Page 25

E verything is going great in my life. I have an amazing boyfriend. My father is getting better each day. My job doesn’t suck anymore now that I have employees to order around.

It’s going pretty well.

Or it would be if Laura were here. I finally received a text back from her. Just a simple, I’m fine. I need space .

I respect her for needing it, but I wish she would let me help her.

So to distract myself from feeling like a failure as a friend, I’ve thrown myself into my relationship with Hayes. That’s how he ended up in my kitchen making me dinner.

“You look cute in my apron,” I tell Hayes as I hug him from behind.

He smiles at me over his shoulder. “Frying chicken can be dangerous. I don’t want to burn my perfect skin.”

I roll my eyes at him. Yesterday, he fried bacon shirtless and kept bitching when the oil popped him. So I told him to wear my apron. Now he is acting like he discovered the map to the fountain of youth. I legitimately think that’s the reason he wanted to fry chicken tonight.

“Well, you keep up the good work. If you keep spoiling me by making me dinner, I might have to never cook again.” I slap his ass, laughing as I dance away.

“You are going to pay for that, Hellcat. Besides, you’ll get tired of eating chicken and bacon, so I think I’m safe.”

I shrug, heading out of the kitchen. “We will see. I’m going to check the mail. Be back in a minute.”

“I’ll be right here, being your domesticated old man.”

I shake my head as I laugh. The man could never be domesticated. He might be pretending right now, but his soul is wild. There is no taming it.

All I can do is go along for the ride.

Slipping into my shoes, I open the front door. I leave it open as I make my way down the steps.

I see someone jogging down the block, so I wave as I cross the sidewalk to get to the mailbox. I can hear the steps getting closer as I pull out the mail. I shuffle through the pieces a moment, giving the jogger time to go by.

Only, they don’t run by.

Glancing up, a piece of fabric is placed over my mouth as I gasp. Slowly, my vision starts to blur as my body is picked up.

I’m dizzy as I try to blink my eyes open. I can’t focus on anything, though. I know I need to fight back, but my body feels heavy. I feel as if I couldn’t move if my life depended on it. Which, as my mind processes what happened, I think my life is depending on it.

“Hayes,” I moan out, trying to yell for him.

I can’t even hear myself, that’s how low my voice is.

What did they do to me?

All of a sudden, my body is thrown. I grunt as I hit the ground, my eyes still not able to focus on anything.

“It’s okay, Bailey. We’ve got you.”

The words are distorted. It sounds as if there is cotton in my ears keeping me from clearly hearing everything that is going on around me.

Something slams shut, making me wince. I close my eyes, trying to focus on my ears instead. I can hear music playing, but I can’t pinpoint what it is.

It takes several minutes of me blinking before I can finally see somewhat clearly.

I’m in the back of a van.

“Hayes,” I mumble.

“Shh. It’s going to be okay. Everything is perfect now. You’ll see.” That sounds like a woman’s voice.

Did someone see what happened to me and picked me up? Are they taking me to the hospital?

I try to sit up, but can’t seem to muster the strength. It’s then that I start to panic.

I can’t move. I can’t speak, really. I have no idea where I am or what happened.

My breathing becomes erratic as I let my mind wander to all the things that could go wrong.

“She’s freaking out. What do I do?” the female asks.

“Give her more. Make her pass out. He won’t be happy if she has a heart attack,” the male tells her.

I hear some movement before a brown-haired woman is kneeling in front of me.

“Don’t worry. It’s not a very long ride. We will be there soon.” She pours something on a rag before sniffing a little of it. “Here. Get you some. It’s good stuff.” She wobbles a little as she looks blissed out.

I try to hold my breath to stop from smelling it. She holds it to my face until I have no option but to take a large whiff. My whole world spins as the chemical fills my nostrils. My stomach is rolling at the sensation. I never did like drugs because of the way they made me feel. Now here is one being forced upon me against my will.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push the nausea away. It doesn’t work.

My stomach convulses, then I’m puking.

“Ah, gross. Tim, she threw up on me.”

Something hits my head, making it swivel to the side, but I can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything. All I can do is lie here in a puddle of puke praying it’s over soon.

“Don’t touch her. He will kill you,” the male yells at her.

I don’t know who wants me, but it seems like he wants me unharmed. Too bad these two fuckers didn’t get the memo. Lifting my head, I let it fall. I do it again. By the third time, the woman is there, cushioning it.

“Stop it. You are hurting yourself. I don’t want to die.”

I slowly blink my eyes open, smiling up at her. Then I spit on her.

“Die,” I whimper.

Rage overtakes her face as she raises her hand to hit me once more, but the van comes to a screeching halt.

“Enough, Di. I don’t want to dispose of your body. Get back up here. The little bitch can lie in her puke and think about what she did.”

As they take back off, all I can think of is the fact that Hayes will kill them. He will become a savage and rip them limb from limb.

I only hope I’m alive to witness it.

