Chapter Twenty-Nine Spock
Hunter and Smooth pull away from the clubhouse in the club SUV with Elvis Monroe secured in the back. They’re taking him straight to The Pit, where he can wake up without worrying about anyone interrupting our next conversation.
Rush, Dice, and I return to the clubhouse.
The usual noise rolls over us as soon as we enter—music playing from the speakers, glasses clinking behind the bar, and several overlapping conversations filling the common room.
I scan the space until I spot Chill sitting at the bar with a bottle of beer in front of her.
She looks relaxed, but I know better. Chill is always watching, always thinking. She didn’t earn her name because she’s easygoing.
I cross the room, weaving around tables. “You find Scaro?”
Chill turns on her stool to face me. “We found him.”
“Where?”
“He was leaving his office when we caught up with him.” She lifts the beer and takes a slow drink. “Viper and Rattler persuaded him to come with us.”
Knowing those two, I doubt there was much conversation involved in that persuasion.
“You brought him to The Pit?”
Chill shakes her head as she takes another sip. “He’s in Puma’s office. Viper and Rattler are with him. Puma suggested we start with the soft approach. If he doesn’t cooperate, we can move him to The Pit. I came out here to wait for you. Did you find Monroe?”
“We did. Hunter and Smooth took him to The Pit.”
Her eyebrows rise slightly. “So we have a full house.”
“Not quite. I want Blackwood to sit in one of our cells, but he can wait until we have more information. Hawk and Wildcard will keep an eye on him.”
Chill slides off the stool and sets her nearly empty beer bottle on the bar. “Good. I think Puma wants us to start with Scaro, so we can cut him loose if he turns out to be innocent in all this.”
Dice joins us, rubbing the knuckles he used to put Monroe on the floor. “Scaro give you any trouble?”
“He objected to the invitation.”
“Loudly?”
“Not after Rattler explained the consequences of refusing.”
A faint smile touches Dice’s mouth. “Rattler can be convincing.”
I don’t share their amusement. We have both men, but Blackwood is still at Riversedge. The thought of him running around free doesn’t sit well in my gut, even if Wildcard and Hawk are watching him.
“Let’s go see what Scaro has to say,” Chill says, turning toward the hallway where the executive offices are located.
“I need to get this laptop and these documents to Spark,” Rush says. “We’ll go through them while you question Scaro. Get me before you head to The Pit. I want to be there when you question Monroe.”
The clubhouse door opens before anyone responds.
Sunlight pours through the entrance, framing a man I recognize immediately. Bill Davenport steps into the common room, his gaze sweeping over the bikers before landing on me.
Something in his expression makes my blood run cold. He wears the look of a man who's beyond worried and sinking into terror.
“Spock.”
I’m moving before he finishes saying my name. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Bill comes farther into the room, gripping his phone so tightly his knuckles are white. “Have you heard from Chloe?”
Every muscle in my body locks.
“No. She left Inferno Ridge to go home and change. She said she’d be back in an hour.”
“That’s what she told me.” Bill glances at his phone as if hoping the screen will light up. “She was supposed to meet me at the site. I’ve been waiting for her, but she never showed.”
“How late is she?”
“Almost forty minutes.”
A few minutes could be traffic. Forty isn’t traffic, not for Chloe. She’d call. She’d let her father know if something delayed her.
I pull out my phone and hit her name.
The call rings.
Once.
Twice.
Then goes to voicemail.
My heart slams against my ribs.
“Maybe her battery died,” Bill says, but he doesn’t believe it any more than I do. “I’ve called six or seven times. It keeps going to voicemail.”
“When did you talk to her last?”
“This morning. She told me she was coming to the site after she changed.” His brow creases. “I thought she might still be here with you, so I drove over.”
“She left.”
The words come out rough.
I see Chloe standing beside her truck in the Inferno Ridge parking lot. Feel her lips beneath mine before I open the door for her. I hear her telling me she’ll be back onsite in an hour.
I watched her drive away, alone. I let her leave, alone.
Rush reaches for his phone. “I’ll call Hawk.”
