Nicole had woken up early with Liam and once he was fed and changed, he’d gone back to sleep. She tucked him back into his crib with a kiss and then checked on Stacey. She was still sleeping soundly in the small bedroom across from Nicole’s and Liam’s. They had stayed up late the night before watching movies, so Nicole wanted to let her sleep in. Liam would probably be down for a couple of hours too and since Nicole was wide awake, she decided to go for a run. After changing into her yoga pants and tank top, she left a note for Stacey, checked to make sure the baby was sleeping once more and, locking the door on her way out, she breathed in a lungful of the fresh Tennessee morning air. She heard the sound of a Harley and she thought she saw a flash of chrome out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked in that direction, she didn’t see anything. For a second, she rethought her run, but she reminded herself of two things: first, that Zack told her his brothers were watching, even though she hadn’t seen them. And second, that she wasn’t going to let Spider keep her a prisoner in her own home. She’d taken the policeman’s advice when she filed the restraining order and programmed the emergency number into her phone so that she’d only have to push one button if she needed them. He told her not to hesitate to call for help. The officer she spoke with had been part of the Memphis Gang Task Force and he knew Spider well. He made Nicole feel comfortable and he’d allowed her to rid herself of the last bit of hesitancy she’d had about getting the police involved.

She slipped on her headphones and tucked her cell phone into the small pocket in the front of her yoga pants and headed across the parking lot. When she got to the main street, she waited for the light and then jogged across to the entrance of the path that led through the large park that ran along the edge of the Mississippi. It was a well-populated place with many joggers, people out with their children, fishermen and houses and boats along the river. The normalcy of it alone gave her spirits a lift as she pounded along the path. A slight breeze was blowing and she smiled as it brushed across her skin and through her hair, and she thought about Zack. She was stunned by the kind of passion he brought out in her. The idea of masturbating in front of a man had never occurred to her, much less on video, but it had been incredibly hot. Everything with and about Zack was incredibly hot. She wished sometimes that was all she felt for him…passion. But it went deeper than that. She’d seen his heart and his spirit, and each time he let her in, she fell a little deeper, drowning in the feelings and loving every second of it.

She ran alongside the river until she came to the slightly wooded area of the path. There were trees and bushes and although it occurred to Nicole that it might not be a good idea for her to veer out of the more populated area, she was feeling confident and the sounds and smells of nature drew her in. She pulled off her headphones and reveled in the chirping of the birds in the trees and the chittering of small furry animals as she continued to jog. She was in her head and it was a pleasant place, until she was rudely and terrifyingly jolted out of it by slamming into a brick wall. The wall was leather and smelled like strong weed and old whiskey. Before Nicole even looked up to see Spider’s face, panic had attacked her system. She reached for her phone but Spider’s strong hand clamped down around her wrist. He squeezed it so tightly that she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear the bones snap.

“Hello, Nicky.”

“Let go of me!”

“Or what? You’ll bite me again?” He leaned down close to the side of her face. She could smell the beer he’d probably been drinking all night on his breath as he said, “If you ever bite me again, I’ll take out every one of your pretty teeth, one by one. Do you understand?” Nicole didn’t respond, so Spider reached for her ponytail and wrapped it around his fist, pulling so tightly that she thought he might rip out part of her scalp with it. In a low, menacing tone he said, “I asked you a question.”

“Yes. Fine. Let go of me, Spider.”

“You don’t tell me what to do. I tell you…” His words were cut off by a grunt, and Nicole screamed as she felt his full weight pull on her hair, tugging her down to the ground with him. All she saw was a steel-toed black boot as it mashed down on his wrist and he let go of her. He was grunting and cussing and she heard the crunch of bone as that same boot slammed into his ribs.

“Fuck!”

Nicole looked up into the brown eyes of Zack’s friend Hashtag. “Are you okay?” Hashtag asked her. Nicole nodded slowly, but as she listened to Spider cursing and rolling back and forth on the ground and no one came to help him, it dawned on her what was really happening. Spider knew Hashtag was watching her. He’d probably been waiting days for this opportunity. Fuck!

She looked up at Hashtag and said, “He’s alone!”

“As far as I know…”

“No!” She scrambled to her feet. “You don’t understand. Spider never goes anywhere alone. He always takes backup, especially if he knows that he’s likely to get into a fight. He lured you here.” She tried to begin running the opposite direction along the path again, back toward her apartment, but Hashtag stopped her with a strong hand on her shoulder.

