Chapter 9
Nine
”Fuck,” I hear Lyssa scream.
”What the fuck was that. Lyssa?” My heart is beating fast, what the fuck is going on?
”A truck just hit me. I think my leg is broken.” I’m moving through the clubhouse to find Spider. We need to move on this now, not wait for Prez to tell us to jump into action. Lyssa is hurt, and I need to get to her.
”Lyssa, I”m going to ring the fucking prospects and ask them what the fuck they are doing.”
”Tank, someone”s here. They”re taking me. Tank, save me.” She’s not loud, or panicky, she’s quite like she’s trying to hide that she’s on the phone.
“What the fuck? I’m going to ring those prospects neck for this. They should never have left you there. Any of you.” Spider looks at me and I nod my head for him to come over.
“What’s going on, Tank?”
I hand the phone over to him, he puts it on speaker and mutes our side of the call..
”You stupid bitch. Did you think you”d be able to get away from the Vasquez family? And those stupid bikers don”t know anything.” Spider looks up at me.
“What the fuck is happening? Have they taken her? Where are the prospects?”
Prez comes over to us. “I’ve just got a call from Winnie and she says that someone just hit Lyssa with their truck and then put her in the back and drove off with her.”
“We’re just after finding out for ourselves. We’ve got to go and find her, Prez.”
“Of course, but we need to make sure the ladies get back in one piece and maybe they can give us some more information.”
I know he’s right, the more information the better. But, I can’t sit here and do nothing.
“Prez, the longer we leave it the more chance of them Killing, Lyssa.” I’m looking at Spider. I know he feels the same as me.
“When the ladies get here, we will have Church. We need to set up a plan. All of us. And no going off on your own, again.” Prez stares at me and Spider.
It’s another ten minutes before the ladies arrive back. Spider comes up to me. “Tank, we can’t wait, we need to find her. We can’t leave her to die. I know Prez, he’s going to take his time to plan it out and it will be another hour before we leave. I know if it was Winnie, he wouldn’t wait for an hour, he would be off on his bike and it would be our choice to follow him or not.”
“You’re right, I need to move or I’m going to lose my shit and if I do that then I might as well say goodbye to the Rebel Hearts.” My heart is racing and I can’t stay still. I’m pacing up and down and I know Spider feels the same.
“Tank, you know what we”ve got to do.” Spider grabs my shoulder, to stop me from pacing.
I turn to look at him. “Once a Rebel, always a Rebel.”
He smiles, “Absolutely.”
The phone line is still open and Lyssa is talking. I can hear that he is going to kill her, he has a gun to her head. She’s giving us clues to where she is. This woman is my life. She knows that we are coming to save her and hopefully she stalls him enough so that she’s not already dead when we get there.
That’s our decision made. We turn on our heels and leave the clubhouse. Getting on our bikes, we roll out.
Twenty minuteslater we are on the outskirts of town, checking all the old warehouses that are derelict and run down. This area is known for the homeless vagrants who live here. We drive around the warehouses and look for the truck that she was thrown into. After checking five warehouses, we drive further into the area. We see a truck and a car, so we slow down, stop and turn the engines off.
“Spider, I think this is the place. We need to plan what we’re going to do. I think we should go in at different entrances, try to catch them out.” I take out my gun, make sure my knife is on me, and turn to Spider. He’s doing the same.
“I’m going to send Prez a location so they can come back us up. I know he’s going to be pissed off, but he would do the same.” I text him our location and I receive a text back immediately.
PREZ:
What the fuck? I told you both to wait. You could ruin it by being hare-brained and not planning.
TANK:
We did what needed to be done, Prez. You’d have done the same and you know it.
PREZ:
We will talk about it when we bring Lyssa home.
I put my phone in my pocket. “Spider, let’s go. They’ll be on their way shortly.”
We move toward the warehouse, keeping a lookout for any men surrounding the building. But, strangely, there aren’t any.
“You go that way, and I’ll go this way.” I point to my right. “When we get to the entrance, we’ll need to assess the situation. We need to be sure we can take them down or Lyssa’s life could be ended, and that is not our goal here.
