CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Knight
I love you.
Yes, those words had slipped from my lips. I should have been shocked, but I wasn’t. I did love her, I think I always had.
She hadn’t said it back to me. Then again, I did my best to not give her the opportunity to do so. I had this feeling in my gut that if she didn’t say it back my heart might shatter, but at the same time, I didn’t want her to say them just because I had. So, I didn’t even give her a chance. Did it make any kind of logical sense? No. But I think it was what we both needed at the time.
The hours counted down almost too fast for me to keep up. The day had been a busy one because I made sure it was that way. If I was constantly doing something then I wouldn’t have time to think about the fact that I’d be facing Brass soon.
Then, it was actually time to face him.
And the club meeting went on and on and fucking on.
I tried to keep the nervous energy hidden but I just couldn’t stop my leg from bouncing. I only hoped that no one noticed. The last thing I wanted to do was let on how uneasy I felt or come off seeming like I was bored and disrespectful.
This was a big meeting. Setting up runs for the next few batches of shipments that we would hand off to Gray Fort. Brass talked about some new contacts that he was setting up with Cal. If luck had it, we would be able to pull back with the long runs for the shipment hand-offs. Maybe we’d even get to a point we wouldn’t have to do them at all. We would just handle the intake here and be done with it. But that was reaching at this point. I knew we had a long way to go.
With nothing left to bring to the table, the meeting wrapped up. I met Brass’ eyes and held his gaze, not letting anything show. His eyes narrowed for a split second before he gave me a firm nod as if he understood the unsaid request.
“Iron,” Brass said catching my new prez’s attention. “You mind if we use this room for a bit?”
Iron looked back and forth between Brass and me for a moment. Luckily, everyone else had filed out and no one was around to witness the mess that might have been in the near future.
“Need me to stay?” Iron asked crossing his arms over his chest.
“Nah, have a feeling this is a personal matter.” If I wasn’t mistaken there was a hint of laughter in his voice. I wanted to relax and feel a tiny sense of relief at that, but I knew better.
“Alright. See you down there,” Iron said with a nod. “No blood on my table.” He left with the half-joking warning, closing the door partially on his way out.
I started to open my mouth to say something but abruptly stopped when he held up his hand.
“No, I’m going first,” he stated and I knew better than to argue. “I know I put you in a tough spot with Gwen. But I want you to know that I trust no one more than you when it comes to her. I get that you two haven’t seen each other in a while, and I’m a smart enough man to catch on to the fact that something happened to you guys back when.”
His fingers tapped on the table and for a long moment, there was a pause of silence.
“She’s been…lost for a long time, Knight. Even before she went to California.” His eyes glazed over as he talked. I could see a deep-rooted sadness there and I had no doubts that it was because this was something he couldn’t fix or even had a clue how to. “You had your reasons for…whatever it was that happened…I’m sure. Just as I’m sure you distanced yourself because you thought it was what was best for her.”
“Brass,” I said with all intentions of explaining everything and clearing the air.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. Clearly, I wasn’t to speak until he got out all he needed to. “She’s happy here. I can hear it in her voice when she calls me. She’s making a life here. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for her was to feel like she found her place in life on her own. Whether that be back home staying with the club, or somewhere apart from it. Knight, she’s really happy here. Don’t ruin it for her, is all I ask.”
“Sir,” I said shocking the shit out of both of us. He eyed me knowing that whatever I had to say next I was dead serious about. “I have no intentions to. I want to make a life with her, and she wants the same thing. All these years…I’ve felt incomplete. Now that she’s let me in again, I know that I would do anything and everything to keep it that way.”
“So what are you saying, Knight?” his tone was gruff, giving me no indication how he was taking what I was trying to tell him.
“I love Gwen. Simply put. She’s everything to me. Really, she always has been, I just managed to fuck it up somehow.” I felt shame and regret for the past, but I couldn’t help but feel like maybe this was the way it was supposed to happen.
“You’ve been shaking in your boots because you love my daughter?” he asked letting out a huge laugh that echoed off the walls like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.
“Yeah. I mean, I thought you wouldn’t be happy with her being with one of us. Ya know?” I cocked a brow in confusion.
“You’re not just anyone, Knight. You should know that. Love you like a son and years ago, I maybe had hoped it would turn out this way. But I let go of that when you hightailed it out of Gray Fort and didn’t look back.”
“Biggest mistake of my life,” I admitted without hesitation as I blew out a long breath. This was going better than I’d hoped. I almost couldn’t believe it, but I was fucking grateful for it as well.
“Don’t fuck it up again. I—”
“Know a hundred different ways to kill a man and have people that can hide a body for you.” I cut him off, finishing the line for him. I may have heard it from him a time or two in my day.
“Well, fuck.” His statement was said with a hearty laugh.
With a shrug, I got up and made my way around the table. He stood and pulled me in for a rare hug. I could probably count on one hand the number of times this man had hugged me. Patted me on the head? Yeah, got those a lot when I was younger. Proud, heavy hand on the shoulder? Those too, so much that I could practically still feel the weight of his hand there even now. But hugs? Those were usually reserved for Gwen and Mindy.
“I thought you were going to tell me that it wasn’t working out,” he said when he released me with a hard hit on my back. “By the way you were sweating, I would have said you were here to tell me that I had to find another place for her to live.”
I could feel his relief in his statement. I had it too.
“I won’t lie, Brass. I was there for a hot minute. It was so hard being so close to her and feeling like I had to hide how I felt.”
