Engage (Disciples' Daughters Book 3)

by Drew Elyse

  The door by my head opened before I heard anything from the front of the vehicle. I shut my eyes, not wanting them to know I was awake. They yanked me from the car, hoisting me up without care.

  I chanced a peak through the jostling. There were windows. A lot of them. All of them brimming with light from the rooms inside. They didn’t look like the uniform pattern of an office building. I snapped my eyes shut again before anyone might notice.

  “Get her inside,” I heard someone say. It was a male voice, gruff, and there was a hint of an accent I hadn’t heard long enough to place.

  I was shifted until my head was hanging down. I could feel the pressure at my gut that made me realize I was over someone’s shoulder. I peeked again, my eyes landing on legs. I was careful not to move, but I looked around as much as I could. There was grass below us and I could make out the corner of a tire. The man who had me was facing the car he pulled me from.

  He turned then, and I frantically took in what I could. There were several men around. I was able to look up a bit and saw them all dressed in dark colors, most of them holding large guns.

  What the hell was this place?

  I also got a glance, just briefly as my captor turned, at a door. It wasn’t an ornate entryway. It was more like a service door. There wasn’t even much of a distinct jamb around it. I couldn’t make out colors in the mix of darkness and yellowed light, but I could tell the door was painted to match the siding around it.

  It was meant to blend in.

  That door was supposed to go unnoticed. As my captor stopped turning and I lost sight of it, I realized that was where he was headed.

  I wanted to fight, to try to get away, but even as I tried, my body wouldn’t move. I was trapped in stillness, being taken somewhere I knew without a doubt I did not want to go.

  “Did you dose her again?” a voice asked.

  “Net.”

  “Hang on.”

  My captor stopped and I held my eyes closed. I didn’t know what happened, but not long after he started moving again, despite my terror, I faded out.

  “They took me in there,” I whispered my realization, my eyes still glued to the image of that door.

  “Fuck,” Dad spat harshly.

  “Ember,” Stone called.

  Robotically, I lifted my head to him.

  “You’re sure?” he asked. He was gentle, but there was murder in his eyes.

  I put the stack of pictures on his desk, the one that had sparked the memory still on top. With a hand I saw was shaking, but too numb to feel, I pointed to that fucking door.

  “I didn’t remember it before. I woke up in the car. I couldn’t move, but I was able to open my eyes. When they took me from the car, I saw that door,” I explained. “That’s where they took me.”

  Stone’s eyes moved up and behind me, landing on Ace. “Make the call,” he ordered.

  Ace didn’t respond, but I heard the door open and shut.

  “What’s going on?” I got out. “How do you have pictures of that place?”

  “That property is Kuznetsov’s,” Stone explained. “We’ve been watching it. We managed to find a hidden access road that goes to the back of the house.”

  The turns and uneven ground, I put together.

  “That’s where Jager was when he went MIA,” Stone went on.

  Wait. They knew where he was?

  “You know where he is?” I demanded.

  “Ember,” Dad tried to calm me.

  “Why haven’t you gone in and gotten him out?”

  My head flew between the two of them, wanting an answer.

  “We can’t,” Dad said.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “We’d never make it in,” Stone answered. “Kuznetsov usually has the place guarded, but he’s got every fucking one of his men on that house now that he took Jager. We don’t have the men or firepower to get in there.”

  My heart sank, the anger bleeding out. Of course. If they could storm in and get him out, they would have.

  “I’m sorry,” I choked out. My emotions were all over the place. In my mind, all I could see was Jager in a cell like the one they’d kept me in. I imagined men in dark clothes beating him, wounding him.

  Killing him.

  The sob broke out before I could get myself together.

  I couldn’t lose him.

  Dad reached over, pulling me against his solid chest. I fought to hold it together even though I wanted to shatter right there.

  “We can’t help him, Ber-bear,” he said low to me, driving that knife deeper. But, then, he continued, “But you can.”

  I lifted my watery gaze to him. “What?”

  “There’s a team of feds investigating him,” Stone answered. “They’ve been on him for months, trying to catch a break. If they were able to follow the same paper trail as Jager and connect that house to Kuznetsov, then your testimony that they took you, held you there, and what you can tell them about the other women in that cell, is enough for them to get a warrant to go in.”

  “You can’t tell them we showed you those pictures,” Dad put in. “That shit’s not technically legal. You gotta describe what you know. Then, they might show you pictures of their own to verify. But you can’t mention this.”

  What they weren’t saying, but I understood, was I was breaking the law by omitting that from my statement. I might even have to lie if asked about how I’d remembered.

  The image of Jager in that cell filled my head again, tearing through my heart.

  I could do it. I could keep that secret. I could lie under oath if I had to.

  Anything for Jager.

  Anything to save him.

  Ember was holding it together. At times, it seemed like by a wing and a fucking prayer, but she was strong. Stronger than anyone could be expected to be in the circumstances.

  It only took two phone calls to get word to the right people. Not ten minutes later, Special Agent Roth, who was all over a witness who could get him access to Kuznetsov’s place, called. I set it up.

