“Maybe one of the members went with her or one of the Flock,” I mused out loud, parking Bastian’s bike in his reserved spot. Picking out Charlotte’s car and Stella’s easy enough and Rainn’s Range Rover, but I wasn’t too sure who else owned what car.
Securing the Harley, I dashed across the asphalt to the main building and yanked open the heavy wooden door.
“Addy!” I called out to a completely empty room. Music was still blaring through the speakers, but the place was void of people.
Racing around a turned over chair and table, I didn’t waste my time wondering how the hell that happened. My sixth sense was kicking in and it was telling me to hurry up and find my girl— both of my girls.
Bursting into the kitchen, I called out her name again but faced the same eerie silence.
Where the fuck was she? No way would she have gone home alone without Rafe on her. No way. Or maybe she did, the car was missing. It was possible that Rafe drove her home himself with the intention of crashing on our couch. Rafe wasn’t the type to invade someone’s privacy, but there was always a first time.
Spinning on my heels, I marched out of the kitchen and smacked straight into—
“Rafe! What are you doing here? How did you get back to the compound?” I asked in a rush.
“What are you dribbling, mate? I haven’t left here since we got here this arvo?” he answered me with a quizzical frown.
“You … you didn’t take Addy home?”
“Addy? Nope, why?”
Sweat beaded across my forehead, a ball of worry formed in the pit of my stomach.
“She was meant to come to you and let you know when she was leaving. The ute isn’t in the carpark!”
“Grill?” What’s going on?” Booth appeared from the hallway hurrying to where Rafe and I were. The Souls and the Sons at his back.
“Have you seen Addy?” I asked frantically, the feeling of dread still sticking with me.
“Not since we went to the war room,” he answered, then turned to Stella, “Honey, have you seen Addy?”
“She was here before; she was sitting just over there with Rainn and me when you left Grill,” Stella informed me gently, but all I heard was the underlining message. I left her alone.
I left her.
“Um, I remember hearing her phone ringing,” Rainn jumped in, “but I was heading to Mannix by then so I didn’t hear who she was talking to. Maybe she couldn’t find Rafe and decided to head on home by herself.
“There is no way she would have left without telling someone,” I insisted stubbornly.
“She knew to go to Rafe or you Booth when she wanted to leave.”
Booth nodded once and called out to Ford.
“Check the cameras for this room Ford,” Booth ordered, Ford immediately walking to a bank of monitors and keyboards by the bar and began typing. In reality, it only took him a few minutes, but to me, it seemed like an eternity.
“Here she is on the phone, forty-nine minutes ago,” Ford said, pointing to one screen. Rushing over, I looked and saw my girl on her phone, watching her pinch the bridge of her nose and make sighing gestures. There was no audio, not that it would have done any good with the volume of the music playing through the speakers.
“She is writing something down, see!” I pointed my finger at Addy grabbing a beer coaster, then scribbling down something.
For a minute, I watch her look around the room, she looks worried and frustrated like she was looking for someone. Rafe?
“Oh, fuck me, Booth, see that?” Ford exclaimed, there was an edge to his tone that I did not like. Looking at what had him worried, I saw a young man I recognised as Justin Johnston. His father, Jason, was a cop and a patched member, as was Jason’s older son, I like Thomas, Justin though, not so much.
The longer I watched the surveillance footage, the colder my blood filtered in my veins. Addy stepped back, not once not twice, but three times. I caught the wobble in her legs and my imagination ran off in all different directions.
My girl was scared. That motherfucker frightened her.
“The coaster, where is the coaster?” Gabe asked suddenly, searching the nearby tables and the bar. “Here it is.” Holding up the small square of cardboard, Booth took it from his son and read it, his eyebrows pulling together in a frown.
“She got a call from her night assistant; there was a wiring problem at the clinic she said—”
“Booth look!” again Ford cut Booth off with a wave of his hand at the monitor and what I saw wasn’t good.
In the footage, Justin could be seen seething as he watched Addy scurry from the room to the door, a look of pure evil on his face. Then I watched on as he picked up a chair and threw it across the room, stalked to a table and upended it in a fit of anger I could almost feel.
“Get Jason on the phone, ask him if he knows where his son is at,” Shiloh demanded to her VP and husband, Zander.
“Seb, can you get over to Kelsey’s and sit with her, please? I don’t want her alone if she hears anything or if Justin heads there,” Deck asked the loyal member, Seb simply nodded and took off to do his SAA’s bidding.
My heart ached to go to Addy, and something was telling me she was in danger, an urgent tingling in every nerve demanded I get to her now.
“Cap, I’m going to the clinic, coming with me?” I asked, already moving away from the bar and heading to the door.
“Right behind you, mate. Sons move out,” Gabe called out, my team jumping into action, filing out behind me. This wasn’t a military mission, but there was an enemy, and Addy was the target, I knew that deep in my Soul.
Like a well-tuned and oiled machine Team FIVE piled into two vehicles, Gabe, Bastian, Rafe and I in one car, with Kodah, Deke and Cole in another. Pulling out of the compound gates, I heard the roar of Harleys behind us. The Wounded Sons and the Souls united as one, men who had each other’s backs no matter what the circumstances.
