Diesel

by Tia Lewis

  “So what will you do? How am I supposed to get you what you want? I don’t even know what it is you want.”

  “What I want is your President’s okay to do business with his connections in Mexico. I want him to vouch for us. I want him to be the go-between. I want him to make sure everything runs smoothly. I want that gun money for my club. We deserve it. It’s just sitting there, and nobody’s taken advantage. I want it, and that asshole, Gunner, told me I could have it.”

  Gunner. I hated him so deeply just then. If he were in front of me, tied up the way I was just then, I would’ve killed him. No problem. For what he did to the club, to his brother. To me.

  “So give him a call. Tell him you have me. He’ll be willing to play ball.” I was talking out of my ass. I didn’t know if I was important enough to him for him to take a chance like that. I knew he was against getting back into guns or any illegal stuff like that. He wanted to be legitimate. He wanted to keep the club safe. Was my life worth that? Maybe it was. He might consider it that way, especially once he knew he had a baby coming. And I would have to accept that, wouldn’t I?

  “Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll call him right now. Or maybe I’ll wait and let him sweat it out. I mean, if he’s gonna make a deal to get you back, it’ll be better to let him wait. Right? The more desperate he is, the better my chances.” He chuckled softly. It sent a chill down my spine.

  “Why wait, though? You’re so sure you’ll get what you want, right?”

  “I don’t know. How much do you matter to him?”

  “As much as any of us do, I guess.”

  “Hmm. I’ll think it over.” The next thing I knew, a door slammed closed, and I was alone. I held my breath to make sure nobody else in the room was breathing. I didn’t hear a sound.

  It was like a nightmare like I had woken up in a nightmare. The worst nightmare possible. I remembered hearing a story when I was young, about a girl who had vanished into thin air on her way home one night. The locket she always wore was found on the sidewalk three houses away from the one her parents lived in—she had been that close to home when somebody took her. Nobody knew for sure what happened, but rumor had it she was kidnapped by a biker gang who had mistaken her for a girl who looked a lot like her.

  Would I disappear the way she had? Would anybody ever see me again? Or would they always wonder what had happened? Maybe Eagle—if it was Eagle I was dealing with—would never make the call. Maybe they’d rape me and kill me and destroy my body so nobody would ever know for sure. The hardest part was knowing that if it happened, it was nobody’s fault but mine. Nobody had forced me to leave. Leaving was the dumbest thing I could’ve done.

  Forgive me, I thought. I didn’t know who I was talking to when I whispered it to myself. Nicole? Drake? Diesel? All of them? I hung my head and fought against the sobs welling up in my chest. I didn’t want to cry. I wouldn’t even be able to wipe my nose if I did. And I didn’t want Eagle to know he had gotten to me. He could’ve been watching somehow for all I knew. If he were going to kill me, I would go out strong. It was the least I could do for the club.

  19

  Diesel

  “I have to look for her.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yeah, I do.” I looked around the office. “How is it possible that none of you see this?”

  “Diesel, brother, I know you want to go after her, but we can’t run that risk. You remember what they did to you a few days ago. It’ll be worse this time.” Creed shook his head. “I know she’s yours, brother, but I have to vote no.”

  “Same here,” Ace said. “I know you care about her. We all do. She’s the best. But you can’t walk into this trap they’re setting, and that’s all it is. They’re trying to trap us. Whoever goes after her is the one who cares the most about her. You can’t let that happen.” His eyes were intense as he stared at me. “Remember, I went through something like this, too.”

  “Right. With Joy.” It had been years. I forgot all about her. She got picked up by one of the Cobras when we were at war with them, and even though we got her back, she left the club for good. And she left Ace.

  “I wanted to burn that clubhouse down with all the Cobras inside,” he growled. Even after all that time, it might as well have been just happening. His fists clenched. “But I had to wait until I knew we had a plan. And it turned out she wasn’t even in the clubhouse, remember? They just rode around with her in a van so we would rush the clubhouse and get ambushed. I had to be smart, and so do you.”