“I don’t need to tell you this, but I will anyway,” His hand plopped down on my shoulders, locking me in place as he looked at me dead on. “You’re a good man. Everything I would ever want for my little girl.”
I blinked away the moisture that was building up in my eyes. I always wanted to make this man proud of me and I felt like I finally had.
“Okay,” he said stepping back and pulling the door all the way open. “Let’s go get Gwen. I’m sure you told her what you planned on doing here and I bet she’s a freaked out mess right about now.”
“You have no idea.”
We made our way downstairs, where I all but ran into Tripp.
Seeing him there made me think that Gwen might be around and a smile tugged at my lips. But when I looked and saw the fear in his eyes, I fucking froze.
“Where is she?” I asked before my brain could work anything out.
“I…” He shook his head, panic clear in the statement that he didn’t even finish. “I got a text from her saying that her and that girl…the one that looks like her…they were heading here and I should meet them.”
I grabbed his cut before I could even think better of it.
“Where the fuck is she?” I snarled.
“Knight,” Brass’ cool but edgy voice said beside me as he attempted to pull me back and away from Tripp. “Tell us what you know.”
Tripp sputtered then managed to get out everything he’d seen. Gwen worked her shift then stayed after to study. Then he got a text and waited until he saw they were headed out to ride off. He saw Gwen get in Tara’s car in his rearview. Then he got to the club and waited, only they never showed up.
That had been thirty minutes ago.
He waited because he thought that maybe they stopped to get something to eat. But now he was panicking because his calls and texts were going unanswered.
So were Mouse’s.
And B-ry’s.
And Iron’s.
As I hit the call button, I realized that something was very wrong. I looked at Brass, who had his phone to his ear only for a second. Gwen’s phone was going straight to voicemail. It was turned off.
“Fuck!” I roared. I looked around to see a circle of concerned brothers surrounding us.
“Tripp, go find Cable. Tell him to try and track Gwen’s phone, though it may be turned off. We need to know where it was last,” Mouse said with the coolness that I just couldn’t find right then.
I knew I needed to keep a level head but fuck, I felt like I’d just gotten her back. I couldn’t lose her again.
“B-ry why don’t you go with Brass to check the apartment. Maybe her phone died and she went there to grab a charger,” Iron said, though we all could feel he was grasping at straws. “Mouse and Knight, go to her work and see if there is something we’re missing.”
“What if she comes here. I need to be here.” The desperation in my voice was clear.
“I’ll call you if she shows up. Now get it together and go.”
I tossed the apartment key to Brass as Mouse clapped me on the back, then pushed me towards the exit.
I made the drive in half the time with Mouse right on my tail.
I recognized the guy behind the counter. I had an idea that it was Dale. Gwen had talked about him a few times but only in a friendly manner. I wasn’t a particularly jealous person and even if I was, it only took one look into my girl’s eyes to see how she felt about me.
“Hey, guys. Mouse,” he said when he saw us.
I knew he’d met Mouse a few times the last few days. Those times when I broke down and drove to the coffee shop because I needed to see Gwen. If I wasn’t sure about this guy before, the level of respect he’d just shown my brother would have squashed that.
“Hey, man,” Mouse said with a breezy coolness in his tone. “Have you seen Gwen?”
“Yeah, she left maybe an hour ago…with Tara.”
“Did she say anything on where she was headed?”
“No, sorry,” he answered Mouse’s question with a curious glance.
“You got security cameras?”
“Yeah. Is something wrong?”
“Gwen’s missing,” I bit out not able to take this back and forth game any longer.
“We just need to find her,” Mouse said taking back control.
“I’ll be right back,” Dale called out to the other girl working then motioned with his head for us to follow him into the backroom.
I felt like it took too much time for him to find the footage that Gwen was on. I knew it was a matter of a few minutes, but every second felt like a hundred years right now.
The cameras weren’t that great but I could make out Gwen as she collected her things and walking out with Tara. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and my mind was spinning on what the hell could have happened.
“Rewind it a little more,” Mouse said and Dale complied.
Gwen said something to Tara as she closed the book that was sitting in front of her. Then she got up and walked away. I couldn’t see where she was going. I was about to ask him if he had a different camera showing where she went when I saw Tara move with quick, jerky movements. Tara pulled something out of her bag, then reached over and popped the top off of one of the coffee cups sitting on the table. I guessed it was Gwen’s because it was set further away from Tara than the other one.
“Did she just put something in there?” I asked, my mind not wanting to believe what I’d just seen.
Then Tara picked up Gwen’s phone that was sitting on the table. I couldn’t make out what she was doing, but if I had one guess, it would be that she was sending a text to Tripp. I had no doubt that she’d seen him when she pulled up.
“Oh, shit,” Mouse said in a gasp as we watched Gwen walk back to the table and down the rest of what was in the cup.
“I’m sorry,” Dale said in a whisper as he turned his head to look at me, his face had gone deathly pale. “I had no idea. I should have seen this…I felt like there was something off with that girl. I should have said something. I’m so sorry.”
With a deep, calming breath, I patted him on the back. I wanted to lash out and let the anger take over. But I was smart enough to realize that this wasn’t his fault at all. It was mine. I should have seen it coming.
“Call Cable,” I growled at Mouse. “I need everything he can find on this bitch.”
I had to find Gwen.
I couldn’t let her down again.
I had to believe that I would hear her sweet voice again. Feel her touch. Get to watch her face as she finally told me how she felt about me.