It’s been two hours and Addie hasn’t answered her phone once. Not even a fucking text. I don’t want to be that guy who stalks his woman, but I’m beginning to worry.

Pacing the bar at the club, I take a swig of my beer. My hand rubbing the back of my neck.

“You keep that up, you’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Piper groans, flipping the page to a magazine. She’s always reading that Cosmo garbage.

“Addie has been gone for two hours, Piper, and hasn’t returned any of my texts or calls,” I explain. It’s not like her and it makes me think something is wrong. My gut is telling me something is wrong.

“Hmm.” She bites her cheek thinking. “Let me try and call her.”

Pulling her phone out she tries to call, but it goes straight to voicemail.

“She didn’t answer, did she?” I raise a brow. Why would Addie answer her and not me?

“What’s going on in here?” My mom looks at me and frowns. “You okay?” she asks, slowly slipping onto a stool.

“He’s worried about Addie. She’s out with a friend and hasn’t called or returned his texts,” Piper tells all my fucking business, but it’s true.

Mom gives me a concerned look, her lips pursing.

“Did she say where she was going?”

“To dinner with a friend for about an hour.” I shrug. I should have found out where they were going. I’m a fucking idiot.

“Shadow!” my mother hollers and Bobby, Shadow, and Lip come out of the chapel. My dad glaring at my mother for calling him like a pet.

“Addie is missing, hasn’t been heard from for hours,” she explains to them.

“She’s not missing, she’s just not answering her phone is all.” Piper rolls her eyes, acting as if we are all being dramatic.

“Piper,” I warn her, she’s overstepping a boundary she knows nothing of. Her and Addie might be friends, but Addie and I are much closer. She wouldn’t not text me back when I asked if she was okay. Fuck what if they got drunk and got in a car accident or something?

“What the fuck do you mean?” Bobby glares at me. It’s my responsibility to protect her. I failed.

“She went out with a work friend, and—”

He holds his hand up, cutting me off. It pisses me off.

Jerking out his cell phone he tries to call her, and of course it goes to voicemail. Why do they all assume she would answer them and not me?

“Lip, I don’t like this. Can you track her phone?” Bobby’s voice wavers as he looks at his phone.

“On it.” Lip fumbles with his lip ring and hustles to the chapel and everyone follows.

He clicks and taps on a laptop, and we all stand by waiting to see what he found.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Bobby hisses before turning to me.

“Do you know who this work friend is?”

Shit, I can’t remember the fucking name.

“Love, or louv? Fuck I can’t remember. It’s something weird.” I begin to get frustrated.

“I’m not getting a track on her phone, man,” Lip growls, continuing to tap at the keyboard. That’s not good. All of us have a GPS on our phone, if hers isn’t working that means someone that is bad news has her.

“Someone has to have her,” I state, my tone of voice grave and dripping with fear. People, names, and faces start reeling into my head, my mind trying to figure out who has taken my sunshine.

Bobby pulls at his hair.

“Fuck!” he roars.

“Oh my God,” my mom whispers, covering her mouth with her hand. It was dinner with a teacher she works with every day. I didn’t think it would be a problem, I didn’t want to hover or tell her no. I didn’t want to be a controlling asshole. But fuck, I should have stuck with my gut and followed them. I knew it.

“I’m going to find her,” I tell everyone; promise them. I have to, my life without Addie is not a life. I push my way through the brothers, determined to find her.

“Wait!” Shadow grabs me by the cut and I shove him off. I’m sweating, and for the first time in my life, I’m scared. I’m scared I just lost the one girl on this earth that gets me.

“You don’t know where the fuck you’re going. What if whoever has her is waiting for you to leave the club? Huh? We do this together!” Dad jerks me around by the nape of my neck, trying to get my attention. The color of blood washes behind my eyes, the beast inside of me frothing at the mouth to tear into someone’s flesh.

Turning on my heel, I roar, the beast inside of me back and ready to kill anyone in my fucking way. I need to find her. Don’t they understand? This is my fault, and Addie could be somewhere hurt and crying my name to save her.

