Chapter 4
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— Dutch —
Iwoke up alone with a pounding headache and sunlight streaming through unfamiliar blinds.
For a moment, I was disoriented—where the fuck was I?
Then it hit me. My clubhouse room. I hadn’t slept here in months, maybe longer.
Every night I could, I’d gone home to Indira.
To our bed, her scent on the pillows, her warm body curled against mine.
My phone showed three missed calls from my mother and a text from Holden about a parts shipment, but nothing from Indira. Not that I’d expected anything. She was probably still sulking, waiting for me to grovel.
Well, she could keep waiting. I wasn’t apologizing for shit.
I’d done the right thing last night, hadn’t I? Sent Crystal away after I saw how upset Indira was. That should count for something. I didn’t fuck her again. I could have, but I didn’t. That had to mean something.
But all I could think about was the look on Indira’s face when she’d asked me to promise it wouldn’t happen again. Like I’d broken something inside her that couldn’t be fixed.
I showered and dressed, taking my time. Let Indira wait a little longer. Let her think about what she was throwing away over something so fucking trivial.
I was halfway through getting dressed when my phone buzzed with another text from Holden about club business. The quarterly gun shipment. Important shit that required my attention. I started to call him back, then stopped with my finger hovering over his contact.
The shipment was important—critical, even—but it could wait an hour or two while I checked on Indira and made sure she’d calmed down, was being rational about this whole thing. I’d deal with Holden after.
As I was pulling on my boots, something nagged at me. Maybe showing up empty-handed wasn’t the best approach. Indira wasn’t like the club girls—she was educated, sophisticated. She’d probably expect some kind of gesture.
I stopped at the florist on Main Street and bought the biggest bouquet they had—white roses and some other fancy shit the woman recommended. Cost me two hundred bucks, but it would be worth it to see Indira’s face when she realized I’d made an effort.
I was even driving my truck instead of my bike because of the flowers—yet another concession I was making because she was upset. It wasn’t my fault she’d gotten back early from her trip.
The drive to her complex took twenty minutes, twenty minutes I spent rehearsing what I’d say.
Nothing too harsh—she’d been emotional, after all.
Women got like that sometimes. The flowers would soften her up, remind her that I did care about her, even if I couldn’t promise to change everything about how I lived my life.
But she needed to understand that I’d stopped myself. I didn’t fuck Crystal again. That had to count for something. She’d see that if she thought about it rationally.
Her apartment complex was one of those newer developments, all clean lines and perfectly manicured landscaping. The kind of place that screamed middle-class respectability. It suited her—professional, put-together.
She’d always taken a couple days to work from home after business trips—catching up on laundry, sleep, and whatever emails had piled up while she was gone.
Usually she did all that at my place, and there wasn’t much sleeping involved.
I’d come home to find her in one of my t-shirts, hair in a messy bun, laptop balanced on her knees as she worked from my couch.
My dick got hard just thinking about it—the way she’d look up at me with those dark eyes, close the laptop, and let me carry her to bed.
We’d fuck for hours, making up for the days apart.
But last night she’d chosen to come here instead of spending the night in my bed.
Probably thought she was making some kind of fucking point.
I climbed the stairs to her second-floor unit and knocked on the door. No answer. Knocked again, harder this time. Still nothing.
“Indira?” I called through the door. “Open up. We need to talk.”
Silence.
I tried her doorknob, but it was locked. Of course it was. I pulled out my phone and called her number. It went straight to voicemail, her professional voice asking me to leave a message.
“It’s me,” I said after the beep. “I’m at your door. Stop being childish and let me in so we can sort this out.” I waited another ten minutes, growing more irritated by the second. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t avoid me forever.
I spotted a few of her neighbors peering through their blinds, but none of them came outside. I got it—I was a big guy in leather carrying flowers, probably looked like some kind of stalker. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Finally, I gave up on being polite and called her landlord. It took some creative persuasion and a few carefully worded threats, but eventually he agreed to do a wellness check.
