Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Vanna
Friday morning arrives gray and cold, the sky heavy with clouds that threaten snow.
I wake to Garrett's hand on my stomach, his palm warm against the swell where our baby is growing.
Twenty-one weeks now.
More than halfway.
The baby's been active this morning, kicking and squirming like it knows something's coming.
"Hey," Garrett murmurs, his voice rough with sleep. "How are you feeling?"
"Nervous." There's no point in lying. "I don't like you going out there tonight."
"I know." He shifts closer, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. "But this is the best shot we've got. Ounce has been setting this up for days. Virgil took the bait. Tonight, we end this."
I want to believe him.
I want to trust that by this time tomorrow, Virgil will be dead and we'll be free.
But there's a knot in my stomach that won't loosen.
A whisper in the back of my mind that something's wrong.
"What if it's a trap?" I ask.
"Then we handle it. We've got numbers, we've got firepower, we've got the element of surprise." He turns me to face him, his dark eyes serious. "I've done this before, Van. Not this exactly, but situations like it. I know how to stay alive."
"I just—" My voice breaks. "I can't lose you. Not now. Not when we're so close to having everything we've ever wanted."
"You're not going to lose me." He cups my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away the tears that have started to fall. "I'm going to walk into that motel, I'm going to put a bullet in Virgil's skull, and then I'm going to come home to you. That's a promise."
"You can't promise that."
"I just did." He kisses me—slow, deep, like he's trying to memorize the taste of me. "I love you, Vanna. You and this baby are everything to me. I'm not going to do anything stupid. I'm not going to take unnecessary risks. I'm going to be smart, and I'm going to come home."
I cling to him, my fingers digging into his shoulders.
The baby kicks between us, a reminder of what's at stake.
"I love you too," I whisper. "So much it scares me."
"Good. Hold onto that fear. It'll make the relief sweeter when I walk back through that door."
We stay like that for a long time, wrapped up in each other, the world outside our window gray and waiting.
I try to memorize everything—the smell of him, the feel of his arms around me, the steady beat of his heart against my chest.
Just in case.
Just in case this is the last time.
The club leaves at six.
I stand in the doorway of the main room, watching them gear up.
Ruger checking his weapons.
Coin pulling on his leather jacket.
Maddox silent and still, a mountain of violence.
Ounce going over the plan one more time, his voice low and steady.
And Garrett. My husband. The father of my child—strapping a gun to his hip and another to his ankle, his face set in hard lines.
He catches my eye across the room and crosses to me, pulling me into one last embrace.
"Bracken and Porter are staying here," he says against my hair. "You won't be alone. The compound is locked down tight. Nothing's getting through those gates."
"I know."
"I'll call you when it's done. Shouldn't be more than a few hours."
"Okay."
He pulls back, studying my face. "You're going to be fine. The baby's going to be fine. And tomorrow, we're going to wake up in a world without Virgil in it."
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He kisses me one more time—quick, fierce, full of promise—and then he's gone.
They all are.
The roar of motorcycles fills the compound, then fades into the distance, swallowed by the winter night.
The silence they leave behind is deafening.
"Come on." Tildie appears at my elbow, her smile too bright. "I'll make us some tea. We can watch a movie or something. Take your mind off things."
I let her lead me to the couch.
Let her fuss over me with blankets and pillows.
Let her chatter about nursery decorations and baby names and all the things that are supposed to matter.
But I can't focus, can't shake the feeling that something's wrong.
The baby kicks, hard, like it's trying to tell me something.
I put my hand on my stomach and try to breathe.
One minute, everything is quiet.
Tildie's in the kitchen, making popcorn, the smell of butter and salt drifting through the main room.
Porter's at the front desk, monitoring the security cameras, his face lit by the blue glow of multiple screens.
Bracken's doing a perimeter check, his footsteps echoing somewhere in the distance.
I'm on the couch, staring at a movie I'm not really watching, my hand resting on my stomach where the baby has finally settled down.
The next minute, the lights go out.
Not just dim—completely out.
The TV dies.
The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen stops.
Even the emergency lights take a moment to kick in, and in that moment of total darkness, I feel the first spike of real fear.
"What the hell?" Tildie's voice comes from the kitchen, high and nervous. "Vanna? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Just—" I stand up, my heart already racing, my eyes straining to see in the blackness. "Porter? What's going on?"