  Now, we were waiting at Roadrunner’s house for the man to get there, moving Ember there to understate the club’s involvement in the situation.

  Ember was pacing. Roscoe had been following her at first, but the dog had tired of it and collapsed at the midway point of her path to watch as she went back and forth across the room.

  “Where is he?” she demanded.

  “He’s coming,” I answered. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked.

  She was impatient. I knew that feeling. It was simmering beneath my surface, amping up as I watched the distress play out in her. She wasn’t wrong to be upset. Every fucking second Roth took to get there was one Kuznetsov could use to off Jager. We were all feeling it.

  It took everything in me to keep my ass planted and mind focused on the bigger goal rather than taking off and charging into that house guns blazing. That shit wouldn’t work. We went in like that, not one of us would walk out—Jager included.

  This play—the legal play—was the only one we had.

  And Ham and Daz had eyes on the place, reporting the prize was going to be even fucking sweeter if we pulled it off. Kuznetsov wasn’t expecting our move. He was preparing for an ambush, and he was drawing in every soldier he had to prepare for it.

  When Roth had what he needed to raid the place, he was going to bag every man on his list without having to hunt those fuckers down.

  “He’s taking too long,” Ember pushed, the nerves and frustration at constant war.

  Unable to take it, I got to my feet and strode right into her path.

  “Babe, you’re holding it together like a fucking champ,” I told her. “I know you want to lose it, I do too. But right now, you gotta keep it locked down. For Jager. This dude gets here to take your statement, it can’t be about Jager for him. It’s got to be about you. You were kidnapped. You remembered this detail. You made the decision to step forward and report what happened. It ain’t about the club. It ain
’t about your man. Right?”

  She nodded, but I could see her biting the inside of her cheek.

  “The second he’s out that door again, you wanna fall apart, I’ll be right here. But until then, you have to keep fighting through this. Jager’ll be fighting. You fucking know that. No matter what, he’s fighting to get his ass back here to you. You have to give him the same by staying cool.”

  “Right,” she whispered back.

  Right.

  I led her to the couch and got her to sit, though she did it with her knee bouncing and hands fidgeting the whole time.

  Roadrunner was by the door, eyes keeping watch outside. He had the task since it was his house and he knew the neighborhood. He’d spot a car that wasn’t supposed to be there before anyone else clocked it. We all waited in silence as agonizing minute after minute ticked by.

  I watched Roadrunner tense before the headlights could be seen on the drive. They were there. The nervous energy coming from Ember felt like the air itself was vibrating. I grabbed her hand and held on.

  Roadrunner let Roth, two other agents, and an attorney from the DA’s office in. Roth made the introductions and established right away he’d be the one handling the situation. Then, he took a chair Roadrunner brought into the room for him and sat across from Ember. I went to move away, but she clutched onto me.

  After the spiel about falsifying statements, he got right to it. “Ember, tell me what happened.”

  And she did. She told the story straight from the beginning. The kidnapping, the cell, telling Kuznetsov’s men about the club, and waking up at the clubhouse. She stuck to her own experiences, not filling in the blanks that we had paid Kuznetsov’s men for her release. In fact, she carefully stayed away from the asshole’s name entirely.

  When she reached the end of the story without mentioning the house, Roth prompted, “Is there anything else you remember?”

  “Yes,” Ember answered. “I only recently remembered waking once while they were transporting me. I woke in the car and saw part of the outside of the building they took me into. It was around the back of a large house. There was a door there they took me through. It was painted like the rest of the house, blended in.”

  Roth already knew this and was prepared because I’d given him that. So, he turned to the attorney who handed him a folder.

  “Do you mind looking at a few pictures to see if you recognize any of them?” he asked.

  She shook her head and he began showing her images one by one.

  Most of them were just random houses. Maybe they were involved in other investigations, but they were only meant to assure she could identify the right place. Ember took her time, even though she didn’t need it. She studied each one, rejecting them after full consideration. The fourth image was Kuznetsov’s. Ember still took her time, giving not one thing away before she spoke.

  “That’s it.” She leaned in to point at the door. “That was where they took me in.”

  “You’re sure?” Roth pushed.

  She looked him right in the eye. “I’m certain.”

  Roth focused on the attorney and nodded. The man immediately stepped outside, already on his phone.

  They had what they needed for a warrant.

  Ember was breaking.

  She’d gone back to pacing after Roth and his men cleared out. He’d told us they’d had a judge on standby to issue the search warrant after I called and his team was ready to move on Kuznetsov’s place the moment they could.

  Still, it had been over an hour, and no word.

  The brothers had all left their posts around Kuznetsov’s place as the feds moved in, converging at Roadrunner’s and waiting for word. Gauge and Sketch had gotten their women and brought them over, but the posse did nothing to calm Ember.

  None of us could help. We were all feeling it too.

  At some point in her pacing, the tears had started. She wasn’t sobbing. She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t giving sound to her pain even if she had every right to. Her tears were silent, rolling down her face like she wasn’t even aware of them as she made her path back and forth. The whole time, she had her right hand resting against her neck.

