Chapter 23
Luke
I hadn’t heard from Alexa all day. It was unlike her. Usually she called me at some point. I had thought it was because we were close friends before. Now I knew it was because she’d had a crush on me since forever.
That was a fucking ego boost all on its own.
I dialed her cell. It rang a couple times and rolled over to voice mail, where I got a fake-happy version of her asking me to leave a message.
Well, wasn’t that just great? I wanted to talk to her and I was bumped over to her machine.
I tried again. Maybe she’d just been away from her phone. That had to be it. I was being paranoid. She was fine, just away from her phone. She knew I worried about her, so she would get back to me as soon as possible. She cared about me.
I waited half an hour for her to call me back, but I heard nothing. I tried her one more time, but if I kept stacking up the missed calls on her cell, I would look like the paranoid idiot I was, and there was nothing sexy about a man who looked needy.
I wasn’t needy.
So I dialed her work number instead.
The phone rang for so long, I thought I would get her voice mail there, too. I was just about to slam down the receiver when someone answered.
“You’ve reached the accounts department at CadFin. This is Miss Starr’s phone. You’re speaking to Miranda Finley. How may I help you?”
“Yeah, I need to talk to Alexa, please.”
“She’s not in today,” Finley said.
“What?”
“Miss Starr called in sick this morning.”
I was suddenly furious. What the fuck was going on here?
“There has got to be a mistake,” I said. “Alexa went to work this morning.”
There was a pause on the line. “I’m sorry, sir, but she didn’t come in today. Can I take a message?”
I hung up the phone without gracing her with an answer. I was getting pissed off. Alexa knew it was dangerous out there. She’d been threatened with that note and she now knew that I followed her around for God’s sake. How much louder did the message need to be for her to know she was in shit? Now she’d disappeared and I had no fucking clue how I was going to find her.
Where the hell was she?
If it was after hours and two days prior, I would have made a beeline to Blush, hoping to find her there.
But that was a thing of the past. She wouldn’t be there now without me, and there was no way she was there during working hours. Something was wrong. It had better be wrong, or I was going to lose my shit with her. She couldn’t do this to me.
I left the office without even thinking about finishing my work day. I had to get to her apartment. I floored it all the way there, speeding tickets be damned. Her car was in her usual parking spot. That was a good sign.
I reached her door and knocked.
“Lex?” I called out. “Alexa?”
She didn’t answer. I tried the door, and it was locked. I walked to the window next to the door and cupped my hands so I could look in. There was no sign of a struggle, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Something was very wrong.
I was officially worried. Alexa was missing, and I had no idea where to start looking. Dalton had asked me to look after her. I’d followed her around and fucked her, but I’d still failed to keep her safe. She was gone. Someone had her, and I was willing to bet it was a bunch of Mavericks.
God, if they touched one hair on her body, I was going to fucking murder every single one of them. Something very primitive woke up inside me. Alexa was mine, and I wanted her back.
Which was all fucking dandy, having a hero complex, but I still didn’t know where to go. How the hell did you save the damsel in distress when you had no idea where to race to?
Maybe I had to call Mom. Maybe Alexa had told her something that she hadn’t told me. I pulled out my phone, ready to dial the number, when I stopped myself.
Mrs. Starr had been through enough. I didn’t know for sure that Alexa was in danger, yet. With Dalton death’s still so fresh, worrying her over what could be nothing wasn’t only unfair; it was cruel.
I pocketed my phone and groaned in frustration. I was so fucking pissed off, and I couldn’t do anything. That just made me angrier. All that rage built up inside me. I pulled back and punched the wall.
Pain exploded in my fist, shooting up my arm, and I cursed, shaking my hand, trying to get rid of the pain.
Now that I’d had a run-in with the wall and lost, it was time to get my shit together.
I had a damsel to locate.
There was only one place I could think of that might turn up a lead. The Samurai controlled a club called Rat & Parrot close to the harbor. Dalton had spent a lot of time there, and I’d picked him up from there a time or two when his bike wasn’t in working order or he was too trashed to ride it.
