Chapter Ten #2
“Your place is here, Larissa, always, but I know what it is like to have to deal with ... everything.” Her friend hugged her again and kissed her temple.
She had also known Ava had looked down at her clothes.
She’d gone to a secondhand store and swapped some of her dresses for more pairs of jeans and shirts.
Wearing dresses had stopped being quite so appealing.
“I better get back to work,” Larissa said.
No one knew that Big Dick had told her how much he liked her in dresses, how pleased he was to see her in them. He would tell her how beautiful and sexy she was. This is why she had opted for jeans.
Each time she put on a dress, it reminded her of him and what a fool she had been. She was not going to be a fool again.
****
Big Dick had spent a lot of time around his folks lately.
He was even staying in his old room. He’d gone to visit Erick and buried the hatchet with him.
They were on speaking terms, and this Sunday, there was going to be a family dinner that he’d even convinced Harlow to attend.
Hunter had also been forced to agree to go.
That was going to be fun to watch Hunter with his parents.
He ran a hand down his face. Larissa had finally taken her old job back.
He looked down at the shot of whiskey he had poured himself, and the temptation to knock it completely back was so strong, but he didn’t do it.
Nope, instead he just circled the rim with his finger and waited.
He didn’t even know what he was fucking waiting for, but he was waiting.
Larissa.
He hadn’t gone to the bakery, although that was the only place he wanted to go.
He wanted to go and see her, to talk to her.
Instead, he stayed out of the way and caught a glimpse of her as she closed up shop with Ava.
She wore a pair of jeans and an oversized sweater, and it was fucking ugly.
Where were the dresses? Over the past week, he had seen her in a pair of jeans and ugly sweaters every day.
He knew it was because of him. What the fuck could he do to win her over?
He missed her so damn much. Sleeping was next to impossible. He couldn’t sleep without her. He found himself looking across the bed to that empty spot, wanting to reach out and touch it.
Larissa wasn’t there.
“You’re still moping into your drink?” Raven asked, coming to sit next to him.
Most of the club were keeping a wide berth from him. He and Smokey hadn’t said another word to each other.
“I’m not moping.”
“What would you call it?” she asked.
“I’m debating taking a drink.”
“You look like shit. Has anyone told you that?”
“Many times.” He noticed that she held her cell phone in her grip tightly.
“What’s up?” Big Dick asked.
“I’m waiting for a call from Sebastian Drago. Carlos is currently not returning my calls, so I’m going to call the next best person that can get in touch with my husband,” Raven said.
Big Dick frowned. “Carlos doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to go dark on you, Raven. Not over something like this.”
There was that feeling. It had been a long time since Big Dick felt this way.
Something was wrong. He knew Carlos. They were not close, nor were they best buddies, but that man would not leave Raven alone or his children for this long.
If Carlos hadn’t called, then something was up.
Now, he understood if Carlos was staying away, but this was not good.
Just as he was about to tell Raven about his feeling, her cell phone went off. “It’s about fucking time,” Raven said, as she answered the phone.
At first, he didn’t hear Sebastian’s part of the conversation.
“Put Carlos on the phone,” Raven said.
“Carlos?”
This time, he did hear the other man.
“Yeah, he came to you over some business,” Raven said.
“Raven, we have not seen Carlos since the last time. I got a call to tell me he wasn’t going to make it, that he had to take care of something at home.”
Raven looked toward him.
“When was this?”
Sebastian gave the date, and it was right around the time the video had been sent.
“It was early morning. I’ve not heard from him since. What’s going on?”
Raven was already on her feet, and Big Dick was following her, as they went straight to Smokey’s office. She hung up the cell phone.
“Carlos is missing,” Raven said.
“What?” Smokey got to his feet.
Carlos was a pain in the ass. Not many of the club liked him, and yet they all did like him, because he loved Raven. He had been there for Raven, helped her to heal and recover from her own pain.
Raven ran through the details of what they knew. On the morning of the video being released, as far as she knew, Carlos was already on his way to Sebastian Drago to deal with some business. According to Sebastian, he never made it, and got a text from Carlos saying there had been an emergency.
“It’s the Twisted Bastards MC,” Big Dick said.
Hunter entered the office, followed by Brick and Kinky.
Smokey looked around the room. “Carlos is one of us.”
Big Dick looked at Raven. “I’ve got this,” he said.
“You’ve got this? Carlos has been missing, and it has nearly been a couple of weeks!” Raven looked between them. “You haven’t been able to hunt for them, and we know they’ve got him.”
He grabbed her arms and forced her to look at him. “But I know Carlos. I can find him.” He turned to look at Smokey. “Unless you’ve got a problem with that?”
“No problem at all. You bring him back.”
Big Dick let Raven go, and he was on his way out of the club with Brick and Kinky following behind him. He didn’t say anything to them. It wasn’t the first time they had followed him, and it was not going to be the last. This was his backup in case he needed it.
Going to his bike, he made his way to Carlos and Raven’s place first. This was where he was going to pick up the trail.
