CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Knight
“Where the fuck is my little girl?!” Brass roared as he stomped through the clubhouse.
This was on me. I should have seen it a fucking mile away but I was too wrapped up in my shit to take a step back and pay attention to the world around me. Replaying it all now only made me angrier with myself as the seconds ticked on. Seconds that went by without her by my side. Seconds that stretched out the longer we tried to search for something. At this point, I would have taken anything, just a little breadcrumb that might lead me to her.
“Knight!” Brass barked over all the commotion of the room.
Every single one of us was on alert, half of the brothers out pounding the pavement looking for her. While the other half were ready to go at a seconds notice.
“Brass,” I called out as I made my way to him.
I was angry with myself and put the blame on my shoulders. I didn’t want to face the man because I knew he was thinking the same thing. And to be honest, who wouldn’t? But with that said, I was no coward. I’d come out and face him because I was a fucking man.
“I need answers.” I didn’t miss the shakiness in his tone.
“Working on it,” I said and all I wanted to do was put my hand on his shoulder. I wanted to comfort him like I knew we both needed at that moment. But I didn’t dare because I had no doubt that he’d rip the damn thing off. “Headed to Cable’s room.” I motioned with my head for him to follow me.
After talking to Dale, I headed back to the compound and straight to Cable. Armed with the knowledge of who had Gwen, he began frantically searching. While we’d been gone I knew he was trying to find out anything on the crazy bitch, but seemed to be coming up empty-handed. I had only headed back down to the clubhouse to fill in Iron and take a breath. Standing in that room not being able to do anything was driving me insane.
I was ready to snap and I didn’t have the first clue on how to calm myself down.
Fuck!
I’d fucked up in the biggest way ever.
And now Gwen was paying the price. Again.
“A car matching the make and model of Tara’s car was seen on one of the traffic cams turning onto Fifth Street from Church Street. Called Charming and Banger because they were the closest. Time stamp was over an hour ago, but it’s something,” Cable said the moment we pushed through his door without so much as a knock of warning. “I couldn’t see who was in the car though, so I’m not sure if it was hers or not.”
“What do you have on her?” I asked.
Ky and B-ry pushed their way into the room but I didn’t move out of the way.
“Not a whole lot, man.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Tara Mallard, age twenty. Enrolled in UNCW. Address listed on her license is for a place in Georgia. House is owned by her parents. Going back, it looks like she was born and raised in southern Florida until age fifteen. Then her parents moved to Texas. They were only there a year before moving to Kansas. Then fourteen months after that, moved to Georgia.”
Why would they have moved so much in such a short time? It seemed odd to me especially since they had stayed in one place for so long. The weird feeling turning in my gut made it hard to breathe. What was it that we were missing?
“A couple of police reports popped up but they are sealed so it will take me a little while to get into them.”
“Keep working. I need something now, Cable,” I said, the tension thick in my tone. I knew I didn’t need to tell him that it was urgent as fuck, but I still had to put the pressure on.
“Call Lucy,” Ky said from behind me.
“Can’t,” Cable said, his fingers still flying across his keyboard as his eyes remained glued to his computer screen. “She’s on her honeymoon in Greece and ‘unreachable’ for the next two more weeks, or so she told me.”
“Great,” I grumbled. “Down a hacker as well as the man to take care of the body. Well, fuck!”
Lucy was the best hacker we knew. We had some good ones in the club, but she put them all to shame at times. Her best friend was now the old lady of Axe at the Moon Hill chapter. So, therefore, Lucy was a close associate of the club and often helped us out when needed.
Not to mention, she was the one that vouched for Cable.
To say that we really could have used her help on this was a huge understatement. But it looked like we were on our own and time was fucking ticking away. And what was I doing? Standing around with my goddamn thumb up my ass.
“I…” My hand raked through my hair with frustration. “I have to get her back.”
I didn’t speak those words to anyone in particular. I didn’t think I even meant to say them out loud.
“Wait! Shit,” Cable said suddenly. “Why didn’t I think of this before?” he mumbled under his breath as he searched for something.
The room was dead still as we waited to hear what he’d found. The only sound was the click click click of the keys and with every one, my muscles twitched with a tense anticipation.
“I couldn’t find any other properties rented or owned by the parents, but I didn’t think to look under her father’s company. They seem to be well off. The mother is old money and the father owns his own law firm.”