I drove to the Rat & Parrot and parked. The place had been a diner once, but it looked more like a hole-in-the-wall now. There were barely any cars in the parking lot. Bikes populated the place, parked in rows with shiny chrome and polished leather.
The building had peeling paint and a wooden sign that was so weathered, it was hard to read the name of the place. I took a deep breath and walked toward the front door. I was about to walk right into hell, but I was past the point where I gave a shit about my own safety. I had to get Alexa back, and that was going to happen one way or another.
When I pushed through the doors, everyone turned around and looked at me. Metal music blared from hidden speakers. One of them had blown, creating a crackling sound. Smoke hung close to the ceiling like an artificial sky. Bikers sat around tables and at the bar, wearing leather and jeans with shitkicker boots, and they looked menacing as fuck. I was in the belly of the beast, and it was ugly.
“You’re a bit far from home, aren’t you, son?” Mason asked, coming from a door to the side.
“I don’t want trouble,” I said. “I’m just looking for Alexa.”
Mason shook his head. “We don’t need to bother my men with this kind of small talk. Come on, let’s have a smoke together outside.”
Everyone was smoking inside. He wanted me alone. Fine by me. He walked toward the door and beckoned for me to follow. I could breathe easier when I was outside again. Mason pulled a cigarette out of a pack and offered me one. I shook my head.
“Don’t smoke,” I said.
Mason shrugged and lit up his cigarette. The cherry glowed red when he inhaled, and he blew a cloud of smoke out of his nose. God, I couldn’t imagine that being pleasant.
“This place could use some new paint,” Mason said. “You don’t notice how shit your joint looks until a stranger walks in and you look at it through new eyes.”
“Where is she?” I asked. I didn’t have time to make small talk.
“Who were you asking for again?” Mason asked. He looked clueless, as if he had no idea who I was talking about.
“Alexa Starr.”
I said her surname on purpose. Loyalty wasn’t what I was betting on. It was every man for himself out here. It was a risk I was taking. If she wasn’t on a hit list yet, she could be soon. With the same surname as Dalton, I had hoped to get his attention if nothing more, but I had a feeling he already knew where she was. He was tight with the VP of the Mavericks after all.
“I wish I could tell you I knew what you’re talking about, but I don’t.”
He looked at me, and his face was serious, his eyes trained on mine.
“You see, when you walked into my club here, I thought you had brought me some information about Sam. But now it turns out that you’ve been wasting my time.”
I shook my head. “I’m just here to take back what’s mine.”
Mason laughed, and it wasn’t a good laugh. It was a little manic. His eyes were full of evil promises.
“What is yours,” he said through his laughter. “That’s funny.”
“I’m going to ask you one last time—”
“Now, be very careful,” Mason said before I could finish my sentence. “You sound an awful lot like you’re threatening me.”
I glared at Mason, and he glared right back.
“I have something urgent to attend to,” I said, turning around. I was showing Mason my back. I wasn’t scared of him. Maybe I should have been, but right now, the only thing I wanted was to get Alexa back, no matter what. If he wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know, I had to look for it somewhere else.
“You never should have started digging around, Luke,” Mason said. “You’re only making everything worse for everyone around you.”
I hesitated and considered turning around, but I didn’t. I kept walking away from the bastard who had lied to my face about not knowing where Alexa was.
I’d been correct to come here. Maybe he hadn’t been involved in Alexa’s kidnapping—I was willing to bet that was what it was—but he knew something. He had to.
I got into my car and left the parking lot. Mason was still outside, watching me leave. I glanced at him in my rearview mirror as I turned onto the road. He would stay out there until I was gone. Then he would walk back inside and make a phone call to whoever had her, telling them I was sniffing around.
Shit.
What if I’d put her in danger? What if I had just signed off on her death sentence? No, I couldn’t think like that. Maybe I had to go to the police, get them to step in and help me.
God, I was starting to sound like her. That was what happened when you spent that much time with someone. But what if going to the police did exactly what I’d told her it would do and made things even worse than they already were?
What now?