“Throttle, Hound—I owe you an apology.”
“You don’t owe us fuck,” Hound growls. “You want us to get all lovey dovey and apologise for the beating you took? You want to spend your time reliving all the old slights and rehashing them again and again? Or does the future start now?” He waves at the building to our rear. “In there, with your therapist, you can talk about what went down, but with us? All we need to know is how we can help and what you need to get through this.”
“While I agree with the sergeant-at-arms,” Throttle begins, “Brother, I’m here if you do want a sounding board to talk about where things went wrong.”
It’s my state of mind, but tears well up in my eyes as everything I’d thought I’d willingly left behind hits me right in the face. How did I think I could do without my Satan’s Devils’ family beside me?
I didn’t tell them because I was ashamed, guilty that I was letting them down, even if it was only in my head. Their forgiveness and ability to start over fresh makes me chagrined and regretful I didn’t speak to them before.
“Come on, let’s get you home.”
Home sounds good. But it’s not Heart’s old house that I want to return to. Suddenly I make a decision. “Forget what I said earlier. I want to move back to the compound.”
Throttle fist pumps the air. “Now that’s fuckin’ music to my ears, Brother.”
He prods my back and pushes me into the car.
I rest back against the headrest with my eyes closed on the short drive, going back over what the therapist said. One thing had struck me, that I’m far from alone in getting depressed. Depression, it would seem, is suffered by many, far more than people think. But, as I’ve discovered, when you’re deep in the depths, it’s not something you want to talk about or admit.
Maybe the first step to recovery is acknowledging something is wrong, disclosing how you’re suffering and asking for help.
I’m a man. I’ve been brought up in an environment where men are strong, decisive, and leap into action. They are not weak, hesitant, or scared to make a move in case it’s the wrong one. The imbalance between what I thought I should be, and what I was, had all but destroyed me. It’s time to discover who I am, but not out on my own in the citizen world. No, I need to be among my family with my brothers around me.
Arriving home, I notice that Olivia’s car isn’t there. I’m disappointed. I wanted to talk to her, to tell her I’ve put my foot on the first rung of the ladder to recovery. That I’ll do my fucking best to be a good husband to her, and that if I fall back, it won’t be for want of trying.
I want her. My wife. Not completely, not just yet. Another thing the doc had explained was that the erectile dysfunction was due to what’s been going on with me, not because of her.
Her pregnancy has just made her more beautiful to me, but I’d convinced myself I didn’t deserve her. I had been pushing her away as I thought it would be better for her if she’d leave, all the while knowing that if she had left my life, well, that would have had me eating that bullet for sure.
The door opens. Dad’s already there, standing, hesitant, his sharp eyes examining me. He waves me inside.
I stand for a moment, looking around the house that had never felt like home to me. “I’m coming back to the compound,” I tell him. Then I take a deep breath, pushing my feelings of inadequacy down, and the shame of how much I’ve disappointed him. I add just three words. “I’ll get there.”
Understanding me completely, he raises his chin. “I know you will, Son.”
“Eli?”
I go to my mom, pulling her into my chest. “I’m coming home,” I tell her.
“Well that’s bloody good news,” Sophie calls, having overheard.
“I’m calling the prospects back,” Hound informs.
“Where’s Liv?”
Wraith appears. He doesn’t look happy. “She went to pick up some dry cleaning. Then I got a text saying she was going to have coffee with a friend.”
I frown. A friend? I didn’t know she’d made any while she’d been here, but then, she could have told me, and so wrapped up in myself, I might not have taken it in. I’m sure she’ll come home if I call her, trouble is, I don’t even know where my phone is. Last time I know I had it was when I went out the day I had my breakdown. “Can you text her, Wraith? Ask her to come back.” Now I’ve made my decision, I don’t want to hang around.
“I’ll call her,” her father agrees, and takes out his phone, tapping at the keys. He raises it to his ear with a small smile, but then his features slowly rearrange themselves into a frown. “No answer,” he observes unnecessarily. He tries again. Then, looking down, taps at the keypad.