  Some of the brothers had tried to talk to her, but they hadn’t even gotten a word in response. Cami rushed right to her when she showed and tried to comfort her. It had stopped Ember from pacing for a moment, but did little else. Ash had just left her to it, as I had been.

  We could try to distract her, try to assure her everything would be fine, but the fact was that girl was not coming out of her head until her man was standing in front of her.

  As for what would happen if that never came to pass, I wasn’t even going there in the hypothetical.

  My phone ringing broke the tense silence. Every set of eyes came to me, except Ember’s. One footstep halted for half a second, but she resumed her pacing. That was when I truly understood. If she stopped, she’d fall apart. Focusing on the next step was the only thing keeping her in one piece.

  I answered on the second ring, not wasting even a fucking second to check who it was.

  “Yeah?”

  “Pasha Kuznetsov has been arrested,” Roth announced in my ear. “Four captives were found in the house. I believe one of them might mean something to you.”

  He knew Jager was a Disciple. He’d been keeping tabs on Kuznetsov, which meant he noticed us circling. There was no telling what else he knew. At very least, he had to guess we’d been planning our own retribution and that was why Ember hadn’t made a statement sooner. He’d obviously figured out why we’d given up on that.

  “Status?”

  “On the way to the hospital,” Roth replied. “Needs to get checked out, but he’ll be fine.”

  “Right.” I went to hang up, but he stopped me.

  “She’ll have to testify at his trial,” he stated.

  “We both know he won’t make it.”

  And we did. Pasha Kuznetsov was a dead man once he was locked up. It didn’t matter what kind of protection they tried to offer. There were people who could be bought everywhere.

  “Tell me you aren’t threatening him to a federal agent.”

  “Not a moron,” I assured him. “Just stating facts. It won’t come from the Disciples, but it’ll happen.”

  He sighed before he clicked off, and he did it because he knew I was right.

  I pocketed my phone, everyone still watching me. They needed answers, but I had to be sure Ember was with me. Once again, I inserted myself in her path.

  She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes begging me not to give her news she didn’t want to hear.

  “He’s okay,” I stated.

  Her knees gave out right there.

  I didn’t fuck around, just knelt down and picked her up with arms at her back and beneath her knees.

  “They’re taking him to the hospital now,” I announced to the room. “Someone sort out which one is closest, text me the information. We’re leaving now.”

  Roadrunner was already on the move, keys in hand for his truck. He opened the door as I carried Ember out. I got her in the passenger seat with his help as he handed off the keys.

  “I’m right behind you,” he said, already going for his bike.

  I got us on the road. We were just out of Hoffman when Ember spoke up.

  “I need you to talk,” she requested in a strained voice.

  I knew what she meant. She didn’t have her pacing to keep her together now and neither of us knew what sort of shape Jager was going to be in when we got there.

  I gave her the only thing I had.

  “How about I tell you a secret?”

  It took two hours to make the nearly three-hour drive.

  It felt like a fucking lifetime.

  Ember walked into the emergency room at my side, half her weight leaned into me. One of the agents who had been at the house, Matthews, was there to meet us.

  We didn’t fuck around with saying a thing to the desk staff. We went right to
him.

  “I’ll take you back,” he stated before we had to ask.

  With a couple flashes of his badge, he did just that.

  It wasn’t far before we hit the bay of curtain-divided beds. At the end of the line, angled so he was facing us and saw as we entered, was a big, tattooed motherfucker I was real fucking happy to see.

  Jager was sitting up on the bed while a doctor and nurses looked him over, but he didn’t give a shit. He stood, ripping what looked to be an IV from his arm and pushed through them. He marched his way right toward us as Ember’s weight increased against me and her tears became audible sobs.

  The brother was bruised, bleeding, and he sure as fuck wasn’t seeing out of one eye, but that didn’t matter to either of them. He charged right for his woman and grabbed her from my hold. She collapsed against him, crying into his bare chest.

  “I love you,” she sobbed there.

  “Fuck, I love you too, pet,” he answered.

  Ember didn’t leave my side. This was in part because she didn’t want to, but it was mostly because I wouldn’t fucking let her. I made the doctor and nurses do their shit with Ember in my lap, shifting her from one side to another as needed.

  The third time I tried to switch where she was seated, she offered, “I can stand just over there out of the way. I won’t leave.”

  I didn’t answer that shit.

  I’d lived for hours thinking there was a good chance I was going to die in that dirty cell. I wouldn’t get to have her that close again. I’d never get to have the words she gave me when I first got her back in my arms.

  “I love you.”

  Even hearing it come through her fucking tears was beautiful.

  So, no. The damn hospital staff could work around her. I didn’t give a shit. And I went right on not giving a shit until I signed the papers a few hours later stating I was checking myself out of the hospital against medical advice.

  “Sir, your body needs rest and time to heal. You were fortunate there was not any severe damage to your internal organs, but there is still a great deal of bruising as well as four cracked ribs,” the doctor kept at his shit even as I handed the signed form back to him.