Tied

by KB Winters

I couldn’t believe spending just an hour walking around this little town while I ran errands was turning me into a person who told people to have a nice day. My old self would have mocked this new version of me, the bitch who smiled for no reason and didn’t rush a chatty cashier at the costume shop.

  No, I didn’t just not rush the older woman, I leaned in and listened keenly as she told me all about the last time someone had rented the black and red angel style wings from her. Who knew this little old town used to have a brothel?

  “I will have a nice day, hon, and I can’t wait to hear how those wings work out for you. Which one of those hot hunks of heaven is yours?” Randi seemed to know all the guys at the ranch. She rested her chin in her hands and let out a swoony sigh. “They’re all yummy though. If only I was a few years younger.”

  I thought of Slayer’s love of older women. “Maybe you’re just the right age, Randi.”

  “Aww. Get outta here,” she said with a blushing smile as she waved me out of the store. “Enjoy.”

  With a final wave, I pushed out of the costume shop and dropped the wings off at the truck Cruz had insisted I take. He was so cute the way he worried about me. I knew it was part of the deal, but part of me couldn’t help but feel touched that he cared enough to do it at all.

  I knew Eugene’s men had been seen around town, but they hadn’t made a move, so I figured Homer had told them about the marriage.

  “Shit,” I said out loud as I reached the truck. I forgot the invitations again, so I headed back towards the printer, hoping I could pick up the invitations before Cruz arrived at Wings & Things. He seriously worried about me, and I didn’t want to push his buttons too much.

  My errand at the printer took only a few minutes. I tucked the box under my arm and headed down the street again. I stopped at the light and opened the box to peek at the invitations.

  “Excuse me miss, where is Montlake Avenue?”

  I was too busy admiring the designs to look up at the deep voice. Normally, it would have alarmed me, but this small town living had a way of taking the cynic out of you. Quickly.

  “Never heard of it,” I said, sliding the box closed. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.”

  That voice sent a shiver of unease through me and turned to the suddenly ominous sounding voice.

  “I’m here for you anyway, Hennessy.”

  A man with thick, curly black hair lunged, and I jumped back, but his arms were longer than I expected, and he caught my wrist.

  “No!” I screamed, but nobody heard me.

  “Yes,” he growled back with a laugh, enjoying the way I struggled with him before he finally yanked me up against his chest. “You’ve pissed off the boss man.”

  “Too bad,” I said with more confidence than I felt. I tried to take a step back. “He can stay pissed off for all I care.”

  The man laughed and grabbed me by both arms.

  “You’re feisty, I like that. A little scrawny for my tastes but a man likes what he likes, I guess.”

  I kept struggling, even though the guy had at least six inches and eighty pounds on me.

  “Don’t make this hard on yourself,” he hissed.

  Then without waiting for a response or asking any of the ten million questions rolling through my mind, he tossed me into the black van at the curb, and I landed on my elbow, which sent a searing pain through all of me.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “Shit man, the old dude’s gonna be pissed you hurt her.”

  That voice sounded younger and unfamiliar, but I didn’t bother myself with that side of my dad’s life, never wanted any part of it. I only recognized the dark-haired dude because he came to collect me during one of my court-mandated visits with Homer.

  “Nah, she’s fine. See?” He yanked me up to a sitting position and slid a thick fabric bag over my head, blacking everything out. Then he held my elbow up, yanking it this way and that.

  “She’d be screaming a lot louder than that if it was serious. She’s tiny. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”

  “You’re twice her size, you could have just threatened her.” The kid had a point, but that type of kindness would probably get him killed in this line of work.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  My voice sounded muffled through the bag. It was a stupid fucking question. They were taking me to Eugene, I knew that. But I needed more information. At least that’s what my heart kept saying. My brain told me to find a way out of this because my heart was stupid, and no one was coming to save me.

  “I asked you a question. Where are you taking me?”

  “Somewhere nice and quiet where you and boss man can have some alone time.”

