by Rye Hart
Over the last few days I'd had him in my car, the child who was mostly non-verbal, would communicate with me in small ways. He'd smile, nod, and he even started making small sounds to emphasize his quiet responses. To see him come so far with me in a matter of days had made me feel like I had formed a real connection with him and made me want to make sure he had the very best placement. He deserved that after what he’d been through.
I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault that he was missing. I had failed him in the worst way possible. It was the most awful feeling in the world.
“I don't think you understand that Liam isn't like other kids,” I told Knox when I finally managed to catch my breath.
Knox didn't say anything, so I continued.
“When Liam came to me, after they checked him out at the hospital, he was a wreck. He'd just endured one of the most tragic experiences a child could witness,” I continued. “He was there, Knox. At the scene of the accident. In the car. He saw his parents being carried away on stretchers, sheets covering their bodies. He saw the blood. Had to sit with their broken and mangled bodies until the first responders got there.”
Knox closed his eyes and let out a low whistle. “Damn. I didn't know that,” he said, running a hand through his shaggy hair. “No kid deserves that.”
“He hasn't spoken a single word or cried or anything since that night,” I said, staring out in the thick forest, wondering if Liam was somewhere out there, lost among the trees. “Because he can't. He doesn't think or process things like a normal child, Knox. He doesn't communicate like a normal child. Which is why it's imperative you let me call the police.”
A lanky man with a Grateful Dead t-shirt and a bushy beard stepped out of the clubhouse and called over to him.
“Think we have somethin', boss,” he said.
Knox stood up and I scrambled to my feet as well, following close behind him as he walked toward the clubhouse. A small spark of hope blossomed in my chest that they'd somehow managed to find him.
“What did you find?” I asked, my pulse racing. “Do you know where he is?”
The man's beady eyes narrowed as he looked at me, but he didn't say anything. Knox silently followed him inside the clubhouse and when I tried to tag along, the man put his big, greasy hand on my shoulder and stopped me from entering.
“Dean, it's alright,” Knox said.
“She ain't one of us, man,” he said. “Can we trust her?”
Knox looked back at me, and pleading with my eyes, I said, “I just want to find Liam.”
Knox turned back to Dean and nodded. “It's cool,” he said. “I trust her. Let her pass.”
The man pulled his arm back and let me pass into the clubhouse while still giving me a dark glare. Knox's words held so much weight with these men – men who were considerably older than him. The dynamics of this club were way beyond my comprehension and I felt completely out of my depth.
But, this wasn't about me or my comfort level. This was about Liam. Nothing more. He was all that mattered.
The inside of their clubhouse looked as dingy as it did on the outside. Except the inside of the building was choked with thick plumes of cigarette smoke that saturated the air. My eyes watered and my lungs ached.
A coughing fit seized me and it took a moment for me to get myself under control. Some of the bikers looked over at me and smirked, whispering amongst themselves. There was a long wooden bar that ran along one wall of the clubhouse and had a line of stools in front of it. Several tables filled the center of the room and a pool table was set up in a corner by a jukebox.
It probably would have looked like any other ordinary seedy little dive bar if not for the True Outlaws logo engraved into the double doors on the far wall. Jackets and cuts hung on pegs on the wall outside the door with a shelf of candles and pictures above them. It looked like some sort of a shrine, or a memorial, perhaps. As I looked closer, I noticed that some of the leathers hanging up appeared to be stained with blood. The thought made me cringe.
“Whatcha got?” Knox asked, pulling up a stool at the bar.
The bartender passed him a bottle of beer, which Knox opened and chugged down like it was nothing. When the guy offered me one, I shook my head and politely declined. Liam needed me to keep my head clear and stay focused. But God, it was tempting to imbibe just a little to calm my nerves and take the edge off.
And I wasn't even a drinker.
“I don't suppose you have a pumpkin spice latte back there?” I asked hopefully.
