Until July

by Aurora Rose Reynolds

  “Are you pregnant?” my mom asks, and my gaze immediately goes to her.

  “No, Mom.” I smile, then add, “Not yet.”

  “What?” she whispers in shock.

  “I’m kidding, Mom. We’re not even trying. I want to have a wedding and then take some time for just us before we start planning for a baby.”

  “Oh, God. I didn’t know how I would be able to rein in your dad.”

  “If anyone could do it, it would be you,” I assure her.

  “Not sure about that one, honey. Honestly, I’m shocked your dad is so cool about Wes.”

  “There’s a lot to love about Wes,” I tell her, and she looks out at the living room at Wes and my dad, who seem to be in a deep conversation. Then my dad throws his head back, laughing and patting Wes on the shoulder as he chuckles. His eyes come to me and go soft, and then he turns his attention back to my man.

  “You did good, honey.”

  “I know,” I reply, taking a sip of coffee then laying my head against hers, laughing when I see my sisters dancing around in the matching pajamas my mom got all of us for Christmas. This is more than I could have ever hoped for, everyone I love in the same place, all of us together.

  “What do you say we get the turkey in the oven and have a mimosa?” Mom asks, and I nod, giving her waist a squeeze, and then we get the turkey in the oven and go out to sit with everyone else, me tucked close to Wes’ side, my sisters all gathered together, and my dad with my mom on his lap. We all stay like that most of the day, only taking breaks to cook then to eat. I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas.

  Chapter 16

  “Babe, where the fuck are you?” Wes growls as soon as I put my phone to my ear after digging through my bag to find it. It’s a week since Christmas, and things have been good. I’ve been busy trying to plan a wedding, and Wes has been busy keeping me cool about it.

  “I had to stop at the store to get chips and stuff for the party.”

  “We’re not having a party,” he says, and I know that if I were in front of him, he would be shaking his head with a smile on his face.

  “There are more than ten people coming over to watch football. I think that’s called a party,” I explain, rolling my eyes while tossing some avocados in my basket.

  “I got beer,” he says like that’s all anyone needs, and he may be right with his boys; as long as they have beer, they’re cool. And that was fine before he had a woman, but not now. So I’ll be making wings, seven layer dip, fresh salsa, and some puff pastries I’m sure the guys will complain are too girly, but will scarf down. I’m even getting two apple pies. No, I didn’t make them from scratch, but they’re Wes’ favorite, so that’s all that matters. “Did you hear me?” he asks, bringing me back to the conversation.

  “I know you got beer, honey,” I tell him, walking up to check out, and I do know he got beer, because last night, when I got home from work, there were five cases of beer on the back porch where he had put them, because it was cold enough out that he didn’t have to put them in the fridge in the house. “I’m still getting snacks.”

  “You don’t need to go all out.”

  “I like going all out.”

  “Pain in the ass,” he mutters.

  “You love this ass.” I smile.

  “Fuck yeah, I do,” he growls, causing a shiver to slide down my spine as I put the groceries on the conveyer belt.

  “I’ll be home soon,” I tell him softly while swiping my card through the credit card machine.

  “See you then, baby,” he says, and I smile at the cashier, pick up my bags, and head toward the doors.

  “Love you,” I say, hanging up and shoving my phone into my purse, then shuffle the shopping bag from one hand to the other so I can open the door to my car. Once the doors open, I lean over the driver’s seat and set my purse and the bags down, then scream out when I’m pulled backwards. A hand covers my mouth and I kick my legs hard as I’m dragged into a van and the door slams shut. My knees hit the metal floor and I feel a sharp blade against my throat.

  “Got you, bitch,” is breathed near my ear, and the stench of cigarettes and leather hits my nose. “You scream, and I’m slicing your throat. Nod if you understand me.”

  I nod frantically, and my mouth is uncovered and I’m pushed over until my cheek hits the floor. My hands are pulled together and my wrists are tied behind my back with what feel like plastic ties.