I tried to see where he was going with this. I imagined if they had money then they could cover their tracks well and bury anything and everything they might need to. Like Tara being an insane, crazy as fuck cunt. Yeah, I said it. She threatened the woman I love, she wasn’t going to get off easy.
The thing that bothered me was what was it exactly we were missing. With there being sealed police reports and all the moving, something wasn’t adding up.
“Okay.”
As he spoke I saw him pulling up blueprints for a building. How the fuck he could do all this and so quickly, was beyond my comprehension, but I was fucking thankful for it.
He spouted off an address on the other side of town. As he did so, he pointed out what floor the apartment was on the blueprints and where it was located on that floor. Then he brought up the layout of the apartment. I pulled out my phone and took a screenshot just in case we might need it when we got there.
It was a simple floor plan. Kitchen, living room-slash-dining room area, a bedroom, and a bathroom.
Then my feet were moving. I was half tempted to jump over the balcony rail to get to my bike faster. Feet pounded on the cement stairs behind me with the same sense of urgency I had.
“Ky,” I barked as I mounted my bike. “Tell Iron. Then meet us over there. Grab who you can to follow you.”
He nodded, his feet already moving in the direction of the common area before I even finished shouting my order. I looked over at Brass and saw the same emotions filling his face that I had in mine.
“My little girl,” he said with a strained sigh.
“My love,” I said with the same understanding of how much she meant to him.
He gave me a nod and we were off, with me leading the way. Brass, B-ry, and I sped through town, making it in a third of the time it would have normally taken.
I hopped off my bike and pulled my gun from the back of my waistband. I checked the clip as Brass and B-ry did the same.
Forgoing the elevator because I was sure I could make it up the stairs faster, I ran like hell, skipping every other step. At the door to the seventh floor, I scanned the area. There wasn’t a soul around and I felt an eerie shutter make its way through my body. I walked as calmly and quietly to the door as possible. I was a big guy, but I knew how to make my steps light when needed.
With my ear against the door, I listened for any signs of life. It was quiet. Too fucking quiet.
They weren’t there. I could feel it in my gut. This was a fucking dead end.
I looked over at Brass and shook my head with a jerk. Then I kicked the door in without a second thought. Guns raised, we cleared every room in the apartment in the matter of a couple of minutes. I was right. It was empty.
“No!” I roared as I grabbed the closest thing, which happened to be a huge glass vase, and threw it against the wall. “Fuck!” I yelled as I pushed over a skinny bookshelf that held a bunch of cheap knickknacks. I knew the commotion wouldn’t go unnoticed and I wouldn’t deny that it was foolish and stupid.
I wasn’t proud of how I acted but I had to get the frustration out somehow. I felt fucking helpless right then.
Brass’ heavy hand landed on my shoulder, then he was pulling me in for a tight hug. I didn’t resist even a little as I wrapped my arms around his big frame. We needed each other’s strength right then, and there I was, falling the fuck apart.
“Guys,” B-ry called out from the bedroom just as Ky, Mouse, Lake, and a bunch of other brothers filed in through the broken door.
I straightened and headed to the bedroom.
“Look at this,” B-ry said tossing a bunch of pictures on the bed.
I saw him thumbing through some sort of journal as I moved to pick up a handful of the pictures. Ones of Gwen.
It was like I was living in some sort of stalker-serial killer movie. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been. There was no way that I missed all of this—that we all fucking had.
Pictures of Gwen taken from strange angles. It was obvious the shots had been taken without Gwen’s knowledge.
“Christ,” Mouse said as he held out a handful of darker photos. “Isn’t this from that night…” His words trailed off as I snatched one out of his hand.
It was obvious it was that night because Gwen was still wearing more makeup than normal and her hair was done up the same way it had been when she stormed out of the apartment. The night that Tara and Gwen went out. The night Gwen came home completely fucked up. Gwen was passed out on her bed, her clothes gone, only her bra and thong covering her, and her unconscious body sprawled out on top of the comforter.
It all clicked into place. The next morning she’d been wrapped up tight in the blankets, I couldn’t see anything but the top of her head. I wondered why she hadn’t said anything. But then again, she was too busy pushing me away. Telling me how much I’d hurt her. Explaining to me how our friendship would never work. I knew her well enough to know that she probably blamed herself, even if she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten that way.
