Chapter Five #2
And that’s when her instincts started screaming.
She agreed, but not with a smile. Not with confidence.
She gave a small nod and a tight breath, her agreement more out of obligation than willingness.
That last fragile thread of belief still held.
The one that said, he’s your uncle; he wouldn’t let anything happen to you.
Even after everything, his silence to the way he looked right through her and let that other man touch her last week, she’d still wanted to believe Eli gave a damn. She should have known better.
Eli handed her a black, zip-up jacket, new, branded with the bar’s logo, and a card with an address scrawled across it in bold, sharp handwriting. “Client wants a one-on-one setting. Just drinks, small talk. You’re there to make the guy feel welcome. That’s it,” he said.
His tone was too cool. And he still didn’t look her in the eyes.
Dylan frowned, turning the card over in her hand. “Why out there?” she asked quietly.
Eli shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Client’s request. He wanted privacy.”
“I don’t have a car,” she reminded him, liking the situation less by the second.
“That’s been taken care of,” he told her.
What was that supposed to mean?
“How long am I supposed to be there?” she asked. “Why just me? You’ve got a lot of other girls.”
That got his attention, but not in the way she wanted it. His expression was hard to read. “Because he asked for you,” Eli said flatly. “You can handle yourself, remember? That’s what you said.”
Her stomach dropped when he threw her own words back at her. The way he dismissed every reasonable concern, like this wasn’t a favor. It was already a done deal.
“Is this safe?” Dylan had to ask.
“You think I’d send my niece somewhere dangerous?” he asked with a smirk.
She wanted to believe him. But something in his voice left her feeling cold and uneasy. Dylan slipped the jacket on like it could protect her.
“Just drinks?” she asked under her breath. But deep down, she was already starting to wonder if she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life. Her stomach curled in on itself as she read the address on the card. It wasn’t in town or near anything familiar. Just a private road outside Oak Grove.
Peggy watched from behind the bar, but she didn’t say a word.
Her gaze followed Dylan as she went back to grab her bag.
When Dylan came back, strong headlights flared through the side window of the bar.
Was the car already there? She saw a black sedan with tinted windows.
Everything was happening way too fucking fast.
“Your ride,” Eli said, not even glancing up. “Client requested no phones. It’s his policy for private sessions. No distractions. No recording.”
Dylan blinked. “You want me to go out there without a phone?”
Eli held out his hand. “You’ll get it back after. Or I’ll bring it to you. You’re fine.”
She looked down at her phone. Jason’s name lit up at the top of the screen. He’d texted earlier asking if she wanted him to pick up Greek food for tonight.
Every part of her screamed not to go.
But Eli’s eyes were hard now. His mouth a firm line.
And some piece of her, the part that still didn’t want to believe Eli would do anything to harm her, overrode everything else. Taking her phone out of her bag and turning it off, she placed it in Eli’s waiting hand.
“Good girl,” he muttered.
The words made her skin crawl as she walked out of the bar.
* * *
Vendetta
Vendetta sat in the van, parked in the shadow of a broken streetlight two blocks from Ned’s.
The engine was off, the lights out. Just him, his notebook, and a clear view of the bar’s back lot.
He’d been tailing Eli’s top guys for days now.
Trucker, Nate, Eagle, and Creep first and then others who he was sure were Eli’s disciples in the MC.
Vendetta watched how they moved, paid attention to who they talked to. He made notes of what they didn’t say.
Nate always left first, jumpy and fast walking.
The kid looked over his shoulder every few minutes, everywhere he went.
Creep usually lingered, making late-night runs that didn’t match any shift schedule.
And Trucker, the one with the tattoo crawling up the back of his neck, argued on his burner phone like someone was squeezing him.
He flipped to the next page and scribbled a few new notes on Eagle.
He was a quiet one, observant, and never the first to speak in meetings.
But he was always listening carefully. From what Vendetta knew, he was the kind of guy who didn’t like getting his hands dirty but knew where every body was buried. His name was underlined twice.
