Chapter 18 #2
“That’s my brother’s car,” I said, shrugging and smiling in the way I’d seen Rumi use a million times on a million different women. “He skipped school today, and he’s not answering his phone.”
“He must be in trouble,” she said, smiling back. Bingo.
“You could say that,” I agreed ruefully. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem.”
I strode back toward the boys and nodded across the street. “Blue house.”
“Did you just use the Rumi smile on her?” Micky asked, holding back laughter.
“Works every time.” Rumi grinned smugly.
When Esther’s mom answered the door, I would’ve known her anywhere. Both Esther and Noel looked just like her.
“Hey, I’m looking for my brother.”
“Sorry, I can’t help you,” she said, shaking her head.
I stuffed my toe in the jam, stopping the door before she closed it in my face.
“He’s friends with your daughter Noel,” I continued. “She here?”
“She’s at school.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
The sudden fear in her eyes killed me.
“Listen, I’m just lookin’ for Titus. Have you seen him today?”
“No,” she replied, pushing against the door. “Noel doesn’t spend time with—with boys.”
“You have any idea where they might be?”
“I told you. She’s at school. I don’t know where your brother is.”
“Otto, let’s go,” Gramps called from behind me.
Her eyes widened, and I nodded.
“I’m Esther’s husband. Nice to meet you.”
She didn’t respond in any way as I turned and jogged back down the driveway.
“Prospect called from the warehouse,” Gramps told me as I reached my bike.
“Playin’ a game of telephone, so it took a damn minute to get to us, but he saw Titus and a girl in the back of a car.
He was shittin’ his pants not knowin’ whether to follow them or not since none of us were pickin’ up our phones. ”
“Please tell me he followed the car.”
“He did. They’re at the church. He’s been keepin’ an eye. They’re still there.”
“Don’t feel good about this,” my dad muttered, reaching for the ignition.
“Good news is the boys at the grocery store are closer, they’ll be there when we get there.”
I was trying like hell not to get distracted, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the way I’d laid into Titus the night before.
He’d fucked up big time, but I also hadn’t given him any slack for being a fucking kid.
The kind of kid that I wished him to be, oblivious to most of the shit we dealt with on the daily.
He’d been so freaked out and guilty and I’d definitely made it worse.
He wouldn’t even meet my eyes when he’d shown up at the house that morning.
The church was a small one, tucked away down a dead-end road. It was the perfect place for a militia group to hatch their plans and get up to whatever they wanted with the outward respectability of a house of God. The place made my skin crawl.
Gramps was right. The rest of the group had beaten us there.
“I’m not waitin’,” my dad said, climbing off his bike the minute we stopped. “Don’t give a shit who’s in there.”
“With you.” Micky climbed off his bike.
“Don’t leave me behind!” Rumi almost sang, following them.
“I’ll coordinate out here,” Gramps said, nodding to my dad as he walked to the others. “No one’ll come out without us knowin’.”
“Thanks, Gramps,” I said, following my dad toward the front doors.
The Calgary Church had the same maroon carpet and wood accents as every other older church I’d ever seen. It was spotless, not a speck of dust anywhere, but clearly run down. They hadn’t been using the collection plate money for upgrades, that was for damn sure.
The sanctuary and the first few rooms beyond it were empty. By the time we hit the fourth room with no luck, I was starting to wonder if we were on a wild goose chase. The fifth room was empty, too.
We hit pay dirt on the sixth.
Behind the door, we could hear Titus singing, well, rapping. Badly.
Dad swung the door open, his pistol at the ready, but the only people in the room were Noel and Titus.
“Dad,” Titus said, the relief in his voice making my throat tighten.
His face was black and blue, but otherwise he seemed fine.
“Who’s here?” my dad asked as he bent down to untie Titus.
“Hey, Noel,” I said gently. Counting on my brothers to watch our backs, I kneeled down by Esther’s baby sister. She hadn’t come through their morning unscathed and was almost as black and blue as Titus.
“Otto,” she breathed, smiling painfully. “Happy to see you.”
“Hey, I was keeping you entertained,” Titus complained from behind me, his voice strained. “I had two more verses to finish.”
“Let’s get you out of these,” I murmured, reaching for the ropes that tied her wrists to her ankles. “Jesus.”
“Thanks.”
“How long have you guys been in here?”
“I’m not sure,” she murmured, rubbing at her wrists once they were free. “About seven songs, I think.”
“Eight songs,” Titus corrected, dropping down beside me. “You must’ve forgotten I’m a Little Teapot.”
“I remembered that one,” she replied matter-of-factly as I helped her to her feet.
