“He’s so young.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “He’s always been spoiled.”
“He’s a good kid who’s turned into a trustworthy man. He’s made some mistakes, but he’s grown up a lot in the last year. We all have,” Jagger quietly adds his own words to the conversation. “And if he can help, I don’t know why we don’t use him. This would be everything to him.”
“And it would be everything to me,” Charity whispers, tears silently streaming down her face. “Justice is a little girl who has absolutely nothing to do with all of this, she’s gotta be scared to death. Please let him help, please,” she begs.
“Go get him.” She nods at Tyler.
“Thank you.” Charity hugs Meredith, who takes her into her arms, hugging her back tightly.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Justice
I should have screamed louder when the man took me, I should have fought harder, kicked stronger. My stupid shoestring. Ever since I’ve been able to tie my shoes, I’ve never tied them super tight, and they constantly come undone. My mom always tells me they’re going to get me in trouble, and today she was right.
I’m scared, worried I’ll never get to see my parents again. What if I’m not able to be in Aunt Tatum’s wedding? What will Harley do without me? Tears prick the back of my eyes as I think about never sleeping in my bed again, or seeing my grandma or papaw. I should have listened. How many times did they tell me to run from strangers? To never allow them to take me anywhere? This is all my fault.
The building I’m in is wet, cold, and dark. I can hear water running, which means I’m probably close to the river, but I can’t be completely sure. My hands are tied in front of me, and I close my eyes, trying to think back to the Facebook video my mom made me and Harley watch. It was how we can save ourselves if someone takes our hands and puts them together with plastic cuffs. Luckily for me, that’s what they’ve done. But the thing is, I can’t seem to exactly remember how to perform the trick.
The door to the side opens, allowing light to shine through. Outside I can see trucks and bikes, but nothing else; it doesn’t give me any kind of idea about where I am. When I see the person who steps through the entrance, I feel hope for the first time since I was taken. It’s Steele.
“I told you not to take her,” he yells at the man who grabbed me from the truck. “She’s not part of this.”
“And neither am I, really.” The guy points his finger at Steele.
The two of them face off against one another, and I can’t make out why they’re angry with each other. I don’t really understand it, but I listen, waiting for something that can help me out of the danger I’m in.
“What do you mean, neither are you?” Steele asks, but even I can hear the fear in his voice.
“You played me for a fucking fool.”
Mom and Dad don’t use that language around us, but that’s what he said.
“A fool?”
“Imagine my surprise when I did some checking around and found out that my dear old dad wasn’t the one who started the Heaven Hill MC. It was actually a William Walker Sr. who has nothing to do with my family, and everything to do with the man who adopted Drew.”
“It doesn’t matter, you’re close to having Bowling Green in your pocket,” Travis argues with him.
“I don’t want fucking Bowling Green in my pocket. I wanted what was mine, but what I’ve done is piss off a motorcycle club because of the lies you fed me. Why would you do this? I’ve kidnapped a girl, my half-niece, because you’re a lying piece of shit.”
This man seems mad, angrier than anyone I’ve ever seen. Angrier than my mom got when Harley decided to ride on the front of Remy’s bike with no helmet. And that was pretty mad. She screamed at her, stomped her feet, slammed our bedroom door, and ended up taking away all of Harley’s cool toys. I mean, I shared with her, because that’s what we do, but Mom was super mad.
“Does it matter so much? All that matters is that we’re in charge now.”
“Yes, it matters. What the fuck is your damage, dude?” the other guy asks Travis.
“My damage? I don’t have any damage. I wanted control, and you gave it to me.”
“No I didn’t. I did what I thought was best for me, and it ended up playing into your hands.”
Travis steps up to him, so close I can’t see any of the dim glow from a swinging lightbulb between the two of them. “Looks like we were both selfish because I got what I wanted, and you thought you were getting what you wanted.”
“You don’t wanna cross me. You do realize the havoc I’ve caused in the past year. I won’t hesitate to throw all my energy toward you.”
“You’re not gonna do that.”
“Really?” He cocks his head to the left and the right. I can hear a crack; the same one I hear when Dad cracks his knuckles. “What makes you think I won’t?”
It happens so fast. One minute I’m sitting in the dark, cast over to the side like a stuffed animal no one wants to play with any more, and then I’m yanked up from the floor. It hurts to stand because I’ve been sitting for so long. When Travis jerks me in front of him, my feet tingle and I can’t feel to place them on the concrete below me. He puts an arm around my shoulders, hooking it in front of me, his fingers and palm closer to my chest than I would like.
“Don’t think I won’t use her. Don’t think I won’t. If there’s one thing that’s going to get me out of this, it’ll be little Justice Walker.”
Fear like I’ve never, ever known before makes my belly ache, and I wonder truthfully if I’ll see my family ever again.
Harley
“I should have stopped and waited for her,” I tell Aunt Tatum a while later as she and I sit at the table. Someone’s fixed me a sandwich, which I’ve been trying to eat, but it’s hard to swallow with my throat so tight.
“What do you mean?” Tatum asks. Her eyes remind me of grandpa’s - calm, safe, and blue as the clear sky I can see when I tilt my head back on my dad’s bike.
