Chapter 7 Ringo
The moment I pull up my hog, Abbey shoves me out of her way, scurrying off my bike, her fingers frantically trying to get her helmet unfastened and off as she runs towards the barn.
“Angel! Stop!” I call, needing her to slow the fuck down before she gets herself stabbed too.
Of course, she doesn’t fucking listen. She’s got tunnel vision right now, and her goal is to get to Hush before she kills Daniel.
“Where are they?!” I hear her yell the moment she bursts into the barn, so I fucking toss my helmet carelessly aside and hurry in after her.
The picture Riggs sent me was of his men getting patched up, and in the background, that feisty little mute assassin was wielding that massive fucking knife of hers, coated in blood and pointed right at her pissy boyfriend, who looked like he was trying to stop her.
Her attack wasn’t lethal. Nothing but flesh wounds, so I know Hush wasn’t aiming to kill. Just ward off.
But, fuck, what’s she up to?
The moment I breach the threshold of the barn, I catch Riggs’ eye, and he points towards the back of the barn, where the passage leads to bunk rooms, and a fucking cell.
My boots pound loudly on the polished concrete floor, echoing up the hallway before I come skidding to a stop when Jared, Dee’s boyfriend, steps out of a room, aiming a fucking gun at me.
“The fuck, man,” I snarl, and he shakes his head, his menacing glare as hard as mine.
“I’ll put this down only if you promise not to fucking touch, hurt or kill my girl.”
I growl, trying to see over his shoulder into the room where Abbey must be.
“As long as she doesn’t touch, hurt or kill my girl, then you won’t have a fucking problem with me. Now get that thing out of my fucking face.”
Jared’s blue eyes flick between mine like he’s trying to figure out if I’m lying, before giving me a single nod and lowering the gun.
Then I swing my fucking fist.
The smack against Jared’s jaw is loud, the force knocking him on his arse, and I leap over him, charging into the room. I’m only a few steps in when I have to pull up fucking short as a knife sails past my head, nicking my fucking ear, before lodging into the plaster wall behind me.
“The fuck!” Abbey screeches, and before I can stop her, she leaps on her friend, Dee, sending them both to the floor. “You just threw a knife at my husband!”
“Oh, fuck.” Jared hisses as he drags himself up off the floor, and we watch Abbey straddling her friend, throwing fists, and Dee blocking each blow with some sort of ninja fucking mojo.
Jared and I turn wide eyes on each other, both of us a little thrown off by Abbey’s big fucking balls right now, and I can’t help but feel a little satisfaction as my gaze tracks the red indent of my fist blooming on Jared’s jawline.
“Stop being a smug fucking prick and help me separate those two,” he snaps, and I chuckle as he shoulder bumps me on the way past, before following him into the fray.
Together, we risk flying fists and ninja skills to stop the catfight.
“Angel! Enough!” I snarl, hooking my hands around her middle and hauling her backwards, even as her arms and legs flail, trying to get back to her victim. “I’m okay,” I reassure her. “If she wanted me dead, I would be.”
“Fuck you, Dee! How dare you hurt him!” she screams, and as Dee shoves Jared off her, she simply grins our way and flips us both off.
“Would you stop it?” Jared snaps at her. “You’re going to make things worse.”
She rolls her eyes at him.
“Calm the fuck down now, Angel,” I rasp roughly against her ear as she struggles. “Or I’ll take you inside and lock you in my room.”
She stills, stiffening in my hold.
“You wouldn’t.”
I chuckle, but there’s zero fucking humour in it.
“I fucking would, and you know it.”
She huffs, slumping into dead weight, so I place her feet on the ground and turn her to face me, engulfing either side of her face with my hands.
“I’m fine. I’m alive. It’s barely a scratch.”
Her eyes shift to my ear, more anger contorting her face when she sees the trickle of blood.
“Angel,” I warn. “It’s fine.”
With another huff, she rolls her eyes, throwing her hands up in defeat, so I take the risk and release her, hoping like fuck she doesn’t try to attack her friend again.
“Are you both done?” Jared snaps, glancing between the two girls.
“For now,” Abbey responds, causing Dee’s lips to kick up in a grin, and then, both girls start fucking laughing.
“Fucking hell,” Jared mutters. “I need a drink.”
He’s fucking right about that. For a guy who doesn’t drink much, I really want one myself.
Raking my hand through my hair, I turn to see Daniel, cowering in the corner, still alive and shackled, but covered in blood as he watches on through the eye that isn’t completely swollen shut.