  “I’m going to fuck you just like this, at my mercy, nowhere to go, no one to hear you cry,” the guy behind me says, pressing his hard-on against my ass, making me gag. I feel tears roll over the bridge of my nose onto the floor before a sharp blow to the side of my head, then nothing but black.

  I open my eyes then slam them shut, not wanting to believe what I’m seeing is real. My heartbeat thumps rapidly, and my breathing begins to increase, so much so that I know if I don’t calm down, I will pass out again. I take a moment, gathering courage, and when I open my eyes again, it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I look around, seeing I’m in a small room. The walls are pitched, which makes me believe I’m in an attic. The sound of dogs barking is so loud it’s almost deafening.

  My eyes land on a small figure that is huddled in the corner. Her long brown hair is down, and her face is smudged with dirt, along with her clothes. I scoot closer to her and she begins to cower away.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I whisper, going to her side, but not too close. “What’s your name?”

  “El…Ellie. Wh-what’s yours?” she whispers in a hoarse tone after a long moment.

  “July,” I whisper back. “Do you know where we are?” I ask while looking around the space, trying to see if there are any windows.

  “No,” she whimpers, and I can hear the fear in her voice from that one single word.

  “How did they get you?” I ask.

  Her eyes close and she lowers her head as her body begins to shake, and I don’t think she’s going to answer, but then she says so low that I almost miss it, “My mom sold me to these guys.”

  “What?” I hiss, completely caught off-guard.

  “I know,” she whimpers, dropping my hand and wrapping her arms around her legs, resting her forehead on her bent knees. “She has my daughter. I need to get my daughter,” she cries, and her body begins to shake with silent tears.

  I wrap my arms around her and whisper, “It will be okay,” even though I have no idea how I will make it okay. Not for her…not with this.

  “You don’t understand. There was another girl here before me. They took her out, and when they brought her back, she was strung out on some kind of drug. She didn’t even remember her own name,” she tells me, and memories of what Wes told me about these guys flash through my head, making me vow that I will get us out of here before they can hurt us.

  “Did you hear anything? See anything?” I ask.

  “No, I was unconscious when they brought me here. When I woke up, Claire was with me. She said she was kidnapped from outside her house. Not long after I woke up, they came and got her.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “I don’t…I don’t know. They were big; one of them had a tattoo on his forehead of a spider,” she says, and a chill slides over me, knowing that was the same person who threatened Kayan at her apartment.

  “We need to look around and see if we can find anything to use as a weapon to protect ourselves when they come back. My fiancé will be expecting me home soon, and when I don’t show, he’ll come looking for me,” I tell her, trying to comfort her and myself.

  I just have no idea how long I was out, or how long it took for them to bring me here. I hate this. I can’t imagine what Wes is going to do when he realizes I’m not on my way home.

  “Come on,” I whisper, and we begin crawling around on the floor, trying to be careful, because there seem to be some parts that are weak in the floor, like the structure is old. The floor is covered in a thick layer of dust, and my han
d runs over a puddle of thick liquid, and when I lift my hand close to my face, my stomach turns as I see it’s actually blood. Someone was hurt here, hurt bad. It’s not a little blood; it’s a lot of it.

  “Oh, God,” I whimper in fear as the weight of the situation crashes over me.

  “I found something,” Ellie says from across the room, and I wipe my hand on my jeans and go towards her. When I make it to her side, I see she has a two-by-four with a thick rusty nail sticking out of one side.

  “This is good,” I say, giving her a hug. At least we won’t be going down without a fight. “Let’s see if we can find anything else, and then we’ll come up with a plan.”

  *

  Wes

  “Where’s July?” Mic asks, and I look from the TV to my phone and feel myself frown. I spoke with her fifteen minutes ago; she should be home by now. I put the phone to my ear and her phone rings and goes to voicemail.

  “This is July. Leave a message…or not. Who leaves messages nowadays anyways?” She laughs, and a bad feeling settles in the bottom of my gut. I click off the phone then redial, and it rings then goes to voicemail again.

