by Lane Hart
“Like you could stop me if you tried,” I tell him. “I’ve already been here once today. You know what the officer I spoke to told me?”
“What?” Roman asks, taking the helmet from my hands and hanging it on the handlebar.
“He told me she probably got cold feet and ran away. Why would she run away from her friends? She’s not marrying us!”
“What a fucking idiot,” he mutters. “Come on.”
Just as we’re about to reach the door, Roman’s phone dings in his pocket. He pulls it out and reads the screen. “What’s up?” I ask.
“The video just went live on the MC’s page. Let’s hope it goes viral.”
“I’ll share it right now,” I tell him as I grab my device from my purse and quickly find their page. While we are walking up to the clerk’s window, I post it with a message to please keep sharing it until we find Tessa.
I’ve just finished up when Roman tells the policewoman on the other side of the bullet proof glass, “I need to see Chief Bailey.”
“It’s Saturday,” she replies while blinking at him, as if that’s some obvious information.
“I don’t give a shit if it’s Christmas fucking Eve. I need to see the Chief, so you call and tell him to get his fat ass in here right now!”
My chest seizes at Roman’s anger, worried that they will throw us out of here or arrest us before we get to talk to anyone.
But then, to my surprise, the police officer picks up her phone and says, “Sorry to bother you on your day off, Chief, but Roman McNamara is here demanding to speak to you.”
Turning to Roman, who looks calm and cool despite his yelling, I whisper, “How does she know your name? You didn’t tell her.”
“Remember what I said? I’ve got more authority in this city than the mayor and this entire department combined. I let them pretend to be in charge, and they do what the fuck I say.”
“Oh,” I mutter in disbelief. “Well, this is important…”
“It is,” he agrees while running his fingers through the front of his reddish-brown curls. “Which is why I don’t give a shit if the chief is playing golf with the local business elite. He’s going to get in here and get to work helping us find Tessa and the fuckers who took her.”
The timing may be all wrong, but in this moment, I can’t help but think that Roman McNamara is the hottest man I’ve ever met.
Roman
“How dare you post that damn video all over the place!” Chief Bailey accuses me, face red and angry.
“The people in this city deserve to know what’s happening in their own fucking streets,” I tell him. “Now, are you going to help us find Tessa Singleton or not?”
I’m not asking him to help find the assholes responsible. No, the MC will track them down and make them pay in a way that doesn’t require a judge, jury or trial. Our punishment will be swift and just for whatever they do to Tessa. Just for kidnapping her, we’ll kill them. If they laid a finger on her? Well, we’ll make them suffer for a very long time before we end their miserable existence to ensure that they never hurt another woman again.
“You have no idea what this type of thing will do to the tourist economy,” the chief says.
“Fuck the economy,” I mutter in disgust.
“Easy for you to say since your MC could make it through a downturn, but what about those individuals in the restaurant business or in retail, not to mention the hotel industry? Some of them live paycheck to paycheck in the busy season. They won’t make it if we lose even a percent of tourists.”
Something isn’t adding up here. After I showed the chief the video, he barely flinched. And now, instead of worrying about the safety of a poor woman, he’s talking to me about how her kidnapping could affect people’s wallets?
“What the fuck aren’t you telling us?” I ask him pointblank.
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” he says too quickly.
“Bullshit! Tessa isn’t the first, is she?”
“What do you mean?” Charlotte asks me and then turns to the chief as understanding dawns. “You’re not saying…have there been other women who have gone missing?”
The chief’s silence is answer enough.
“You son of a bitch!” I exclaim when I shoot to my feet and reach across the desk to grab him up by the front of his shirt. “How many?”
“I’m not aware of any true instances of kidnapping…”
I pull on his shirt until the collar tightens around his neck. “How. Many?”
“Three, but none have been confirmed kidnappings. They just went missing! They could be anywhere!”
“You’re gonna write down their names and give me the contact information for their people. Then, you’re going to give a press conference notifying the entire fucking world that while you’ve been sitting on your thumbs not one, not two, but four fucking women have gone missing right under your nose!”
“They were whores! No one cares about them!” he exclaims, and then Charlotte is right beside me, leaning across the desk and slapping the chief of police across the face.
“Tessa isn’t a whore, not that it should matter to you or anyone else if she was! She’s my best friend, and she was taken by four men in a rapist van. So, if you don’t help us find her and the other women, I’m going to have Roman hold your pudgy ass down while I shove a dick in it until you find some fucking empathy for them!”
Jesus Christ. I knew the woman was tough, but now I think I’m a little terrified of her.
“What she said,” I agree.
“Fine. Fine!” Chief Bailey says in a rush, so I finally let his shirt go. “Get out of my office so I can get to work.”
“Nah, I think we’ll stay until you follow through,” I tell him. “What do you say?” I ask Charlotte.
“Oh, I’m not leaving,” she replies when she plops right back down in the visitor chair.