  Drake cleared his throat. “This is just the way it is.”

  “I can’t believe it.” I punched the wall, and my knuckles screamed in pain. I welcomed it. It gave me something to focus on. Physical pain, I could deal with. “How can you let one of us suffer like this? They could be doing anything to her!” A roar welled up inside me, and I threw my head back and let it out. My entire body shook.

  “Listen to me.” Drake’s voice was low, calm, serious. “They’re not doing anything to her right now. You know how I know? Because they’re gonna want to use her to bargain with. They have to make sure she’s safe if they’re gonna do that. We’ll want to know she’s unharmed. And I’ll ask for proof, don’t worry.”

  “What if they don’t? What if this is just a sick game he’s playing because he’s bored?”

  “Eagle doesn’t play games like that,” Drake said. “It’s a waste of time. He wants something, and he’s gonna do whatever it takes to get it. Game playing only adds more time to that. No, he’ll get in touch with us soon to gloat. Believe me.”

  “I have to talk to Gunner. I need to know if he knows anything.” I was out of the office and halfway up the stairs before anybody caught me.

  “I guess you need the key,” Creed muttered. He unlocked the door, and I walked into the room.

  Gunner was stretched out on the bed, reading a book. I wanted to put him through the wall, or maybe throw him out the window. He needed to pay for what he did. He was the one who got us into the mess we were in. He practically handed Violet over to them.

  “What’s up?” He looked around. “You here to pound on me for a while?”

  “Violet’s gone,” I snarled. Creed’s hand on my shoulder was the only thing keeping me from leaping across the bed to strangle my brother to death. “Disappeared.”

  He sat up. “Oh, no.” His face fell. For once, he looked sincere.

  “Yeah. You know what happened to her.”

  “I can guess.” He shook his head.

  “What can we expect here?” I shook off Creed’s hand and sat on the bed. I would be cool as long as Gunner helped me. If he had nothing to offer, it would be a different story.

  He shook his head. “I wish I could help you. I really, truly do. I don’t know him all that well.”

  “What’s the clubhouse like? Where is it?” Creed was thinking a lot clearer than I was. I was glad for that.

  “It’s out in the Bronx, near the landfill off the Hutchinson River. It’s not much of a place. Not as nice as this,” he smirked. “That’s probably why they’re so desperate for this deal. They’re not doing well financially.”

  “Probably spent all their money on their movement,” Creed sneered.

  “Yeah, probably. Who knows? It’s an old firehouse, three stories high, with some of the windows broken up top. Really old building could use some work. Rats in and out, stuff like that.”

  Rats. And she was there. “What else can you tell us?” I was barely holding myself in check.

  “They keep it pretty well guarded. There’s always a few guys posted, in front and in the back. They’re more militant than we are, too. You get what I mean. It’s always a war for them. I don’t think they ever relax—when I went to see them, I still got the full pat-down every time.”

  “How many are there?”

  “I don’t know about that. They said there were maybe two-dozen here for the meeting, right? We saw them. I figure they must’ve left some of them behind to gu
ard the place. They have a lot of ammo there so they wouldn’t want to leave that unguarded.”

  Ammo. It reminded me of the Cobra warehouse. I wanted to blow it up, too. They deserved it.

  “Any other abandoned buildings or places we could set up eyes to watch?”

  He shook his head. “There’s an open lot across the street, full of garbage, then the landfill after that. Maybe somebody could hide out there, but it wouldn’t be much fun. It’s pretty overgrown. Who knows what’s in there?”

  I shook that off. Like that mattered when she needed me. “Okay. Thanks.” I turned to Creed. “Let’s try to research that area, find out what we know, where we can post lookouts.”

  “Don’t you think we should run this past Drake?” he asked.

