Tess Property of Blaze: Book #5 in the Blood Brothers MC Series

by Collard, J. A.

  A body bag is being strapped down to a rescue board, then is lifted into the air by a helicopter above. It transports the body to a waiting ambulance as I continue to evade the police, and once the helicopter lands behind us, I manage to get to it without being captured. Fear and dread fill me as I reach the body. I drop to my knees beside it and take a deep breath, tears coursing down my face.

  Fuck! Please don’t be Tess, please don’t be Tess. God, I’ll do anything—I promise—anything to make sure she’s okay.

  Slowly and hesitantly I unzip the bag before anyone notices me. Police turn up then and try to stop me, but my boys come rushing over. I didn’t even hear the sounds of their bikes to know they’d arrived. I look down at the half-opened body bag, then back up to my brothers. They’re all being held back by the police now, and a paramedic is making his way toward me.

  Quill growls, and yells, “Let him see her! It’s his woman, he has a right to look for himself.”

  The police don’t let up on them, but one officer, probably the one in charge if all the stripes and badges he’s wearing are any indication, says something to the paramedic as he storms past on his way to stop me. The paramedic stays standing next to the police officer, so I take it as a sign of approval to open the bag.

  I’m about to unzip it completely when I hear the sound of a familiar voice just behind me. “It’s not Tess.”

  I look up to see Snake standing there, cuts and bruises over every bit of visible skin, and a blanket wrapped around him. His hair is wet, like he’s been swimming. I ignore him and open the bag anyway. I don’t trust Snake one bit.

  It’s not Tess inside, and a tiny spark of hope ignites in my chest. It’s some other guy, bald with a tattoo on his head. His cut has Skull Forseekers 1% stitched onto the front.

  I look up at Snake and jump to my feet, the rage now taking hold. “Where the fuck is she?” I yell as I wrap my hands around his neck and push him back against the nearby ambulance. He makes a choking sound and starts to go even paler as I put pressure on his windpipe.

  Then suddenly I’m getting pulled off him by some other men. I kick and scream but they’re too strong for me. “Let me go, where is she?”

  Another man comes and stands before me—dark-skinned with a mustache, he’s clean-cut and wearing a gray suit.

  “I take it you’re Dalton De Sante?”

  I don’t acknowledge him, I’m too busy focusing on Snake. “Tell me where she is!” I yell again, completely ignoring the other man.

  “I’m Detective Salvatore, this man behind me—the man you call Snake—has been undercover for us for a few years.”

  My eyes widen. Did he say undercover?

  “That’s right, Blaze,” Snake says, coming forward. “My real name is Tom Green. I’m a detective for the New York Police Department.”

  My head snaps toward him. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  “He’s not,” Detective Salvatore says. “You see, Detective Green has been gathering as much information as he can for us regarding the kidnapping of underage women. We were suspicious that the Forseekers were the one’s responsible for the missing girls.”

  I grind my teeth, waiting for the douchebag to finish his explanation, then say, “That’s all well and good, sir, but tell me where the fuck Tess is.”

  Detective Salvatore looks at Snake, and I see his face fall. “Tell me!” I shout. I want to go and grab Snake by the throat again, but my arms are still being held back by the police.

  “I’m sorry, Blaze. I tried to help her.”

  Even the tight grip of the police officers can’t keep me from falling to the ground on my knees. “No. No! She can’t be, she can’t…. Oh my God, please, she can’t be dead.” It’s not true, it can’t be true.

  I feel hands on my shoulders, then Jasmine’s voice in my ear. “Shush… we’re here. We’re here, Blaze. Come on, let’s get you back to the clubhouse.”

  I look over at Jasmine. “She’s dead, she really is dead,” I choke out.

  Tears roll down her face and her mouth trembles. “I’m so sorry, so, so sorry. She didn’t deserve this.”

  I sob my heart out on the hard ground, and Jasmine holds me in a tight embrace. I cry into her arms for what seems like hours.

  “Mr. De Sante? I’m sorry to break this up, but we need to bring you down to the station to get a statement.”