The bartender looked at me and shook his head. “Lady, I don't even know what the fuck that is.”
Dean sat down beside Knox, but I stayed standing off to the side, looking over their shoulders and listening to them like I was eavesdropping on their conversation, like the outsider I was.
“This,” Dean said, sliding a piece of paper over to Knox.
Knox read it, his eyes narrowing and his face growing red. When he finished, he crumpled it up and slammed his fist on the bar, the thunderous crash echoing around the clubhouse. The force of his blow knocked his bottle over and sent it rolling off the bar. It shattered on the ground with a tinkling noise, sending small shards of glass all over the place.
Nobody moved and nobody spoke. It was like everybody in the bar had suddenly held their breath at once, waiting and watching to see what happened next.
“Fuckin' Dawgs,” he growled.
“What did it say?” I asked, trying to grab the paper from his hands.
Dean and Knox looked at me as if they'd forgotten I was still there and were surprised by my intrusion. The bartenders slid a fresh bottle over to Knox and he took another long pull of beer before handing the note over to me.
I looked at the scrawled message, and a cold chill of dread slithered up my spine.
We have the kid.
“Who are they?” I asked. The letter was merely signed with the initials, B.D. “And what do they want with Liam?”
“The Big Dawgs are another MC we kicked out of Blackburn a while back,” Knox said.
“MC?” I asked.
Knox looked at me like I was dense and rolled his eyes. But when it came to this world, this dark, scary part of the universe, I had to admit to my ignorance. “Motorcycle club,” Dean said, filling in the blanks for me, his voice suddenly and very surprisingly soft.
“We ran them out of here on a fucking rail for producing and selling meth in our city,” Knox said. “We don't put up with that shit here.”
“And what does this have to do with Liam?” I asked. Knox shook his head slowly. “Way back in the day, my brother used to hang with some of those guys. He stopped when I joined up with the Outlaws. I knew they had kept tabs on him for a while, making sure he didn’t give me anything we could use against them. They must have heard of his death and figured I would get the kid. Probably staking out my goddamn house!” he said, slamming his fist down again. “This is about getting to me.”
I scanned the room, looking for a telephone – since Knox was holding on to mine – but didn't see one. As I looked around, my eyes fell on a phone sticking out of Dean's pocket. I had to contact somebody. This situation was spiraling out of control and we needed help. Steeling my nerves and trying to quell the roiling in my belly, I moved slowly toward Dean.
“So this gang has Liam,” I scoffed. “And you're sitting here enjoying a beer? Unbelievable.”
“They won't hurt him.” Knox said. “Relax. That's not what this is about.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because they're not stupid.”
“That's debatable,” Dean said.
Knox shot him a dark glare that immediately shut him up. “The Dawgs are using him as a bargaining chip,” he said. “And if he's dead, they have no leverage.”
The guys all started talking at once, trying to come up with a plan of action to get Liam away from the other club. I used the distraction to my advantage, moving into position near Dean and his phone.
/> I had managed to slide around enough to get myself right behind Dean, keeping my eyes locked completely on Knox, making sure he couldn’t catch on to what I was doing.
God only knew what those heathens were going to do with Liam, or what they had already done to him. My stomach was in knots and my heart was pounding a thousand miles a minute. Somehow, I needed to grab the phone from Dean's back pocket and run. I needed to get the hell out of here and call 9-1-1. I needed to get some help.
As I subtly reached down to swipe the phone, but just when my fingertips were almost on it, the loud sound of a phone ringing filled the air. My heart in my throat and adrenaline rushing through me, I jumped back. Staring down at the phone in Dean's pocket, I half-expected to see that it was his ringing.
It was Knox's phone, ringing instead.
Knox pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the display, his eyes immediately narrowing, and a dark expression crossing his face.
“It's him,” he said, a hard edge to his voice.
“It's who?” I asked, still looking at Dean's phone and trying to work up the nerve to make another grab for it.
