HUNTER

by Jessie Cooke

  19

  Several long minutes later, Kyle and Angel had their bikes parked in a small lot behind an empty house. Leaving them there in this neighborhood at night was risking losing them, but the only thing Angel cared about losing was Dax. Kyle took the lead as usual, but Angel didn’t argue with him. She was out of practice at sneaking up on suspects and breaking down doors. They walked two blocks until they found the house they were looking for. It was a two-story Victorian that looked like it had experienced decades of neglect. It was a busy place that night, however. Every light in every window was lit and there were at least twenty cars parked around it, on the street and on the lawn. Most of them were luxury cars and Angel had an inkling they were stolen. She almost laughed at herself when she wondered if they’d taken them from Skulls territory, rather than being appalled at their thievery like she would have in the past…in the days before she met Dax.

  When they got up to the front of the house, she and Kyle crouched down in front of the porch and Kyle whispered, “We should call P.D. They probably have five cars in the area.”

  Angel was shaking her head. “Dax wouldn’t want us to do that.”

  “Would Dax want you getting your head shot off? We’re outnumbered at least twenty-to-one here, Angel. Stop thinking with your heart and start using your head. You’re smarter than this. What are we going to do? Kick the door in and shoot as many as we can before they kill us?”

  Angel knew he was right. She was struggling with her emotions and her common sense. Thankfully, common sense won out. “Okay,” she whispered back. “Call them.”

  Kyle had his phone in his hand and was pressing in the numbers when Angel felt, more than saw, the man hovering over her. She had her gun in her hand when she felt the cold steel of the one the man was holding pressing into her head. “Drop it,” he told her. She did as she was told and at the same time, Kyle dropped his phone and got to his feet. He had his gun in his other hand. “Don’t,” the man said in a deep voice. “Not unless you want to watch your sister’s pretty head explode.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” This guy was big and buff with a shaved head and bright blue eyes. He was wearing a white t-shirt that stretched tightly across his chest and biceps and there were tattoos across his neck that disappeared down into the collar of the shirt. He had on jeans that also seemed to have to stretch to accommodate his massive thighs and long legs. He looked familiar to Angel, but oddly enough, she knew she’d never seen him before.

  “None of your business,” the man said in response to Kyle’s question. “Get up,” he told Angel. Angel struggled to her feet with the gun pressed against her temple. She was concentrating on controlling her breathing and trying to remember her training as a cop. She knew that if she went with this man, there was a very good chance she wouldn’t come back alive. The man looked at Kyle and said, “Stay put.”

  “Fuck you.” Kyle barely had the words out of his mouth before the man swung the gun upon him and pulled the trigger. Angel screamed, and the big man scooped her up in one massive arm and carried her toward a car with the trunk open. She’d seen the car when she and Kyle approached the house, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. With the trunk open, they hadn’t seen anyone inside. She was cussing herself for not being more careful. She kept looking toward the house, even as he stuffed her in the trunk, wondering why no one was coming out. The big man held onto the trunk lid for a few seconds and smiled down at her.

  “Cell phone,” he said, holding out his hand. Impulsively, she kicked her leg out at him and her boot connected with his massive chest. He didn’t even flinch. He grabbed her leg and roughly shoved it back inside the trunk. He twisted it as he did and she thought she heard a crunch just as a bolt of pain rushed through her. “Wanna try that again, bitch? Give me your fucking phone.” The pain in her leg was blinding as she slid her hand into her jeans and pulled out the phone. She handed it to him and watched as he dropped it on the ground and stepped on it. Then he slammed the trunk lid down and she was engulfed in darkness.

