Zack was about halfway to Clarksville when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He didn’t want to stop and waste time, but he was worried that it was about Nicole. He pulled over and pulled out the phone. It was Hashtag.

“Hey, man, I’ve got some really bad news.”

Shit. “What?”

“Spider got kicked out of the club.”

“What the fuck? When?”

“Last night. He got wasted and fucked up a big drug deal. This guy I’ve developed a relationship with here told me it went down all bad. He met up with the leader of the Bulldogs, the street gang that controls the whole south side of the city. The Defenders supply the meth and the Bulldogs push it on the street. Last night was supposed to just be a simple exchange, ten pounds of meth for a hundred grand. The guys that were with Spider said he was wasted before they left the clubhouse. He got mouthy with the banger, who had about ten of his guys with him. One of the guys pulled a gun and Spider killed him. There was a big shoot-out, and the Defenders lost three men and killed four of the bangers. Chaney went ballistic and told Spider that if he was anyone else, he’d kill him his self. Instead, he had him thrown off the property.”

Just when Zack didn’t think Chaney had any fucking backbone, he tossed Spider out at the worst possible time. “So, has anyone seen him since?”

“I wasn’t finished. About an hour later, their main meth lab was blown up. They are 99% sure it was Spider. Chaney sent men out to the mansion and according to my friend, they tore it up and didn’t find him. His mother claimed he wasn’t there at all, but they found his bike in one of their garages, along with his father, who was unconscious. The old lady finally broke down and told them he came in waving his gun around and demanding they give him all the cash they had in the house and the keys to one of the cars.”

“The only thing he’d want a car for would be to take Nicole and Liam.’

“And Stacey.”

“Yeah, man, sorry. I’m just fucking spun. Did they have any idea where to go next?”

“No. Even after all that, the old woman wasn’t cooperating. Johnson didn’t regain consciousness while they were there, but Chaney finally pulled them back and told them to let her call an ambulance. They took him to Vanderbilt in Nashville.”

“Then that’s where I’m going. If anyone knows where to find this asshole, it’s his loving parents.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Zack ended the call and turned around and headed for Nashville. They were wasting time, and the longer Spider had Nicole and the baby, the more damage he’d be able to inflict if they didn’t get there soon. He opened the throttle up as wide as it would go and weaved in and out of traffic, for the first time in his life saying a prayer, asking God to keep them all safe because as bad as it was going to be, being far away from them, knowing that he’d never see Nicole or Liam again, would be more than he could stand.

* * *

The darkness was so black that it consumed everything, and when Nicole woke up, she was lying in three or four inches of water. She reached out in front of her and beside her; all she could feel was water and the floor beneath her. “Stace?” she called out in a voice so hoarse that she barely recognized it herself. If Stacey was more than a few feet away, she probably couldn’t even hear her. She cleared her throat and winced in pain as she did. “Stacey? Can you hear me?” She didn’t hear anything except for a sharp, annoying sound of water as it rained down from overhead and splashed into the water that already surrounded her. Panic was threatening to seize and paralyze her, but she couldn’t let it. She had to find Stacey. She pushed up on her knees. Her body was freezing and wracked with pain. Her mind flashed back on Spider, busting into the apartment the night before.

His eyes had been unlike anything she’d ever seen. He looked maniacal and she had no doubt that he meant to kill them all. He had punched poor Stacey full-on in the face even as Nicole hung onto his big arm and tried to stop him. He had batted her away like she was no more than an annoying fly. She’d flown back into the wall, and as soon as her head snapped against it she knew she had to get to Liam. She didn’t want to leave Stacey but she couldn’t let Spider take the baby, not in the condition he was in. She had tried to go to Liam but Spider grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back against him, wrapping a beefy arm around her throat. She must have gone unconscious, because the next thing she remembered was waking up in the front seat of a small car. Spider was driving, way too fast, and she’d twisted around to look into the tiny back seat only to see an unconscious, bruised, and bloodied Stacey and her sweet Liam, lying on the seat, screaming bloody murder. She’d begged and pleaded with Spider to stop, but he only seemed to go faster and she was afraid to do anything more to distract him. She had closed her eyes and prayed then and she hadn’t opened them again until she felt Spider hit the brakes. It was dark out, but it only took her a second to register where they were when he turned off the ignition and the headlights. She had lived there her entire life…up until she met Spider. He had taken her home, to her parent’s house. He had dragged her and Stacey in through the kitchen door that he kicked in, and tossed them down into the basement. She didn’t know if he went back for Liam, or if her poor baby was still all alone in the car, and she didn’t know what he might have done to her parents. The water seemed to be coming from the fire sprinklers, so she also didn’t know if maybe he’d set the house on fire and left them all there to die. Her mind was working overtime with the what-ifs and it wasn’t helping. She had to shake it off and get moving, just in case there was a chance in hell that any of them were still alive.

