I dropped to my knees, my hands shaking as I tried to hold on to the phone. They were going to kill him if they didn’t stop.
“Please, stop. Stop. What do you want?” I roared.
Handlebar appeared in my periphery. He was just ending his call and running back to me. The other guys working in the garage had stopped to see what was happening. I could barely breathe. All I could see was Declan’s destroyed face and body.
Until the phone turned around and I saw the insignia on the cut of a man standing beside the guy holding the phone. Handlebar snatched the phone, his face filled with disgust and rage, and he snarled.
“You want to save him? Come to this address. Maybe you’ll get there before we kill him.”
The call cut out, and I screamed, scrambling to get it back. “I need to call them… Call them back, please. Call them back…”
Tears streaked down my face as the phone screen lit up again with a text message. It had an address on it. Handlebar wouldn’t give me the phone, but I could see how full of rage he was. The mild-mannered southern man was no longer here.
He grabbed a wrench off the counter and threw it, making me jump as it clanged hard against the wall, then fell to the floor with a prolonged clatter. I bent forward, clutching my stomach. I couldn’t stop shaking. I felt dizzy. I was going to black out.
“Waverley,” Handlebar was beside me, lifting me up. “Breathe darlin’ you gotta breathe.”
“I…can’t…” I felt my chest hitching, the video re-running through my head over and over. How did they get him? How did they know who he was or how to find him?
Handlebar kept talking, kept telling me to breathe, his gentle voice finally breaking through and I sucked in a deep breath.
“Where is she?” Hudson came into the garage on a roar. I flew into him, grabbing his cut as I cried, barely able to speak. “It’s okay,” he said, running his hand up and down my back. “I’m here, it’s okay.”
“It’s not,” I cried out, leaning back to look at him. “They’re going to kill him. God, Hudson please you have to help him. You have to stop them, they can’t kill him!”
Handlebar was messing with my phone, Warren was there, Ink and Dirt too and they all looked at the video started playing again, the sounds filling the garage.
“Fuck,” Warren looked up at me. “Wave, who is this?”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight. This was my fault, he was hurt because of me. He might lose his life because he knows me. Worse, he could survive this and always remember what happened to him. No one could get over something like this. Even if he was intact, he’d always be afraid, always worried that someone might get him. I’d done that to him. Me.
“Waverley,” my brothers face appeared in front of me. He gripped the sides of my face, taking me from Hudson’s arms, and holding my eyes breathing in and out until I took the same rhythm and did it with him. “Honey, we need to know who this is.”
“It’s Declan,” I whispered.
“Shit,” he closed his eyes but when they opened, they were full of ire and determination. “This isn’t your fault.”
“How can you say that? Of course it is. They took him to get to me. I have to go, I have to make them let him go.”
“Not happening.”
I looked over at Hudson. Ballistic had appeared and was watching the video, they had at least turned the sound off so I didn’t have to hear it again.
“He’s been calling and calling, and I’ve ignored him every time,” I screamed at Hudson, before looking back at my brother. “Who knows how long they’ve had him? How much they’ve tortured him. Please, Warren, I can’t let him die. I can’t. It’ll kill me if they kill him. Please?”
Warren and Hudson looked at each other. I didn’t want to see Hudson’s face. I’d heard the way I sounded when I talked about Declan. I still cared about him, of course I did, and I couldn’t stand the thought of this happening to him. Hudson could be reading more into it but at this point I didn’t care. There was only one thing I cared about.
“Clear the room.”
I clutched Warren as my father came in. Everyone but his officers, me, and Hudson remained. Handlebar gave my shoulder a squeeze before walking out. I couldn’t believe less than fifteen minutes ago we had been joking around without a care in the world. That I’d thought everything was settling down, going my way. That I was happy.
“Tell me what is happening. I don’t need to see the video, I already heard what’s in it.”
Warren straightened up, but it was Dirt who filled him in. I listened, frozen in my brother’s arms. I was losing feeling in my legs, and he felt it, wrapping me up tighter and stopping me from falling. I looked up at him. “Don’t let him die,” I whispered. “Please, Warren. Please?”
“This is likely a trap,” King said, rubbing a hand over his jawline.
“Yeah,” Dirt said. “We thought it was suspicious how quiet they’d been.”
