Rider felt his blood boil. He had no patience and this was ridiculous.
“Fuck you Preach. Since when do you get to tell me who to fuck? This is the second time you’ve tried that shit with me and the second time I’m saying fuck off.”
Preach frowned. “Earn the right then brother. You fucking earn the right. Right now you aren’t fit for the club whores.”
Preach turned and left the room, but his words hung heavy in the air. Rider knew he couldn’t deserve Lizzie. She wasn’t part of the club, even if preach insisted on making her live close by. She was better than all of them. She deserved a life away from the shit that followed the club.
Rider closed his eyes and thought back to when he was recovering. Lizzie had stayed with him, bathed him, fed him, even when he had cursed at her and hurt her. She had stayed because it was what was needed and it had pissed Rider off because he knew he could never deserve her. He hated knowing that she had seen him in such a position. Hated that she had cleaned up more than he had ever hoped any other human would clean up. He had lost all of his pride in that room with her and she had refused to let him wallow. She had also refused to treat him differently. That had pissed him off too. How could she be so unaffected by the ragged wounds that marked him? How could she look at him with the same loving eyes when he was no longer the beautiful boy that he had been? He hadn’t understood then, maybe he never would.
He would get better, he had to do that first and beat this stupid charge and then he would make things right with Lizzie. He would look into her eyes and see if they still saw him the same way. He would try every day of his life to deserve it.
Eight
Lizzie opened her eyes. Her head hurt and she was having trouble making her eyes focus on the room. Had she and Spec gotten drunk last night? She didn’t remember. The last thing she remembered was talking to a friend before walking to her car after work. She had been so tired and hungry. The lot had parking deck had been dark. One of the lights near where she’d parked had been broken recently, there was glass on the floor. There had been a strong scent of urine that had made her stomach churn. She had dropped her keys and bent to pick them up. She had heard something…She couldn’t remember anything else.
The smell of the room was foreign and disgusting enough to have her rolling to her side and vomiting over the edge of the bed. Her stomach cramped painfully. She heard laughter and knew something was wrong. She didn’t know where she was and she didn’t feel hung over, she felt drugged. Her mind went into emergency mode. Her father had talked to them since childhood about what to do it they were snatched. She had to figure out where she was, who had her, and if she could escape. Most of all, she had to survive. No matter what she had to endure, she had to survive and she had to keep her mouth shut.
“Well looky here. The little princess is awake.”
Lizzie shivered. This was not good. She didn’t know that voice and she had a feeling she didn’t want to.
“Good morning princess. I ain’t never had a real princess before. Maybe I’ll have a taste of you before the boss gets back.”
“Shut the fuck up Shaker. She is untouchable and you know it.”
“Shut up Diz, she didn’t know it until you told her. Now what will we do if she acts up?”
“Fuck.”
“Why am I here?” Lizzie tried to make her voice strong, but it shook.
“You are leverage.” One said, she thought it was Shaker.
“For what?”
“To keep your boy, Rider in line. He disrespected us and he will pay for it with a couple years of his freedom. You are to make sure he takes his medicine like he should. Then you can go on back home and forget all about any of this unpleasantness.”
Lizzie laughed. These weren’t the Devils like she had thought after all. No they would never give away this much and they would never let her go. They called her princess, but that didn’t mean anything. She wondered if she should tell them who she was or if it would only put her in more danger. They might get scared and kill her.
“Why did you call me princess?”
“Fuck you must be one. I ain’t never seen a man turn down so much pussy over a woman. Must be real good snatch between those legs.”
Lizzie wanted to vomit again, but their words stopped her…he had turned it all down so why would he rape anyone? He wouldn’t and these guys knew it. They had set him up. She had to get away and tell Lacey. Maybe it would help Rider beat the charges. She assessed her body. She wasn’t hurt. Her left arm was tied with a rough rope and she assumed it was attached to the bed. Her right arm and legs were free. If she were left alone she could possibly free herself, but then what? She had no idea where she was or even what was in the room. It was too dim. She lay still and tried to think of what to do while she half listened to the men argue somewhere in the room. She saw the flare of a lighter and pegged their location. Another lighter flare showed her a little of the room. She could escape and the morons smoking in the corner wouldn’t even notice.
A door opened and a thin shaft of light filtered into the room. A thin woman wearing a threadbare dress shuffled into the room carrying a tray. She sat it on the table and helped Lizzie sit up. Then the tray was placed on her lap. It smelled really good, but Lizzie hesitated. The woman smiled at her and lifted the spoon to her own mouth to show Lizzie the food was alright.
“They don’t want to do you no harm honey. They just had their pride hurt and need you to make sure it gets soothed again. I won’t let ‘em do nothin’ to you. Eat your dinner and try to sleep. The more sleep you get, the quicker all this will be over.”
