If not for the nature of his crime, Nico Rizzoli might not have been in the van, on his way to Hutchinson Correctional in Kansas, where his reputation and influence would theoretically carry less weight than the Craven County system in North Carolina, where he was practically a superstar.
Upon learning that an associate had ratted out the Mid-Atlantic Fireheads motorcycle club for their meth business, Nico had eschewed flight for fury.
He tracked down the informant and, using a length of steel pipe he had selected, measured, cut and taped himself, he smashed the poor bastard’s ribs to jelly right in front of his girlfriend and mother. Nico reasoned that healing from ruined ribs would be a long and agonizing process, versus head trauma, which potentially offered merciful blackouts and memory loss. As a bonus, his women would sob about that crazy shit to every square in sight, for years to come.
He kept at it till the cops came, then fought all the way to lockup, cursing the boys in blue for not letting him finish. He had wanted to gelatinize the man’s legs as well, you see.
But sitting here in the transport shuttle van amongst a bunch of morons doing time for possession and robbery and other pussy-ass bullshit, Nico wasn’t thinking about the past. He was more interested in the future; specifically—any minute now.
Nearly midnight, and they had already been on the road for ten hours. The extradition agents would be getting bleary-eyed and slow.
“You go’ stop at Boogie Burger, or what!?” inmate Georgie “The Juice” DeWitt asked Extradition Agent Higgins through the steel mesh partition, the shackles on his wrist and seat armrest making him stretch. “I’m ‘bout to starve my ass off.”
Neither the driver nor his partner answered; they had been instructed to have minimal communication with DeWitt, as he was notoriously short-tempered and easily riled.
“Huh!?” DeWitt persisted. “I need some goddamn food!”
“Shut up,” Nico said.
DeWitt turned with early stage rage on his face, which vanished when he realized it was Nico talking to him. DeWitt took his seat and proceeded to shut up.
Normally Nico didn’t bother talking to lesser cons for any reason, but he needed distracting noise kept to a minimum, so he could hear the familiar roar of beefed-up Harleys driven by his brothers.
Although intensely focused and purposeful—Nico Rizzoli might have made quite a politician if not for his violent nature—he was not above or beyond feeling something that could pass for love. His old lady Ruth, the most passionately devoted chick he had ever banged, undoubtedly had his heart.
Now she was dead. On Halloween night, just trying to make the world a better place; trying to do God’s work. Ridiculous as that was to him, the bottom line was that something that belonged to him had been taken away, and that shit did not fly. Nico would find out the how and the who, and in the process, he would wipe this little jerkwater called Ember Hollow right off the map, along with the big deputy who had assisted in his arrest.
Nobody takes what belongs to Nico Rizzoli. Not even God.
Nico rubbed the tattoo on his forearm; the one he’d had inked just the day before. He liked the way it itched and stung. The inker -somebody had named him Mozart because they though the composer was a painter owing to the “art” in his name- had a picture of a ragdoll Nico had ripped from an encyclopedia in the library, and Mozart didn’t blink an eye when Nico told him that was what he wanted.
Ruth had loved rag dolls for some reason. Had one from when she was a girl that she wouldn’t let him toss. To Nico, it came to represent her. She talked to the thing, and even brought it to lockup with her when she came to see him.
He wanted to slap the tattoo, just to amp up the sting a bit, but that was for later.
Or maybe sooner.
The beautiful sound of a six speed 1690 cc engine—his bike—reached his ears before anyone else heard. Nico went ahead and gripped the armrests, bracing himself. He smiled at the doomed dipshit seated beside him, who cluelessly yawned and settled his head back to doze.
The roar of two other bikes joined that of the Fatboy. Perfect.
Agent Higgins looked in the side mirror, but he wouldn’t see them yet. They were riding dark; coping just fine in full-on blackness.
“Funny,” Higgins said in his Georgia drawl. “Thought I heard hogs.”
“Whut, you mean pigs?” asked his partner, Agent Dutton, a Detroit-born city boy.
“No, dumb ass,” Higgins said. “Harleys, man.”
Higgins rubbed his eyes, and both fell back to their complacency; a short descent.
Came the sound of the bikers gunning it, and in less than a second, they were beside the van. A couple of inmates stirred in their seats, muttering unease. Nico nodded down at his brother Rhino coming up just outside the window on the Fatboy, the only one riding solo. Rhino returned the gesture and roared far ahead.
The second bike zoomed in place next to the van’s driver’s side, while the third bike eased up parallel to Nico.
Both these machines carried huge, hair-covered passengers behind their smaller drivers. They were already rising to crouch on the seats with the confidence and agility of trapeze artists, or seasoned predators.
“Hey, what are these assho…?”
The two hirsute passengers leaped in unison, hooking into the side of the van with their claws like magnets.
Agent Higgins screamed and swerved the wheel, as his window exploded in on him, a huge hairy hand finding his throat like a guided missile—and tearing it out.
Agent Dutton had his pistol out, but he would never have a chance to use it, for the van careened off the road and into a scrabbly patch of wasteland, where it flipped onto its passenger side with a groan, the gun lost in the chaos.
Nico held onto his armrests, chuckling at the sound of steel mesh tearing away from his window. The glass broke, and a slavering snout was in his face, growling and snapping.
“Yeah, yeah.” Nico pulled at the chain that fastened him to the seat, and his liberator, Aura, bit it in two, her hairy breasts rubbing across Nico’s face. She gave him a lick, bit his eyebrow just hard enough to draw blood, then clambered in to go to work on the passengers.
Nico slid out of his seat and landed feet-first on the left side of a skinny inmate first-timer he knew as Ratso. The boy cried at Nico for help, but -just for kicks- Nico booted him in the face instead.
Blood splashed across Nico and everything else, as Aura went about wasting the other prisoners, showing off for him. The other lupine Berzerker, Pipsqueak, wrenched the front partition apart and slashed into the hoarsely-bellowing DeWitt, destroying a lot of meat as he worked his way to the man’s heart, only to spit it out on finding it blackened from cigarettes.
Aura dropped a brawny arm on the passenger side windows at Nico’s feet, but he kicked it away. Pipsqueak went after it. He and Aura briefly scuffled over it, their massive hindleg claws digging into what was left of the inmates as they clambered for traction.
“Knock it off!” Nico called. “Let’s roll.”
Pipsqueak had something to show him. He dropped to all fours to turn toward the front. Nico followed, flinging his long, blood-soaked hair out of his face.
Pipsqueak growled and bit Higgins to draw a cry of pain, then leapt out the driver window to get out of Nico’s way.
Nico looked Higgins over. “Damn boy,” he said. “You ain’t gonna make it.”
Higgins was hanging at a forty-five-degree angle, spilling blood onto the squashed corpse of Dutton. Deep claw marks had separated Higgins’ face and throat into sections. His left arm was hanging on approximately halfway; tendons and cartilage still holding where muscle and skin had given way.
Higgins was weakly feeling around for his sidearm. When he found it, Aura muscled past Nico and clamped her teeth shut on the guard’s head, squashing it like a grape.
She rolled onto her back and smiled her toothy smile at Nico, clearly expecting a rub on her fuzzy belly.
“Never gonna happen girl,” Nico said, as he unbuckled Higgins. Aura rolled away as the messy bag of meat fell where she had been. Nico stepped up on Higgins and climbed out, followed by Aura.
He and the wolves went to the three bikes waiting there. Smiling, Rhino, slid back to let Nico drive his Fatboy.