The rancid smell of the trailer makes my stomach lurch. It’s obvious Bren has been staying here, the stench he permeates everything he comes into contact with is still lingering in the stale air.

However, he’s not here now.

“Fuck!” Scorch seethes through clenched teeth, his fury profound in the tremble of his clenched fists.

“Shit. Sorry,” Owl apologizes like it’s his fault we’re too late.

“Nah.” I pat him on the back. “Appreciate your head’s up, Owl.”

I look back over the state of the place and grimace. Every surface is caked in filth and grime, and takeout cartons and beer cans conceal the pattern on the threadbare carpet. There’s even a random woman’s thong hooked around the depressingly dim light bulb. How anyone can stay here is beyond me, but we’re talking about Brenner, he doesn’t have any standards. Not that I’m aware of anyway.

There doesn’t appear to be any hint left behind of where he has moved on to.

“I’ll ask around, see if anyone knows anything,” Copper mumbles with a look of disgust before he retreats outside, evidently needing some fresh air.

It’s so cold that I can see my breath, and I’d even go so far as to say it’s warmer outside of the trailer.

Scorch, feeling the cold also, rubs his hands together and breathes on them. “Your fucking brother is finally proving himself worthy of something.”

“Oh yeah,” I utter in return without giving him my attention. “What’s that?”

“Worthy of the fucking beating I’m gonna give him when I finally get my hands on him!” he growls when he bends and picks something up from the floor.

“He’s always been worthy of that, Scorch!”

We both stare at what he holds precariously between his fingers, and then each other.

“What the fuck?” Scorch murmurs. “Is this what I really think it is?”

A shudder works through my body when Scorch drops the amputated nipple back on the floor and hurries to wash his hands in the rusty sink.

It actually hurts my eyes to look at, and I wince when I think about the poor chick that is now walking around with one less nipple than yesterday.

“That boy is fucking wrong, Frost. You know that, don’t ya?”

I nod, shame at my own brother taking away my ability to verbally answer. There has always been something seriously wrong with Bren. When our mom took her own life, Bren had just sat silently, somberly watching the blood ooze from her. There had been no emotion from him, not a single sound. Even after, when I had carried him through to the bedroom we had shared as kids, he had merely turned on the TV and began watching it like nothing had happened, he even laughed at, Family Guy. I had put it down to grief at the time, but now, thinking back, Brenner had never really grieved. Not once had I seen him spill a tear over Mom’s death. He’d never hit out, he’d never screamed, and he’d never ever spoken about her.

In hindsight, I should have seen how much it had fucked him up, maybe. If I had we wouldn’t be here now. But I’d been too busy dealing with my own grief to help my little brother through his.

I am a shit big brother, I have never denied that. Brenner is an even shittier little brother, that didn’t mean I shouldn’t have helped him though when he needed me the most. I wonder if I’m the one responsible for the way Brenner turned out. I wasn’t exactly a great role model. Our dad hasn’t ever really talked about Mom either, or even allowed us to speak of her for that matter. I got that it hurt his pride and wounded him every time she was mentioned. His wife, the woman he had committed his life to had chosen to end her own life, rather than living it with her old man.

Mom had always seemed happy. Yeah, she had her faults, who didn’t? She’d been an okay mom, a little strange sometimes, that didn’t make her a terrible parent though. She couldn’t cook for fuck, and she was shit at keeping us clean, but she nurtured us the best way she could. She loved us, and in the end, that’s all that fucking matters. That’s why her choice to leave us behind was all the more harder to understand.

“You coming, or you gonna stay here and ogle that severed tit?” Scorch asks, making me jerk slightly in surprise. I’d been so lost in my memories I had forgotten he was even stood beside me.

“Yeah.”

Copper walks up to us when we leave the trailer. Shaking his head, he sighs and shrugs. “No fucker around here has seen him, not that they care anyway. Bitch two vans down says she thought she heard some screaming in the night but that was three days ago, she cranked up her music and turned over.” His expression says it all. The unfortunate fucks that slum it here know better than to query anything they hear. They’re so used to shit happening here they don’t even bother to question screams in the night anymore.

“Owl,” I bellow to the fat fuck taking a piss against a tree a few feet away, surprised he can even see his dick with that beer belly protruding from his middle.

He mumbles a response through the cig hanging between his lips, zipping himself up and walking towards us.

“When did that bitch tell your old lady she saw Bren?”

His brow furrows. “Yesterday, why?”

“No one has been here in days.” The bitch was lying or covering.

Throwing his cig to the floor, he marches over to his bike cussing up a storm.

“So, what now?” Scorch asks, mounting his bike.

“It’s a ruse,” I growl.

“The club?” My old man snarls. “Motherfucker.” Flipping out his cell phone, he calls all the brothers back to the club in case of an attack there by Brenner.

Avery is there. Shit.

“Let’s go,” I order and swing my leg over my bike just as my cell rings.

The roar of Scorch’s Harley nearly drowns out the sound. Taking it from my pocket, I frown when Denise’s name flashes up.

Apprehension tightens my gut. She’s with Avery and I know Denise would never call me unless it was urgent.

“Dee?”

Incomprehensible words rush from her, and I press the phone closer to my ear to hear her better. “Slow the fuck down!”

