by Rye Hart
“Did you guys here that? This pretty young kitty has some claws to her, don't she? She thinks we're jerks,” he cackled. “Jerks. Ooh what a mean thing to say, Miss Grace. I don't know how I'm ever going to recover from that burn.”
“She also said you're fat, Otis,” said one of the other men at the table.
Otis looked from me to the man who'd spoken and then back to me, a look of pure confusion on his face.
“Did you?” he asked me. “Did you actually call me fat?”
I shrugged. “If the shoe fits.”
He laughed and shook ahead again before letting out a long string of expletives directed at me. He continued to taunt me and my blood began to seriously boil. I looked over at Knox, almost begging him to step in and do something to reign his goon in. But he simply stared back at me and said nothing, the expression on his face saying, “you dug yourself into this mess, dig yourself out.”
When he didn't react, or try to defend me, I cocked my arm back as far as I could, and with as much force as I could muster, I slapped Otis across the face. I hit him hard enough to turn his head to the side and the crack of skin meeting skin sounded like a gun had just gone off inside the diner. I'd hit him hard enough that he looked genuinely surprised.
“You think you're something special, huh? You think you're all badasses?” I hissed. “Big, bad men wearing leather jackets and riding Harleys – you all think you're God's gift. That you can walk on water. But let me give you a little truth, you're nothing but a bunch of thugs and low-life criminals.”
Maybe some of my anger should have been directed at Knox for not being a better person, for not being the person Liam needed him to be. I glared at him as I went off on Otis, hoping the weight of my words would hit him hard. It hit a nerve, alright, but not with Knox. Otis lunged forward across the table, a look of absolute rage on his face as he came at me. Knox reached out and grabbed him, holding him back by his jacket, yanking the man away from the table.
“Otis!” Knox said, his voice rising. “Chill the fuck out, man. Leave the fucking girl alone. You got it? You hearing me?”
Otis' face was bright red with anger and his eyes narrowed with pure hatred as he looked at me. He calmed down and stopped struggling, but Knox didn't let him go. He held onto his jacket and gave the man a menacing glare. Knox's otherwise soft, warm eyes were hardened and his brows furrowed into a thin line as his chiseled face was held tight with tension. It wasn't a look I'd ever want to see directed at me, that was for certain. And it seemed to work wonders in calming Otis down.
Shoving Otis back toward his seat, Knox looked at him.
“Apologize to her,” he said. “Now.”
Knox towered over everyone at the table – clocking in at well over six feet and made of pure muscle. With his arms crossed in front of him, it was easy to see how big and defined his arms were. I had absolutely no doubt they packed a decent punch. I could well imagine him putting somebody down with one good shot. Otis avoided Knox's gaze and turned his eyes toward me, scowling.
“He doesn't need to apologize,” I said, taking a step back from the table. “Just watch your mouths around the boy. That's all I ask.”
Being a little overwhelmed by how Knox handled the man, I just wanted to get away from them all. My pulse was racing and I was flooded with adrenaline. Having said my piece, I backed away and turned toward my table, intending on going back to Liam and finishing our meal. But when I turned around, I froze in place. My heart thundered in my chest and my mouth went completely dry.
He was gone.
The booth was empty. I looked around frantically, but Liam was nowhere to be seen.
“Liam?” I called out, rushing over and leaned down, checking underneath to see if he'd slipped under the table when things got tense with Knox and his guys.
But there was no sign of the boy.
Penny walked over to me as I searched for Liam, trying to fight off a wave of panic , trying to keep my mind clear enough to focus on the situation – and not doing a very good job of it.
“Is everything okay?” she asked me.
“The little boy that was with me,” I said, my voice cracking. “Did he go to the bathroom? Did you see him?”
She shrugged. “Maybe so,” she said. “I was in back though, so I wasn't paying attention too closely, hon.”
A hand on my shoulder caused me to jump, and when I turned, I found Knox standing behind me, a look of concern on his face.
“I'll check in the men's room,” he said, offering without even my having to ask.
“Thank you,” I said, trying to be optimistic.
I was shaking though, nearly frantic as I looked all around the restaurant while Knox went into the men's room. We'd been sitting by the front door, so I looked outside, quickly scanned the parking lot but saw that it was empty of people. There was no sign of him anywhere. It was like the Earth had opened up and swallowed him whole.
“He's not in the bathroom,” Knox said when he returned to where I was standing, his brow furrowed as he scratched his beard. “Any idea where he might have gone?”
“No clue,” I said, my voice cracking again.
Knox put his hand on my arm gently, causing me to look up and meet his gaze. I wasn't prepared for the look of not just concern, but pure empathy in his eyes. I could see that he was scared too – he was just doing a much better job of hiding it than I was.
“We're going to find him, Grace,” he said. “He couldn't have gone far.”
Knox started barking orders to the men at his table, telling them what to do, and they jumped up to do it without question or hesitation.
“Penny, can you make sure he didn't go into the kitchen?” Knox asked. “Leroy, check the front entrance and the street, look around there. Grace, come with me.”