  Angel felt the car move when the big man got into it. It felt like he got in on the passenger side. It began moving even before she heard his slamming the door and distant sounds of yelling. Someone had seen them. She heard gunshots echo off the car as they slammed into the steel body. The car felt like it was flying and Angel was scared to death, but she was trying to spend her time reminding herself who she was. She was Dax fucking Marshall’s old lady and she wasn’t going to show this fucker an ounce of weakness. She almost smiled as she remembered the .22 in her boot. The excruciating pain in her leg shot up into her back as she fished it out. She held it between her hands with the sound of the car and her own ragged breaths in her ears, and for a split second, she thought about using it on herself. The idea of what this man planned to do to her was so frightening that she was overwhelmed by it and she asked herself if she wouldn’t rather end it herself, before he got the chance. Dax was dead…maybe. Kyle was dying, possibly. Those things may have helped tip her over the edge, but when she closed her eyes again, she pictured Susie’s beautiful little face. New resolve flooded her veins. Her little girl had already had a tough life. Angel was not going to abandon her…no matter what she had to do to survive.

  “The doctor said that the bullet wound was a mess. It looks like you were hit by shrapnel.”

  “He fixed it though, right? I need to get out of here.”

  “No,” Chase told Hunter. “You need to stay put.”

  “There’s too much going on. Where’s Larry? Did Dax find Angel? Who the fuck took her? What about the guys at the bar? Did someone get word to Chaos not to fire on them?”

  “Larry’s in protective custody and the guys at the bar are safe. Chaos was gone by the time I got there with the police. Someone told them to back off.”

  “Were any of the Skulls arrested?”

  “No. It would seem that they were all unarmed when the police arrived and playing a friendly game of pool while enjoying a few drinks.”

  Hunter smiled and then he remembered Angel. “Dax?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know anything about Dax or Angel except that her brother is here too. He’s in surgery.”

  “Fuck. That’s right.” Hunter’s memories of the evening were coming back in chaotic bits and pieces. After he was shot, he lost consciousness. He’d woken up in the back seat of a car just before he was dropped off at the hospital. Dax was with him. He vaguely remembered telling Dax not to get out of the car. He could explain the gunshots as looking for one of Chase’s bail-jumpers, but an automatic rifle wound with a Southside Skull in the mix would draw way too much unwanted attention for the club. Dax looked like he was going to argue, but that was when he'd gotten the call from Trayvon, telling him about Kyle. By that time, Angel was already gone. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know. He was shot in the chest at close range. I saw them bring him in on the gurney while I was waiting to see you after surgery. He looked like shit. He was still conscious, though, and cussing up a storm about finding his sister, so maybe that’s a good sign. I’m sorry, Hunter, that’s all I know. I called Mom and Aunt Birdie.”

  “Shit. Why did you do that?”

  “Seriously? They would both kick my ass if they found out you were shot and I didn’t call. Aunt Birdie was on her way the last time I talked to her.”

  “Shit,” Hunter said again. Birdie was his mother. She was one of the toughest women he’d ever known and she had more faith in her religion than anyone he knew, too. That had gotten her through a lot of hard times, most especially the death of her oldest son. But since Brett died, if Hunter got a paper cut, she hovered. It drove him crazy and as soon as he got out of that bed, he was going to kick Chase’s ass for calling her.

  “What about Claire?” he asked. Claire had been on his mind each time he lost consciousness since he’d been shot, and each time he woke up. He wondered now how she was handling Larry’s being arrested. He also wondered how she wa
s handling being in the thick of the chaos that must be going on at the ranch by now. They would all be frantic to find Angel, which was good…and bad. Hunter had come to like and respect almost every one of them and he thought they were good people at heart. But…they were the most loyal sons of bitches he’d ever met and when one of them were threatened, the biker inside of them emerged with a vengeance. He wasn’t just worried about Angel. He was worried about Dax and every one of the other brothers who would commit to doing anything to find her.

  “Claire?” Chase said it twice before Hunter came out of his thoughts and back into the conversation.

  “Yes, Larry’s daughter.”

  “Oh, right…”

  “Does she know what’s going on? Does she know he’s safe even though he’s in custody? Is she okay out there at the ranch?”

