Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
VIOLENCE WARNING: The two stories in the Savage Gang saga, and especially the second story, involve a gang practicing extreme violence toward everyone — women, the elderly, the protagonist, etc. The stories contain mature sexual content and violence as well. I am placing this warning on all chapters, including those without such violence, so you can choose whether to continue.
CHAPTER 27
The heels of Olivia Lockheed’s boots crunched on the gravel driveway as she stepped to the side door of the safe house. She had met with Sapphire Angel thirty minutes earlier, and fantasies had filled her mind for the entire trip back to the house. She would have difficulty sleeping tonight.
After using her key to unlock the door, she slipped inside, moving down the dark hallway toward her bedroom. The home was silent. Dave Michaels and Rocco Lynch would be asleep by now. It was for the better, as she could avoid questions about her latest excursion. They didn’t need to know she had sought the help of Sapphire Angel.
Lockheed moved into her bedroom, closed the door, and flicked the light switch. As light flooded the room, she moved to her bed so she could remove her boots. She noticed a scrap of yellow-lined notebook paper on top of the covers, at the edge of the mattress, facing her. She grabbed it, reading the words scribbled on the page in Dave Michaels’ neat penmanship.
You need to get out NOW. The location of the safe house has been compromised. I tried your burner phone, but you didn’t answer.
Lockheed’s heart dropped to her stomach, and a cold sweat beaded on her forehead. She had powered off the burner phone — she did so when not using it. But her extreme paranoia about being tracked seemed to have backfired.
Anger at her bad luck filled her. The point of the burner phone was for her to call people, not for them to call her. What were the chances Michaels, the one person with her number, would have tried to call her during her short absence?
The paper, held between her hands, shook. No, it wasn’t the paper. Her hands were trembling.
Shit! Shit! Shit! The FBI woman's eyes darted about the bedroom. What should she take? Her hands fumbled with odds and ends on the dresser, but she shook her head. She had to get out now. What did Michaels mean by compromised? Who knew of the location?
Lockheed spun and darted for the bedroom door, ripping it open, car keys already in hand. She froze as a shadow filled the doorway. Her eyes rose, and kept rising, until she looked up into the grinning face of Maximus Savage. With his freakish eyes glaring through the red eyeholes of his mask, he was the epitome of evil. Three other gangsters, all wearing the trademark armor and masks of the Savage Gang, stood in the hallway behind him.
“Headed somewhere?” the gang leader asked in his deep voice, which rasped with a gravelly edge.
Lockheed stepped back, but Savage’s right arm shot out, enveloping her throat. The woman’s eyes bulged as the massive man squeezed and lifted her from her feet. Her legs kicked, striking him in the shins, but the brute ignored her, stepping into the room and moving toward the bed. With a nonchalant shove, he tossed her the remaining few feet onto the mattress. Lockheed bounced once, before pushing herself up, elbows beneath her. She glared at Savage and yelled at him.
“I’m not someone you want to cross!” Lockheed snapped, trying to put on a brave face as her voice quivered with fear.
“Get over yourself, bitch,” Savage replied, shaking his head with a frown. “Tell me where Rocco Lynch is located, and maybe you get out of this with only a few broken bones.”
As he spoke, two gangsters came forward, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her to her feet. The third gangster came close and ran his hands over her, searching her body. He pulled her burner phone out of her front pants pocket and handed it to Savage. The gang leader stared at it for a moment, before dropping it to the floor. He stomped on it, smashing it to pieces.
Lockheed opened her mouth to speak, about to tell Savage he had destroyed her ability to give him the information he needed. Dave Michaels couldn’t contact her now, and she couldn't contact him, as she had saved his burner phone's number in one location — in the broken phone on the floor. Michaels would be too smart to power on his Bureau-issued phone if he couldn’t reach Olivia, especially since he knew the safe house had been compromised. He might even power off the burner phone, if he worried about the source of the leak.
Lockheed paused and pursed her lips. Should she tell Savage she didn’t know Lynch’s location — that Dave Michaels had taken the prisoner to a new, undetermined location? Should she tell Savage she couldn't contact Michaels? If she told the truth, she would have no value to the gang leader. And then what? Olivia Lockheed enjoyed dishing out pain. She wasn’t so sure she’d like receiving it. Especially from someone like Savage. She needed to give him something to hang onto — something that would buy her time.
“Talk, bitch!” Savage snapped, raising an ominous fist above her.
“I’m… I’m not sure,” she stammered. “There are a few possibilities. Lynch is with my partner, who should send me information in a few hours.”
Savage narrowed his eyes. “Sending it how? Don’t try telling me the message is coming to a device here in this house. We’re not going to wait and be sitting ducks while FBI reinforcements come.”
Lockheed’s mind churned, concocting the lie on the fly.