Carlos would drive himself. It was the way Carlos worked.
Once there, he looked in the direction he knew the man would take, and that was what he followed. No one stopped him, or questioned him.
With each lead on the hunt for Cadeon and the Twisted Bastards MC, he’d hit dead ends. Nothing had come from his hunts, and it was like he was searching for a ghost, people that didn’t exist, yet he knew they did.
Now, as he looked for Carlos, he felt that usual feeling. This was not a dead end. This was real. In his gut, he had a bad feeling as they drove down the long stretch of road. They must have ridden for a good hour and a half before he came to a stop. Something didn’t sit right with him.
The Twisted Bastards MC ran Harlow off the road.
If the alert had gone out, would Carlos have reached for his cell phone?
Big Dick closed his eyes, thinking about Carlos, and yes, he was leaving his wife and babies to deal with mafia business, while there was an ongoing problem with the Hell’s Bastards MC.
He’d looked at his cell phone, and that was when he’d see the damn video.
Climbing off his bike, Brick and Kinky did the same, and Big Dick moved down the embankment. That was when he saw it. Carlos’s car, the windshield smashed, and there was a huge dent in the side of the car. He climbed down, and they were losing light fast, but he looked inside the car and saw blood.
“That’s not fucking good,” Brick said.
“It might not be his,” Big Dick said.
He looked around. “They took him.” And as he looked around the car, he realized Carlos had his cell phone.
Pulling out his own cell phone, he put a call through to Erick. His brother answered on the fourth ring.
“You know, if you keep calling me, I’m going to start wishing I hadn’t said anything to Mom and Dad.”
“Shut the fuck up. If I give you a cell phone number, will you be able to track it without anyone finding out?”
Erick was quiet.
“Don’t be coy with me, and give me the good-boy routine. We both know you’re shit hot with computers. Can you do this or not? Someone’s life is in the balance,” Big Dick said.
“Yes, I can do it. I’m texting you the details. I need this now.” He hung up the phone and sent Erick the number to Carlos’s phone.
“How can he do that?” Brick asked.
Big Dick looked toward the other two. “It is based off a satellite or tower, or something like that. He can locate where the latest contact was.”
Erick called him back less than ten minutes later. “This is freaky, he’s about a ten-minute walk from where you are right now.”
“You fucking pinged me?” Big Dick asked.
“I figured you wanted his location, like, right about now.”
He didn’t say anything, and instead asked for the location on his cell phone, which Erick was able to do. Checking the signal, he saw where he had to go and started to follow it.
“Anyone else think we could be walking to our death right now?” Kinky asked.
Big Dick didn’t give a shit. He had his gun and his hands. There was no way he was going to let the club down. He would kill anyone he got his hands on.
They were walking for over ten minutes, but he figured his brother assumed he would go via bike, but he was not going to trek his bike through a fucking woodland.
And just as he got to the edge of the trees, he saw a house that was crumbling.
Part of the roof was missing. It was like a piece of history left in time.
“Holy shit,” Kinky said.
He put his cell phone away, making sure it was on silent, as he pulled out his gun, taking the safety off, then staring across at the house. It was still. The sun was setting, providing them the last rays of sunlight.
His gut was telling him he needed to get inside, and he needed to do so fast. Picking up the pace, he crouched down near the main door and looked inside, but the glass was too dirty. This house was too old. He had to get inside.
There were no sounds, no clues as to how many people they were going to encounter. He took the chance, getting to his feet and kicking the door open, holding out his weapon.
The stench inside the house was disgusting. There was no one clear smell, just reeking of death. It was then he realized he may have to be the one to tell Raven her husband was dead. He hadn’t realized he might have to do that.
Anger consumed him, filled him with rage that he hadn’t figured Carlos wouldn’t just abandon his wife, even with their stupid bet being known.
Big Dick looked around at the decaying house. Everything was covered in thick layers of mud. Cobwebs were everywhere, and floorboards were missing. The cold was starting to seep into the house.
As he entered the kitchen, he looked around and he just knew.
The Twisted Bastards MC were sick fucks.
They would put Carlos in the basement. He opened the door, pulled out his cell phone, lighting up the flashlight, and straight down the stairs he saw Carlos chained up, his face bruised, and he also saw a couple of rats.
“Carlos, man, it’s me,” Big Dick said. “I’m going to fire, get them rats away.” He fired with no aim at Carlos, and the noise scared the rats, and they scuttled away.
Carlos moaned. Big Dick shined the flashlight on the man’s face, and saw the Twisted Bastards MC had done a number on him.
“Hey,” Carlos said.
And he didn’t need to look in the man’s mouth to know he’d been given some dental treatment. There was also dried blood on his face.
“I’ve got you.”
“They’re not coming back,” Carlos said. “They left me here to die. I didn’t give them shit.”
“Holy shit,” Brick said.
Kinky joined the sentiment.
“I look like shit, don’t I?” Carlos asked.
“You’ll be all right.”
They would fix Carlos, but Twisted Bastards MC’s days were fucking numbered.