“This could be a problem with Prez, particularly after the other night, but I can’t let my sister just die.” Spider is emotional and I need him to think straight.
“Spider, we’ve got this, Lyssa is coming home with us today.” I have to believe it. If I don’t then we’ve no chance of rescuing her.
“Okay, let’s do this, Tank.”
“Once a rebel, always a rebel.” Spider looks at me. We hug, knowing that what happens next is so important we don’t want to mess it up.
I go my way and he goes his. I keep close to the wall, ducked down under any windows I come across. I can see the entrance, but I look through the window to see what’s happening inside.
I can see two guys standing behind Lyssa, who is kneeling on the ground, tied up. The rage inside me is going to spur me on to finish both of them. There’s a guy standing in front of her with his gun against her temple. What the fuck?
Visions of the night we burst into her apartment cross my mind. This is all a mind fuck. She survived it once she can survive it again, right. She’s talking to him, trying to prolong her life. She believes we are coming for her, and she’s right.
I move to the door and assess, who can I shoot first and how is that going to affect the guy holding his gun at Lyssa? Will he shoot her straight away? We need to shoot him, but I know Prez would want us to take him back to the clubhouse, I’m just not sure I can do that as he’s threatening Lyssa’s life.
Before I can even think about who I shoot first, I hear a gunshot. Fuck. I rush into the warehouse and see Lyssa on the ground, laid there. I rush toward her, that’s when I see the guy on the ground. I see Spider coming in from the other entrance and he shoots the two guys who brought her here.
I slide on the ground to grab Lyssa and pull her to me. I check her over. She’s not been shot. Thank God. I relax and kiss her face.
She opens her eyes. “Am I dead?”
I smile at her. “No baby, you’re not.” I lift her into my arms. “Spider, I’m taking her to the clubhouse. It looks like you took them all down on your own.”
“I sure did, no one threatens my sister”s life.” He comes over to us. “Lyssa, you are going to be the death of me. Maybe being with Tank means that I’m not the only one with the responsibility to keep you alive. You are really testing our skills right now.”
She smiles at him, and he hugs her. “Thanks, Brady. Love you, too.”
He lets her go and Spider walks over to the Vasquez guy. He’s not dead, Spider kicks the gun out of his reach. He had hit him in the leg so that he would still be alive when Prez arrives.
As we back to the bikes, Lyssa says, “I knew you’d come for me, Tank. I just wanted to keep him talking until you did.”
“This looks like it’s become a habit. You need to stay away from Russian Roulette for a while.”
She laughs, and it’s just a great feeling to know that she’s safe.
When we get to the bikes, Prez pulls up. “She okay?”
“Yes, Prez.”
“Get her back to the clubhouse, Doc is on his way.”
“Thanks, Prez.”
“We still need to talk. But let”s get Lyssa looked after first.” He looks around. “Where’s Spider?”
“He’s in the warehouse waiting for you. He still has the Vasquez guy alive, he doesn”t know what you want to do with him.”
Prez laughs. “I’m going to have fun with this one.” He walks off.
“Do you think you’ll be okay on my bike? I know your leg is broken, but I just need you to hold on for a little while.”
“I’ll be fine as long as I’m holding onto you.”
I kiss her. Hard, deep and showing how much she means to me.
I help her on the bike, slide in front of her and then she leans forward and holds onto me tight. I can’t believe I could have lost her. I need to tell her how I feel about her.
We ride back to the clubhouse and the ladies are waiting for her to come back. I lift her off the bike, pushing my way through them.
“I need to take her to Doc, then she’ll be able to tell you what happened.”
Lyssa waves at them, and I smile. She’s made friends with them really fast and I know that she is going to fit into the family so well.
She reaches out and touches my cheek. “Hey, look at me.”
I stop walking, and look down at her.
“I’m okay. I’m alive because of you and my brother. I’m not going anywhere. I can hear you worrying.”
“Lyssa, I thought you were going to die and I knew that I didn’t want to lose you. It was scary and I hated feeling like that. My job is to make you feel safe.”
“No, Tank. Your job is to make me feel loved and you are already doing that. I know that my life is going to be so much better with you in it.”
