Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
MARCO
“One bacon, egg and cheese sandwich with a side of hash browns and a large coffee,” Sally said as she put my breakfast down in front of me.
“Thanks, Sal.”
“Of course, darlin’. Holler if you need anything else.”
I’d just taken my first bite when my cell started going off. Pulling it from my back pocket, I saw the number for Lincoln’s office at Alpha Omega flash across the screen. “Castillo.”
“Where are you?” he clipped through the line.
His tone set my back straight. “Just grabbed some breakfast at the diner. Why? What’s going on?”
“The shit’s hit the goddamn fan, brother. I need you at the offices as fast as you can get here.”
He hung up without giving me a chance to reply, letting me know I needed to haul ass. Standing from the table, I pulled out some cash and dropped it down, then I jogged it to the Cherokee and booked it for Alpha Omega.
Xander was there the moment I pushed through the glass doors.
“Man, this is so fucked,” he muttered quietly as we started for Linc’s office.
“What is?” Before he could answer, Lincoln threw his door wide and stepped aside, waving us in. Hayes and Trick were in the office, along with three of the dancers from Pink Palace. The women’s faces were all ashen, their expressions full of fear. “What the hell is going on?”
Hayes, Trick and Lincoln all looked ready to breathe fire.
“The cops raided the club last night!” I recognized the woman who responded as one of the girls who’d been working with our team alongside McKenna for the past few weeks.
Her name was Spencer. She was a sweet girl, the first in her family to ever attend college, but dancing was the only way she could afford it.
Spinning on the two detectives in the room, I barked, “Are you fucking kidding me? You guys raided without giving us a goddamn heads up?”
Hayes sighed and pressed his fingertips into his forehead. “We weren’t part of it. Captain pulled rank.”
My gaze bounced around to everyone in the room. “What exactly does that mean?”
The muscle in Trick’s jaw ticked violently as he answered, “It means he went over our heads to the DA with the evidence that we’d been gathering.
They executed search warrants last night, and it wasn’t only Pink Palace that got raided.
Two of the meth labs the girls had given intel on were taken last night. ”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I bit out. “We promised those girls we’d protect them,” he snapped, pointing to the women in the room.
“I know, Marco,” Hayes started. “Man, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go down, but you know Cap. He’s about politics first and policing second.”
“We didn’t even get the goddamn chance to keep our word to them,” I barked, pointing to the girls.
“Trick and Hayes didn’t even find out ’til this morning,” Linc grunted in their defense, clearly as pissed about how things went down as the rest of us.
“So where’s Black now?” I asked, looking to Hayes and Trick. “Has he been processed yet?”
Silence fell on the room for several long moments before Trick finally spoke. “He got away.”
“He got—” My vision suddenly turned hazy with red. “He got away?”
“No one can say how it happened,” he stated somberly. “All we know is that the whole goddamn thing was a shit show.”
“We figured we’d hear from one of you this morning,” another one of the women said. “But we didn’t, so we started calling Mac, but we couldn’t get through to her. We went by her house, but she’s not there.”
“Fuck,” Lincoln hissed. “Xander, see if you can get Bruce on the line,” he barked. “Now.”
“On it,” he turned and pulled out his phone.
“We’ll head back to the station,” Hayes said as he and Trick headed for the door. “Start looking for McKenna.”
“Take them with you,” Lincoln said, continuing to bark orders as he pointed at the three women in the room. Put them in the conference room or something. Get the rest of the girls and lock ’em all down until we can find Black.”
The room erupted into a flurry of motion, but it sounded like everything was happening in a vacuum. It was almost impossible to hear anything around me over the deafening pounding of my heart.
Grabbing my phone, I scrolled to Gypsy’s number and hit call. I hung up as soon as I got her voicemail and redialed over and over to the same outcome.
I was interrupted from my fifth attempt when I heard a voice say my name.
My head jerked around to where Rory was standing in the doorway, Gypsy’s purse clutched in her hands and a panicked look on her face. “Is Gypsy here?”
My stomach bottomed out and it felt like the ground shifted beneath my feet. “What?”
“She was... um, she came to The Tap Room earlier. We were hanging out, and she left to do a quick run to Muffin Top, but that was... well, that was a while ago. I tried calling, but I kept getting voicemail, so I was gonna see if she stopped here.” Rory lifted the bag in her hands, the broken strap dangling toward the ground.
“I found this on the sidewalk outside of the bar.”
This couldn’t be happening.
This couldn’t fucking be happening.
