Chapter 8
EIGHT
Rebel
Fury and Viper stood around me in the hospital. I had wires attached to my arms and a hydration bag. Waking up in this damned bed had been frightening, and then it all came back to me. It had taken three of them to hold me down until I could be sedated.
Now, I was coming back around but as I looked up at them, it was obvious with the expressions they were giving what they needed to tell me. They just didn’t know how to say it.
“Where is she?” I croaked. My throat was dry, like I hadn’t eaten or had any water for days.
“We don’t know,” Fury said. “He took her and has evaded every major city we have lookouts in. They haven’t hit Belfast yet though.”
“That’s not good,” I said, grabbing the water Viper held out to me and sipping it. I cleared my now refreshed throat. “Do we have lookouts in Belfast?”
“Yes, Wolf is there, waiting for them.”
“He knows Wolf is on our side now,” I said. “She left with Riagan willingly…maybe that’s what she wanted.”
“I doubt it. She would have answered Shona’s calls if that were the case. Turns out he put Bran’s kid in an orphanage down near Cork so he’s just got her now.”
“That doesn’t make sense…he was saying it was about being a family.”
Viper shook his head. “From what Wolf said…he’ll try and convince some of his father’s followers or old acquaintances to help him. If Alasdair had debts, he would need to pay them. It’s how it works with Alasdair’s sick demented way of doing business.”
Fear shot through me. I knew what kind of acquaintances Alasdair kept, and how deep into the skin trade the Destructive Sons were.
“If Alasdair made a promise, the reason he was coming for Darby, her brother would keep that promise wouldn’t he?”
“What do you mean?” Fury asked.
“He was mixed up with the skin trade and Shona was going to be payment at one point which was why she left. If he was selling his daughter to someone involved in bad shit…and that debt needed to be paid…then who do you think foots that bill? Maybe the last surviving son of Alasdair.”
Viper and Fury shared a look. They saw it too. It was why he was so eager to get her back, why Keefe was killed because he would have stopped it.
“Get me the fuck out of here,” I said. “I need to get to her.”
“You said she left willingly…maybe Shona and Savage should go.”
“You’re not stopping me, brother,” I said through gritted teeth. “Nothing is going to stand in my way of getting her back.”
He looked at me, and I realised I’d revealed more than I said. I loved her. I don’t know when it had happened but I fucking loved her. Nothing was going to stop me from claiming what was mine and she was it. I would move heaven and hell just to save her.
And brother or not, if they stood in my way, I would rip their bloody limbs from their bodies. Nothing was going to stop me from getting my girl back.
Fury relented. He knew what it was like to have to save his woman. He wouldn’t stop me. We’d been through hell together, we’d been betrayed together, and now we would fight together. He wouldn’t let me down.
Viper knew it was no use stopping me so he moved out to get me out of this hellhole.
“How long have I been here?”
“Two days.”
“Two fucking days and you can’t find them?” I asked, pulling the needle out of my hand and turning the machines off. Nurses came running in before they backed away. I had that look in my eye and I knew it was just like my father had.
The look of determination and maybe a little evil.
If the only good thing in my life was gone, I’d be a lost cause and I knew it.
Darby was my salvation.
Viper nodded that I was good, and I grabbed my clothes from the chair, quickly pulling them on, ignoring the dizziness that settled over me.
My mind was on Darby and that was it.
I needed her back in my arms, safe and sound.
Darby
“What is this place?” I asked Riagan as he pushed me through the doors of what I could only assume was my next prison.
It was a cement block, or so it appeared from the outside.
Inside was a home that looked like it had come right out of a fashion magazine.
The walls were all painted a dark gray, the kitchen looked state of the art and almost like no one had ever used it.
That made me think of what Rebel could do in here with all the cooking appliances.
A sob slowly made its way to the surface just thinking about him.
The second we crossed into Belfast, I knew he wasn’t coming.
He felt betrayed by me choosing to go with Riagan.
I wish I could explain to him, I wish I could tell him I’d only done it for him.
That’s if he’d survived what I knew would have been one hell of a concussion.
Fear shot through me at the thought of him being dead and no one knowing I was with Riagan.
No, Darby, they had eyes on him. They would know.
Is that why he put me up front? So that it looked like I left of my own accord?