Without even asking, he took my arm and pulled me out the front door over to where I was parked. I called out Liam's name, hoping he might hear me and come back. We checked my car. No Liam. He'd vanished without a trace.
My heart raced as I started to fear the worst. I feared for his life and his safety. He was my responsibility, and the fact that I'd failed him so miserably weighed down my heart.
“I gotta call the cops,” I stammered, trying to pull my phone out of my bag – only to drop it several times because my hands were shaking. “Oh God, what if someone took him?”
“No one around here would take a kid,” Knox said. “It's not like the city. We're a little different out here, Grace.”
“But bad things can happen anywhere,” I argued. “Not just in the city.”
“Not here,” he said. “And especially not to my blood.”
His eyes glowed with an inner fire I hadn't seen before. I started to dial 9-1-1, but Knox yanked the phone from my hands and disconnected the call. I stared up at him, disbelief upon my face, and started to fight to pull my phone back away from him.
“We need to call the cops, Knox,” I said. “This is serious. I'm not screwing around.”
“The police can't be trusted. Not around here,” he said. “We'll find him. Don't you worry.”
“We?” I asked, though deep down, I had a feeling I knew exactly who he meant.
Without answering me, Knox called out to some of his guys and they huddled near their bikes, talking business in tones low enough that I couldn't overhear them. They leaned into each other like a football huddle, all of them looking serious, their eyes and attention focused squarely on Knox. I couldn't get close enough to hear what they were saying and Knox still had my phone. They talked for several long minutes and once he'd delivered his orders and the crowd broke up, he called out to me.
“Come with me, Grace,” he said.
“I'm not going anywhere with you,” I spat. “Give me my phone back.”
Chapter Three
Knox
Grace liked to pretend she was tough. She had this fantasy running through her head that she could stand up to somebody like me. But within seconds of her insisting
there was no way she'd ride with me, she was on my bike – my extra helmet covering that pretty blonde head of hers. Her body was pressed tightly against mine, her hands wrapped around my waist so hard I thought she might cut off circulation to areas just below my belt. And she was shaking like a tree in a strong wind.
She was terrified, and, not wanting to freak her out any more than she already was, I took it easy for her.
She held on to me tightly – her small, delicate hands were pressed against the front of my shirt, her perfectly manicured nails digging as she held on to my stomach for dear life. Her firm, perky breasts were pushed up against me too – something I couldn't stop thinking about as we rocketed down the road to the clubhouse.
The reason for her coming along was simple – she couldn't call the cops. And I couldn't trust her to not call the cops if I left her alone. As long as I had her phone and she was with me, I could be certain that the cops weren't going to get involved. The police in Blackburn were always on our ass as it was – and with a new deal going down, that was the absolute last thing we needed now. Whenever anything bad happened in Blackburn, the police looked to us first. Probably for good reason, but it was still annoying as fuck.
I cared about the boy's well-being – I wasn't a completely heartless prick. But as the president of the True Outlaws, I had to think of my guys first. I had to make sure the club business got handled before anything else. It was expected of me – and it was a duty I took really fuckin' seriously.
We pulled into the parking lot outside the clubhouse, the growling of our engines dying down as we shut our bikes off.
I turned to Grace and asked, “Do you need help?”
“I got it,” she said, staring at me, her chin raised defiantly.
Oh yeah, she was a feisty one. But as she stood up, her legs wobbled and it was clear she didn't, in fact, have it. She stumbled, and I caught her by the arm, holding her up and helping her climb off the back of the bike. She looked at me with a grimace.
“I told you I had it,” she said, stumbling a bit even as she stood flat on the ground now.
“Of course you did.” I winked at her, which only seemed to piss her off even more.
Stubborn, proud, and feisty as hell – what a woman.
Shaking her head, Grace pulled off the helmet and shook her head, letting her hair fall loose from the bun she normally kept it in. Silky strawberry waves fell around her face, with part of her hair still pulled back. Reaching behind her head, she yanked out a few bobby pins and the rest of her thick hair fell down her back, unspooling itself until it fell almost the whole way down to her ass. She ran a hand through it, removing some knots while cursing under her breath.
“Can I have my phone back now? I need to call the cops,” she said.
“No. I'm not giving your phone back to you,” I said. “I told you – the guys and I will handle it. So, let us handle it.”
“You?” she spat. “A bunch of outlaws are going to find a missing boy? What do you know about missing kids and how to find them? The cops are trained for this sort of thing – you're not.”
“We know that the cops in this town are crooked and are incapable of doing shit,” I said. “Especially if it pertains to me or my family. They take joy in watching the Sheppards suffer. Have ever since I was a kid. They get off on our misery and they do anything they can, whenever they can, to cut us off at the knees and undermine us – even when it comes to our kids.”
Rolling her eyes, she looked at me, and in an annoyingly condescending voice said, “I'm sure they'd help an innocent boy.”