  “What’s up?” Harlen asks as I step out onto the front porch, where he’s having a cigarette.

  “Something’s off,” I tell him, waiting to see if her car comes around the corner. The store that we always go to is about ten minutes from the house, if that, and she was checking out when I hung up. “July’s not picking up her phone.”

  “Maybe she can’t reach it,” he says, and I nod, but I know that’s not the case. Something’s definitely off.

  “I’m giving her three more minutes, but then I’m taking off to look for her,” I tell him, putting my phone back to my ear and trying her again.

  “I’ll ride with you,” he agrees, going into the house, coming back moments later with his jacket and handing me mine.

  “What’s up?” Mic asks stepping out onto the front porch.”

  “Gonna ride out with Wes to check on July. You stay here and have her call if she gets back,” Harlen tells him, and I pull on my jacket then try her number one more time.

  “Fuck,” I clip and head towards my bike, swinging my leg over my seat, and Harlen does the same with his. The rumble of our pipes fills the air as we pull out of our driveway. I ride ahead of Harlen onto Main, heading right to the store, where I know July was last.

  The moment we get there, I see her car in the parking lot off to the side of the door, where no one would see it. My stomach drops and my adrenaline kicks in as I pull into the space next to it and look inside. Her purse and the groceries she had just bought are sitting inside on the passenger seat. I open the back door, knowing not to touch the front in case someone needs to dust for prints, and reach in to grab her bag, pulling out her cell to see if she had gotten a call from anyone else, and there are no messages or anything in her call log.

  When I lift my head, I see Harlen is on the phone, so I head into the store to see if anyone had seen anything, which no one has, and they don’t even have cameras, so that’s out. When I get back outside, Jax, Talon, Sage, and July’s uncle Nico are waiting near her car, with Harlen, Mic, Everett and two officers I don’t know.

  “Z’s at the house with Kayan,” Mic says when he notices me looking at him.

  “They got any cameras?” Nico asks, and I shake my head while walking closer to them, instead of going to the building and punching the shit out of it to relieve some of the rage I have pumping through me.

  “You gonna be able to keep your head?” Nico questions, and I glare at him.

  “I find who took her, they’re dead,” I say, meaning that shit to my core. Not if, but when I find them, they will pay with their lives for taking her from me.

  “Do I need to take you in?” Nico asks, and I fold my arms over my chest. Uncle or not, I will lay him out if he thinks he can take me anywhere.

  “You gonna stand around all day asking dumb as fuck questions while my woman is out there somewhere?”

  “I’ma let that slide, ’cause I know you’re worried about my niece, but say some shit like that again and I will put you down,” Nico threatens, and my body stills and expands, ready to tackle his ass to the ground.

  “Brother,” Mic says, and I turn my attention to him, “cool it.”

  I run my hands down my face, attempting to get myself under control. Lashing out at everyone isn’t going to help anything right now. “What do we know?”

  “Nothing.” Nico puts his hands on his hips. “She had no enemies, and the man I would have thought had something to do with this is in prison awaiting trial.”

  “Fuck,” I rumble, and then think about Landon. It’s a long shot, but he may know something. “I’m going to ride to Mamma’s Country.”

  “You think someone there is connected?” Harlen asks, straddling his bike.

  “Not sure, but it’s doing no good just standing around here,” I mutter then look at Nico. “You call Asher?”

  “Yeah, he and November are going to your house to wait and see if she showed up there.”

  “Thanks, man. Call me if you find anything, and I’ll do the same,” I tell him, and he lifts his chin. I straddle my bike, start it up, lift my chin, and take off. It takes fifteen minutes to get to Mamma’s Country, and the parking lot is empty except for a few cars I’m sure are regulars at the bar during the week. I park close to the entrance, Mic on my left, Harlen on my right, and we get off our bikes and head inside. Tommy is behind the bar, and his eyes come to us.

  “Where’s Ronnie?”

