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Chapter Twenty-Six

Henley

E verything about this outing is feeling off, and I can’t put my fucking thumb on it. Something in my gut is telling me that this is wrong, that she’s not safe, but I don’t have any information to tell me that it’s anything but safe.

“Fuck!” I shout into thin air as I ride faster. At breakneck speeds, I try to remember that I’m Elodie’s only family right now. Whatever is going on with her father is up in the air, and I swear if it’s not resolved soon, I’m going to kill the bastard myself.

Pulling into the parking lot, I notice her bike in the far back corner. Some guy must not hear the rumble of twenty bikes coming his way as he tinkers with something on it. When we are basically on top of him, he finally looks up. A dark patch fills the crotch of his pants before he takes off. Hael sends a few of the prospects after him, letting them deal with pissy pants.

“Look,” Deimos shouts as people run from the mall screaming. Terrified isn’t the way to describe it. I spot several redheads, but none of them are my bunny. She’s mine .

Mine.

Mine.

Grabbing the gun from my side, I run toward the place where people are leaving. One girl grabs my arm, shaking her head and telling me to run. A prospect grabs her and makes her move along with the crowd. Looking back, Hael, Deimos, Zale, and a few other guys are my flank. I give a simple nod of appreciation before busting through the doors, fighting against the crowd of people trying to get out still. There’s no point in trying to hear where she might be with the chaos behind us. Hael points in one direction. Half of the group goes with him, and the other half follows me in the opposite direction. Scanning the entire first level on my end, there’s no sign of her anywhere. Frustration eats the surface of my brain as a war is waged within me.

Thoughts of her sprawled out on the dirty floor with blood draining from her body flash behind my eyes. Terror that I have never felt before has me gagging on air, threatening to throw up. I don’t know who does it, but someone smacks my back so hard that I’m forced to breathe.

“There,” Deimos whispers, pointing to a dark area with the security bars pulled down. The voices are muffled but I see her . The fiery dark-haired female that managed to turn my entire world upside down with the thought of her being dead.

A tall male grapples with her as she fights against his hold. Sprinting toward the room, I can’t find a way in. It’s pure glass encased around them, the bars merely a measure to keep people from entering if the glass is broken.

Raising the pistol, I try several times to take aim, but with her flailing so harshly, there’s no way I will be able to get a clean shot. Busting through this glass could be detrimental to her well- being, especially since I don’t know what his other hand holds. I only see the one over her mouth. If he has a gun to her back, he could fire it off when I break the glass.

“What do we do?” I croak. I can admit that my brain isn’t fully functioning right at this moment. Being Vice, I always put my team first. My club comes before myself, but this time, I need them to do the same for me. They aren’t here to disappoint either.

“Elodie seems to be fighting him,” Cahir mutters, watching my female with awe. Turning to look at her, she uses a basic move that we teach all the women. It’s a basic three-step technique that could have one or two add-ons if needed. Elodie manages to get herself free and runs toward us. The man is quick to recover, but I take the moment to aim my shot. I can’t tell if she can see us or not, yet I hope she doesn’t see what I’m about to do. Except, before I can even pull the trigger, another gunshot echoes through the nearly quiet barrier around us. Glass goes flying in every direction, spraying the unfamiliar male and Elodie in their wake. He manages to tackle her to the ground, his hands wrapped tightly around her throat as her mouth hangs open.

I can’t tell if she’s conscious or not, but I don’t give a fuck.

Not hesitating for another second, I fire off a single round that lands straight between his eyes. Should I have taken the least intrusive approach and gotten him back to the club for questioning? Maybe. But all I saw was red.

Sprinting toward my bunny and the dead guy, I use my boot to shove him off of her before cradling her head in my hands. Glass rips into my jeans, piercing my skin under, as I situate us on the floor, yet the pain is minor to the one in my chest. Her eyes are closed, blood coating her pale skin which pushes the adrenaline through my veins and turns into straight panic.

“She will be alright boss,” Cahir says next to me, his fingers pressing down on the pulse of her neck. “Your girl has a strong pulse, and when she’s upright again, you can give her the punishment she deserves for scaring us all to hell like that.”

Arguments are out the window right now because all I can think about is how fucking grateful I am that she is alive.

I’m not sure who I fucked in my past or did a good deed for, but there are no words or feeling to describe the all-consuming need I have for her.

“I’m going to fucking chain you to my bed,” I grumble as I bend down to kiss her messy hair. “You’re going to be in so much fucking trouble once I know you’re okay.” Her eyes blink open, they are obviously unseeing.

“I’m fine,” she groggily croaks but it’s a damn lie. Her head is on my lap, and I can hear her fucking heart pounding out of her chest from a short distance away. After a moment of her just breathing, she tries to sit up.

Putting my hand on her forehead, I keep her placed exactly where she’s at. “Absolutely not,” I grumble. She doesn’t fight me, instead letting out a sigh of relief before her body goes limp again.

“I will call the other guys,” Cahir says as he pulls out his phone and steps away.

I don’t take my eyes off her, instead watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest with each inhale of air. Seeing for myself that she is, in fact, okay makes putting oxygen into my lungs a little easier.

“What were you thinking?” I question, my tone tight and angry. I don’t even attempt to dispel the disdain. I’m pissed. I’m hurt. Most of all, I feel like I almost lost my other half, my reason for living. Today put a shift in things for me today, and now I know, everything needs to be set in stone.

Now.

Alarm bells start going off in my head, the plans slowly formulating as I stare down at her.

It’s now or never.

“Oh bunny,” I smile and click my tongue. “You thought you were in a gilded cage before…”