“I need to call Viking,” Steel mutters as he pulls out his phone.
“Wait!” I start. “What if it’s Viking and someone working for him? We don’t know what’s happening yet. If it is Tracker, we don’t know for sure that this isn’t some long game of Viking’s that they planned together.”
Steel puts his phone on the table. “Viking is straight up. I don’t think he’d do anything to hurt his daughters. He might not care for them, but when he made the marriage deal, he wanted me to promise they would be treated right. But I take your point, we don’t involve him until we know what’s happened to Leena and Steph. In the meantime, we assume that Tracker’s got something to do with this.”
Tracker. My ex-brother. A man I’d ridden with countless times over the years. “Tracker has the skills to do it. He knows us. Our weaknesses. Our fucking homes. He knows our club. Knows where we’d be most vulnerable. He has the skills to find anyone, that’s why he was so valuable. To make anything look like something it’s not. He could easily have got into Wing’s house and taken Steph. Threatened her with something that would have made her write that note, then used her as leverage against Leena. I was gone. In Jacksonville and then at the clubhouse. He fucking knew it. He probably started the damn fire just to draw us out.”
“Or had someone there do it for him. He could be working with anyone, if it’s him. He was before,” Edge points out rationally, though his hands ball into fists on the tabletop.
I can’t keep it together any longer. I let out a wounded growl that is far more animal than it is human. “I want her back. She’s my wife. I won’t leave her in the hands of a monster.”
Wing shoves his chair back and pushes to his feet. “I’ll ride with you. We’ll find them. If it’s Tracker, most of us have ridden with him countless times. We know his paths. His hideouts. His fucking houses.”
“Doubtful,” Edge points out, irritatingly rational, while murmurs rip through the room. “This is Tracker here. The guy is ex-military. He knows what he’s doing. If he doesn’t want to be found, we won’t find him.”
“No, but maybe we can lure him out.” Snake sits beside Edge, his face screwed up in thought. The snake tattoo seems to be hissing at me from the angle I’m standing at. I feel like that snake. Coiled. Violent. Ready to fucking strike.
Edge grunts. “Any trap that would work would involve a fuckton of money or one of us offering ourselves up. It’s this club he took issue with, for whatever reason, and Steel and I head it.”
“Or with Viking. We could string him up and offer him as bait,” Shadow, our enforcer, points out.
Steel grinds his teeth so hard the click of his jaw pops loud in the room. “That’s not gonna happen. We are barely keeping this shit together as is. Viking’s not gonna find out that his daughters have been taken. We’ll get them back, even if I have to offer myself up to do it.”
The entire room draws a collective breath and holds it until Wing raises his head and looks Steel in the eye. “No. This isn’t your battle. You have an old lady back at home.”
“As do most of us,” Steel agrees, far too placidly. Anyone who knows the guy can tell just what is churning under that seemingly placid surface. I don’t mistake his calm demeanor for something it’s not. Inside, he’s boiling over, just like the rest of us. “I’m the Prez of this club. We all know what that means. Leah knew what it meant when she agreed to be with me. She won’t be happy about it, but I’m willing to put myself out there. We’ll figure it the fuck out.”
Edge rolls his eyes and lets out a sarcastic sounding grunt. “We need Viking for this. If Tracker is watching us, waiting to see what will happen, we need him. I know you don’t want him to know that his daughters were taken on our watch, but this is our problem. He’s part of the club, or at least he will be. Together, we can make it look like Tracker is getting exactly what he wants,” he pauses and turns to Steel. “Viking reached out to him once. He can do it again. Make a sincere offer the bastard can’t refuse. He’ll say he saw reason. That he wants to take us down for good. He’ll eat shit and grovel if he has to, which is what Tracker no doubt wants. He thinks Viking screwed him over and he’s right. I don’t know why he wants to destroy his own club, but I can promise you, he’s not gonna take us down. He just has to look like he’s gonna do it.”
Silence rules the room for a few long moments. I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin, split it right down the middle, and fling myself out the first open window, a black shadow that will travel every fucking corner of the earth until Leena is back with me.
Finally Steel clears his throat, as his right, as Prez, to have the final say. “I say we put it to a vote. We have to do something. This might be our only shot. I want to hear what you all have to say.”
Chapter 25
Leena
Even though it seemed an impossible task, sometime through the impossibly long, lonely, silent hours of the night, I drifted off.
I didn’t even realize I was sleeping until I’m woken up by a harsh shake.
My eyes unglue themselves and the fog clears off my brain. I glance up, hoping that it’shisface. That my limbs feel heavy and swollen because his were all wound up with mine. That it’s his heart beating into the empty silence of the room, his steady, even breaths, but even before I peel my eyes open, I know it’s not.
The scent. It’s all wrong. My captor stands before me, eyes dark and menacing, his features schooled into a hard, hateful mask. There’s a thicker layer of shadow visible on his square, clenched jaw, but that’s the only thing that’s changed about him. He still wears the same dark t-shirt, the same black jeans, the same biker boots. His eyes are just as hard and just as cold. Devoid of human emotion.
His nostrils flare like he’s scenting me, breathing in my fear and relishing the way I have to bite down on my bottom lip to keep from crying out as pins and needles rip through my folded up limbs. Hot waves of agony tear through my body at being cramped up and forced to sleep upright and bound. It’s like someone shoved a hot poker into my shoulders and down my legs. I barely manage to stifle a scream.
Behind me, Stephanie lets out a whimper of pain that she can’t contain.
“Up and at ‘em. I’ve got a surprise for you. One hell of a surprise. I think you’ll even like it.”
Judging from the bastard’s sadistic tone, I doubt that very much. Steph whimpers again and her body tenses up against me. My own muscles brace, like steel rods were just shoved inside of them, keeping them hard and straight. I’m proud that I can raise my neck and look this monster in the face, that I don’t shy away or cower at his brand of evil.
“Turns out daddy dearest wants you after all. And here I thought all along you were just an annoyance to be married off to the first taker. I guess it would look bad for him to so callously not give a shit about two of his daughters disappearing. He was the one who came crawling to me. Begged me over the phone to return you both. I guess that note I left wasn’t so believable. I’m still gonna get what I want because I have you both.”
When neither of us say anything, the monster continues. He’s as tense as I am, so fucking proud of himself that my stomach churns sickeningly, even though it’s been nearly a day since I’ve had anything of substance to eat.
“Viking had a greater plan to put in motion this entire time. He always wanted to take The Riders down, but he wanted to learn all about their club, their supply and warehouses, and how they operated first. He wanted it firsthand, not from a mole. That’s why he let me go. I thought it was because the old bastard was getting sloppy, but it turns out it was all part of his plan. He wasn’t gonna act so soon, but taking you forced him to tip his hand. He wanted me to tell you both thathe would have got you back from your pig husbands before the real shit went down. You wouldn’t have been hurt. You were just a gesture of goodwill.”