Ten minutes later, he showed up with his master key, looking nervous as hell. “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” he muttered, unlocking the door. “But if you’re worried about her safety...”
The apartment looked fine at first glance. But something felt off.
“See?” the landlord said, looking around from the doorway. “Nothing’s wrong. Maybe she’s just not answering because she’s not here.”
But I knew Indira. I knew how she lived, how meticulous she was about everything. The throw pillows on her couch were crooked. Her normally pristine coffee table had a water ring on it. Books were shoved haphazardly back onto the shelves instead of being arranged by height like they always were.
There was broken glass on the floor—what looked like a picture frame. A vase lay in pieces near the kitchen counter. Some clothes were scattered on the floor by the couch, including a red dress I recognized.
That dress. I’d bought it for her birthday party last year—silk, fitted, the kind of red that made every head turn when she walked into a room.
I remembered peeling it off her that night, slowly unzipping it while she stood in front of my bedroom mirror, watching me in the reflection.
The way the fabric had whispered down her body, pooling at her feet.
How she’d stepped out of it wearing nothing but black lace and those fuck me heels that made her legs look miles long-the ones with the thin ankle straps that did something to me I couldn’t explain.
I’d fucked her against that mirror, her palms pressed flat against the cold glass, her eyes locked on mine while I took her from behind.
The jasmine scent of her shampoo mixed with sweat, the mirror rattling against the wall with every thrust. She’d been dripping for me, clenching around me like she’d die if I stopped, gasping my name until her voice went hoarse.
I walked into her bedroom while her landlord waited by the door. Her closet was still full, but there were gaps. Hangers bunched together where clothes used to hang. Her dresser drawers were slightly open, like someone had rifled through them quickly.
The bathroom still smelled like her. Her shampoo and conditioner were still in the shower, but her toothbrush was gone.
So was the little bag she kept her birth control pills in.
I’d been thinking about throwing those pills away myself—not telling her, just making them disappear.
Imagining her belly round with my kid, her body changing because of me.
She’d be tied to me then, permanently. No more business trips, no more independence. Just mine, completely and utterly mine.
“This isn’t right,” I told the landlord when I came back to the living room. “She wouldn’t leave it like this. Indira doesn’t do messy.”
He shrugged. “Looks normal to me. Maybe she was just in a hurry this morning. Slept in. Alarm went off late.”
I called her phone again. Voicemail. I tried three more times, each call going straight to the fucking automated message.
“Indira, call me back,” I said on the fourth attempt, my voice sharper than I’d intended.
“Whatever game you’re playing, it’s not funny.
Call me.” But even as I said it, I knew she wasn’t playing games.
The woman I’d seen yesterday—furious, heartbroken, throwing my cologne bottle against the wall—that hadn’t been an act. That had been real.
I drove back to the clubhouse in a daze, my mind racing. Where would she go? Her parents lived in California, but she wasn’t close to them. She didn’t have many friends in Millfield—most of her social life had revolved around me and the club events.
Unless...
Ice filled my veins as a terrible thought occurred to me. What if someone had taken her? What if some rival MC had grabbed her to get to me? It would explain why her apartment was messy, why her phone was going straight to voicemail.
By the time I reached the clubhouse, I’d worked myself into a full panic. I burst through the doors like a man possessed, startling Handful and Holden, who were sitting at the bar.
“I need Glitch,” I barked. “Now.”
“What’s wrong?” Holden asked, immediately alert.
“Someone took Indira.” The words came out in a rush. “Her apartment looks like it was ransacked. She’s not answering her phone. Someone fucking took her.”
Glitch looked up from his laptop, his eyebrows raised. “Took her? Dutch, what are you talking about?”
“She’s gone!” I slammed my hand on the bar, making the bottles rattle. “Someone went through her place, took her important stuff. And there was broken shit everywhere. That’s not like her. She wouldn’t just leave without telling me where she was going.”
