BETH
When Madison was first born, Jeremy had brought me home flowers. A large bouquet of roses and carnations with a lot more baby’s breath than needed. He had said it was for the baby, seemed good luck to have a lot of it in the house.
For the first few weeks, he seemed like the perfect father. He got up for most of the middle of the night feedings and even changed diapers. He snuggled Maddie and when he thought I wasn’t looking, he would sing to her in her room.
Sometime around her turning six months old, things changed. The novelty of being a dad must have worn off. Her crying bothered him. When she woke in the middle of the night for something he would roll over and nudge me with his foot to “get the kid.” Suddenly he forgot what a diaper was. But I put up with it, because I loved him.
At least I thought I loved him. He said all the right things, made all the right moves, but when it came down to it, he didn’t understand what being a man really meant. There was more to it than saying sweet things and bringing your woman to orgasm every now and then. I needed more from him. I needed a partner. Someone who would look out for me and Maddie, someone who didn’t shy away from trouble at the first sight of it.
I needed someone who made my stomach flutter just by hearing his footsteps on the front porch, and who called me on my bullshit, and protected us with his life. I needed someone like Rafe.
Jeremy walking out on Maddie and me was the best thing he could do for us. Having Maddie grow up with a man who could barely stand us, or resented us for the extra shift at work he needed to take on to make the rent, would have only messed her up. But having someone like Rafe in her life, would that be better?
He was a killer. When I asked him, he didn’t even try to deny it. Just said that what he did wasn’t murder. What the fuck did that mean? Was he some sort of biker vigilante?
I had to stop thinking about him. Had stop comparing him to Jeremy and I had to stop wondering what it would be like to have him be in my life forever. I needed to focus on Maddie.
When I pulled into the parking lot of the warehouse my stomach lurched. What if everything went to hell?
With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone. Rafe sent two more texts, each telling me to call him, and both I deleted. If Gray was after Rafe, having him with me would only make things worse. If I could get Gray to understand that I wasn’t with Rafe anymore, then maybe I could convince him to let me and Maddie go. If we couldn’t be used to get to Rafe, we weren’t of any use at all.
I stepped out onto the graveled parking lot, my foot making the stones beneath me crunch. Closing my door as silently as I could, I looked around the outside of the building. The sun was already high, making the heat of the day escalate. A droplet of sweat ran down my chest, between my breasts, and I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand.
The one door I found unlocked creaked when I opened it. I looked behind me and went still, trying to hear the rumblings of a bike or a car. Nothing.
I stepped inside the cool warehouse, somewhat surprised it wasn’t stuffy and hot. When the metal door clanked shut behind me I jumped. Great, now your scaring yourself!
I could smell remnants of oil and gasoline mingled together with dust. The large room was littered with empty pallets and packing straw thrown about the room. A dozen or so windows allowed light into the abandoned space from above the area. Neon of them were open, yet a gentle breeze blew around my ankles.
The floor of the warehouse was relatively cleaned aside from the packing materials. No piles of dirt, or balls of dust roaming the ground. Toward the back of the building I heard a clicking sound, then a low rumbling. The little breeze I had felt grew stronger, the air chillier.
“Maddie!” I yelled with some hope that she might be in the back of the building in one of the offices. I ran around the pallets that made a sort of obstacle course throughout the room. “Maddie!” I called again when I reached the hallway.
The offices weren’t empty. Two of them were fully furnished with desks, filing cabinets, and even computers. At first glance they looked clean and well maintained. Maddie wasn’t in either of them.
A clock hung on the wall of one of the offices. I had ten more minutes before I could expect Gray. From the empty rooms, I gathered he probably had Maddie with him, so I wondered around the rest of the warehouse, getting a feel for the place.
When I opened the door the last office, the only one that didn’t have a glass wall that everyone could see into, I gasped. There was Brittany on her knees in front of Gray, his cock stuffed in other mouth. Her hands were bound behind her with duct tape. Gray saw me right away, but didn’t stop his movements. His eyes locked with me, and his hands dug deeper into Brittany’s hair. He began to fuck her mouth savagely. She choked, sputtered and tried to breath, but Gray just kept cramming his thick cock down her throat.
