2.

Gage a.k.a. Chaos

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I’m freaking right the hell out.

“Calm, brother.” Boss tries to settle me. “Are you sure you didn’t see her leave?” he asks Blue and Blaze.

“No. Swear,” Blue says as his shitty defense. “She never made her way out through the front.”

“That asshole’s still out there. Why would she leave?”

I think I might puke.

Levi comes running into the main room of the clubhouse where we’ve all gathered, hoping for information. He tries to get our attention. I’m too freaked to acknowledge him and in the confusion everyone else talks over him.

“I’ve tried her cell several times,” Elise, Boss’s old lady, tells the room while bouncing a fussy Gun, their baby boy, in her arms. “I knew she probably wouldn’t answer a call from you, Chaos, but I was hoping she’d take one from me.”

“Anyone reach Crass yet?” Boss asks.

“Just got through,” Blaze says. “He’s been with a lady friend, why he wasn’t answering his phone. Now he’s mobilized, out looking for Liv.”

Apparently done with being ignored, Levi puts his finger and thumb bent like a horseshoe in his mouth and whistles loud. All chatter stops. “The truck out by the access road is gone.” Levi, whom the men christened “Hero” when he patched in to the club after saving Elise from Houdini, taking him from recruit to full member—he’s a good brother. Trustworthy.

“We got the Illinois chapter checking out her condo or any other spots.” Duke, our president, joins the group. “Hero, Sneak, Carver, Sly and Blood.” 

Liv’s brother, my former best friend, Blood. We’d been best friends our whole lives until he found out about me and Liv. It pissed him off so much, he wouldn’t speak to me or her.

“…follow the trail from the access road,” Duke finishes. I’m sure he’s said some other shit in there, but I’m not able to keep my focus.

“Chaos. Boss—you stay here for now.”

“No. I need to be out looking.” Bullshit I’m staying behind when my woman is out there somewhere needing help.

I should’ve forced her to talk to someone, but she promised me she was fine. And if she ever stopped being fine, she’d tell me.

“You stay,” Duke orders. As our club president, his word is law.

“Duke, please, man,” I beg. Yes, beg. I’m not above it, not today. “What if it was Dawna out there? She needs me.”

“Exactly why your ass needs to stay here. You’re too close to the situation.”

“But you send Blood out?” I argue my point.

“Blood ain’t fucking her. There’s a huge difference between finding a sister and finding the woman you’re sticking your dick in. Makes a man lose his ever-loving mind. Remember Boss when he couldn’t find Elise?”

Boss doesn’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. He did go out of his mind when Elise went missing. When she took off on her own, and then when Houdini got her on their wedding day. That shit was bad. I thought I’d have to tranquilize the man.

“Love’s a fucking joke,” I mumble.

At the same time Elise turns to Boss. Hanging her head, she squeezes his arm. “Sorry, baby.”

“Water under the bridge, darlin’.” And even with a fussy baby in her arms, he cups the back of her head with his hand, drawing her closer. Boss kisses his woman deep, not caring that there’s a club full of men watching. He’s never cared when it comes to Elise. “Come on, boy,” he continues. “Quit givin’ your mama a hard time.”

Then Boss scoops Gun out of his wife’s arms. The boy just needed to be around other dicks—at least that’s how it seems as his fussing quiets the moment his daddy takes him.

“If love’s a joke, then maybe you’ll quit dicking around with my baby sister.” Blood tears my attention away from the happy couple. It’s the first he’s spoken directly to me since he found out about me and Liv ten—almost eleven—months ago.

“Fuck you, Blood. I’m sick of your shit. I’d think you’d be happy having a brother looking after her. Someone you know you can trust.”

“Yeah, real good looking out there, Chaos. She’s real safe, isn’t she?”

I don’t even think, not with my head at least. My fist cracks against his jaw, catching him off guard. Spittle flies from his mouth as his head jerks to the left.

He lunges for me, but his contact gets interrupted by Carver and Sneak.

“Everyone’s thrown off by this. Brothers fighting brothers ain’t no way to fix the situation,” Duke bellows. “Chaos, get your shit together or you’ll deal with me. Blood, quit antagonizing the man. He loves your sister and he’s right. You should be thanking your lucky stars she’s got a brother like Chaos in her bed. What if she took up with some asshat outside the life? You’d never know what she was into. Sneak, Scotch, you’re with me. Now, men, break.”

As insane as it makes me to have to stay behind, it feels good to see my brothers scramble.

Blue and Blaze make their way back out front to guard the gate. Until we promote our new recruits, as the newest brothers, the job stays with them. Elise walks over to me, her golden blonde hair swaying against her back. It’s gotten longer since she and Beau got back together. Most women tend to cut their hair once motherhood hits, but not Elise. Boss told her he likes it long, she let it grow long. It’s how those two work, always doing for the other. I thought that’s what Liv and I had.

Elise wraps both her arms around my shoulders, pulling me in for a hug. “We’ll find her, Chaos. They’ll bring her home, then you can get her some help. But don’t give up on her.”

“Give up? Girl, how could I? I’ve loved her my whole life. My whole fucking life. Only stayed away for Blood.”

“I know.”

“No. Only Boss and Duke really know what a man’ll do for the woman he loves. Something happens to her, I don’t know that I’ll want to go on breathing.”

“Don’t say that,” Elise reprimands. But what I tell her is the God’s honest truth. A world without Livvy isn’t a world I want to be a part of.

“Brother.” Boss shifts Gun from one arm to the other. “We’ll find her. She’ll be safe. You get her help, then put a ring on her finger just like I did with my beautiful wife.”

Then he turns to walk toward the hallway leading back to the member rooms. “Come on, lil’ dude. Got you some squishy drawers. Let’s rectify that.”

Elise sighs, love written all over her face. “Those two are my entire life.”

“He was born to be a daddy,” I offer, shoving my hands in my front pockets because I don’t have any idea what to do with myself, let alone my hands.

“You want it, you’ll have it. Just got to get Liv back to good.”

“I was trying. She promised if it got to be too much she’d talk to a therapist. Damn it. I’ve been trying so hard with her, Elise. So damn hard. What if… What if she doesn’t love me the way I love her?”

“No. I lived with Liv. She loves you. She’s just scrambled right now is all.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

“You will. I promise, Chaos, you will. Now…” She shoots me a sly smile. “I’m going to go help Beau with the baby.”

Yeah, “help Beau with the baby” would be code for change the kid, get him down for a nap and then fuck Boss’s brains out. We’ve all been privy to hearing her “help him with the baby” since they moved back into the compound. That’s the last fucking thing I need to be thinking about right now, seeing as before she took off, Liv and I hadn’t been intimate in a few weeks. I thought she backed off because she was hardly sleeping. But now I know it was her pulling away.

“God! I’m such a fucking idiot!” I yell into the empty common room.