The Virgin Next Door

by Stasia Black

  Liam went on like Mack hadn’t said anything. “I’m out of here as soon as I can pack me things up at the ranch.” Liam pulled his wide-brimmed hat low.

  Mack glanced his way. “Oh yeah? What’s Calla got to say about that?”

  “She doesn’t get a say.” Liam’s jaw tensed. “She was playing me this whole time.”

  Mack turned his head at that. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “She knew exactly who I was. And how much I’m worth.”

  “Huh,” Mack said. “So?”

  Liam scoffed. “What do you mean, so? The rest is self-explanatory.”

  Goddammit no one got on his nerves like this fucker. He wanted to order him to grab his knees so he could tan his ass.

  But shit. He was done with all that. Still, Liam needed to get his head out of his ass. Mack wouldn’t be here to watch out for Calla so Liam better step the fuck up. “And what she’d have to say about it?” With effort he kept his voice mostly level. “Did she try to ask for money for the baby or something?”

  Liam’s face went red. “Baby? What fucking baby?”

  “She didn’t even tell you she was pregnant? Jesus,” Mack shook his head, “you really fucked things up, didn’t you?”

  “Me? You’re telling me she’s fucking pregnant! It’s even more proof she’s trying to trap me and get at me mon—”

  Mack grabbed Liam by the front of his shirt and slammed him up against the side of the chute. The horse who was first in line at the gate snorted and stamped its feet, while the owner started bitching at Mack.

  Mack ignored him. “You better not finish that fucking sentence.” He shoved Liam against the wall again, then let him go. He shook his head at Liam. “Christ, you’re what I’m leaving her to?”

  “I’m going to have to ask you two to move away from the—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Mack growled at the arena volunteer and turned his back on Liam so he could watch Calla.

  Liam was a fucking idiot thinking she was after him for his money. Woman like Calla, she didn’t want anything she hadn’t earned. She was as proud as she was stubborn. And too good for either of them.

  She rode Painter out into the middle of the arena like she was born to sit on a horse. They moved together as one, like they’d been working together for years instead of just months. And the way Painter responded to Calla’s tiniest nudge or click, there was no way you could tell the mare had been a wild mustang not three months ago. Fuck Liam and all his digs about mustangs being inferior to other horses. Fuck Liam in general.

  Calla had already made it through several obstacles no problem. She next directed Painter to do several turnaround spins in place, first clockwise, then, after a slight pause, in the other direction.

  Then she had the horse back up several steps before taking off at a trot, then a canter, then an all-out gallop across the arena. She brought the horse to a sliding stop, pulled out a pop gun and let out several loud pop pop pops as she backed the horse up again. Painter continued through the steps without flinching at the noise.

  Mack let out a low whistle. Damn, Calla was impressive. Mack had been proud when he’d been able to get his gelding to stand still for a whole five seconds. Meanwhile Calla’s horse was running circles around them all. She really had a chance at the prize money.

  He found himself holding his breath as she approached the last set of obstacles. They were set up on his side of the arena and he could make out the concentration and calm determination on Calla’s face. First she led Painter through a veil of hanging streamers. Then she urged Painter up, hoof by hoof, onto a wobbly wooden platform that pivoted on a fulcrum.

  Painter set her first two hooves on it, no problem. But when she moved her back hooves up, something went wrong. Painter’s neck suddenly jerked and her eyes went wild.

  And then she bolted.

  She leapt off the wooden platform, jarring Calla to the side and almost off the saddle.

  “Calla!” Mack jumped up on the gate.

  Calla righted herself on her saddle and was clearly pulling on the reins to try to get Painter to stop. But her eyes were wide with some kind of hellfire and she just kept going. Calla had enough control to get her to turn slightly left around the curve of the arena oval, but she was still galloping hell for leather. They flew past Mack and on down the arena.

  Mack was about to jump the fence but one of the chute workers held him back.

  “Please sir, get down! You’re not allowed in the arena during another contestant’s ride.”