“Fuck, take it all, bitch.” He growled and held her face close to his crotch. I could see her throat working, trying to swallow but he was coming too fast for her and some of his semen slipped out of her lips. Frozen by what I was witnessing, I watched as he pulled out of her mouth and slapped her face. “Next time you swallow all of it.”
“Yes, Gray.” She whimpered and tried to wipe the come off her cheek with her shoulder. That was when she saw me standing in the doorway. “Beth!” She started to scramble to her feet, but a sharp look from Gray kept her where she was. Her eyes, once brilliantly blue, were faded, worn down with fear and shame. Her usual too small, too tight tank top had a rip on the neckline, as though she’d been pulled by it to where she now kneeled before him. Her hair was mussed and her bottom lip was swollen, and not from the act she was just performing.
“Where’s my daughter?” I demanded as Gray zipped up his jeans.
“She’s fine,” he said, then looked down at Brittany, who had started softly crying. Her shoulders shook from her sobs, but she kept her mouth tightly shut to keep the sound from reaching his ears. “Knock it off before I give you something to cry about.” He gripped her hair and pulled her up to her feet, and she cried out from the pain. I watched this happening to my friend, both angry on her behalf and relieved that his anger was aimed at my daughter’s kidnapper.
“You said she’d be here.” I took a step into the room, ignoring Brittany as best I could. I hurt to see her being handled in such a way, knowing that whatever she did was to save her own ass. But she took my daughter, stole her from me and put in the hands of that crazy ass man.
“I said you’d get her back, and you will.” He adjusted his cock through his jeans and let go of Brittany with a shove. She shuffled to the corner of the room and backed into it, trying to make herself appear small and therefore unseen.
“I want her now.” I stepped toward him. With a fluid motion I hadn’t seen coming he whipped out a gun from his back pocket. My body froze. “Tell me where she is; let me see she’s safe.” I couldn’t help the whimper I heard in my voice, but I hated for him to see my vulnerability. Maddie was my world, but he already knew that or he wouldn’t have taken her from me. “Tell me she’s okay. Brittany, is Maddie okay?”
“Tell her,” Gray bit out, still training his gun on me.
Brittany sniffled a few times then nodded. I could see her mascara running down her face, and the tears building in her eyes but I forced myself to ignore it. “She’s okay, Beth. She’s not here—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Gray yelled over his shoulder at her, and her mouth snapped shut.
“She’s not here?” I glared at Gray, almost ready to ignore the gun and lunge at him.
“You’re coming with me. You’ll see her and you two can stick together while we wait for Rafe. Unless he’s here? Did he come with you?”
“I’m not with him anymore. I kicked him out. I don’t want anything to do with him or your club. I’m out.” Even as I said the words my heart hurt for Rafe. I should have called him. I should have told him what was going on with Gray.
“That’s too bad.” He shrugged, moving closer to me. I could smell his awful breath as he his heavy breath filled the space between us. “Guess you better hope he listens to you when you call him begging for help, then.” He gripped m upper arm, hurling me toward the door. “Let’s go. Brittany, get your whore ass over here,” he barked at her.
I tried to break away, to run down the hall, but his hand plunged into my hair, dragging me back toward him. I crashed into his chest and his ugly voice growled into my ear. “Do that again, and I’ll fucking beat you before you see your little girl. Or maybe I’ll fucking beat you with her watching.”
I nodded as best I could with his hand gripping my hair so fucking tight I swore it was going to start pulling out of my scalp. “Walk.” He gave me a shove and I started moving my feet toward the side door he pointed out to me. Cursing, I realized I should have walked around the entire building before coming inside.
The bright afternoon sun blinded me when I stepped back onto the graveled pavement. I got a little shove when I paused to adjust to the light and heard Brittany yelp after a sharp slap to her ass got her moving as well. She nearly bumped into me, muttering an apology. I looked at her as though she were crazy.
