The time seemed to tick by so fucking slowly. I kept telling myself it wouldn’t matter what Isiah did with her, that I would find her and that everything would be okay. But in reality, I just wanted to walk into his fucking nightclub and blow the goddamn place apart.

But instead, I had to hold my tongue and try and keep my calm.

We were in Vegas by 8:00 a.m. the next morning after sending a few boys down the strip to ask around, hoping someone would have seen Isiah since last night. Luckily, he’s a creature of habit and likes to make sure he’s in the building every morning to go over the figures from last night. Plus, that was his safe place, the place where he thought was impenetrable. Where he could do his deals and his fucking bullshit without being caught. He thought he had a hometown advantage, but we were about to destroy him on his own turf.

We just needed time.

The sound of Harley’s had both Romeo and me leaping out of our chairs and walking swiftly toward the double doors to outside. While we’d agreed that bringing my brothers in was a good idea, Huntsman wasn’t keen to create any more tension than needed by bringing them to the clubhouse. So we were meeting on more mutual turf—the place I met Huntsman for the first time with Romeo, the construction site and company headquarters just a few blocks away.

The Exiled Eight had come in force.

The doctors had recommended that Huntsman stayed in the hospital, but after twelve hours in recovery, serious lifesaving surgery and against doctor’s orders, he signed himself out and had just made it back.

Luckily, Diddit’s Old Lady was a nurse in Las Vegas so she was there with him, checking his vitals and making sure he took his meds since I’d already threatened once to have him tied to the bed so he couldn’t kill himself trying to save Meyah.

Standing outside, five motorcycles came rumbling down the makeshift road, creeping cautiously and dodging those fucking potholes. By the time they reached the building and pulled their rides to a halt, most of the Exiles had already made their way outside.

This was a strange situation, two clubs meeting and having to join forces without knowing anything about the other. It was hard to trust a man to have your back when you’d only known him a couple of hours, and he had no fucking loyalty to you whatsoever.

Fortunately, we all had one thing in common, which meant whether we were strangers or not, Meyah was family to us both, and we weren’t done until she was home safe.

The roar of the engines came to a stop, and the old ladies climbed out from behind their men, standing by their sides until they parked their borrowed rides and climbed off themselves.

There were a few moments of silence.

I didn’t know what to fucking say as I looked over at Leo, feeling like I’d fucking failed him—like I’d failed the entire club—by not protecting Meyah like I promised I would when I claimed her. I wanted to punch myself in the fucking face.

I could see the pain in his eyes, the way he scanned the men behind me.

I hadn’t been able to tell him much on the phone. This meeting itself was going to be a real test of how much my brothers trusted me because all I’d said was that Meyah had found her dad. He was a part of a club. And that Meyah had been taken.

“That’s enough,” Hadley finally snapped, pushing past Leo and jogging over to Romeo and me. She threw her arms around me, and I hugged her tight. “We’ll get her back,” she whispered in my ear before pulling back and pushing my hair back from my face, just like a mother would.

Chelsea, Rose, Skylar, and Sugar followed suit, hugging me close and reassuring me that everything would be okay before moving on to Romeo and doing the same—much to his annoyance and the amusement of the club behind me who knew him as this big bad wolf.

I took a deep breath and walked forward to meet my brothers. Standing in front of the men who had taken me in, shown me what it was like to have a family that had your back through anything and fucking everything.

My president, my vice president, my old lady’s uncle.

“You’re running this show,” Op told me when I just stood there in silence. Not sure what to say.

Sorry?

I fucked up.

Just wait for one of them to punch me in the face?

“We need to know the plan, kid,” Blizzard added. “And you’re gonna need to introduce us or something ‘cause I’m not feeling awfully fucking great about this situation right now.”

I looked over my shoulder, there were at least twenty-five men all watching us carefully. Cautiously.

“We’ve only got a few hours left, we need to get this shit right,” Romeo added, looking at me, pressing me to sort my shit out.

To get Meyah back.

That’s why we were all here. That’s why this awkward and possibly dangerous situation was happening right now, and that’s why we needed to all put our shit to the side and focus.

And that was up to me.

I looked at Leo, directly in the eye. He’d yet to speak, but I knew it was probably because if he did, there would be hell. “I’m gonna get her back even if it kills me.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he finally murmured. “Because if she doesn’t come back, I’m gonna want that job.”

Optimus smirked and shook his head. “Let’s hear the plan.”

“Huntsman, these are my brothers from Athens.”

Huntsman used a wheelchair inside the building, each of the men took a seat on the sofas that surrounded him while Ripley stood at his father’s side.

I made brief introductions and tried to make things as smooth as possible, but I was nervous as all fucking hell. The women stood behind their men, the hard looks on each of their faces enough to rival any biker in that place.

If the Exiles hadn’t realized yet, Meyah was cherished. Every single person in the club felt protective of her.

I took a deep breath and moved on to the point I was hoping would go smoothly. “Guys, this is Huntsman, Meyah’s dad. And Ripley, one of Meyah’s brothers.”