No answer.
The emergency lights flicker on, casting everything in a dim red glow.
It's enough to see by, but barely.
Enough to make every shadow look like a threat.
The common room looks wrong in this light—unfamiliar, dangerous.
"Porter?" I call again, moving toward the front desk.
My voice sounds too loud in the silence. Too scared.
That's when I hear it.
A thud. Heavy. Final.
The unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor.
My blood turns to ice.
And then footsteps.
Heavy. Fast.
Multiple sets, coming from different directions, coming down the hall.
"Vanna, run!" Tildie screams from somewhere behind me.
I hear a crash—furniture overturning, glass breaking—and then another scream, this one cut short.
I don't think. I just move.
My body takes over, survival instincts I didn't know I had propelling me toward the back of the clubhouse.
There's a door there, I remember.
A door that leads to the garage.
Maybe I can hide.
Maybe I can get to a vehicle.
Maybe I can—
But I'm pregnant. Twenty-one weeks pregnant.
My center of gravity is off, my body not as fast as it used to be.
My lungs burn after just a few steps.
I hear the footsteps getting closer, hear men shouting to each other, coordinating, hunting.
I turn a corner and run straight into a wall of muscle.
Hands grab me. Rough. Brutal.
I try to scream, but a cloth covers my mouth and nose before I can make a sound.
I smell something sweet, chemical, wrong—chloroform, maybe, or something worse.
I try to fight, try to claw at the hands holding me, but my limbs are getting heavy, my vision going blurry at the edges.
The world tilts sideways, then starts to fade.
The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is a face I know.
A face I've seen in my nightmares, in my memories, in all the dark places I've tried to forget.
Virgil.
And he's smiling.
I wake up in the back of a moving vehicle.
My hands are bound behind my back, zip ties cutting into my wrists.
There's a blindfold over my eyes and tape over my mouth.
Every bump in the road sends pain shooting through my shoulders, my hips, my belly.
The baby.
Panic claws at my chest.
I try to move, try to feel for movement in my stomach, but with my hands bound, I can't reach.
Can't tell if the baby's okay.
Can't tell if whatever drug they used hurt my child.
Please.
Please let the baby be okay.
I'll do anything.
I'll survive anything.
Just please let my baby be alive.
As if in answer, I feel a tiny flutter.
A kick. Weak, but there.
Tears soak into the blindfold.
Thank you. Thank you.
I don't know who I'm thanking—God, the universe, my own stubborn body—but it doesn't matter.
The baby's alive. That's all that matters.
The vehicle stops.
Doors open.
Cold air rushes in.
Hands grab me, drag me out, and my knees buckle when they hit the ground.
Gravel bites into my skin through my jeans.
I can smell pine trees and wet earth and something else.
Smoke, maybe.
Or rot.
"Get her inside."
Virgil's voice.
I'd know it anywhere.
That smooth, cruel tone that used to mean drugs and desperation.
That now means something so much worse.
They drag me across the gravel, up steps, through a door.
The floor changes from concrete to wood.
The air changes too—warmer, stale, smelling of mildew and old cigarettes.
Someone pushes me down into a chair.
Hard.
The impact jolts through my body, and I cry out against the tape over my mouth.
"Take off the blindfold. I want her to see where she is."
Light floods my vision as the blindfold is ripped away.
I blink, trying to adjust, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing.
It's a cabin.
Old, rundown, with water stains on the ceiling and peeling wallpaper on the walls.
A single bare bulb hangs overhead, casting harsh shadows.
There's a mattress in the corner, stained and sagging.
A table with needles and syringes and little bags of powder.
And Virgil.
He's standing in front of me, his arms crossed, that same cold smile on his face. He's dressed in black—black jeans, black jacket, black boots—like he's going to a funeral. My funeral, maybe.
"There she is." He reaches out and rips the tape off my mouth. The pain makes my eyes water. "The prodigal junkie returns. Did you miss me, Vanna?"
"Go to hell."
He laughs. A short, ugly sound. "That's what I always liked about you.
That fire. Most of my girls lose it after a while.
They get broken, docile, easy to manage.
But you—" He crouches down in front of me, his face level with mine.
"You always had fight in you. Even when you were so high you couldn't stand, there was something in your eyes. Something that refused to quit."
"I'm not your girl. I never was."