“Her location is showing as The Coffee Cup.” Wraith looks up then down again. “She’s probably got her phone on silent or something. She ignored my fuckin’ text telling her to come back.” He tries for a third time to place the call, then shakes his head. “It’s going straight to voicemail.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Dad snarls. “Weren’t you worried about that?”
“No I fuckin’ wasn’t. She was in one of her snits. Christ, Drummer. She’s been away from the compound for months. She’s gotten used to doing what she wants.”
“What friend is she seeing? You got her number?”
“I didn’t get an answer to that.”
Throttle sighs. “Want me to go and hurry her up? Two women gossiping? It could go on for hours.”
“The prospects will be here soon. Probably need her to tell us what they need to pack up.” Hound gives me a sideways glance, but I just nod. To be honest, I didn’t take much notice of what’s ours and what was here when we arrived.
“Yeah, thanks, Throttle.”
When Wraith agrees, the enforcer holds out his hand to Hound who passes him the keys to the truck.
I make my way to the couch and settle down to wait. I sigh, feeling exhausted. The effect of the tablets and the draining discussion with the therapist have knocked the shit out of me.
A hand touches my shoulder. “How are you feeling?” Mom sits down beside me.
“Wrung out,” I admit. It’s true, I feel I’ve been put through the wringer today. I’m trying hard to hold on to my positive thoughts, but the darkness keeps threatening to take me under again. An inner voice I’m trying to fight back is trying to tell me it’s fate. It would be far easier not to disturb Liv’s day, go back to bed and delay the move... forever? Is it the right thing to do? Am I sure?
“It’s going to be okay,” she tells me softly. “Take it day by day, Eli. We know what we’re dealing with now.”
Dad’s pacing. I half listen as he speaks to Wraith. “Why didn’t you go with Olivia?”
Wraith sighs. “I should have, but Olivia got in one of her moods and made a good point. What was the difference between today and the past two months?” He pauses. “She made me feel fuckin’ guilty. If Eli hadn’t collapsed, we wouldn’t have thought about protecting her.” Wraith waves his hands aimlessly. “I was still trying to come up with a good enough response when she walked out.”
I smile. Yeah, that sounds like Liv. Once she throws shit like that at you, it’s hard to argue with her good sense.
“You’re going to get there.” Mom’s still talking to me. Her voice is soothing. For a while she just lets me sit and relax. I’m disturbed when Dad answers his phone.
“Jesus H Christ!” he shouts at the top of his voice. “Are you fuckin’ sure?”
“What’s up?” Wraith’s voice is full of concern.
“Olivia’s car is at the coffee shop. No sign of Olivia. He questioned the waitress who said she left with a friend—she’s been there with him before. She said Olivia looked faint and that her companion had to help her outside. She thought it was to do with her being pregnant.”
A man? I feel the blood drain from my face. Is she leaving me? Have I been successful and pushed her away?
“Maybe it is,” Mom states, standing and taking hold of
Sophie’s hand. “She’s eight months pregnant. The baby could be coming early. He could have taken her to the hospital.”
Wraith’s checking his phone. Then he places a call. “Throttle. Her phone is still showing… Yeah, ask the waitress. I’ll hold… Yeah?... You sure?... Yeah. Call me back.” He ends the call. “Her phone’s not been handed in. Throttle’s looking for it outside. It’s there, somewhere.”
My eyes flick between them all, my brain focusing again on one word. Him. A man. She’s been seeing a man behind my fucking back. She’s been doing what I suggested I’d do to her. But it’s her who’s taken the next step. Why would she leave her phone? She must know that’s how she’d be traced.
“She’s left me.” The words come out of my mouth. “It was all a lie. She didn’t want to come back to the compound, so she’s left with someone else.” Suddenly her betrayal, which was what I encouraged after all, doesn’t seem as bad as the thing that hits me most. “What if I never see her again? My baby!” The final words leave me in a wail.
I did this. I chased her away.