Lizzie ate hungrily and felt herself drifting off before she finished it all. Either she was drugged or she was just more exhausted than she had thought.
Nine
The note arrived in Rider’s hospital room. He read it and fury boiled in his veins until he couldned y Fe ovet contain it. He ripped out his IV and threw a chair across the room. It took four security guards to secure him to his bed, but one look from Shadow had him settling down.
“What caused that shit Rider?”
Shadow’s calm voice helped Rider find the strength to calm himself. He nodded to the note lying on the hospital floor. Shadow bent and scooped it up in a fluid grace that Rider had always admired. Rider wasn’t graceful. One too many falls off a bull had seen to that, but it wasn’t Shadow’s movements that impressed Rider the most, it was his absolute control of his emotions. Rider watched as Shadow read the note telling him that his sister, Lizzie, had been taken to ensure Rider wouldn’t fight the charges against him. He watched as he examined the contents of the note as well as the paper it was written on. There had been only a glimmer of anger in his eyes for a second before he had concealed it. It was inhuman.
“When did you get it and who brought it?” he handed the note to Moose who stood behind him with Ink.
“It was on the table when I woke up.”
“Do you know who it’s from?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea. Probably some boys from the Rakers.”
“Do they know who she is?”
Rider shook his head. Shadow’s clam manner was helping him think and try to calm down. “I don’t think so. They just know who she is to me.”
“Not the Devils? You sure about that?” Ink asked.
Rider looked up at Lizzie’s brother-in-law. Rider had always thought Ink looked more like a punk rocker than a biker with his many piercings and tattoos along with his jet black hair with blue tips. He wasn’t as good as concealing his worry or his anger, but it was a cold sort of anger.
“Nah. Just some fuckers from down here. Got me hooked on that shit and got pissed when I didn’t want to help them run it. Got even worse when I wanted to leave. Then one of the girls whined that I wouldn’t fuck her. They say I disrespected them. They want me to pay for it.”
Shadow raised a brow. “Who the fuck is their Prez and why are you only telling us this now?”
“Th
eir Prez is a fucking junkie too Shad. The girl they claim I raped… I don’t think I ever touched. I know they have evidence, but damn I can’t believe I was ever that high. Lacey knows all of it. Except this.” He nodded to the paper.
“Think they’ll hurt Lizzie?” Moose asked as he eyed Rider. Rider knew the man was disappointed in him, hell he was too.
“No, but th K“appointed ey may shoot her up for revenge. You can’t let them do that to her Shad, not Lizzie. I’ll plead guilty if I have to. I don’t give a fuck as long as she’s safe. She can’t go through this.”
Shad narrowed his eyes and studied Rider for a long moment and seemed to see something he hadn’t before. The room remained quiet as the brothers mulled over what needed to be done.
“Why the fuck did you leave if you want her that bad?” Moose lost the hard ass look he had worn since Rider had been hurt by Ginny. He tilted his head and scratched his jaw.
“She deserves better.” Rider tried to clear the lump in his throat, but couldn’t.
“They all do. Best we can do is give them what they think they want and keep them safe.” Shadow said quietly.
Rider nodded. He knew Shadow understood. He looked around at his brothers, maybe they all understood.
“Let Lacey handle this and let me handle getting Lizzie. Me and Spec will get her. You know we will. The rest will hang around and make sure nobody fucks with you.”
Rider hated thinking of Spec rescuing Lizzie. He knew something had been going on with them and it made his gut hurt, but he couldn’t do it and all that mattered was keeping her safe. He nodded.
“Just get her back.”
Ten
Preach sat with Rider, Ink, Moose, and Ace in the hospital room. Rider knew they were probably breaking rules, but no one seemed brave enough to make them leave. He knew there were prospects camped out in the waiting room and where ever Lacey was. He loved it. The brothers always made a big show and this time it was for him.
Mrs. wasn’t happy with Preach for excluding her on this trip, but he said he needed her home with the others so he knew she was safe. Still Rider knew the man would pay for keeping Mrs. out of this when it involved her daughter. He didn’t envy Preach that.
“What the fuck is taking so long? Shad said he knew where she was and there weren’t any guards.” Preach was a ball of nerves and it made Rider jittery.
“Just making sure I guess. She isn’t in danger or they wouldn’t be taking so much time. Relax Preach.” Ace said as he lounged in a chair that Rider knew was not comfortable.
Spec and Shadow had been gone an hour. The house Lizzie was being held in was about thirty miles from the hospital in a rural stretch of country north of Atlanta. It would be child’s play to get her out, but things could always go wrong.
Rider didn’t know what he would do N“ap go wrong.if he lost Lizzie, especially if it was his fault. He figured the brothers figured he’d go crazy and they were probably right. He felt like an idiot for throwing her away for so long. He was really a class A dick, but not anymore.