For a moment, it takes me a bit to figure out where most of the blood is coming from, and then I realise it’s from the crotch of his pants.
I turn back to Dee. “Did you cut off his pin dick?”
She stops her silent laughing and smirks before mouthing, ‘not yet.’
“K-keep h-her a-away f-from m-me,” Daniel stutters, his whole body trembling.
“She made it bleed though,” Jared grunts, clearly not happy about his girl messing around with her victim’s dick.
All of a sudden, Dee’s hands start flying around, and then Jared’s do too, and I realise they are arguing via sign language.
I don’t know why she doesn’t just talk. She obviously can, and knowing that pisses me off.
But perhaps that’s the point.
“Righto, you two. Cut that shit out and fill me the fuck in. I don’t have the patience for this bullshit.”
Dee finishes her signing argument by flipping Jared off, which makes him fucking growl, and she smiles, approaching him and rising up on her toes to kiss his jaw. He growls again, under his breath this time, glaring down at her as she struts away and pulls her knife out of the wall.
“You two are weird,” Abbey muses, which finally makes Jared fucking smirk.
“Shut up, Yeb.” Jared addresses my wife. “Takes one to know one.”
“God, stop. My nickname was the worst,” Abbey sighs, rolling her eyes, and Jared snorts.
“I think Marcus will disagree with you, since his was Suc.”
They both start laughing, and I recall Abbey telling me that as kids, she, Lexi, Jared and Marcus made up coded nicknames or some shit. They used the last three letters of their first names and turned them around, which is how Abbey got Yeb.
“So are you going to tell him, or am I?” Jared asks his batshit crazy girl, and she shrugs before pointing to him.
I’m kinda fucking relieved, since it will take less fucking effort if he tells us.
“Lexi filled us in on what this prick told you.” He gestures to Daniel, who doesn’t even bother looking up at us.
I bet he wishes he was dead… wait…
“How the fuck did Lexi know?” I snap, which is when I notice Abbey cringe.
“I may have updated her in a text message.”
My brows shoot up. “I thought we agreed to keep this contained.”
Her shoulders drop, even as her cheeks heat, and a look I’m becoming all too familiar with flashes across her face.
Anger.
“So what? I’m not allowed to tell my best friend?”
“Angel, I didn’t say that. But maybe we should have discussed it first. I would have asked you to tell Lexi not to tell anyone.”
“I did tell her not to tell anyone!” she screeches, which is when Dee steps in between us, holding a calming hand up, before flashing Abbey her phone screen, and once she’s done reading, Dee flashes it to me.”
‘Technically, Lexi didn’t tell me. I may have snatched her phone and read the messages.’
“The fuck, Dee!” Jared barks, and she simply shrugs, like it’s no big deal.
“Why did you do that?” Abbey asks, and Dee taps out her response on her phone before showing us.
‘I could tell by Lexi’s expression that she was concerned. I won’t apologise for snooping. Your baby girl is alive, and I’ll do everything I can to help you find her. Even if that means chopping off Daniel’s puny dick.’
“Look, she didn’t find out any new information anyway,” Jared interjects. “Usually the threat of dismemberment makes guys talk, but Daniel really believes no one else knows where Bobbi is.”
‘Which is why he still has his little prick.’ Dee holds up her phone, and Abbey nods, sighing.
“Someone else knows, and I don’t know how.” She spins to face me. “Do you think someone has accessed my messages or something?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
I don’t tell her that I don’t actually think that’s it at all, because I fucking can’t. It’s a real possibility. But worse is that I have a fucking strong feeling there’s a mole inside my club. Or at least, inside the boundaries of my property.
Neither scenario sits fucking well with me, and now I can’t even be sure my barn or house isn’t fucking bugged.
We leave Daniel to sit in his bloody mess, which Jared tells Abbey is from Dee etching the word rapist into the thin skin of his cock with her fucking knife.
Don’t get me wrong, the prick deserves it, but the fact that Dee can do that so easily has the hairs standing on the back of my neck.
Being okay with doing that sort of thing usually takes years of desensitising. Dee is Abbey’s age. How the fuck can she do the things she does so easily like she’s been doing it for years. She would have had to have been a young child when she started killing.
Fuck. I actually don’t even want to think about what that means.
We rejoin my club brothers and some of the Marx crew that aren’t currently on duty, sitting around the bar in my barn.
To my surprise, Alana has taken it upon herself to play bartender, which now fucking explains why there’s a large congregation at the bar.
