slowly raises and his hooded eyes find mine. They’re ominous and full of power and hostility. They pull me into the gates of hell with the warmth they emit, and it takes everything I have to look away. A knot forms in my stomach as I drive past him. Fighting the compulsion to look in the rearview mirror to catch one more glimpse of him.

  “731, two suspects acting suspiciously near Frank 24. Gray shirt, gray pants, other suspect unclear.” The dispatch crackles through the speaker.

  I grab the radio and Raven looks at me with a confused look. I normally avoid vague calls, but Sin City Outlaws has me riled up and I need something to take my mind off things.

  “731 copy, we’ll take it. On our way.”

  “731 acknowledged.”

  Flipping the lights on, I push my boot onto the accelerator and go from fifty to seventy in seconds. It’s not the newest vehicle on the force, but she still has some pep in her.

  Pulling up to the residence, it’s an old trailer with no underpinning underneath. A blue ‘87 Chevy sits on bricks with the tires torn off it and the front lawn is littered with trash and stray tools.

  “Wow,” Raven mutters under her breath. Getting a good look at my surroundings I take the shit pile in. It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but I wouldn’t expect a high piece of ass to waltz out of that double-wide trailer either.

  “Just keep your guard up,” I advise her.

  “731 arrived at the scene 1400,” I inform dispatch of our arrival and time. It’s crucial we inform them of the time stamp because if we don’t contact back within a certain amount of time, dispatch will do a status check to make sure we have a handle on the situation, if we do not reply, they send back-up immediately.