“Let’s get ’em outta here,” my dad ordered. No one stopped us as we walked the kids back down the hall and out the front doors.
“There’s no one in there,” Gramps informed us, glowering at the prospect in front of him.
“I’m tellin’ ya, man,” Cian said, his eyes widening. “That’s the car that brought ’em in!”
“It is,” Titus confirmed, reaching out to pull Noel against his side. “I think they left with someone. They got a call and bailed.”
“It’s not like they’re missing,” Noel pointed out quietly. “I know where both of them live.”
“Thatta girl,” Rumi praised, raising his hand for a high-five. She ignored him.
“Think it’s best we get you two both back to the club until we know what’s what,” my dad said tiredly.
Noel looked around until her eyes landed on me.
“Your sister’s already there,” I told her.
“You ever ridden a motorcycle before, sweetheart?” my dad asked her gently.
Noel shook her head.
“It’s not hard,” he continued, walking her toward the bikes.
“You’re not ridin’ with me,” Rumi announced, shoving Titus hard enough that he stumbled a few steps. “There aren’t many lines I’m unwillin’ to cross, but having my baby brother ride bitch on my bike is one of ’em.”
“The singin’,” Will groaned, throwing his arm over Titus’ shoulders. “So bad, kid. It was so bad.”
“I was tryin’ to keep her from freakin’ out.”
“It worked,” I replied. “Good job.”
“Mom’s gonna kill me, huh?”
“Probably.” I shrugged.
“When I got to her house, they’d locked her in her room—”
“Save it,” Will muttered as we reached the bikes. “We can talk about it at the club.”
I helped Noel put my helmet on, buckling the strap under her chin. “Your sister’s gonna be real happy to see you.”
“My dad was really angry,” Noel whispered, looking over my shoulder to where Titus was climbing on the back of my dad’s bike.
“Don’t worry about that now,” I reassured her. “Let’s just get back to Esther, yeah?”
Beyond the fact that Noel had her arms so tight around my waist that I could barely move, the ride back to the clubhouse was pretty anticlimactic.
I wasn’t sure what the hell the next steps were, but for once, I was thankful that I wasn’t going to be the one making the decisions.
All I wanted was to get back to Esther, take a fucking shower, and crash for the next twelve hours.
It was a nice dream.
The minute we rolled down the driveway, there was a group of women hurrying out of the clubhouse, searching the group for each of their men. Esther hung back a little with my mom, clearly trying to seem unaffected, but she wasn’t hiding her relief very well.
I knew the moment she spotted me and her sister.
As soon as I parked the bike, Noel was scrambling off with absolutely no finesse whatsoever. I cursed under my breath, trying to keep it from going over and sighed when she was finally clear, putting down the kickstand so I could get off too.
“What are you doing here?” Esther asked, fumbling with the helmet strap. “Are you okay? Where’s Titus?”
As people filed back into the clubhouse, my family gathered up so we could give them an abbreviated version of events—mostly the part where we found Noel and Titus tied up in the church.
“I wouldn’t leave,” Titus explained. “I knew she was in trouble, so I just kept makin’ a nuisance of myself until they let me see her.”
“I thought they were going to call the police,” Noel added.
“No chance of that,” Rumi muttered under his breath.
“After they finally let me in to talk to her, some dickwad punched me in the jaw.”
“I tried to stop them,” Noel cut in angrily.
“We’ll talk about that later.” Titus glared. “Anyway, they beat the shit out of us and then threw us in the back of a car.”
“Where was Mom?” Esther asked like she was afraid of the answer.
“With Aunt Lacey,” Noel replied. “Dad took her over there after he locked me in our room. I didn’t even know anyone was downstairs until I heard Titus talking to someone at the door.”
“They took us to the church and tied us up,” Titus finished. “Bailed right after, and eventually, you guys showed up.”
“How you doin’?” I murmured in Esther’s ear, running my hand down her back.
“I’m okay,” she replied softly. “You?”
“We got some shit to talk about.”
“Is it bad?” She pulled away to look me in the eye.
“Pretty bad, yeah,” I whispered.
Her eyes closed, and she dropped her forehead against my shoulder.
“Come on, you two,” my mom said, shooing them toward the building. “Aunt Molly needs to look at your faces. You better hope I don’t have to bring you to the hospital, or there will be all sorts of questions.”
Esther and the women followed my mom inside and the rest of us headed toward the garage end of the building where a single bay was wide open.
“Titus good?” Dragon asked the minute we walked in.
“Roughed him up some,” Gramps answered. “He’ll be fine.”
“Good news,” Dragon replied.
“I’ve been workin’ on some things,” Uncle Casper announced as soon as we came to a stop.