The pictures slipped from my fingers as I folded over, my hands landing on my knees. I dry heaved, the feeling of whatever I had in my stomach trying its best to force itself up my throat.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brass’ boots make their way to where I was. The last thing he needed was to see those, to see his little girl like that.
“No. Don’t.” I straightened too fast and my head felt dizzy. Without taking a moment to regain myself, I pushed my body in front of his to stop him. My hand landed on his chest, firm but not pushing. “Don’t.” My soft tone conveyed all the things I couldn’t say.
Rage filled his eyes as his face turned bright red. He didn’t have to see them to understand that it was really fucking bad.
“Go through everything,” I growled. “Turn this place inside out. There has to be something—some fucking clue as to where she took Gwen.”
They all scattered. I knew we had to work quickly because there was a small chance that one of the neighbors had called the cops upon hearing all the commotion. And I couldn’t even take a chance that we would be lucky enough to get Connor on this call.
Shit.
Maybe I should call him in on this.
I knew I’d have to run it by Iron and it just wasn’t something I could stop and do right then. Every second counted and all I could think was that there had to be something here to give us a clue.
My shaky hand tore open drawers and rifled through clothes not giving a fuck what kind of mess I was leaving in my wake. There had to be at least ten of us here and if there was a clue or an answer, we were going to find it.
“There are pages and pages written in here,” B-ry said and I didn’t have to turn my head to know that he was still looking at the journal. “Everything little thing is like…documented. This is fucking sick.”
I couldn’t agree with him more. It was, and now my Gwen was paying the price. I almost asked what it specifically said but as I thought better of it, I kept my mouth closed and kept moving along. If I knew what was in there I might break. If it said anything about the things she planned to do to Gwen, I just might fucking lose it.
I heard him thumb through the pages at a fast rate and I knew he’d given up on reading it in detail. It must have been that bad. Then the heavy thump of it hitting the desk next to him signaled that he hadn’t found anything.
“Hey,” Lake called making my head whip in his direction. “Look at this.”
He handed over a photo from the massive pile on the bed. I don’t know how he stomached looking through all that shit. I grabbed it with much hesitation because I wasn’t sure if I could handle seeing what he might have found.
“There’s more.” He continued to pass them on after he’d gotten a good look at them.
Each picture was of a different angle of some abandoned building. Only it was all shots of the inside of the place. My eyes squinted, trying to pull something out of them that would give me a clue as to where it was. These pictures were void of Gwen, which made me think that they had to have been taken with purpose.
The photos had a darkness to them, making it hard to make out anything in the background. They were the kind of shots that could have been called art and lined the walls in some gallery. They oddly captured the depressed, abandoned building perfectly. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn they were taken by someone who knew what they were doing, and not some psychopath scoping out a place to bring their sick fantasies to life.
“Hold up,” Sketch said in my ear, his head practically resting on my shoulder. His hand moved around me to snatch one of the pictures I’d been holding.
“You know this?” I asked, my tone short and I hoped he understood that my anger and frustration wasn’t aimed at him.
“Murphy’s church,” he mumbled as he grabbed the stack of photos out of my hand and flipped through them. “I used to crash there from time to time.” His face held a dark, lost look as he talked.
I knew Sketch had been in and out of foster care in his youth. Some of those times while he was out, he lived on the streets. That was about as much as my knowledge of his past went but it didn’t really surprise me that he knew the place given his background.
“Down off of Seventh Street, behind that old school that’s been half demolished.” He was moving out of the room before he even finished spouting out the words.
I was vaguely aware of where he was talking about. Before we had our set up, I’d spent many hours driving the streets of this city trying to find a place for the club. The state of the school was something that wasn’t easily forgotten.
The only thing was, it was back on the other side of town. It was closer to the compound than where we were.
“I’ll call, Iron,” Fitz called out, stepping away from the doorway. I gave him an appreciative head jerk as I flew past him.
We filed out of the apartment with lightning speed. Once outside, I scanned the area. I didn’t see lights or hear sirens in the distance and I looked up and thanked my lucky stars for a fraction of a second before I hopped on my bike.
“Knight,” Brass called just before I took off. “This isn’t on you.” His eyes pinned me to make his point. I didn’t agree with him, but appreciated the words anyway. “Head in the fucking game. We are going to get her back.”
With that, he took off and I fell into line behind him. Sketch led the way because he knew exactly where the fuck we were going.
I just prayed we weren’t too late.
I needed hope.
I needed to see her smile again.
I needed to hear her tell me she was okay.