Angel signals to pull over and only because I want to know what’s so important, I do.
“We should go the rest of the way on foot. We don’t know what we’ll be walking into.”
“Fuck that. This property belongs to my family, no one is gonna have me creeping around. We ride straight up the drive and kick the fuckin’ door down if we need to.”
Bringing my bike to life, brothers ride behind me and ten minutes later I turn off for the cabin.
I couldn’t care less how many assholes are guarding Ford, they’re all going to die. They can run or die, actually, fuck that, if they run, they’ll still die.
Parking my bike where dad used to park his, the brothers park either side of me, all of us moving our eyes over the cabin. Waiting for someone to show their face. The silence is eerily strange. The number of times I’ve been here, it’s never been this quiet. Almost like death lingers in the air.
Dismounting my bike, I take out my gun and keep my head held high as I head toward the front door. I twist the doorhandle, and it clicks open.
“Thought we were kicking it down?” Angel snorts.
“No point when it’s open, sweetheart.” Over my shoulder, I instruct the brothers, “Spread out, see anyone, shoot.”
I head straight for the stairs, poking my head around the corner to find no one in the hall. Angel passes me and checks the first bedroom.
Fuck this.
“Ford!” I holler.
No one comes out but Ford yells from the other end of the hall. The door is padlocked shut but Angel makes quick work smashing it off.
“Where the fuck did you get the axe from?”
“It was by the front door,” he tells me.
With the padlock gone, we still have to get through the regular lock. Kicking open the door, Ford is sat up on his knees, yanking at the chain around his ankle.
“Fuckin’ yes,” he sighs. Relief draining the last of his energy.
He collapses on the mattress.
“I’m alive. I’m here. I’m not dead.”
I cross the room and fall to my knees at his side. Collecting him in my arms, I scan his body taking in the superficial injuries. It’s the ones I can’t see I’m most concerned about.
“I’m alive,” Ford murmurs.
“Yeah, you are. We’re here. We’ve got you.”
Angel uses the axe to free Ford’s ankle. It takes the both of us to help him up and get him downstairs.
His legs give way as we hit the bottom of the stairs, and we haul him into the living room and dump him on the couch.
“Talk to me, brother, tell me what you need.”
Sheer fatigue plagues him but he takes a deep breath and says, “I just wanna get the fuck outta here.”
“That we can fuckin’ do, even if we have to carry you,” Maxwell hollers as the brothers file in.
They all crowd around him and I step back. While they show him their love, I take a look around and nothing has been touched. It’s eery to know a stranger has been here and yet there is no trace of him. I check the windows and back door and make sure they’re locked. I take out one of the spare keys from the pot in the kitchen and scribble down a note.
Moving through the cabin, I tack the note to the front door. Taking out my phone, I call my brother.
“You good?” he answers.
