Page 22

Chapter twenty-two

Knox

“H ave you heard from Liam yet?” I ask Jude for the hundredth time in the last couple of hours.

“No. He told me he would be hard to reach.”

When we got back to Shine late last night or, fuck, maybe it was early this morning, we went directly to Mia’s. I looked around her house, seeing if there was anything I could glean about what happened. But other than what Braxton had already told me, there wasn’t anything else that stood out to me. Which pisses me the fuck off. Someone has my woman. I have no idea who, how they got her, or why. The only lead we have are the tulips. But that does little to ease my fears considering the girls who were found with them were already dead, and the cops didn’t have a single fucking lead. At least nothing they’re sharing with the general public.

Ozzy has called Cillian and left messages with him and also Finn to see if he would have more luck getting in contact with him since Cillian could probably hack into the police records. But so far, no dice. I’m going crazy sitting in this clubhouse.

Last night after checking Mia’s house, we looked around her property to see if there were tire marks or any clues that would give us a lead on who took her, but that didn’t give us answers, either.

Jude and Linc brought their women to the clubhouse along with Freya. The one thing we learned in the last couple of years is whoever our enemies are, they have no problem going after our women. But I have this sinking feeling in my gut that we aren’t dealing with the usual type of enemy we’re used to.

It’s the damn flowers. I never sent her any.

When I picked her up for our first date and she had a bouquet of white tulips, I didn’t think anything of it. But now I realize I should have. Maybe if I had asked where she got them, if she bought them herself or if they were sent to her, I would’ve been able to prevent this. Maybe I could have tracked down who sent them to her, if anyone, and prevented the entire thing. I was so excited about finally getting to take her out that I didn’t think twice about them. But the memory of those flowers is taunting me now. It’s all connected, and that scares me more than anything else.

“Knox,” Maizie calls as she barrels into the clubhouse. It’s early, not quite nine in the morning. “I think I have something.”

I jump from my seat as she comes to stand in front of me, out of breath and with wild eyes.

“I dropped Colby off at school and realized he forgot his lunch in the car when I got home, so I went back to the school to drop it off in the office. The women were talking about the high school’s vice principal not showing up for work and Mia not being in there either." She stops and takes a few breaths. “One of them said her sister-in-law works at the high school and saw him carrying a bouquet of white tulips into the library yesterday before anyone was supposed to be there. But the woman’s sister-in-law got there early and saw him walking through the back door of the library with them. They were gossiping about them having an affair or something.”

“Knox,” Jude calls from the other side of the room. “My brother’s on the phone.”

In four quick strides, I’m in front of Jude, grabbing the phone from his hand. “Liam, I need you to find me an address and anything else you can for Leonard Miller in Shine. And I need it yesterday.”

“Got it. I’ll call you back.”

He hangs up without saying goodbye, and I clutch the phone, waiting for it to ring. When it does, about fifteen minutes later, I answer right away.

“Leonard Miller, age thirty-seven. No living parents. Transferred from a private school in New York to Shine High School a little over a year ago. I’ll text you the address and his DMV information.”

“He’s from New York?” I ask with a lump in my throat.

“Yeah, a little town outside of Albany.”

That’s within a hundred-mile radius of where the other bodies were found last year.

“Thanks, Liam.”

“Aye. Sending the text now.”

He hangs up, and three seconds later, Jude’s phone dings with a text.

“Let’s go,” I say to my six brothers standing at the ready.

We take the van to the address Liam sent Jude. It’s about two miles from the school in a quiet, unassuming neighborhood. A couple cars are in the driveways of the other houses, but otherwise, the street is empty, seeing as it’s a workday. Jude parks the van a few houses down from the house where Liam sent us. I can’t help neighbors seeing us enter the house if they look out their windows, but I pray to whoever is listening that if they do, they don’t call the cops. Most everyone in this town, especially in a working-class neighborhood like this, would see our cuts and turn a blind eye. I would’ve rammed the van through this fucker’s house if I wasn’t worried about either it hurting Mia if she’s here or it giving him a head’s up that the cavalry has arrived and given him a chance to escape.

We walk around the side of Leonard’s house. Thankfully, his next-door neighbor appears to be gone. I peek through the windows but don’t see anything. His TV is off, as well as all the lights. When we get to the backyard, I look in the windows at the back of the house but don’t see any movement inside.

