Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Brandy
His hand shot out and grabbed my arm before I could even think to move, his fingers digging into my flesh with bruising force.
I gasped, the sound sharp and startled, and tried to jerk away, but his grip was iron.
Unbreakable. “Let go of me!” I screamed, my voice high and panicked, echoing across the empty gas station parking lot. “Let go—”
His other hand clamped over my mouth, cutting off my scream mid-breath. The taste of leather and motor oil flooded my senses, making me gag. I thrashed against him, kicking, clawing, trying to bite down on his palm, but he was too strong. Too practiced. Like he’d done this a thousand times before.
A van screeched to a halt beside us—dark, windowless, the kind of vehicle that screamed danger in every line.
The side door slid open with a metallic screech, and two men jumped out.
Death Dogs’ patches on their vests. Grinning like this was the best entertainment they’d had in weeks.
“No—” I tried to scream again, but Stone’s hand pressed harder against my mouth, cutting off my air.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. My vision started to blur at the edges as panic flooded my system.
“Get her in,” Stone ordered, his voice cold and efficient.
The two men grabbed me—one on each arm—and hauled me toward the van.
I fought with everything I had, kicking out wildly, my foot connecting with someone’s shin.
One of them cursed, but they didn’t let go.
They just laughed, like my resistance was amusing.
Like I was a joke. My baby. The thought crashed through the panic like a lightning bolt.
I curled my arms protectively over my abdomen, trying to shield it from their rough hands, from the violence I knew was coming.
“Please,” I gasped against Stone’s palm. “Please, I’m pregnant—”
“I know,” Stone said, his voice flat and emotionless. “That’s why you’re perfect.”
They threw me into the van like I was nothing more than a sack of garbage.
I hit the metal floor hard, the impact knocking the wind out of me.
Pain exploded through my shoulder and hip, sharp and immediate.
I tried to scramble back toward the open door, toward freedom, toward anything, but one of the men climbed in after me and slammed the door shut.
Darkness. Complete, suffocating darkness swallowed me whole.
I heard the engine roar to life, felt the van lurch forward, and then we were moving.
Fast. Too fast. The tires squealed as we peeled out of the gas station, and I was thrown sideways, my body slamming into the metal wall.
“No, no, no—” I was sobbing now, the words tumbling out in a desperate, broken stream. “Please, let me go, please—”
Someone laughed. A low, cruel sound that made my skin crawl.
“Shut her up,” a voice came from the front of the van, cold and commanding.
A hand grabbed my hair and yanked my head back, forcing me to look up.
I couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but I could feel him—his breath hot and rancid against my face, his body looming over me like a predator.
“You heard the man,” he growled. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
I bit down on my lip, tasting blood, and forced myself to go silent. My whole body was shaking, trembling so hard I thought I might fall apart. But I wrapped my arms tighter around my abdomen, curling into myself, trying to make myself as small as possible. Protect the baby. Just protect the baby.
The drive felt like it lasted forever and no time at all. Every bump in the road sent pain shooting through my body. Every turn threw me against the walls or the floor. I lost track of time, lost track of direction, lost track of everything except the desperate, primal need to keep my baby safe.
When the van finally stopped, the silence was almost worse than the movement had been. The door slid open, and harsh fluorescent light flooded in, blinding me. I squinted against it, my eyes watering, and saw Stone standing there, silhouetted against the light like some kind of demon.
“Get her out,” he said.
Hands grabbed me again—rough, uncaring—and dragged me out of the van.
My legs gave out the second my feet hit the ground, and I collapsed onto the rotting farmhouse floor.
The impact sent fresh waves of pain through my already bruised body, and I gasped, curling tighter around my stomach.
I forced myself to look up, to take in my surroundings.
We were in some kind of abandoned farmhouse.
Isolated. Miles from civilization, lost in the middle of endless fields.
The walls were peeling, water-stained from years of neglect and decay.
Gaps in the floorboards exposed the dirt foundation below.
Through grimy windows, I could see nothing but fields stretching endlessly in all directions—no neighbors, no help, no way out.
The air reeked of rot and abandonment—musty, suffocating, stained with rust and God knew what else.
The ceiling was high, crisscrossed with exposed beams and flickering fluorescent lights that cast everything in harsh, unforgiving shadows.
The air smelled of mildew and motor oil and something else—something metallic and wrong that made my stomach turn.
Death Dogs’ members were everywhere. Leaning against walls, sitting on crates, standing in clusters.
All of them were watching me with expressions that ranged from curiosity to amusement to something darker.
Something that made my skin crawl. I was surrounded.
Trapped. And no one—no one—knew where I was.
Stone crouched down in front of me, his face level with mine. Up close, I could see the resemblance now. The shape of his jaw, the set of his eyes. He looked like my father. Not exactly, but enough that it made my stomach twist with a sick kind of recognition.
“Brandy, Brandy, Brandy,” he crowed, his voice conversational. Almost friendly.
“Your father never told you about his past, did he?” Stone continued, his smile widening. “Of course he didn’t, or you would have told King, I’m sure. If only you’d known who you were. Maybe he would have made you his old lady before Grace ever showed up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whispered, my voice hoarse and broken.
“Liar,” Stone said softly. But there was no heat in it. Just cold, clinical observation. “Your father is Dominic Ward. Not Griffin. Dominic Ward. The legitimate heir to the Silver Shadows MC presidency.”
The words didn’t make sense. They bounced off my brain like stones off water, refusing to sink in.
My father had told us about being in the club, about being in prison for the club, about being framed.
He never said anything about being the heir to the presidency.
“You’re lying,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew they sounded weak. Desperate.
“Am I?” Stone stood, towering over me. “His father was Dominic Ward Sr. The real president of the Silver Shadows. But his younger brother, Nicholas Ward, wanted that throne. So he killed his own brother to take control of the club.”
I stared up at him, my mind reeling. “No—”
“Nicholas Ward,” Stone continued, his voice taking on a lecturing tone, like he was teaching a particularly slow student. “You might know him better as Titan. My old man. Former president of the Silver Shadows.”
My breath caught in my throat. Titan. I’d heard that name before. Whispered in the clubhouse, spoken with a mixture of fear and respect. Steele and Stone’s father. The man King looked up to, respected. The man who’d been...
“Your father was VP,” Stone said, circling me slowly like a predator stalking prey.
“Groomed to take over the club when the time was right. To take his rightful place as president. But Steele and I were never going to let that happen. I orchestrated a federal agent’s death during an arms deal and set your father up to take the fall. ”
“Stop,” I whispered, but he didn’t stop.
“Your father did the honorable thing. He took the hit. Went to prison for life without the possibility of parole. Protected the club, just like a good VP should.” Stone’s voice dripped with mockery.
“But then somehow that fucking lawyer of his found evidence to exonerate him. Said that the prosecutor was bribed, and that the ballistics reports were falsified, that the DNA evidence had been hidden. Your father walked out of that prison after five years, and the first thing he did was come after me.”
I was shaking my head, tears streaming down my face. “No, no, you’re lying—”
“He nearly killed me,” Stone said, his voice dropping to something darker. “Beat me so badly that I was in the hospital for weeks. And then your father burned his cut, blacked out all his ink, and disappeared. Ran away like a fucking pussy coward and left me to deal with the fucking fallout.”
“He’s not a coward,” I said, my voice breaking. “He’s not—”
“He’s a legacy,” Stone said, crouching down in front of me again. “The legitimate heir to the Silver Shadows’ presidency. And that makes you a legacy too, bitch. You’re MC royalty, whether you like it or not. Whether you know it or not.”