  I don’t answer, I’m too broken. I don’t care if I die right here and now.

  “Please, can we just take him home and bring him there tomorrow? I promise he’ll be there. He’s just lost his woman,” Jasmine explains, and then something occurs to me. If Tess is dead, then where’s her body?

  I snap my head up to look at Snake. “Where’s her body? If Tess is dead, her body should be here?”

  Snake sighs, then looks at the other detective.

  “Well?” I ask, standing once again.

  “Her body hasn’t been found. I managed to get out somehow, and I looked for Tess, but she was nowhere to be found. I thought she must have already swum to the surface and got out. I’m sorry, Blaze, but she didn’t.”

  “Okay, okay,” I say, wiping at my damp eyes. “So she could still be out there. Why aren’t we looking for her?”

  “Even if she survived the crash, she wouldn’t have survived the night in that ocean. The current is strong. Believe me, we’ve been out searching all night and this morning. The divers are still out there.”

  I turn around then rush to the edge of the cliff, looking down. The car’s now being hoisted up onto the road, small amounts of water still gushing out of it as it’s suspended from the steel cable. I rush over to it and look inside as soon as it settles on the ground, finding no immediate trace of Tess. Then my eyes focus on something lodged in the side of the back seat, and I run around to the other side of the car and open the rear door. It’s Tess’s shoe, one of her black boots she was wearing last night. I remember looking at them when she was getting ready, dressed in that sexy red dress. So Tess was here, but I refuse to think that she’s dead. Surely if she was, then I would feel it, her being gone. But I don’t.

  “What’d you find?”

  I look up at Quill, who’s standing near the destroyed SUV with Jasmine by his side. I wriggle Tess’s boot out—fuck the police and their protocols—and hold it up to them.

  Jasmine cries out and grabs the shoe out of my hand. “She was wearing those boots last night. She’s gone, she really is gone,” she cries, and Quill brings her into his side, then looks over her head at me.

  “I will find her, if it’s the last thing I do,” I state before I move away from the SUV and walk over to my bike. Somebody, most likely one of my brothers, had put it upright again, and I breathe a sigh of relief when it starts up first go. I make my way to our house.

  Blaze

  It’s been six months since the night Tess was taken from me and my life got turned upside down. The night my world didn’t exist anymore if it meant I didn’t have her in it.

  I’m seated at the bar with a beer in my hand, wearing a goddamn black suit. A suit! Tess would laugh if she could see me now. Today was the day I said goodbye to Tess. It’s been six long months of searching for her, hundreds of thousands of dollars thrown into the system to continue their search, and each time they came back with nothing. She’s nowhere to be found.

  It wasn’t until the boys held church and forced me to attend—it was more like an intervention than church—that they told me I had to give up my search for Tess. As much as they want her to be alive, she can’t be, because we’ve searched that ocean for six months and found nothing. Not a single trace. They each went around the room talking about Tess, saying something nice about her or sharing a memory. I felt like it was more of a goodbye, and even the women were allowed in the room for it. Usually church is sacred, for club members only, and that means just the men, but I guess this time Prez bent the rules.

  I was angry that they were all saying goodbye, but when I started to h
ear all their stories, it sunk in that she was really gone. My Tess had left me. All these months searching for her, and not one sign that she was still alive.

  I blame myself. I should have protected her better, had someone by her side all the time, watching, reporting. I should have noticed the signs that there was someone in the house the night she was taken, but I thought with Viper gone, it meant the Forseekers would lay low. I guess I underestimated her old man.

  We got news last week that her old man died. Snake, or shall I say Detective Tom Green, came by the club and told us he was dead. It was a relief to know he’s now out of the picture completely, and I know he wasn’t hiding Tess, because I went down there myself, along with my boys, to make sure of that. And he wasn’t. When I saw him, he was on his death bed, close to taking his last breath. I was going to shoot him right there and then, the rage filling me at just the sight of the fucker, but then I decided he didn’t deserve a quick death. Him lying there trying to breath, gasping for every drop of air and suffering, was what he deserved, so I left his side feeling content, knowing he’d soon be in the ground. Neither him or Viper loved Tess, and I keep having to tell myself that after everything she went through, she’s now in some kind of peace.

