novelraw Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
They drove for what seemed like hours. Then again, it probably seemed like hours because Allie was terrified and couldn’t see where they were headed. In a sense, she didn’t need to know. Wherever it was, Wyatt would be there. Nothing else would matter after that. He may have told her kidnappers not to hurt her, but he would.
Once in the SUV, the man holding the gun shoved it in her face and instructed her to get on the floor. Her mind racing, her heart palpitating, she did. Finally, the car stopped. The man beside her, grabbed her elbow, and hefted her up, pulling the gun in her face. “No fucking screaming. No fighting. No trying to get away. Your man’s paying me good money for this fucking job, and I need it.”
She swallowed the fear choking her and nodded.
He opened the door and dragged her out of the car. She glanced around, not recognizing any of it. An industrial area, a large building with several warehouses lined side by side, but it looked abandoned: no cars, no people, no life.
“Move.” He pressed the butt of the gun to her lower back.
She followed the other man into one of the warehouses. Inside, it was dusty and as she’d assumed, abandoned.
“Move. Far corner, then sit.”
She nodded, walked the distance to the corner, and sat on the floor, facing the men who took seats in two chairs in front of her. She wrapped her arms around herself attempting to stop shivering.
The leaner man pulled out a cell phone, dialed a number, and brought it to his ear. “Fuck.” He hung up. “Bastard isn’t picking up.”
“Probably means he’s on his way. Take a while though.”
The leaner man turned. “Figured that, smartass, but don’t think you fucking realize I don’t want to be sitting here for hours till he gets here. I need to get this shit over and done with and get back to New York before my parole officer realizes I’m gone. He better be fucking good on his word, pay me my fucking money, and get me off those fucking charges. Prison isn’t fun.”
“Can say that shit again.”
None of this information bode well for her. First, they were criminals. She didn’t know what either of them had been to jail for, but Wyatt was paying them and promised to get one of them off charges. Chances were for the right price, they’d do just about anything, even getting rid of a body.
They might need to do that, too. There was no way in hell she was going anywhere with Wyatt.
****
Army went right for Blaze. “Why the fuck was she alone?”
At the garage, two uniformed officers stood a couple of feet away, talking to Blaze. Most of the brothers were there. The rest, Trig knew, were on their way. Mia, Lynn, and Tiffany were also near, huddled together.
“We fuckin’ agreed. We fuckin’ voted. Two fuckin’ guys on her all the time.”
Blaze, brows drawn, shook his head. “She had to use the bathroom. Did you expect me to go in there?”
Army advanced. Instead of backing away or fighting back, as if he thought he deserved it, Blaze steeled himself.
Trig grasped Army by the shoulder and dragged him away. “We aren’t gonna stand here, fighting over what should’ve been done. It’s fuckin’ done, and Allie’s fuckin’ gone.” His voice cracked. “More time we spend fighting, less time we spend lookin’.”
Army relaxed, but his jaw clenched. “Why wasn’t one of the women with her?”
“Fuckin’ better this way,” Cuss said. “We’d be lookin’ for two instead of one.”
“No telling what they’d do to someone they don’t want who’s extra weight.”
His phone rang again. He fished it out of his pocket, turning away from them, and brought it to his ear.
“Been calling you. Wyatt got on a private jet about an hour ago. My guy’s trying to find out where he’s headed,” Doug said.
Too little, too late. “She’s gone,” he managed to say. His voice hollow.
“Fuck. What do you know?”
“Nothing so far.”
“Flight’s eight hours. You got time.”
Yeah, except that all that time Allie would be with God knew who, terrified out of her fucking mind. Nothing he could fix. Nothing he could do.
“Call you back, let you know if I can find out where he’s landing. Whoever’s flying the plane didn’t file a flight plan. Don’t know how the fuck they managed that. Suppose everyone and everything has a price. It’ll take time to figure this out. I’m gonna check to see if he owns any property in the area. Might be your best bet.”
“Yeah.” He hung up, turned to his brothers and the cops, and explained what Doug said.
“You sure it’s this Wyatt guy?” one of the cops, George Conaway, asked. The club knew most of the cops. Before the club had been clean, they knew them because they avoided them. Now, they knew them for different reasons. Cops knew, like the whole town knew, the club was the reason their streets were clean. They didn’t work with them, and they didn’t condone what they did, but the cops on some level, were glad for it.
