Hammer (Regulators MC Book 2)

by Chelsea Camaron

  “Nope, we can be there in a day.”

  “No!” I answer immediately. Desirae is mine, and my boys will be the ones to save her, dammit. “You stay put in case they head your way. We have a connection who can help in Chicago, too.” I know I should let the Hellions come, but there are things we can get away with that they can’t, and I can’t let them in on who we really are. More than anything, as the man who has come to want this woman, care for this woman, and possibly be in love with this woman, I do not want her to leave the first chance she can with Tank and the Hellions. I trust my team and know we will get her home safely.

  Besides, if by some chance they have gotten her out of Florida and are heading north, it will be handy to have their help to close in on these assholes.

  “Stay in touch,” he orders.

  I want to punch him in the face. He isn’t a bad dude—none of the Hellions are—but right now, I’m helpless and want to hurt everyone in my path.

  I will find her. She will be okay. And every motherfucker who touched her will pay.

  ~Desirae~

  “Desirae,” a feminine voice whispers in the darkness. I can’t decipher where it came from as it echoes around me. “Over here, Desirae. Come talk to me.”

  Tears fill my eyes, and my heart stops. It can’t be. The person who said that is dead. Does this mean I’m dead now, too, if I can hear my sister’s voice again?

  I look all around me, but I don’t see her anywhere. As a matter of fact, I can’t see anything at all.

  “Where are you, Suzie Sunshine?” I yell to the black void that surrounds me.

  Then, as if someone slowly turns on a dimmer light, the black recedes, and I see my little sister sitting on a wooden park bench a few yards from me. Grass appears under her feet and spreads like wildfire until I look down to see I’m now standing on grass, as well. The darkness and void of life disappear; the sky turns a beautiful shade of blue; and the sun shines down on my precious Suzie, making her glow almost ethereally.

  So many thoughts race through my mind. Am I dead? Is this Heaven? Or was Suzie’s death just a dream, and I’m finally waking up from a perpetual nightmare?

  Then I realize it doesn’t matter what is going on or why my little sister is sitting there, smiling at me, because it is Suzie. My Suzie. No matter the circumstances, this moment is a dream come true, a chance to see my sister again.

  Unwilling to waste another second, I run toward her, and her smile gets wider the closer I get. She holds out a hand, waiting for me to close the distance between us.

  Our fingertips have just touched when a sharp blow hits the side of my face, leaving a thousand stinging sensations behind it. I gasp at the pain and end up sucking in ice cold water.

  Gasping for breath and blinking the water out of my eyes, I finally somewhat focus on my lap. My lungs are still protesting the bit of water that went down my air pipe, coughing violently to expel it.

  It is during one of those coughs that my body tries to lurch forward, and I realize I can’t move. What the hell?

  I shake my head from side to side to try to clear the blurriness from my vision and look back down at my lap to see rope wrapped above my knees. Continuing my examination, I also see rope tied around my waist. My brain is still seriously foggy, as if I have had one too many drinks on top of a few joints. My spidey senses tell me this rope stuff isn’t good, though. Somehow, I don’t think Ethan is that kinky.

  Another splash of frigid cold water hits my face, knocking the air right out of me, forcing me to start sputtering all over again. The first batch of ice cold water was not cool. The second batch in addition to the rope tells me I’m in big, big trouble. But why? I can’t seem to remember shit, and that’s definitely not a good sign.

  My next clue that I’m up shit’s creek without a paddle is the cruel laugh that sounds off in front of me. “Looks like the chloroform is finally wearing off.”

  They drugged me? I blink foggily at my lap, trying to remember why I’m in this situation.

  Glancing up, I see two guys dressed in black. Their faces don’t look familiar, and no names come to mind. They both have olive-toned skin and dark hair that hint at an Italian heritage. The one closest to me is holding a bucket and has hazel eyes. The man slightly behind him and to his left has chocolate brown eyes that almost look black. Both of them carry a cruel gleam in their gaze that sends a shiver down my spine. Or maybe it’s the cold water. It is hard to tell when you are cold and scared as hell.

