Chapter Thirty-Five #2
The doors slammed against the wall, two men walking inside, dragging a third between them.
They dumped him on the ground in front of the couch, and Wilder pushed up on his hands to see Spencer standing over the unmoving man with his gun pulled, while Cooper rifled through his pockets, coming up empty.
“Is he alive?”
If he were, he would know where his buddies had taken Emmett. If not… he didn’t even want to think it.
“I don’t think I hit him hard enough to kill him,” Jane muttered.
“He’s got a pulse,” Spencer confirmed, his fingers on the side of the man’s neck.
Jane crossed the room, grabbing the half-filled bottle of water Emmett had left behind on the floor in front of the mural. She walked back to the others, unscrewing the cap. “Hold him down.”
She turned the bottle upside down over his head, the water splashing his face, and while Wilder couldn’t see much of what was happening with Jane and Cooper in the way, he heard the gasp and splutter just fine.
Spencer and Cooper held the man down by his arms as Jane crouched in front of him.
“Well, hello,” she purred, and he knew her smile would be terrifying. “Looks like you and I need to have a little chat.”
“Fuck you,” the man croaked out.
Jane shifted, giving Wilder a better view. The man’s face was pinched in pain, the blood from the wound in his forehead painting his skin red, the scarf that had covered the lower half of his face tugged down to hang around his neck.
Jane hummed and reached out to tug his shirt down by the collar. “Won’t you look at that.”
Spencer grunted. “Navy?”
He couldn’t claim to be surprised. Not with the way he and the others fought. He couldn’t see what he assumed was a tattoo, but he figured Spencer would know military ink when he saw it, considering one of his fathers was a Marine.
“Perhaps we should let Talon and Maddox say hello,” Jane said, nodding at Cooper and Spencer.
They dragged the man kicking and screaming through the room, and Wilder dropped his head back on the couch, squeezing his eyes shut. Emmett had to be alright. He had to be. He would get him back. There was no world in which he didn’t.
“What the hell happened?”
Emma. He blinked his eyes open slowly, finding her golden eyes within inches of his face, the worry in them making his heart clench.
“They took him,” he said. Whispered. Yelled. He wasn’t sure.
“Fuck,” Emma hissed, her fingers brushing over his face.
He drifted in and out of consciousness while Emma patched him up, though he caught a few words exchanged between her and Jane. Concussion. Pupils. Bleeding.
Did he have a concussion? The throbbing in his head claimed as much.
“Take these.”
Pills were dropped into his hand, and he dutifully popped them in his mouth, chasing them down with water from the bottle he was handed. He drank until his throat closed up and nausea hit him.
Someone grabbed the bottle out of his hand before he could drop it, and he put his head back down again, unsure how much time had passed when he opened his eyes again.
His groan was loud in the room, the sound making him cringe from the pain it sparked in his temples. He moved his arms, feeling something wrapped around them where they’d made contact with the concrete.
“Don’t get up, you idiot.”
He turned his head to find Jane sitting on the floor in front of him. There was fear in her eyes, something he’d rarely seen. Was it for him?
“Yes, I’m scared,” Jane snapped, easily reading him in his vulnerable state. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No,” he croaked out. He cleared his throat, squinting at her to avoid as much of the light as possible. “Yes?”
Her sigh let him know just how much of an idiot she thought him to be.
“How long?”
The words were like sandpaper on his tongue. Fuck. Everything sucked.
“Forty-five minutes since they took him. Emma gave you some of the good stuff. It knocked you out for a bit.”
Forty-five? And they hadn’t found him yet?
“I need―”
A hand on his chest held him down before he could even push himself up on his hands.
“You need to recover. You’ll be no help if you go out there half-cocked. You’ll only get someone killed. Most likely yourself, and even if you’re the bane of my fucking existence, I don’t want to lose you.”
He bit back the words threatening to spill, needing to focus on Emmett. He was more important than his shredded heart.
“Don’t,” Jane said, taking a seat on the couch to help him sit up, her hands gentle.
“Don’t what?” he croaked out, blinking against the blue and gold spots sparkling in his vision.
“Shut me out. Say what you need to say. I can’t do this anymore,” she said, the last part barely above a whisper.
He didn’t know what to say, so he just squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the nausea away. Willing those damned pills to work.
“I know you have this whole thing of believing you’re never enough for people to stick around for,” Jane said, dropping her gaze to her lap, where she was wringing her hands, another thing he rarely saw her do.
“We’re all still here, Wilder. You’ve never had to be anything but yourself.
We love you, and yeah, I’ve been a bitch lately, but Solo and I could’ve had thirteen years together if he wasn’t so fucking terrified of losing you.
” Her voice lowered, though it didn’t hide the pain behind her words. “Then we lost you anyway.”
“I know.”