“Merle Rusket,” Knox said, as if that should mean something to me.
He answered the phone, but didn't say anything. At least not at first. He nodded his head, and listened. And after several long, agonizing moments, he finally spoke.
“Yep. We'll be there,” he said. “Let me speak to him.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Liam?” I whimpered.
Knox nodded, but held his hand up to keep me silent.
“Hey little guy,” he said. “You okay?”
Liam was non-verbal – how could he be sure it was him? He looked at the phone for a moment and then passed it over to me, an almost helpless look in his eyes.
“He's still not talking,” Knox said.
When I got on the phone, I had tears in my eyes and I felt my lower lip already quivering. I could hear breathing on the other end, but that was it.
“Liam, baby? It's Grace,” I said. “You're going to be okay. We're going to get you out of there.”
“Gr-Grace?” came a soft, quiet voice.
My eyes burned as the tears fell at the same moment my heart swelled, feeling like it might burst with a thousand different emotions. He'd said my name.
“Yes, Liam,” I said. “It's Grace. Are you okay?”
No answer. I heard shuffling on the other end as the phone was taken away from Liam. Then the line went dead. I held onto it, however, feeling my heart stop as I relived the moment of hearing him saying my name. Just one simple word – the first word he'd spoken to me at all. But it was enough for me to know that it was him. He was alive.
And those bastards had him.
Chapter Five
Knox
“It's him,” she said. “I'm positive it's him.”
She handed the phone back to me and wiped the fresh tears from her eyes. She took a moment to compose herself, and when she looked up at me again, I saw that steely determination in her eyes. That defiant little lift to her chin that told me she was angry – and most importantly, willing to do what we had to do to get the kid back.
“How do we get him back?” she asked me.
“They want to meet with us. Tonight,” I said. “They've promised no harm will come to the boy as long as we cooperate.”
“Think that's a good idea, boss?” Dean asked, cocking an eyebrow. “You know you can't trust those sons-a-bitches.”
Grace screamed and slammed her own delicate little fist down on the bar – the soft thumping sound it made was almost cute. But that was about the last thing I was going to say in that moment – she looked ready to kill somebody and I had no desire to throw gas on that bonfire. At least, not until I could harness and direct that rage in a more useful direction.
“What choice do you have?” Grace seethed. “Would you seriously let them kill a little boy –”
Holding a hand up, I stopped her. “No, we wouldn't,” I said. “Even if he wasn't my nephew, that's not how we roll. Kids and women are innocents and are off the board completely. The Dawgs crossed a serious line, and they're going to pay for that. But in the meantime, we have no choice but to play along. We'll do whatever we need to do to make sure the kid is safe. And then we'll show them how we really roll.”
Dean shook his head, “It's a trap, man,” he said. “You know it is.”
“Fuck yes, it's a trap,” I said. “Do I look like a fucking fool?”
“Yet you're going to walk in there, just give yourself over to them?” Dean scoffed.
Grace glared at Dean, and if looks could have killed, I had no doubt he'd have been dead on the spot. This woman had some serious fight in her – which was not what I'd expected when I'd first laid eyes on her. But now, in the middle of this crisis, I saw a woman who'd throw down to protect a child she cared about. A woman who would get down into the shit and make somebody bleed to save that kid.
If I didn't find her nearly perfect before, hell, that sealed the deal. A fucking princess with a big bite to her. I liked it. Maybe once we got Liam back, safe and sound, I could make her mine. At least for a night. Just looking at her and seeing that fire in her eyes was giving me a raging hard-on.
I stood up from the barstool and stretched, yawning wide and tossed my beer bottle in the trash can.
“Where are you going?” Grace asked, on my heels.
“We have twelve hours before we're going to meet with them,” I said with a shrug. “Figured I'd get some sleep. I want to make sure I'm sharp when this all goes down.”
Her eyes were wide and her jaw was practically on the ground. “Sleep? At a time like this? Are you kidding me right now?”