  “Here, baby, have a shot.”

  I look up at Daisy, who’s also dressed in black. Today we all said goodbye to Tess, and although neither of us were religious, my mother demanded that she have a proper funeral. We didn’t have a body to place in her casket, but each of us put something in there that reminded us of Tess. Me? Well, I put the engagement ring that I never got to see on her finger in there. No one deserves to wear it as much as she did. It was my mother’s, she’d given it to me to place on the finger of the woman I was going to marry. Tess is the only woman that I could ever imagine loving, and I can say that with all my heart I will never, ever be able to replace her, never want to marry anyone who’s not Tess. So it only seemed like the right thing to do, to place it in her casket.

  I smile to myself, thinking about how beautiful she would have looked in a wedding dress. But all I can do now is hope that she’s happy and free and in peace.

  “Thanks, Daisy,” I say, bringing the glass to my lips and swallowing the contents in one go. Bourbon. It burns the whole way down, and I take a swig of my beer to ease the ache.

  “You need to slow down, son. You haven’t been eating. Here, I made your favorite.” My mom sets a plate of apple pie in front of me.

  I force a smile onto my face. “Thanks, Mom, but I’m not hungry.”

  She takes a seat next to me at the bar. I have to admit, it’s all a little weird having my mom here at the clubhouse with us, but it’s where I knew Tess was the happiest. She called the club her home, so after her funeral, we all said our goodbyes to her, and then the boys left to set up the clubhouse while I stayed and spoke to Tess for a while, wherever she is now. When I finally finished my goodbyes, I’d turned around to find my mom standing beside her car—she refused to let me ride in my state, knowing I’d been drinking a lot, and sleeping or eating not so much. I can’t sleep, everywhere I look, Tess is there, and without her… well, I don’t exist.

  “You need to eat, Dalton. Please, just have a bite.” She tries to encourage me by cutting into the pie with a fork and bringing it to my lips, making the sounds of a choo-choo train, just like she used to do when I was a kid. My smile is real this time, and I roll my eyes at her, but I can’t help but take the bite of pie into my mouth.

  “It’s good, Mom.”

  “Of course it is, I made it.”

  I finish off the bite, then notice that my mom’s eyes are filled with tears. “I loved Tess like she was my own daughter,” she says, bringing a tissue up to her eyes and dabbing.

  I can’t reply, I just swallow down the lump now lodged in my throat and look away. I’m forced to look at her again when she tugs on my chin, pulling my gaze back to her. “Tess wouldn’t want you to go on like this, she would want you to be happy. I know you loved her, we all did, but you need to start looking after yourself. You’re still young, you still have your whole life ahead of you—”

  I cut in. “Please don’t tell me I’ll find someone else, because that will never happen. Tess can’t be replaced.”

  “I know,” she says gently. “I know how much you loved her. I’m not saying you have to replace her. I’m just saying that life goes on. You need to know that. It was hard for me when your dad died, and sure, it took me a while, but I got through it, and here I am.”

  “Here you are,” I repeat, then give her hand a squeeze. “I know your intentions are good, Mom, but right now, I’m not ready to forget her.”

  “No one is saying you have to, my boy. I’m just saying it’s time to get up in the morning, it’s time to shower, time to eat. You need to take care of yourself. This is not healthy,” she says, pointing to my clothes.

  “What do you mean? I thought you wanted me to wear this suit?” I ask, looking down at my dress pants and shirt, my tie that’s now loose around my neck.

  “You look really nice, Dalton. But has your shaver broken? Is there no one who can cut your hair? Look at it! It’s so long,” she teases, pulling on a few strands near my ear.

  “Ah, Mom, who cares what I look like?”

  “I do. I do, Dalton. You look too thin, you’re not eating. Why don't you come home and let me look after you? Just for a while, hey?”

  I look down at the half-eaten pie still sitting on the bar top. “Thanks for the gesture, Mom, but I belong here with my brothers.”