  I didn’t need my sense of vision to know he was wearing a suggestive expression. It dropped from every syllable he grunted.

  “I’ll need to stop and pee if we’re leaving Texas.”

  “Nice try, sugar tits. You can piss when we get where we’re going. Or I can just watch. I’m into it if you are.”

  Ugh, gross. “No thanks.” That must mean Eugene was in Texas, which meant he was angrier than I anticipated. Suddenly, I hoped that my heart was right because I wasn’t sure there was another way out of this for me.

  I don’t know how long they drove, at least an hour, maybe more. I lost count somewhere around thirty-one hundred. Eventually the van came to a stop, and I tried to relax my body and slow down my breathing.

  But a hand wrapped around my arm, startling the ever-loving fuck out of me. “What the?”

  “It’s just me, sugar tits. Calm down.”

  One big calloused hand slid up my thigh, and I kicked out blindly, landing a few glancing blows.

  “Settle down, bitch.” He shook me, hard, until I stopped fighting. “I won’t hurt you, so calm the fuck down. Okay?”

  I nodded, but the day I believed a man like that would be my last day breathing. I relaxed when he pulled me from the van. As soon as my feet hit the ground, though, I started running. Blindly. That fucker tied the bag around my neck and trying to get it off slowed me down a lot.

  “Dammit,” I said as I ran and struggled with the knot at my neck.

  I could hear footsteps getting closer, and I tried to run faster and untie the drawstring but, goddammit, it was tangled up.

  Suddenly, it felt like a brick wall had caught up to me and pushed me to the ground at fifty miles an hour. I landed with a thud that knocked the wind out of me.

  “I guess now we do it the hard way,” he said.

  He sat on my back and tied my arms behind me, tight enough that my hands started to tingle right away.

  “A lot of women would love to be in your position.”

  I grunted at that.

  “Yeah? Then it seems like the logical answer would be to go get one of them, but you guys aren’t too keen on logic are you?”

  “Smart mouth bitch.”

  He put a dirty bandana over my mouth and dummy that I was, sucked in a huge breath that knocked me right the fuck out.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Cruz

  “Fuck.”

  Hearing that word on Hardtail Ranch was no surprise, not even when it was a feminine voice saying it. Hearing Peaches say it after a round of finger gymnastics on her computer, was disheartening as fuck.

  “Fuckity fuck fuck.”

  “What?” I couldn’t take it anymore. “Just say it, Peaches.”

  As soon as I realized what happened, I called Gunnar to get Peaches on the job because that’s how we did things. We all knew she was a vital fucking part of the Reckless Bastards family, but we all went through Gunnar first out of respect to his status as MC Prez.

  “Please.”

  “Sit,” she said, and pointed to the flannel ottoman off to the side. She smiled at her sleeping little boy and the little girl asleep on the sofa beside her.

  “And try to keep your volume down.” Peaches turned the laptop toward me and tapped a button.

&nb
sp; The black screen turned slightly grainy as a color image appeared. Hennessy in her cut-off jeans and gauzy green shirt that made her eyes look the greenest color I had ever seen. She’d just come out of the print shop, a smile on her face as she made her way back to the car, completely oblivious to the man who’d watched her go inside and waited, barely hidden while she chatted with the owner. She was unaware of the man, distracted even when he approached her.

  They spoke, and my gut clenched the moment she realized she was in real danger. She took a step back, but it was too late for that. Her fate had been sealed the moment she forgot to scan her surroundings after leaving the print shop.

  “Aw, shit, Peaches,” I said, even though she couldn’t stop what was happening on the screen.

  They verbally went back and forth for a few minutes before Hennessy tried to walk away. The man yanked her back, obviously enjoying having his hands on her a little too much. Then he grabbed her by the arms, lifted her in the air and tossed her into the black van before sliding the door closed. The van took off fast and that’s where the clip ended. And began to replay.

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered into my fists I held under my chin.