  “She’s in trouble,” Mack snarled, yanking away from the man as he tried to see what was going on with Calla and Painter.

  They were reaching the opposite end of the arena. It looked like Calla was trying to get Painter to turn again since she wasn’t slowing down.

  It didn’t work this time.

  Calla’s body flew off the back end of the horse as Painter kept galloping off without her. Calla flipped once in the air before landing on the arena floor in a puff of dirt.

  “Calla!” Mack shouted.

  “Let go of me, you bastard! She’s hurt!” It was Liam’s voice from behind him. All Mack knew was that no one was holding him back anymore.

  He jumped the gate and started running for Calla. Goddammit, why was the arena so fucking big? He was only halfway there when paramedics came out with a stretcher. They slipped a neck brace around her neck.

  Fuck. Was she unconscious? Had she broken her arm? A leg? A fucking spinal injury?

  What about the baby?

  He pumped his legs even harder.

  The paramedics lifted Calla and were moving her out of the far exit of the arena. Shit. He was glad they were so efficient but he just needed to know if she was okay.

  They disappeared into a wall of people who had gathered at the arena tunnel. Mack was there fifteen seconds later.

  “Out of my way,” he growled, trying to push through the crowd and see where they’d taken Calla.

  “Liam! Liam O’Neill!” called a man in a suit holding a microphone, eyes focused behind Mack. “What is your relationship to Calla Carter? How are you feeling right now as she’s being taken away with unspecified injuries?”

  “Are you in a relationship with Isobel Snow?” asked someone else.

  “Are you cheating on Isobel with Calla?”

  “Liam, why did you run away to America? Is it because the rumors about your father being your family’s long-time gardener are true and Ciarán disinherited you?”

  “Get out of my fucking way!” Mack roared as the vultures came at them from all fucking sides. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Liam having an even worse time of it. Camera flashes popped off every other second.

  Mack growled and grabbed Liam’s upper arm, hauling him forward with him.

  “No fucking comment,” Mack shouted, putting his shoulder forward and using it like a battering ram to shove through the wall of people.

  “Hey!”

  “You can’t just—”

  One bastard with a camera was knocked to the floor. He immediately started sputtering about suing but Mack kept plowing on. These fuckers had the gall to be thinking about their goddamned story when he didn’t even know if Calla was okay.

  When he and Liam made it past the first ring of reporters, Mack shouted to anyone who would listen, “Where’d they take the injured woman?”

  A pimply-faced teenager with a Horse Makeover lanyard around his neck looked at him with wide eyes. “Uh, the ambulance is parked around back. This way,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

  Mack let go of Liam and grabbed the boy’s upper arm. “Show us.”

  The teenager swallowed.

  “Faster,” Mack growled. That got the kid moving, even if he did look terrified. Mack didn’t care. He just needed to know what the fuck was going on with Calla.

  The kid led them out of the arena and to the left. “The ambulance was parked right here—” the kid started but then he jumped back. �
�Holy shit!”

  He bent over and threw up.

  “What the hell?” Liam asked.

  But as Mack looked down on the two bloody bodies in EMT uniforms with D’s carved into their foreheads—the calling card of the Devil’s Spawn—a horrible fucking certainty settled on him.

  “Bone’s got her.”

  35

  LIAM

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Liam spun on him, shoving his shoulders. “Who’s Bone?”

  Mack grabbed his head with his hands. “Shit. I don’t know.” His eyes came back to Liam and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

  “Well tell me what you do fucking know,” Liam shouted at him.

  Mack took one more look at the two men on the ground, each with a pool of blood underneath them from their slashed necks. Jaysus. Liam turned away before he got sick just like the lad.

  “First, we get out of here,” Mack said, voice tight. “Call the police,” Mack said to the white-faced teenager. “Tell them Calla Carter’s been kidnapped by Daniel Jones in these EMT’s ambulance.”

  Then he grabbed Liam’s upper arm and started dragging him toward the parking lot.

