“Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” he says.
“Listen to me,” I say. “Angel is gone. Someone found her shopping bag down the street from a store she visited. Send six of the brothers to Shreveport. Get word out she’s missing. And double her friend’s security detail.” Finished, I lower the phone from my ear.
“Eagle!”
“What?”
“Don’t do anything crazy. Wait until we know what’s going on.”
I disconnect. Fuck Tonsils’ advice. I need to find hernow.Realizing I haven’t called her cell phone yet, I dial her number. It goes right to voicemail. I try again and again, leaving five messages, each one a little more urgent than the one before it. My gut tells me the Dead Dogs have something to do with this. That someone on the inside betrayed the club and told Bear who Serafina really is.
If that’s the case, if her brother has her—I’ll fucking kill him.
Serafina
Gagged, blindfolded, and with my hands tied behind my back, all I can do is struggle as I’m dragged from Tito’s van and pushed through what I guess is a doorway. I hear the loud humming of an industrial-sized cooling compressor and then several male voices.
“Is this the bitch?” someone asks.
“Eagle Laramie’s old lady,” Tito confirms, sounding proud of himself.
I hear someone step closer.
“You were right, she has nice tits and a tight little ass.”
Someone grabs two handfuls of my backside and I squirm to get away, kicking blindly at whoever is in front of me.
Male laughter sounds and my blindfold is removed.
I squint, trying to adjust to the bright light in the room. We’re standing in a warehouse of some sort. There’s countless crates stacked everywhere, a cement floor, high, narrow windows covered in mesh wire, swinging industrial lamps overhead, and aluminum pipes running along the ceiling.
“What’s her name?”
“Serafina,” Tito answers, turning me around.
That’s when I see my brother, Bear. My heart nearly stops. Like Tito, his filthy intentions are revealed in his smile. I back away, praying he won’t touch me, hoping for divine intervention. However, my prayers are denied. He grabs my arm and gives me a violent shake. I cry out in pain, but the tight gag muffles my voice.
“Do you know how long I’ve waited to get my hands on you?” he asks.
I shake my head.
He shakes me again. “I’m gonna give Eagle what he deserves by fucking you and then putting a bullet in your head.”
Bear reaches into his vest and pulls out an overstuffed envelope and hands it to Tito. “Count it.”
Tito weighs the package in his palm. “I trust you. Ten thousand, right?”
Bear nods and focuses on me again. “Welcome to your new home, baby,” he says as he roughly hauls me across the expanse of the room and stops at a steel door. “I’ve waited a long time to take something precious away from Eagle.”
He kicks the door open to a windowless cell with a single light overhead. There’s a dirty twin mattress on the floor, a bucket, roll of toilet paper, and a six-pack of bottled water. I fight him every step of the way as he forces me to my knees onto the pallet and then picks up a chain with a pair of handcuffs attached to the end.
“This can go two ways,” he warns. “You let me untie you without a struggle and I put these handcuffs on you. Or I do it the fun way, and beat and fuck the shit out of you until you understand who has the power here.”
Tears sting my eyes as I let his words sink in. Of course he doesn’t recognize me or my great grandmother’s name. I want to scream out my real name, let him know who I am. But I’m gagged, and if I reveal the truth, it might push him over the edge.
“Which is it? Option number one?”
I nod vigorously.
