Matt

 

We went to William’s house, because we knew both the tattoo shop and my house would be the first places the police would look for me. And since I was now on the run as an officially escaped prisoner, I doubted that they weren’t going to take this seriously. Especially since the mayor had a vendetta against me.

 

As soon as we arrived, I told the boys to start talking about a plan to get Annie out of there. I had to change. I wanted to shower, too, but I didn’t want to waste the time. I had to clean up some just because riding around in an orange jumpsuit with a bleeding forehead and glass glittering in my hair wasn’t a smart move. It was a little too noticeable, and if I were going to save Annie from her father, I was going to have to blend in a little better than that.

 

When I was dressed plainly in jeans and a t-shirt, I headed back downstairs. My guys were gathered in the living room, tossing ideas back and forth, doing as I’d asked.

 

“What do we have?”

 

Daniel snorted. “Basically a fortress,” he told me snidely. “This place is locked up tighter than Fort Knox!”

 

William shook his head. “He’s exaggerating. It’s more like a high security prison than a vault.”

 

Daniel shot him a look. “Like there’s a difference.”

 

Ignoring the both of them, Buck spoke up. “We’ve got the plans to the house.” I opened my mouth to ask how in the hell they managed that one, he quickly filled in with, “James worked with some of the guys who built the house a few years back. He called in a favor.”

 

I glanced over at James, who was standing quietly with his arms folded like this was hardly any big deal. I raised my eyebrows at him. “An awfully quick favor you called in.”

 

He lifted his shoulders. “I might have guessed you’d need them a little while back.”

 

Under normal circumstances I might have laughed at that. But today was too urgent and too serious for me to go around laughing at things that were only half funny. So instead I just nodded my head at him in thanks. He returned the gesture.

 

Turning back to Buck, I said, “What does the place look like?”

 

He shook his head, clearly not looking happy. “To quote Daniel, like a damn fortress.” He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “There’s a gate around the whole area. The only way in, as far as anyone can tell, is through the front gate, which has a guard tower. Normally, it looks like there’s only a surveillance system and a keypad, but since the mayor took Annie back, there’s a guard stationed there at all times. If you aren’t on his list, you don’t get in. Assuming we get past the guard, there’s a drive that leads to the main house—otherwise known as a mansion to anyone who’s not a millionaire.

 

“According to the plans, it’s two stories and an attic. It looks like the bedrooms are going to be on the second floor, since that’s where the master is. Downstairs is the kitchen and a few other rooms, one probably an office, then a combo of living and family rooms. I don’t even know what the hell these others were supposed to be. This place has a hell of a lot of rooms for only two people living there.”

 

“All right. So, Annie’s probably being held on the second floor,” I concluded. “He’s probably got her locked up in her room and feels pretty safe that she’s not going anywhere since it’s the second floor.”

 

Buck seemed to agree and I took a moment to appreciate that for an eighteen-year-old boy, he was pretty goddamned smart. I was grateful he was on my team.

 

“So, what are we going to do?” Daniel asked, sitting on the couch with his arms spread across the back of it, looking like we were having brandy and smoking cigars rather than talking about breaking into the mayor’s house to kidnap his daughter. “Storm the castle? Rescue the princess? Ride off into the sunset?”

 

I looked at him and smiled. “Pretty much.”

 

He laughed. “Who knew you were such a romantic?”

 

***

 

We road to the mansion that same day, late in the afternoon. I called for everyone to come to a stop before we reached the front gate. We already knew we weren’t going to be on any guest list at the gate, so I didn’t bother trying to head that way.

 

Instead, we pulled our bikes up along the side of the road and did our best to tuck them away behind some brush. The lawns were all perfect, the houses all huge, so I was pretty sure everyone and their dog was going to notice a line of motorcycles parked just casually along the street. Hopefully, they were hidden well enough that that wouldn’t be a problem.

 

From there, we began the plan.

 

“Jeff, Brett, you’re up.”

 

They both nodded and headed towards the gate where they would try their damnedest to get in through the front. They were dressed in their finest, which unfortunately meant Jeff looked like he was going to a funeral and Brett looked like a mismatched lumberjack. I didn’t have a lot of hope that they’d make it through, which was why we had other plans going on.

 

When we saw them round the corner to the gate, we made our move. We got to the gate, picking a particularly overgrown section, and began to climb.

 

“There will probably be security systems in place,” James reminded us as we huffed our way up and over the fence. “Meaning there’s a good chance everyone already knows we’re here.”

 

If anyone was actually watching the camera footage—which we had to assume they were—then they would probably come for us relatively quickly. Which meant we were going to have to move fast ourselves.

