Chapter 53 Cash
FIFTY-THREE
CASH
A thunder of motorcycles prowled through the night as we tore down the twisting mountain road. A score of angry metal that raced in the direction of the lux resort on the far side of town. Up the northern mountain near the ski slopes where I’d gotten a ping that Ethan had checked in.
I was at the helm, leader of the pack as we hit town on the south end, a host of single headlights spearing through the deep, dark night.
Most everything was closed up by now, the roads barren and the windowfronts of the shops and restaurants darkened. Only the dull glow from the streetlamps and random flickers of a neon sign illuminated the sleeping town.
Sickness coiled in my guts. My blood rushing with the same venom that had snuffed out my humanity when I was seventeen.
Only it felt different tonight. The numbness assuaged. A purpose rekindled. A stoking of life and soul.
The tether I’d lost regrounding me with purpose.
He wouldn’t get to her. He couldn’t have her.
She was mine.
My wife.
In that frenzy of certainty, something still felt off. A tacky sense that something didn’t quite add up.
The fact that it’d been difficult for me to even pick up a trace of him for all these weeks when I could normally dig out dirt on next to anyone. Fucker flying under the radar. And now he was just right out in the open? Showing up at the club and checking into a resort?
A hot poker of anxiety burned a hole in the middle of my chest. An open wound that had been inflicted.
Or maybe it felt more like a scar that had been torn open wide.
A motorcycle angled up to my side, and River gave me a jut of his chin. A silent question asking if I was okay. No question, he could feel the fluster of adrenaline that coursed through my veins. A flurry of questions and doubt that scattered into the lapping night.
I gave him a look of apprehension.
A slow shake of my head.
His midnight eyes blazed with understanding. Like maybe he was already feeling it, too.
The only solace I had was knowing the women were safe. There was no chance anyone could get to them inside the cabin.
It was fortified.
Armored.
Not to mention the six brutal killers standing guard outside.
We were on the other side of town, approaching the T at Vista View that would wind us around the lake and onto the road that led to the resort, when my phone went off in my pocket. An incessant vibration that pulsed through my body like an alarm.
A rock gathered in my throat, and I jerked my head to the right, indicating for everyone to pull off.
The engines growled and rolled as we edged to the side, and I ripped my phone from my pocket to see it was Trevan, one of the men guarding the house.
I killed my bike so I could hear as I answered, the words stones that toppled from my mouth. “What is it?”
“Hey, man, listen, I know we aren’t supposed to let a soul inside that house, and I take that command seriously, but Daisy came out here demanding that we let her in. But it didn’t sit right. Thought I needed to let you know.”
Apprehension fluttered through my consciousness. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“A car came up the drive. We surrounded it, but Daisy came running out and said she knew her and to let her through.”
“Who?”
“Her sister.”
My entire being blew back.
Her sister?
Daisy’s sister was dead.
Because I killed her.
Killed her in that rage.
The shame glomming onto me so devastating that it was the one thing I hadn’t yet had the courage to confess to Daisy. I was going to. I had to. I couldn’t go on without her knowing.
Was I losing it because of this? Was I in some kind of sick dream?
“What does she look like?” I forced out around the ball of barbed wire that rolled my throat.
Trevan huffed out an uncertain sound. “Like your wife, I guess, but a little older and worn around the edges. She seemed freaked out that we were here. Daisy was just hugging the hell out of her, asking her what she was doing here, before she dragged her inside.”
Hadley was alive.
Was alive and I was a fool who didn’t pick up on it.
Didn’t know.
It felt like a boulder rolled off the mountain and crushed me. Every faculty gone for a blink as I tried to wrap my head around it before a slick of awareness pitched me to the side.
“Get inside that house and make sure they’re good.”
Had she been in hiding? I thought she was dead, so I’d never gone back and looked for a trail.
Then there was Ethan…
I choked as a torrent of violence was dumped directly into my bloodstream. Rage brimming to the surface and spilling over.
They were connected somehow. They had to be.
“Right fuckin’ now,” I shouted. “I think she’s dirty.”
“Oh shit, man,” Trevan wheezed before he was shouting to the rest, “Move, move, move. Cash thinks the sister might be crooked. Get her the fuck out of there until Cash gets here.”
A pummel of commotion echoed on the other end of the line, and I was shoving my phone back into my pocket as I pointed two fingers at Silas and two of his men, gesturing for them to continue in the direction we’d been traveling, then made a circle over the top of my head, telling the rest of us to regroup and head the other direction.
A horde of bikes took to the road, our throttles capped as we flew back down the main drag of Moonlit Ridge. Blips of light and desperation blinked at the edges of my sight, the buildings whizzing by in flashes of terror and panic as I took the road as fast as I could.
The pavement became liquid below me. A black blur of sludge that fought to hold me back.
But there would be nothing that would stop me from getting to her.
I promised her.
I promised her I would keep her safe.
That I would bring this to its end.
I just had no idea it would implicate Hadley. That she was involved.
I gulped as my mind whirled through the possibilities.
How the fuck was she related to Ethan? How didn’t I know?
A babel of confusion and hate spiraled through my being, and my entire body shook like a fuckin’ beast as I barreled up the road at warp speed.
Moonlit Ridge disappearing behind us in a beat.
The tires ate up the road, and my knee nearly scraped the pavement as I angled into the sharp, tortuous curves that led up the mountain. The wind blasted my face and made it nearly impossible to see.
Or maybe it was just the chaos that blinded.
This overpowering hunger that raged inside.
Only this time it wasn’t the thirst for blood.
It was simple.
Real.
True.
Save her.
It felt like a fucking eternity, but ten minutes couldn’t have passed by the time the lane that led to my cabin came into view.
