Emily: We’re in trouble. We’re on the back road heading towards the city. Black SUV bearing down on us. Need help NOW.
Damn it! When did she send this?
I freeze for a second before catapulting into action. I’m moving before I finish reading, already typing out a group text for my brothers to join me.
I don’t wait for replies. I jump on my bike. Emily has been sharing her location with me since she moved into the clubhouse. I thumb it open and attach my phone to the cradle at the center of my handlebars and check her location. When I see the stationary dot, fear swamps my very soul. I head towards there with my heart in my mouth. Halfway there I’m joined by Mica and Slate. We crest the next hill and see Christina’s car in a ditch. The rear end is smashed to hell, telling me this wasn’t some random accident.
I ditch the bike and run to look for my old lady. The windshield is shattered and the passenger door is hanging open. Christina is slumped in the driver’s seat, blood at her hairline, her breathing shallow but steady. But my Emily’s seat is empty.
Slate shoves me aside and climbs in to check on his old lady. I stumble back, shocked that she’s just gone. I can hear Mica calling for an ambulance. I run around the car, making sure she wasn’t thrown from the vehicle or trapped beneath it. My blood runs cold when I don’t find her anywhere. I shout her name anyway, on the off chance that she might hear me and respond.
Mica comes up beside me. He hands me Emily’s phone and states quietly, “Everything points to an abduction. You know that, right?”
I turn her phone on. It still works although the screen is cracked. It looks like she may have dropped it at some point after texting me.
“Fuck! Fuck it to hell!” I yell as I throw the phone on the ground. Why had I chosen today to be out of range. Why hadn’t I accompanied them to the city. “This is my fault!”
Mica puts his hand on my shoulder. “We thought it was over. No one could have foreseen this.”
I’m pacing up and down. “How long has she been gone for?”
Mica speaks again. “I don’t know. But the more time we waste on a fruitless search here, the more time her abductors have alone with her. You know what that means.”
I jerk my head around to look at him. My mind fills with all the information they taught us in the military about how the longer a person is missing, the more unlikely they are to be found alive. Fuck me. I rub my hand down my face and pocket Emily’s phone. I make a mental note to let Striker have a crack at it.
Christina groans when the paramedics arrive. As they lift her onto the stretcher, her bloodied fingers are shaking but she’s determined to tell me something.
“Onyx,” she says, voice slurred. “They took her.”
“Who?” I ask, totally bewildered about who could have a grudge enough against a woman as sweet as Emily besides Brennan. He’s in jail, so I know it’s not him.
“It was a fancy black SUV,” she says. “It came out of nowhere and forced us off the road.” She pauses to catch her breath. “A man wearing expensive clothes got out. He wasn’t a biker or a cop.”
My jaw tightens because a suspicion is growing stronger in my mind. If they let that stupid fucker go again, I’m going to drop them where they stand.
“He didn’t even look at me,” she continues. “He went straight for Emily. He was rough and determined. I couldn’t stop him.”
I hold her hand between both of mine as Slate stands close to the gurney, his eyes glistening with tears.
“Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything wrong. We’ll find her and the two of you will be shopping in no time.”
That’s all I get out before they load her into the ambulance and shut the doors. Slate knocks once and the door swings open. He climbs in and kneels at her side. The siren and lights come on as the ambulance pulls away.
I glance over at Jasper. He’s on a call right now, but I see him nodding his head. Then he turns to me and says, “Brennan’s still in jail.”
I say to Mica, “Emily wasn’t taken because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This feels like maybe she was taken out of vengeance or because someone saw her as a loose end.”
Mica keeps his expression inscrutably blank as he responds. “There’s no evidence to support any of that right now. We need facts, not gut feelings. Like Jasper said, Brennan’s in custody so this wasn’t him. But who the fuck would do something like this?”
***
The ride back to the clubhouse is a painful reminder that I fucked up and my old lady paid the price. My mind gets lost running through every possible reason she might have been taken from me in such a violent way.
Striker’s office light is on when we storm inside. Jasper and my old man are standing beside him, gazing at his computer. Striker’s fingers are flying across the keyboard while they wait.
“You found anything?” I ask, not even bothering with a hello.
When Striker finally looks up at me, there’s something different in his eyes. Relief maybe. That’s when it hits me that he’s figured out whatever was bothering him about this case.
