41
LOGAN
T he headlamps of my car illuminated the parking lot, revealing a car that hadn’t been there earlier when we were there. When I got closer, I recognized Dr. Simms’s BMW.
He’s got to be here.
My breathing quickened. I parked my car next to the BMW and flung open the door. Two cars and motorcycles pulled up around the vehicles. Grimm removed his helmet and dismounted his bike with ease.
“Wait!” he cried. “We don’t know what’s inside. We should come up with a strategy.”
Strategy be damned. I ran to the building. The door wasn’t locked, which could be from us picking the lock earlier. Behind me, the others filed into the building, guns drawn.
A low, pitiful moan reached me. I moved cautiously to the stairs, each step deliberate. Dr. Simms lay crumpled on the floor, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles, his face pale and contorted in pain.
“Help… me,” he whimpered, his voice weak and strained. His eyes flickered open, meeting mine with a desperate plea.
“Where’s Bloom?” I snarled.
“He’s…gone.”
“Gone where?”
His chest rose and fell, but he didn’t respond. “Bloom!” I called. What did he mean Bloom was gone?
Panic coiled tighter in my chest. Dr. Simms was no help. I turned back to the stairs. “Check every office until we find him.”
The bikers rushed to spread out, their boots thundering. I ran for the office number that had been on the second utility bill. Dr. Simms must have been in a hurry to leave because the door was unlocked.
My heart sank. If Bloom was still inside, Dr. Simms wouldn’t have been so careless. I stepped into the office and barely concealed a frustrated cry. Bloom wasn’t there. My mind raced, piecing together what little was information. Bloom had been here. The signs were everywhere—the scuff marks on the floor, the chair with the ropes on the floor by its legs, the boots Bloom had been wearing, and a familiar knife on the desk. Bloom’s knife. He would never willingly leave it behind.
My hands trembled as I picked it up, the cold steel sending a chill down my spine. A vision of Bloom, hurt and defenseless, flashed before me, making my knees buckle.
I forced myself to move, descending the stairs on shaking legs.
“Bloom.” I crouched beside him. “Where is he?”
Dr. Simms’s eyes fluttered open again, and he tried to speak, his lips barely moving. “I… I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me!” The words erupted from me, venomous and sharp. I gripped his shirt and pulled him up slightly. He cried out, his head lolling to the side.
“I swear,” he gasped. “He… he pushed me down the stairs and ran.”
“Ran where?” I tightened my grip. “Where did he go? Tell me! ”
“I don’t… know…” he whimpered, his breath hitching with every word.
A wave of heat consumed me. I reached down and pressed against his leg where the bone was protruding. His body twitched, and a scream ripped from his throat. The sound reverberated off the wall, but it did nothing to quell the storm inside me.
“Where the fuck is he?” I shouted. “I can make it hurt a lot more if you don’t talk.”
He sobbed, tears running down his face. “I…don’t…know. I swear to you that he ran.”
“He escaped?”
“Ye-es. Please, please.”
If he had no idea where Bloom was, he was of no use to me.
I raised the knife, feeling no remorse for breaking my Hippocratic oath, which I’d always taken so seriously. A strong hand gripped my shoulder, yanking me back.
“Doc, stop!” Bay’s voice was urgent, his eyes wide as he held me away from the injured man.
“Don’t! If I don’t kill him, how will I be able to face Bloom again?”
“I know. I understand how you feel but killing him should be Crowe’s privilege. Don’t you think?”
I trembled with rage, clenching my fists at my sides. He had a point, but I still longed to drive Bloom’s knife into Dr. Simms’s neck. Bloom would have approved.
The room spun around me, the weight of helplessness crashing down like a tidal wave. I wanted to argue, but the logic in Bay’s words rooted me in place. I couldn’t take this away from Crowe. He already hated me for wanting to take Bloom away from him.
I took a shaky step back, my breath coming hard and fast. One by one, the bikers joined us, giving me sympathetic looks. They hadn’t found Bloom.
“Looks like he escaped,” Grimm said. “That’s a good thing. Means he’s probably trying to get home.”
“We should spread out and do another search for him in this area,” Uncle Mickey said. “He can’t have gotten far. Why don’t we team up? I’ll take Logan in the car. We need a few people on foot.”
Noose and Whip exchanged glances. “We’ll stay here with this piece of shit and get him moved to the clubhouse.” Noose nodded toward Simms. “Any advice on how to handle his broken body, Doc?”
“If it were up to me, I’d tie him to the vehicle and drag him all the way to the clubhouse.”
The twins stared at me as though stunned. “It’s not like you’ll be setting any bones,” I said. “Scrape him up like roadkill and throw him into the trunk. I don’t have time for this.”
I stormed out of the building, rushing to the car. Uncle Mickey threw his car keys at me. “You drive.”
I snatched the keys out of the air and stalked over to the driver’s seat. The car roared to life. Uncle Mickey sat silently beside me, drumming his fingers against his knee as he stared out the window. I looked out at the darkened street, scanning every corner, every shadow.
Where are you, Bloom?