 

“Daniel, you take Buck and go to the front,” I ordered as we dropped down on the other side. I noticed that we were just outside the pool house where I’d fucked Annie the first time. It sent a shiver of memory through me, her soft skin, her curved body, her long hair spilling across the bed. It made me want to go back to that moment—and do it all differently.

 

Get her name.

 

Get her number.

 

Ask her out again.

 

Tell her she was important to me.

 

“Hey, we gotta move!” William hissed at me urgently as the rest of the group started to break up.

 

I shook myself free of the memory and focused on the here and now. It didn’t matter how all of this started, only how it ended. Hopefully with a family and a happily ever after if I had anything to say about it.

 

We darted forward, going our separate ways. I broke off from the group quickly and headed around the side of the house.

 

I had my boys running interference with the mansion that was currently more like a compound. The mayor had this place locked up tight, clearly determined to keep Annie held hostage until he could do the unthinkable. Until he could kill our baby.

 

But he underestimated not only how determined I was to get her back, but how loyal my boys were. Strangely enough, my going to prison and my affection for Annie was the thing that cleared up a lot of the dissention amongst my men. That and the fact that Mathis, the leading factor in that dissention, had been ousted as the traitor. I still wasn’t sure what had happened to him officially, but I found I really didn’t care that much either.

 

Buck and Daniel were on foot pretending to try to get through the front door. Since they were the closest in age to Annie, we decided we’d send them in as a decoy. No one really thought they’d get through the front door, just as I didn’t expect Jeff and Brett to make it through the gate, but they could distract the guards there while I tried to get to Annie’s room.

 

Which I unfortunately didn’t know the exact location of.

 

Three of my guys went to the back, because I figured that was going to be my best entry point.

 

But before I dove in, I wanted to get a good look at the upper floor. If Annie’s room were upstairs as we suspected, then there would be a window. I wanted to see if I could get a look at the windows and tell which one was hers. Which was probably really stupid, but if I saw even a flicker of pink, I’d assume it was hers—whether she liked pink or not. I doubt her father gave her much say.

 

As I rounded the side of the building, I froze. From a distance, I saw a small figure on the second floor. The figure was climbing down the side of the building towards the ground, almost repelling along the side of the wall.

 

Then she slipped.

 

I raced forward. She seemed to have caught her balance and was once again climbing, but I didn’t stop moving. I didn’t stop until I was right beneath her and by then I could definitely tell I was right—it was a woman—but it was also the woman I was desperately searching for.

 

Annie!

 

She slipped again and this time she didn’t catch herself. She let out a curdling scream as she fell once again. She must have been positive that she was going to hit the ground hard—and she probably would have. But I was standing there in the perfect spot. I reached out my arms and leaned back slightly so when she tumbled into them, I caught her half against my chest, bracing myself against the sudden weight and impact.

 

I couldn’t believe my luck. It was her, Annie, cradled in my arms.

 

And struggling.

 

“Let me go, you asshole! I’m not going back!” she screamed at me as she flailed her arms in a desperate attempt to swat at me.

 

I struggled with her, realizing that if she kept hollering like that, we were going to be overrun with guards. In an attempt to stop her, I dropped her lower half so her feet touched the ground, though I kept a tight hold around her upper half, my arm dropping so it clung tightly to her waist instead of her shoulders.

 

I had just a moment to think, Is her stomach a little rounder? Is that the baby?

 

Then I clamped my free hand over her mouth so she would quiet and hopefully still long enough to see that it was me. When she continued to struggle, I said, “Shh! Annie, it’s me!”

 

She froze in my arms, the only thing moving her eyes. They snapped open and stared up at me. I smiled down at her as I felt her whole body relax against me. I knew that once she saw it was me, she would be happy. Part of me had been worried, worried that maybe after everything that had happened she was having second thoughts, but now I knew for sure. She wanted to be with me still.

 

“Matt!” she cried, her voice muffled by my hand.

 

I grinned, but removed my hand, then I pulled her to me and held her like this was the first and the last time I’d ever get the chance. Which was possible on that second part anyway. If I got caught, the police were going to lock me up and throw away the key. Unless I got a pardon of some kind, I was done for. And they’d never let me see Annie or our kid. That didn’t sit well with me and it forced me to pull away from her and remind myself that we didn’t have time.

 

“We’ve got to go. The baby…my father…I have to save this baby, Matt!” Annie cried, having apparently come to very similar conclusions on her own.

 

I nodded in agreement instantly and began to pull her along. I would get us both out of here and we’d raise that baby together if it were the last thing I ever did. “I know. Let’s go. I’m taking you back to the Reaper’s Thorns.”