“Avery…” she pants. “He took her!”

Each hair on the back of my neck springs to attention as dread trickles into my bones. “He?”

The need to shout at her when she gulps for air instead of answering me straight away is paramount, but I bite my lip, willing myself to be patient.

“Your brother, Frost, Bren took her.”

“Fuckkkk.” I roar, shattering the dark night air.

She’s mumbling words, and I need to focus but the agony of what he did to her is still raw, he will kill her this time.

“He came to the club?”

“No, I’m sorry, Frost, we were at a store.”

I want to cuss and ring her fucking neck but none of that matters now.

“He punched me out cold and stuffed me in the trunk of my own fucking car. He drove us somewhere and traded her to some Cutter guy, I could hear them talking. I don’t know who he was, but Avery knew him.”

“What the fuck, Denise. You were supposed to be watching her!” Fear tinges my tone with venom, and although it’s not entirely her fault, instinct makes me lash out at her.

“I was! She took off on her own. I found her in the store, but when we came out, he was waiting for her. I tried to stop him, Frost, but…”

I don’t listen to her finish. Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I mount my bike like it’s the monster who will fight for my wife, and I tear out of the trailer park like my wheels are on fire.

* * *

The old warehouse the Cutters use as their club is still empty from the raid. It’s quite ominous now, the silence that swamps the bleak building. The club is always bustling with brothers, both Cutters and other welcome MC brothers. To see it so barren is like an eerie boat that’s bizarrely engulfed the entirety of its crew, but you can still sense a presence within the walls surrounding you.

“No fucker here!” Scorch growls as he emerges from behind one of the homemade brick walls.

“They can’t all still be in a cell!” Copper grumbles as he vaults over the bar and helps himself to a beer, tossing a bottle each to Scorch and me.

I grimace when Scorch uncaps his with his teeth. Saving myself a dental bill, I open mine on the edge of the countertop and scan the room once more.

Where the fuck is Avery? And who the fuck did he trade her to, and for what in return? It had to be Brig, the cunt! I’m gonna feed a bullet down his throat if I find out this is on him.

The sound of the double doors being drawn back has us all reaching for our pieces in preparation for a fight. I didn’t care if it was the cops, they could all eat a bullet if they tried to stop me finding my old lady.

Brig stumbles to a stop when he walks into the open space and sees mine, Scorch’s and Copper’s guns all trained on his ugly face. “What the fuck?”

“Where the fuck is she?” I demand, narrowing the space between us in five large strides. “Where – the – fuck – is – she?” I repeat when he stares at me with a confused expression.

Growling under his breath, he glares at me. “The fucking cops took her when we got raided. I’d thought she’d have made her way back to you by now, dumb fuck!”

For a moment, I’m confused, then it sinks in what he means. “Not Rhiannon, you stupid cunt. Avery. My fucking wife! Your daughter!”

He blanches when I shove the muzzle of my gun into the dip at the base of his throat, but it’s not because he thinks I’m about to blow his head off his shoulders, it’s because he has no fucking clue that Avery is missing.

“What?”

I drop the gun. There’s no point aggravating the cunt, even though I’d love to. But I need to find Avery, and fast, and Brig may be my only help in finding her.

“One of your boys took her this morning. A trade with my traitor brother.”

Blinking, he frowns as if my sentence wasn’t spoken in English and shakes his head. “None of my boys have her. The last I knew; your sicko brother had gouged out her tattoo and left her for the dogs. Why the fuck she chose to come back to you is fucking beyond me!”

I scoff. “Really? And why the fuck didn’t she come back to you? Huh? You, being father of the year an’ all. You hypocrite!”

He takes a step towards me, the menace in his posture easy to identify.

Scorch moves forwards and stabs his gun into Brig’s cheekbone. “Easy, motherfucker. Take a step back, unless you want to decorate your club with your own guts!”

Reluctantly, Brig takes a step back, but he doesn’t remove his glare from me. “I’m as in the dark over this as you. Most of my boys are still in a fucking cell waiting to be processed, so I can guarantee that Avery isn’t with them.”

“Most?”

He shrugs. “Digs and Pat were discharged this morning, and…” He pauses, and then closing his eyes he sighs in dismay. “Shit!”

The panic inside me is growing fiercer with every minute that passes without Avery, and Brig’s obvious worry has terror steaming to full velocity in my veins. Grabbing him by the throat, I shake him. “It’s that cunt, isn’t it? Your motherfucking VP.”

Brig nods slowly, his body slack in my hold as if he’s already resigned to the prospect of ever getting Avery back. “Axe was released this afternoon, as I was. I came straight back. He said he had some stuff to do and would meet me back here. Fuck!” The wooden front of the bar splinters into pieces when Brig’s foot breaks through it. “I’ll fucking kill him if he hurts her!”

I want to snort at his sudden concern. From what I’d learned from Avery, he hadn’t ever bothered about her before. However, if Brig was worried about Axe having Avery, then that told me a lot about the Cutter VP.

And the fact that my girl was in more trouble than I could ever have thought possible. Sheriff Myers was playing games, keeping these fuckers in the cells for so long. He must have quite the rap sheet on this club and with Bullseye singing like a canary it won’t be long before he has shit on ours as well.

We’re all fucked.