Page 14

Chapter Thirteen

Fox

“Let’s get him back to the clubhouse,” I growl as Chaos and Stealth help their ‘drunken buddy’ to one of our club vans.

Running my hands through my hair I blow out a sigh of frustration. I know Vivi and the other three women are upset and don’t know what’s going on, but the minute she spied Carter standing outside the restrooms and pointed him out to us, I knew we had to deal with him immediately. Still, I hope like hell we’re able to dispatch the problem so we can get back because I know this get together is something all four of them were looking forward to, especially tonight’s dinner with more authors and fellow readers.

Once I know he’s secure with bindings and his mouth is gagged, I crank up my Harley and wave my hand in the air letting my brothers know it’s time for us to head out. All the way to the clubhouse, I puzzle over how he possibly found her. While she didn’t swap out vehicles like Angie did, we did check it over with our equipment after I realized she was my mate and there wasn’t a tracker on it. Plus, she did buy herself a burner phone on the off chance that the one she had was displaying her location and she wasn’t aware of it, so there’s no way he should’ve been able to locate Vivi.

“Taking him to our storeroom, Fox,” Chaos announces after we’ve pulled into the clubhouse lot and shut our bikes down.

“Good, I have some questions for the fucker,” I rumble. Stomping through the doors, I see Warren sitting at the bar drinking a beer. “Got a minute?” I question once he sees me and says hello.

“Yeah, what’s going on? Where are Vivi and Angie?” he asks, his brows dipping down in confusion and worry.

“They’re still at the hotel with the prospects. Carter showed up,” I tell him, grinding my teeth at the fucking audacity of the asshole.

“How did he find her?” Warren queries, his eyes growing wide when he sees Stealth walking through with Carter slung over his shoulder like he’s a sack of potatoes.

“Not a fucking clue, was hoping maybe you had an idea,” I reply.

“We left under the cover of darkness and weren’t on the road long before we switched out the car we were in with a pickup truck in Oklahoma,” he muses. “Didn’t really stop anywhere along our route for very long except to gas up or grab a quick bite to eat.”

“Did y’all use any bank cards or anything else that was identifiable?” I ask. “And I guess another question would be, if you did, is there anyone in your pack who’s smart enough to track that kind of shit?”

I mean, we have Popeye’s eyes in the sky so to speak, who handles our IT stuff as well as doubles as the club’s secretary, but to my knowledge, most packs don’t typically have that kind of technological hierarchy. We do because we’re a motorcycle club, but packs have alphas, betas, and occasionally omegas, along with enforcers. That’s pretty much it, outside of healers. There’d be no reason for them to have someone skilled in the ways of the internet, at least not to my way of thinking.

His eyes grow wide, and he nods. “When Angie and I went shopping the other day, I was low on cash, so I hit up an ATM. Do you think that’s how he found my girl?”

I shrug because I won’t know until Carter tells us. “No clue, but Stealth and Chaos will get those answers.”

I can hear the hitch in his chest when he asks his next question. “Is she in danger?”

I’m a simple man so I answer with one word. “No.”

That’s the short answer and the only one I’ll give him because as far as I’m concerned, she isn’t now, nor will she ever be. Because Carter is going to cease to exist, not just for Vivi but for all mankind. We don’t need shifters like him populating the earth as far as I’m concerned and I might not have created the universe that deemed there would be shifters, but I am a biker whose mate has been stalked and I take that threat seriously. As long as there’s breath in my lungs, Vivi won’t be harassed by anyone in her past.

He goes to stand, and I shake my head. “Sorry, Warren, this falls under club business. I get that she’s your daughter and you’d like to hear what he has to say, but she’s my mate now and it’s my responsibility to protect her and care for her. Suffice it to say, she’ll no longer have to worry about him ever again. That’s a promise I’m making to you as her father.”

“Good. I knew our old alpha was leaning toward becoming a bit feral considering he never took on another mate when his died, but I’m afraid his delusions may have seeped into his son’s behavior.”

“That’s not on you. He’s a grown ass shifter who is in control of his own actions, plain and simple,” I state. “Now, I’ve got some things to take care of, but hopefully, it won’t take long, and I can get back to my mate and her friends.”

By the time I get downstairs to our interrogation room, Stealth and Chaos already have Carter bound to the chains that hang from the ceiling. Because we have dealt with shifters from time to time, they’ve been magically reinforced so despite Carter’s evident efforts, they’re holding strong.

“Why’s he still got a gag in?” I ask once I arrive next to Chaos.

“Because the fucker wouldn’t stop trying to bite me,” Chaos growls out, his voice edgier than normal which is a sign that lets me know his wolf is riding him hard right now.