She snapped her head up, tears lining her eyes as she stared at him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, hand reaching toward her. When she let him take her hand in his, a breath shuddered through him, some of the tension in his shoulders easing.
They stared into each other’s eyes for a breathless moment, and then she nearly knocked him over when she threw her arms around him. He hugged her close, ignoring the pain flaring through every inch of his body.
“I love you,” he said, lips pressed against the top of her head.
Jane’s arms tightened around him for a second before she pulled back in his arms. “I don’t need you to be okay with it. I just need you to not shut me out.”
He swallowed hard against the anguish welling up in his throat.
“I know it wasn’t really any of my business, but the lies? You guys not trusting me? That’s what hurts the most.”
“We fucked up,” she said, her voice breaking.
“More than once.”
They turned their heads at the same time, catching sight of Solo standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, a defeated look on his face.
“I’m sorry, brother. For everything,” Solo said, staring into his eyes for a long moment before he turned his gaze on Jane, his expression softening in an instant.
“I want you to be happy,” Wilder said. “I just… didn’t think my trust would be the price of it.”
“Neither did we,” Jane whispered.
Solo crossed the room, his long legs eating up the distance in seconds. He stood in front of Wilder, brown eyes filled with anguish, though he could tell that there was some hope behind that fear, too.
“No more secrets. No more lies,” Solo said, holding out a hand toward Wilder. “Be pissed all you want. I don’t care if you hate me, if that’s what you need. Just don’t push us away.”
His heart was in shambles, and yet it felt as if pieces of it were trying to stitch themselves back together. He wanted to forgive them and move on. He wanted his family back.
He grasped Solo’s hand, meeting his gaze. “I could never hate you.”
He’d hated their actions. Their lies. He’d hated how they’d made him feel.
He squeezed Solo’s hand before letting go. “One day at a time.”
Solo nodded, relief stark in his eyes and expression.
“I didn’t mean to get between you and Emmett. I was just so fucking worried about you, and I knew you’d never knowingly want to hurt him. I’m sorry.”
Wilder tried to nod, then thought better of it.
“As shitty as that was, it pushed me to realize what I wanted. Don’t expect me to thank you, though.”
Solo huffed, the sound making Wilder’s lips try to lift at the corners.
A throat clearing had Wilder looking toward the doorway where Talon stood. He felt his heart freeze at the pinched look on Talon’s face.
“He’s not saying much, and I doubt we’ll get a location out of him anytime soon,” Talon said, a muscle clenching in his jaw. “What he did say is that he and his buddies save people. From cults and such.”
“That… makes no sense,” Jane said, sharing a confused look with Wilder. “If they save people, why did they try to kill him?”
Talon shrugged. “Maddox will keep working on him.”
Solo nodded and cleared his throat, stepping forward. “Good. We need―”
The slap of running footsteps had Wilder jerking his head up and regretting it immediately when pain sparked behind his eyes.
Someone pushed Talon aside in the doorway. A flash of blond hair sent his heart into a frenzy until it was pale blue eyes that found his gaze and not the sapphire blues he loved.
“I’ve got a location,” Ezra said, skidding to a halt in front of them. “They’re still on the road, but they’re heading toward DC.”
“What? How?”
“His CIs have GPS.”
“His what?” Talon asked, walking to Ezra’s side.
“His implants,” Wilder explained, gaze locked on Ezra. “You tracked him via his implants?”
“I know I’m drop-dead gorgeous, but I’m not just a pretty face,” Ezra said, wagging his brows.
“Debatable,” Talon muttered, just loud enough for Ezra to overhear, and Wilder swallowed back a groan as he watched a smug smile spread on Ezra’s face.
“Aww, you think I’m pretty, Tally?” Ezra crooned, catching the belt loops on Talon’s jeans with his fingers, leaning back to bat his lashes at the usually stoic man. Wilder held his breath as he watched the flash of emotions on Talon’s face, unsure what the hell he was even seeing.
Before anyone could step in, Talon wrenched Ezra’s fingers off him, jerking his arms behind his back in what looked like a painful hold. Ezra’s smile didn’t dim. He was pretty sure it only grew more smug.
“Call me that again, and I’ll break your pretty face,” Talon growled low.
“Promises promises, Tal―”
Jane’s hand muffled the rest of Ezra’s words, and she gave Talon a look that had him releasing the other man into her hold.
She jerked Ezra back, her mouth at his ear as she whispered something that had Ezra straightening, his expression hardening.
He dug a phone out of his back pocket and handed it to Jane, who released him.
“You can track him with that,” Ezra said and turned on his heels. “Call me if you need me.”
Wilder took a single breath, and then he said, “Alright, let’s go.”
“You’re in no condition to go anywhere,” Jane protested.
He met her gaze, determination raging inside him. “Just try and stop me.”