“Fuck!” Dad’s voice seems to come from far away. “Take it straight back to the compound and give it to Mouse. See what he can come up with. We’re heading back now.”
Suddenly I’m pulled to my feet. Hands come around my shoulders and shake me. “Stop it, Eli. Stop it now. You think you pushed Olivia away? You fuckin’ think she’d have left you without a word? That is not the Olivia I know. You wallowing in self-fuckin’-pity right now isn’t helping anyone. We need to find her!”
Find. Her. Dad’s words, the expression he wears, feels like a slap to my face.
“She might be at the hospital,” Sophie cries out. “This may be nothing to worry about.”
Wraith’s there, holding her to him. “We’ll fuckin’ check. Drummer, we’ll go by the hospital she’s registered at. She’ll have headed there if the baby was coming.”
Drummer nods, then shakes his head. “If that were the case, she’d have gotten a message to you.”
“Not if she dropped her phone,” Mom offers reasonably. “There’s a chance, Drummer. If the baby’s started to come early, or something’s wrong, she could have lost hold of it.”
Either she’s left me, or… “The baby’s coming early. She’ll be at the hospital.” I shake my head, willing myself to think she left of her own volition.
Wraith swears as his eyes flick to me, then he holds Sophie close, hugging her before releasing her. “Sam could be right, we’ll get to the hospital and check it out. Wherever she is, we’ll fuckin’ find her, Soph. I swear it to you. We’ll find her.”
The hospital. It’s the only acceptable explanation.
Chapter Twenty
Drummer…
I’d felt a glimmer of hope when Eli had come out from seeing the doctor. There was a slight difference in his bearing which suggested while he’d hit his lowest point, there was a chance he was going to pull himself out of the hole he’d gotten himself into. Clearly he couldn’t do it without encouragement and help, but now with the whole club rooting for him, I believe there’s a good chance he’ll pull through.
Then, my temporary rise in my spirits had come crashing back to the ground when we discovered Olivia was missing.
Any man not in an MC wouldn’t have immediately thought the worst. The waitress’s explanation that she thought the baby might have started to come would have been the one most likely and probably accepted by the majority of the civilian population. But I am not a normal man, and I don’t clutch at innocent explanations. I also dismissed the thought that she’d been having a secret liaison, and that rather than return and be confined to the compound, she’d decided to throw in her lot with another man. That wasn’t the Olivia I knew, nor the woman worrying herself sick about the state of Eli, the woman who’d been crying in her bed these past few nights.
No. Someone’s taken her.
I’m angry she’d made it easy. If I’d been here, I’d never have let her go off alone. I’m fucking furious at Wraith, fighting not to let that ire show as I know he’s blaming himself for so badly fucking up. She must have twisted him around her little finger as daughters are wont to do. Damn everything to hell and back. I’m enraged for her sake, she’s like a daughter to me, and for my son’s. That she’s missing isn’t going to help his recovery at all.
Wraith and Sophie have gone on what both he and I know will be a wasted trip to the hospital to check if she’s there. I know deep down in my gut they won’t find her there. Throttle had swung around and come back to the house to pick Eli and Hound up and are currently driving ahead of Sam and me. We’re following on our bikes, riding in perfect unison, knowing every move the other will make after all these years.
I’d lost Sam once, before I’d admitted what I’d felt for her. She’d been taken by a sex trafficking ring. I can still taste the fear that had consumed me when she’d disappeared. That means I know exactly what my son will be going through once he loses hope there’s an innocent explanation for this. Would it be kinder to allow him to think she could have walked out of his life under her own volition than have been taken by someone who may want to hurt her?
She knew the man. I remember Throttle’s words. The waitress had said she’d been in with him a time or two before.
I didn’t get where I was in the MC without examining every angle. Although I immediately dismissed it, I do need to consider whether Eli was right. Could I be wrong? Could she have been so starved of affection, and having caught someone’s eye, decided to leave her husband? No, that wouldn’t be the girl I’ve known all her life. Especially not now when Eli is at his lowest. Anyway, Olivia would more likely confront Eli before doing something underhanded.
