by Wren, Khloe
"What will you do when you find Mirabelle?"
Donna stood at the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, looking about as heartbroken as a woman could. Scout looked to me before focusing back on my woman while I went back to my laptop to see if we had a location yet.
"That depends on where we find her and what state she's in. When we rescued her from Godfrey, she became club property. We will make sure she's safe and well cared for, wherever she ends up."
Out the corner of my eye, I saw the way she held Scout's gaze. She was scared for Mirabelle, but she wasn’t going to back down. Her inner momma bear had been woken and she wouldn’t stop until that woman had been found and taken care of.
“I can’t just sit on the sidelines with this one, Scout. I can’t allow another woman to die at Godfrey's hands. And even though this isn’t him in person, I know in my gut, this is connected to him. And that man makes Sledge look like a little kitten by comparison.”
Scout rested a hand on each of Donna’s shoulders, cutting off her words.
“Sugar, no one doubts for a moment that you’ll be in the tank with your man when we go to get her. The club owes you as much as we owe Keys with all the rescues you perform. Keys gets us the information, you help us patch up the victims. And us. The club is indebted to you both, and we would never prevent you from coming on a run with us in the tank. You don’t even need to ask.”
She nodded, blinking really fast as though she were trying not to cry.
“Go sit out in the main area, get a prospect to get you a bottle of water and try to relax. We need you at one hundred percent and ready to go the moment we have a location, okay?”
I hated that I couldn’t go with Donna and comfort her. Hopefully once I got this team trained and running, I would be able to do just that. Although not with cases like this, that I was personally involved with.
Godfrey had been an evil son of a bitch who'd pretended to be a pastor while he'd taken in teens and adults alike to abuse and turn into sex slaves that he would then sell off once he was done with them. When we'd busted open his house of horrors, we'd found three victims. Mirabelle had been in an upstairs room, naked and high on a new date-rape type drug we'd come across before, being raped by two of Godfrey's men.
Todd, a teenage boy, had been in the basement, being tortured in front of Bess, Needles' old lady. His sister, Tabitha, had been found upstairs cleaning the house. She'd had a fucking shock collar on and had been unaware that Godfrey held her brother. He'd told her Todd had died months earlier.
The whole situation was horrific and all three of them had needed medical attention. Although Tabitha hadn’t been drugged at all from what we could tell, she’d still been horribly abused. Donna and I had been stretched to our limit that night to get all three sorted enough we could transport them to hospital. But we’d done it.
Both the women were doing better than Todd, who was still near catatonic. The torture and abuse he'd suffered was just too much for his young mind to cope with and he'd shut down. Honestly, I had no fucking idea if he'd ever recover, but I was sure his sister's recovery depended on his. She blamed herself for his being taken in the first place and was one hundred percent about seeing her brother get better. From the start, she’d pushed away any attempts to assist her, assuring everyone she was fine and her brother was the one they should focus on.
Donna had voiced her concern to me more than once that she was worried the facility was going to force Mirabelle’s discharge, and I had to agree with her. At some point they would conclude they couldn't help her if she refused to accept it. That if she was truly as fine as she said she was, she didn't need them. That young woman was not okay in the least. I looked to Arrow, who was focused completely on his task of going through video footage. From the first, Arrow had taken an interest in Tabitha, and I knew she had a champion in him. He'd never let her fall. Although I did worry on how she’d react to my brother’s interest in her after the abuse she’d suffered.
“Got something.”
I moved to look over Arrow’s shoulder as he rewound the footage to show Scout and me what he’d found. He’d been delegated the cameras in the hallway outside of Mirabelle's room to go through. Arrow stopped and hit play as a man strode confidently down the middle of the hallway. He was in the uniform all the staff wore but there was something about him I didn't like. We all silently watched as he entered Maribelle's room. I glanced to the time stamp that read 22:18. When he didn't come straight back out, Arrow sped things up until the door began to open, then he slowed it back down. The others echoed my curse when the man reappeared with a limp Mirabelle in his arms. The time stamp was now at 22:34.
