by Erin Osborne
I scramble as fast as I can to my daughter so that I can get her dressed and warm in the chill of the room. Shelby is still screaming her little head off and I don’t know how I’m going to hold her so that she can feel the comfort I long to give her. I’m in so much pain right now that it hurts to breath and move even the tiniest bit. So, I move as quickly as I possibly can and push the pain down as far as possible because Shelby is going to come first no matter what. Finally making it to her, my daughter practically slides out of the car seat to get to me. Since the diaper and her pajamas are already laid out near her, I don’t have to move much farther than where I am now.
Once I have her dressed and somewhat calmed down, I scoot over to the diaper bag so that I can look to see if there’s anything in there that I can possibly feed her. I know that she has to be starving by now and if I can’t find anything, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Pulling the bag over, a sandwich bag filled with cheerios falls out. At least there’s something, but I would prefer to have something more substantial to feed her. Even though she’s been eating more table food than baby food lately.
At the very bottom of the bag, I feel a few jars of baby food and what I hope is one of the toddler meals. I pull everything out and know that at least I have a few things to feed her until Nicolette calms down enough to come back and feed us. Hopefully she’s thought of that in her second attempt to take us away from everyone that I love, away from everyone that cares about my daughter and I. placing her back in the car seat, I open the toddler meal first and begin to feed Shelby.
I can’t tell you how much more time has passed since the last time I saw Nicolette. There’s really no way to tell if it’s even day or night with the way that the window is boarded up. Since it’s all on the outside of the window, I can’t even try to pry any of the boards loose to be able to see outside. On top of taking care of my daughter the best way that I can, I have been looking all over the place for something to open the door and use as a weapon. No matter how many times I seem to look around the meager bedroom and bathroom, I don’t come up with anything at all. The only thing I can find is a pin in the bottom of the diaper bag and some sort of card that Gage must have left in there on accident. I’m sure I could use one of those if I knew what I was doing.
Deciding that I have no other choice but to try to open the door, I make my way over with the pin and card in my hand. I still have a hard time moving around, so every movement I make has to count so I’m not overworking myself. My strength needs to go to the baby girl currently sleeping in her crib. As soon as I reach the door, I listen for a few minutes to make sure that no one is around the outside of the door. After letting a few minutes pass by with hearing nothing from the other side of the door, I take the card and place is between the door and the frame like I’ve seen in the movies.
This is harder than it looks, I don’t know what I’m trying to get on the inside of the lock to click and open the lock. So, I can’t figure out which way I’m supposed to be moving it or anything else. My only hope at this point is that the card will pop whatever needs to unlock and make the door open. After fumbling around for a few minutes, I finally hear some sort of noise and try to twist the handle to see if it will open. It does! I can’t believe that something I tried actually worked when I’ve never done this before.
Checking on Shelby once more, I scramble off the floor and make my way into the hallway. There’s nothing much out here except for two other doorways. Peering in the rooms, I see nothing of use upon the quick glance through the open doorways. So, I look over the railing to see if I can see anything downstairs. Not seeing anything, or anyone, I begin to carefully make my way down. Before I can get very far, I hear a vehicle pulling in and I make my way back into the room and quietly close the door.
Staying by the door, I hear Nicolette and someone else talking. I can’t be sure what they’re saying or anything else, but the reality of the situation is that this means my time here is coming to an end. I need to figure out what to do about this turn of events now before it’s too late. At least the voice on the other end of the conversation seems to be another female and not some guy. It just doesn’t ensure that this isn’t the person that’s going to buy me for some random psycho man that can’t get a girl on his own. You’ve seen the movies and know what I’m talking about.
After what seems like a million hours pass by which is not really a logical thought, the door finally closes, and I hear Nicolette or someone else making their way up the stairs. My heart rate increases, and I feel a sheen of sweat break out over my skin. I slowly back away from the door and sit down on the dirty mattress. I let out the breath I was holding when I see the person of my nightmares enter the room with what looks like a tray of food and some clean sheets.
“I’m not going to apologize for what happened the last time I saw you. But, here are some things that you might need. It’s good to see that the little brat is quiet for the first time,” Nicolette says, setting everything down on the floor and backing out of the room.
“T-thank y-you,” I murmur just before she slams the door shut.
Nicolette doesn’t say anything in response and I don’t expect her to. I look at the tray and see food from what looks like a restaurant and the sheets. The first thing I need to do is make the mattress. At least that way I’ll have somewhere clean to eat on. I look over as I get done making the bed to see Shelby sitting in her crib and watching me. A smile breaks out on her little face and I give her one to match. She’s the only thing that makes me get through the day right now. When she’s sleeping or playing in the crib while I sit and watch her, my thoughts turn to Gage and what he’s been doing. Then they turn to my friends and wonder at what they’ve all been doing.
With my daughter sleeping, I feel myself break for the first time since we were kidnapped. Tears are falling down my face as images of Gage float through my mind. This has done nothing but cement the fact that I was fighting my feelings for a man that would lay down his life for my daughter and myself. He was right by not letting me push him away when that’s the only thing I wanted to do. If I ever get out of this, I’m going to make sure that I keep Gage close and don’t let him go.
