by Mallory Funk
Colton always has his phone on him. He keeps it in case something happens with the club. The only time he has not answered is when he’s making love to me, though I probably would have hurt him if he answered his phone while he was inside of me.
“Fuck!” my uncle shouts, taking me out of my thoughts and making my heart race. That doesn’t sound good.
“What is it?” I ask panicked.
“He left the shop with Stacey hours ago and they never came back,” he growls out pressing buttons on his phone and then placing it on his ear.
The tension in the room is rising.
I can feel myself shaking. There’s a bad feeling in my gut and I start to feel nauseous.
“Shit…” he hisses.
When my uncle hangs up the phone, I look at him waiting for him to tell me what’s going on.
I can’t read the look in his eyes, but I don’t like it one bit.
“Torch just pulled up at home when no one heard from Stacey or Trigger. She told him that she would let him know when it’s okay to come home. The SUV that Stacey drives was rolled over in the ditch,” he says regretfully.
I gasp and slap a hand over my mouth.
“Oh god please don’t tell me…” my aunt pleads to Uncle Bear.
He shakes his head. “We don’t know, hun… their bodies are gone,”
he says as I fall to the ground.
“It has to be Vince,” I say with my voice shaky.
I know it’s him, I can feel it.
My uncle growls, “Fuck!!”
As I break out in a sob.
Chapter Fifteen
Sophie
Hours and hours pass by.
We still don’t have a clue where they are.
A bunch of brothers went to check out the crash site. They couldn’t find any traces of Colton or Stacey.
No bodies, phones, or personal belongings.
Whoever did it didn’t want any trace of Stacey or Trigger around.
I’m at the clubhouse with the other Old Ladies. They had put the club on lockdown until they know more.
Church had started an hour ago, but I haven’t heard about anything yet.
Once they let out, they all go back out searching. I feel like they have looked everywhere, but I have no idea where they looked.
Vince, what are you up to?
I can’t let anything happen to them.
I get up from my seat and pace back and forth. I don’t know what to do besides think.
Vince has to make contact with me if he wants me back.
Is he going to try to use them as leverage?
I know Vince well enough that I should be able to figure out his next move but, every time I try, my mind goes blank.
I run my hands through my hair in frustration.
I see the other women glance at me and offer understanding looks, but that’s not what I want right now.
I want Colton and Stacey back.
“Hun, you need to sit. We’ll find them,” Lily says softly.
I look at her, tears welling in my eyes. “How can I do that? I can’t sit back and be calm because my man and friend are out there.”
She looks at me with sad eyes and nods her head in understanding.
“I know, hun, but we will get them back,” she says with confidence. I wish I felt some of that confidence, but I have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Unharmed?” I ask in a quiet whisper that would surprise me if she heard.
She looks at me in the eyes, but she doesn’t say anything.
What is there to say?
Please let them be okay.
Chapter Sixteen
Trigger ‘Colton’
My head feels like it has been hit with a sledgehammer.
I slowly wake up and expect to find myself in bed with Sophie, hoping that the pounding in my head is from too many beers.
It’s not, and I know it’s not, when I notice that I'm not in a nice warm bed with my woman next to me.
I feel the hard, cold ground under me and know that I'm laying on a cement floor.
I don’t have my woman’s body next to me, but there is something around my wrists and legs.
Fuck, I don’t like this feeling one bit.
I can feel my heart hammering in my chest.
I think back to what I remember before waking up.
I remember helping Stacey and heading back to the clubhouse, and then there was screaming. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut trying hard to remember what happened after that.
I open my eyes when I remember that we got hit by another vehicle. The screaming I remember was Stacey yelling my name before I passed out.
I look around as much as I can but being tied up doesn’t offer much movement. I can only really move my head.
I let out a curse. “Fuck.”
I hear a light moaning and shift my head in the direction of the sound.
I feel the anger grow within me when I see Stacey chained up to the fucking wall.
Her hands are chained above her head. Her head is down. She is probably passed out from exhaustion or blacked out during the crash too.
I see blood dripping from her, but I can’t tell where it’s from, and her body is covered with bruises. I sure fucking hope it’s from the crash and not from who I think it is.
Vince.
I know this fucker has something to do with why we are here.
I hear her moan again before her head slowly lifts.
When her eyes meet mine, I can see how much pain she’s in.
I try to twist and find a way out of my restraints, but they don’t seem to be budging. They obviously don’t want me to get out of this.