Jude walks up to the back door and pulls a lock-picking kit from his pocket. The man spent several years in the Royal Marines and has numerous skills that come in handy in these types of situations. When the door opens, we all file into the house with our guns drawn. It’s small from the looks of it. I wasn’t going to wait for Liam to find the plans for the house, so we’re going in blind. It’s pretty amazing that seven big-ass bikers can be as quiet as we are, though.

Ozzy and I silently creep into the hallway while Jude and Linc head toward the front of the house. Barrett and Wyatt walk toward the garage, and Braxton positions himself so he can cover both exits just in case Leonard’s hiding somewhere and tries to run.

Quietly, I open the first door on my right. It’s an empty bathroom. I close the door and head to the next closed door when Ozzy steps out of the room at the end of the hall. He shakes his head, signaling no one is in there, either. When I open the door to the last room, I can tell it’s the primary bedroom. The bed looks like it was recently slept in and is still unmade. I walk over to the dresser and find only a few pairs of men's underwear and socks. There are several empty hangers in his closet like maybe he’s skipped town or he doesn’t have a lot of clothes to begin with. Regardless, the room is empty.

We walk back into the small kitchen where my brothers have gathered, obviously not having found any signs of Leonard or Mia. Next to the refrigerator is another door.

“Basement,” I mouth to my brothers.

Ozzy nods and stands in front of the door to open it. I clasp him on the shoulder. When he turns to me, I shake my head, stepping in front of him. This is about my woman, and I’ll be damned if Ozzy takes the lead. My prez nods and steps aside. I slowly raise my gloved hand to the knob and twist, opening the door. Holding my gun in front of me, I begin walking down the stairs without turning the light on. I’m focused on listening for any movement as I carefully take each step, but there's no noise coming from the darkness. When I reach the bottom, the rest of my brothers file down behind me.

The basement is dark, with only a small amount of light coming through the rectangular windows at the tops of the cement wall. I look around for any other door that may lead to another room or any place this fucker could be hiding, but there’s nothing except the water heater, a washer and dryer, and a large cabinet against the far wall.

“No one’s here,” Wyatt says at the bottom of the stairs.

“Let’s check the house and see if we can find anything that might be useful,” Barrett suggests.

Ozzy nods, and Barrett, Wyatt, and Braxton make their way back up the narrow wooden staircase. Linc flips the light switch at the bottom of the stairs, and the basement is illuminated with a dim yellow glow from the single bulb hanging from the ceiling. I walk over to the cabinet and try the handle, but it’s locked.

“Why would he have a locked cabinet in his basement?” Jude asks.

With the butt of my gun, I hammer at the handle. When it clatters to the cement floor, the door swings open. What I find inside chills me to my bones.

Displayed on four shelves are pictures of women tied to a bed with a metal frame. Each one is in a different state of undress, some wearing their clothes while others are stripped down to their underwear. The one thing they all have in common, though, is the look of terror in their eyes. Next to the pictures are small mementos. A pair of earrings, a necklace, and a bracelet. On the bottom shelf sits a watch next to a picture I recognize. It’s the one the news showed when they identified the woman they found outside of Boston.

“Fuck. It’s him,” I say on an exhale.

And he has Mia.

“Knox, we found something,” Braxton calls from the doorway at the top of the stairs. I haul ass up the stairs and into the kitchen, where Braxton is holding a paper that looks like a property tax statement.

“It’s for a cabin about thirty miles outside of town," he says, holding up his phone to show me the map. I take the paper from him. The name isn’t Leonard’s, but if this is all we have to go on, we’ll be making a drive out there.

“Let’s go.”

The cabin is in the middle of the woods. There’s a fire access road near the clearing, so we take that to get us as close as possible without alerting anyone that we’re here. We pile out of the van, and all of us check our weapons before heading into the thicket of trees. It takes less than five minutes for us to meet in the open space where a small, dilapidated cabin sits.

And out front is an old station wagon that looks like the same make and model as the one owned by Leonard Miller. Liam was very thorough in the text he sent when he gave us the address.

“Jude, Linc, Wyatt—you three head around back. The rest of us are going in through the front,” Ozzy says as he starts walking toward the house.