That last thought makes me snap. I grab a chair and throw it against the wall, causing it to shatter into a million pieces and break some picture frames. It does nothing for what I’m feeling inside, I’m pissed and hurting. Gripping another chair, I haul it across the room. The girls scream and duck out of the way just as it crashes through a window.

“What the fuck!?” I hear my grandfather Bull cuss from down the hall. Blood rushes in my ears, my fingers straining like the veins in my neck. All I can see is red. I want to find who has my girl and I want to kill them a thousand deaths.

“Get a hold of yourself!” Bobby is suddenly in my face. I point at him, warning him to shut the fuck up. I cannot be controlled or tamed when I’m like this. Someone has my woman, and the wrath of my inner Devil is about to lay its fury amongst every soul that comes within contact.

“This is my daughter, and I need your head on straight! Not some fucking prospect!” Bobby tries to go up against me.

Coming at him, Shadow and Lip jump in front of me.

“Get off me!” I shove at them, wanting to strangle Bobby. He will never know what Addie means to me.

“Fuck you. Fuck all of you!” I turn around, rubbing the back of my neck again.

“Coming at us isn’t going to bring her back, son. Take a fucking breath!” my dad whispers at me, but I’m not hearing him. All I can think about is who has Addie. Is she safe? Is she hurt?

“Son, we will find her. Breathe. You can’t help her like this.” My mother’s voice coils around the anger controlling me, her palm presses against my back. It burns. Arching my back, I close my eyes and breathe through the pain radiating through my body.

---

“Who wants to explain to me why my chairs are in a dozen fucken pieces?” Bull strides into the chapel gaining my attention, he has nothing but jeans and boots on. His peppered colored hair matching his beard.

“We got a problem.” My mother sighs.

“Addie has been taken by someone,” Lip informs him.

“I need to get ahold of Doc, and now,” Bobby rasps, pulling his phone out and stepping into the corner of the room. Doc is going to blow a fucking gasket.

“Where is Doc?” Piper asks over Bull’s shoulder.

“Work,” Bobby clips, still trying to call her.

“Go get her.” My dad’s voice sharp and not to be questioned. Bobby looks around the room, conflicted if he should stay and help with Addie, or go make sure Doc is safe.

“What if they try and get her next?” My mom’s face goes stoic.

“I’ll find her. Go,” I promise Bobby. He looks at me with one look.

“You find her and call me!” The strain in his voice makes my nostrils flare. I will find Addie. She is my sunshine, and without her, my world is nothing but cold, violent and bleak.

Without her, there is no living.

---

Waking up, sand sticks to my face, my nose burns, and my eyes water from being hit in the head. The smell of wood burning and salt making my head hurt more. My vision is blurry, the sound of the ocean’s waves rushing upon the shore telling me I’m on a beach, or close to one. It’s dark, and hot outside. My body trembles and my limbs shake remembering what happened to me moments before I went out.

Groaning, I try and sit up, but my hands are bound behind my back. Panic races through my limbs like a shot of electricity. I’m on the beach, the same beach the club has our family picnics. Only my family isn’t here, people who want to hurt me are. Looking the opposite way of the beach you can see the valley rolling in embers from the fires, it looks like I was placed in the pits of Hell.

I open my mouth to scream for help, but my lips are duct taped.

This can’t be happening. What’s going on?

Miss Louve steps into my view, a gun in her hand. Her black outlined eyes are squinted with a sense of cockiness, and big men with large muscles stand behind her in a defensive manner. They’re all wearing leather cuts. They’re from a motorcycle club? Is Miss Louve in a motorcycle club?

“Welcome back, princess.” Miss Louve’s sarcastic tone angers me. She put something in my drink, and fucking hit me. She set this whole thing up.

I mumble my hatred behind the adhesive, but it just gains me a chuckle from my abductor.

“Do you know who I am, yet? Has it hit your pretty little brain?” She shoves my head with her hand, and I moan in pain. I still feel sick from whatever she put in my drink. My stomach feeling as if I’ve done two hundred sit-ups.

“Louve means female wolf and this is my pack. We are the Lost Wolves.” She holds her hands out, and everything comes rushing into sense. The Lost Wolves were the club that delivered the drive-by when I was a kid, the same club looking for Zane.