Weak link.
Closing the notebook, Vendetta leaned back in his seat and exhaled through his nose.
It was time to make a loop past Ned’s. Just in case.
He pulled out slowly, headlights off, windows down to catch anything that didn’t sound right.
As he rolled into the lot behind the bar, he spotted movement by the back door, a flash of a familiar shape. Peggy.
The woman was pacing, phone in one hand, her other hand tangled in her apron like she was trying to anchor herself. Then she looked up, spotted his van, and her whole body shifted. She made a beeline for him. Vendetta rolled the window down before she could knock.
He knew. Before she even spoke, he knew. The way she moved, fast and desperate, told him everything.
Dylan was gone. And whatever had happened tonight, he was already too late. The words hit like a punch to the ribs before they were even said.
Peggy gripped the edge of the window, her knuckles white. “She’s gone,” she said, her breath hitching. “Dylan. She left in a black car not even twenty minutes ago.”
Vendetta’s fingers curled tight around the steering wheel. “Where?”
“Some private client thing. Eli said it was just a shift, but off-site. A high roller. He told her no phones, took hers before she could leave.”
Vendetta’s vision narrowed, everything inside him going cold and quiet. “And she just went?” he asked in a low voice.
“She didn’t want to,” Peggy whispered. “She looked scared. But she went.”
Vendetta’s jaw clenched.
Peggy hesitated, then added, “I… I snapped a picture of the car. I got the license plate.”
His eyes cut to her sharply.
She held up her phone with shaking hands. “Something about it just felt wrong. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Vendetta took the phone, glancing at the image she captured. A low-profile black sedan with tinted windows and Virginia plates. Clean but forgettable to anyone but him. He texted the image from her phone to his before handing it back.
“This is good,” he said, his voice tight. “This helps.”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “You’re gonna bring her back, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, already shifting into gear. “I am.” He didn’t say it. The look in Peggy’s eyes said she understood.
For half a second, time froze. Then Vendetta dropped the gear into drive, tires spitting gravel as he shot out of the lot and into the night.
He didn’t know where she was. But he’d find her.
Because if they’d laid one hand on her -- Eli, the client, any of them -- he was going to make what they did to him look like a sweet memory.
Vendetta took the first corner fast, his mind racing even faster.
Private event. High roller. No phones. Off-site.
Eli wouldn’t have sent her far, not with a client like that.
That kind of man wanted control, but he also wanted to stay close to the product.
Close to the network. That helped him narrow options around Oak Grove quite a bit.
The location could be a nearby luxury rental used for “private parties.” It could also be one of the out-of-town properties Eli had access to.
Worst case, it could be one of the holding houses tied to the shipments he’d already traced.
He gunned the engine as he pulled up the list of locations in his mind.
Three spots rising to the top of his mental list. There was a rural cabin upstate, a warehouse in East Oak Grove, and a lakefront Airbnb that had been getting too much SS traffic for weeks.
And he planned to check each and every one of them, even if he had to kick every door in.
But he’d start at the lake. If Dylan was there, he’d bring her out safe. And whoever was inside? Well, they’d never touch another woman again.
* * *
Dylan
The car ride was silent. No music was playing, and the driver didn’t say a word. There was just the hum of the engine and the blur of dark trees flashing past the window like shadows.
When the car finally slowed, Dylan leaned forward, squinting through the windshield.
They’d pulled up to a house, and it was beautiful.
All modern glass and sharp lines, tucked back at the edge of a private lake.
She’d gone to school with kids of the people who lived in this area.
Needless to say, they hadn’t been her friends.
Every light was on around that house like it had been staged for a photo shoot. The apprehension she felt about this situation grew as she took it all in. It was way too nice for a bar gig.
The driver got out and opened her door without a word.
Dylan hesitated, her heart already racing in her chest as she wondered just what situation she’d allowed herself to be delivered to.
She stepped out. She should’ve taken the time to get a text off to Jason.
She should have listened to him. She shouldn’t have walked back through Ned’s door.