“Are you going to tell me where I am?” I rounded on him as he turned on lights that showed the lounge area. A large flat screen TV was mounted on the brick wall…the only brick wall in the place like it was some feature piece.
“Don’t worry, you won’t be staying long.”
The edge in his voice had my insides seizing up. Gone was the man who claimed he wanted his family back and now in its place was who he had always been around my father.
“What happened to wanting your family back?”
He turned to face me, his mask completely gone and replaced with an expression I saw on my father and other brothers’ faces.
“Had things been different, Darby, I would have gladly left you down there. At least you would have had Shona, but unfortunately, our father was an asshole and he made promises to people who gave him weapons, drugs and money. He has debts to pay, and now they land on my shoulders because I wasn’t there when your friends blew up the clubhouse. ”
I knew it.
Somehow, I knew he would do this. I’d known my father had been cooking something up in the final weeks before I was “kidnapped” by the Ghost Rebels, but I’d not wanted to believe he would sell his own daughter for influence.
“Why? Why wouldn’t you just go into hiding?”
“It’s not as simple as that. Our world rarely is.”
I hated him. I fucking hated him.
“You’re condemning me.”
He sighed, and I saw the exhaustion behind his expression. “I am, and I’ll burn in Hell for it, I know, but I have no choice.”
“You do…you’re just choosing yourself over your sister.”
“A sister who hates me…it’s not much to decide on, is it?”
I looked away, unable to look at him any longer. Why hadn’t I trusted in Rebel? I wished he was here. He would make it all go away…I knew he would.
He was my safe place.
He was … my everything.
I didn’t even know you could feel this way about anyone, much less someone I barely knew. The stuff about his dad, about how he hated talking about his family…it only made me love him more. I wanted to be the balm to his injury, the salvation in his soul that mended that heart of his.
I wanted him to know I was his.
Even if I was sold to someone who would use my body as they pleased, I would always be Kendrick’s.
Refusing to let him see my tears, I turned my back on my brother, pushing through the pain that was lodging in my body at the thought of being used as leverage.
“You can’t get out of here. It’s locked with a code. I guess you’re used to that now.”
Hatred. Revulsion. Loathing.
That was what I felt for my supposed brother while I waited for him to hand me off to be raped, beaten and probably put into the skin trade. I looked around the prison and saw empty rooms, one bedroom at the end of the hall that looked just like Riagan’s clubhouse room.
This was his house?
I sat down on the edge of his bed and let the tears fall. My mind stayed firmly on Rebel. The memory of being with him would be the only thing that got me through this.
He was my safe place.
My sanctuary.
And I lost him.
Rebel
I was in no mood to stop and wait around, my fingers were itching to get closer to her, but the truth of the matter was we had no idea where he would take her. The clubhouse was gone and he hadn’t gone near any of the property the Sons owned.
He had to have a secret place that he was going to, that wasn’t under his name. The sly fucker.
My heart hadn’t stopped pounding in my chest the entire time I was riding here. Even when the assholes made me stop for a break so I didn’t pass the fuck out. As Viper had said, What good would you be if you fell off your bike and died?
Fucker was right and I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t be at full capacity for her now. I hated that I had no choice but to wait for news.
Wolf pulled into the parking lot where we were parked, away from the lights so cameras couldn’t pick us up. Our cuts tucked away in our saddle bags so we didn’t arouse suspicion.
He strode over to us like a man on a mission, his face pulled taut, different to how I usually see him. He had no news, I could see it on his face before he confirmed it.
“He’s a ghost,” he said. “I’ve checked every contact I know.
No one has heard from him. In a way, it’s good, he’s not trying to gather support for anything, but the bad news is we can’t trace him.
He’s eluded every CCTV camera we can find and he’s not visited any properties associated with the Destructive Sons. ”
I couldn’t just give the fuck up. This was my Darby, for fuck’s sake.
If he disappeared, there would be a reason.
She’s his captive now and I knew the bastard was just as bad as his father, no matter what Darby thought about him, he was a fuckhead.
If he so much as tries to hurt my girl, I’ll put him six feet under while he was still breathing.
“I do know some disturbing things I’ve heard through the grapevine, though,” Wolf said, running his hand over his closely shaved head. “Alasdair had been working with Onyx, and he owed them a pretty big debt.”