“Suit yourselves. I need to find the city attorney,” the chief says before he pushes his chair back with a sigh and flees the room.
“Think he’ll actually do it?” Charlotte asks when he’s gone.
“Oh yeah. I do believe your threat did the trick,” I tell her when I retake my seat next to her.
“We make a pretty good team,” she replies. “Who would’ve thought? I just hope we’re doing enough…”
Reaching over, I grab her hand and give it a squeeze. “Just give me until tomorrow morning. I have a good feeling that we’re gonna catch a break soon and your best friend will be back with you safe and sound in Raleigh.”
“You really think so?” she asks, her eyes glistening with tears.
“I do.”
“You think she’ll ever forgive me?”
“That’s nothing to forgive,” I tell her. “She’ll be so happy to see you. You can tell her you did everything you could to find her, including threatening and assaulting a law enforcement officer.”
With her free hand, Charlotte covers her face and mutters, “I can’t believe I did that. He could’ve arrested me!”
“Like I would let that happen.”
“I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but,” she starts with a heavy exhale. “The tough guy act is really working for me.”
“Is it?” I say in surprise.
“Yes.” Lowering her eyes to our hands, Charlotte rotates her palm so that she can intertwine her fingers with mine. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without your help today. And I’m not really sure what I did to deserve you coming to the rescue.”
“You’ve been through enough heartache for one lifetime. I don’t want you to have to go through losing someone else you love,” I tell her. “But I would be doing the same thing for anyone else in your position too. What happened to Tessa…I’m still in fucking shock from that video.”
“Yeah. Me too,” she agrees with a sniffle. “It feels like it’s all my fault…”
“I told you it’s not your fault!”
“I was jealous.”
�
��What?” I ask in confusion.
“I was jealous of Tessa and Paul and their wedding because they remind me of everything I lost. I tried to be happy for them on the outside because they deserve to have a forever kind of love with their soulmates. But on the inside, I could barely stand to listen to Tessa talk about the wedding plans without missing Adam. I can’t help but think this happened because I didn’t want to be the only woman sad and alone.”
“You don’t have to be sad or alone, Charlotte. Adam would have wanted you to move on and spend your life with someone else.”
“You’re right, he would’ve wanted that. And that’s not what holds me back.”
“Then what is it?”
“I just don’t think I can ever have the connection we had with someone else.”
“Is that really what you think, or are you just scared of falling in love again and losing them like you lost Adam?” I ask.
“Maybe that’s a part of it too,” she admits. “I can’t go through that kind of loss again. It would kill me.”
While I want to shake her and tell her everything, all the secrets about the man she married, I promised Adam I would keep them. Besides, I don’t want to be the one to hurt Charlotte by slapping her in the face with the truth. While I have no clue how hard it must be to lose someone you love, I also know that Charlotte can’t handle something happening to her best friend, especially not if she continues blaming herself for what happened to Tessa.
“All right,” Chief Bailey says when he waddles back into the room and tosses a single typed piece of paper down in front of us. “There’s our press release.”
I read it silently as Charlotte does the same. The chief is going to release the video along with a number for Crime Stoppers for people to call with information. He’s also increasing patrols on high foot traffic areas of the town, like the strip on Ocean Boulevard, and asked women to try to only go out in groups at night rather than alone until the suspects are apprehended. When we both finish reading, Charlotte looks to me, her eyes asking my approval before she gives hers.
“If that’s the best you can do, then get on with it,” I tell the fat man when I pick it up and hand it to him. “Why are you still standing here with us wasting time when you should be in front of the cameras?”
His brown eyes underneath his bushy eyebrows narrow, but he plucks the paper from my fingers and says, “We’re going on in fifteen. So, if you’ll excuse me, I need to put on a suit.”
“We’ll be watching,” I tell him as Charlotte and I get up from our seats and walk out of his office.
“The statement is pretty good, right?” she whispers to me on the way to the door.
“Yeah. It’s solid and everything I would’ve asked him for. I just can’t resist giving him hell as often as possible,” I admit to her with a grin.
“So now what?” she asks when we come to a stop next to my bike, sobering me up about how much work there’s still left to do to find her friend.
“You and I should head back to the clubhouse and be ready for any updates from the rest of the guys out searching.”
“Don’t you think we should ride around and look for the van too?” she asks, like I guessed she would.
“We could, but it’s not easy or legal for me to check my texts and emails while steering a Harley. I figured you would rather we stay some place stationary to get news as fast as it comes in.”
“Yeah, that works I guess,” she reluctantly agrees.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte
There’s not much to do at the clubhouse with Roman while we wait, other than pace around the floor and occasionally throw some darts at the wall while picturing the four unknown men’s faces.
Each time the door opens or Roman’s phone pings with a new message, my heart stops, only to resume its regular rhythm when there’s nothing new. As the hours pass, my body begins to ache with exhaustion. My legs even begin to tremble as I lean against the bar to watch the afternoon news on the overhead television.
“You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you?” Roman asks me as he emerges from his office.