She kidnapped my kid and she apologized for bumping into me! I looked around the surrounding area, praying for a miracle I knew wouldn’t happen. I knew I had fucked myself even more by being too stubborn to listen.
A black beat up and rusted out truck was parked against the building. Assuming that was where he wanted me to go, I shuffled over to it, still trying to delay, giving Rafe more time to figure out what I had done.
The door creaked when it opened on the passenger side. There was no back row to the cabin—he was squeezing the three of us into the front row. Wanting to put space between us, I moved out of the way and let Brittany get in. She gave me a wary look, as though she didn’t want to be there any more than I did. Well, fuck her.
“Buckle up, ladies, safety first.” The bastard laughed when he shifted the truck into gear and floored the gas as he peeled out of the lot. I hit the door when he turned, feeling Brittany slam into me at the same time. My shoulder screamed from the impact, but I didn’t complain. I wouldn’t give the fucker the satisfaction.
I watched the road as Gray drove us away from town, memorizing any sort of landmark I could make out so when I got Maddie away from him, I would know how to get us back home. A part of me still looked for Rafe’s motorcycle, even though I knew it was hopeless. He had no idea where I was.
Stephanie was kind enough to let me spend the night at her place. I couldn’t go home after talking with Chrissy because I knew Rafe would show up. And if he showed up, I’d have to let him in, and if I let him in, I knew I’d end up giving in to whatever he wanted. After explaining everything to Stephanie, she ushered me into her kitchen and poured me a big glass of wine.
By the time I was ready to fall asleep she decided that we needed to let Rafe help. “He’s not a bad guy, hon, he’s just well—”
“Bossy!” I pointed out, probably louder than I had needed to.
She laughed. “Well, he’s that, too. Jason was a bossy bastard, too.” But the way she said it made her sound as though she missed that bossiness. “Those guys only get that way with women they care about. Now I know I gave a big show of how horrible the club is and what an asshole Rafe is, but that was my sorrow talking and not me.”
“Right.” I had scoffed. “No, you were right about him.” I pointed my wine glass at her. “I asked about what you said, and he didn’t even deny it. Said right to my face that he may have killed but he never murdered. Like there’s a fucking difference. He’s not a soldier fighting some war.”
“Maybe not in the government sense, but in the MC world, yeah, every day is a warzone. At least in these parts. Every club has a part of the town, or a part of some business—guns, drugs, fuck even the prostitutes you see walking the streets are part of one of the MCs—so when one of them steps on the toes of another the shit hits the fan.” She poured a little more wine into my glass.
“Well, my baby girl is gone and it’s all his fault.” I put the glass down on the table harder than needed, almost breaking the stem.
She took a deep breath. “I won’t say it’s not his fault, I mean it’s because of his fucking vengeance that Gray’s going after him. Gray killed my husband, played a big part in my brother getting killed, so I can’t say that I’m against him going after him, but your daughter shouldn’t be involved. That’s Gray though, that fucked up man just does what the fuck he wants without caring about the club or anyone else. The club never would sanction a child being kidnapped, especially not one attached to a member.”
“How does that help? That Gray is doing what he wants and not playing by some screwed up rules?”
“It doesn’t change anything. I only meant that Rafe will get the other members to rally up and get your daughter back. But we have to let him know what’s going on.”
“No.” I all but shouted at her. The disgruntled look she gave me warned me she wasn’t done pushing the subject. And I was right.
“Fine. Maybe I’ll just have Rafe come here and talk some since into you. And remember, I know the man, I know how he talks sense.”
My eyes widened at the implied threat. It wasn’t bad enough that Rafe constantly threatened to tan my ass, but now his friends were threatening to sick him on me?
Seeing as I had not many options, I’d told her exactly what was going to happen with Gray. I told her the warehouse, what time, everything. I knew she’d go straight to Rafe with the information at first light. But I would be gone.
And she’d be handing him all the wrong information.