Chapter 24
Josiah
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
It’s been over thirty minutes since the altercation. Tanner had walked away in anger after she slammed the door, slamming the door to his room as well.
Rueben, on the other hand, looks a mess. To others, he might not look like he cared about what had just transpired, but Tanner and I have known him longer than anyone, and we know how to read him.
He sits heavily on the sofa, placing his head on the headrest and a hand to his face with his eyes closed. His constantly ticking jaw is a testament to his annoyance about how things had gone.
When she’d told us about her pregnancy, I hadn’t known how to react to it at first, and so I had stayed silent, unable to get the right words out when I tried. At least, until Tanner interrupted me and went on to ruin things.
I can't fault him for how he handled things. It’s always been Tanner’s way to be brash and rush into things without thinking about it. While the man is proficient in handling business, he knows nothing about handling a woman.
I should have said something. I should’ve tried to salvage the situation before it got out of hand.
The one thing we hadn’t bothered to do was explain to her exactly why we wanted the stash in the first place, and now, it has cost us and we’ve ended up hurting her when it wasn’t our intention.
“How could she say that we are only after the stash and care nothing about her?” Tanner says, bursting out of his room.
I roll my eyes and look at him.
“Do you read minds now?” I ask him, considering he’s just blurted out exactly what I was thinking.
“What?” He looks at me with irritation. I hold up my hands, shaking my head.
“It’s nothing,” I respond. “But maybe an explanation would have done her some good, instead of simply rushing her through everything and disregarding what she said.”
“But how could I have known that she would react—” He stops when I raise a brow at him. “We didn’t have time for an explanation. We needed to move immediately.”
“And yet, here we are,” Rueben says, joining the conversation. “No time for an explanation, but time enough to wait until she’s no longer angry after the way we handled things.”
I sigh. “It’s been almost an hour. Do you think she’s calmed down enough to speak to us now?”
Rueben shrugs. Tanner looks away, clearly reeling from Rueben’s words.
I shake my head in disbelief. Who would have thought the day would come when I would be the one trying to resolve a situation like this? With a groan, I get up from the couch and head in the direction of her room.
“Amelia, can we talk?” I ask, knocking on her door lightly. “Look, I’m sorry about the way we handled things. I know you must have been scared to tell us in the first place, and our reactions to the news must have come as a shock to you, but please, give us a chance to fix this,” I plead through the door.
My knuckles rap on the door once again, and my lips turn down in a frown. “Amelia?”
Is she sleeping?
I return to the living room, where the guys look up at me expectantly. “She didn’t come out.”
Tanner lets out an anguished sound. “But it’s been so long already. We need to get the stash out and it needs to be done now. It’s the only way we can be assured of her protection.”
Although I don’t agree with his methods, he’s right that this is the only way to protect her. She’ll continue to be a target as long as the stash remains hidden.
“Maybe I should try knocking,” Tanner suggests, getting up.
We look at him with raised brows, and he rolls his eyes. “I promise to be gentle. Besides, I’m the reason she’s in there right now, instead of sitting here with us as we discuss the possibility of our—”
He clears his throat, stopping himself from saying the word. “I’ll be back with her.”
Tanner returns a few moments later without her. His eyes are wide and panicked.
“Guys, I think she’s gone.”
“What?” Rueben jumps to his feet, taking on the exact look on Tanner’s face. “What do you mean she’s gone?”
“I mean she’s not in her room. When I knocked and she didn’t respond, I turned the knob, expecting it to be locked, but it wasn’t. She isn’t there.”
I stand up, and we all hurry to her room to find her. “Did you check the bathroom?”
“No, but I called out to her and she didn’t respond.”
I hurry to the bathroom. I push the door open frantically, ready to apologize and be relieved if I find her, but she isn’t there.
“Could she have left her room while we were in the living room?” I ask, but Rueben shakes his head.
“There’s no way she could have done that without us knowing about it.”
“Fucking hell. Where has she gone now?” Tanner screams, looking extremely worried. He pulls his phone out of his pocket.
I look at her test strip on the ground. She must have tossed it mindlessly when things didn’t go as expected.
“Now’s not the time to be looking at your phone, Tanner. We have to find her now, and unless you planted a microchip in her that you haven’t told us about, I doubt it’s going to be much help, since she doesn’t have a phone you can call,” I say when I see him glued to his phone.
Instead of responding, Tanner's eyes slowly widen in horror as he scrolls through his phone.