“See, when little Boy Toy arrived at our school, I realized who he was very quickly.” She paces back and forth, tapping the pistol against her thigh. “He was a Devil, then you mentioned his name, and I realized he was more than a Devil. He was the motherfucker that shot my dad, nearly killing him, and put him in prison!” she screams, becoming hysterical. “Clubs don’t call the police, we handle it. That is code!”

My eyes water with unshed tears. We didn’t call the cops, someone on the beach did.

How could I be so naïve to think this woman wanted a friend in me.

She turns, yanking down the back of her dress and the tattoo of her club's colors claims every inch of her back. Closing my eyes, I scorn myself for not keeping my eye open like my mother always told me. My enemy was so close, and I never even suspected it.

“Easy there, she isn’t who we want, Louve.” A low dark voice sounds in the pack of men. Tears fall down my cheeks as I wait for the person belonging to the voice to step forward. The burly men step aside allowing a tall familiar man to come forth. He wears a black bandana around his head, his dark hair cut short, and an ugly scar mars the left side of his forehead. No hair is growing there, and the skin is several shades lighter than the rest of him.

He’s the man Zane shot in the head.

He’s the president of the Lost Wolves.

He’s Bender.

I suddenly feel sick all over again. He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die. I’ll never see my mom or Bobby again. I’ll never see Zane again.

“We want her man, her club. Not her.” He smiles at me, but I’m not smiling.

“She knows where my brother is, I know it,” Louve sneers. Her brother? Why in the world would I know where her brother is? Noticing my confusion, she hustles over to me and grabs me by the hair, strands snap in her grip and my head throbs.

“Where is Thad, you bitch? I know you did something,” she snarls in my face.

Oh my God, her brother is Mr. Thad. The principal. It makes so much sense now, they weren’t sleeping together, they were family. God, they were so opposite though. I can see Louve being biker with the way she dresses, but Thad… he dressed like a square.

Bender picks his pocket free of a cigarette he pops it between his cracked lips and lights it with a match. The smell of sulfur making my nose hurt more.

He inhales and flicks the burning match at my face.

It stings, causing me to wince and jerk free of the fire stick.

“Is that true, do you know where my son is?” Bender asks casually. My eyes sting with tears, my heart beating so fast I feel sick.

My knees are aching from the grainy sand digging into my knees, and my wrists burn from my restraints.

I shake my head no. I really don’t, but I know some people who do. God, I knew this wasn’t over. My gut told me Thad would be back to haunt me.

“She’s lying,” Louve screams, tears in her own eyes.

“You know my two kids did well for themselves, getting a job, moving forward with their life,” Bender rambles as I continue to shake.

I’m scared, more than ever but I have to believe my club will come for me. Zane will come for me. Then again, that’s exactly what these people want. Zane. What happens if he tries to come for me? They will surely kill him, and then probably me.

“I have her phone, want me to make the call?” Louve asks her dad, standing behind him. God, they look so much alike, it’s scary. She has those haunted eyes, how did I not see it before?

He rubs his chin and squats in front of me. His dark eyes looking right into my own. He’s so vile and intimidating, the rush of lava fills my chest urging me to look away.

“I don’t know. What do you think, Addie?” he sneers my name, and my nostrils flare. I don’t move a muscle in response. He’s trying to read me.

“I gotta say, I like this whole tape your mouth shut.” He chuckles before sliding a single finger over the shiny tape across my mouth. My knees wobble and I close my eyes. Tears dripping down my cheeks. “Oh, don’t cry now, baby girl. My men will treat ya real nice!” he rasps, and big fat men laugh behind him.

He stands and lifting his boot, kicks me over, not having to use much force as I’m weak. I drop against the ground, my shoulder slamming into the sand.

Louve laughs.

“She’s so pathetic.”

“Make the call,” her dad orders.

Louve has my phone and begins to dial.

I scream and kick my legs, trying to get her to stop. To just take me and call everything even.

Because without Zane in my life… it will be pointless and without direction. I’ve lived that life before, and can’t fathom the thought of it again.