“Actually,” Glitch said carefully, “it sounds exactly like what someone like Indira would do if they’d just caught their man fucking another woman.”
“No.” I shook my head violently. “You didn’t see her yesterday. She was angry, yeah, but she agreed to talk. She said she needed time to think. She didn’t say anything about leaving town.”
“Maybe she decided she didn’t need as much time as she thought,” Handful suggested.
“Or maybe someone grabbed her on her way home,” I shot back. “Think about it—we’ve been having issues with the fucking Wolves. They could have been watching, waiting for an opportunity.”
Glitch closed his laptop and gave me his full attention. “Okay, let’s say someone did take her. Why would they take her back to her apartment to get her stuff? Kidnappers don’t usually help their victims pack.”
“To make it look like she left voluntarily,” I said, even though the words sounded weak to my own ears.
“Dutch,” Holden said gently, “I think you need to consider the possibility that she left.”
“She wouldn’t.” But even as I said it, doubt was creeping in. The way she’d looked at me when I couldn’t promise to stop fucking other women. The defeated slump of her shoulders when she’d asked for time to think.
“Check the cameras,” I ordered Glitch. “All of them. I want to see exactly what happened at her apartment building.”
Glitch hesitated. “Dutch—”
“Check the fucking cameras!” I roared.
The entire clubhouse went quiet. Every conversation stopped, every head turned in my direction. I was making a scene, acting like a maniac, but I didn’t care. I needed to know what had happened to her.
Glitch nodded slowly. “Okay.” He pulled up the traffic cameras near Indira’s apartment complex, his fingers flying over the keyboard. I stood behind him, my heart hammering in my chest as grainy footage filled the screen.
There. Indira’s silver Honda Civic pulling into the parking lot at 8:23 PM yesterday. The timestamp made my chest tight—she’d gone straight there after our fight. Just like she said she would.
“There,” I pointed at the screen. “Can you get a better angle?”
Glitch switched to the parking lot cameras. The image was clearer here, and I could see Indira getting out of her car. She was alone. No signs of distress, no one forcing her. That was good.
She went into her apartment empty-handed, and for the next half hour, the feed showed a few neighbors coming and going, a delivery truck, normal apartment complex activity. Nothing suspicious.
Then Indira emerged from her apartment carrying a small overnight bag.
That’s when it hit me-she hadn’t taken anything into the apartment with her.
“Keep watching,” I said hoarsely.
She made two more trips from her apartment to her car, loading boxes and a suitcase into it. Her movements were purposeful, determined. This wasn’t someone being coerced.
This was someone leaving.
At 10:47 PM, Indira made her final trip to the car. She stood in the parking lot for a long moment, looking up at her apartment windows. Even on the grainy security footage, I could see the slump of her shoulders, the exhaustion in her posture.
Then she got in her car and drove away.
The camera caught her license plate as she turned onto the main road, heading toward the highway. Heading away from Millfield. Away from me.
“She left,” Glitch said quietly.
I stared at the empty screen, my mind struggling to process what I’d just seen. No kidnapping. No rival MC. Just Indira, packing and walking away from everything we’d built together.
That’s when I realized—the broken glass hadn’t been from some struggle.
It was the picture of us from that charity ride last month—her copy of the same framed photo she’d smashed at my place before she left.
The shattered vase I’d brought her after our first fight.
The red dress crumpled on the floor was that dress.
I’d known that as soon as I’d seen it. She hadn’t been robbed.
She’d destroyed pieces of our past before she walked away.
“I need a drink,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“Dutch,” Holden started, but I held up a hand.
“I need a fucking drink.”
I grabbed the bottle of Jack from behind the bar and headed for my office, slamming the door behind me. I could hear the murmur of voices in the main room—my brothers probably discussing what a fucking idiot their prez was.