“You weren’t kidding about how much you care about him, were you?” Uncle Mickey asked.
“I’d die for him.” The words fell from my lips with an ease that surprised me. They were the truth, spoken from the darkest part of my heart. The part of me that was fighting back the panic at the thought of Bloom not knowing how much he meant to me.
Did he realize I didn’t just love him? But that my world didn’t exist without him in it?
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you the opportunity to prove that to him.”
“What?” I swung my head around…right into the barrel of Uncle Mickey’s gun.
“Eyes on the road,” he said when the car swerved. “Turn left at the incoming intersection.”
“What the hell is this, Uncle Mickey?” I tightened my hands on the steering wheel.
“You miss that intersection and I’ll make a call that will have Bishop cut his hand off.”
I turned at the intersection, slowing to give way to a group of late-night pedestrians. “What did you do? Please tell me this is a joke.”
“You left me with no choice, Keegan. I have to thank the psychiatrist for this opportunity. If he weren’t so obsessed with your little boy toy, we wouldn’t have had the chance to snatch him.”
My blood ran cold, realization dawning like a slap to the face. I shot him a sideways glance. “You? You have him? You’ve had him this whole time? ”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Uncle Mickey said calmly. “Eyes on the road. Bloom doesn’t have to be hurt, but that’s up to you and how well you carry out my instructions.”
My heart thundered. The pieces fell into place with horrifying clarity. The way Uncle Mickey had insisted on coming with me—it all made sense now.
“You son of a bitch,” I spat, my voice trembling with fury. “If you’ve hurt him—”
“I haven’t, but that’s not my call, Logan. You’ll see him soon enough. Follow my directions.”
“And if I refuse?”
Uncle Mickey lifted the gun and waved it at me. “Then don’t blame me for being cruel. Keegan, I’m trying to do this as humanely as possible. Even though you don’t believe me, I care about you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“You think I wanted this? Blame your father.”
“My father? He set you up to this? I thought you were your own man. Didn’t you encourage me to leave the family?”
“And you should have stayed hidden. Your father wants you back, and of course, I can’t have that.”
“What?”
“Why do you think your father requested to see you, Keegan? Because years in prison softened him up. Can you believe that your dad, who prevented me from being with the man I’ve loved for years, is now fucking some pretty boy he met in prison?” He barked a laugh, his hand with the gun shaking from the force of his mirth. “Now he’s changed his mind. He doesn’t care who you take to bed as long as you return to the family and restore it to the way it was. It’s his condition—to rebuild what you destroyed and not only will he forgive you, but also hand over the family to you. He wants to make amends.”
I shook my head. “That’s bullshit. My father would never—”
“Gabriele—that’s the name of your father’s prison bitch. I’ve seen him with my own eyes. Pretty, sharp-tongued, and has your father wrapped around his finger. They make me sick.”
“Is that really the reason you’ve kidnapped Bloom? The reason you want me? You already know I have no interest in running the family. I’m a doctor—not a murderer.”
“Still singing that song after over a decade, are you?” He heaved a sigh. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not taking the risk again. I already drove a wedge between you two when I encouraged you to leave the family. Mind you, I had no idea you would go that far. Bishop told me then that I should have killed you. I should have listened to him but I let sentimentalities get to me. Never again. I have the Agosti family in the palm of my hands and I refuse to give it up.”
“I don’t want to be the Don!”
“Doesn’t matter what you want. Your father has chosen you and so I have no choice but to remove you permanently. Next, Marcello will get the best surprise when I give the command and his prison lover shanks him.”
I clenched the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. Uncle Mickey had been like a father to me. More than my actual father. He had taught me how to ride a bike, how to throw a punch, how to stand up for myself. I never thought he’d be the one holding a gun to my head, not even in my worst nightmare.
“You set me up years ago,” I whispered. “You knew how angry I was when Pop killed Aurie. That I wanted to hurt him and to leave the family. That’s when you started planting ideas in my head to leave.”
“Now you’re catching up. In fact, your father wasn’t the one who actually killed Aurie. I did.”
“What?” The word came out shaky. The truth of my life was unraveling before my eyes. All this time I’d thought I was in control, but Uncle Mickey had been playing me like a fiddle.
“Your father didn’t correct you because he also wanted Aurie out of your life. I did him a favor.” He waved to the right. “Make a right turn here.”
No streetlights penetrated the darkness that consumed this winding road. Only the sparse light from the car’s headlights illuminated our path. I followed Uncle Mickey’s directions dutifully, still processing his words.
Please let him be lying about Bloom.
I didn’t mind him lying that he had Bloom to get me to go with him. As long as Bloom was safe, I could face whatever was waiting for me.
Soon, Uncle Mickey pointed at an abandoned warehouse. The same warehouse where he’d taken me the day Bloom and I were at the boutique. “Stop there.”
I parked the car and sat rigidly in my seat, facing forward, trying to formulate a plan. Depending on the condition Bloom was in, there were two of us against three of them. If my brother was also involved. A slim chance that he wasn’t. Even if he wasn’t, he hated me so much he might join to get back at me.