I pushed myself up and headed down the hall and around the bar to head into church. Everyone was there. I looked from face to face and saw the same fear registered.
“Where is she?” I asked, realising the only person not in the room was Shae. Fear shot through my chest hard. She’d been in danger while I was fucking sleeping. How could they let this happen?
“She is capable of looking after herself,” Hawk said, his tone firm. He was the acting President right now, and I knew what he said went but this was fucking Shae. “We have people looking for her, and scouting the leftover Wolves. We also have a fucking meeting with the Reapers today to discuss you.”
“You want me to stick around while fuck knows what is happening to Shae?”
Hawk ran his hand over his face, and for the first time, I saw genuine fear on his face. No one expected this when I came back. No one knew the level of danger I had been in all year. It was why I had broken up with her, it was why I fled.
Coming home had been a massive mistake.
“I’m going to the Wolves.”
"You can’t.”
“Like fuck I can’t,” I shot at Alex. “That is my woman they have. You know what they’ll do to her, you know what they are capable of.”
He slunk back in his chair, into his own memories of his woman being kidnapped by them and the Reapers not too long ago.
“I’m coming with you,” he said, standing up. Hawk nodded his approval before he joined me at the door. Rebel stood as well.
“I’m coming with. She’s there because I let my guard down.”
I wanted to be angry with the kid, but I couldn’t. I knew it would have been pandemonium. With what they did, I could only imagine what chaos they went through. I nodded quickly and he joined us out in the main clubhouse. The Nomads were all looking around, trying to figure out what to do. I knew they knew what the Wolves could do. I’d ridden with them before, and I knew she had been close with them too.
They’d be worried as well.
But I couldn’t care about that right now. I needed to get her back here, and safe. This was my war to fight, not hers.
I jumped on my bike, finally feeling like myself other than the ache in my arm where they injected me. Nothing was going to stop me from rescuing my girl.
Alex pulled out ahead of us, me on his left and Rebel on his right as he led us down to Wolves territory. My heart was in my throat the entire ride, wondering what the fuck I was going to find. Who the fuck would take her and why?
My mind couldn’t stop going over all the possibilities but I knew it wasn’t going to be good. Once we got close enough to the burned out rubble of the clubhouse, we realised it wasn’t going to be here.
“Do you have any contacts?” Rebel asked me. “From when you worked with them?”
“None that would help me,” I said. “But I do know they had another clubhouse not too long ago, long since abandoned, but we gotta get down to Cork.”
“Cork?” Rebel queried. “That’s O’Farrell territory. We should call them to tell them first.”
Alex nodded. “Good point. You do that while we look around.”
I followed Alex around the burnt remains of bodies and the clubhouse that had been taped off by police. The smell of burnt liquor as well as ash infiltrated my nostrils and I fought off the urge to dry heave. Nothing had survived.
“Did the women and children get out?” I asked him.
Alex nodded. “Yeah, they’d all been out the back anyway. We didn’t light the fucker up until it was almost empty.”
“Still killed a few members.”
He nodded. “That’s the cost of war. They would have done the same to you, brother.”
“I know,” I said. “But I betrayed them.”
“For a good cause,” he replied. “Stop taking it on your shoulders and see this for what it is. We needed to claim our territory back anyway. It was bound to happen. This way, we can negotiate your life and get them off your back.”
I didn’t believe it would be as easy as that.