“How could I?” I reply. “I don’t feel like I will ever sleep again until I know Tessa is all right.”
“You have to try,” he tells me in a soft voice as he comes over and lays a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve got a cot in my office I sleep on sometimes if I’ve had too much to drink here. It’s military surplus, but more comfortable than you would expect. Come lie down for a little while. I promise I will wake you with any news, anything at all, okay?”
“I don’t want…” I start to protest, just as Roman puts an arm around my shoulders and my body almost collapses against his chest. “I don’t want to lie down,” I finish lamely, “but you’re right. I would fall off your bike if we had to go somewhere right now. Let me see how bad this cot of yours really is.”
Roman leads me into his office and takes me directly to the far corner where a cot with a thick single mattress on top of it has been neatly made. The sheets are tucked in so tightly and the pillow laid out so perfectly it could only have been made by someone who had served in the military. It looks like a little cloud of heaven in my current state. Roman pulls back the blanket and sheet and motions for me to sit down.
When I sit down on the edge and kick off my shoes, he places a gentle kiss on top of my hair. “I’ll close the door for you and try to keep it quiet. Get some sleep, and I’ll watch over things for you,” he says as he backs towards the door.
“Roman…thank you,” I reply as he reaches the door. With a nod, he leaves, and I sink down into the surprisingly soft mattress. I’ve heard of people falling asleep before their head hits the pillow, but this is the first time in my life I’ve actually experienced it myself.
Roman
“Check your phones, we’ve got something!” Winston exclaims around eleven p.m. All of the Kings had returned from their patrols, and we each scramble to grab our devices to see what news might be coming.
As soon as I find the most recent text from Danny, I start reading it aloud for Charlotte, who had only woken up a short time ago. “They were able to find the van pulling up at a storage facility in Shallotte, North Carolina and…unloading before leaving again around six last night.”
“You think…could she be there?” Charlotte asks as she gulps down the rest of the coffee I had made for her.
“Danny didn’t see anything to suggest they left with her.”
“How far away is it?” she asks as all the guys grab their cuts and start toward the door, knowing what this means.
“Half an hour or less depending on how fast we ride,” I answer. “You coming?”
“Hell yes,” she replies, just as I expected. I know it’s safer for her to stay here in the clubhouse, but for one, there’s no way Charlotte is going to sit around and wait for us to get back. And two, I feel better when she’s with me where I can see her, touch her, and know she’s okay.
“Just to warn you,” I say as we hurry out the door. “We don’t know what we’ll find, if anything. You know that, right?” I ask her. What I really mean is, can she handle it if it’s bad news and we’re too late. Fuck, I hope we’re not too late.
“I understand, Roman. I have to know, though. I just, I need to be there for her.”
“Okay,” I agree as I slap the helmet on her head and leave her to fasten the chinstrap while everyone else mounts their bikes. “I’m going to have Danny send the local fire department and EMS to the facility, and then we’re going to open up every single unit in the entire fucking place, understood?”
There’s no traffic this time of night, so the ride is even quicker than I expected. In fact, the emergency responders are just getting out of their vehicles when our crew rolls up.
“What’s this?” one of the firefighters ask, gesturing to our row of motorcycles.
As soon as all the noise of the engines die down, I help Charlotte off and then walk up to the men in uniform.
“We’re the ones who called you here,” I tell the firemen. “You got bolt cutters?”
“Yes. Why?” he answers.
“We have reason to suspect that some men are using these facilities to hold women.”
“Women?” he repeats.
“Yes. So, grab the tools and we’ll take any extra you have to cover more ground.”
“The owners aren’t going to let us cut off the locks on all these units,” he tells me.
“Good thing I’m not asking for their fucking permission,” I reply. “And you aren’t either. Do you want to help us find these women, or do you want to sit around and wait for some asshat to give us the green light?”
“Let’s do it,” he says with a nod.
“There are so many…” Charlotte says from beside me as we look at the illuminated rows of storage units before us that stretch back a hundred feet or more.
“Let’s head to the back first,” Verek suggests. “If you want to hide something, you wouldn’t choose the first few rows.”
“That works for me,” I agree.
The firefighters hand out the tools they have on them, and then we split up into small groups, each taking a row.
“I don’t hear anything,” Charlotte says as we head for the back with Verek.
“They may be sick fucks, but I doubt they would be stupid enough to leave women who are able to yell for help,” Verek says, to which I clear my throat loudly in warning. “What? It’s true,” he replies.
Each lock takes several tries to snap with the old bolt cutters we were given, the extra seconds seeming like an eternity. And of course, each one we open, we only find the usual stored shit – furniture, cars, bikes, boats, but no women.
We’re on the eighth unit out of ten in our row when we lift the corrugated steel door and I shine the flashlight on my phone over what looks like a mostly empty container, when there’s suddenly movement in the back.
It takes my brain several seconds to translate what my eyes are seeing before I spin around, standing directly in front of Charlotte to block her view.