  “I know.” The sympathy in Peaches’ voice nearly undid me, and I didn’t need to get emotional right now. Hennessy needed me to be clearheaded, strong. To save her from this old ass mobster.

  “We’ll find her.”

  “I know,” I huffed at her, unnecessarily, but her tone was pissing me off. “Sorry.” I looked down, I still had the box of fucking invitations in my hand.

  “It’s all right. Look I know you don’t want to talk about it, and you’ll probably deny it with your last breath, but I know Hennessy is important to you.”

  She held up her hands defensively when I glared at her. “I’m not saying how or why or when, just that she is. And that means she’s important to me.”

  “That’s not necessary, Peaches.”

  “It is,” she said firmly. Her expression dared me to argue with her. I was too distracted and too smart to do that.

  “You boys saved my ass more than once. So, if she matters to you, then she matters to me.”

  I searched for something to say that wasn’t over the top sappy or at least a little funny, but nothing came. Thankfully, Peaches saved me from that particular hell.

  “I tracked them through town. They drove around for a long time, probably trying to disorient her. But they took a final turn down Route 9.”

  Shit. “There are no traffic cams, public or private, over there right?”

  Peaches nodded. “Used to be a major transport road for the underworld until about a decade or so ago.”

  I didn’t bother to ask how she knew that, but I was grateful that she did.

  “We’re blind over there but the fact that they chose that road says that’s where they are.”

  “And that they put some planning into this,” Gunnar said from the doorway, a dark frown on his face. “You watch the footage?”

  “I did,” I said. And there wasn’t a snowballs chance in hell that I’d forget the look of fear on her face for a million goddamn years. Worse, it was all my fault. I went against my instincts and all because she batted those fuckin’ lashes at me, and I caved. “Fuck!”

  Peaches shushed me, and I went outside, needing fresh air as much as wide open space to yell and scream until my head was clear enough to save her.

  “We’re in this together.”

  I let out a snort at Gunnar’s words. “Are we?”

  “Damn right, we are. She’s your woman, and we’ll go to hell and back to make sure she’s safe and back at the ranch.”

  Nice words, but I didn’t really believe them, but I also wasn’t stupid enough to turn away help.

  “Look, I’m new at being Prez while being a dad. I know, Maisie is mine, and I hate to admit it, but it is different. I feel different and yeah, maybe I was hesitant about more trouble.”

  “Hesitant?”

  “Okay, I was a goddamn pussy about it, all right?”

  He laughed and I shrugged.

  “That sounds about right.”

  A smile fought to free itself, but I held strong with just a smirk.

  “Either way, we’re gonna make this McArthur motherfucker sorry he crossed the Reckless Bastards. For real.”

  I gave one short nod, taking Gunnar at his word. He could be an asshole sometimes, but he was as true blue as they came.

  “Okay. What’s the plan?”

  Gunnar blinked his surprise. “You don’t have one?”

  “At the moment my plan is to storm Route 9 until we find those fuckers and make them pay, no matter how messy it gets.”

  Gunnar grinned. “As fun as that sounds, we still have the suicide in the club to think about. Come on, Slayer and Saint are scouting Route 9 as we speak.”

  That was music to my ears, and I let Gunnar guide me away from the main house and to The Barn Door, where the rest of the MC was ready to have my back, with guns, whiskey, and ganja. As soon as we made a plan and got Hennessy back, two of those would be heading home with me.

  With us.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Hennessy

  Kidnapped. I can’t believe I was fucking kidnapped. And by Eugene McArthur’s idiotic henchmen no less. As much as I wanted to be pissed off that this happened, it was fucking inevitable. Not in a woe is me, my life always goes shitty and takes a left instead of a right , kind of way.

  More in the inevitability of things kind of way. Opey wasn’t just a small town, it was one of those idyllic small towns where it was very easy to fall under the easygoing, slow-paced, life is good spell the town weaved around you.