  “Do you really think Drake would say no?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

  “Hey, guys!” Ace’s voice echoed up the stairs. “They’re on the phone!”

  I almost threw Creed out of the way and hurled myself down the stairs and into Drake’s office. He had the phone on speaker, sitting on his desk.

  “Are you there, Drake?” I recognized Eagle’s voice. I looked at Drake.

  “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “You probably know by now that I have something of yours.”

  “Yeah. I know that.” He shot me a warning look. “Let me talk to her.”

  “No way.”

  “Let me at least hear her. I need to know she’s okay.”

  “Or else what?”

  “Or else you just wrote a check you can’t cash, Eagle. Now let me hear her.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll let her talk for a second.” There was a fumbling noise and a faint voice in the background.

  “Drake?” I closed my eyes when her voice filtered through the speaker.

  “Violet? What are they doing to you?”

  “N—nothing. I’m just in a chair. I can’t see anything. I’m blindfolded.” More talking in the background. “He says—he says to tell you to give him what he wants in the next six hours.”

  “What does he want? He has to tell me what he wants.”

  “He wants you to agree to the deal. That’s all he wants.”

  “Motherfucker,” I whispered. He would do anything, anything at all to get what he wanted. I didn’t understand how a person could be that way. Hurting a girl, an innocent girl, just to scare somebody into doing what he wanted.

  “Let me talk to him again. Violet, don’t worry about anything.” I opened my mouth to say something, too, but Drake held up his hand and shook his head.

  “So, Drake? What’ll it be?”

  Just like that, he was a different person. The gentle, soothing voice he used when Violet was on the phone disappeared. “I need you to promise me no harm will come to her. I want your word on that, because you know I’ll pull the fuck out of any deal we set up if she so much as gets a splinter. Tell me she’ll be all right.”

  “Oh, she’ll be fine. A little sore, maybe.”

  “Sore from what, Eagle? Don’t test me right now.”

  “From being tied up, Drake. You really don’t have a high opinion of us, do you?”

  He didn’t answer that. “And then what? What happens when I call the guys down in Mexico, and we set this up? What happens to her?”

  “We let her go. Easy as that.”

  “I want to set up a pick-up. And I want her unharmed when we pick her up. Like I said, one hair out of place, a splinter, a bruise? The deal’s off.”

  “Understood. You know how important this is to me. I wouldn’t do anything to fuck it up once I get what I want.”

  “All right. I’ll make the call now.”

  “You have six hours to make this work. I don’t care what you have to do. You don’t come through in six hours, and she’s dead—well after we have a little fun with her first.” I thought I heard the sound of her muffled crying in the background and needed to leave the office so Eagle wouldn’t hear me if I screamed. There were dozens of eyes on me when I walked out into the main room. I went to Drake’s room and screamed into the pillow over and over until my voice went hoarse and no sound came out. And even then, I screamed silently. I couldn’t stand the image of her sitting there, tied to a chair, crying.

  And I was the one who pushed her away. It was my fault all over again.

  There was a knock at the door. I expected it to be Drake. It was Nicole.

  “Here.” She handed me a glass of water. “Drink it.” I shook my head, but she thrust it into my hand anyway.

  “She left because of me,” I whispered.

  “She left because she wanted to. You can’t do this to yourself.”

  “Sure, I can. If I weren't such a bastard to her, she wouldn’t have gone. I did this. It’s my fault.” I never would’ve admitted that to anybody except Violet, but Nicole was different. She loved Violet—and if Drake trusted her, I trusted her.

  She sat on the bed, facing away from me. “You didn’t make her do anything. She’s an adult. She knew better than to leave. If her feelings were hurt, if you upset her, that’s one thing. She didn’t have to leave. I wish she would’ve talked to me, first.” I heard her sniffling and looked over in time to see her wiping a tear away. I couldn’t stand to see a woman cry.

  “I have to get her back.”

  She nodded. “I know you will, too. I know you care about her.”

