Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Koa (Koa)
Two hours. That's all it took for Maddox, Parker, and Ripley to lose control. Less, if I'm being honest; I've just stopped interfering.
They may be distracting, and the shattering of chairs against the wall is overstimulating as fuck while I'm working the most important job I'll ever have, but I get it.
Ripley desperately needs to torture someone and make them pay. Parker literally just needs Cassie back in his arms. Maddox is ready to murder his cousin. I need to pull this off and fucking find her for us.
"When she gets home, I'm putting a tracker in her," Ripley growls, watching my laptop screen over my shoulder.
Absentmindedly as I click through any traffic cam footage I can access right away, I respond, "You mean on her?"
"No," Rip grunts. "In her. That way I won't ever fucking lose her again. I can put it in the back of her neck or—"
I stop listening. Closing my eyes for a brief moment, I allow the sorrow to swallow me whole. Clearing my way out of the pit of failure will take time, but for Cassie, I have to keep fighting. I'll never stop fighting, no matter how much of myself I lose. I'll sacrifice it all for her.
I'm the only one keeping my shit together. Well, I was. Parker's roar of fury rattles my teeth, and a glass goes flying by my head, shattering against the bar wall. "Fucking A, Parker!" I snap, jumping off my stool and shoving him into a chair. "Get your feral ass under control, or I'll call Mom!"
Ripley tries to tug me away from the seething man beneath me, but I don't let up. He's pissing me off and taking me from Cassie. I get he doesn't have much to do except wait for me to find her and Maddox to get in contact with his people, but he could be helping by not scaring everyone.
"Okay, boys," a lyrical voice says behind me, and I swear it's the first breath I've taken since we found out about Cassie's syndrome. "I got this," Mom soothes, resting a hand on my shoulder.
One step back and she scoots between her biological son and me. It's weak, but I have to turn away from Parker when his eyes fill with tears and his shoulders crumple in Mom's presence.
"Remember what I said about losing yourself if this happened?" I hear her murmur, but the ringing of Maddox's cell phone steals my attention.
"You better have something for me," Maddox barks into the device.
Almost immediately, his face pales and rapidly takes a one-eighty into a furious blush.
"Whatever you fucking do, don't let him take her anywhere else.
I don't give a shit if you're just a rat.
You'll all die if you don't look out for my woman! "
Parker, Ripley, and I huddle around Maddox with our brothers at our backs. The whitening of Mads' knuckles around his phone forces me to step forward before he breaks it.
"Where is she?" I ask, gripping his wrist. I tug on him to get him to breathe. His face is literally turning purple with rage. "SHADE!"
That gets him—he hates when we call him that. He's her Maddy, our Mads, never Shade.
"Right in the heart of Victor's territory. The dungeon beneath his clubhouse."
The shouts of our men and gasps from the women do nothing to drown out my thoughts. Cassie's being kept in the toughest place for us to reach. Victor will have all his men in that building or surrounding it. There will be no way to sneak in and get her out without being shot on sight.
Parker, surprisingly, has the first helpful thought of the night. "We need the Feds. Someone call Connor and tell him we're on our way."
"To where?" I ask, pulling my phone out ready to do what my partner says.
He clenches his jaw and smirks an evil smile that just intrigues me. Whatever his plan is, we're about to cause some problems. But at least we'll start with the legal route. "To his office, of course. He won't have a choice but to act if the whole precinct hears our woman was kidnapped."
Parker leads the line of vengeful men out the door of our clubhouse and toward the bikes, swiping up a long knife and two Beretta 92FS' on his way. I stop at the long table where the prospects and other members have been prepping our weapons for Cassie.
With a Beretta and a Glock in my possession, I rush to my bike, the ringing phone call immediately connecting to the speakers in my helmet.
"Got another one?" Connor's gruff voice sounds over the rev of our engines.
No chance would I have been able to hear him if we had the whole club, but like we planned, protecting our home is important too, so half of our men hang back as we speed toward downtown Detroit.
Clearing my throat, I weave to the front of our pack. "No. He has something of ours this time. Be ready, we're headed to you."
"Koa—"
I cut the call and tune into the plan the other three are forming. Everything I hear sounds like a good idea in theory, but I can't stop thinking about what Cassie's going through right now.
If she's in that dungeon—
"Koa, breathe," Maddox calls through the speakers, giving me no choice but to listen so we can stay on track. Cassie. Focus on saving her, not what we'll find when we do. "Good boy."
A weak chuckle slips free even as I despise the warm feeling that rushes through me in response to his praise. I shouldn't feel fucking warm right now.
"What if—" I croak, swallowing. "What if Connor can't do anything?"
"Then we risk it all," Maddox states, sounding as confident as he does terrified.
At the same time, the four of us declare, "For Cassie."
We're coming, baby. No matter what it takes, we'll get you home.