“Justice. I should have stopped and waited on her. She had to tie her shoe,” I explain, feeling those stupid tears well up in my eyes again. “Last week I made fun of her.” I let one of the tears fall. “Told her she was a goody two shoes, and she’d never be able to get along with Dad the way I do. I told her he didn’t like people who toe the line when it comes to following the rules, that he likes to make his own. So she stopped asking for permission.” I rub at my nose, feeling it sting.
“She stopped asking for permission?”
Tatum sounds like a parrot as she talks to me and I want to scream at her none of this is important, but maybe she doesn’t understand like I do. “Yeah, she stopped telling people where she was going, or like today when she stopped to fix her shoe lace. She didn’t say anything, but I noticed, because I always notice when she’s not right beside me. I feel weird when she isn’t.”
“Why did she stop telling people where she was going?” Tatum asks, snagging a piece of the lunch meat on my plate.
“Because of what I said to her, she doesn’t want to be known as a goody goody and she wanted us to get along better.”
“Have the two of you been arguing?”
I’m ashamed, and I don’t want to tell Tatum how bad of a sister I’ve been. “Yeah,” I whisper.
“You know it’s okay to argue, right? As long as you two don’t hurt each other with the things you say. Do you think it went that far?”
Those tears are back and I’m nodding. My bottom lip quivers; it annoys me because I’m doing my best to hold onto it. I don’t want her to see me break down, don’t want to admit what an awful sister I’ve been.
“I know it did.”
“Oh Harley.” She gets up, coming to sit beside me. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.” She puts her arm around my shoulder. “I won’t judge you.”
“Do you promise?”
It’s important that she still look at me the same way she looks at Justice; I don’t want
that part to change.
“I promise.”
“There’s this boy.” I sniffle. “He likes Justice and I like him. It made me so mad that he picked her over me, even when it’s obvious I’m the one who likes him. Justice is always the one who makes the right decisions, doesn’t get in as much trouble as I do, and she always makes Mom and Dad proud. For once,” I cry harder. “For once I wanted to be the one somebody picked. So I made fun of her and told him awful lies about her. What if I don’t ever get to see her again?” I sob. “How am I ever going to get her to forgive me? I’ve been a horrible sister.”
“We all are sometimes.” I hear Aunt Mandy’s voice beside me.
Her fingers run through my hair, relaxing me. “Are we?”
“Oh yeah,” she laughs. “I did horrible things to your dad when we were growing up, just because he looked at me funny. It’s hard to have to share everything with someone who looks like you, and thinks like you, but isn’t you. I get it, Harley, and you don’t have to be perfect just because you think Justice is.”
“I don’t?”
“No.” She leans over so we look at each other. “You’re you and she’s her. The two of you share enough, don’t you think? You can have what you love to do, and she can have what she loves to do. It doesn’t mean you like each other any less. The important thing is you don’t make fun of her, and accept her for who she is, and she do the same.”
“I’ll never make fun of her again. I just want her to come back.”
“That’s what we all want.” My grandma reaches down, giving me a hug. “C’mon, when the guys get back with her, they’ll all be hungry. Let’s go make sure they have something to eat.”
All the ladies follow, and only when I’m in the kitchen with them, do I not feel so alone. But more than anything, I want my sister back.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Drew
“Are you sure he knows what he’s doing?” I bite my nails as Tyler and I sit behind Caelin in the security cave.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Caelin answers the question instead of his dad. “Look, I promise.” His eyes are so much like the elder Blackfoot, it scares me. “I’m going to figure out what this asshole has done, and I’ll be sure Justice gets out of this with as little damage as possible. She’s my friend, and I don’t want to see her hurt.”
“You have my trust.” I clap him on the shoulder. “But I’m gonna need you to hurry this up a little for my sanity.”
“Do you remember when you and Dalton were the ones there for Meredith and Mandy? Back when she was pregnant with him?” Tyler leans his head toward his son. “I can’t begin to tell you how damn scared I was when I knew, like really knew there was a threat. All the time you imagine what you’re going to do, how you’re going to handle it when someone terrorizes your family, but you don’t know. You can’t imagine the way your stomach drops, the your heart pounds in your chest so loud you can hear it, the saliva that gathers at the back of your throat as you do your best not to throw up, the sweat all over your skin - the cold, clammy kind. But even after all of that, it’s the narrow-minded focus you get that can sometimes get you hurt. The fact you’re not willing to look outside of the abso-fuckin-lute need to avenge your loved one. It can cause you to rush things, to miss clues, and that’s what none of us want to do here, Drew.” He puts a hand on my knee. “So go out there, comfort your wife and daughter. Let us take care of the hard shit, and when we have something concrete, we’ll tell you. All this is going to do is drive you crazy.”
From behind me, I can hear my dad’s voice. “I agree. C’mon let’s go get some coffee, it’s gonna be a long night.”
The only coffee I want is laced with a liberal dose of something strong, but I know that helps nobody in this situation we’ve found ourselves in. “Promise me, the first second you have something, you’ll come get us.”
