by S. Nelson
One look from me, however, and her uncle stopped all movement. He was smart enough to realize his temper wasn’t welcome right then. Reservation smothered him as he kept his fury in check, forcing himself to focus on the bigger threat.
Turning Adelaide around in Stone’s hold, I held her gaze while I asked for the last time, “Who are you talking about?” I knew, but I needed to hear her name fall from Adelaide’s mouth to unfortunately confirm it.
“Sully.” She tried to wipe away her tears but they kept falling. Finally, she gave up, her shoulders slumping forward in defeat. “I’d convinced her to run to the store with me and now . . . she’s . . . she’s gone. I couldn’t find her anywhere.” Her lips quivered. She was trying to be strong but she failed. Big time. “I’m so sorry, Marek,” she confessed.
“Why did you go off the compound, Adelaide?” I yelled, all of my reserve suddenly gone. I could no longer control my rage, taking a single step toward the woman telling me the horrible news about my wife. Both Stone and Trigger stiffened, prepared for anything now that my stance threatened their woman, their family. “I specifically told you she wasn’t allowed to go ANYWHERE without one of us. What the FUCK!” I’d never been so incensed and so frightened all at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “The store was only two blocks away, and I really didn’t think there would be any harm. We’d be back before anyone even knew we were gone.”
“And now they have her!” I roared, my entire body set to explode. Stone stepped forward, shoving Adelaide behind him toward her uncle. Jerking his head in the older man’s direction, Trigger ushered his niece out of Chambers, slamming the door behind him before I really lost it.
“Shit!” Stone rumbled, shoving his hand through his dark blond hair. His distress was enough to put me even more on edge, realizing the direness of the situation. I knew the Savage Reapers weren’t gonna let this go. And now that they had her back in their grips, not only would they torture her, but they were most likely gonna kill her, especially after finding out I made her marry me.
It took me all of one minute to devise a plan, albeit a haphazard, careless one. But it was a plan nonetheless. We would storm into wherever she was being held and kill every fucker we came across. It was gonna be a bloodbath.
As soon as I shared my plan with Stone, he froze.
“Marek, we can’t go in there guns blazin’. For one, we have no idea where they took her. Second of all, we can’t risk the lives of every brother here just to get her back.” The last word hadn’t left his lips before I slammed him against the wall.
“She’s my wife,” I seethed, pushing my forearm further into his throat. Stone was a big guy, and although I didn’t want to hurt my best friend, I needed for him to feel my rage.
“Yeah? So what?” he dared to retort. “She’s your wife because you forced her to marry you. You’re just pissed because those bastards bested you.” Pulling back, I straightened myself until I was no longer leaning into him, but instead standing tall in front of him. Toe to toe. His eyes widened at my reaction. A swift tick of the clock passed before my right fist connected with his face. His head turned, but of course the force of my punch didn’t hurt him. It was times like this when I hated that he couldn’t feel any pain.
His shock, however, was satisfaction enough.
It had to be.
Pinning me with his glare, he said, “What the hell was that for?” There was no rubbing of his jaw to soothe the pain, but there was a trickle of blood which covered the corner of his lip. He felt the moisture, wiping it away before it dripped onto his white T-shirt.
“She’s my wife,” I repeated. “Therefore, she belongs to me.” So many emotions battled together. Hurt, anger, confusion . . . but mostly fright. I was scared for Sully, and the longer we stood there arguing, the longer she was subjected to her club, mainly Vex and her father, Psych.
A pained expression washed over me. My eyes had become glassy, a reaction I had no control over. Fists clenched and nostrils flaring, I retreated until my back hit the wall. I hung my head so my VP couldn’t see the expression on my face. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what was happening to me. Clutching my chest, I tried to assuage the tightness, instinctually rubbing the area closest to my heart.
“Oh, no!” Stone called out, instantly garnering my attention. A knowing smirk appeared on his face. “You love her,” he proclaimed, brushing his hair off his forehead. “Fuck, Marek. Why didn’t you say something before?”
“Because I didn’t realize it until right now,” I affirmed, running my hands through my own hair in frustration.
“This changes everything,” he said.
I quickly nodded.
“I’ll gather the men. You start figuring out how we’re gonna find her.” He advanced toward the door, but before he disappeared from sight, I said something which stopped him right away.
“I had a tracker put in her wedding ring. If she still has it on, we’ll find her.”
I prayed whoever took her hadn’t noticed the band, because they would have taken it from her. It was the biggest reminder that she was no longer a part of their club, the biggest ‘fuck you’ their enemy could shove down their throats.
Sully
Twisting the ring around my finger over and over helped to soothe me. It was funny how things turned out. At first, the ring had been something that had shackled me to Cole, and his club. But now, I found solace in the gold metal band, as if in some way I was still connected to the man I’d ended up falling for.
I had to make sure Vex didn’t see it, though. Otherwise, his rage toward me would be off the charts, and he’d probably kill me before returning me to the Savage Reapers.