Addy better be safe, because if that little cunt has hurt her and my daughter, he was going to find life pretty difficult with his balls and dick no longer in his pants.
***
Mentally, I shouted at Gabe to drive faster. However, the soldier in me bit back any comment and let my captain, my mate and my cousin navigate the streets of the industrial area to where Addy’s clinic was located nearly six kilometres away.
In all my years in the army trudging through jungles, the desert terrain of a war-torn country never had I ever felt fear like I was feeling now.
“I should never have left her; I should have carried her to our car and taken her home. If I had, she would be tucked up in bed in my arms, our daughter kicking my palms,” I berated myself, my face in my hands.
“Grill, no one can blame you for needing timeout after what you found out tonight,” Bastian argued, offering me some solace, but nothing was going to get me to believe this wasn’t my fault. If only I’d done what I always insisted on from Addy. Trust.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, and I did explicitly. I reacted to the news in the worst possible way, running and not using my head. I was better than that, my position in the commandos required that I be better than that. This was the first time since entering the army; I allowed my emotions to rule over my instincts.
With each street, turn and intersection my anxiety levels skyrocketed. But when I heard the distinctive sounds of a fire siren, and two trucks take a corner in front of us skidding onto the same road we were travelling on, my levels soared into the danger zone.
“Calm down, Lance Corporal, keep your head. Remember who and what you are,” Bastian growled, in the authoritative voice he only used when we were in uniform. A battle waged inside me; on the one hand, I was a trained sniper, trained to follow the orders of my superior officers. However, the lines blurred, right now I was a man in love and on the cusp of fatherhood. And for all I knew, those two most important things could be in the process of being taken from me.
Gabe’s Bluetooth system rang lo
udly in the cabin of the car, startling me. Receiving a sympathetic glance from Gabe, he pressed the accept button on the large touch screen.
“Booth,” he clipped.
“Gabe, where are you?” Shiloh’s voice came over the external speakers so calm, a wash of relief started to settle in me. Shiloh wouldn’t be so calm if something had gone wrong, right?
“About three clicks from the clinic.”
“Chase called, the Lucas station got a call to a fire,” Shiloh replied quietly. “It’s at the clinic.”
It’s at the clinic. Four fucking words just brought my whole world crashing down on me.
“Gabe, please get me there!” I roared, bile rising in my throat I had to open the window to try and stem the need to vomit.
“I’ll get you there, mate,” Gabe promised simply, the sound of the engine gunning, getting me closer to my girl.
Four minutes later, we arrived at a scene reminiscent of the Victorian bushfires where Addy and I began. Pulling a safe distance from the fire truck that had only just arrived judging by the men jumping out of the cabin, my eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
The whole building was up in flames; windows were smashed exploding from the blaze with glass littering the path in front of the clinic. From inside the car, I could feel the heat radiating off the flames, but inside, my body was frozen.
“Move, Grill, get out of the car and pull yourself together. Addy needs you.”
Rafe’s command spurred me into action, gathering my wits, I pushed open the door and bolted to where the front door was located.
“Addy!” I roared, the sound of breaking glass and the loud crackling of the fire drowning out my shout.
A fireman the size of a giant whistled loudly at us, waving his hands at us to move to him.
“Hoove!” Gabe shouted, “There are at least two women in there!”
“Fuck me,” the big man swore, whipping his head around to look at something.
“We need help moving something blocking the front door.”
“Let’s go!” I ordered, willing to do anything to help get me into that building. Burning or not, I was going to get to my fiancée and nothing was going to stop me.
Taking off behind Hoove, I recognised him now that Gabe had said his name. He was one of the local firefighters and a friend of the club. I knew Chase and Carson more than I did Hoove, though. Funny how my father shared the same name with Stella’s cousin Carson, the irony was not lost on me even in this moment of panic and fear.
Skidding around the truck, my teammates and I stopped short when we saw the object blocking the door was my ute. Someone had parked it sideways close to the sliding doors in a deliberate ploy to cut off a way out.
“That fucking cunt!” I yelled, anger surging through me. My way into Addy thwarted in the most cruel and evil way. He used my own fucking car.
“Fuck!” Rafe clipped beside me, “Cole, bring your SUV over and get in front of the ute,” Rafe ordered, running back towards the fire engine, throwing open one of the garage supply doors and rooting through it, then came back with a length of material hose.
Catching on to his plan, I snatched one end off him and sprinted to the front of my car. It wasn’t completely up in flames yet, the tyres were melting from the fire, but so far, the chassis was still intact. Dropping to my knees, I quickly and deftly tied the end of the hose to the front axle, using the brass hose fixture as an anchor to keep it in place.
“Done!” I shouted to Rafe, who was doing the same as me to the back of Cole’s Hilux.
“Done!” Rafe echoed my shout, giving Cole the signal to go.
It didn’t take long for the V8 to drag my car out of the way, even with the handbrake on, Cole managed to pull it sideways out of the way enough, so that the firies could get in with their hoses.
Stalking forward, my intention to get in stopped by a large hand dropping on my shoulder.
“Don’t go in there son, let Hoove put some water on the flames before you go charging in there,” Booth told me.