I already knew what that meant. My gut seized and I sat down on my bike, my rage blinding me. He sold his goddamn daughter for power. I shouldn’t have been surprised and yet, I still couldn’t believe it.
“Call Percy,” Viper told Wolf. “Make sure he’s aware of it.”
“I already have. The transaction didn’t go through him,” Wolf said. “I know someone close to Onyx who can confirm it. But if I’m correct, it’s not going to be easy to get her back. Be ready for sneaky ops.”
“You good?” Fury asked me.
“No, I’m fucking not. I’m sick of this shit, Fury. I’m sick of women being treated this way. Darby is his own goddamn daughter and he fucking sold her. Sold her like she’s livestock. Even if we do by some miracle get her back, she’ll never be safe.”
“Then you leave with her,” Fury said. “You take her and flee Ireland, go somewhere no one expects, get a new identity, live your life with her.”
I’d never considered not being a Ghost Rebel before. This was my family, my life, the guys who saved me from a life on the streets.
I couldn’t turn my back on them.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Fury said with a sigh.
“You need to ask yourself…is she worth it? Given the look in your eye, and the way you raced from the hospital here, I’m going on a ledge to say she is.
So do what you have to in order to keep her safe.
We all would for our women without a shadow of a doubt.
The club will fucking understand it. We’d all die for our women. ”
“When she finds out who my father is, she’s going to run for the hills…fuck…maybe she should.”
“You aren’t him, Kendrick,” Fury said, angrily.
I’d heard the same speech for years, but when he used my name, I knew he was pissed off.
“You are Kendrick fucking Quinn, not Thomas. Stop telling yourself that you need to repent for his fucking sins. Every time something good happens to you, this is what you do. You force it away from you so you can live in misery. I can guaran-fucking-tee that she wouldn’t care.
Look what her own father is doing to her, even in death, she’s not safe.
With you, someone who just rode through a storm while recovering from a concussion he sustained while protecting her, I know you’d ride right through the gates of Hell to save her.
Somewhere in her brain, she knows that too and she’s holding onto that. ”
“Look at you, being a dad all of a year and giving me a lecture,” I smirked at him.
He slapped me on the back. “Yeah, I’ve got dad logic now so you fucking listen up, ya hear?”
I nodded and he walked back over to Viper and Wolf, leaving me to think about a life with her. With my princess.
It sounded real fucking nice if I was being honest to myself. Real fucking nice.
“You have to trust me, Rebel,” Wolf said, his eyes on me, not a skerrick of a smile.
This wasn’t the Wolf I was used to seeing.
This was serious Wolf and what he was asking me was a lot to take on.
Savage had trusted him when it came to Shona, and I knew I had to as well, but this was my Darby…
I couldn’t just sit back and wait. I needed her back, in my arms, and away from everything.
“You want me to do nothing?” I repeated, trying to understand how he thinks this was something I was capable of. “Just leave her there?”
“I know it’s hard to comprehend but I still have some pull in Europe. I am working on a trade with the person who holds the contract for her, for something they want. I can’t go into detail, and truthfully it’s not important, but I can get her back to you. You just need to trust in me.”
I wanted to say no, to tell him to go fuck himself, but something about the way he was urging me told me that I could. He’d never let us down before and he had gone against his own vows to protect Viking when he’d needed it when he’d gotten into shit with the Outlaws.
He was loyal to us.
“How do I just stop knowing how much danger she’s in?” I asked, surprised by the level of weakness in my tone.
“You trust your brothers, and you trust me to keep her safe. That’s how.”
Viper and Fury would back me up if I said no. They would ride with me into an inferno if I said I wanted to risk it all. That was a given, we all would do that for each other. It was why we were so strong as a club.
“Okay,” I said, softly, barely audible.
Wolf nodded and headed away from us in the seedy motel room we had booked for somewhere to stay out of the way.
“We need to get back,” Fury said. “Shit’s going down with someone linked to the Broken Reapers. It doesn’t look good. The boys need us.”
I nodded and grabbed my overnight bag I kept on my bike from the end of the bed. We headed to our bikes, and I pushed everything about Darby out of my mind. She was my weakness and right now, I couldn’t afford to have a weakness.
I had to have faith in Wolf.
I had to.
She couldn’t die.
If she didn’t make it…neither would I.