I’m humming to myself as I finish up the chicken. Placing them on the paper towels, I pat them dry before I bring them to the kitchen island. Everything is finally ready.

“Bails, dinner,” I call out.

She doesn’t respond. I frown as I wipe my hands on the apron. It’s a frilly thing, but it really changes the frying game.

Walking around the corner, I see the front door still open. She should have been back inside by now. She left to get the mail over five minutes ago. I figured she had come back and went to the living room to read whatever she got.

Standing in the door, I look toward the mailbox.

What I see has my blood running cold.

There, around the box, is the mail scattered. Bailey is nowhere to be found.

I don’t bother screaming for her. I pick up my phone and I dial Loyal.

“Get everyone to Bailey’s house now. She’s missing.”

“Yes, sir.” He hangs up the phone.

I call Dex next. “I need the last twenty minutes of cameras from Bailey’s place to my phone.”

“Done.”

While I wait, I start to look around. There’s nothing unusual except the mail. There are no signs of struggle. It’s as if someone surprised her, making her drop the mail, but then she went with them willingly.

I know that’s not the truth, so what happened?

The rumble of bikes has me looking up. You’d think it was a rally with how many bikes come down the road. All of my brothers showed up. I’m not surprised. They would have come because I had asked, but I know they are really here because it’s for Bailey.

She has become the heart and soul of this place. She breathed life back into me, but also into the club. She gave them a reason to give a fuck about the place.

She has their loyalty, which means someone is about to pay dearly for touching their matriarch.

“What do we know?” Fang asks as he gets off of his bike.

“I was cooking. She came out to get the mail. I came to look for her when I realized she hadn’t come back. Found the mail scattered like this. Dex is getting me the camera feeds now.”

“So someone grabbed her. Boys, spread out and scout. It’s a stretch, but we might be able to find her. Stop and ask anyone outside if they’ve seen anything suspicious,” Fang demands.

The men spread out. Some take off on foot to canvas the neighborhood while others take off on their bikes.

A ding notifies me that I have a message. Pulling up the video, I don’t say anything when Loyal and Fang crowd me.

Together, we watch my girl walk to the mailbox. She waves to someone before she pulls the mail out. She’s focused on the mail, so she doesn’t notice the man slow down, pulling something out of his pocket. He pushes it to her face, making her drop the mail. Then he picks her up and jogs to a nearby van. Only the back is in the frame, but after a moment it takes off. He had to have thrown her inside.

I shoot a text to Dex.

Me: Did you catch a plate?

Dex: No plate. Checked street cams. They didn’t have a plate on it at all.

This was planned. I thought we got rid of her stalker, but here she is being kidnapped. Was Clitus a red herring meant to make us lower our guards?

I will never forgive myself if anything bad happens to her. I’d rather cut my heart out.

“What now?”

“Sir.” I look over to find the prospect looking nervous. “Does she by chance have her car keys on her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Why?” I swear if this kid is wasting my time, I will kill him.

“Well, she has a tracker on it. We could maybe find her that way?”

I think back to when she first came to the clubhouse. She threw her keys in the field and made this kid look for them only for her to walk over and pluck them out of the grass because she had a tracker on them.

“Fucking genius. Let’s check.”

Calling Dex as I head into the house, I look for her keys. I feel hopeful when I notice they aren’t there.

“I’m looking. This takes time,” Dex answers in lieu of a greeting.

“Can you hack the tile thing she has on her keys? She ran to the store earlier and must have never taken her keys out of her pocket.”

“Yes. Give me a second.”

I hear his keyboard going a mile a minute as he types away. Several seconds go by before he speaks again.

“I have her. She’s moving down I-10 right now. Headed southwest. Put your Bluetooth in and I’ll direct you,” Dex tells me.

“Get the guys moving. I-10 westbound. Move out.”

We all get on our bikes, ready to roll.

“Direct away, Dex. Her life is in your hands.”

We race like a bat out of hell to the interstate. Once there, we keep an eye out for the van, but we don’t see it.

“They took an exit. Looks like five seventy-seven. They are headed back east on Roland Ave.”

“Fuck.”

The curse slips my lips as I look up and see we are at five eighty-one. Not close enough to catch them. I speed up, not caring how reckless this is. The boys follow me without question.

When we finally get to the exit, I bark out at Dex. “Where are they now?”

“They crossed over White onto Southcross. Seems they are headed out to Boldtville.”

There’s lots of vacant land out that way. We are gaining on them, though.

I keep going, following my instincts as I swerve between cars to get to her faster.

“They stopped. Looks like an older apartment building based on what I pulled up on satellite images. About three miles down the road from where you are on the right. It’s not easily seen from the road. I would stop there and park, heading in on foot. By the time you get there, I will have blueprints to your phone.”

“Thanks, Dex.”

He hangs up, leaving me to speed my heart out trying to get to Bailey.

I won’t lose her again. I can’t.

I’m coming, Hellcat. Hold on.