Chapter 16
Girth
I could hear the blood rushing into my ears when I jumped on my bike. I was smoking my third cigarette on the porch, finally sitting down on the chair beside Lila’s front door, when I heard her scream.
The cigarette fell from my hand and I pulled my gun out of my belt and ran into the house. Her screams were becoming fainter as I approached her room and when I kicked it open, I saw that her bed was empty. The sheets were crumbled and strewn while the open window beside her bed mocked me.
“Fuck!” I growled and ran to it, to see a muscle car at the back starting up. I jumped out of the window and took a shot at its tires just as it screeched to a start and swerved.
I could see Lila’s silhouette in the backseat, between three other heads and I cursed again.
Growling with rage, I ran to my bike and jumped on it, kickstarting it in one motion. The car wasn’t far ahead of me, but keeping up with it was going to be a task. The driver was clearly good at getting rid of a tail. The closer I got to the car, the quicker it swerved and turned away from me.
I wasn’t close enough to the car to see Lila’s silhouette anymore, but I knew she was in there with them. It made me sick to think about what they could be doing to her, saying to her. Were they touching her? How scared was she?
I was riding my bike as fast as I could. I couldn’t go any faster.
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of the window. I’d been distracted by Lila, by my desire for her and I didn’t do my job well. I should have been alert, I should have looked for the signs. I should have kept the windows locked and most importantly, I should have been surveying the property constantly to make sure that there were no blind spots. Instead, I had been in bed with the woman whose safety was my number one priority and now she’d been kidnapped.
I could feel the flesh on the palms of my hands digging into the bike’s accelerator. I was growling under my breath, blaming myself. This was all my fault. I shouldn’t have fallen for the temptation that was Lila. I should have been a stronger man.
I was trying hard to catch up with the car, firing shots at them when I could, but it was difficult and I was alone. I did what I knew had to be done, as difficult as it was to admit it. I called for backup.
Abe answered his phone and sensed immediately that something was wrong.
“They fucking have Lila,” I growled into the phone.
“How? What the Fuck? Where were you?” Abe thundered into the phone.
“I was on the porch. She was in her room with a window open. It was a blind spot and I didn’t see it. This is my fucking fault!” I was thundering into the phone too.
I could sense Abe running, he was probably running to jump on his bike; even though he didn’t know where to go.
“Where is she now? Did you see them take her?” Abe asked. I had to clench my jaws to stop myself from growling again. This wasn’t the time for self deprecation. There would be enough time for that once I rescued her.
“She’s in front of me, in a car,” I said and I called out the license plate number. I didn’t know where I was or where I was following them to. I was new to Orlando and not familiar with the city’s layout—another thing I should have taken care of the moment I got to this place. Another thing I had been distracted from when I met Lila.
“Describe the road to me. I’m sending the men out right now. Which direction are you headed?” Abe was shouting in the phone.
I told him as best as I could. The call ended quickly and I accelerated the bike again, the car ahead of me was turning off the road now and I realized that we were going to stop soon.
We had turned off the road and I had caught up close with the car now. Close enough to see the back of Lila’s head. She was tightly wedged in between three other heads still and a chill ran down my spine. Were they touching her now? Holding her? Were her wrists tied? I could have choked those men with my bare hands if I got the chance to.
We were coming to a stop in front of an abandoned looking warehouse. When I looked around me, I saw that we were in the middle of nowhere. How were Abe and the rest of the Marked Skulls ever going to find us here?
I jumped off my bike, pulling my gun out again and ready for a shootout.
The front door of the car opened and then the back door too and five big men poured out.
This was going to be a quick shootout. Five men versus me. They were going to shoot me dead within seconds. Even though I had my gun pointed in their direction, none of them had taken a shot yet. My finger was on the trigger, ready to be pulled at a split-second’s notice. I knew that if I took the first shot at one of them, the other four would kill me within seconds.
I needed to wait and bide my time to see what they had planned for us. If I was dead, there was going to be no hope for Lila’s survival either.