“You have my word.”
And I know more than anything, Tyler Blackfoot is his word.
Charity
He looks like shit. That’s the first thought when I see my husband halfway stumbling out of the room we’ve always called the cave. Liam says something to him, and that’s when his gaze shifts over to where Harley sleeps fitfully in my lap. We’re on the couch, and she’s fit herself as much as she can against me. She hasn’t wanted to leave my sight since this all happened, and truth is, I haven’t wanted her to leave my sight either.
Carefully, Drew picks her up, putting her beside him, before he takes her place. We’re quiet as he situates himself. Me, I want to feel him more than anything. I turn toward him, wrapping my arms around his waist, resting my cheek on his chest. He puts an arm around my back, and finally I feel like everything will be okay. Not perfect, because nothing ever is, but maybe, just maybe we’ll be okay again.
“Do you remember when I found out I was pregnant with them?” I whisper, tears pricking the back of my eyes.
He chuckles slightly. “I came home from the shop and you were sitting in the living room of that tiny apartment we had sobbing. I couldn’t understand a word you were saying.”
I laugh softly, thinking of the memory. “We weren’t necessarily struggling for money, but it hadn’t been easy for me to get my practice up and going here,” I remind him. “Then we talked about trying to have a baby, and it happened that first month.”
“I remember.” He puts his head down to mine, letting me snuggle in closer. “I still remember that night.”
“Which one?” I look up at him. “The night you found me crying in the living room or the night we got pregnant?”
“Both.” He kisses me on the top of the head. “Both are special to me in their own ways, but when you told me you were pregnant, God, things just changed. I was excited, scared, more in love with you than I’ve ever been with anyone else in my life, and so ready for our future together. Even if you were a blubbering mess on the floor.”
“What about when we found out they were twins?”
I’ve never asked him this question, but I’ve always wondered how he felt. The both of us were pretty surprised. Twins do run in my family, and it had been a few generations, but neither of us really believed we’d be the lucky ones to get two at once.
“I think you remember me passing out at the ultrasound pretty clearly.”
I giggle through my tears, thinking back to how he went down with the biggest thud I’d ever heard. First time I think I ever spooked him. “I honestly thought you may have decided you didn’t want to go through with it, and you were like get me the fuck out.”
“Nah.” He grabs hold of my free hand with his. Our fingers play back and forth against each other. “I thought I was a lucky bastard to be able to have a family with you. Two at once was a bonus if you wanna know the truth. I loved growing up with Mandy, even though we annoyed the fuck out of each other, I loved knowing I had a best friend everywhere I went. If something ever hit the fan, she’d be there, no questions asked. To know my kids would have that same connection meant something to me, still does.” He glances over at Harley. “Which is why I believe her when she says she doesn’t think anything horrible has happened with Justice. Twins feel that with each other. I’m scared, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not panicking until she does.”
“We’ve built a good life, Drew, and it kills me to think somebody could hate us enough to fuck it all up.”
He makes a noise in his throat. “I never thought it’d be Steele.”
“Me neither, and Christine? God I feel so awful for her. What’s going to happen?”
“You know I can’t tell you how we’ll handle a betrayal like this, but Christine will be taken care of.” The promise is there in his voice. “She didn’t cause this. He did, for whatever fucking reason. You think you know someone, you think they’re your family, and then they fucking turn on your like this. How are we ever supposed to trust anybody again?”
There’s doubt in his voice that was not there before, a hoarse note of irritation and a
whole lot of anger. I hope he’ll be able to deal with what’s going on and it not break him. Drew’s been through so much in his life. I don’t want to see him break. I need him, full of life and the husband I know he is. I can’t let this break any of us.
“Got it!” Tyler and Caelin run out of the cave. “We know where he’s holding her.”
Drew jumps up, causing Harley to startle. I don’t want to send him out in this; it gives me anxiety not to know where he is right now, but I know he has to do this for not only himself but Justice too. “Please bring her back, and please be careful. I can’t take something happening to you too.”
He kisses me hard, with more passion than he probably means to, but it’s the adrenaline and I need the connection with him too.
“I promise you I’m not walking back into this clubhouse without her.”
Harley grabs onto him and they have a conversation I can’t quite make out, but I know it means a lot to both of them, especially when I see her brush tears from under her eyes. Harley isn’t my crier. She accepts everything with the quiet stoicism of her grandpa and dad.
There’s some hustle and bustle as the guys do their best to figure out who should be left behind, to keep the women and children safe. I want to scream out at them to stop arguing and hurry the fuck up. We’re so close to finding out where Justice is, and they’re arguing over who gets to go.
“Shut the fuck up!” I hear Drew’s voice above the rest of them.
He’s standing in the middle of the circle they’ve made. Taller than all of them except for Tyler and Caelin. “I appreciate everyone wanting to come, but the fact is everyone can’t come. Jagger, you stay here with Remy, Rooster, and Tyler. The rest of you come with me, including you, Caelin.” He points out to the youngest standing with them. “You found the information, and I want you to be in on this in case we need you again.”
Fury (Heaven Hill Generations Book 3) Page 11