“Wait, Nicole…”

“Let me go! You don’t understand. He didn’t come here for me. He came here for my baby.” Spider still sounded like he was in pain, but he chuckled through his wheezes.

“Not as stupid as you look.” Nicole suddenly felt like a house had been set down on her chest. The world around her spun and adrenaline once again surged through her. She felt Hashtag let go of her to turn around and kick Spider again.

“Shut the hell up!”

While Hashtag was distracted, Nicole took off running at full speed. She heard the big biker cuss and then his boots began to pound after her. Nicole burst through the opening of the wooded area back into the bright sunlight and kept running. Hashtag was weighted down by his heavy boots and riding gear, so she had a good head start. He was yelling at her to stop, but she ignored him. She didn’t stop when she came to the road and barely glanced to the right as she ran across it. The sound of a horn honking barely registered; still, she didn’t stop. She heard more horns honking just before she reached the front door, and the curses of Hashtag once again. The door was open as she pushed through, and she nearly stumbled over the prone form of her friend Stacey in the doorway. She was unconscious. As much as Nicole wanted to check on her friend, she needed confirmation that the real nightmare had just begun. She stepped over Stacey and ran to her bedroom. Liam’s crib was empty, as she knew it would be. She gripped onto the side of it and howled. The motherfucker had taken her baby…and now she was going to kill him.

* * *

“Where’s Spider?” Nicole stood over Stacey, tending to a cut on her friend’s head. She’d been hit with the butt of one of the Defender’s guns and probably had a concussion, but she was refusing to go to the hospital. Nicole had called the police and she was talking to Hashtag now. He was pacing the floor behind where Stacey sat, looking like he wanted to kill something.

“He was gone by the time I got back. I’m sorry, Nicole.”

She didn’t acknowledge his apology. She knew he felt bad and she knew she should reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, but she barely had the energy to tend to Stacey. All her energy was wrapped up in the thoughts in her head. It was taking all her willpower not to crumple into a ball in the corner and lose her mind. “He’s at the clubhouse,” she told Hashtag. “He won’t hide. He’ll sit there surrounded by his brothers and he’ll dare me to come in and get him. No one at the club will say a word about Spider taking Liam the way he did. They all think the same way he does, that Liam is one of his possessions.”

Hesitantly, Hashtag asked her, “How long did the police say they’d be?”

Nicole looked up at the clock over the mantle. It was only 8:30 a.m. She felt like time was standing still. “They said ten or fifteen minutes. It’s already been twenty. You should go, before they get here.”

Hashtag looked sick. “I’m sorry…I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Zack said to stay on you so that’s what we’ve been doing…”

“It’s not your fault,” Nicole finally told him. He was looking at her oddly, and so was Stacey. They were both surprised that she wasn’t falling apart. She was talking calmly and tending to Stacey like a nurse in the ER. Outwardly, she probably looked like she didn’t have a care in the world, but inside, she was completely shredded. She felt like someone had reached into her chest and taken out her beating heart and she’d die very soon if she didn’t get it back. But she knew that panic wasn’t going to help. She needed to keep her head while she spoke to the police. If she was hysterical, they might be less inclined to help her. She prayed that it would be as simple as telling them that Spider took her baby and they’d go get him, and take Spider to jail for violating the restraining order. Rationally she knew, however, that things would not be that simple. When Liam was born, Spider was her old man. They had a life together, or so she had still thought. His name was right there on the birth certificate next to hers and even now that they didn’t live together, that gave him just as much right to the baby as her.

“I should call Zack,” Hashtag said. Nicole nodded, feeling a slight pang of guilt in her chest. She hadn’t thought about Zack since this happened. She couldn’t focus on anything but Liam

“You should take off now like Nicole said, Hash. Things will just get more complicated if you’re here when the police get here.” He looked at Stacey. Nicole’s friend hadn’t said much since it happened, other than to apologize profusely the way Hash had. She smiled at him.

“You’re okay?” Hashtag asked her, and for the first time Nicole noticed that he looked at Stacey the way her friend looked at him, with a blossoming interest.

“I will be.” She smiled, then touched her fingers to the cut on her head. “It’s just a little bump.” Nicole sighed and shook her head. It was much more than a bump, it was a gash, and she wanted Stacey to go to the ER and see if she needed stitches, but she was refusing.

“Good,” he said. He looked back at Nicole and said, “I’ll stay out there until the cops get here, just to be sure.”

“Spider won’t be back today,” Nicole said. “He took what he wanted.”