Chapter Three
Knox
Grace liked to pretend she was tough. She had this fantasy running through her head that she could stand up to somebody like me. But within seconds of her insisting there was no way she'd ride with me, she was on my bike – my extra helmet covering that pretty blonde head of hers. Her body was pressed tightly against mine, her hands wrapped around my waist so hard I thought she might cut off circulation to areas just below my belt. And she was shaking like a tree in a strong wind.
She was terrified, and, not wanting to freak her out any more than she already was, I took it easy for her.
She held on to me tightly – her small, delicate hands were pressed against the front of my shirt, her perfectly manicured nails digging as she held on to my stomach for dear life. Her firm, perky breasts were pushed up against me too – something I couldn't stop thinking about as we rocketed down the road to the clubhouse.
The reason for her coming along was simple – she couldn't call the cops. And I couldn't trust her to not call the cops if I left her alone. As long as I had her phone and she was with me, I could be certain that the cops weren't going to get involved. The police in Blackburn were always on our ass as it was – and with a new deal going down, that was the absolute last thing we needed now. Whenever anything bad happened in Blackburn, the police looked to us first. Probably for good reason, but it was still annoying as fuck.
I cared about the boy's well-being – I wasn't a completely heartless prick. But as the president of the True Outlaws, I had to think of my guys first. I had to make sure the club business got handled before anything else. It was expected of me – and it was a duty I took really fuckin' seriously.
We pulled into the parking lot outside the clubhouse, the growling of our engines dying down as we shut our bikes off.
I turned to Grace and asked, “Do you need help?”
“I got it,” she said, staring at me, her chin raised defiantly.
Oh yeah, she was a feisty one. But as she stood up, her legs wobbled and it was clear she didn't, in fact, have it. She stumbled, and I caught her by the arm, holding her up and helping her climb off the back of the bike. She looked at me with a grimace.
“I told you I had it,” she said, stumbling a bit even as she stood flat on the ground now.
“Of course you did.” I winked at her, which only seemed to piss her off even more.
Stubborn, proud, and feisty as hell – what a woman.
Shaking her head, Grace pulled off the helmet and shook her head, letting her hair fall loose from the bun she normally kept it in. Silky strawberry waves fell around her face, with part of her hair still pulled back. Reaching behind her head, she yanked out a few bobby pins and the rest of her thick hair fell down her back, unspooling itself until it fell almost the whole way down to her ass. She ran a hand through it, removing some knots while cursing under her breath.
“Can I have my phone back now? I need to call the cops,” she said.
“No. I'm not giving your phone back to you,” I said. “I told you – the guys and I will handle it. So, let us handle it.”
“You?” she spat. “A bunch of outlaws are going to find a missing boy? What do you know about missing kids and how to find them? The cops are trained for this sort of thing – you're not.”
“We know that the cops in this town are crooked and are incapable of doing shit,” I said. “Especially if it pertains to me or my family. They take joy in watching the Sheppards suffer. Have ever since I was a kid. They get off on our misery and they do anything they can, whenever they can, to cut us off at the knees and undermine us – even when it comes to our kids.”
Rolling her eyes, she looked at me, and in an annoyingly condescending voice said, “I'm sure they'd help an innocent boy.”
“Just like they helped my brother Curtis when his foster daddy was molesting him every night?” Knox asked, eyebrows cocked. “Because trust me, they knew all about that – and chose to look the other way. Chose to let it continue and to not rock the boat. And all because Max Hubert was an upstanding citizen and the Sheppards are the scum of the earth.”
Her mouth was agape and she stared at me, wide eyed. “Your brother was – and you were willing to let your nephew –”
“Because I knew you'd take care of him,” I said with a shrug. “You're not like the social workers we had as kids. You actually seemed to care. Which meant that you would have moved mountains to get him in with a good family – and well away from me.”
She looked flattered and her cheeks turned a nice shade of pink for a moment, right before she continued.
“But these can’t all be the same cops that let all that happen so many years ago?” she said.