  “Office,” he says, and I head back behind the bar and knock once, opening the door without waiting for an okay. As soon as the door opens, Ronnie is standing behind his desk with a nine-millimeter aimed at us.

  “Jesus,” Ronnie says, putting away his gun. “What are you doing here?”

  “You know anything about my woman being taken today?” I ask him, and he sits back in his chair and his face goes pale. Knowing what happened to his daughter I’m sure he gets how fucked up this situation is.

  “No, son.”

  “Where’s your boy?” I ask, and he looks at the three of us. I’m sure we look imposing as fuck standing in front of his desk.

  “I’m here,” Landon says, coming into the office and walking around to stand next to his dad. “What’s going on?”

  “July was taken from outside the grocery store on 5th. You know anything about that?”

  “No,” he says, looking at each of us then his dad. “Since Snake got locked up, things have been quiet.”

  “You know a guy with a tattoo of a spider on his skull?”

  He swallows and then looks at his dad again then back at me. “Snake’s brother, River, has a spider tattoo.”

  How the fuck did I not know he had a brother? “You know where he hangs?”

  “No, he used to work at the tattoo shop on Westend, but since that place got new management and they didn’t much like the fact he had a history of being inappropriate to the women who came into have work done, they let him go. “If you go over there, they might be able to tell you some info,” he suggests, and I know exactly who he’s talking about.

  Blaze and his boy Jinx just opened a tattoo shop in town and bought out the people who owned Daniel’s Bar, where July, her sisters, and her cousins had gone to drink. Jinx was a recruit, and Blaze came to talk to us a week ago about wanting into our club. We were still talking about it. Our crew has always been small, but since moving to town, there has been an influx of new recruits, guys who have ridden solo, or who have crews that are into drugs or other shit we’re not into, and they want to ride clean.

  “I’ll call Jinx and have him bring Blaze with him to the compound, and then we can go from there,” Harlen says, walking out of the room.

  “You want us to do anything?” Landon asks, and I know July’s right; he’s a good kid. He was just in a situation that was out of his hands, and he was doing the right thing the only way he could, by b
ringing in those dogs.

  “Call around and see if anyone knows where he is, or if anyone knows who he’s hanging out with.”

  “Sure, man, and sorry about your woman. She seemed cool,” he says, and I lift my chin and head out the bar, meeting Harlen, who’s standing near his bike.

  “They’re meeting us at the compound.”

  “Let’s roll out,” I mutter, getting back on my bike.

  When we get to the compound, the street is littered with bikes and cars. I look at Harlen, and he shakes his head as we park our bikes and move towards the gate. The second we get inside, we see all the guys are there, not just the few we called to meet us.

  “We know you guys don’t know if you’re recruiting anymore members, but we wanted to come and show our support and help anyway we can,” Maxen says, patting my shoulder, and I look around the open area of the compound. There must be at least thirty guys standing around, some whom I know, and others I have never seen before.

  “’Preciate that, brother,” I tell him then move to where I see Z talking to Blaze and Jinx.

  “Where’s Kayan?” I ask Z as soon as I reach his side.

  “She’s with July’s mom and dad,” he says, and I nod then put my attention on Blaze.

  “You know anything about a guy named River? He has a snake tattoo on his skull.”

  “Yeah, he was at Zero’s before we bought it. Management was afraid of him, so even though he had a history of stepping over the line with female clients, they never fired him. Unfortunately for him, me and Blaze didn’t hold that same fear, so as soon as we closed on the shop, we gave him his walking papers.”

  “Do you know where he went?” Mic asks, and Jinx shakes his head.

  Blaze looks at me. “One of his clients came into the shop and said he moved to Chapel Hill. Said he bought an old church and was going to open a tattoo shop in it.”

  “Thanks,” I tell him, walking towards my room with the phone to my ear.

  “You got anything?” Jax asks as soon as he answers, and I unlock the door, go in, lift my mattress, and grab my gun, putting it in the back of my jeans, pulling my shirt out and over it.