53. Theo
FIFTY-THREE
THEO
Bitter cold air lashed across my face as I flew on my bike through Moonlit Ridge, though I felt like I was burning up.
Consumed in an inferno of conviction and purpose.
I pulled back on the throttle, and the powerful engine roared as I weaved in and out of traffic as I raced for Piper.
Fear a clash of violence and desperation inside me. Terror that I was going to be too late and the refusal to even contemplate it.
It wouldn’t happen.
Not to her.
I wouldn’t let it.
I wouldn’t fail.
Not this time.
My bike chugged and grumbled as I whipped around a van then pulled out in front of it. Its headlights disappeared behind me as I threw myself deeper into the night.
Another bike suddenly pulled up next to me, Silas coming up to my side. He tipped his chin in a show of solidarity, and two more of his crew pulled up on the other side.
Rallying for what was right.
I pinned the throttle back, and the four of us blazed down the road.
Streetlights blinked and flashed as we tore through town. Cars splitting and moving out of our way as they felt us coming.
Feeling the mayhem that whipped us into lawlessness.
The truth that we would commit any crime to make this one thing right.
The motel neared, and in the distance, I could see Otto and Cash had paired as they thundered down the mountain from the other direction, the six of us converging at the same point.
Knew Kane and River would be going out of their minds, not being here. But what they were standing for was just as important.
Those kids.
The women.
This family.
I scanned the area as the old motel came into view. It was one of the only run-down motels in Moonlit Ridge. A single-story building with about fifteen rooms just off the road to my left.
Agitation stirred when I saw a few cars parked out in front of the doors.
Piper’s Volvo was by itself in the middle.
It didn’t sit right.
There was no chance Toga didn’t have himself surrounded.
Protected.
I gave a sweeping gesture for Silas and his crew to go around back.
Gut giving me the sense that this was going to be an ambush.
Silas and his brothers parked off to the far-left side of the long building, climbing off their bikes as they pulled their guns from their holsters at their backs.
They started to slink around the side to round to the back.
Unease vibrated through me as Otto and Cash rode up to my side and we pulled to a stop to the left of the Volvo.
We killed our bikes’ engines.
Instantly, it was silent.
Too fucking silent.
A stagnant wickedness oozed through the air.
Cash and Otto stood from their bikes, feeling it, too.
We all pulled out our weapons.
I leaned against the Volvo, my gun held between two hands, finger on the trigger as I jutted my chin, letting them know to cover me because I was going for the door directly in front of Piper’s SUV.
Spirit screaming because I knew she was behind it.
I could feel her.
Her soul weeping.
Grief and guilt and her ferocity bleeding out.
Otto gave me the sign that they had me, and I kept low, moving for the door.
I was halfway to it when the doors on either side of hers suddenly burst open.
A barrage of gunshots rang, and I hit the ground, gasping in shock as my brothers returned fire. Both Otto and Cash jumped behind the tail of the Volvo, using it as a shield as they deflected the attack.
Bullets pinged, spitting against the ground around me.
Crashes and gunfire echoed from the back of the building where Silas and his brothers had gone.
Shouts and cries.
My heart battered.
Fuck.
I didn’t know who was down. Could barely make out anything in the disorder.
But I had one purpose in all of this.
One job.
And that was to get to Piper.
Adrenaline stampeding through my veins, I crawled across the ground as Otto and Cash continued to battle it out with the bastards who were firing from the two rooms on either side of where Piper was being held.
Dust and smoke clung to the air, and I gritted my teeth as I rose up so I could deliver a shot to the lock.
Then I lifted my boot and kicked in the shredded wood with one blow.
The door clattered open to the inside of the dingy, dark room.
Horror slammed me like a fist to the jaw.
Piper was sitting in the middle of it.
Fucking tied to a chair with blood smeared all over her gorgeous face.
But it was those arctic eyes staring up at me from her drooping head that pierced me through.
The way they’d always done. Like this woman had the ability to see to the depths of me the way I’d always been able to do with her.
No question, she was silently begging me to protect what was most important to her.
While I swore with everything I had that I’d protect what was most important to me.
All of them.
Toga scrambled upright, jumping behind Piper like he was shocked that I’d made it through the waiting assault.
Motherfucker should have known me better than that.
I had my gun pointed at him while he had one pointed at Piper’s temple.
Fury clamored through my body. Flames licking at the underside of my skin. The hate I’d carried for this piece of shit for so long boiling my flesh.
But it was different now.
This feeling that swept me. Something more than just bare duty.
“Step away from the girl and put your gun on the floor and I might let you live,” I spat through clenched teeth.