  The man with the bucket drops it at his feet and lunges toward me. I try to kick out to stop him, only to realize my ankles are tied down to the chair. Then I desperately jerk my hands to cover my face and protect myself but realize my hands are tied behind me, and I can’t move at all.

  The back of his hand connects with the side of my face, whipping my head to the side. A metallic taste seeps onto my tongue, and my face starts to throb.

  A little while ago, I was about to sit with my sister on a park bench in Heaven. Now I’m tied down to an office chair in Hell. Tears well up in my eyes and leak down my face as a sob catches in my throat.

  Fingers snap in front of my face to get my attention. “Look this way, puttana,” a malicious voice growls.

  I don’t want to give into his demands, but I need to find out why I’m here. An enemy of the Hellions maybe? No, thinking of Suzie on that bench jogs a memory of her tied to a tree, cut to ribbons, and being tortured to death. My brain is slowly coming back online, and memories of the trouble Suzie was in start to infiltrate the fogginess.

  Almost drunkenly, I raise my head to look at the man who just slapped the shit out of me. Was he one of the men who killed my Suzie Sunshine? With whatever it is they have drugged me with, I’m having a hard time thinking and remembering things.

  He roughly grabs my chin. “What did your zoccola of a sister tell you?”

  Utterly confused, I slur, “My what of a sister?”

  This earns me another slap to the face. My head whips in the other direction this time. Now both sides of my face throb in pain.

  He grabs my chin again and forces me to look at him as he screams, “Your bitch of a sister, what did she tell you?”

  “Suzie?” I ask, still befuddled.

  Letting go of my chin, he reaches forward with both hands, grasping my shoulders, and shakes me violently. “Yes! Suzie, you puttana! What did she tell you while she was staying with you?” he roars in impatience.

  He is shaking me so hard it jars everything, including the chair I’m in. My neck and shoulders light up in excruciating pain, and a vague memory of someone grabbing my hair and pulling my head back harshly pops into my mind.

  A scream rips from me because of the agony, and he stops shaking me.

  His partner laughs as he slaps me for a third time. “Talk or things will get much worse for you!”

  “I don’t know anything, asshole!” I scream back in frustration.

  My answer earns me another slap. I taste even more blood on my tongue. My teeth must have cut open the inside of my mouth. It is starting to pool on my tongue, but I refuse to swallow it.

  “Don’t lie to me, biker whore. I know your sister was living with you before we caught up to her. Now tell me what she told you and where she hid it!”

  At this point, I’m so confused my head is spinning. Or maybe that’s still the drugs in my system. It’s hard to tell after being kidnapped, drugged, and slapped around.

  I have no idea what this jackass is talking about. The only thing I do know is that I’m tired of being hit, and I am going to punch him in the nuts the first chance I get.

  Utterly overwhelmed by the situation, something inside me snaps. Although I know it’s a bad idea to mouth off to the man who has me tied down and is slapping me silly, I still can’t seem to help myself.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. The only thing I can see that you’re missing is the brain God gave you, because y
our head is stuck so far up your own ass you can’t find it!”

  His backhanded slap lands across my face before I even have the chance to flinch away. Dark spots appear in my vision, and internally, I search for a safe place to go to in order to survive this.

  My mind goes back to Ethan’s place.

  “Come on, Hammer; choke it down. It’s good for you,” I tease him as I swallow the green juice.

  “Drill Sergeant, I get that you love busting balls, but I’m a grown-ass man, and I eat my vegetables, not drink them.”

  I laugh. “Come on; you know it’s gotta be better than chow hall food or an MRE.”

  “Hey now, don’t knock it till you’re in the middle of nowhere, starving.”

  With my hand on my hip, I give him back a taste of his own. “Hey now, don’t knock it till you’re halfway through today’s workout and not feeling like you gotta puke for once.”

  Puking. God, I could so do that right now. So much for holding onto a happy moment.

