Chasing Thunder

by Ginger Voight

  “Ready for the fireworks?” he asked as he took her arm and guided her away from the crowd.

  “That’s what I came to tell you,” she started. “I think I’ll stay here with my friends. It’s just too soon and everything is too complicated.”

  “I understand,” he said, though his grip on her arm did not lessen. In fact, he was walking her briskly from the parking lot.

  She felt panic start to rise, glancing over her shoulder to see if she could make eye contact with Kid or Mad Dog. “What are you doing?” she asked X. “I told you I didn’t want to go.”

  “I heard you,” he said, though he propelled her toward the street, his grip a steel vice around her arm.

  “Then where are you taking me?” she demanded as she struggled against him.

  He said nothing and glanced at his watch. It was 8:59. He began to jog, dragging her behind him.

  The next time she glanced back at Wyndryder, it was just in time to watch the whole building explode.

  25. JOIN TOGETHER

  They saw the flames and smoke way before they got to the shop. M.J. vaulted off of Snake’s bike the minute it slowed to a stop. There was chaos everywhere. The explosion had occurred within the shop itself, sending shards of metal and glass into the crowd in the parking lot like a big dirty bomb. The consequences were devastating. Paramedics were tending to the gravely injured first, which included Jimmy and Lori, who had been closest to the windows when it had happened.

  Closer still had been Detective Landers, who had been decapitated by flying debris. Blood spilled from his neck, trickling all the way down the lot. And it was clear from the other covered bodies that he hadn’t been the only casualty.

  Snake was beside himself as he darted through the crowd. “Logan!” he hollered again and again, but his brother was nowhere to be seen. M.J. raced in between bodies, searching for Baby. She glanced under each blanket until she finally got to Landers, a sight that ultimately brought her to her knees. He had always been a decent sort, for a cop. She knew he left behind a wife and kids, and all for what?

  When she spotted Kelly, she made a beeline straight for him, to break the news gently. They had been partners, after all. “You don’t want to go over there,” she told him, holding him back with both arms. But no matter how much she tried, he wouldn’t stop until he saw Landers’s dead body with his own eyes. He pushed past her and reached the bloody remains of one of his best friends.

  Kelly looked as angry and as devastated as she felt. He’d have punched a hole through a brick wall, had any been left standing. “What the fuck?” he bellowed.

  She did the only thing she knew to do. She took him into her arms and just let him rage. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into his ear, holding him tight until finally he embraced her, clutching to her like a raft in a hurricane.

  Snake stopped short when he saw them. M.J. motioned him over while Kelly turned away to compose himself.

  “The kids are gone,” he announced quietly. It was a mixed blessing. It meant they weren’t hurt or dead. Yet.

  Her heart sank. She turned back to Kelly, who worked hard to put aside his emotions to do his job. “Detective Kelly Harris,” she said, “Cooper Scoggins.”

  “Bob,” Snake said.

  “Eugene,” Kelly replied as he struggled to catch his breath. He turned to M.J. “You were right. That kid Xavier had ties to Dominic Isbecky. He got him out of trouble as a kid, and he’s worked for him ever since.”

  She nodded. She suspected as much. “Dominic called me twenty minutes ago to gleefully announce his plans.”

  Kelly scoffed. “Like a true villain.” He could tell that there was more. “What?”

  “He has her,” she said softly.

  “Fuck!” Kelly exclaimed again as he turned away.

  Chief Bennett arrived shortly thereafter, with Agent Llewellyn in tow. He found Kelly, Snake, and M.J. huddled together near Snake’s bike, strategizing what to do next.

  “You’re not doing anything,” Richard said. “You leave it up to the law now.”

  She glared hatefully at her father. “Isn’t that what got us all here in the first place, Dick?”

  “Mojo,” he started, but it was the worst thing he could have said.

  “Don’t you ever call me that,” she hissed. “I’m going to go get her.”

  “It’s a trap, babe,” Snake told her.

  “Of course it is,” she snapped. “This was never about Baby. It was about me. And if it’s me he wants, it’s me he’ll get.”