  And I had fallen. Hard and fast. Letting my guard down like I was a normal girl with normal parents who would never, ever, in a million years do things like use their daughter in a poker game. Or worse, sell her off to a mobster who had nothing but nefarious plans. This was the price of letting my guard down, of pretending to be normal just for a little while, and I wasn’t sure yet, whether or not it had been worth it. If I made it out of this, I’d decide.

  It was something to think about later, because right now I pretended I was still knocked out from whatever that shit was on that dirty bandana. It was like a really bad gangster movie. They had my wrists tied together and attached to something just enough above my head to be uncomfortable, but instead of chains hanging from a ceiling, I was attached to a wall. It was cold, and no light crept in under my hood, which meant I was truly fucking…blind.

  Footsteps sounded across the room. I stiffened, holding my breath until I could figure something out. The footsteps grew louder and louder until the person stopped in front of me. And unceremoniously tore the hood off me, nearly taking my head with him.

  “Good. You’re awake.” He grunted the words like he didn’t mean them.

  I recognized the voice right away as the dark-haired man, but it was so bright with enough bare bulbs that it completed the stereotype and bad gangster movie set. It took a moment for my eyes to focus on details, but I knew right away there was someone else with him. I blinked a few more times until a thick crop of dark hair came into view beside a thinner, grayer head of hair.

  “Eugene.” The word escaped in a gasp before I could stop it.

  The old man grinned, and it was the pure definition of villainy.

  “Is that happiness I hear, my precious Hennessy?”

  “Fuck no,” I practically spit the words at him, making him laugh until he coughed.

  “Either way, you’re mine so it doesn’t really matter.”

  He shook his head and tried to pace, a move that made him look less frightening and less intimidating by the second. He was an old man. Frail and trying hard to hang on to power he only held because of old rules meant to keep old men in power. It was only my compromised position that kept me in full fear mode. He didn’t like to be challenged and my running probably made him look like a big fucking idiot.

&n
bsp; “Did you really think you could get away from me so easily?”

  I had and that was the saddest, maybe the stupidest part of all.

  “Hoped is more like it.”

  “Mouthy cunt!”

  His wrinkled old hand, complete with blue veins and liver spots, landed down on my cheek, stinging a little. He was too old and too weak to do any real damage, but I gave a good whimper because his sidekick looked like he might enjoy beating up a woman if given the chance.

  “You stupid fucking whore. This could have gone a lot different. I just want you to remember that.”

  Eugene got right up in my face so that his craggy features and cloudy gray eyes were all I could see. His skin was thin and pale, a sign of his age and frailty. I refused to think about why he had me at such a disadvantage.

  Before I could ask what he meant, Eugene took a step back and the rest of the lights in the room flickered to life and revealed a lot more of the room. It looked like a barn or stable, and based on the smell of mildew and decay, it hadn’t been active in a long time.

  By the far door stood two men, one with a shock of red hair and the other had a black buzz cut. Both of them held machine gun-looking weapons in their hands. Two guys stood in a far corner, armed with two handguns each, holstered at their sides. They stepped aside, and I realized this was all part of the show.

  Homer.

  My father who was never anything but a good time guy ready with some spare change and my favorite candy bar because it was the only detail he ever remembered about me. And there he was, tied to a metal folding chair. Beaten, bloody, and I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. And apparently, it was all for my benefit.

  As if that would move me.

  “Wake him up,” Eugene barked at the two henchmen guarding my father. They jumped to obey him. One kicked the legs of the chair and the other shook him by the shoulders. Geniuses, really.

  “Goddammit!” Eugene marched, slowly, to Homer. He slumped over, still completely out of it. Eugene gave his cheek two firm smacks.

  “Ah, there you are Homer. Just in time for the next part!”

  Homer’s eyelids fluttered open, and he looked around in confusion as his brain worked to put all the pieces together. He focused on Eugene first, and the fear kicked in. Then his gaze landed on me and all the blood drained from his face. “Hennessy?”