“He needs to be on top of his game, blondie,” Dean said with a wicked smile. “Let the man get some rest. Don't worry though, I'll keep you company in the meantime.”
She stepped closer to me, almost latching on to my arm, a look of distaste blended with nervousness in her eyes.
“No thanks,” she said quickly.
“Ahh, you're into Knox, I see,” he said, tipping me a wink. “I get it. It's cool.”
“I'm not –” she stammered, but her cheeks flushed.
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, blondie,” he cackled.
Grace followed me down the hallway until we got to a spare room I sometimes crashed in when I didn't want to drive all the way home. Just like at home, the blackout curtains made the room darker than outer space – just like I liked it. I flipped on a light as we stepped inside and I closed the door behind us.
The room was pretty gross, I had to admit. I knew that for someone like Grace, who was probably used to four-star hotels, clean sheets, and light floral air fresheners, that made it a doubly horrible experience.
The sheets and bedding were old, ragged, and threadbare in quite a few spots. The mattress was old as hell and sagged in the middle, and the room was permanently scented with cigarettes and stale beer. But the bed was the only surface to sit on, so she sat down gingerly, her back rigid, almost like she wasn't sure she should. She tried to control the distaste on her face, but couldn't quite keep it all out of her eyes. I sat down on the other side of the bed and looked at her. She was in way over her head here. This was not the usual circle she ran in and this whole situation with Liam – I doubt she ever conceived of the idea that anything like this could, or would, ever happen to her in her lifetime.
For us, this was pretty standard fare. We were used to having to fight. It was just how it was in this kind of life. But when I looked at Grace and saw the fear that lurked in the back of her eyes, coloring everything else she might have felt, my heart actually went out to her.
She didn't sign up for this. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and now she was caught up in all of our bullshit and drama. I felt bad for her.
“How do you think it'll go tonight?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Will they hand him over e
asily?”
“Probably not,” I said, pulling my boots off and letting them fall to the wooden floor with a clatter. “They'll have some demands and want me to agree to some shit first.”
“And you'll do that? For Liam?” She looked over at me with those big, blue eyes, hope within them, but also fear.
“I'll get Liam back, don't you worry,” I said.
“But how?”
“Does it matter?” I asked, taking my jacket off and laying it beside me on the floor.
“Yes, because I need to know what to expect,” she said. “I – I want to know how to prepare myself.”
“Why? You're not going with us,” I laughed.
“Like hell I'm not,” she said.
She wheeled around on me so quickly, I actually flinched. Grace turned turning to face me directly. Her chin was high, her upturned nose in the air. She had this look of utter defiance on her face.
“Like hell you are,” I said. “A pretty little thing like you would be eaten alive. And I'm going to have enough on my plate to deal with already. The last thing I need is to worry about you.”
“I can handle myself just fine, thank you,” she said. “I'm doing okay with you guys, aren't I?”
“We aren't the Dawgs, for one. We're actually on your side,” I laughed, finding her more amusing than anything else. “And for two, I'd like to see you hang out there at the bar without me. I'd love to see what you do when you don't have that buffer zone between you and my boys. Go ahead, try it.”
She crossed her arms in front of her, as if folding into herself. The look on her face was petulant, defiant, angry – and entirely adorable.
“I'm going,” she said. “You wouldn't let me call the cops. You've held me captive here, and now you're telling me I can't be there to get Liam back? That's not how this is going to work, Knox. Not as long as I'm alive and breathing. Liam is my responsibility and I'm going with you to get him back.”
Shaking my head, I pull at my shirt, lifting it up over my head. I wasn't going to argue with her. Not because I was going to let her go – but because I could make damn sure she wouldn't be in the line of fire by keeping her there at the clubhouse. Safe. Having her anywhere near the danger zone was the absolute last thing I needed. She'd be just another target for the Dawgs to go after. Unlike us, they didn't give a shit if women or children were casualties.