  “Whoa, slow down. Sounds to me like you’ve bonded a little bit with this a-hole’s kid.”

  “Chase, I swear to fuck…”

  “She’s fine. She’s out in the lobby.”

  Hunter was surprised at how that knowledge was like a shot of anesthesia to his system. He forgot how much pain his arm and shoulder were in. He forgot how dire things were for the Skulls, just for a moment. “Why is she in the lobby? I want to see her.”

  “She’s pretty,” Chase was saying. Hunter had tuned out whatever he said before that. He suddenly ached all over to see her. It was new to him to feel that way about a woman. He didn’t just want to see her; it was like a physical need, like air or water.

  “Chase, go get her.”

  His cousin sighed and stood up. “Fine. They said only one visitor at a time. I thought you’d want to see family first.”

  “Are you kidding? No fucking way I’d ever choose your ugly face over a beautiful woman’s.”

  “They need to give you more of those painkillers,” Chase said as he moved toward the door. “Your personality is starting to show.”

  Hunter raised his good hand, carefully, so as not to pull out the two IVs they had going into it and flipped him off. Chase rolled his eyes and left the room. While Hunter lay there waiting to see Claire, his thoughts returned to Dax and Angel. He couldn’t even imagine what Dax must be going through. Hunter had always been a little envious of Dax’s and Angel’s relationship. It was what he wanted…someday.

  “Hey.” He looked over at the door. Claire was standing there, looking like she was afraid to come inside. For the first time, he wondered what he looked like. She looked gorgeous, as usual. She didn’t have any make-up on and her hair was pulled up into a messy bun. She had on the same jeans and t-shirt she’d had on earlier in the day when he’d seen her…and she still took his breath away. He’d never felt the kind of chemistry he felt for her with anyone. He could almost hear it crackle in the air every time they were in the same room.

  “Hey, you can come in. I won’t bite.”

  She smiled, but her smile looked stressed and her beautiful eyes looked anxious. She walked closer to the bed, looking at the bulky bandage on his left arm and shoulder as she did. “Are you okay?”

  He grinned and winked at her. “I’m better than okay. See, all these years I thought I was just about perfect, but now I’ve got real steel in my body. I’m like freaking Superman.”

  That got a laugh out of her. Even her laugh was beautiful. “Good,” she said. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

  “I’m okay, really. Sit down, please.” She sat in the chair Chase had occupied earlier, perched on the edge of it, like she was thinking about running out. “Are you okay?”

  Another tight smile and she nodded. “I’m fine.”

  “Chase told me they took Larry in.”

  She nodded again. “He…your boss…told me they promised to keep him in protective custody. I heard that nothing happened at the bar; that’s good. What happened to you? I mean, I know you got shot…but why?”

  “Chivalry. I knew it was bullshit.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “You got shot for a woman?”

  He nodded. “I stuck my nose in on some other guy’s business. Unfortunately for me, my mother taught me better than to walk away when a guy was abusing a lady. Of course, we never talked about what to do if that guy had an automatic weapon at his disposal.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, again. “I heard something about Dax’s wife? The whole club is up in arms over it. What happened to her?”

  Hunter’s mood had changed when Claire walked in, and it quickly changed back when she mentioned Dax and Angel. “I wish I knew,” he said. “All I know is Dax was with me on the way to the hospital and he got a call that Angel’s brother had been shot and she’d been taken.”

  Claire brought a hand up to brush a stray piece of hair off her face; the hand was shaking. “I don’t know how you all do this all the time.”

  “It’s really not like this all the time,” he told her, honestly. “Most days we’re just like regular people, shopping at the 99-cent store and doing laundry and vacuuming…” She smiled again, and he said, “Okay, I’ve never vacuumed in my life, but I do shop at the 99-cent store…”

  “And laundry?”

  “I take it to my mom’s. The girl that cleans my apartment won’t do laundry or windows. I might have to board the windows up soon.”

  “You’re crazy, you know that?”