“Trust me sweetheart, things in this town don’t change like they do in the big city. Same sheriff, same shitshow,’ I told her.
Of course Grace would want to call the cops. I wasn't shocked that was her first reaction. That's what normal, law-abiding citizens do. She was a social worker – a civil servant--, and to her, the police were there to protect and serve. She really was a sheltered woman who didn't see the ugliness of the world for what it was.
And there was no way I was going to be able to convince her otherwise.
“Come on,” I said. “Come inside and we can talk. Believe it or not, we have better resources than any police station in Tennessee. If Liam is out there to be found, we're going to find him.”
She side-eyed me with a look of disbelief painted clearly upon her face.
“You know who we are, right?” I asked.
She nodded.
“So, does everyone else in this town,” I said, scratching my beard. “And once word gets out that my nephew is missing, we'll get the boy back because believe me, nobody is going to want to end up on our bad side. Give it a matter of hours and –”
“Hours?” Her voice outraged, she shook her head and stomped off down the driveway. But I knew she wouldn't get far.
“Liam could be dead in hours.”
“Technically speaking, he could be dead now,” Otis piped up.
Both Grace and I shot him a look, and he backed up, hands in the air. Otis and the other guys went inside, leaving Grace and I standing outside the clubhouse. I'd already told them what to do – to put the word out to any other True Outlaw members and some of our allies. People we could trust – unlike the local police.
“The main road is five miles from here,” I called out to Grace. “And town is another ten miles from there.”
“I'll hitchhike,” she said, her voice firm, her expression defiant.
“Once you get on the main road, which like I said is –”
She stopped walking, and I saw her shoulders begin to shake. A sob broke free from her chest and the sound hit me like a punch to the gut.
Grace was crying.
Her legs wobbled a bit before she collapsed down onto her knees, tears rolling down her face and a gut-wrenching scream escaping that tiny, little body. Her head fell into her hands and her body heaved with the intensity of her fear and grief.
“Dammit,” I said.
I walked over to her and sat down beside her on the road. She didn't even look at me, she just continued crying.
“He's gonna be alright,” I said, staring at her tear-soaked face
“How can you know that?” she cried. “I've seen some horrible things in this world, and I know what humans are capable of doing to each other – and someone has Liam.”
“You really care about him, don't you?”
“I care about all the children I work with.”
“But he's extra special to you, ain't he?” I asked, oddly moved by her devotion to him. “That's why you drove all this way to talk to me. You went the extra mile to help that little boy, didn't you?”
“And then I lost him,” she whimpered. “I wasn't even supposed to have him today, and I lost him. He's gone now, all because of me.”
“All because you cared about him and wanted to put him in the best possible situation,” I said. “Not many social workers would go above and beyond like that. And trust me, I've gotten to know plenty of them in my lifetime.”
She looked over at me, her eyes wet with fresh tears and a small, uncertain smile on her face.
“Please, Knox. You need to let me call the cops. I need to find Liam. We need all the help we can get. Surely, you realize that, don't you?”
She could scream and cry all she wanted out there – there wasn't a soul around except the other Outlaws in the clubhouse. There was no way I could let her call the cops. No way.
“We'll find the boy,” I said.
“Like you even care about him,” she spat, her fear turning to anger.
That one hurt. It hit me right in the heart, but I deserved it. “I do care. I care enough to know he deserves better than me as a guardian,” I said.
I looked over at her, saw the tears in her eyes and the frightened look on her delicate face. She really loved that boy. Putting an arm around her, I pulled her close to let her cry on my shoulder, and when she did, I stroked her hair.
“We'll find the boy,” I said. “I'll guarantee it, Grace.”
Whether she believed me or not, it was hard to tell. Her face was buried in my shirt, and she collapsed into me almost entirely, her body melting against mine, shaking with her heavy sobs.
As she cried and I did my best to comfort her, a cold chill wormed its way up my spine. I'd made the guarantee that we'd find the boy, but I honestly had no idea if I'd be able to uphold that pledge.