I lean down and kiss her. “I can’t wait to get you in my bed. I’m going to worship every inch of you and then I’m going to slide inside you and worship every inch there too.”
“Tank, don’t say things like that to me when I have to see Doc. All I want now is for you to fuck me hard.”
“Later, Lys, later.”
I carry her into the makeshift hospital that we have on the compound, where Doc is waiting for us.
“What happened?” he asks me as I lay her down on the bed.
“Someone hit her with a truck, she thinks it’s broken” I growl because the thought of someone hurting her is killing me.
“Okay. What’s your name?”
“Lyssa. She’s Spider’s sister, and my woman.”
I say this while looking at her and she smiles when I say it.
“Ah okay, that’s why you were holding her like precious cargo.” Doc laughs. “Let me have a look at Lyssa and see what’s going on with her leg. Is there any chance you’re pregnant?”
“What the fuck, Doc?” Why is he asking that?
She laughs. “No unless the immaculate conception.” She smiles. “I can guarantee I’m not pregnant.”
“Yet,” I say under my breath. Maybe I wasn’t quiet enough because she stares at me. I just nod my head.
Doc carries out an x-ray, then checks her leg and puts it into a cast. “Now, you’ll have the cast for six weeks, I’ll come see you in five weeks just to check it’s healing.” He looks up at me, “Make sure you be careful with her, I know what kind of a brute you are.”
Lyssa laughs.
“Don’t worry, Doc. I’ll treat her like she’s a precious piece of glass. She won’t be walking for a while, I’ll carry her around the clubhouse.”
Doc laughs and shakes his head. Lyssa shakes hers too, but she doesn’t fight me on it, she knows that I’ll be carrying her whether she wants me to or not.
I know we are going to have to talk about sleeping arrangements, but she will be in my room from tonight. It’s bigger and more comfortable. There’s room for her to hang her stuff, I made sure of it and everything has been washed and cleaned for her.
Doc leaves the room and I walk over to her and pick her up.
“Tank, put me down.” She’s laughing.
“No, I promised Doc I’d carry you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
When I carry her into the main room, the old ladies are waiting for her. I put her down in the chair as Prez calls me over. I lean down and whisper in her ear, “I’ll be back. I’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
“Tank, Spider, we need to talk,” Prez says as he moves towards his office.
We walk in and he closes the door. As soon as it’s shut, he turns to both of us. “You are testing my patience. What do you not understand when I say we will go as a club and not go off half cocked? I’m pissed at both of you.”
“Look, Prez. We had to go, Tank had her on the other end of the phone, the bastard was playing Russian Roulette with her. There’s no way we could wait to see if it failed or not.” Spider is emotional. His voice is shaky. I know he doesn’t like to answer Prez back, but it was his sister and his only blood family.
“Prez, I’m not sorry that we did it,” I say. “It means that Lyssa is alive and back home with her family.”
“But, Tank. We do things together as a club. We don’t send one or two men into these situations.” Prez is shaking his head and pacing in the office. It’s not really big enough for the three of us with him pacing.
“I know, Prez and you know that work fucking hard for this club and we uphold the rules. But if you tell me honestly that if it was Winnie that was taken that you wouldn’t have done what we did today?”
Prez steps into my space. He grabs my cut and holds me close to him. His eyes are piercing and his voice deepens. “Don’t you ever talk about Winnie like that. No one is taking her from me.”
“I never said they were, Prez. I’m just asking for you to say to me that you would have waited to work out a plan BEFORE going to rescue Winnie. Do you not remember when she was in a similar position?”
He lets go of my cut. Shaking his head, “I wouldn’t wait. I didn’t. What are these women doing to us? Are they making us pussies?”
I laugh. “Nah, they’re making us better men.”
Spider laughs and then says, “Fuck that, I’ll take club pussy any day.”
Prez and I look at him, shaking our heads. “You’ll get your time, Spider. And we will remind you of this conversation.”
I look at my brothers, and I know that everything is going to be alright. We’re family and we work through these problems, but even I’m hoping Lyssa doesn’t get herself into more trouble, because I don’t know if I can rescue her again in time.