Nah. It wasn’t going to happen. I was going to peel this monster’s skin from his body and feed it to him.
Toga laughed that deranged sound that had haunted me forever. “Now why would I go and do that when Piper and I were just about to have a little fun together?”
I knew what he was taunting. What he was implying.
Rage pumped like venom through my veins, all while I tried to wrap my head around what had happened back then. How Piper had been with him, and it’d led to Scarlett’s death.
I’d heard about the slaughtering of that family, but I had no clue that Toga was responsible.
“She’s such a good fuck, isn’t she?” He ran a tender hand down the back of her head, the gesture so bogus and menacing that it made me sick.
Piper whimpered, her eyes wide and pleading.
“Guess you and I have the same taste in women.” A taunting smirk pulled to his face as he sneered across at me.
Knew what he was doing.
Trying to set me off kilter.
Goading me into making a mistake.
“No, you’re just the disgusting prick who likes to prey on the innocent.”
“They both knew exactly what they were getting into.” Still hiding behind her, he wrapped his free hand around to her front and stuffed his fingers into Piper’s mouth. She garbled a strangled, mortified cry. Saliva and blood dripped from her mouth. “Think this one liked it.”
I nearly broke.
Charged him.
But I had to play this smart.
It was fucking brutal forcing myself to act like what he was doing wasn’t driving me to insanity.
To my breaking point.
“Did you like hiding for the last ten years because you were scared of me? Scared of what was coming for you? Scared of what is standing in front of you right now?”
I did a little taunting of my own, wanting to direct his malevolence toward me instead of Piper.
More gunshots and shouts echoed from outside, and a siren whirred in the distance.
“Sounds like your time is just about up,” I told him.
“Piper was there.” He shrugged like that made her guilty. Implicated her. Something I was pretty sure he’d held over her head. “What do you think is gonna happen to her once they finally catch up to her? The police have been looking for her for years.”
“Come on.” I tried to keep the tremoring out of my voice. “You really think a judge is going to buy that? We all know who’s guilty here. Except the only judge you’re going to stand in front of is me.”
A spurt of vengeance busted free.
Toga kept the gun pointed at Piper’s temple as he dipped down and grabbed a knife from the floor, his eyes pinned on me as he sawed the blade through the ropes at her wrists and feet.
He jerked her to standing.
Piper winced in pain.
He kept behind her. Using her as a shield like the pathetic motherfucker he was.
I itched, hungry to get my hands around his neck.
To squeeze until he was on the brink of death before I brought him back then did it again. Over and over until he didn’t know if he was alive or in hell.
Then it’d be my pleasure to send him there.
He gritted his teeth. “I’m gonna walk out that door with her so she can lead me to what’s mine, and you’re gonna let me.”
“Yeah, you should know that’s not going to happen.”
My finger twitched on the trigger of my gun, prepared for when I could get in a clean shot.
A terrified whine came out of Piper. Her fear patent, though there was something so ferocious on her face.
My insides howled. I wanted to erase it. Keep the promise that I would never let this bastard get to her.
“Theo…just go. It’s okay,” she wheezed through the torment.
She pled it with those blue, blue eyes. So warm and brave and beautiful.
Willing to give it all for those she loved.
Another shot and shouts, and an Owl suddenly burst through the door. Otto was on his tail, shouting, “On your knees or you die.”
It was enough that it caught Toga by surprise.
Enough that he let his guard down for a fraction of a second.
Loosening his hold on Piper as his attention snapped that way.
“Piper, get down!” I shouted.
She let go of all her weight and dropped to the ground.
Toga swung his gun at me at the same second as I began to fire.
A barrage of gunshots rang out in the small room.
The bastard flailed and jerked as the bullets hit him one by one, sending him stumbling back until he toppled backward to the floor.
While I stood there gasping.
My ears rang and my head spun.
A blur of confusion.
The only thing I could see was Piper. Piper who climbed to her knees. Tears streamed down her face, and that thing that raged between us since the moment we met billowed between us.
A connection unlike either of us could fathom.
A bond that went far beyond the blue horizon.
One that I knew stretched out into eternity.
It was the only thing that mattered. That she and her son were going to have the life that they deserved.
Freedom.
Safety.
My fingers moved to the wound low on my stomach and pulled them away to the blood that coated them.
The pain was disorienting.
Pulling me toward the nothingness that throbbed around me like a dream.
And I just hoped as I crumpled to my knees that she knew what I felt for her was more than base duty.
More than the penance I’d served.
This woman who was the one who’d shown me this fractured heart could love.
That I was worthy of it.
And Piper had every bit of it.