Chapter 18 Stud
Eighteen
Stud
Smoke shows up at the wrong damn time.
Not that there’s ever a right time for him to show up, but today? Today is a special kind of hell.
I’m in the garage, elbow-deep in an engine that stopped cooperating three hours ago, when I hear the crunch of gravel under slow, deliberate boots.
Hellions don’t walk like that. Strangers don’t walk onto our property like that.
Only one man alive moves like a man who’s already decided everyone in sight is beneath him.
Smoke.
I don’t bother turning around. “I told you last time—if you step foot in my shop again, I’m ripping your face off.”
“Good to see the vacation softened you,” he drawls.
My fist curls so tight the wrench bites into my palm.
Reluctantly—very reluctantly—I rotate my head enough to glare at him.
Same old Smoke. Tall as hell, stocky and cocky, beard trimmed to corporate length even though he pretends he’s an outlaw. Blue eyes sharp, calculating. Looks like he bathes more than he should for a biker.
What pisses me off most?
He looks like trouble that knows its own worth.
I stand slowly. “What do you want?”
“Not your friendly welcome, apparently.”
“My friendly welcome is a bullet,” I say. “Try again.”
He doesn’t flinch. He walks closer instead, stepping into the light like a man unafraid of the consequences.
“Tony,” he says tightly, and him using my name throws me off. “this is about Tiffany.”
Cold hits my bloodstream instantly. “What about her?”
He studies me. Really studies me. “You mean she didn’t tell you she was meeting up with Holley to go into town?”
“She did,” I snap. “She left here two hours ago.”
Smoke shakes his head once. Slow. Controlled.
“They didn’t make it back.”
A cold, electric silence descends.
I don’t hear the tools anymore.
Or the radio.
Or the voices outside.
Just that sentence.
“They’re missing,” Smoke adds.
I step forward until we’re chest to chest. “Say that again.”
His jaw flexes. “She’s gone, Stud.”
“Gone how?”
“You know how. You brought the problem here.”
My heart slams against my ribs. A roar fills my skull.
“Don’t play games with me.” My voice is barely human. “Where. Are. They?”
Smoke’s expression isn’t challenging now. It’s stripped bare, all the bravado burned off. Fear lingers under those icy eyes.
“Tiff sent one text,” he says. “Half-mangled by autocorrect and panic.”
He pulls out his phone and shoves it toward me.
The screen shows a text from Tiffany:
Dad—smth wrong road blocked blue car HELP
That’s it.
No follow-up. No pin drop. No call.
Nothing.
My chest hollows out.
“They didn’t come home when Key was expecting them.
She called me and said she couldn’t reach her mom.
” Smoke explains. “I tracked her phone to a dead zone northwest of town. Then it cut off. I rode the perimeter twice, found her Jeep, but no Tiff and no Holley. I assume you know Holley. Keyleigh told me you did and she was with Tiffany. But there are no signs of them. Nothing.”
I shove a hand through my hair, pacing hard enough to leave grooves in the concrete.
Holley.
Tiffany.
Gone.
My breathing shatters apart. The room feels too small, too hot, too tight.
Smoke steps in my path. “Look—hate me all you want. Hell, I deserve it. But Tiffany matters to us both.”
I whirl on him. “You don’t get to say her name like she’s yours.”
“Like hell I don’t,” he fires back. “I loved her from the moment I met her. I fuck up all the time, but don’t ever say I don’t fuckin’ care. She’s mine too, old man.”
My fist flies before I think. It connects with his jaw in a crack that echoes through the garage.
Smoke stumbles, spits blood, straightens.
“Feel better?” he growls. “Because this isn’t helping shit.”
“No,” I say. “But it was necessary.”
He swipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Then get the rest out so we can find our women.”
The word women nearly breaks me.
Holley.
Soft and strong and scared.
Tiffany. Honey
Tough as steel, stubborn as hell.
Both out there.
Both missing.
Both unsure and we have lost hours.
I step toward Smoke again, but not to hit him this time.
I grab the front of his cut.
“Who took them?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t know yet. Got a brother looking into cameras and seeing what we can sort.”
I release him with a shove. “We’re finding out.” My gut tells me Holley was right in her feelings about being watched after all.
He straightens, wiping the last smear of blood. “Agreed.”
We look at each other, not as enemies now, but as two wolves circling the same prey.
“Tony,” he says, voice steady, “we gotta work together, dammit.”
My throat is tight. “Yeah. We do.”
“Then let’s get your boys.”
“My boys?” I bark out a humorless laugh. “You got a fuckin’ patch too. I didn’t strip that from you.”
Smoke steps closer. “Bullshit. Once a President, always a President. They’ll follow you before they follow anyone else.”
A beat.
He’s right.
I hate that he’s right.
“All right,” I say roughly. “We go to the clubhouse. Call a sermon to Country Boy now.”
He nods. “Finally something we agree on.”
The Hellions clubhouse explodes into motion the second I throw the doors open.
Conversations die. Chairs scrape. Eyes snap to me.
Every man here has seen me angry.
None have seen me like this.
“What’s wrong?” Grinder asks instantly, stepping forward.
“Tiff and Holley,” I say, voice ringing through the room. “They’re missing.”
The reaction is immediate.
“What?”
“Impossible.”
“Where were they?”
“Who took them?”