While I’m having my moment, I lay down on the mattress that I’ve moved closer to the crib. Without meaning to fall asleep, darkness claims me as I let the images of the memories that we’ve made so far play on a loop in my head. Gage and Shelby star in most of them, followed by some including Darcy, Keegan, and the rest of the people that I have come to consider my friends.
Shelby’s screams wake me up and I open my eyes to see Nicolette leaning over her crib. Her fist is raised, and I’ll be damned if she does anything to my daughter. Quickly getting up, I launch my pain riddled body to stop her from touching one hair on my daughter’s precious head.
“Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. Her!” I grit out, so I don’t scare Shelby any more than she already is.
Nicolette scrambles toward the door when she sees me coming at her. She’s unleashed a mama bear and I won’t stand by and let her hurt my daughter. I follow her out into the hallway and raise my hand to hit her. She doesn’t believe that I’ll do it and starts baiting me.
“Go ahead, give me your best shot!” she taunts. “You aren’t shit and you won’t do a fucking thing to hurt me! You’re fucking brat wouldn’t shut up and I couldn’t stand listening to her a second longer.”
The entire time she’s taunting me, she’s backing up toward the railing. I follow her step for step and when I get close enough to grab her, I let my fury unleash. Nicolette isn’t expecting me to be so violent toward her, but she doesn’t understand that I’ll give my life to make sure that no one touches on hair on my daughter’s head in a harmful way. As I’m letting loose every pent-up emotion I have on her, I don’t realize that she’s close to going over the edge of the railing. Before I can stop myself, the woman that has managed to kidnap me twice in the span of a month falls over the edge.
I look
over the broken part of the railing to see her slam into the floor beneath her. The angle her body landed is so unnatural that I know without a doubt she’s dead, but I have to go down and make sure for myself. Walking into the bedroom we’ve been locked in, I check on my daughter to make sure that she’s okay. I see a red mark on her face and know the Nicolette slapped my little girl. What a bitch! The only thing Shelby was doing was crying because she’s been so scared and out of sorts with everything that’s been going on around her lately. Leaving her in the crib with her blanket and a few cheerios that were left, I make my way down to check on Nicolette.
Just as I get to her, the front door flies open and panic overtakes my body at the thought that someone helping this psycho is here to kill me. The sight before me is better than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. Gage is the only one I zero in on. I’m not sure who’s with him and I really don’t care at this point. I look between him and Nicolette before relief fills my body to point that the pull of blackness is too strong to resist. The last thing I see is Gage running toward me as I collapse to the hard floor beneath me.
Chapter Eleven
Gage
I’M SITTING IN MY OFFICE, ALONE, WHEN my phone rings. The last few days have had me waiting to talk to Riley. Ever since the last time I talked to her, I can’t get her or Shadow on the phone. Now I’m worried and unfocused. I’ve been so unfocused that Crash, Steel, and Trojan have picked up my slack. It kills me to know that I haven’t been a very good President for my club with everything going on with Riley. But, the two that we know for a fact are after my girls are still out there and we don’t know what’s going to happen next.
“’Lo?” I answer, not bothering to check to caller id on my phone.
“Gage it’s Butcher. We have a situation,” I hear his panic and anger laced voice through the phone I’m holding as I bolt upright at my desk. I know in my gut this has to do with Riley and Shelby.
“Where are they? What happened?” I ask immediately, my own panic level starting to escalade to the point I want to tear everything around me to shreds.
“She went to Carrie’s the other day and made Shadow stay at the clubhouse. It’s only two blocks from here so we didn’t put up a fight about it. Carrie called and said that some woman jabbed a needle in her neck and took off with her and the little girl,” Butcher tells me, the anger winning out this time as he tells me what I’m sure Carrie told him.
“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? Why did you fuckin’ wait to call me and let me know?” I yell into the phone so loud that Crash and Steel burst through the door to my office. “Get me fuckin’ Tech right now!”
“I’m sorry Gage. I know you left her here in my care and I will do whatever I can to find her. We haven’t been answerin’ the phone because we’ve been out lookin’ for her. I asked Shadow not to talk to you and tell you what was goin’ on because I wanted to have more information for you before we talked. I can’t find anythin’ out though. It’s like they vanished off the face of the Earth,” Butcher tells me before I hang the phone up on him.
I may be disrespectful right now with hanging up on the President of another club, but he got my girl and daughter kidnapped. Again. I don’t care if she left the clubhouse and sat on the other side of the gate, Shadow knows better than to let her leave on her own. I’ll be dealing with him as soon as I get Tech in here to start doing his thing to find the two girls that mean the world to me. At the very least, he’s looking forward to a beat down from me. I don’t know what we’re going to do about him keeping his patch. He might have a little bit longer to be a prospect if he does keep his patch.
“What’s up Prez?” Tech asks, casually strolling into my office until he sees my face and the papers that are now floating to the floor instead of sitting in piles on my desk. “What do you need me to do?”