There’s no cover between the trees and the cabin, so the only thing we can do is haul ass and pray he doesn’t see us coming. The four of us quietly make our way up the steps, guns raised and ready to fire. There aren’t any windows in the front of the house, and I have no idea if the man is inside or not.

Until I open the door and nearly get my arm shot off with buckshot.

“Motherfucker!” I yell.

“If you take a step closer, I’ll put a bullet in her before you can make it inside,” Leonard calls out.

“Mia!” I yell into the cabin.

“Knox,” she calls back. “I’m tied up.”

“Shut up, whore,” Leonard hollers, and I peek my head quickly around the corner.

He fires another shot at me.

“That’s two,” I say and step around the corner with my gun raised.

I see Leonard jump through a doorway, and Mia screams in terror.

In three long strides, I’m standing in the doorway of a bedroom. On the bed lies Mia, tied much like I saw the women in the photos. Standing next to her is Leonard, and in his hand is a gas can. The smell of gasoline instantly assaults my senses, making my eyes burn.

He throws the can at me, and I duck to miss getting hit with the metal container. Next thing I know, he has a lighter in his hand.

“You’re too late,” he says and drops the lighter on the floor.

The gasoline instantly ignites in front of the door and the fire quickly spreads up the wall. I watch in horror as Leonard raises both of his arms over his head with a long hunting knife in his hands. He squeezes his eyes shut and says a few words as though he’s praying or some insane shit. Before he plunges the knife into Mia, I fire three shots. Two in the chest and one between his eyes. The piece of shit collapses to the floor. Mia screams as blood splatters across her face.

I don’t think twice and jump over the flames in front of the door. Instantly, my brain registers the searing pain on my calves and the smell of burning denim, but my body refuses to stop. Pulling a knife from the holster on my belt, I cut into the ropes, trying like hell not to let the blade score Mia’s flesh while also trying to hurry the fuck up. This place is old as fuck, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it won’t take long for the fire to destroy the cabin. I have her wrists free in moments, then get to work on her ankles. The rope is thick and tough to cut through, but fortunately, I keep my blade pretty damn sharp, so it doesn’t take too long. Scooping Mia into my arms, I turn, knowing I’m going to have to make another jump for it, and it’s going to hurt like hell. Before I take a step toward the doorway, the ceiling comes crashing down, blocking our exit.

“Fuck!” I bellow as Mia clings to me.

“Window,” she coughs out, and I turn to see a window on the other side of the room that’s covered with old newspaper. Thankfully, the fire hasn’t spread to that side, but it’s only a matter of seconds. The smoke is thick, making it hard to breathe. When I reach the window, I lift my leg and kick through the glass, shards cutting into my already burned calves.

“Over here,” I yell to anyone outside.

“Holy shit, stand back,” Ozzy shouts, and I see him pick up a fallen branch to knock off the large pieces of glass around the window frame. Ozzy reaches in carefully because the frame isn’t completely clear. I maneuver Mia out of the window while the scorching heat from the fire licks at my back. He takes her in his arms, and Braxton comes to stand in front of the window, grabbing my forearm to help me through as well. As soon as I’m on steady ground, I grab Mia from Ozzy’s arms and we take off toward the tree line. When we reach it, we turn and see the entire cabin engulfed in bright orange and red flames.

“Where is he?” Linc asks.

“Dead.”

Mia clings to me, crying into my chest as I hold her tightly against me.

“Shh. I got you, baby.” I try to comfort her, but she continues to cry. Fuck, it’s not like I can blame her. God only knows what she’s been through in the fifteen hours she’s been gone.

“You need a hospital,” my brother says, pointing to my calves.

“How the fuck am I going to explain how I got my injuries?”

“I’ll make a call,” Jude says, pulling his phone from his pocket. “But we need to get the hell out of here before someone sees the smoke and calls the fire department.”

We begin making the trek back to the truck as Jude talks on the phone.

“Liam will have a doctor at the clubhouse in an hour,” he says.

“You can let me down,” Mia says into my chest. “I can walk.”

“Not a chance, sweetheart.”

At this point, I don’t think I’ll ever let her out of my arms.