“No, no,” she replied. “Not here. An encrypted online portal. He’ll arrange a rendezvous point there.”
Savage paused, twisting his lips as he pondered her information.
“I’m not sure I believe you,” he said. “But you’ve bought yourself some time. But not much. We found your safe house, which means we can find Lynch and your partner. It just might take some time. So you need to be faster than my source in getting me the information. If I don’t have Rocco Lynch in my hands in a few hours, you’re going to die a very painful death — if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, I’ll cook up something else for you.”
Lockheed swallowed hard. She had no way to know where Michaels took Lynch. They didn’t work out such protocols in advance, to prevent this exact situation. Lockheed would give anything to possess the information Savage wanted, though. While he still might kill her — or worse — if she produced Rocco Lynch, a horrible fate was looking like a certainty if she didn’t.
“Men, blindfold and tie up this bitch. Use the muffs, too, once we get her in the van. We’re taking her with us. If we’re lucky, she can lead us to Lynch if this online portal really exists. At the very least, the rest of the guys can see what happens to a snoopy FBI agent.”
Savage moved to the side as two men stepped forward, holding thick ropes and a black hood. Lockheed didn’t resist. She held her wrists behind her back as one man bound them, while the other man slipped the hood over her head.
Even through the hood, she felt Savage’s warm breath as he leaned in close next to her.
“You shouldn’t have fucked with us,” he growled. “You’re in for one hell of a night, one way or the other.”
She sensed Savage move away, before two sets of hands seized her forearms, lifting her from her feet and moving to the doorway of the bedroom. A few moments later, they carried her down the hall and opened the side door of the building. The cold night air assailed her, before the door slammed shut behind them. Her captors hauled her off, carrying her for several minutes until she heard a van door slide open. They pushed her into the vehicle, forcing her to the floor. The engine started, and Savage and his men sped off, with the FBI agent as their prisoner.
Beth Harper sat on her bed, holding Sapphire Angel’s phone in her lap. She stared at the screen, waiting to see a message from Olivia Lockheed. More than an hour had passed since her meeting with the FBI woman, but still Lockheed hadn’t sent the information from the gun shop computer. Beth needed it to piece together the location of the Savage Gang’s hideout.
She shouldn’t have trusted Olivia Lockheed. The perverse FBI woman had only wanted to satiate her infatuation with the superheroine. She had never intended to share the information.
Even worse, Stanley, who always came through, hadn’t been able to discern anything from the information Lockheed had given verbally to Sapphire Angel. He was still trying, but Beth’s optimism decreased by the minute. Once again, it looked like Olivia Lockheed had gotten the best of her.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
…….Ohhhh……OHHHHH…….Oh, shoot……
Well, umm…..that was…..unexpected. When I read that the location of Lockheed’s safehouse had been compromised, my initial thought was, for some reason, Wayne Steele & the Justice Seekers, even though they’d definitely get in trouble for it seeing as they’re a vigilante group hypothetically apprehending an FBI member to further their own investigation. My second (correct) thought was Maximus Savage and the Savage Gang, and to be honest, that probably should’ve been my first guess considering how much enmity is currently between both parties. Wonder how Howard Vincent—Olivia Lockheed’s superior—is going to react to this, seeing as how he’s secretly a mole for the Savage Gang. He’d probably call up Savage and say something like, “Thanks for getting that b*** off my back” or “What the heck are you doing?” or “You’re not my employer anymore” or “You’re making a mistake” or something to that effect. Or he could just stay silent entirely and leave Lockheed to whatever Savage has planned for her.
At any rate……yikes. With how Beth/Sapphire is perceiving Lockheed’s “silence” as, this doesn’t bode well for any chances of another team-up between them, even if it IS a severe case of miscommunication. She doesn’t yet know that Lockheed has been abducted by the Savage Gang, and instead sees it as Lockheed making off with her own evidence in order to have the FBI get to the bottom of the Gang first. Part of me’s holding out hope that the phone Savage smashed was some kind of decoy and Lockheed had an extra one on her, or that Lockheed will find some other way to get the gun shop info to Sapphire besides that. But…..wait, is the Savage Gang’s goal for right now just to kidnap her and keep her in their custody as “insurance” just in case the “online portal” hoax doesn’t pan out? If so, then Lockheed’s certainly not going to last long. If I were her, I would’ve sooner died in the explosion at T.L. “Tip” Grim’s gun shop than survive and end up falling victim to this. Speaking of T.L. “Tip” Grim, I’m still looking out for anything even remotely related to him in this novel, since I do recall him having somewhat of an impact on this story even after his death (I might be misremembering that, though).
Just when we were about to have a moment of teeth-clenched collaboration…..the Savage Gang just has to step in and mess everything up. Let’s see how things turn out!