“Are you kidding me, Booth? My world is inside that building. Would you stand out here and watch them burn alive?” I yelled at him, all my fear and panic turning into anger and I was directing it at the man I admired the most. Maybe it was the situation I found myself in right now, perhaps it was a manifest of the information about my father or a combination of both. Whatever the reason, I wanted to rip his hand off my shoulder and snap every finger.
“No, I wouldn’t, I would be the first in there, you’re right. But it would be a stupid and fruitless effort. Use your training, think like a soldier and not a man in love. That’s what will save Addy, Grill.” Booth’s words made sense and made their way into my overwrought brain. I looked around the scene before me, looking in every direction, not seeing the fire but looking for a way inside. A plan started to form; catching the eye of each member of Team FIVE, we communicated silently with nothing more than subtle nods and chin lifts. This is what we did; observed, deduced then acted.
“There you go, Grill. Fuck, your dad would have been so proud of you, both of the man and soldier you have become,” Booth said quietly, remorse painted across his face.
Choking back a sob, I merely nodded to him, hoping he saw the apology I couldn’t voice.
“Go, I will be right behind you. Always.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ADELINE
Safety glass! Of course, the back window was fitted with safety friggin’ glass.
We wanted to keep out people after the drugs we kept in the clinic, but we didn’t think about getting out because of some crazed dickhead pouring petrol all over the inside of my clinic and setting it on fire.
Lifting the metal stool over my head once more I smashed it weakly against the glass again and getting the same result. Zilch.
The room was well and truly filling with thick black smoke now, the double doors up in flames, and I could see the raging fire in the office and waiting areas through the two square observation windows cut into each door. My guess was the entire examination area was entirely gone, the offices not far behind being totally lost.
“Addy we are trapped, there is no way out,” Peyton screamed at me in a panic. Dancing around her feet were five dogs, all barking madly all had a leash attached to a collar. Three cats sat meowing in one large cat carrier and two small, thank God, sicker dogs in a box with a wet blanket thrown over the top. Somehow despite my panic, I managed to administer a sedative to the two weaker animals so they would remain still and not hurt themselves further by moving.
“I don’t know what …” an uncontrollable cough retched from my burning throat. If we didn’t find a way to smash the window, there was no doubt in my mind Peyton, the animals and I would die.
One more, I decided, after I got control of my throat. Then we try something else. Of course, when I arrived at the clinic, I left my handbag locked in the car, which meant I didn’t have my mobile. Thankfully, Peyton grabbed her mobile from the office, which was now burning to the ground. The landline wasn’t working because I went straight to the fuse box and fixed that before looking at the phones.
Frantically searching the room for something heavier than the stool, I spied a spade we used to clean out the cages in here and outside. Cursing my lack of brains not to think of that twenty minutes ago, I rushed to it then went back to the window.
“Okay, here we go,” I said wearily. My arms ached, my throat was on fire, my eyes itched and watered from the smoke, but the best thing was my daughter was kicking me from the inside with steady, painful jabs. She was pissed off, and obviously had her daddy’s temper.
Encouraged by her movements, if she was still and unresponsive, I didn’t know if I would want to fight to get out. If my baby died before I got to hold her and look into her eyes, then I feared I couldn’t go on.
“Addy! The fire!” Peyton screamed, alerting me I had to start moving.
Gripping the shovel with two hands as if it were a
cricket bat, I swung it as hard as I could at the window, the sharp end making contact with a satisfying crack.
“Yes! That’s it, Addy, do it again,” Peyton encouraged excitedly. Her yells, causing the dogs to bark louder.
Again, I wielded the makeshift weapon in the same manner, three more times, each whack making more of a dint in the glass until a healthy gust of fresh air infiltrated my lungs.
Over and over, I gave my everything in each blow, making progress, but I feared not enough to beat the flames licking inside the room.
Dejected that I was failing to save the lives of the animals and my friend, I pulled back the shovel once more then dropped it in heart-wrenching relief when the face of my handsome soldier appeared on the other side of the window.
“Sweet Cheeks!”
“Marshall!”
Oh God, my knees all of a sudden went weak. My body released half of the anxiety racing through it just by Marshall’s presence. We weren’t even out, and fire was taking over the room at an alarming rate, yet I felt suddenly soothed.
“Are you hurt? The baby?” Marshall shouted through the decent crack I made.
“We are fine, but the smoke is getting really bad,” I assured him that our daughter and I were okay, but the danger was getting worse.
“Stand back baby, get as far into a corner away from the window and flames.”
Giving him a thumbs up, I raced to Peyton and relayed to her that Marshall wanted us clear of the window. Bending over, I picked up the box with the sick dogs and ran it over to the corner furthest from the danger zone, then went back, this time Peyton came with me and between us we dragged the cats to join the other animals.
Even over all the noise of the roaring fire and the firefighters we could now hear in the other room shouting orders to each other, I heard my man growling at me. He was going to have to punish me later for my efforts moving the animals; in fact, I looked forward to a spanking or two if it meant I survived this ordeal and I got to be in his arms.
Grill (The Wounded Sons Book 3) Page 19