Chapter 22
Free
I can’t sit still in one place too long before I’m back on my feet and pacing the room. This is bullshit. There are no signs of them anywhere. Seven missing girls and there are no fucking signs of them. How? How does that happen? We’ve pulled the feed from the clubhouse, and nothing stuck out. No cuts. No marks. Just a bunch of assholes in ski masks with guns. Did we fuck this up? Did someone target us for a reason?
Addison. I want Addison. I don’t give a fuck I paid for her. I don’t give a fuck that she may hate me for using the drugs on her. She’s mine, and I don’t plan on letting her go. She means everything to me, whether she knows that or not. And I’m guessing she doesn’t know. I haven’t told her. I told her I couldn’t keep her.
Jamie. I wonder if Jamie has heard anything. I pull my cell out and dial his number.
“Hey, little brother,” he says into the line.
“You heard about any shit goin’ down around here? Seven girls?”
“No. Why? What seven girls?”
“We were ambushed. Took seven of our girls. There’s no reason behind this shit, Jamie.”
“That sounds odd. Why would they take the girls? Not to be an ass, but there’s nothing special about your girls, Free,” he declares. Addison. There’s everything special about her.
“I don’t know, man. I can’t figure this shit out,” I tell him.
“Are you okay? You weren’t hit?”
“No. I’m good. A little beat up, but that’s it. I’ll live.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, man. I haven’t heard anything, but I’ll keep an eye out for you.” Somethings wrong. Something he said is wrong. He asked me if I was hit. How would he have known they were shooting at us? I didn’t say that. I said we were ambushed, and that doesn’t mean we were fired at. My heart slowly sinks in my chest. There’s no way he would have done this.
“You asked if I was hit,” I repeat his words back to him.
“Yeah. I just figured they were shooting at you.” How the hell do you just figure that? Probably because of who we are. Soulless Bastards aren’t just a local MC. We’re one-percenters on the wrong side of the law. It makes sense.
“I don’t know what to do, Jamie.”
“I don’t know how to help you either. I’ll keep an eye, and if I hear anything, I will let you know.”
“Yeah, let me know if you do.” I shake my head as I hang up the phone. How could I have suspected my brother? What kind of fucked up person does that make me?
“What’s wrong?” Van asks.
“I think I’m losin’ my goddamn mind, Van.”
“Why?”
“For half a second, I thought Jamie might have somethin’ to do with this shit,” I admit. Van chuckles and slaps a hand on my shoulder.
“You are losin’ it.”
“I know. It’s just all a fuckin’ mess.”
“I know, but we’re gonna find them.”
“No one knows anything. How the hell does somethin’ like this happen, and no one knows shit?” I ask more of myself than him.
“I don’t know, brother, but we’ll figure it out. Mask is doin’ everything he can right now.”
“You know this isn’t just about the girls? It’s about her.”
“I had a feelin’ it was about Addison more than the others.”
“Not that I don’t care, I do, but-”
“You need your girl back. I get it. I would lose my shit if somethin’ happened to my girl too,” he says. I nod my head, knowing he would understand. They’ve had to have seen how attached I’ve become to Addison. I’m not letting her go that easily.
“We may have somethin’,” Mask announces, standing in the office doorway.
“What is it?”
“The van they used was dumped a few blocks from the river. Wanna check it out?” I nod my head. I need to do something. I need to look for her, find her. I feel like I’m slowly losing my damn mind without her here.
I walk toward the door and follow Mask out, grabbing my helmet when I’m near my bike. I slide it on and climb on my bike as too many thoughts race around my head. What if she’s hurt? What if she’s giving them shit like she did me? That would be reason enough to hurt her. Be smart, Addison. Don’t do anything to get yourself hurt. The words ring in my ears as I rev the engine and follow Mask out of the parking lot.
We ride through town and down toward the river when I see the van. We both pull to a stop and kill the bikes before climbing off.
“How’d you hear about the van?” I ask.
“Cops are gonna be here in an hour to look at it. Had a friend down at the precinct tell me about it first. He wanted to know if it was ours,” Mask chuckles before we walk toward the van. My heart hammers against my ribs as I step around to the back and pull the door open. Everything is inside that you would need to take the girls. Zip ties, rope. The closer I look, the more I find. Climbing into the back, I grab the earring that catches my attention. I lift it in my fingers and look it over.
“Wasn’t Bunny wearin’ earrings?” I ask Mask before turning and passing him the earring I found.
“Yeah, she was, and this looks like the ones she had on.”
“They dumped the fuckin’ van, and what? Where the hell did they take the girls?” I snap louder this time.
“You want the PD on this?” he asks me. I shake my head. No fucking way do I want them fucking the whole thing up.
“No. It’s personal. It has to be. Why take our girls, Mask?”
“You’re right. It is personal, but who the fuck would want a war with us? We haven’t given anyone a reason lately.”
“It sure as hell wasn’t random. We had to do somethin’.”
“What about the coke we transported? Maybe we pissed someone off doin’ that?” I tug at my hair now, not knowing what the hell is going on. We’re no closer to the girls than when we started looking for them.
“Fuck if I know, brother.”
“We’re graspin’ at straws here. We have no solid proof of shit besides a goddamn earring in a van!” Mask roars, punching the side of the van. I know this is bothering him as much as it is me. Those were our girls. They may have been club girls but that doesn’t mean they didn’t belong to us. We take care of them, for fuck’s sake.
“This is fucked, Mask. Completely fucked.”