Jake’s at my house, he’s sitting on his bike and his head is hung low. A smoke draped from his lips. He sees me pull up, stands, and nods his head. I know why he’s here. Even if it’s his father, I’m his brother. I’m more loyal to him than anyone he knows. I have killed for him, lied for him.
“They know,” he says and my spine chills.
“When?” I ask.
“They won’t say, just that it’s soon.” He flicks the butt of his smoke and watches it roll away. “He knows you’re protecting her and he doesn’t care. He says she’s his.”
“She’s mine,” I growl. He places his hands up in surrender.
“I know, brother.” He lets his hands drop slowly. “They won’t tell me anything else, they know I’ll tell you.”
“I will kill them, Jake,” I tell him, he must know that I will. I will take his father’s life.
“I know.”
“You plan to get retribution after?”
“I won’t, the club will.” I nod my head. “Run, Black, take her and run. You’ll be a dead man walking if you stop it from happening. Your head will be number one on the hit list.”
“She won’t leave.”
“Why?”
“Her daughter’s here.”
“Fucking hell.” He shakes his head. “I want you to know that I love ya, man,” he says his final goodbye as he climbs on his bike and starts it.
I go to the house, pack a bag and call her cell. It’s late and she has work in the morning. I know she’ll be in bed, snuggled up to her one hundred pillows. But I have to hear her voice first.
“Liam?” She yawns into the phone.
“I’m coming over,” I say then hang up.
The house lights are off when I enter, the front door closed and locked. I don’t bother knocking, she knows I’m coming. I use the spare key and unlock the front door. A smell hits me when I do, and it’s a smell I know only too well. Blood.
I flick the lights on, see broken glass covering the floor. The back window is broken, blood is splattered onto the kitchen bench and on the floor. I spoke to her not even an hour ago. They couldn’t have gotten far.
Car tracks are what I find, footsteps as well—bloody footsteps. I run inside, completely forgetting about Hayden. I flick his bedroom light on, but he isn’t here. My heart rate picks up, did they take him too? I ring Casey. It’s late, so she doesn’t answer, but Sax does, and he does not sound happy.
“I need your help,” I say, hoping I got him.
“Man, Hayden is asleep, the girl is asleep. What you want?” he whines into the phone. I calm just a fraction knowing Hayden is there safe and not here.
“They took her.”
“Wait for me, I’m coming,” he says, and I hear his shuffling around. I don’t have time for this.
“No, wait for me. I’ll text you the address,” he says into the phone, and I know he agrees and I hang up.
My phone dings, and it’s from and unknown number. The message, though, is a picture of Rose with a band tied around her arm. Parts of her blonde hair red with blood.
The message reads, ‘Say goodbye.’ A chill runs up my spine. They have her, and the picture of the surroundings does not look familiar.
I’m strapped, I have a holster attached to my chest, a gun on each side and a rifle in hand. I drive to the clubhouse, the one I’ve frequented since I was sixteen. The one I learned everything from. The house now, it looks as shit as it is. Not somewhere I used to practice shooting at, not somewhere I meet my best friend. No, this place is anything but. It’s a living hell that I’m about to burn down.
The place is empty, or so it seems. I grab the gasoline from the back of my truck. Moving upstairs first to where they kept the girls, none are there. It’s empty. I pour gasoline over the floor, the floor where I first saw her again after ten years. I pour it all down the stairs and into the main house. As I walk out the back I see a figure, but it’s not moving.
I don’t want to go out there, it could be a trap. So instead I light the son of a bitch house on fire. I watch as it burns, the fire lighting up the night sky. Then I hear a moan… I know that sound.
Legs run fast as I reach the end of the yard I see that the figure is strapped down by barbwire and underneath it is Jake. The barbwire slitting his mouth open, every time he moves it slices in deeper.
I manage to get it free from his mouth, cutting him even more in the process. He doesn’t scream. His face just looks like agony. I don’t wait for him to speak, I immediately start freeing his hands and feet. He’s completely naked, the wire digging into all parts of his skin and cutting him everywhere. His nipple is bleeding the most, his nipple ring is missing, torn away.
“Where are they, Jake?” I ask once he’s totally free. He struggles to speak, his mouth filling with blood. His lips bleeding.
“Don’t know,” he manages to say as he sits up, wincing as he does.
“I don’t have time for this. I’ll call someone.” I go to walk off, but his hand reaches out and catches my boot.
“He worked it out… he knows you know,” he spits again. I don’t bother replying as I call Sax and tell him to get Jake. Jake has the resources I don’t for helping people. I have skills in other areas, bad areas.
I end up at the one place I should never enter, the one place that would be more than happy to see me locked up behind bars. Robbie looks up at me as I enter, he sits behind his desk on the phone. He looks to me then around the room as I walk directly to him. He seems shocked, his hand on his weapon.
“Why are you here?” he asks, panicked. He must know a lot about me.
“I need you to search someone, I need to know about previous addresses, owned properties etcetera,” I say. He looks at me like what I’m saying is false.
“Why?”
“It’s to do with Rose.” He straightens up and looks around.
“Is she in trouble?”
“Yes, don’t ask for more. Just give me what I need.”
“It will take time, I don’t have that info on hand.” I hand him the Pres’s name and he looks at it with suspicion.
“This man is the president of a motorcycle club?”
No shit, Sherlock.
“How long?”
“Is she in trouble with these men?”
“How long?” I ask again.
“Give me a few hours.” He nods his head and starts tapping on his computer. I walk out, trying to recall every place I’ve been to with them, or done jobs for them. I know of two other properties.
The first is empty, no one is there.
The second holds a surprise, just not one I’m interested in. It holds his two members bodies, the ones I killed. I hear ticking, and when I follow it, it’s an alarm. It has ten seconds left on it. I realize what it is and run, but my legs don’t carry me fast enough as I get blasted from the door. My back lands with force into the fence at the front. The wind is knocked out of me. I struggle to breathe, which gives the person watching me a perfect opportunity to knock me when I’m down.
It’s another member, one I’ve had drinks with. One that was one of Jake’s friend. Anger takes over, thinking what kind of brotherhood this is. Torturing one of their own, a brother, a son to the club.
He kicks me hard, his boots encased with steel. It knocks me forward, sending me to my hands and knees. He laughs, then kicks me again, breaking a rib. I hear it crack in my rib cage, which drops me entirely to the ground.
He goads me, saying what I piece of shit I am, that I shouldn’t have been allowed into club business to begin with. While he talks my breath returns. I move slightly, enough to grab my knife strapped to my wrist. He goes to kick me again, and he connects, but so does my knife stabbing him straight into his leg. He screams as the pain shoots through him, hopping backward, away from me. He doesn’t walk fast enough as I manage to stand.
He notices I hold my ribs, hoping the pain will ease. It slowly does as I think of who they have and what I will do to keep her safe.
“Where is she?” One step closer. He hops back another step, and the pain shoots through me as I take another step. He shakes his head no, he won’t give me what I want. I will just have to make him.