I raise a hand and the room quiets so fast it feels like gravity snapped.
Smoke stands behind me, arms crossed, bruising already blooming on his jaw.
“They went out two hours ago,” I say. “Never came back.”
Every member straightens like pulled by a wire.
Miles pushes to the front. “We riding?”
“Not yet,” I snap. “We do this smart. Not sloppy.”
Hellions don’t fear chaos.
They fear losing family.
And these women—My daughter.
And Holley…
Holley who slept curled against my chest last night—They matter.
I clear my throat and step forward.
“I’m calling in Tripp and all the charters.”
A shocked murmur ripples.
No one calls that lightly.
It means war footing.
It means all hands.
It means every man in this room drops everything until the targets—our girls—are back safe.
Grinder speaks quietly. “You’re sure? I get it for Honey.
That’s your daughter and Smoke’s once upon a time ol’ lady.
But Holley, she ain’t yours. I don’t know that Tripp will pull all the resources for random pussy, Stud.
And Smoke hasn’t claimed Honey in years.
He threw that out when he went Nomad and tossed her off his property on the table that night. ”
I inhale sharply. I remember that all too clearly. I should have killed him for it then. Right now I have to shake all of it off. The Hellions have a code and I know what I have to do.
Then I say the words I never thought I’d say again.
“I claim Holley. She’s mine.”
The room stills.
Completely.
Grinder’s eyes widen slightly. Miles stops breathing. Raff lifts his chin.
Smoke adds, voice cold and final: “And I claim Tiffany.”
Not romantic.
Not possessive.
But binding.
Like blood.
Like law.
Every patched Hellion has to answer the call for a claimed woman.
Country Boy, the brother who took over from me as President, steps forward. “Then this becomes club business.”
He looks at me carefully. “You’re leading this, Stud.”
“I’m retired. I hold no position to lead anything.”
“You’re still the best,” he says simply. “And this is your woman and daughter.”
I nod once, a sharp jerk of my head.
“Grinder,” I bark. “You take highways. Miles and Raff, check every gas station, back road, diner, and motel within thirty miles. Twitch is on it from the inside to scan and find any traffic cams or dark web news.”
“You got it,” they answer simultaneously.
“Smoke,” I say without looking at him, “you’re with me.”
There’s no argument. No pushback.
He falls in beside me like old times—before we hated each other, before the split, before life dug trenches between us.
We move fast.
Ten minutes later, I’m in the war room—a converted office lined with maps, radios, monitors, and enough firepower to stop a small army.
My heart pounds so hard it hurts.
Twitch bursts in, tablet in hand. “Got something. Traffic cam picked up Tiffany’s Jeep stopped on County Road 17. Blue sedan blocking the lane. Then signal cuts.”
The car looks familiar, but I’m distracted as he pulls up another feed. “Dark web, found a loop hole into a private server feeding this to a mobile phone.”
I see Holley’s face, the fear.
Her soft voice whispering my name in the dark.
Her bruised cheek in the warehouse I didn’t know existed.
I didn’t protect her.
I didn’t protect Tiffany.
Smoke speaks first. “We need to assume they’re being moved. Nothing stationary. Professional, maybe. Or someone with enough desperation.”
Desperation.
That hits something deep.
Holley told me her ex was unstable. Debt-ridden. Dangerous in ways she never spoke aloud.
My stomach drops.
“It’s him,” I whisper after seeing the car on the video.
Smoke turns. “Who?”
“Holley’s ex-husband.”
Smoke swears. “Name?”
“Eric Colson.”
“Description?”
I tell him. Everything.
He scribbles notes, jaw tight. “This isn’t random then.”
“No,” I say darkly. “It’s personal.”
My pulse spikes.
Smoke mutters, “Shit.”
Twitch keeps swiping through footage giving a play by play that only fuels my rage more. “Right after that, two men drag them out of frame. No plate numbers.”
My knees threaten to buckle.
I grip the edge of the table so hard the metal groans.
Smoke steps beside me, voice low. “Hold it together, Tony.”
I grit my teeth. “Don’t tell me to hold it together.”
“Then hold it for them,” he says quietly. “Twitch has an address.”
It hits like a fist.
He’s right.
I slam my hand on the table, drawing every brother’s gaze.
“We ride,” I say, voice deep, lethal, and nothing like the man who living a retired life mere hours ago. “We ride now.”
The Hellions erupt into motion.
Engines roar.
Boots pound.
Guns locked in and loaded.
I stand in the doorway and watch the club I once led prepare for war—and for the first time in years, I feel like the President again. I miss it but Country Boy is the right man to keep it going.
Smoke stops beside me.
“You ready?” he asks.
“No,” I say honestly. “But I’m going in with a fury.”
“Good,” Smoke mutters. “Because I don’t think anyone is more scared of you right now than whatever bastard took your people.”
I stare out at the rows of bikes revving like thunder.
“They should be afraid.” I pause and as much as it kills me, I let the words come out, “She’s yours too. She is the mother of your children and you two have history even if I don’t agree with the ways you’ve hurt her, she loves you.”
“We’re gonna get them back,” he reassures me.
Only I don’t need reassurance. I know they are coming home. Because I’m not stopping.
Not until I have them back.
Not until Holley is safe in my arms.
Not until Tiffany is breathing and cursing me for worrying.
Whoever took them—
I’m coming.
Hell’s coming with me.