I braked hard, the back tire skidding to the left as I took the right at fifty, my right boot hitting the squishy, damp earth to keep myself steady before I pinned the throttle again.
My bike jostled, a frenzied reverberation as I flew over the potholes and mounds, my brain scrambled inside my head.
I flew down the ridge, the engine loud and echoing off the impenetrable swath of trees, as I gunned it and flew up the other side.
That’s when I smelled it.
Smoke.
Spindly fingers of fear gripped me by the throat. By the soul. Held me at the very core of who I was.
All five of our women were in that house.
I could feel the shockwave of panic surge through the atmosphere at the same time as mine.
Every one of my brothers coming to the quick realization of what was happening.
We’d all lost so much.
So many pieces of our hearts had been sheared away by greed and stupidity.
By trauma and abuse.
By broken dreams and envy.
Dumped into the nothingness that had nearly destroyed us all.
Then we’d all found our hearts.
Our meaning.
I’d been terrified of it. Terrified of loving again, sure that I would lose it.
But I wouldn’t.
I refused.
I didn’t know it was possible to ride any harder than I was, but I was in front of that cabin in a flash. Without fully stopping, I let go of the handlebars, jumping off, body in the air for an elongated instant, before I landed on my feet at a sprint.
My bike toppled and rolled as it met the dirt, sliding across the ground behind me and into a bush.
While I ran toward the mayhem happening in front of my cabin.
A group of motorcycles and panicked souls piled in behind me, their spirits lashing and flailing as they, too, took in the scene.
Flames licked from the roof and the noxious smell of smoke filled the air. Trevan and the other guys were on the porch, trying to rip at the steel that covered the windows.
“We can’t get in,” Trevan shouted in torment, his knuckles blanching as he dug at the metal. “The code isn’t working. Your system is fuckin’ jammed.”
No.
Chaos spun my brain, and I paused for a beat, looking around, trying to figure out what to do as the rest of my brothers hustled up beside me.
“Security is down. They can’t get in.” I ripped at my hair, fear saturating me through.
The cabin was a fortress.
No way in if those coverings were locked.
“Oh, fuck. Moonflower.” Otto looked like he’d been shot.
Kane bowed in two, and River and Theo looked like they were going to black out. Blood draining from their faces into a pool of anguish at their feet.
It all happened in one incandescent second, our gazes clashing in questions, before we burst into action.
I ran for the massive detached garage, hands frantic as I plugged in the code. The hinges groaned as the big door began to ascend. I ducked below it, my heart beating so loud it was the only thing I could hear as I ran for the row of tools hanging on the wall.
My brothers were right beside me, each of us grabbing whatever we could find.
Crowbars and sledgehammers.
A chainsaw.
Conviction hardened every muscle in our beings. An obstinacy seeping from us on overpowering waves.
Yeah, my cabin might have been fortified.
A stronghold.
But I doubted a thousand tanks could stop us right then.
We went running back for the cabin.
Blips of memories played on repeat.
The flames.
The smoke.
The pain.
“Are there any weaknesses?” River shouted over the roar that filled our ears.
I didn’t design it for weaknesses, and that desire to make it completely impenetrable had made it a trap.
But I knew there had to be. Somehow, someway, there had to be a way to the girls.
My mind calculated every entry point. Sifted through every gap and crevice and seam.
“The roof,” I rasped as it hit me. “We go through the roof.”
I started to run for where a ladder was stored on the side of the house while I hollered at Trevan, “Go to the back of the house where the flames are coming from and start soaking it with the hose.”
I didn’t take the time for him to respond. I tossed my sledgehammer to the ground so I could grab the ladder and lean it against the roofline.
River and Theo were up it before I even had it stabilized, Otto and Kane right behind them, me on their tail, the sledgehammer in both hands as I basically scaled it on two feet.
We piled out on top.
Eyes and hearts frantic.
From near the kitchen window on the backside of the house, flames licked up and climbed for the sky. Heat gusted with the wind, sparks snapping and twirling into the air.
“Here,” I shouted, going for the spot over the kitchen where there were two exposed exhaust pipes.
They all knew exactly what I was aiming for, and Otto drove the end of his crowbar into the joint where the roof and the metal pipe met. Grunting a wild sound, he pried up the first layer of roofing—shingles and tar.
The rest of us immediately dug into it.
I lifted my sledgehammer over my head and slammed it down with all the strength I possessed. It shook the structure beneath our feet.
I could almost feel the fracturing of spirits. Daisy’s on the inside calling out for me.
Her fear.
Her belief.
The trust she’d placed in me.
I lifted it and did it again.
Again and again, while my brothers worked with the same fervency.
River and Otto with crowbars, the teeth of the saw Theo held eating into the surface, Kane and I pounding holes through each layer.
Splintering the wood below.
Sweat lifted on my flesh, a river of it pouring from my face and down my chest and back.
The shouts of Silas’s men rose from below. The hoses turned to high as they tried to battle back the flames that continued to grow.
“We have to hurry,” I rasped through the clawing in my lungs.
Our muscles burned as we fought to get to the women we could feel inside.
Howls of hopelessness. Wails of belief.
We finally busted a hole into the attic.
“Fuck, yes,” Otto rumbled, and he tore harder, jumping down and ramming the sharp end of the crowbar into the sheetrock that made the ceiling. The surface bowed, and I grunted, “Let me get it.”
Otto climbed out, and I took his place. It was a tight fit, my body rubbing against the frayed edges of the opening.
I took the sledgehammer handle by both hands and raised it directly upright in front of me and slammed it down.
It fractured, crumbling below me. Dust and smoke swallowed me as I fell through.
A hard grunt left me as my back slammed into the edge of the island before I toppled to the floor to the sounds of shouts and screams and the roaring of flames.
But I was in, and I wasn’t going to stop until they all were safe.