Moving to Rory, I grabbed the purse and did my best to keep my voice calm even as my insides seized in fear. “How long ago did she leave, Rory?”
“I-I don’t know,” she answered, growing increasingly alarmed with each passing moment.
“Um, maybe thirty minutes?” Tears welled in her eyes and began falling down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Marco. I should have checked on her sooner.
I just thought... It’s a small town. I thought she ran into someone she knew! I shouldn’t have—”
“Stop,” I ordered gently. “Sweetheart, beating yourself up’ll do no good. I’ll find her.”
“But what if she’s hurt?”
“She’ll be fine,” I promised, because she had to be. There was no other option. I’d only just gotten her, and there was no goddamn way in hell I was going to lose her. Not now. Not ever.
Lincoln came up to Rory and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Why don’t you head back to the bar and wait, yeah? If she turns up, you call us.”
Rory looked from me to him and back again before giving us a hesitant nod. She wanted to help, but she trusted us to find her girl. And that was exactly what I intended to do.
The door closed behind her just as Xander spoke. “We got a problem,” he announced, turning back to me and Lincoln, his jaw like granite. “Can’t get ahold of Bruce.”
“Get with West and Cord,” Lincoln ordered. “Track. Him. Down. You hear me?”
“On it.”
Xander stormed out of the office while I stomped to the desk and upended Gypsy’s purse and began rifling frantically through the contents.
“Tell me where your head is,” Lincoln said, coming up to join me.
“The tracker’s not in here.” My hands shook as I continued shoving everything around. “It’s not here. She kept it in her purse. Never took it out. That means she’s got it on her.”
“I’ll get a team together. You pull it up,” he commanded. Whipping my phone from my pocket, I pulled up the app that would give me Gypsy’s location. “Five minutes, then we go get your girl.”
Gypsy
My whole body shook with terror as I stumbled over branches and uneven ground, falling to my hands and knees in the cold, damp dirt, driven forward by Malachi’s brutal shoving.
“Get up,” he barked, yanking at my arm so hard it felt like he was about to dislocate my shoulder.
I managed to get my footing and continued in the direction he was leading me. A couple yards later my feet thumped against a wooden plank. Three steps up and I was jerked to a halt. I jumped at the sound of a door creaking open, then the blindfold Malachi had tied over my eyes was ripped off.
The first thing I saw was McKenna laying in the corner of the room, curled into a ball on the dirty floor.
“Mac!” Running toward her, I dropped to my knees, brushing her matted hair back. “Oh god,” I sobbed, taking in her bruised and swollen face.
“Gypsy?” Her voice came out weak and raspy before she started crying. “No. No, no, no. I tried. I’m so sorry. I tried to keep him away from you.”
“Shh, It’s okay.” I rubbed a hand over her head in an attempt to soothe her while I tried to make sense of what she was saying. “Don’t worry about me. It’s all right. I’m all right.” Whipping around to face Malachi, I shouted, “What did you do to her?”
“Bitch deserved worse,” he seethed, his top lip curling in an evil sneer. “Both of you do, and you’re gonna get it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I spit, the anger at my friend’s beaten state, and my need to protect her overriding the fear I’d been experiencing the whole way here.
I didn’t have the luxury of being scared if I wanted to keep McKenna safe and get us the hell out of this.
“What’s going on? Why did you bring me here? ”
“Like you don’t fuckin’ know!” He bellowed, pulling the gun from his waistband and waving it around like a deranged maniac. I jolted back at the sight of it, scrambling closer to McKenna as he raged, “This is all your fault! Yours and that cunt’s!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I cried, holding my arms out to my sides as I moved in front of McKenna to block her. “I have no idea what’s going on. Just... just stop waving the gun around. Please. Someone’s going to get hurt.”
“I lost everything because of you,” he snarled. “It’s all gone because of you!”
“What... what’s gone?”
“Everything!” He boomed so loud I jumped. “Everything! My life. It’s all gone. All of it. Because of that stupid fucking slut right there!”
“G-Gypsy,” I spun around at the sound of McKenna’s voice to find that she’d managed to sit up. “H-he shot...” she started, her voice cracking as she sobbed, tears tailing down her bruised cheeks. “He sh-shot Bruce.”
My blood turned to ice and my lungs froze solid. Oh god. Poor Bruce.
I wanted to cry with her. For Bruce. I wanted to scream and wail, but I couldn’t. Not until McKenna and I were safe. Not until Marco got to us.