“Your sister is showing them her bar skills.” JD chuckles as I approach, and Abbey grins, looking up at me curiously.
“I didn’t know your sister works as a bartender.”
“She doesn’t,” I grunt, shaking my head at my fucking sister.
Fuck, I need a holiday. Far, far fucking away from everyone… except my Angel. She’ll have to come with me.
“Oh,” Abbey giggles, eyeing the chaos my sister is creating by trying to do some sort of fancy cocktail shaking that’s spilling everywhere.
I’m about to yell at my sister when I see Abbey’s smile fall, her gaze dropping to the floor like she just remembered something bad.
Probably that her daughter is in danger.
Fuck.
Taking out my phone, I shoot Lewy a message asking him to meet me outside the barn, before I usher Abbey away from the brewing madness.
Stepping outside, the chill in the air is crisp as the sun sets, and Lewy hurries towards us, coming from the thick line of trees.
“Where did he come from?” Abbey asks, and I grin, linking my fingers with hers.
“I have him set up in a hidden hut. He’s been working with Riggs and his team to improve our security.”
“Oh.” She nods, her eyes not leaving our tech guru, who rarely shows his face.
He’s a skinny fucker. Not necessarily lanky, but just skinny, dark hair, dark eyes, dark beard. Matches his soul really. But, fuck, he’s good at what he does, especially when he has the right tools at his disposal.
“Ringo, Abbey.” He nods to both of us as he nears.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I grunt, leading him and Abbey to the path that weaves around my house. We walk silently, before stepping off the path towards the tree where I ate my wife out on our wedding day.
Fuck, that was a good way to celebrate.
“Where are we going?” Abbey asks as she nearly trips on a protruding tree root, but I manage to keep her upright.
“Just here, Angel. Where no one can hear us.”
She snorts, and I imagine she’s remembering how much noise she made when she came on my face and knew anyone close by would have heard her.
“Give me an update on Caroline Thatcher,” I ask Lewy when we stop, and he nods, not even faltering at the odd location I led us to.
“Her parents are dead. No known siblings. She has an aunt who lives in New Zealand. She withdrew all her cash from her bank the same day…” Lewy stalls, his eyes flicking to Abbey before coming back to mine. “The day Bobbi was taken.”
Abbey’s hand tenses in mine at hearing her daughter’s name, but I keep my eyes on my club brother as I speak.
“Unless she has connections like we do, then there’s no way two women and a baby would’ve been able to breach the closed international borders and fly to New Zealand,” I muse, kinda fucking thankful for the pandemic in this instance.
“State borders have been erratic, but a lot fucking easier to cross. Look into her socials and known friends. It’s likely someone else is helping her and Elizabeth to keep Bobbi hidden. ”
“Already on it.” Lewy nods before flicking his gaze to my wife. “We’ll find your daughter. I promise.”
Lewy smiles then. A rarity, but it’s still daylight enough out here for Abbey to see it, and I feel her hand relax in mine as she nods.
“Thank you.”
Lewy leaves us then, disappearing into the scrub like he was never here, and I pull Abbey to my chest, looking down into those big dark eyes that still carry so much pain.
“He’s right. We will find her.” I press a kiss to her hair, and she sighs, locking her arms around me.
“Waiting is a killer.”
“I know it is, Angel. Maybe you should find your sister,” I rasp against her hair, not wanting to pull back. “I bet she’d love to spend some time with you.”
She nods against my chest. “I should. She’s probably been worrying about me all day.”
“Probably,” I agree, pulling back as she does to peer back down into her eyes, wondering if I should tell her the plan I’m weaving in my head.
“I could use a hot shower too.” She cringes, grabbing at her ponytail. “I think I have a family of bugs caught in my hair.”
I chuckle at that. “They are probably part of the family of bugs splattered against my visor.”
“Ew.” She screws up her nose, the action making her look all of her nineteen years before her expression turns mischievous. “Wanna come shower with me?”
“Stop trying to get me naked, woman,” I growl, tugging her closer and nipping at her lips as she giggles.
When she pushes back from me, she walks backwards, swaying her hips all sexy like, and fuck, my cock is already responding to her sneaky, sassy ways.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” she coos, right before a squeak flies from her as she trips backwards over the same fucking tree root as before, landing butt first in the dirt.
“Careful.” I hurry forward, but skid to a stop as she springs up, dusting her hands over her arse.
“I’m okay.”
I laugh, watching her poke a cheeky tongue out as she spins and runs for the house.
Fuck, she should know better than to run. I will always chase her.