“Stacey, are you with me?” I ask trying to hide the fear I feel when I see how bad her injuries are.
“Trig…” she rasps out. “It hurts.” Then she squeezes her eyes closed from the pain she’s in.
I have never felt more helpless than I feel right now.
Stacey is clearly feeling some serious injuries, but there is not a fucking thing I can do about it.
“Fuck!” I let out a scream.
I can feel my body hurting but I’m ignoring it and trying to focus on getting Stacey out of here. Whatever this fucker wants, she has nothing to do with it.
A menacing chuckle fills the room and I look in the opposite direction of where Stacey is.
Standing in the doorway of the room we are in is Vince. I know that it’s him from all the pictures I had been shown.
He has a cocky fucking smirk on his face.
“It’s about time you woke up. I was worried your friend here was going to bleed out before you opened your eyes,” he says, not at all caring that Stacey is practically dying right in front of him.
“Why the fuck do you have her? She has nothing to do with this,” I ask, my voice full of fury.
He chuckles and has got this crazy look in his eyes.
“Wrong place, wrong time for this beauty. Though she really is stunning. If my father wasn’t so caught up in Sophie, I would have definitely made this one my bride- that and the fact that she’s dying,” he says with a careless shrug.
“Just let her fucking go. It’s me you want, not her,” I say with a glare.
He shakes his head and walks over to Stacey, gripping her hair in his hand and pulling her head back. Her eyes fly open and she looks at him with so much hate.
“I can’t let that happen. This bitch will go crawling back to your sorry excuse for a club, and I can’t have that. It’s just an added bonus that I get to take out a Snakes bitch as well,” he says in a cold voice. “Besides, I need you here with her while I go grab what’s mine back. I know you won’t leave her here by herself. It will give me enough time to grab the bitch who thinks she can run away from me,” he says with an evil laugh as he walks out of the room.
Fuck. I need to think of a way to get us out of here. I need to get to Sophie.
Chapter Seventeen
Sophi
e
It has been two days. Everyone is still looking for Colton and Stacey. I’ve barely slept.
When I do happen to fall asleep, I wake up screaming for Colton.
I’m currently sitting in the kitchen of the clubhouse staring out the window. I keep waiting for Vince to make contact, but he hasn’t yet and the date he set for a wedding is coming closer every day.
I turn my head when I hear shouting, and something being thrown.
“I need to fucking find her!!!” Torch yells. There’s a whole bunch of anger in his voice; he looks so lost and broken. I can’t help but blame myself. He had just finished throwing a chair across the room and it’s now shattered to pieces.
“Why can’t we fucking find them? How does one little, rich prick hide from us? Why the fuck did he take Stacey?” He looks around the room, but no one has a clue what to say.
He leaves the room with the door slamming behind him. Not once did he look at me. I hate that my asshole ex has taken his woman away.
I run into Trigger’s room at the club where I have been staying and break out in a sob once I hit the bed.
No one bothers me and that’s fine. I can’t deal with anyone right now.
Before my eyes fall shut from crying hard, I feel the vibration of my cell phone in my pocket. I haven’t let it out of my sight because I’ve been waiting for Vince to reach out.
Unknown number: (attachment)
I let out a gasp and cover my mouth with my hand when I open the photo.
Trigger is laying face down on the floor with his arms and legs tied together. There is some heavy bruising on his face, and I have no doubt that he is bruised other places as well.
A few feet away from him is Stacey hanging limp against the wall with a pool of blood surrounding her.
A sob tries to break free and my eyes well with tears. I quickly wipe at them so that I can focus on my phone.
Unknown number: (attachment)
Another picture is sent and this time it’s of a lighter and gasoline.
My eyes widen in horror. I don’t have to be smart to get what he is hinting at. He’s going to burn them alive in that place. That’s if Stacey still is alive. There is so much blood that I wouldn’t be able to tell.
Unknown number: Meet me at this address in an hour… If anyone follows you, I’ll burn them alive. Don’t make me wait. Your friends don’t have much time left.
I throw a pillow over my face and scream. I don’t want anyone to hear me. I know that he’s serious.
I had no idea that Vince was this crazy and would resort to doing something like this to get me back. I should have run somewhere else.
I know what I need to do. I can’t let anything else happen to them.
I just need to figure out a way to get to them without being followed.
I hear a bunch of footsteps and then motorcycles being started. I look out the window to see most of the brothers leaving.