  The second kidnapper laughs again. “She’s probably lying. Get your knife out and start to fillet her like we did her sister. I guarantee you, cugino, if you start slicing and dicing, that bitch will tell us where the thumb drive is.”

  Fury engulfs me, and I defy him the only way I can. I spit my mouthful of blood out in a spray that lands on both men. “Fuck you, asshole.”

  The man with the dark eyes isn’t laughing anymore. It is totally the opposite now as he steps forward, pushes his partner aside, and punches me in my gut. It feels like he has shoved my guts halfway up my body. I want to curl up in a little ball. No such luck, though.

  I heave a few times, wondering, if I puke on his shoes, will he just go ahead and kill me? Somehow, I doubt I would be that lucky. He has already admitted they were the ones who killed my Suzie, and I saw what they did to her.

  I have to try to keep myself alive until Ethan gets here with help.

  “Suzie didn’t say anything. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I swear.”

  One of them snorts a laugh. “Right. And I’m the tooth fairy. Try again, bitch.”

  Another slap across the face. More blood in my mouth. This time, I’m not brave enough to spit it out at them. Instead, I start to cry as I swear up and down that my sister didn’t tell me a damn thing.

  I’m so scared I want to puke my guts up. Pee my pants. Cry a fucking river. Anything and everything that might make these two realize I’m a human being who deserves to live.

  Terror is such an overwhelming emotion that I’m afraid I might actually die of a heart attack before the men kill me.

  A million things are running through my mind as each slap they deliver sends both a bit of clarity and a whole lot of misery through my body. Is Ethan okay? I remember hearing the thud of his body hitting the stairs as he raced to try to save me.

  Will he and the Regulators get here in time to save me?

  God, I hope so. Not just because I want to live, but because in those precious moments between last night and this morning with Ethan McCoy, I think I may have found something to live for again.

  Love.

  Chapter

  17

  ~Hammer~

  I fucking knew it. I knew life wouldn’t let me keep something so good. The ache in my hip only reminds me more of how far I have come with Des. My mind races with thoughts of where she is and what is happening to her.

  My phone rings.

  “Tank,” I answer.

  “Wellington cut Ricca loose. He’s on his own.”

  “Shit,” I mutter, not liking the direction this is heading.

  If Ricca has no one to answer to, then his reason for taking Des is clean up, plain and simple.

  “Wellington is running something big in Chi-town. The place Suzie was working for was a front for his shit. From what we have gathered, Ricca was hired by Wellington to find out what Suzie knew. We suppose someone felt she was getting too close to what really went on in that pharmaceutical company. Ricca managed to lure Suzie in, make her think they were dating. Everything was fine until Suzie broke up with him and bugged out of the city the same day.”

  “Did Wellington put out the hit on Suzie?”

  “Don’t know, but we don’t think so. We think Ricca did it with his cousin so Wellington wouldn’t find out she got shot of him. Whatever Wellington thought Suzie might know about his pharmaceutical company was enough to make Ricca track her down when she ran.”

  What the hell had Desirae’s sister stumbled onto at Wellington’s pharmaceutical front that sent her running from Chicago? This is going from bad to worse every minute. If Ricca acted on his own and Desirae witnessed it, then in his mind, taking her out solves all his problems.

  “I sent your boy Screech a code. He can use that to follow the locator in Des’s watch.”

  “What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” I growl.

  “Look man, Hellions and Regulators don’t have a problem and don’t want there to be a problem, but bottom line, she’s ours. We watch what we claim.”

  My heart thumps wildly as my brain races to one conclusion. She’s not his. She’s not theirs. She’s fucking mine. I know these are irrational thoughts, but fuck if I can help thinking them.

  “We put a tracker inside the dive watch she always wears,” he continues.