  She cups my cheek. “Promise me you will take better care of yourself. Promise me.”

  I play with my lip ring. “I promise.”

  “That’s my boy. Now, I’m going home. I’m tired and it’s been a long day.” She gets up off the stool and leans in to kiss my cheek.

  She steps back, but I keep her close by the pulling on her hand. “Thank you, Mom. Thank you for all of this,” I say, looking around at the flowers, the picture of Tess and I on the edge of the bar, the food she made that’s sitting on a nearby table. “Thank you.”

  She squeezes my hand. “You’re welcome. Make sure you come and see me soon.”

  “I will,” I promise, and get up from the stool and walk her out to her car. After one last hug, I shut the door for her before she takes off out of the clubhouse. Never in a million years did I ever picture my mom visiting me here.

  “Tess, wherever you are, I hope you’re okay. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry I couldn’t find you and give you a proper burial.” I look up at the sky, hoping she can hear my heartfelt words, then turn around and walk back into the clubhouse. I need to get myself drunk to the point I can’t feel anything. I need to feel numb.

  Blaze

  “For God’s sake, Trigger, you need to calm the fuck down,” I state, watching as he tightens the tie around his neck. We all stare at one another, not quite believing that once again, we’re all wearing suits to a wedding. How the fuck did this happen? I’d even shaved and got my hair cut for him.

  “You boys look good,” Trigger says, looking around at us all. It’s finally the day Trigger and Charity are getting married. They held off their wedding because of Tess’s death, and although she tried, Charity couldn’t hold off on having a baby girl. They called her Hope, and I laughed inappropriately when Trigger told us. Faith, Hope, and Charity—how cliché. Trigger slapped me on the back of my head, reminding me that Charity had lost her first baby, and that she’d hoped and prayed that this birth would turn out fine, which is why they thought of the name. I felt like shit then. Of course the name suited her well, and she’s a bundle of joy, with black hair and green eyes. Just like Trigger.

  Trigger asked us all to be his best man... best men? You can always count on Trigger to be different. So now, as I stand at the altar, the song “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith playing, I think of Tess. I ‘d always hoped that one day it would be me standing here at the altar, watching Tess as she walked
toward me wearing a white dress, that gorgeous smile of hers shining from her beautiful face.

  I swallow down the lump that’s formed in my throat. I see my mom in the crowd, then look to my left to Hawke, and Quill on my right, then the other boys. Tess should have been one of Charity’s ladies, and it makes me incredibly sad that she’s missing out on this. On everything.

  I feel a tap on my back and look over at Hawke, whose expression shows that he knows exactly what I’m thinking. I lift my chin up to him, then look ahead when the chorus to the song surrounds us.

  Jasmine walks in first, her kids by her side, followed by Luisa, who’s carrying her twins in her arms. I look over at Hawke and Quill again—they both have big smiles on their faces, and I envy them because they have it all, their women, their kids. But as Jasmine and Luisa move nearer, I notice they’re both openly crying, but smiling at the same time. I mean, it is a wedding after all, but their gazes are stuck on mine, not the groom’s, or Quill and Hawke’s, and I don’t understand why. I mean, know I look good in a suit… but not that good.

  Just to be sure, I turn around and look behind me, but there’s nothing but trees and flowers there, since Charity and Trigger decided to have an outside garden wedding. A marquee sits to the right of us, ready for the reception, so I can’t work out why they’d be looking so intently at me, and with tears.

  And then I just know. I feel her before I see her. This can’t be real. It can’t be…. Can it?

  The music stops and all eyes turn to the back of the garden area, to where Jasmine and Luisa emerged from only moments ago. To where she stands.

  Tess.

  She’s wearing a gold dress, the same dress that matches Jasmine’s and Luisa’s. But it doesn’t make sense in my head. I think I’m hallucinating. I look over to my boys, who are all staring in disbelief as well, their mouths open. Tess is standing there, flowers in her hand, and a big smile on her very real face. I notice that her eyes are filled with tears as her gaze bores into mine. Can it be real? Could she really be here?