Lizzie had been in captivity for three days. She had been given a fair amount of freedom and that told her that her captors had no idea who she was. No way, they would underestimate her if they knew who her family was.
It was dark, but the moon shown bright through the window. She had ripped the black paper off the window the first time they had untied her. They had laughed.
After the first night she was left to wander around the house on her own for the most part. She couldn’t go outside and she wasn’t allowed to go into the kitchen without an escort, but her guards were high so often that she had gone into the kitchen and gathered a couple of knives and stashed them in her room. The woman came in the mornings and handled all the meals, but she left before it got dark, saying she couldn’t drive after dark. Lizzie wasn’t positive, but she thought she was related to the men who guarded her. There had been another man on the first day. He had been huge and the others called him Tank. He seemed to be in charge of the whole operation although he had the look of a heavy drug user like the others. He hadn’t touched her, but the way he let his eyes crawl over he made her feel filthy.
“I hope lover boy does as he’s told or you will pay for it. I will own you if he doesn’t do what the fuck he’s told. Do you understand me?”
Lizzie had nodded and played the terrified girl. She had wanted to scream and curse about how her club would find her and gut all of them, but she felt she might be safer if they thought she was just a citizen.
He had looked pleased with her show of terror. He had preened like a peacock for almost an hour. Then he had ridden away on his Harley and he hadn’t returned.
That was when she’d known she didn’t need rescuing. She could get away from these guys with little problem if she just had the right opportunity. She was tired of being cooped up in the filthy house. She was planning to leave the first night, but something had awakened deep inside her while she had listened to her guards talk about Rider going to prison for something he wasn’t capable of. Something fought to the surface as she lay in the darkness. She had fought it for so long and now it was free and it had a purpose. The most cunning and bloodthirsty man alive was her brother and he had the same blood in his body that she did. She knew that he would come for her and when he did he would kill the men. Even if she escaped, he would hunt them. He would kill them and lose a piece of his soul to the darkness that was so much a part of him and this time it would be her fault.
Lizzie had seen the worry on Lacey’s face each time Shadow left to do a job and the desolatio Sthe width="3n in his eyes when he returned. There would come a time when it would be too much and even Lacey wouldn’t be able to bring him back from the darkness. Lizzie couldn’t be a part of that. She wouldn’t. So she bided her time.
She waited until she heard the house grow quiet on the third night. The men had taken her shoes, but she had gathered dishtowels and tape so she could cover them so she would be able to run when her feet hit the ground. It was cooler tonight than she would have liked, but she would survive it.
She walked quietly to the window and shoved it open. She peered out into the darkness. She felt an urgency tonight that she hadn’t felt in the days before. She was running out of time. Shadow would soon be here to rescue her, but she no longer needed rescuing and she no longer planned to simply escape. She was strong. She was her father’s daughter and she would prove it to every one tonight. Rider would never look at her as if she weren’t strong enough to be with him, to be part of his life, to handle the darkness that went with the club. No one would ever look at her as if she had to be protected from the world. She was making the decision to step into the life she had been born to and it felt good.
She pulled the long knife out of the sheath she had made from cardboard and silently walked down the stairs barefoot. She was careful to avoid the stairs that creaked as she made her way silently to the living room. She looked around the corner and found both of her guards in a happy slumber. She stepped up behind the first one and pressed the blade to his throat. She didn’t know it would be so easy to take a life, but it was a simple as slicing cheese for a sandwich. The second was even easier because she knew what to expect. The warm blood sprayed her arm and flowed over her fingers, but she had known it would. She stood and watched as the blood drained from her captors. She fought down the urge to help them, to somehow fix what she had done. She fought the urge to scream and to cry. Instead, she forced herself to watch, to absorb what she had done.
She turned and took the knife to the kitchen and cleaned it before stuffing it back into the drawer where she had found it. She took time to wrap her feet and then she walked out the front door. She was a murderer. She was a woman. She was a Defender.
Lizzie felt warm arms wrap around her when she neared the edge of the yard. She started to struggle and scream but a large hand clamped over her mouth. Had she miscalculated? Were there more guards? They would kill her when they saw wha
t she had done.
“Don’t you dare scream Lizzie. I’m going to take my hand away and you are going to tell me what the fuck is going on and how you just walked out the front door after being gone three damned days.”
Her eyes widened. “Spec?”
“We came to get you Lizzie, but it looks like we didn’t need to.”
She heard accusation in his voice and she slapped him before she thought better of it.
“Fuck you for that tone Spec. Fuck you. I spent three days waiting for you and I got tired of waiting. I rescued myself.”
She heard the little laugh that escaped him and knew he had figured out at least part of it. “Damn you are a smart woman.”
Rider (Defenders M.C. Book 3) Page 4