When I turn and leave my room, I see that only prospects remain. The only patched in brother still here is Stitch. His eyes are on my door when I walk out of the room. I know he’s on watch for me. They wouldn’t just leave a prospect with me since they know that I’m Vince’s target.
My shoulders slump in defeat. There is no way for me to get past him. He narrows his eyes at me, and I wonder if he can tell that I’m up to something.
I back up into the room and close the door.
I sit on the bed and try to think of something when the door opens.
Stitch narrows his eyes. “What are you up to?” he asks with his voice deadly calm.
I shake my head and give him a look of confusion. I pretend that I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I can tell already that he doesn’t buy it.
“Cut the shit. He contacted you, didn’t he?” he asks.
When I look at his face I can tell that he’s determined and, now that he knows something is up, won’t let me out of his site.
I feel tears well up in my eyes once again and I nod my head slowly.
I’m at a loss about what to do. I don’t want anything to happen to anyone anymore.
He shakes his head in anger. “What the fuck did you think you were going to do? Go back to him?” I can tell he really doesn’t need an answer.
“You know as well as I do that he isn’t going to just let them go. No one would go to all that fucking trouble and just let them go,” he says, and I nod my head. I know that he’s right, but I don’t know what to do.
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t sit back and do nothing!” I say, my voice rising with every word.
He motions his hand towards my phone, and I hand it to him without question.
I can see the anger overcome him as he reads. Without a word, he pulls out his phone, dials a number, and then places the phone on his ear.
“I need eyes. She will be coming through in about thirty minutes,” he says looking at me. I nod my head.
He hangs up his phone, and I wait for him to tell what’s going on.
He looks me right in the eyes so I can see how serious this is and what he’s trusting me with.
“This is how it’s going to go down. You will meet at that point, but since I can’t follow you I have some guys who will.” When I open my mouth to speak, he puts his hand up before any words leave my mouth. I snap my mouth shut and wait until he’s done talking.
“These guys aren’t bikers and they sure as fuck don’t look like they would associate themselves with us. That makes them the perfect people to watch. That fucker wouldn’t know who to look for. He would be expecting someone in a cut to follow you. Trust me. We will get that fucker,” Stitch says with so much confidence that I believe I can trust him. He seems serious about this, so I am going to go with my gut on this one.
I nod my head at his plan, and we start to get it in motion. I feel so nervous and terrified that something is going to go wrong.
I take a deep breath. “Please don’t let anything go wrong,” I say to myself.
Trigger ‘Colton’
Vince hadn’t shown his face often. The most he gave us was water in the last couple days. I’m guessing that he has some sort of plan that he is working through.
I was still tied up, and my wrists and ankles were raw from trying to break free. I was weak and everything in my body ached. I don’t know how much more strength I had left in me, but I knew in my gut that the time was coming when Vince would show his face again.
I look over at Stacey and her body is limp. My heart races thinking that she has lost too much blood.
“Stace…” I rasp out.
She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move.
“Stacey!” I shout as loud as I can.
She flinches slightly and I blow out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding.
A groan. “Trigger?” she asks like she’s confused.
“Stay with me, darling. We need to get out of here,” I say, starting to feel a sense of urgency.
“I can’t…” she wheezes out, sounding like she’s struggling to talk to me.
“Yes, you can, darling. Stay with me a bit longer,” I request, feeling my heart beat faster in my chest.
“I can’t… I’ve… lost… too…much…blood,” she says in between breaths.
I shake my head and pull tighter on the rope. I can feel my wrists bleeding from the struggle.
The door opens and the asshole walks in with a sinister smile on his face.
I don’t like the look on his face, and I can’t take my eyes off of him.
“Well it’s about time you woke up. You almost missed the show,” he says with a deadly chuckle.
I shake my head in confusion because I have no idea what he’s talking about. I have no doubt that he’s going to enlighten me.
He shakes his head but the smile never leaves his face.
“You see, I needed you out of the way. You took something that belonged to me. This is the price you have to pay for that,” he says. I look down a
t his hands. He’s placing a jug of gasoline on the ground and there is a lighter in his other hand.
I glare at him hard. “I didn’t take her. She came to get away from your abusive ass.”
He chuckles darkly. “You see, when she ran, she didn’t just take off on me, leaving me to explain where my fiancé was when I ALWAYS keep tabs on her. It didn’t take long to see that she ran to the sad excuse of a club that her dear old dad was a part of. I had to take my time and I knew I could find a way to get her back.”