Page 100 of Catcher

My phone rattles hard against the table—one sharp buzz, then another, loud enough in the sudden quiet to sound like a gun cocking. It’s a notification from the Security app. My gut knots before I even look. When I do, the words on the screen hit like a blade sliding between my ribs—Security Breach. For one second, everything in me locks up. My lungs forget how to work. My pulse slams so hard I feel it in my teeth. Heat drains out of my hands while something cold and vicious opens in my chest. Then I’m on my feet so fast the chair flies backward and smashes into the wall hard enough to split the room wide open.

I’m already calling Ruby. It goes straight to voicemail.

No.

I call again while I’m moving for the door, damn near dropping the phone because my hand won’t stop shaking, straight to voicemail. My stomach drops so hard it feels as if something inside me tears loose. I call her father next, the line rings once. Twice. “Come on,” I snarl, shoving through the clubhouse doors like I can outrun what’s waiting for me. “Pick up the fuckin’ phone.”

Motion explodes around me. No bullshit. No questions. Just men moving. Riggs is already barking orders behind me, but I barely hear them over boots pounding, chairs scraping, and weapons getting grabbed. I’m out first, down the hall, through the clubhouse. The night hits me wet and hot when I barge outside. My bike roars to life under me, and I’m gone before the others are fully mounted, tires spitting gravel as I tear toward the gate.

Behind me, the Kings come alive, a pack of thunder rolling into the New Orleans night. The streets blur, dark pavement slick beneath streetlights, neon bleeding off wet buildings, people jumping back from crosswalks when we blow through. I ride fast, but not fast enough. My mind doesn’t stay in New Orleans. It goes back years, to another driveway, another house, another night when I knew something was wrong before I opened the door.

My hand clamps so hard around the throttle, pain shoots through my fingers.

Not again.

Ruby’s street comes up quickly and too slow all at once. I turn hard, the back tire sliding for half a breath before it catches. Her house sits ahead of me, dark because the porch light is off. The front door is ajar.

The whole world narrows to that crack of black. For one second, I’m not breathing. Then I’m off the bike with my gun in my hand.

Boots hit wet grass, then porch boards slick with rain. The door creaks inward when I shove it, and the scent of copper punches me straight in the chest. The furniture is overturned, a lamp is smashed against the wall, and Ruby’s throw blanket is partially dragged off the couch.

“Ruby!” My voice tears through the house and comes back wrong off the walls. No answer. There on the living room floor is Ruby’s dad, and beneath him a large pool of blood.

My brothers pour in behind me, silent and lethal. They move through the house, room by room, guns raised. My heart feels heavier in my chest with every breath I take. Everywhere I glance shows pieces of a struggle, like a broken picture frame, a smear of blood near the hallway, one of Ruby’s shoes lying on its side.

Wick kneels, checking Ruby’s dad. “Pulse,” he snaps. “But it’s faint.” He rolls him enough to see the wound and curses. “Knife. Deep. He’s bleeding out.”

“The house is empty,” Kiwi shouts.

My vision darkens around the edges.

“Call it in,” Riggs orders. “He needs to get to the hospital.”

Fender already has his phone out. “On it.”

A sound comes out of me that doesn’t feel human.

This can’t be happening.

A phone rings, cutting through the noise in my head. I glance around, feeling like I’ve left my body. Then I see Ruby’s phone lying face down near the hallway wall. I rush over and pick it up. The screen lights up with a text message from an unknown name. I swipe and open the message. It’s my woman lying unconscious on a dirty concrete floor, hair spilled across her face, wrists tied in front of her body. Her shirt is torn at the shoulder. Bruising shadows her cheek. Blood marks one corner of her mouth. My hand tightens around the phone until the case creaks. For a heartbeat, I can’t hear anything but the roar inside my skull.

Then another message comes through from the same unknown caller. It’s a video, so I tap play. The camera circles Ruby’s still body too slowly, like whoever is holding the phone wants me to see every helpless inch of her. A boot steps into frame near her side. A man chuckles, and the sound turns my skin cold.

“You Kings got a habit of putting your noses where they don’t belong.” The camera lowers closer to Ruby’s face. Her lashes don’t move. Her body is too still. “Pretty thing, ain’t she?” he says. “Be a shame what happens if you make me wait.” A hand reaches down and brushes hair off her cheek, and I see pure fucking red.

“Her life for yours,” he says. “And that little pissant brother of hers. You bring me, Robby. You bring me yourself. No law. No tricks.” The camera tilts, showing the cracked concrete beneath her. “You’ve got until dawn. At sunrise, I start cutting pieces off her while she’s still breathing. Maybe I’ll send the baby first, just so you understand what it means to lose twice.”

The phone nearly slips from my hand.

The man laughs softly. “Old fertilizer plant off River Road. East service road past the abandoned silos. Come ready to pay what’s owed.” Then the video cuts out.

I stand there staring at the black screen, and for one awful moment, I’m sucked back into the black hole of my past, and the universe is bending down to take everything I love with both hands again. The cold creeps into my chest until it feels as though my ribs are filling with frost, and I can’t breathe around it.

Then something shifts.

She’s still alive.

I have a location.