Hawk never wasted his breath on small problems. And he wouldn’t call me for no reason. “Callie’s gone.”
“The fuck you meangone?”
“She left a note that said none of this was real. Her place is cleared out. Phone’s going straight to voicemail.” He paused and the whistle of his inhale sent my heart jackknifing. “And Diesel found a symbol carved into her apartment. It’s the same one we’ve seen turning up near club property.”
I stared at the handlebars without really seeing them. None of this was real. Fuck. Fuck.Fuck.
I cursed loud enough to make my own ears ring. “She fucking told you that shit was jacked up. I told you to keep an eye on her.” A cold feeling settled in my gut, and all the anger tightened into a single hard ball. This was my fault. I kept disappearing on her. I’d told her about the Old Lady claims and told her she’d have to choose, then I ignored her. All that tension had been too much for her. Hell, it was too much for me. We’d put too much on her, and she bolted. Just like me.
Forget it. I cranked the bike and pulled a hard left straight out of the lot. “I’m coming home.”
“No.” Hawk’s voice carried despite my speed. “Finish your assignment. The club is already in a precarious position. Rival pressure is at an all-time high and pulling a patched member mid-negotiation makes us look unstable.”
“We are fucking unstable. I’m the wrong guy to be out here, Hawk. We both know it.”
“People like you, Colt. You’re charismatic when you’re not being a prick.”
“And when am I not being a prick? Because lately, that’s all I am.” I ended the call before I lost my cool even more than I had already. Hawk was right. The club was supposed to come first, but Callie meant more to any of us than we’d been able to admit.
If I rushed back, I proved to everyone looking that she’d gotten to me. Was there anything wrong with that? Okay, so it meant they’d go after her to try and hurt me. Then again, I was barely more than a grunt. Yes, I did Hawk’s patrolling and I took these trips for him, but anyone could take my place. We were friends. Nothing more. Nothing less.
What had really happened that put Callie in a tailspin?
I chewed over every second we’d been together and every interaction afterward. When I left last time, she’d seemed fine. Diesel promised to keep an eye on her, even though Hawk and everyone else tried to talk down her fears. I’d told Hawk how I felt about that, and he’d sent me on this mission to help clear my head.
Mother fucker. I should have been there. I should have told Hawk where he could shove his missions and stayed with Callie.
I wrapped up the mission in record time, taking care of all the meetings Hawk had set and talking to every single person on his list. Was I more gruff and shitty than usual? Yes. But I got the job done and with the results he wanted.
And when I made it back home, I drove straight past the clubhouse and over to Grady’s. The old man met me at the door with a smile and an offer for a drink.
“When’s the last time you saw Callie?”
He paused, his whiskered cheeks sagging with his frown. “Couple days ago. She needed parts for a bike.”
I grilled him for half an hour, then moved on to the next place, another bar I’d known her to visit one county over. Callie didn’t drink much, but she liked the atmosphere, and she always came back with more jobs to do. She loved her work. Anyone who watched her in the garage could tell she’d rather be elbows deep in a bike than anywhere else. I envied that about her. She knew who she was and what she wanted, and she went after it.
I drove from bar to bar, then started in on the machine shops, hitting every single one in the two counties surrounding us. Two days of bad coffee and worse food and all I had to show for it was a new bruise on my knuckles from some asshole trying to be cute with me. I’d wasted energy on the wrong fight. All that time I should’ve been fighting to make sure Callie wanted to stay instead of talking myself out of letting my feelings grow.
Sitting on a bar stool across from a bartender named Bruce, I asked the same question I’d asked at every stop for the last two days. “You seen a woman around here who works on bikes? Gota wrench tattoo here.” I tapped behind my ear. Might be going by the name Callie.” Probably not, but I had to start somewhere.
The big man shook his head. “No female mechanics around here. You might try Greensboro if that’s what you’re looking for.” He gave me a sad look like I’d lost my mind and he felt sorry for me.
Fine. I didn’t really care as long as I found some answers out there somewhere. No one in this day and age should be able to simply vanish. “What about a female biker with that tattoo?”
“No. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded annoyed and like he couldn’t wait for me to leave.
I ordered a beer and planted my ass on the stool, giving him a look that dared him to tell me to go.
Music pumped from the jukebox in the corner, and several men hung out on the other end of the bar, most of them leaning around one woman. Poor thing. She might be enjoying the attention but it would probably get old in a bit. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled up at the closest biker.
The door opened, letting in a gust of fresh air. And Hawk. He met my gaze over the heads of everyone in the bar and twitched his chin toward his shoulder.
Even unspoken it was a direct order for me to get my ass over there. I finished my beer without breaking eye contact, set the mug on the bar, and wiped the back of my hand over my mouth.
The bartender gave an audible sigh of relief when I stood and walked away. The crowd here didn’t part for me, and I weaved around knots of people too busy chatting to care unless I bumped into them.
Music and laughter erupted from the corner as I reached Hawk. His eyes narrowed but he waited until we stood next to our bikes to speak. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