“Just like they helped my brother Curtis when his foster daddy was molesting him every night?” Knox asked, eyebrows cocked. “Because trust me, they knew all about that – and chose to look the other way. Chose to let it continue and to not rock the boat. And all because Max Hubert was an upstanding citizen and the Sheppards are the scum of the earth.”
Her mouth was agape and she stared at me, wide eyed. “Your brother was – and you were willing to let your nephew –”
“Because I knew you'd take care of him,” I said with a shrug. “You're not like the social workers we had as kids. You actually seemed to care. Which meant that you would have moved mountains to get him in with a good family – and well away from me.”
She looked flattered and her cheeks turned a nice shade of pink for a moment, right before she continued.
“But these can’t all be the same cops that let all that happen so many years ago?” she said.
“Trust me sweetheart, things in this town don’t change like they do in the big city. Same sheriff, same shitshow,’ I told her.
Of course Grace would want to call the cops. I wasn't shocked that was her first reaction. That's what normal, law-abiding citizens do. She was a social worker – a civil servant--, and to her, the police were there to protect and serve. She really was a sheltered woman who didn't see the ugliness of the world for what it was.
And there was no way I was going to be able to convince her otherwise.
“Come on,” I said. “Come inside and we can talk. Believe it or not, we have better resources than any police station in Tennessee. If Liam is out there to be found, we're going to find him.”
She side-eyed me with a look of disbelief painted clearly upon her face.
“You know who we are, right?” I asked.
She nodded.
“So, does everyone else in this town,” I said, scratching my beard. “And once word gets out that my nephew is missing, we'll get the boy back because believe me, nobody is going to want to end up on our bad side. Give it a matter of hours and –”
“Hours?” Her voice outraged, she shook her head and stomped off down the driveway. But I knew she wouldn't get far.
“Liam could be dead in hours.”
“Technically speaking, he could be dead now,” Otis piped up.
Both Grace and I shot him a look, and he backed up, hands in the air. Otis and the other guys went inside, leaving Grace and I standing outside the clubhouse. I'd already told them what to do – to put the word out to any other True Outlaw members and some of our allies. People we could trust – unlike the local police.
“The main road is five miles from here,” I called out to Grace. “And town is another ten miles from there.”
“I'll hitchhike,” she said, her voice firm, her expression defiant.
“Once you get on the main road, which like I said is –”
She stopped walking, and I saw her shoulders begin to shake. A sob broke free from her chest and the sound hit me like a punch to the gut.
Grace was crying.
Her legs wobbled a bit before she collapsed down onto her knees, tears rolling down her face and a gut-wrenching scream escaping that tiny, little body. Her head fell into her hands and her body heaved with the intensity of her fear and grief.
“Dammit,” I said.
I walked over to her and sat down beside her on the road. She didn't even look at me, she just continued crying.
“He's gonna be alright,” I said, staring at her tear-soaked face
“How can you know that?” she cried. “I've seen some horrible things in this world, and I know what humans are capable of doing to each other – and someone has Liam.”
“You really care about him, don't you?”
“I care about all the children I work with.”
“But he's extra special to you, ain't he?” I asked, oddly moved by her devotion to him. “That's why you drove all this way to talk to me. You went the extra mile to help that little boy, didn't you?”
“And then I lost him,” she whimpered. “I wasn't even supposed to have him today, and I lost him. He's gone now, all because of me.”
“All because you cared about him and wanted to put him in the best possible situation,” I said. “Not many social workers would go above and beyond like that. And trust me, I've gotten to know plenty of them in my lifetime.”
She looked over at me, her e
yes wet with fresh tears and a small, uncertain smile on her face.
“Please, Knox. You need to let me call the cops. I need to find Liam. We need all the help we can get. Surely, you realize that, don't you?”
She could scream and cry all she wanted out there – there wasn't a soul around except the other Outlaws in the clubhouse. There was no way I could let her call the cops. No way.
“We'll find the boy,” I said.
“Like you even care about him,” she spat, her fear turning to anger.
That one hurt. It hit me right in the heart, but I deserved it. “I do care. I care enough to know he deserves better than me as a guardian,” I said.
I looked over at her, saw the tears in her eyes and the frightened look on her delicate face. She really loved that boy. Putting an arm around her, I pulled her close to let her cry on my shoulder, and when she did, I stroked her hair.
“We'll find the boy,” I said. “I'll guarantee it, Grace.”
Whether she believed me or not, it was hard to tell. Her face was buried in my shirt, and she collapsed into me almost entirely, her body melting against mine, shaking with her heavy sobs.
As she cried and I did my best to comfort her, a cold chill wormed its way up my spine. I'd made the guarantee that we'd find the boy, but I honestly had no idea if I'd be able to uphold that pledge.
Chapter Four
Grace
Knox was right – I cared more for Liam than other children. I knew I shouldn't have let myself get so attached to the boy, I knew it was unprofessional, and that I was only setting myself up for frustration and heartache, but I couldn't help myself. There was just something about the boy; maybe it was his vulnerability, maybe it was the depth of emotion and soul I saw behind his eyes. Whatever it was, there was just something about Liam that drew me to him more than the others.