  I don’t bother responding. Instead, I click off the phone and look at Screech, who is already using the code to find her. I fucking asked them in the last call for help, and the asshole didn’t share then about a tracker in her watch. I have been here for the past hour and a half in the Regulators’ meeting room in the back of Alibi with Ice, Coal, and a handful of our brothers trying to figure out how to find Desirae, and this jackass has known where she is the entire time? Fucking unbelievable.

  Screech has been searching every traffic light and surveillance camera he can hack into to try and find them, as well as simultaneously searching Ricca’s bank records for clues. Ice has been coordinating with the men under his command to go out and comb the streets for the van that took Desirae. Coal has been coordinating with other members, getting our comm. links, bulletproof vests, and hardware ready for us to roll out at a moment’s notice. I’m standing here, useless, doing nothing more than fighting my overwhelming urge to throw the phone in my hand in rage.

  The woman who helped me heal from the inside out could be lying dead at the other end of that tracking signal, and the motherfucker in North Carolina has kept me from getting to her.

  I have to be reasonable and not get lost to the moment. If it was the other way around, I wouldn’t have put all of our cards on the table yet either. As much as I hate Tank for holding out on us and losing precious time, I understand it too. I’m not about to tell him that though and when this is over, I’m going to make sure he feels my pain.

  “Got her!”

  “Where the fuck is she, Screech?”

  “The tracker pinpoints her in a building in the downtown district. Hold on; I’m zooming in.” His fingers continue clicking away. “203 Savannah Street.”

  Ice asks, “What sort of place are we looking at here?”

  “Noted to be the old Russell Accounting Building. No current occupants listed, so it is empty. We are looking at a brick building that was built in the late 1800s. That takes out knocking down any walls. Two ground floor doors—front and back. Fire escape should be on the side of the building leading to the second and third floors. Windows look a little small, but you should be able to get through them. Good news is the two buildings on either side of the Russell building are abandoned, so you don’t have immediate neighbors. The bad news is there’s both a fire station and a police hub within two miles of the location. You’ll need to get in and out as quietly as possible.”

  Coal looks over at Ice. “We’ll need the silencers this time, boss.” Looking toward Screech, he then asks, “Can you hack into that precinct’s server and find out their patrol schedule and
route for the area?”

  “On it now, kemosabe.”

  I see Coal’s left eye twitch in irritation, but he doesn’t berate our computer genius for calling him the nickname he hates like he usually does. Screech is lucky we are trying to load up and roll out of here as fast as possible, or Coal would rip him a new asshole.

  Speaking of rolling out, I need to strap on more than just my Glock. There is no way in hell I want to show up and not have enough ammunition.

  I’m moving to gear up with my brothers when Ice stops me. “You’ve gotta sit this one out.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Ice is a cold asshole. I have nothing but respect for the man, both as my club president and man to man. Today, though, he has lost his fucking mind if he thinks I’m going to sit out for even one second when the safety of Des is on the line.

  “Get Pretty Boy in here,” Ice barks to Coal.

  I stand toe to toe with him. “My baby brother can’t do shit to stop me. Your best bet is to let me in on this so you and your team don’t get caught in my way,” I tell him sharply.

  “Easy there, Hammer.” Coal steps between us. His six-foot-six height forces him to look down at me. “One might think you’re throwing down. No need for that, brother.”

  Ice backs off while Coal and I have a silent stare down.

  “I’m not throwing down. I’m laying it down like it’s gonna be. She’s mine. I’m gonna be there.” I look at Ice. “If it were Morgan …?”

  His jaw ticks, not hiding his frustration. “Suit up, asshole.”

  Damn right.

  Suddenly, Screech hoots and fist pumps the air. “Calm your roars, grouchy ones. I’ve got your need-to-know.” Swiveling one of his computer screens around, he blows up the satellite image of a building. “This is the Russell Building.” He taps a few keys, and three red arrows pop up around the structure. “Those are your two doors and the fire escape, which still seems to be intact.”

  Then the image zooms out a bit until our location becomes a small square with many streets surrounding it. With a few more clicks, blue lines show up all over the place, and two little Xs appear: one blue, one orange.