That shocks me since both Stealth, my enforcer, and Chaos, my SAA, are, for the most part, reasonable, logical males. Granted, when their mates are in the mix, it’s a toss-up, but generally, they’re able to get answers from anyone we deem a threat with minimal torture. Today, however, I’m all about making Carter hurt simply because he frightened my mate by tracking her down like a dog in heat.

She was having such a good time and has been looking forward to being with her friend, as well as her two new friends, and to see how her face dropped and feel how erratic her pulse was in her neck has my own wolf jonesing to annihilate him.

Just one little claw, my wolf whispers. From his jugular to his dick.

Fucking wiseass. Like he wouldn’t bleed out from the sharp nick of my protruded claw before I ever made it to that area of the asshole’s anatomy.

“We can take care of that, y’know,” I reply, moving over to the table to grab two items. When Chaos sees what I’m holding, he starts laughing as he motions for Popeye to lower the chains slightly so they can reach Carter easily.

As Stealth rips off the gag, Chaos quickly inserts the dental dam. It’ll keep his mouth open without allowing him to fully close it. I can’t help the snicker that passes my lips when Carter’s eyes widen at the pliers that Stealth holds up, grinning maniacally.

Hell, I think my own ass puckers thinking about those coming toward my teeth, but before we can remove any of those, we need fucking answers.

“Why are you here?” I bark out, standing in front of Carter. I push a little alpha toward him; we all have it in the club, I’m just the only fucker who was willing to oversee this crazy band of brothers.

Carter’s eyes are looking wildly around the room, but all he sees are the rest of my brothers, arms across their chests. Ever since mates started coming along, all of them have grown increasingly protective. With it being their president’s mate who’s at risk, it’s not hard to feel how close all of their wolves have risen to the surface. This could end up being a fucking bloodbath and I really like the jeans I’m wearing so I’m not keen at the possibility that I may have to burn them.

“Heard this was a good place to settle down if you were a shifter,” Carter finally stammers out. It’s not exactly easy to understand him, but this isn’t our first rodeo using the mouth dam, so we’ve become adept at figuring out what the enemy is saying.

“So, you weren’t looking for Vivi?” Stealth asks. “Or Angie?” he further probes.

“No! No, I wasn’t,” Carter vehemently protests.

“Ah, so it was just pure luck that you happened upon a book signing in Frisco, Texas that both of them were attending,” Chaos muses. He then looks at me and states, “I suppose that could happen, right, Pres?”

His eyes keep shifting back and forth but when it finally dawns on him that there’s absolutely no escape available to him, his shoulders sag. It’s actually impressive, considering that his arms are over his head.

Stealth reaches out, with his claws extended, and swipes across Carter’s chest, his nails scraping against his skin, fileting it open. His actions elicit a scream from Carter that would be heard upstairs if the room itself wasn’t soundproof.

“Oops, I slipped,” Stealth murmurs, smirking at me, which causes me to chuckle.

“At least you didn’t pull my move, Brother,” Chaos replies, reminding all of us of what he did when he found Tressa bound in a room, having been kidnapped and physically assaulted by her captor.

“No coming back from what you did to that fucker,” Popeye agrees, joining in on the taunting my men are currently doing to scare the information out of Carter. “I mean, I honestly never knew someone’s intestines were that long. Kinda surprised you didn’t just make a necklace out of them or something.”

Carter’s face blanches and I know he’s getting the visual the brothers are vividly painting. Hell, the scene was gruesome as fuck, but I don’t blame Chaos one fucking bit. I’d do the same for Vivi.

Not wanting that future for himself, he begins disclosing his sins in rapid succession like he’s in a confessional and we’re his priests. Only, I won’t be absolving him from his bad deeds. “I set up a program on her father’s bank account, so I’d get alerts if he used his card. I knew, once I saw that he and Angie had left the pack that, if at all possible, he’d come straight to his daughter, and I’d finally know her whereabouts. They were too close, you know what I mean?” Carter states, his words rushing out so quickly it’s almost as though he can’t say them fast enough.

I’d believe he was scared, if I couldn’t still see the defiance plastered all over his face, almost like an ‘aha’ kind of thing that he was intelligent enough to do something like that and in another place and time, I might admire his initiative. It’s like he’s proud of what he did and what I honestly don’t understand is why? Why settle for choosing a mate when there’s every chance that a fated mate awaits you?

“Why Vivi?” I ask. “Why not search for your fated mate?”

He can’t have our mate, my wolf growls as my fur starts to ripple along my arms.

“I can smell her on you,” Carter sneers. I asked him a direct question and he wants to dance around it, acting as if he has some sort of claim on mine! He’s loonier than I thought, so this may become a test of my wills because with the way my wolf is acting, it’s going to be a struggle to keep him contained.

Brave words for a soon-to-be dead shifter, that’s for damn sure. I don’t say that out loud, but I know my physical stance and facial expression give it away because he pales even further.