Chance was left alone in the house for another day. That made four days since last he had seen Hannah and four days since he had last seen their child. Not that he’d ever actually been able to see the baby. But knowing that it was there, knowing that she carried him beneath her clothes, waiting to grow within her stomach, had been a comfort to him. He hadn’t realized how much he craved her presence alone until it was gone. He’d take her sitting in the kitchen and giving him the silent treatment if that’s what it took to get her to be back in his life.
His anger had gone from him several hours after it had arrived. He was so distraught when he smelled her shampoo on her pillow that he’d been unable to hold onto that rage anymore. He went from being angry that she’d left him to being completely heartbroken. He’d lost the greatest thing in his world because he couldn’t control himself or control his temper. He had to control his need to do just that: control things.
And now she was gone. He felt like shit and if it wasn’t for the massive hangover looming on his head he would have just kept on drinking that pain away but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Besides, Hannah wouldn’t approve of him using bottles of Jack Daniels to soothe his pain.
So he sat there, alone and pathetic, making himself some kind of microwave something for dinner because it was all that was in the freezer at the moment. They’d planned to go grocery shopping this weekend but that plan had fallen through and now he was left there with nothing but to stare at the wall and already mourn whatever he never truly had in the first place. He’d gotten close to being in reach of a happy ending, but he’d managed to mess it up, just like he always did.
That’s when there was a knock on the door. He was still wary of everything that had happened, still jumpy, and agitated from the hangover and the drinks still swimming around in his stomach, threatening to come up with the processed, high sodium food he’d just eaten. But he got up, grabbing the closest thing he could find to defend himself with (it turned out to be a stapler) and walked slowly to the front door. He got there and peaked out the window just enough to see two people standing there and neither one was tall enough to be Ben.
“Open up man, it’s urgent,” a voice called through the curtains and Chance instantly recognized Moose’s voice.
He put the stapler down and opened the door. “What’s going on?”
“You tell us,” Moose said, grimly, coming into the house with Cindy on his tail.
They walked right into the living room and dropped down into seats at the table. Moose pulled out his phone and set it out on the table like he presenting it as a gift. “And what’s this for?”
“It’s Hannah. I think she’s been kidnapped.”
Chance felt his entire body go cold as the blood underneath his skin turned to ice. Hannah was kidnapped. Hannahe could be hurt. Hannah could already be dead. And he was sitting there wallowing around in self-pity about how lonely and desperate he was to make things right. He’d stormed out of the house and she’d gone missing. He was an idiot.
“She called me,” he said. “She said she tried calling you but your phone kept going right to voicemail.”
Another blow. Chance felt his stomach turn. He was going to be sick.
“Gabe and Ben took her,” he said. “Apparently they’d been staking out the house for some time and were waiting for a moment to separate you two. They nabbed her and wouldn’t let her write any kind of note. I guess a couple hours in she convinced her brother to let her call me and arrange for some kind of meeting.”
This was too much at once. Chance had screwed up majorly and didn’t know how to fix it. Hannah was gone. She hadn’t left him. Knowing that was a bit of a blessing but it hurt even more to know that she’d been stolen away from him. He’d left her by herself because he was angry and his pride was hurt and now she was in danger from something far worse than a lover’s quarrel and someone sleeping on the couch.
They’d taken her. What were they going to do with her? Were they already trying to sell her out to the highest bidder? She was carrying his child and she was in danger. He needed to do something. He needed to get up and go after them.
“Where is this meeting?” Chance said.
“By the warehouse where they kept all the other kidnapping victims,” Moose said. “They said they would meet all of us. I don’t necessarily think this is a sign of anything good but at least we can get eyes on her and maybe come up with some kind of plan.”
“Let’s do it,” Chance said. Link would berate him for acting without thinking, for using his heart over his head. He could get a lot of people, himself included, killed if he did this. But he didn’t care. He’d let half the town get burnt to the ground if it meant he saved Hannah and their child. Maybe Ben didn’t know about the baby, maybe he had no idea the lengths that Chance would go to get her back. He had to try. And he’d be damned if anyone got in his way this time.
***
When they met at the warehouse, it was not Ben waiting for them with a posse of sneering Black Death members but instead it was Gabe and Hannah by themselves. They were sitting there rather nonchalantly, nothing about the scene seemed overtly like a kidnap victim and her kidnapper. In fact they appeared to be talking almost amicably. That wasn’t going to stop Chance from rushing forward and pounding Gabe’s head into the ground for everything he’d done.
“Chance, stop,” Hannah said, sensing his anger and reading his mind. She stood up and stepped between him and her brother, placing a hand firmly on Chance’s chest to hold him back. He would not do a thing to hurt Gabe if she stood in the way. “We need to explain some things before you go all violence crazed.”
He was deprived of sleep and more than a little hungover. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk things out with the man who was responsible for all of this happening. But, to be fair, he was also responsible for her coming into his life in the first place, however terrible the circumstances had been, so he had to give the boy that much credit.
“Talk,” he said to Gabe, getting as close to him as Hannah’s proximity would let him.
“Ben isn’t part of this,” Gabe said. “At least right now he’s not. He thinks I’m going to be delivering you to her but I got her out of the house so we could get her somewhere safe. He wanted to take her and I convinced him to let me get her first—”
“How were you in contact with Ben?”
“He found me up north,” he said. “My head is clear now. I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially not my sister. So I made sure I got to her first and then never reported to the check point. We’ve been trying to get in contact with you for a while but Hannah said you two had a fight and you might be out of communication for a while.”
Great. Now he looked like a grade-A asshole. It was probably true. He’d left the house, left her unattended, and she’d nearly been snatched up by Ben. Her brother, her idiot junkie brother with the gambling problem, had been the one smart enough and level headed enough to get her out of that situation in time. That made Chance feel like even more of an asshole. The screw up could be a better man than him. He was supposed to be a father to this child growing inside of Hannah and instead he’d put both mother and child in danger. He was a nightmare.
“Now that that’s all settled, we should probably get out of the open,” Gabe said. “We’re a little too vulnerable here and Ben has spies all over the place.”
“We can’t go back to the house, the place was bugged,” Chance said.
“Where else can we go? The usual places are all known to Ben: your mom’s house, the club house,” Moose said.
“We’ll think of something,” Chance said with conviction.
They all turned and walked off. Hannah, to the side, was watching Chance but he didn’t say a word to her, not yet anyway.