 

We raced around the back where we’d come from, heading towards the pool house. I wasn’t sure if Annie would be able to get herself over the gates that surrounded the place—though she had managed to get herself down her window and to the first floor without too much difficulty. Unfortunately, the way we got in was the only way I knew to get us back out. The gate went around the whole property and while we could spend the day running around, hiding and dodging the guards, eventually we’d get caught. The police would come, they’d get me for escaping and kidnapping and that would be that.

 

I couldn’t let it happen, so we had to try to get the hell out of this fortress.

 

William quickly caught up at him, obvious relief in his eyes at the sight of Annie trailing beside me. “Jesus, this place is crawling with guards!” he huffed in irritation. “We’ve gotta get the hell out of here before they grow a brain cell and call the actual police to come and help, too.”

 

Running together, we ducked behind the pool house to avoid another guard. “Have they realized we’re here?”

 

William shrugged his oversized shoulder. “Hell, probably. They’ve got a dozen of these suits running around. Most of them are hovering over Daniel and Buck, thinking they’re the main threat, though as far as I can tell no one’s caused any trouble in that direction.”

 

I relaxed a little at that information. It was a relief to know I hadn’t just gotten everyone killed real fast.

 

William continued. “But the guys at the gate are already long gone and the boys in the back are waiting for your signal. If they get spotted, things are going to go bad very quickly.”

 

“What about the pool house?” I asked, gesturing to the building beside us. I had sent a couple of guys to check it for Annie and wondered if they’d been caught.

 

“Hell, I’m not sure, boss,” William admitted. “I think there was a guard there, they said, and I have to assume he’s down for the count. If another guard finds him, they’ll sound the alarm.” William looked sideways at Annie. “What about you, little lady? Anyone know you’re missing yet?”

 

She shook her head, looking flush with excitement, not to mention her climb down and the quick run that followed. I thought it made her look sexy, beautiful. I imagined those flush features beneath me. Pulling myself back from the urge to wander into a daydream of sexier, happier things, I focused on Annie’s response.

 

“I don’t think so,” she told him uncertainly. “There was a guard down the hall from me, but I told him not to come in and he looked more interested in watching the stairs rather than checking on me.”

 

“Good,” I threw in. “Hopefully that’ll buy us some extra time.

 

William agreed with me. When a guard strolled past us, smoking a cigarette and looking more bored than anything else, we made our move. We snuck out behind him, making a break for the fence. As we ran, I told William, “Give the boys a call. Tell them we’re headed back to the fence and it’s time for a retreat.”

 

William pulled out his phone and sent a mass text message, the easiest and subtlest way to get ahold of everyone at the same time.

 

Then we focused on getting our own asses out of there.

 

We hit the fence and I looked first at Annie, then William. Over the top of her head, he returned the look. He nodded once, then got down on one knee, threading his hands together to create a foothold. “C’mon, honey, time to get you up and over.”

 

She looked over at him, clearly nervous. When she glanced back at me, I gave her an encouraging nod. “Go ahead. I’ll come up right after you and we’ll drop down together. Don’t worry; we did this coming in.” Well, not exactly this. No one had been hefted over and the drop down hadn’t been soft, but if I could get up there with her, I could help ease her down. The baby would be okay and so would Annie.

 

She smiled weakly at me and was just about to wedge her foot into William’s hand when we heard the sirens. Her head shot up, eyes wide and staring towards three cars that had just entered through the gate. Two of them were police officers, but the third… “Oh god. It’s my dad.”

 

I frowned grimly. “Go, hurry.”

 

But she shook her head. “What about everyone else? The other Reaper’s Thorns are here! They’ll be caught.”

 

I shared a look with William that communicated what I expected of him just then. He nodded curtly. I turned back to Annie to answer her. “Listen, don’t worry about them. They’ll get themselves out. You’ve gotta trust that they can do that.”

 

She hesitated, but nodded her head.

 

“But before we go any farther, there’s something I have to say to you.” She held her breath, her cheeks flushed and eyes still wide. She looked hopeful, painfully so, and I wasn’t quite sure why. I swallowed heavily and said, “If you want to go back, this is your chance. If you stay with me, your whole life will change. It has to. You should know I’m a wanted man. You should know I can’t stay here in Mount Rose. You should know I’m the kind of guy who’s going to work in tattoo shops and bars and lead a motorcycle club, because damnit that’s the kind of man I am.”

 

I searched her eyes, those big, blue eyes. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Maybe something less than desperation and closer to affection, but there was too much going on to be sure of what I saw there.

 

“But you should also know if you come with me tonight, I will always keep you safe. I will always protect you and take care of you. Whatever dreams you want to pursue, I’ll support them. I’ll respect you as your own person, no matter what. And you’ll never be a prisoner with me. The moment you want to leave, go.” There was something close to tears in her eyes and I pushed forward with the last, careful words. They were soft, barely more than a whisper. “All I ask is that you keep the baby.”