Eric
As soon as I pulled up to the house, I knew something was wrong. There was nobody sitting out front, for one. And the front door was wide open.
I barely put the car in park before I jumped out and ran inside. “Michelle!” The house was silent. I felt sick to my stomach. “Michelle, answer me!” Her phone sat on the couch, her purse on the floor. She didn’t run away like last time. I moaned and took off running up the stairs, calling her name.
Nothing. I ran from room to room, screaming for her, but she wasn’t there. The house was empty.
He got her. Were Joe and Pete in on it? No way—they were loyal. How did he get through them? I went back downstairs, calling for them this time.
“Joe? Pete?” What the hell could have made them leave? I pulled out my phone. No messages. Nothing happened, no emergency that called them away. I thought for a second that he had lured them off, but it didn’t look like it. I felt sicker every second that passed in that empty house.
“Eric…!” A voice at the back door, also standing open. I ran out there. Joe and Pete were both on the grass. Their bikes sat against the fence. Joe was unconscious, bleeding from his forehead. Pete was bleeding, too, but he was trying to crawl into the house.
“What the fuck happened?” I sat him up against the back steps, then went to Joe to be sure he was breathing. He was. Just unconscious. I smacked his cheeks a few times until it looked like he was coming around.
Pete groaned and put a hand to his head. His dark hair was even darker in the spot where he bled. “They ambushed us, man. Made a noise back here. Joe went back to see what it was. They got him. I heard the noise, when they were knocking him out or whatever, and I came back. Bam! Lights out.” His eyes went wide. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” We looked at each other, both of us breathing heavy.
“Shit, Eric, I’m so sorry. I should have protected her…”
“You couldn’t do anything. They knew what they were doing. They had a plan.” I stood up, running my hands through my hair. They wouldn’t make it so easy to find her this time.
“How long was I out of the house by the time this happened?” I had to put it together.
“Maybe a couple of hours.” He shrugged, looking helpless.
“Shit, so they took her maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago. They could be anywhere now.” I knew exactly how it happened, too. Once Gareth’s guy saw me and shot at me, he knew I set him up. He sent a crew in for Michelle to get back at me. I should have been more cautious. I shouldn’t have let myself be spotted outside the clubhouse.
I punched the brick wall that made up the back of my house. Pain screamed its way from my knuckles all the way up to my shoulder.
“Hey, man, you’re bleeding.” Pete pointed to my other arm. I had forgotten all about it. I didn’t even feel it anymore. All I could think about was Michelle.
“Yeah, one of their MC shot me. They spotted me.”
“Shit. You should get that looked at.”
“I can’t right now. I have to find out where they took her.”
My phone rang, and we looked each other again. I fumbled for it. Unknown number.
“Hello?” My voice was tight. I didn’t wanna let whoever it was on the other end know how shaken I was.
“Eric Turner. You can’t leave it alone, can you?”
My stomach turned and I put my knuckles in my mouth to hold back everything I was feeling. “Where the fuck is she?”
He ignored me. “The girl you sent earlier? She’s a nice piece of ass. I should’ve known you would try to set me up like that. But I got greedy, thinking about all the money she would make for me. Even I make mistakes.”
“Damn straight, you make mistakes. Where is she?” I asked again.
“Who?”
“You know who I mean. Michelle.”
“Oh, is that her name?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know it is. She was one of the girls at the last auction. You knew I paid for her. It’s on the receipt.”
“Yeah, another mistake you made. You could at least have given a fake name, the way the others do. I mean, why would any of them want their wives and girlfriends to know they were buying a piece on the side? But you didn’t think it through. You never do. I would think seven years in the pen would give you all the time in the world to make up an actual plan. But no, you come at me like a bull.” He sighed. “So typical.”
I could have screamed. My hand tightened around the phone. I imagined it was his scrawny neck. He was trying to get in my head. “I’m gonna ask you again, crater face. Where did you take Michelle?”
“Oh, that. I wouldn’t know. My boys had a score to settle with her. She got away from them, and they don’t like that.” He laughed. “You could say they got a little obsessed with her.”
“Bullshit. You don’t like that she got away from you. That’s the problem.”
“Either way, I don’t know where she is.”
“Man, just tell me. Tell me what you want for me to get her back. Stop all this game playing.” I was losing control, pacing the yard, clenching and unclenching my fist. I never felt so helpless in my life.
