I disconnected and shoved my phone in my pocket, my heart hammering against my ribs like a war drum as I stalked out of my office and through the main room of the club, barely registering the music or the girls or Gator calling my name behind me.
“She’s fine,” I said to myself. I’m probably just overreacting. That’s what it had to be.
My phone rang before I made it to my bike.
“Talk to me,” I answered.
“Bash.” Cyber’s voice was tight. “We’ve got a problem, brother. You need to get to the clubhouse. Now.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“Is she?—”
“Just get here.”
The line went dead.
I don’t remember the ride to the compound. I know I made it because I came back to myself as I was blowing through the front gate, gravel spraying as I gunned it past the clubhouse to the squat concrete building tucked behind it. The security building was Cyber’s kingdom.
I was off my bike before it finished rocking on its stand.
The vault buzzer sounded, the heavy steel door unlocking, and I shoved through it into the cold darkness of the control room. Monitors covered every wall, glowing blue and white, andthe AC was cranked so low it was a wonder you couldn’t see your own breath.
Frankie was at her desk across from Cyber, her fingers flying over her keyboard.
If you didn’t know better, you’d look at Frankie and think she was a kindergarten teacher. You’d be dead wrong, though. Frankie was a master hacker who’d once cracked into Bane’s offshore accounts and cleaned him out to the last cent. My VP had kidnapped her to get his money back. Although, thinking about it, I don’t think he ever did get any of it back.
But the crazy bastard got his girl in the end, and I was pretty damn sure he would trade every last dollar he’d ever made for her without blinking.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“Working on it,” Cyber said, not looking up from his keyboard.
The door buzzed behind me and Gator and Bane came in, cutting into my spiraling thoughts.
“What’s going on?” Gator asked, his eyes bouncing between me and the screens.
“Show him,” Frankie said quietly.
That quiet scared me more than anything.
Cyber pulled up a video on the big center monitor, and my whole world narrowed down to that screen.
It was the alley beside Dottie’s Diner. Hattie walked into frame with her phone in her hand, then a man appeared around the side of the building.
“No,” I shook my head, rage building inside me as he came up behind her fast.
One arm banded around her middle as his hand held a cloth over her mouth and nose.
She fought. God, my girl fought—clawing and kicking and twisting—and every second of it carved something out of my chest with a rusty spoon.
Then her legs buckled.
She dropped like her strings had been cut, and the son of a bitch caught her, dragged her out of frame. Cyber switched cameras. The next angle showed a black Dodge Charger backed up to the alley with the trunk open.
He put my woman in a fucking trunk and closed the lid.
“Plates,” I bit out.