  “Let me the go.” Liam jerked his arm out of Mack’s grasp. “You don’t get to order me around. You’re the one who’s dragged Calla into whatever the fuck this is.”

  Mack flinched at that. Not that it gave Liam much gratification. For once, he didn’t care about getting in hits with Mack. But he probably did need the big bastard’s help getting Calla back. It looked like he had the same thought as Liam as they both were jogging in the direction of the trucks they’d driven in.

  “So tell me what I need to know about whoever took Calla,” Liam said as he reached his truck. They worked quickly to unhitch the trailer from the back. Then Liam went and yanked open the driver’s side door.

  Mack tried to pull him out of the way. “I’m driving.”

  “Fuck you are,” Liam said. “She’s me truck. And—” he shoved Mack back with a hand on his chest— “I drive because I know where the fuck she is.”

  Mack blinked at that. “How—”

  “You’re wasting me time,” Liam said. “Are you going to get in or we gonna waste more time in this pissing contest?”

  “Fine,” Mack said. “But let me get something from my truck.” He backed up and ran toward the other truck.

  Liam huffed out a frustrated breath and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Mack was back in a couple minutes, up in the cab and slamming the passenger door behind him.

  Mack looked at him incredulously. “You really think it’s time to be checking your goddamned messages?”

  Liam didn’t even bother with a comeback. “I’m tracking Calla. I got worried because she takes those trips up to Casper each week and is always driving home in the dark. So that necklace I gave her last night? It has a GPS tracker in it.”

  Mack just stared at him for a second. “I could fucking kiss you right now.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Liam held out the phone so Mack could see. “Looks like they’re taking her on back roads. Avoiding the highway.”

  Mack nodded, taking the phone. “You drive. I’ll tell you what we’re walking into.”

  That was when Liam saw what Mack had in his other hand. A gun. A fucking gun.

  36

  MACK

  Liam stared at the gun, then shook his head as he put the truck in gear. “Talk. Why the fuck did those two dead guys back there have D’s carved in their heads? And what the hell do they want with Calla?”

  Liam peeled out of the parking lot as Mack gave Liam the abridged version of what had happened with Bone and Ben.

  “It was personal between Bone and me, let’s just say that,” Mack said. A fucking understatement, but Liam didn’t need to know the gritty details.

  Bone liked keeping his pets around until they broke. When Mack stopped fighting back, Bone thought he’d done just that. But he saw he’d made a mistake when Mack thrived after getting away from him. Mack stealing Ben away made it all the worse. It didn’t matter that Bone killed Ben. To Bone, they’d never be square. Sending Sammy to spy on Bone had just made everything worse. He was such a fucking idiot.

  He gritted his teeth as he continued, “Things were okay between me and Pres when I got out. The Devil’s Spawn are mainly just a prison gang. There were members outside, but usually just to support the inside members and keep the supply chain strong. It didn’t operate like a normal MC.”

  “So you don’t think this President sent his thugs after you?”

  Mack shook his head, his jaw hardening. “No. Timing of it? No. This is Bone. Plain and simple.” Mack watched the GPS as Liam turned off onto a side road. Then he looked at the blinking dot on the map on Liam’s phone. Smart. Bone had taken the long way around but Liam was circumventing the route by taking a diagonal road that would put them right behind the ambulance.

  “He knew where I was gonna be and then he was either watching and saw us all together last night or this morning. Or he saw that damn picture online.”

  And Bone had always liked to hurt him by taking what he held dear.

  What the fuck had he done to Calla’s horse? That seemed way too elaborate a plan just to snatch her. Didn’t seem like Bone’s style. He’d been more of a fist to the throat kind of a guy. Not too bright but brutal as all fuck. Maybe Bone hadn’t done anything and he’d just taken advantage of the circumstance. Bad luck for the fucking EMTs.

  And Calla.

  Mack’s hands fisted as Liam floored it. Mack’s eyes flipped back and forth between the GPS and the blinking dot on Liam’s phone.