If I rule out that she’s gone to the hospital, or that she’s left Eli for another man, it means she’s been abducted, and not by a stranger, by a man who obviously targeted and deliberately befriended her.
If so, this was pre-planned. It’s not like she was snatched off the street. I don’t know when or how they’d first hooked up together. Christ. My hand slams on the handlebars, as I realise all the gaps in my knowledge.
Who would take the time to gain her trust and get to know her? Perhaps more importantly why? She’s attractive and, when not carrying an almost due baby inside her, is slender with a fine figure. Now she’s matronly, and not someone you’d immediately think ripe for trafficking. Unless it’s to fulfil a twisted fetish. In that case, why wait weeks to take her?
When Eli and Olivia had left the compound, to the club they were Satan’s Devils no longer. But what if we were the only ones to think that? Could we have an enemy who took the chance Olivia being who she was, the daughter of the old VP, a girl born and bred in the club, remained important to us? They’d be right. She’s still ours, ours by blood and by being part of the MC family. We’d just made it easy for someone to use her against the club.
But who? Who would take her?
Right now, I don’t have an answer.
She’d looked faint, Throttle had told us. Could she have been drugged? If she didn’t leave with him voluntarily, it sounds likely. But what would that mean for her, and for the baby?
Sam and I both indicate at exactly the same time, then turn down the track that leads to the compound. As soon as my bike’s parked in its spot, I nod at Sam and fly into the clubhouse, going to the office of the man who should be the most help.
Throttle follows me inside. He passes me Olivia’s phone, which I in turn pass to Mouse.
“You found it just lying by her car?” he queries, making me realise Throttle’s already warned him what we need done. When the enforcer nods, he adds, “Like it was going to be easily found?”
Throttle’s head bobs up and down again.
I switch my attention toward the man with my daughter-in-law’s phone in his hand. His mouth is pursed as he links it up to something, then does some magic to obviously break the code that lets him get to the data. Fuck knows how he works tha
t shit, but it takes him no time at all until his mouth curves in the right direction.
At that moment the door bangs open behind me. “What the fuck, Drummer?” Wizard comes in and rushes around the desk, but he asks for no further explanation. “Whatcha got, Mouse?” Then he meets my eyes over the desk and shakes his head. “Wraith’s called. No sign of her at the hospital. She certainly hasn’t gone to the maternity ward.”
“Can you check the emergency rooms? If she passed out, he might not know where to take her.” I’m clutching at straws. Everything points to her having been kidnapped. But Wizard nods and pulls Mouse’s spare laptop toward him.
“Right,” Mouse starts, “she was texted this morning.” As he examines the screen, he tilts his head to one side and his eyes narrow. His face screws up as if he’s thinking, then his tanned complexion pales. “Jesus Christ,” he breathes out.
Wizard, now looking over his shoulder, stills. “What are you looking at?”
“The phone was found where we could find it.” Mouse repeats what he’d been told. “It could have been dropped…”
“But you think it’s a message?” Wizard’s eyes sharpen as he reads the texts. His brow furrows. “A code?”
I’m trying to hold back my frustration. “What do the messages say?”
“I’m not bothered about the actual words,” Mouse says.
“What the fuck is it?” I growl out impatiently. “You found anything? I want to know now.”
Mouse takes back the phone and scrolls up and down a message chain, then his eyes rise, meeting mine. “Looks like Olivia’s met this man a few times.”
Yes, that’s what the waitress had implied. I don’t much like it, but Eli’s been being an ass to her. Doesn’t excuse her for betraying him, but finding her is the most important thing now. She’s a daughter of the club and we’re not going to abandon her.
“It’s fairly innocent shit,” Mouse says. “Looks like they only met for coffee a few times, nothing to suggest they were in a liaison but…” As his voice trails off, he rests his gaze on me, then continues, “It’s not what she was meeting him for, it’s the name of the man she was meeting.”
Hawk's Cry : Satan's Devils MC Second Generation #2 Page 17