We have to go to the hospital right now,” Abel yelled to me. I rolled out from under my truck, in the middle of an oil change.

“What happened?” I asked, putting my cut back on and wiping off as much of the grease from my hands as I could.

He was already in his truck with it running. “Just fucking get in.”

Once we were speeding off, Abel finally told me that Crickett had been in an accident.

“You need to call Raine,” he ordered.

I dialed over and over as her phone continued to go directly to voicemail.

“She never turns her phone off.” I threw my phone onto the dash, worried as fuck.

Abel barked at his phone, “Siri, call Collin Hellock.”

He answered on the first ring, his voice coming in through the truck speakers. “Yeah Pop?”

“Go to the house and check on your sister. Mom was in an accident and we can’t find Raine.”

“On it.”

“Meet us at the hospital with her.”

Click.

“Do you know how bad it was?” I asked. I was shaking. I hated not being able to get ahold of my wife, and knowing that Crickett was supposed to be with her was making me lose it.

“All I know is that Officer Crowley was first on the scene and he told me I needed to get my ass to her right away.”

Robert Crowley was one of the cops in our pocket. He had turned into a good friend of the club and helped us out when he could.

We made our way through the hallways of the hospital until we were finally in Crickett’s room. She had been knocked out in the crash, and her face was swollen with huge gashes on her forehead and chin.

Abel sank down on the foot of her bad, grasping her hand and sighing as he said, “Baby, I’m here.”

“Abel?” Her voice was weak as she tried to open her eyes. “Where’s Raine?”

Hearing her ask for Raine made me worry even more.

“We are looking for her, her phone is off,” he answered.

Crickett’s head fell to the side and Abel shook her gently. “You have to stay awake, sugar.”

The nurse came in to check on her. “Are you her husband?”

Abel stood and introduced himself. “Is she going to be all right?”

The nurse nodded, using a small flashlight to check Crickett’s pupils. “Your wife has a concussion and a few bruised ribs, but she’s going to pull through this fine. She’s going to be groggy and out of it, but she cannot fall asleep.”

“We’ll keep her awake,” I said as my father came into the room with Bear following closely.

Bear was the president of the Atlanta Unacceptables charter, a gruff beast of a man with a burly beard and a shaved bald head he always kept covered with a bandana. He took up the doorway as he entered.

“Abel, a word?” Bear asked before walking out to the hallway.

Holt and I stood at Crickett’s bedside. “Crickett? It’s Holt, honey.”

She tried to pick up her head with her eyes still closed. “Raine,” she slurred, “I need her…you need her.”

“Was Raine with you?”

Hearing my father ask my mother-in-law if my wife had been in the car made my entire body go into a near panic, but I knew I had to keep calm on the outside. I couldn’t let the guys know how fucking terrified I was.

“We were coming to see you.” Crickett slurred.

“Who is we? Was Raine with you?”

“The baby. We were going to tell you. Raine, so excited.”Crickett’s head rolled to the side. She kept mumbling but we couldn’t make out what she was trying to tell us.

Abel and Bear came back into the room and Collin was with them. That’s when I knew my fears were turning into reality—my wife was fucking missing.

“Raine was with Crickett. She’s fucking missing!” I yelled at Abel.

He pursed his lips and nodded. “I know. We’re going to the bar. Collin is going to stay here.” Abel’s voice was stern.

* * *

“How do you fucking expect me to react when you tell me my wife has been kidnapped and we have no fucking clue who would do it?” I heaved the large desk in front of me over in the small office as my dad, Bear, and Abel stood next to me. I still hadn’t figured out how to explain to Abel that my panic was not just because Raine was gone, but that I was freaking out because no one fucking knew she was pregnant. It added a whole other level to the whole fucking thing and I was keeping my damn mouth shut. It also wasn’t helping that I could feel that all three of them knew details that I didn’t. Usually being the low man on the totem pole didn’t bother me too much, but right in that moment I hating the secrecy that was lingering in the room.

“We will find her,” Abel growled.

Holt grabbed my arm, pulling me through into the room where the rest of my club was gathered. “I am going to fucking kill them. Whoever the fuck they are, they are dead men walking.” I was in a rage.

“I have men working on this.” Bear was standing in the corner being as vague as humanly possible.

“Who?” I asked.

Abel put his hand in the air. “We have good men doing their jobs to get your wife home. That is all you need to know.”

With that he asked Holt and I to leave the office. I didn’t want to but my dad pulled me out the door.