She pushed up from her knees to her feet, standing on cold, shaky legs and taking slow, cautious steps with her hands out in front of her. She made a half-circle with each one of her legs before taking a step, both hoping to find Stacey and not…she was terrified that she was going to find her not breathing.

“Stacey!” she screamed out, still not making enough noise to be heard. Her voice was almost gone, but the water that surrounded also seemed to absorb any sound she was able to make. She kept walking through it, pushing on. She had to find her friend and then they had to find her baby. She wasn’t going to give up hope. She was going to find him, and when she did, and he was safe, she was going to kill Spider herself. She was almost worried about how happy that thought made her. The thought of watching him take his last breath was the only thing keeping her going, though, so that was what she kept in the forefront of her mind as she continued her search. “Stacey!” She kicked her right foot out and again made a circle with it. That time she felt like it connected with something. She reached out with her hands and then down into the water, but she didn’t feel anything. The darkness wasn’t receding at all and her eyes weren’t adjusting to it. She was exhausted and discouraged and she ached to sit down and give up, but she kept going and after another few steps she felt something touch her leg. Impulsively, she screamed and pulled away. It took her several seconds to calm her heart and her breathing enough to speak. “Stace?” That time she heard a groan. With relief, the likes of which she’d never felt before, she crouched down in the water and began to turn around in circles, reaching out and feeling for her friend.

“Nick.” She heard a raspy whisper just before Stacey’s cold hand grasped hers. Nicole gripped onto it and pulled. Her friend was suddenly up against her, shaking uncontrollably and sobbing in heavy, raspy gasps.

“Oh, thank God! Thank God! When I couldn’t find you, I thought you were…”

“Dead?” Stacey croaked. “It’s a miracle that I’m not. I woke up as the water covered my face, and I sucked in a gallon or more of it before I was able to get up on my knees and wade in this direction. The water is still rising, Nick. Where are we?”

“In my parent’s basement, I think. I remember Spider pushing me through a door and locking it. Then the fire sprinklers came on and I passed out. When I woke up, I was almost underwater too. I’m sorry, Stacey. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Shh! Assigning blame is not going to help, but if you have to blame someone, look at that monster, Spider. We’re going to get out of this if for no other reason than to kill him.”

Nicole nodded and sucked in another slow breath to steady herself. “This basement spans the length of the house. There’s only one way in and out, the stairs that lead up to the hatch in the kitchen.”

“Okay, we need to find those stairs,” Stacey said in a shaky voice. Nicole could hear her friend’s teeth chattering together roughly, and it was breaking her heart to imagine that Stacey felt as miserable as she did. She swallowed that too. Stacey was right that this was no time for that. They had to get out of there and they had to find Liam.

“This way,” Nicole said, weakly. “…I think.” The two women slogged through the water in the dark, grasping each other’s arms like it was a lifeline. Nicole knew they couldn’t be far from the stairs and after a few steps, Stacey was the first to bump into something.

“I feel something,” she said, bending to reach down under the water. “Steps!” she said, excitedly.

Nicole reached her foot out until she contacted it. She put her foot on one and then a second and then a third step. “Yes! They’re narrow, Stace. I’ll go first. You hold onto me from behind.” Nicole had to adjust her body so that both of her feet could stand solidly on the bottom step. She felt Stacey grasp her wet shirt from behind and she stepped up to the next one. It was disorienting to climb blindly but by the third step they were above the water level, which was a significant relief. She’d spent a lot of her teen years down in the basement so she knew the stairs by heart. There were ten of them leading up to the door. They took them slowly and on the ninth step, Nicole reached out and grasped the doorknob. Hot tears of joy mixed with the cold water on her face. She wasn’t even deterred when she realized it was locked. She actually smiled, because she knew something that Spider didn’t know. The door often stuck and sometimes locked on its own, so her father had given her a spare key in case she got locked down there, and she’d hidden it along the top of the doorframe. With a silent prayer that one of her parents hadn’t found and moved it, she reached up and felt along the top of the door. Her fingers brushed against something metal and she tried to grasp it. She was wet and cold and shaking, so it took her several tries, but she finally got ahold of it. She let out a little cry of victory as she brought it down to where the lock was and began to fit it in with her trembling hand.