"Bastard took her from her room at ten thirty last night. He's had her a full twelve hours."
"You get a clear shot of the fucker’s face?"
Arrow proved he was a fast learner and rewound it again until he could snatch a screen grab of his face.
“What do I need to do with it, Keys?”
I guided him through the process of loading the image into my facial recognition program.
“And now we wait for it to do its thing."
Leaving Arrow to keep watching the search, I returned to my laptop to see if it had locked in on Mirabelle’s location yet, making a mental note that I needed to work on the program’s speed. The teething issues on new tech were always a bitch and without fail would crop up at the worst possible times. When the trace finally came through, I sighed in relief.
"Okay, got a location." I plugged the coordinates into the satellite system I had access to and winced at the result. "Ah, fuck. She’s about an hour north of Rocky Gully, in Riverton, the town where Godfrey was set up in before he moved down there. This has to be linked to him."
Scout frowned but stayed standing strong. "Send the address around, then I'm going to need you and Donna in the tank. Keg, you drive so Keys can stay in contact with Arrow. See if we can get a name on this fucker before we get there. Tiny, you and Eagle take a van for the garbage. Everyone else, get ready to ride."
With his orders given, he turned to head out of the room. I texted the address to everyone then gathered up my laptop and phone and went to find Donna. We then headed out the front to our baby, the tank.
"I'll hop in the back so you can sit up the front and direct Keg."
I gave her a hard, fast kiss before she turned to open the rear of the van and got in, I shut the doors behind her. I headed to the front seat to get myself settled and ready to roll. Keg hopped up behind the wheel and I tossed him the keys. The roar of all the Harleys coming to life around us had me smiling even under the dire circumstances.
"Nothing beats that sound, does it?"
Keg chuckled. "Nope. Only thing missing is us out there on our machines, adding to the symphony."
"Ain’t that the truth. But we'll have the most important job of all once we arrive. We get to be the ones who ride out with the damsel in distress safely with us."
Keg scoffed. "You been reading fairytales, Keys? Is that what you really do when you have your nose pressed up against your laptop? You reading about Prince fucking Charming and his princess?"
I laughed as he took off and followed the bikes out of the compound and toward Riverton. "Sure, brother. You got me. I'm addicted to a good happily ever after."
That even received a chuckle from Donna sitting in the rear. The closer we got to the location, the tenser I became. Mirabelle's marker hadn't moved at all and I started praying the girl was still alive. I wasn't sure I could handle failing someone else at the moment, not when I was just managing to crawl out from under all the guilt I was already carrying. When we hit the driveway of the house she was in, the bikes parted to either side of the road to let us through.
"Your lucky day, Keg. You get to take out the gate."
"Yeehaw, motherfucker!"
I shut my laptop and stowed it as I called out for Donna to hold on to something. She'd have her seat belt on, same as Keg and me, but takin
g out a metal gate was going to give us all a solid jolt. The reason we called this beast a tank and not a bus was due to the armored plating on the outside. This thing was a bulletproof machine that could go pretty much anywhere. On the front was a bull bar that had been reinforced to the point it could knock down a damn house if we wanted to. It’d handle this asshole’s gate with no trouble. This wasn't the first time we'd used it as a battering ram, and I doubted it'd be the last.
"Hang on to your hats, here we go!"
I chuckled as I hung onto the oh-shit handle. Keg sounded way too excited about getting to plow through the barrier, but I understood how he felt. There was something exhilarating about driving this beast through a locked gate. Especially when you knew the place was owned by an asshole you intended to send straight to hell once you caught up with him.
Mirabelle
I had no idea what this bastard had dosed me up on but was grateful it was finally beginning to wear off. I flexed my fingers, one at a time, until I could move them all, then I wriggled my toes. I was up to testing my elbows and knees when I heard a terrible crash and screeching from outside. There was also a dull roar I'd heard once before. A roar that grew louder and made me want to weep in relief, even as I struggled to believe I was really hearing the sound.