“It’s him,” Trig said, instantly. “I know it’s fuckin’ him. We know it’s fuckin’ him. Don’t waste your time, our time, and her time lookin’ at anyone else.”
“No reason why she would’ve left?” The other cop asked. Young and new to the force, Trig didn’t know his name.
The question directed at him, but hung in the air. He wanted to respond quickly, but the pang in his chest deepened.
“She wouldn’t have left,” Army answered. “No way in fuckin’ hell she would’ve left.”
“She’s over eighteen, hasn’t been missing for more than an hour. Our hands are tied.”
Rage building inside him, he took a step in the cop’s direction. “She was fuckin’ kidnapped. We’re telling you, means your hands aren’t fuckin’ tied.”
“There’s no proof.”
“How would she have left?” Blaze asked. “I drove her there. She doesn’t have a car, and she left her purse in the booth where she’d been sittin’.”
George opened his mouth to speak, then stopped when he lifted his phone out of his pocket and answered, “Conaway.”
They stood in silence waiting for him to finish.
He hung up. “Someone reported a black SUV driving in the back of the bar near the bathroom window they found open. Anyone of you owns one?”
He fisted his palms tightly. “Most of us got black SUVs or trucks. None of us took her, so make the fuckin’ calls you need to make, and find my fuckin’ woman.”
The cop’s eyes hardened. “I’m the fuckin’ law. I gotta ask these questions.”
He took a step in his direction. “Get that ’cause I’m not blind, but it isn’t your fuckin’ woman who’s been kidnapped. It’s mine, so I don’t fuckin’ think you understand she’s fuckin’ terrified and alone. When her ex gets his hands on her, he’s gonna be pissed she left New York. He’s gonna be pissed we roughed him up for slapping her in broad daylight, and he’s gonna be livid she’s with me. It means he’ll be outta fuckin’ control, so out of it, he’ll fuckin’ beat her until she’s isn’t breathing, and if my woman ain’t breathing, neither will he.”
“It’s plain stupid to say that to a cop.”
“I’m not fuckin’ stupid. I’m fuckin’ pissed I’m having to convince a fuckin’ cop to find my woman. I’d known, we wouldn’t have called the fuckin’ cops, and it don’t matter what the fuck I tell you ’cause she’s not breathing means I’m not living just fuckin’ existing. I can exist fine behind bars.”
It was something he said, the way he said it or maybe it was the anguish that clung to him clear in his face, but it worked. George held his gaze for a long moment, and then, he pulled his radio from his waist and reported the kidnapping and the possible suspect’s car description.
“We’ll keep in touch,” the cop said, and they left.
****
Allie didn’t know where she was or how long she’d been there, and she was still shivering. She’d cradled her knees and rested her head on them. It served a dual purpose. She wouldn’t have to look at the gun or the men who’d taken her.
She closed her eyes, and willingly, Jace’s face came to mind. Since she’d been taken, she tried her hardest not to think about him. She knew thinking of him would serve only to remind her what she’d miss the most, and then it’d be much harder to keep the tears at bay. At that moment, she didn’t care if she cried.
She wanted to remember everything, everything he’d said, everything he’d done. She wanted to remember the look in his eyes every time he told her he loved her, the way he held her every night and every morning, the way he said her name.
So she did.
And she cried.
****
No news.
Still.
It had been seven hours. Seven hours since she’d been taken, seven hours she’d been terrified, probably trembling and fucking alone. In a little over an hour, her ex’s private plane would land, and he’d find her wherever they’d hid her, and then, he’d fucking hurt her.
The ache in his chest strengthened. He braced, shaking his head, trying to force himself to focus.
They’d had no leads to her whereabouts. Not the club, not the cops, not Doug. Because of it, the brothers separated into groups, each going to a different airport and private landing strip to wait.
Waiting was the worst. Every second, the panic grew; the dread compounded. His heart beat so hard and fast, any moment he swore it would explode inside his chest.
He’d lived through a war and seen death. He’d stood at the end of a barrel too many times to count. He’d been shot at, stabbed, and too close to exploding IEDs, but he’d never been more terrified in his life than he was then.
If he didn’t get to her in time, he’d be like Ripper, angry and bitter, existing without living, fucking dead inside.
“Gonna find her.”
He spared a glance at Mellow and prayed for the millionth time for his Allie.