Slipping the band from my finger, I quickly placed it into the cup of my bra, tucked securely under my left breast. No sooner had I pulled my hand from my clothing than the car came to an abrupt halt, jerking me forward in the trunk. Bracing for what I knew was coming, I prayed Cole would be able to find me. I had no idea how, but I prayed nonetheless.
A light humming noise filled my ears, the only one of my senses on high alert. My eyelids were closed, too heavy to open even if I wanted to. My hands and legs were numb, and it wasn’t until I tried to move them that I realized I was restrained. The shock of it wore off quickly, as soon as my memories flooded over me.
Vex had taken me. Shoved me in the back of a rundown car and driven for what felt like hours. It was the last thing I remembered before groggily waking up wherever I was now.
Was I back inside the Savage Reapers’ compound? Or did Vex take me somewhere completely different? Instinctually, I knew if he’d taken me back to my father, I’d be dead before Vex could exact whatever revenge he felt he was entitled to.
Wriggling my hands behind my back, I heard movement behind me. “Good, you’re awake,” Vex said. “I thought maybe I gave you too much.”
I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. The only noise to escape was a low groan. My tongue felt like sandpaper, my lips cracking from the lack of moisture.
I had no idea what he’d drugged me with, but it obviously wasn’t meant to kill me.
His finger lifted one eyelid, the light above my head infiltrating my pupils and causing me a great deal of pain. It was like tiny shards of glass poking at me, and it only stopped once he’d withdrawn his hand and my eye closed into darkness again.
“It’ll take a few minutes for the drug to wear down enough for you to open your eyes. It’s a bitch, isn’t it?” he grated, happy with himself that he was able to impose pain on me yet again.
He rambled on for the next ten minutes about how much he was going to enjoy hurting me, that while I was away he had to resort to taking out his aggression on the countless club whores who were only too eager to jump all over him. That was, until he’d beaten most of them to within an inch of their lives. He’d even sliced up a few of them for added enjoyment.
Just when I thought I was going to throw up from the details of his
rampage, my eyes flitted open. I tried to focus on something in front of me to calm my rising nausea, praying he wasn’t the only focal point in the room. Thankfully, he was behind me. I’d chosen a spot on the wall in front of me, inhaling long, slow breaths. Silently blowing them out through my nose. Within seconds, my stomach calmed.
A shadow moved at my side then quickly in front of me as Vex crouched until he was at eye level. I tried to lower my head but he wasn’t having any of it, his fingers roughly pinning my chin in place. He dug into my skin, instantly bruising the sensitive flesh.
I winced . . . and he laughed.
He had always enjoyed my pain.
His soulless green eyes pinned me, narrowing his gaze as if he was trying to read my mind. Funny thing was he was so far gone from reality that he probably thought he could. Whipping my head to the side before he stood, he cursed under his breath and walked away before uttering another word.
“Where are we?” I rasped, the vibrations in my throat instantly alarming me. I didn’t sound like myself, and it scared the hell out of me.
“Somewhere nice and safe, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about that.” Clanking sounded behind me, and my heart raced the longer he stayed hidden from sight. “You see,” I heard him say. “Your father wanted me to bring you back to him so he could do with you as he saw fit. But I couldn’t do that.” He tsked. “I needed to do my own thing first.” More clanking. “He can have whatever’s left of you when I’m finished. Or maybe I’ll go back and tell him I couldn’t get to you. Keep using that excuse day after day. Week after week. Hell, year after year.” He slammed something down on a metal desk, whatever objects were on top crashing against each other and creating a loud noise. “I watched you for weeks, Sully. I only needed to find the right time to take back what rightfully belonged to me.”
Following weeks spent with a man who let me speak my mind whenever I had something to say, I’d forgotten my place when it came to Vex. The words flew from my mouth before my brain could warn me against it.
“I don’t belong to you. I never did.”
There was no sound in the air around me before I felt his fingers around my throat. My body smarted at the aggression, my eyes bulging, my chest constricted the longer I was unable to take in oxygen. Just when black dots hazed my vision, he released his hand and backed away. Instantly, I went into a frenzied coughing fit, inhaling air as quickly as I could muster.
“You’ve always belonged to me. You were always mine. And nothing’s changed,” he sneered, his malevolent smile making my heart skip a rampant beat.
For someone to be so young yet so calculating—and dead inside—was something which had always baffled me about Vex. My father, I could see. He was much older, life having beaten him down. The only thing he had to cling to was his ruthlessness.
But nothing had happened to Vex to make him the way he was.
He was simply born bad.
Marek
Forty-five minutes we drove. Even though the odometer read a hundred miles an hour, it felt like we were driving at a snail’s pace. My fingers curled around the steering wheel while my stomach twisted the further away from the club we ventured. I couldn’t stop my mind from drifting to the image of Sully being hurt at the hands of that bastard, Vex. I tried my absolute best to keep her safe, always making sure either me or one of my men was watching over her, impressing upon her how important her safety was, yet she’d still made the decision to go off the compound without protection.