  Please let Calla be okay. Mack wasn’t a praying man but he swore he’d go to church every Sunday if only Calla was okay.

  If Bone was just going to kill her right off, he would have left her with the paramedics.

  No, Bone would want Mack to know she’d suffered Bone’s particular brand of violence before killing her.

  They slowed down as they came up behind a small Toyota going the speed limit and Mack’s knee jiggled impatiently. The red dot passed the juncture of where their road met up with the ambulance’s. They were only maybe a minute behind.

  “Faster or we won’t be able to catch up with them.”

  “I’m working on it,” Liam said. He laid on the horn as he passed the Toyota and slid back into the right lane just as an oncoming car barreled by, honking their own horn.

  “Fuck,” Mack swore, grabbing onto the handle on the ceiling as Liam’s truck swerved, readjusting. “You’re gonna get the goddamned cops on our ass.”

  “Sounds good to me. The more the merrier.”

  Mack didn’t know about that. He’d prefer to dole out his own form of justice before the cops got involved. He kept the Glock in his truck in case he ran into any dangerous wildlife. Mountain lion sightings were rare, but they still happened. Now, though, he recognized that Bone was the monster he’d really bought the gun for.

  They finally reached the T junction where they turned right onto the road the ambulance was on. Mack checked the red dot. He didn’t know the scale of the little map, but it didn’t look like they were far ahead. Even at top speed, the ambulance couldn’t be booking it that fast. Especially not compared to Liam’s lead foot.

  There were fewer and fewer signs of the city the further out they went. The road they turned onto was a narrow, scenic two-lane highway. Trees lined either side. Liam honked and passed a couple cars and then—

  “There they are!” Liam shouted as the ambulance came in to view. It didn’t have lights or sirens on and it swerved back and forth on the road.

  “Jaysus, is the fucker drunk?”

  “Get in front of ‘em,” Mack said, straining against his buckle and rolling down his window to get a better look. He pulled out his Glock and loaded the chamber.

  “What the fuck are you going to do?” Liam shouted, glancing back and forth between the gun and the road.

  “Pay attention to the goddamned
road,” Mack said, eyes locked on the ambulance.

  “You’re mad as a box of feckin’ frogs,” Liam muttered through gritted teeth. They sped up until they were passing the ambulance.

  “Bone’s driving,” Mack called. At the same moment Bone looked down and saw Mack hanging out the window. And the bastard grinned. Fucking grinned.

  “Get in front of him,” Mack said, still watching Bone. “Force him to stop.”

  Liam had obviously been of the same mind because even as Mack said it, they passed and were about to pull in front of the ambulance. At least until Bone jerked on his wheel and rammed into them.

  “Shite!” Liam yelled, just managing to right the truck before they fishtailed off the road. In the distance, another truck was heading their way in the oncoming lane. To their left was a large lake.

  “Pass them,” Mack yelled.

  “I’m trying!” Liam slammed his foot on the gas and the truck lurched forward. Mack was thrown back against the seat. His fingers went white-knuckled on the grab handle overhead and he sent another prayer up as the truck heading toward them started honking.

  Liam had just about passed the ambulance when it jerked in their direction again, this time clipping them on the back taillight.

  Shit!

  They almost spun right into the ambulance’s way. What the fuck was Bone thinking? Mack barely had a second to think before the truck’s wheels burnt rubber Liam yet again managed to steady them. They cut in front of the ambulance right in time to avoid the oncoming truck.

  “Holy shite,” Liam shouted as it whizzed by, the horn blaring in one constant honk. Mack swung around to look out the back window at the ambulance.

  Mack could just barely make out Bone’s ugly mug behind the wheel, features mottled with rage. And shit, even after all this time, Mack felt a kick of terror in his guts. Bone still had that power over him.

  He swung around. “Let’s end this,” he said and Liam nodded. He punched the gas even more, furthering the distance between them and the ambulance.