“Fucking hell. Shit. This can't be happening right now,” he shouts, tossing his phone on the bed.
“What is it, Tanner?” Rueben asks, while I grab the phone to go through it.
“Fuck. I’ve been so distracted by the argument we had that I haven’t checked my phone for the past hour,” Tanner groans.
“My mole has been sending me urgent messages. There were plans to raid us today. That must be why the car was following us, and I foolishly led them here, thinking that I had lost them.”
Tanner punches the wall, losing his composure. “There can be no other explanation for her absence. They took her and it’s all my fault. I should have been more considerate of her feelings instead of shutting her down.”
“As much as I would love to let you wallow in your grief and guilt, now is not the time for that, Tanner. We need to find out where they’ve taken her and find a way to get her back from them,” I say.
Much like him, I can't imagine the thought of her in the clutches of those Flames of Hell bastards. We had managed to stop them from torturing her once, and we can only be so lucky as to stop it a second time.
“We need to get to her, and we need to do it now. There is no time to spare,” Rueben says.
Tanner pulls himself together and runs out the door. It’s the first time I've ever seen him be so moved by anything, and it’s impressive that he’s managed to get himself under control.
“I’ll have my mole tell me what he knows about her disappearance, and we can start from there,” he says, his eyes pinned to his phone as he heads out the door.
“Tanner, wait!” I pull him back just in time for a bullet to fly past him.
His eyes widen, and he turns to me with a nod of gratitude before slipping his gun from his waist and answering with a shot of his own.
Rueben and I follow suit, unsheathing our guns as we shoot in the direction of the bullets.
“You fucking rat bastards! I should have known you would betray us!” Jared shouts from a distance before shooting at us once again. “I told you what would happen if you do, and now you have to face the consequences of your actions!”
We shoot back at them, not bothering to respond to Jared's jibes. If anyone is the bastard, it is them. They're willing to go to any length, including killing those who stand in their way, just to get money that doesn’t even belong to them.
“It’s no use fighting them,” Rueben shouts over the sound of gunfire. “They don’t have her here with them, and we’re outnumbered. We can't waste time here while they torture her, wherever she is. We need to go.”
I glare at Jared. As much as I want to satiate the anger and bloodlust boiling in me, now is not the time for that. We need to save her before it’s too late.
I nod and motion for them to go. Tanner shoots a final shot, and although I can see in his eyes that he wants to fight back, he follows after an equally angry but more reasonable Rueben.
With them going to fetch a car, I continue shooting until I have just one bullet in my gun. I set off the smoke bomb we have rigged in front of the house. That hopefully affords us the time to escape before they can recover and search for us.
I join the others in the car and Tanner speeds off, going down the back road.
“Those Flames of Hell bastards. How dare they touch her?!” Tanner shouts, hitting the steering wheel as he weaves around the other cars on the road.
“We have to find a way to get her back. Notify the gang that we are on our way. Tell them to prepare for war,” Rueben tells me. I nod, taking out my phone to do as he asks.
With a sadistic grin on my face, I send the message.
“Send a message to the Hellfire Brotherhood, Devourers, and Prowling Tigers. Tell them it’s time to fight. This is the only chance they have of ever being more than small gangs under Flames of Hell’s thumb. Tell them to join us at the bike shop.”
I type quickly as Rueben rattles off instructions, and immediately send them to all the gangs. While they have mostly stayed out of the way of Flames of Hell out of fear, they have often expressed a dislike for their control and wished to be free of them.
Now is the time for them to finally do what it takes to be free of Flames of Hell.
Tanner arrives at the bike shop, where our gang is already waiting for us, ready to go into battle. Moments after we arrive, the other gangs show up. For the first time in a long time, we all work together in a bid to get rid of our collective enemy.
Rueben steps forward to address them. “We have all expressed our displeasure at having to deal with the oppression of Flames of Hell, and not being able to retaliate for fear of what will happen, but all that is about to end now.
“Flames of Hell has gone too far, and it’s only a matter of time before they come for each one of us until they wipe us all out. But we won’t give them that chance, because we are going to war now. No longer will we live under their rule and in fear of them.
“Today, we will fight until we’ve regained our freedom and taken out every one of them.”
The gangs erupt in war chants as he goes into the shop, returning with weapons for himself, Tanner, and me.
He gets into the car and we peel out of the driveway, heading in the direction of the Flames of Hell headquarters.
We’re coming to get you, Amelia. Be strong for us.