But I couldn’t blame her alone. Adelaide was the other half of the equation, although she didn’t know about the circumstances behind why Sully needed such protection. She probably just assumed I was being an over protective, possessive man, wanting his woman heavily safeguarded. While all that was in fact true, there was more to the story. Way more.
For as much as I wanted to point the finger at Sully and at Adelaide, I knew in my heart there was only one person responsible.
Me.
I should have paid more attention to her whereabouts during the party.
I should have drilled it into her how imperative it was that she not leave the compound without my permission.
I should have. . . .
Punching the dashboard, an immediate pain radiated through my hand, but I welcomed the quick distraction. It took my mind off the fact that if anything happened to Sully, I didn’t know what I would do.
Wait . . . That was a lie.
Yes, I did.
I’d rip through the Savage Reapers with the vengeance of the Devil, and I’d snatch every last one of their lives. If I perished in the process, then so be it.
“We’re gettin’ closer,” Stone confirmed. Sitting beside me, he studied the tracker to make sure we were headed in the right direction. I prayed her wedding ring was still on her hand, or at least somewhere on her body. I knew she was aware of the significance of the round piece of metal. Not only because it tied her to me, but if her club knew she’d married the president of their enemy, her life would be in even greater danger.
Hopefully, she’d had the foresight to hide the damn thing, all the while keeping it close.
Ryder and Hawke accompanied us, their silence in the back of the van a sign they knew how serious the situation was. I wanted to bring more men in case we ran into a few of the Reapers, instead of the single man who I believed had taken her, but I couldn’t leave my club unprotected. While I believed Sully was in extreme peril, it could also have been a setup of sorts.
Either way, we were heavily armed, never mind that we had the element of surprise on our side. There was no doubt they knew we were coming, but I doubted they expected us to find her so soon.
“It’s up ahead,” Stone called out. “Turn here and shut off the lights,” he demanded. I obeyed, not giving him shit for the first time in our lives.
He took our situation seriously, and I couldn’t have been more thankful. The second he found out she was missing he was by my side, firing off question after question and gathering a couple of the men to come with us.
The creak of the sliding van door screamed into the silence of the night. Looking around quickly, we noticed a large plot of land surrounded by vast emptiness. There were no houses. There were no cars. Hell, there weren’t even any people anywhere in sight. The further we walked, the closer we came to a small building set back in the middle of the wide open space, a tall chain-link fence barricading the structure into some sort of privacy.
The sun had long gone down, and in the absence of streetlights the only thing guiding us was the moon. We knew instantly we were in the perfect place to kill, or be killed, and no one would be any the wiser for days. Weeks even.
With the seemingly abandoned building a few hundred yards in front of us, we stealthily crept forward, the shadow of night cloaking us enough that we were able to sneak around without the fear of being caught.
I still had no idea what we’d walk into. Their entire club could be hidden inside, and although I had rage on my side, I was no match for the likes of an entire club. Or we could walk in on nothing, Vex having figured out we were tracking her, this stop-off point merely being a ghost hunt.
“Go left,” I instructed Hawke and Ryder. “Stone and I will go around that way.” I pointed to the right of the rundown building. Silence screamed all around me and the more the eeriness deafened me, the more alarmed I became. Pricking my ears, I listened for any signs of someone else there with us, but there was nothing.
Securing the perimeter, we’d all met up around the back and searched for a way inside. A busted-out window toward the middle was our best choice.
“I’ll go first,” Stone offered. When I tugged on his jacket, he wrenched his arm free. “I’m the obvious choice and you know it.” He winked. “Besides, if anything happens, at least I won’t feel a thing,” he tried to joke. Under any other circumstance, I would have laughed, but the precariousness of what we could potentially walk into still had me on guard. No time for carelessness.
But again, nothing.
Just impatience . . . and fear.
Fear I would walk in and find Sully dead.
Fear I would walk in and not find her at all.
“Then go if you’re goin’. Stop blabbering on and get in there.” I cradled my hands together to make him a foothold. Raising him up, he took a quick look inside, as best he could with no apparent light, and lifted himself further until he was able to shove a foot into the corner of the window frame. Thankfully, the opening was wide enough for a man of his size, his broad shoulders skimming the sides.
We heard a thud, followed by a stream of cursing. At first, I thought he’d seen someone, but quickly found out a large piece of glass had cut his hand when he’d landed. The only reason he made any noise was because he had to rip a piece of his shirt to cover the wound.
He’d found a side door and beckoned us forth before we were caught like sitting ducks. Again, we had no idea if we were the only ones there, or if people were waiting to ambush us.
Twenty minutes it took the four of us to search around in the dark.
Twenty minutes of my heart in my throat.
Twenty minutes of agony while I searched for the woman who’d flipped me on my ass.
The vast space was cut into multiple sections, rooms disappearing into each other, plenty of hiding places to search. I wasn’t even sure what kind of building we were running around in, what type of business it could have been used for. And I didn’t give a shit either. All I cared about was finding Sully.