  Of course, I cared about her. She was everything. I loved her.

  I was going to get her back.

  20

  Violet

  Any one of them could come in at any time and do whatever they wanted to me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I could hardly think. My brain raced in all directions at once. Every time there were footsteps too close to the door, my heart would stop. But they’d move on, and I’d breathe again…until the next set of footsteps.

  I had no idea how long I had been there. Hours, for sure. But how long had it been since I talked to Drake? An hour? That left five hours to go. Or it might have been ten minutes, for all I knew. I had lost all sense of time, blindfolded as I was.

  There was water dripping somewhere in the walls. Drip, drip, drip. I started counting the drips but lost track somewhere in the four thousands. It was all I could do to keep my brain steady. Otherwise, I would go crazy, just waiting for them to come in and hurt me.

  I was exhausted, physically and otherwise. My head hung low, and my neck cramped from being in the same position for so long. That was true of my entire body. I was still tied up, still desperately stiff and aching all over.

  When were they coming? Or would Eagle and his guys dump me outside? Or would they drive me to the clubhouse? Would they ever even let me go? Was it all a trick to get Drake to do what they wanted? I was starting to believe that was the case, even though I wanted to believe it wasn’t. I needed to believe it wasn't if I had a chance of staying sane. Otherwise, I’d start screaming and never stop.

  Diesel. I thought he would say something over the phone. Just a single word. But nothing. Was he even there when Drake took the call? Maybe not. It wasn’t that I thought he didn’t care that I was gone, but I didn’t think he cared the way I wanted him to care. He never had. I was convenient, the way the girls from Bobby’s club had warned me. I should’ve taken their advice. I should’ve left him alone. Then it wouldn’t have hurt so much when he rejected me. I wouldn’t have left.

  Still, I wanted him to care. I couldn’t help it.

  More footsteps, and laughter. Lots of laughter. They were hanging out right outside the door. I wanted to scream and tell them to leave me alone. I wanted to beg them to stop torturing me. That was what it felt like. They wanted to scare me and make me wonder what they were going to do. They were drinking, too. How long would they be able to stay out there without coming into the room to see me? I fought back the bile in my throat when I thought about it. What was taking so long for Drake to help me?

  Pretty soon it wouldn’t be enough fo
r them to hang around outside. Every drink took them one step closer to ignoring Eagle’s warning to leave me alone. I had heard Drake demand that nobody touch me. Could I trust them? Why should I?

  I squeezed my eyes shut behind the blindfold. I couldn’t keep thinking that way. It only made me more afraid. I had to be strong, didn’t I? I remembered Diesel riding home with blood pouring down the side of his head, into his eye. That took strength. I could be strong, too. I would make him proud of me, even if he didn’t want me the way I wanted him. When they found me or I was delivered to them, I wouldn’t be a mess. I would be in control of myself.

  A bottle smashed on the floor outside the door, and I jumped. A bunch of male voices shouted with laughter. Somebody had turned on the radio, and the sound of some really loud, pulsing death metal filled the air. Great. So they would really be in the mood to break skulls in a little while. Hopefully, they stuck to breaking each other’s skulls and not mine or anybody in the club.

  I forced myself to take deep breaths. I had to control myself. I was the only person who could control me. I breathed in for four counts, then out for four counts. In, out. After a little while, my head felt clearer. My heartbeat slowed down a little, too. Thank God. I would be all right. None of them would hurt me. Eagle had given his word.

  Then, the loudest crash yet from just outside the door. I screamed a little. Popping noises. Gunshots? I froze. Where the police there? No, I didn’t hear them shouting or announcing themselves or anything. Just what sounded like guns firing back and forth. Shit! What if one of the bullets came through and hit me?

  Was it Drake and Diesel? Had Diesel come for me? I could only hope so. If it was them, they had brought the entire club—I heard what had to be dozens of guns going off everywhere. There were shouts, too, and cries of pain. Who got hit?