  He nodded. “It’s part of my charm.”

  “Yes,” she said, to his delight. “It is.” She pushed up out of the chair and Hunter was immediately on edge.

  “You’re not leaving already, are you?”

  “Yes. As Chase came out to let me know you wanted to see me, two women came in asking about you. They seemed really upset and I’m not sure, but I think one of them was your mother. I was going to let her come first, but Chase waved me off while he talked to them.”

  Hunter grimaced. “What made you think she was my mother?”

  Claire gave him a genuine smile then and it lit up the room. “Because I heard her ask Chase what happened to her baby.” She giggled.

  Hunter groaned. “She fails to realize I’m thirty-two years old.”

  “I think it’s sweet.”

  “She’s messing with my game.”

  Claire laughed again and this time she winked at him. “Believe it or not, she improved on it.” Then she did something that made his heart feel like it was on fire. She bent down and kissed him softly on the lips. “Listen to the doctors and nurses and get better, okay? I have to get back to the B & B tonight, but I’ll call and check on you tomorrow.”

  “It’s late. How are you getting back to Rockport?”

  “There’s a train leaving in half an hour. I should have plenty of time to make it.”

  “No,” he said, pushing upright. “It’s too late for you to be out there on a train all alone…”

  Claire pushed his chest gently. He could feel the heat of her hand and he wanted so badly to pull her into the bed with him. “Lie down. I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine. Don’t make me tell your mother on you.”

  He groaned again, but his protestations got him another sweet kiss. “Please be safe.”

  “I will,” she said as she went toward the door.

  “Can you call me tonight…when you get back to Rockport?”

  “Sure.” Hunter rattled his cell phone number off to her and she left. It was only seconds later when his mother and aunt burst into the room. Once they quizzed him about his injuries and how he got them, the conversation turned to who the pretty girl was. Hunter thought Chase was right—he did need more painkillers.

  20

  The car stopped, and Angel heard the passenger side door open. She hadn’t been positive before, but she thought he had someone with him. When the driver’s side door opened and she heard two men’s voices, that confirmed it. Shit. If she shot the one that opened the trunk, there was a good chance the other would be armed and shoot her. Then again, if she at least killed one of them, she’d have a better chance of survival. Besides, if they carried h
er into a house or something, they’d notice the gun and take it from her. She only had one chance. She had to shoot him as soon as he opened the trunk. She put her other hand on the one holding the gun and pointed it up. She was holding her breath when she heard the key in the lock. Cold air rushed toward her face as the trunk was lifted and the second that she saw the outline of the man’s body, she pulled the trigger on the gun. The man let out a loud howl as his body was thrown back a couple of feet. Angel sat up and put her good leg out first. As soon as that one touched the ground, she lowered the other one and gasped out in pain. The man she’d shot was writhing on the ground and she could see in the moonlight that it wasn’t the man who had taken her.

  “Bitch!” the man on the ground spat out. He was reaching for his gun, which was lying about a foot away from his body. Angel took a painful step and used her good leg to kick it out of the way, and then with a significant and horribly painful limp, she began to try and run away. She only got a few steps before she felt the big man’s arm go around her waist and lift her off the ground. She tried to kick him in the shins and she was screaming like a wild animal. He reached around with his free arm and chopped at her wrist, twice, making her howl in pain again and drop the gun to the ground. “Kill her!” the man on the ground screamed. He had both of his hands pressed into the top of his stomach and blood was pouring out through them. The man holding her ignored him and began to carry her in the direction of what looked like a cabin. “Josiah! What the fuck? You’re going to leave me here? I’m fucking bleeding to death!” the other man tried to yell. It was more of a loud gasp, interspersed with pauses and gulps of breath. He kept yelling at them as “Josiah” stepped up onto a crooked porch, and carried her inside. The man’s voice was getting faint even as Josiah used his foot to close the door behind them. If this was how he felt about his friends, she could only imagine what he was going to do to her.