He acted like I wasn’t even talking. “I never understood how you could get your hands on such hot tail,” Gareth said. “Now I get it, though. You’ve gotta pay for it.”
I laughed bitterly. “Nah, that’s your life, man. Not mine. I’ve never had a problem that way.”
“How else would you ever score a girl like her? Beautiful, smart, classy? With all that beautiful dark hair, and those pouty lips?” he asked.
“So you do know her.”
He paused, then laughed. “You got me. Always smarter than I give you credit for.”
“Damn straight,” I said. “Smarter than you think. So you better bring her back in one piece, or tell me where I can find her in one piece.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else I take the recording of you and the girl to the cops.”
Another pause. “I knew you must have recorded it.”
“What tipped you off?”
“Nothing, until that gunshot. One of my boys got you, huh? Anyway, when we heard it, she ran out and jumped on the back of a bike with one of your crew. To be honest, I didn’t know she was a plant until then. She’s a half-decent actress, that one. Had me fooled the whole time. Where did you find her?”
I ignored the question. Anybody else would have thought we were two good friends bullshitting over the phone. “I have evidence on you, then. And unless I get Michelle back, the tape goes to the police. That’s it.”
“No, see, that’s not the way this is gonna go. You’re gonna bring me the tape, and then I’m gonna let her go.”
“Fuck off. You wouldn’t let her go if I gave you what you wanted.” I looked at Pete, and he shook his head.
“You’d be surprised,” Gareth said. “She’s already giving me a headache. I wouldn’t mind getting her off my hands.”
I closed my eyes. Yeah, that sounded like her. She was hanging in. My tough girl.
“So like I said,” he continued, “you bring me the recording, and I give her back to you. Simple as that.”
I thought about it. “In perfect condition,” I said. “Don’t lay a single finger on her. I swear to God, I’ll take you all down.”
“Don’t worry about it. My boys seem to think they can take turns with her. A bunch of animals. I don’t go in for rape. Buying a woman is one thing. I’ll keep ’em off her. You’ll get her back in one piece.”
I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut, thinking about the way they were looking at her, the things they were thinking. What they were probably saying to her. She didn’t deserve any of this, but because of me, she was in it up to her neck. I never hated myself as much as I did at that moment, when I knew it was all my fault that she was in danger.
“We have a deal?” Gareth asked.
“Where am I supposed to meet you?” I replied. It was my way of telling him I was on board.
“Here at the clubhouse. Shame you couldn’t stick around a little while longer, you would have seen the car pull up with her in it. But I heard one of my guys got a little trigger happy with you. I wish I could say I was sorry.”
“Don’t touch her,” I said.
“Not unless you bring me that recording. If you don’t? She’s dead.”
I took a few deep breaths. “Understood.”
“And don’t think about making copies either,” he added. “You have twelve hours to get here, with the recording, or I start cutting her up personally. I would hate to see her beautiful, soft skin all marked up. Especially when she pulled down such a huge price for me the other night.” Then he laughed. “I hope she was worth it.”
“You’ll never know, will you?”
“Won’t I?” With that, he hung up the phone.
I could have puked. I tossed the phone aside, then started pacing again. “I’m gonna kill him. I swear I will.”
“They have her?”
“Yeah. I have twelve hours to bring him the recording I made just now, or he’ll kill her.”
“Jesus.” Pete still sat by the steps, and Joe was struggling to get up. I helped him sit. He held his head in his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” he muttered. “I can’t believe we fell for that.”
“It happens.” I couldn’t even care enough to give them shit about it. I knew how tricky Gareth could be when he wanted to be. As soon as he knew I set him up, he sent his crew over here to get Michelle. “I should’ve called you when they shot me. You would have known to be on the lookout for them. That was my fault.”
“What are you gonna do?” Pete asked.
“What can I do? I have to give him the recording. I can’t let him kill her.” What I couldn’t say was how she was the most important thing in the world to me. How nothing else meant as much as she did. How I didn’t even care about getting revenge on Gareth as much as I cared about making sure she was safe. When I looked at Pete, though, I had the feeling he understood without needing to be told.
“I hate giving in,” I said, thinking out loud. “But I have to be smart. There will be other chances to get him. There’s only one of her.”
That was all that mattered.