The club had come. Somehow, they'd known I'd been taken, and they'd come. Tears blurred my vision as I held my breath and forced my body to work, to sit up on the bed I was on. I winced when I glanced down and caught an eyeful of what he'd dressed me in earlier.
As soon as we'd arrived here, he'd cut my pajamas off and dressed me in lacy panties and a baby-doll-style nightie. He'd even taken the time to put my blonde curls into pig tails. He kept calling me baby girl and the more he did, the more I realized that was what he wanted from me. For me to be like a small child, but no doubt one he could also use for sex.
A shudder ran through me as I recalled what he'd promised would happen once the drug wore off. How he didn't have the drug Godfrey had used so he hoped I remembered all my lessons because he'd be putting my training to good use real soon.
Closing my eyes, I prayed those loud motorcycles close by were the club that had saved me before. I couldn't go through what he'd told me would happen. I wasn't strong enough. Licking my dry lips, I looked around at all the frilly girlie stuff around the room. White teddy bears sat piled on a shelf, and the dresser had pots of hair ties and other things a young girl would love. There was so much pink around me, it hurt my eyes.
Forcing my body to move again, I stood on shaky legs, but I refused to go down. I had to get out of here. If those bikes weren't the club, they were at least a distraction that could allow me my only chance at escape. Because if I couldn't get free, I'd die trying. I would not stay here and willingly be this man's plaything.
I made it to the door but when I tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. I was locked in.
"No!"
I grabbed the handle and rattled the hell out of it, frustrated that I couldn't manage to open it.
"Okay, Maribelle. Time to calm down and think this through. Panic won't get you anywhere."
Taking a few deep, calming breaths, I relaxed enough to think. The door was a no go, which left the windows as my only other exit option. My legs were thankfully less shaky as I strode over and shoved the curtain aside to look out the clean glass. I squeezed my eyes shut when I noticed I was not on the ground level but one story up.
"That's okay. It's not that far. I can do this."
I shoved the window all the way open and leaned out, only to groan when I saw the rose bushes below. Why couldn’t I catch a damn break? I tightened my grip on the window ledge as I contemplated what to do. Could I jump far enough out to miss the roses? How much would it hurt if I did? The grass that lay further out wasn't exactly the thickest looking lawn around. When the door behind me rattled and started to open I made my decision. Any damage I got from jumping would be better than whatever that man had planned for me.
I'd just wait to see who came through the door before I leapt. It might be the club. Lord, I prayed it was the club. Tears tracked down my cheeks, but I ignored them as I stared at the door. It opened to reveal my nightmare had returned. Dammit. Taking a deep breath, I turned my attention back to climbing up onto the window ledge to take my chances with the roses.
"Whoa! Mary, stop! What are you doing?"
I glanced over at him, recalling his face suddenly. Greg Simmons. He'd often come in the evenings to speak with Godfrey. He seemed frozen in shock that I would try to escape him. "I'd rather die in the roses than live as your plaything."
He shook his head and took a step toward me. I shifted my grip and was about to leap when a noise had me glancing one more time behind me. A large man I'd seen before came looming up behind Greg and with a fast move, the Charon MC man slammed the butt of his gun against Greg's head and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
Blinking, I tried to process what had just happened. Had it been real? Or had I lost my mind and imagined it all? My heart rate ticked up and suddenly I was struggling to breathe. I fell away from the window, dropping to my hands and knees on the thick carpet as a panic attack took me over.
"Hey, Maribelle, you're okay. You're safe now."
Closing my eyes, I let my body collapse on the floor. The club was here. I was safe.
"Tiny, take that trash out to the van, would you? She doesn't need to be seeing him ever again. We'll deal with him later. Eagle, find her something more to wear. Motherfucking asshole."