“Get on findin’ Riley and Shelby. Now!” I yell out, standing up from my desk so fast that my chair slams against the wall behind me and I can’t find it in myself to care. “Everyone out of here!”
Once Crash, Steel, and Tech make their way out of my office, I take a few minutes to try to compose myself. I need to call in reinforcements to help me get Riley and Shelby back. I’ve been trying to hold off on calling Grim and Slim to come in and get their guys in on the search, but I’m not going to be able to now. I pick the phone up and call Grim first.
“What’s up Gage?” he asks, and I can hear the good mood that he’s in reach through the phone line.
“Need your help. Really hate callin’ you in, but I need help. Riley and Shelby have been kidnapped again,” I tell him, sitting down in my chair, letting defeat overtake me. I’m desperate to get my girls back and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.
“What the fuck do you mean, again?” he asks, and I can hear his good mood evaporate and all the noise surrounding him disappear as he moves to a quieter room. “Gage, you better start from the beginnin’. Last thing I heard was you guys were back from findin’ her daughter.”
I spend the next few minutes going over everything that has happened over the last month and a half. A few times I can hear the curses coming through the phone and I’m not sure that it’s all from Grim. I’m sure that he’s called a few of the guys in to hear the conversation that we’re currently having. Or, he’s still out in the common room so that more than just the guys can hear us. Once I’m done telling him everything that’s been going on, there’s nothing but silence coming from the other end of the line. If this wasn’t so serious, I’d think that he hung up on me, but I know that he’s just processing everything I’ve just told him.
“Okay. What do you need from us?” Grim asks, once he knows that I’m not going to add anything else to the story I just told him.
“At this point, I don’t even know. Butcher and his guys have been tryin’ to find them with no luck. That’s why I haven’t heard from anyone there in a few days. All I know is that I need to find them whole and bring them back home,” I tell him, letting my uncertainty and pain shine through.
“We’ll bring your girls home, Gage. I’m gonna bring the guys up to speed and we’ll get everyone ready to head there. You got room for all of us?” he asks, knowing I’ll do whatever I have to in order to make room for them.
“Yeah. Gonna call Slim and see if he’s found anythin’ out with the other person that went to his area. I’ll see you soon. Thank you, Grim,” I tell him, letting him hang up before I do.
I sit back in my chair and compose myself before I make the call to Slim. He knows more about what’s going on than Grim did which means I won’t have to explain everything to him. As soon as he answers the phone, I fill him in on what I know so far and that I have Tech trying to get a lead on her phone. Slim assures me they’ll be on their way here and he’s going to have Fox call Tech, so they can work together to find Riley and Shelby.
Just as I hang up the phone, there’s a knock on my door and I know that if it’s not someone with good news for me, I’m going to flip shit on whoever dares to enter my office while I’m feeling like that. After a minute with no answer from me, Tech opens the door and pokes his head in. He better have good news for me.
“Her phone’s off Gage. I can’t track her with it off. I’m not sure if it’s dead or if the bitch that took her shut it off or damaged it. Fox is tryin’ to see if he can figure somethin’ out and I’m goin’ to pull up the surroundin’ area to Butcher’s and see if there’s any place she might have taken the girls,” Tech says, not coming any closer to me than right inside the door. He knows that I’m about to blow and doesn’t want to be in the line of fire when that happens.
I nod my head to let him know that I heard what he said, and he quickly makes his exit. Picking up the glass I was using a little while ago, I throw it against the wall and listen to it smash and fall to the ground below the window. My rage is continuing to build, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if we can’t find Riley and our daughter. They mean the world to me already
and I’ll lose my shit if I can’t bring them back home.
It’s first thing in the morning and it feels like I’ve just gone to bed when there’s a pounding on my door. I want to throw a fit and start pounding on whoever is trying to get me out of bed, where memories of the short amount of time I spent with Riley and Shelby fill my mind, to do something else. But, it could be a lead on my girl, so I need to calm down and not start immediately throwing fists. No one has any clue how much rage is filling me these days. I’ve been to the gym and tried to work it out with no success. It still fills me and I’m running out of ideas of how to get it out and not let it continue to fill me.
“Prez, Clifton Falls just got here and Phantom Bastards aren’t far behind. They should be here within the hour or so,” Trojan tells me, as I sit up and don’t give a shit that I’m naked. It wouldn’t be the first time one of the guys have seen me and I’m sure it won’t be the last either.
“I’ll be out soon. Give me a minute to get awake,” I tell him, flopping back on the bed and trying to keep my eyes open. Riley and Shelby’s lives could depend on it.
Knowing that I can’t keep everyone waiting, I get up and throw on the first set of clothes that I lay my hands on. I don’t give a shit what I look like and I could care even less what anyone else thinks either. Making my way out to the common room, I see everyone gathered around tables and talking. The club girls have disappeared and I’m glad that they’re not here. Ever since Riley’s been gone, Red and Karla have been constantly up my ass trying to get in my bed. It’s not going to happen and if they try to start their shit today, I’m going to do something they regret like ban them from the club permanently.