It takes about forty-five minutes to get back to the clubhouse, and I keep Mia in my lap the entire time. She doesn’t tell me to let her down again. I think she senses that I need to hold her right now. If she’s in my arms, then nothing bad can touch her. I need the warmth of her body, the reassuring feel of her breathing against me right now. I need the physical evidence that we got to her in time and that sick fuck didn’t murder her in front of me like he was planning.

We walk through the door—me still carrying Mia—past Lucy, Maizie, and Charlie. I take her straight to my room, not stopping until I’m inside and I lay her on the bed.

“Brother, at least let me look at your legs,” Ozzy says.

“I’m fine. Can you get me a couple washcloths?”

I nod toward my bathroom and hear the water running before Ozzy comes out with two warm, wet washcloths and hands them to me.

The first one I use to wipe Leonard’s blood from her face. She doesn’t need a single piece of that man touching her. The second is for Mia’s forehead, where there’s a nasty gash. She winces when I gently brush against the bruising cut but doesn’t pull her head away.

“I know, baby. The doctor will be here soon and have you fixed up.”

“What about you?” she asks me with a worried look in her eyes.

“She’ll fix me up, too.”

There’s a knock on the door, and I turn my head to find Lucy standing next to Ozzy.

“Doc’s here,” she says, and a small blonde woman walks into the room carrying what looks like a paramedic bag.

“I’m Dr. Lasher,” the woman says, introducing herself. “What do we have?”

“She has a head wound,” I say as the doctor steps around to the other side of the bed. She sets her bag down and grabs a pair of gloves from the inside pocket.

“Any other wounds that I can’t see?” Her gaze locks with Mia’s, a meaningful look passing between them.

“No,” Mia replies, and the doc nods.

“He has burns on his legs and probably a few chunks of glass stuck in there as well,” Ozzy says from the doorway.

Fucking snitch.

“I’ll take a look when I’m done here,” the doctor says as she takes out a penlight and shines it in Mia's eyes.

Dr. Lasher goes through a series of questions as she checks my woman’s vitals. Mia tells her she was drugged twice as far as she knows but isn’t sure with what. My hand tightens in hers, and she tries to give me a reassuring smile. Of course she's the one trying to reassure me that she’s fine. And I can see that she is, but nothing about what happened to her is fine, and it never will be.

After listening to Mia’s lungs, the doctor nods. “I’m going to clean her head wound, then give her a few stitches to be safe. But all in all, everything checks out.”

When she’s finished with Mia, she turns to me. “You can either go in the bathroom and change into a pair of shorts, or you can drop your pants. I don’t really care, but I need to see your legs.”

I stand from the bed and pull my jeans off, my breath hissing through my teeth when the fabric peels from my calves.

“Figured,” the doc says and walks over, bending down to look at my legs. “Okay, lie down next to your woman. This is going to take a while.”

After cleaning my wounds, the doctor tells me I have second-degree burns. The cuts aren’t deep enough to require stitches, but I’ll probably have some nasty scars. She gives me instructions on how to clean the burned skin every day to prevent infection and tells me what to look out for in case they do become infected.

“Thank you, doctor,” Mia says, and the woman gives her a small smile.

When she walks out of the bedroom, Ozzy closes the door, leaving Mia and me alone for the first time.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I ask, gathering her in my arms so she can rest her head on me.

“Can we talk about it later? Right now, I need to be here with you and know that I’m safe.” She looks at me with tears in her eyes, and I wrap her tighter against my chest.

“Of course, sweetheart. Anything you want.”

We lie in silence for several minutes until I feel her breaths even out. When I know she’s asleep, I reach over to my nightstand and grab my phone to text Jude since there’s no way in hell I’m leaving this bed.

Me : Cleanup?

Jude : Taken care of. Liam made a call to the FBI. A statement will be made tomorrow.

I set my phone back on the nightstand, and Mia doesn’t stir. Though I’m fucking exhausted, sleep doesn’t come easy. Thoughts of the fire, the memory of Leonard holding that knife above my woman with every intention of plunging it into her chest, the fact that he got to her period, it all keeps racing through my mind. When I hear her breath hitch, I look down. She hasn't opened her eyes, and she’s fine.

She’s sleeping and safe.

She’s alive and in my arms.

And that is the only reason I can close my own eyes to let sleep take me, too.