A large hand on my back had me jerking and shuffling away from the contact, up against the wall. There was a cool breeze in the room. The window was open. Why was the window open? I looked up into the bearded face of a man I'd seen before.
"Hey, honey, it's okay. Not sure if you remember me from last time, but I'm Scout, the president of the Charon MC. We came to rescue you, again. I've got Donna and Keys out in the ambulance waiting to check you over, then we'll get out of here. Take you back to Houston."
I'd lost some memory again, dammit. I knew Greg had come and taken me from Houston, but how had I ended up here? With the club?
"Not Houston. It's not safe there. Please don't take me back there."
He nodded before he responded. "Fair enough. For now, we'll head back to our clubhouse. How’s that sound? We’ll get a few of the old ladies to come in to keep you company while we work out what’s best for you."
I looked down at the skimpy nightgown I was wearing. "I can't see anyone like this."
"Don't you worry, we'll get you something to change into before anyone will see you."
A tall man who had to be Native American with his angular features and long black hair came up and handed Scout a t-shirt. Considering the fact his chest was bare under his leather vest, I guessed it was his.
"Sorry, Prez, ain’t nothing here that's any better than what she's got on. Take my shirt for now. I'll message Silk to get her something for when we get back."
Kneeling in front of me, Scout held the shirt out. "C'mon, honey, let's get this on you so we can get you out of this place."
I reached out and took the shirt, pulling it over my head and threading my arms through the sleeves before I took Scout's hand, allowing him to help me to stand.
"We know he drugged you with something when he took you. Can you walk or do you want me to carry you?"
I took a step to confirm my legs were still solid before I voiced my assurance to Scout.
"It seems to have worn off now. I can walk."
With a nod, he held his arm out to indicate I should walk in front of him. The man with the gorgeous long hair took the lead while the other men who'd come into the room followed behind us. I was surrounded by big, tough, armed men and I'd never felt safer. I just prayed that this time the feeling would last.
Chapter Thirteen
Donna
I held my breath as the men filed out of the house, Eagle in the lead. I frowned when I noticed he no longer had
a shirt on under his cut. Out on a job, that usually meant someone else was wearing it. I shuddered as images of why Maribelle would need his shirt flickered in my mind, until Eagle moved out of the way to reveal her. She looked a little shaky on her feet, but she was walking unaided with Scout right behind her, ready to catch her if she did fall. We'd already pulled the gurney out so when she was close enough, I held my hand out to her.
"Hi, Maribelle. Not sure if you remember me from last time, but I'm Donna. I'm a registered nurse and will take good care of you, okay?"
She gave me a small nod, and after trying to tug Eagle's shirt down to cover more of her legs, she took my hand. I guided her to sit, then lay on the gurney and Keys was fast to get a blanket over her as soon as her back hit the mattress.
"We're just going to get you loaded into the back of the bus, okay? It’ll give us some privacy. After we get you settled in, we’ll head on back to—"
She stiffened and Scout cut me off from saying anything more. "We're taking her back to the clubhouse. She'll be safe there."
Eagle had his phone out as he spoke up next. "I'm texting Silk to sort out some clothes for you to wear, darlin’."
"A shower?"
Her voice was quiet, like she wasn't sure if she had permission to speak.
"Sure thing, sugar. We’ll get you settled into one of the rooms upstairs. They lock and each have their own bathrooms. You’ll be completely safe to have as long a shower as you like. Then once you’re ready, you can join us downstairs and we’ll sort out what you want to do next."
She didn't look injured, no blood that I could see, or even bruises. I prayed we'd been in time to prevent her from being raped.
Once she was inside the tank and I'd climbed in beside her, Keys shut the doors and we had a little privacy.
"Mirabelle, I need to ask some things you probably don't want to talk about. I promise I won't share what you tell me with anyone outside a doctor if you need one. Did he hurt you in any way? Touch you inappropriately?"