“You need to put a little faith in Abel and Bear.” My dad growled at me low enough that only I could hear him.

“I don’t know how to do that right now when I know that they aren’t telling me everything.” I snapped.

“Then fucking fake it, kid. Those two men are the only ones that will be able to get your girl home. Do not fucking piss them off or make this worse.”

My dad’s advice was solid and true. I did need to stop acting like a raging lunatic. It wasn’t going to help the situation at all.

Bear and Abel stayed in the office for a few minutes talking. I paced, digging a pack of smokes out of my pocket. I didn’t give a fuck that I wasn’t supposed to smoke in the bar; it was happening. As I puffed away, I tried to ignore the chatter of the guys all trying to talk the situation out.

“The fucking Sinners are going to pay. They have to be behind this,” Trent Laurence’s ignorant ass muttered next to me. Out of all of the Unacceptables, Trent was my least favorite. It all started when Raine and I first started dating and he hit on her constantly.

“The Sinners aren’t stupid enough to fuck with us like this again,” I barked, remembering the night we made it a point to let them know never to mess with our family. Yes, they wanted revenge from it, but too much time had passed and this was too sophisticated of a move for just them to have pulled off.

Bear and Abel finally joined us, and Abel walked into the middle of the crowd. “Everyone, get your families here now. We need to make sure we’re all accounted for. No one goes anywhere alone or without my permission until further notice.”

Everyone started to make calls and went to gather up their loved ones. Holt, Abel, Bear, and I all took seats at the table.

“Please tell me we have some sort of lead,” I pleaded, putting out my cigarette on the underside of my boot.

“We think we might,” Bear replied. “I had a problem with a few shipments not too long ago, right when the Sinners started giving you guys issues a few months back. I have a feeling it’s all related.”

Abel continued to explain the situation as I tuned out. I didn’t care about the politics or the fact that Abel and Bear were dealing with club issues. All I could focus on was getting Raine home safely.

I stopped him midsentence. “Get to the part where you explain why they fucking took my wife.”

Abel locked eyes with me. “Because of me.” He worked his jaw for a few seconds before continuing, “I made a bad call a little while back, and it didn’t just affect us here—the shockwave made it all the way south.”

“Care to elaborate on that?” I growled.

My father looked at me. “We got our hands on some cocaine and heroin, seemed clean enough and was going to turn a nice profit for all the players involved. The Sinners were low men on the totem pole teaming up with a group of Pagans, and we scooped it out from under them.”

“This is all because we stole some fucking drugs from those scumbags?” I was ready to kill Abel and Holt right on the spot. White knuckling the edge of the table, I tried to calm myself down.

Bear’s words broke through my murderous thoughts. “There’s a warehouse not far from here and we think they might have taken her there. It’s a few hours south.”

“Why the fuck are we still sitting here then?” I screamed.

Abel held his hand up to me; his calmness was making everything worse. It was his fucking fault we were in this damn mess in the first place. Why wasn’t he reacting faster and with more force? “We can’t risk being wrong and them knowing we’re onto them. We can’t go in halfcocked, guns blazing, and lose men on a wild goose chase.”

“All I know is that my wife is out there somewhere. She’s scared, hurt, and God knows what they are doing to her.” I didn’t want to think of the worst, but it was the only thing on my mind. “You know what scumbags do to women like Raine.”

Abel flew up to his feet. “Don’t fucking think for one second that you want to find her any more than I do or that I don’t want all of their heads on stakes. I am going to get my daughter back come hell or fucking high water if it is the last thing I do on this damn earth.”

I leapt from my chair, throwing it across the room. “Then start fucking doing something because Raine is pregnant and it’s not like we have time to waste here.”

They all stared at me and Abel collapsed back in his chair. “What?” he finally choked out. “She’s what?”

“It’s early, and we just found out, but…Raine is pregnant.”

Abel’s hands were shaking as his face turned bright red. He got up from his chair, his fists clenched. He stared directly into my eyes. “Mark my words,” his chest heaved with each word, “she is going to come home. We will save her and my grandchild.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Then let’s get this fucking show on the damn road and give these men a fucking run for their money.”

Wrapping his arms around me, my father-in-law gripped me with all his might. “I am so sorry this happened. I promise that everything is going to be all right in the end.”

I knew that his words were just empty promises, but for some reason I believed them. I knew that Abel would get Raine home safely or die trying.