Huntsman nodded in greeting. “I apologize for not being able to get up and shake your hands, the fucking nurse threatened to strap me down if I tried to get out of this fucking thing. I appreciate you coming.”

“We heard what happened,” Optimus commented. “Sounds like you were pretty lucky.”

“Isiah is a fucking coward,” Huntsman growled. “All talk, all money, but afraid to get his hands dirty.”

“Who is this asshole, and what’s his problem? What does he want with Meyah?” Leo asked seriously, his hands curling into fists. Hadley placed her hand on his shoulder, rubbing gently.

Huntsman sat up straight, rolling his shoulders. “Isiah and I used to be close. He did business with the club, owned a small strip joint back then.”

I listened intently to the story, wanting to really understand what this asshole was about.

“Carly worked there for a while. I’d met her a couple times. Isiah had a thing for her, but she didn’t want to get involved, especially not with her boss.”

“Because he was a fucking psycho,” Blizzard muttered under his breath.

“I went round there one night, he was high on some shit, hassling her about going on a date with him. Things were already going south with the relationship between him and the club. We were heading into more legit, with a few deals on the side, and he was heading in the opposite direction, one that we wanted nothing to fucking do with.”

Trafficking people.

That was one thing you wouldn’t find very often with MC’s. They had too much respect for family, too much fucking pride to be selling someone’s daughter, knowing how they were going to be treated.

“So I offered Carly an out.”

“And knocked her up at the same time,” Leo added for good measure.

“While I was married,” Huntsman added on the top, his face serious. Not ashamed of what he’d done, but just throwing it all out there. “Which she realized when she came to the clubhouse to let me know she had to head home to Athens.”

“Jesus Christ,” Wrench groaned, shaking his head.

“I liked Carly. She was just out to live her life, a free, fucking spirit, always the first to want to take on life and find an adventure,” Huntsman talked fondly about Meyah’s mom, but I could see the confused looks from my brothers and their old ladies.

“Are we talking about the same Carly?” Rose threw out there, knowing we were all thinking the same thing.

Leo huffed out a breath. “Yeah, I remember her being a lot more laid back when I first started dating Kim. Things changed when she had Denver. I don’t know why.”

“Because I came back.” We all spun around to see Carly walk through the doors, tears streaming down her face. Huntsman was out of his chair, ignoring the nurse who was yelling at him to sit down.

She stood there, looking entirely broken, completely destroyed, as Huntsman hobbled toward her, his eyes narrowed.

“She’s eighteen, Carly. You didn’t think in the past eighteen years you could have sent a fucking letter? A note? Maybe a fucking telegram?” Huntsman growled. My brothers were out of their seats in seconds following, feeling the tension starting to rise.

“I came back,” she cried, sounding stronger than I’d ever seen her before, determination written all over on her face. “When Meyah was five, I came back. The club had moved, so I went to Isiah to try and find you. I didn’t know you weren’t friends. I didn’t know he’d seen what we did as some kind of betrayal.”

“You went to him…” Huntsman repeated in shock like he was trying not to think about what was coming next. Like in his gut, he knew. “What did he do?”

Carly sobbed. A couple of the women moved to comfort her, but their men grabbed them and pulled them back.

“Carly,” Leo spoke softly as he held tight to a quietly crying Hadley. It was like we could all feel her pain. “You need to tell us so we can fix it.”

She’d spent years and years dealing with this shit, and finally, it was coming out. There was no more trying to act brave, trying to keep her children in a nice little bubble of protection. All of that meant nothing now because once it was out there, it was out there.

Tears slipped down her face, her breathing erratic as she tried to find the words. Finally, she took a deep breath, stood a little taller and lifted her chin. Like she wasn’t going to let him break her again. Like saying the words weren’t going to bring her to her knees. “His men… they raped me.”

Huntsman was the first to move, not caring he was obviously in a lot of pain. He moved in, grabbing her face, whispering words to her, that even though I couldn’t hear them, were sending shivers down my fucking spine.

The rest of the room was quiet

I could tell we were all doing the math.

If Meyah was five…

Denver…

Jesus Christ.

The rage built up inside.

I wanted my woman back.

But I also wanted her to have her revenge on this man who seemed to have single-handedly both created their family and then pulled it to fucking shreds.

“We need to get this plan sorted,” Optimus finally said after a few minutes. He turned to look at me. “We need to get Meyah back. But now, we also need to get Carly what she needs.”

Carly looked up in confusion, but Huntsman turned to me, his eyes blazing. “We need Isiah alive.”

I took a deep breath, running my fingers through my hair and going over the details in my mind. “Okay, let’s see what we can do.” I looked over to Hadley who I’d spoken to on the phone about a few details on the part of the old ladies. “Did you manage to get what we need?”

Hadley’s face instantly lit up with a smile, and she looked down the line at the boys. “Ten-four rubber ducky.”

“Optimus?” I questioned with a raised brow.

He nodded. “Should be here within a couple hours.”

“Good, let’s get her back.”