My mind races through possibilities, rejecting every innocent explanation as fast as I form it. Chloe doesn’t forget appointments. She doesn’t ignore calls from her father. She knew we were closing in on the men sabotaging her company, and she knew Blackwood had lied his way into her business.
Blackwood.
The image of his smug face flashes through my head.
“What if Blackwood caught up to her?” I ask. “Well?” I ask Rush.
“Wildcard said Blackwood was a no-show today.”
“Blackwood? What does he have to do with anything? Do you think he’s a danger to Chloe?’ Bill asks.
I don’t have time to answer his questions. Chloe needs me. I can feel it. “Fill him in,” I direct Chill. “I need to find Chloe.” I shove my phone into my pocket and turn toward the door.
“Spock,” Rush calls. “Wait for us.”
I don’t slow down.
If Chloe is at home, she can be pissed when I come charging through her door. She can accuse me of overreacting and remind me that she doesn’t need a biker hovering over her every second.
I’ll gladly take every furious word.
But if she isn’t there—if someone has hurt her—there isn’t a place in Vegas deep enough for the bastard to hide.
I break into a run and charge through the clubhouse door, heading straight for my bike.
I hear Rush and Dice rush after me. They don’t try to stop me, but hop on their bikes just as I reach mine. We fly out of the clubhouse and head into town. Dice and Rush follow me, since I’m the only one who has been to her house.
When I pull into her driveway, I’m surprised to see there are two other bikes parked there. I recognize Hawk and Wildcard’s rides. The garage door rises as I kill the engine on my bike. Wildcard stands there waiting with a grim expression.
“What did you find?” I demand.
“Nothing. Chloe isn’t here. We didn’t find any sign of a struggle, but someone jimmied open a window at the back of the house,” Wildcard says.
“I found something,” Hawk says from his position under Chloe’s truck. He slides out and stands holding a cracked phone in his hand. It looks like Chloe’s.
“Shit. He got her,” I say, taking the phone and crushing it in my hand. “Blackwood must have been here waiting for her, and she walked into a trap. That fucker is going to pay for this.”
“We have to find him first,” Wildcard says. “He didn’t show up at the construction site today. We waited for him. I was going to call and tell you when Rush called.”
“He was definitely up to something,” Hawk adds.
“The electrician showed up. He said he spoke with Chloe about the wiring issue Blackwood complained about. He checked it out and said there was nothing wrong. He tried calling Chloe, but she didn’t answer her phone.
” Hawk nods at the phone in my hand. “Guess we know why.”
“We need to find her,” I growl. “He could be hurting her.” The thought of Chloe in the hands of that asshole has my stomach clenching. “We need his address.”
“I’ve got it,” Dice says from behind me. “I had Spark pull it up. I also called Chill and told her what we think happened. She’s pulling Rattler and Viper out to The Pit to work on Monroe. He may have some information that could help us locate him if we don’t find him at his place.”
“Let’s go,” I say.
We all mount our bikes and rush off with Dice in the lead since he has Blackwood’s address.
My mind is on a constant loop of scenes where Chloe is hurting and scenes where I’m breaking every bone in Blackwood’s body.
I try to focus on what I’ll do to Blackwood, because the thoughts of Chloe in pain threaten to cripple me.
When we pull up to the apartment building where Blackwood lives, I know Chloe isn’t here.
It feels wrong. There is no way Blackwood could have brought her here without someone seeing them.
The building is on a busy street full of tourists.
Security cameras cover the entrance, and the door requires a key.
Chloe wouldn’t go with him willingly, so he was either carrying her or she was fighting him.
There is no way he entered this building unnoticed with her in tow.
“You coming?” Wildcard asks as he holds the door open. I don’t know how he managed to open it without a key, but I don’t care right now.
“She’s not here,” I say.
Wildcard nods. “You’re probably right, but we need to check. If he’s not here, maybe we’ll find a clue to where we can look next.”
I nod and follow him inside. My heart threatens to pound out of my chest. We’re wasting time. I can feel it. Chloe is out there, somewhere, and it isn’t here.