  She stalked off, shaking Snake’s arm free. She didn’t stop until she was roaring away on Snake’s bike. Kelly turned to Richard. “You’re just going to let her go?”

  “You think you can stop her?” he countered.

  “Look, everyone calm down,” Llewellyn interjected. “The only thing that matters is finding that girl before he can hurt her. I’ll go to Slick. He doesn’t know me. I can get by with being a customer. Maybe get to the upper rooms. You guys work on the warrants for his house and his businesses. This is just the fuckup we needed to change the tide. If M.J.’s right, if this has been some elaborate game of chicken, then he’s acting on pure emotion now. He’s drunk on having the upper hand. It’s the best time to strike.”

  Snake couldn’t believe his ears. “You assholes make it seem like it’s some chess match. There are three missing kids whose lives hang in the balance, not to mention M.J.” He glared at Richard. “This is your daughter, man.”

  Richard’s lips thinned into a thin line. “My daughter can take care of herself.”

  Snake squared off on the older man, who he had always tried to give the benefit of the doubt until now. “That’s because she’s always had to,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain. Richard said nothing and Snake snickered humorlessly. “I guess M.J. was right about more than one thing today.”

  He stalked away. Kelly had to run to catch up. “You’re going to need a ride,” he pointed out. “Where are you heading?”

  “To find my brother,” Snake snapped. “It’s your duty to deal with that asshole, not mine.”

  “Fuck them,” Kelly dismissed and Snake turned to face him. “Llewellyn is right. We have to act now, while emotions are running high. To destroy him. And to save her.”

  Snake regarded him as suspiciously as he knew M.J. would have. “Are you saying that as a cop, Bob?”

  Kelly looked around at the carnage in the parking lot. He stared at the bloody sheet covering his best friend and partner, who would have been home with his family had Kelly not asked him to stay. This is where the law and the rules and red tape had led them. In that one moment he understood M.J. better than he ever had. “No,” he finally answered. “I say that as a Wyndryder. If you’ll have me,” he added, extending his hand.

  Snake looked down at his hand and then back into his eyes. He didn’t know this guy from Adam, and would normally trust him as far as he could throw him. But somehow he had earned M.J.’s trust, and that was a big deal. Wordlessly they shook hands, then headed toward Kelly’s car together.

  M.J. slammed through the front door of her Hollywood apartment. She was so livid she was shaking. It was enough to process that her grandfather’s shop was gone. It was quite another thing to know that three of the younger members of their community might have been taken or harmed in the process.

  She had one job to do: keep kids safe. It had been her job since her grandpa had slipped that ring on her finger. All kids became her kids, entrusted to her care, dependent on her to keep them all safe.

  And she had failed.

  Tears flew from her face, but she didn’t have time to cry. She stalked to her bedroom closet and pull out a virtual combat arsenal. Unlike Snake, who had always defaulted to guns, M.J. preferred the elegance of knives and swords. It was not her job to intimidate. It was her job to get shit done the quickest, and often the quietest, way possible. Stealth was her objective, especially now that she had been thrust into battle. She kept a crossbow
for long-range targets, as well as a dozen weapons designed to be worn close to the body that she could wield at a moment’s notice, like her switchblade, her throwing knives, and her collapsible batons. She was prepared to take them all, but it was all just accoutrement, really. She was mad enough to take Dominic Isbecky down with her bare hands. She suspected nothing else would satisfy her thirst for revenge.

  For more than a decade her grandfather’s murder had haunted her. She berated herself endlessly for not being able to save him. Over the years, she had pictured every possible scenario, the things she could have done besides cower in a closet and watch helplessly as someone killed the most important person in her life.

  She had felt like a failure then, and felt like a failure now. Here this asshole had been under her nose for weeks, but it had all been a fucking chess game to move her into position. And she knew she was playing right into his hands by confronting him, but it didn’t matter. There was one thing Isbecky hadn’t counted on: her rage had been boiling just under the surface for more than ten years. Revenge was a dish best served now.

  He could try to kill her, but she’d damn sure take him with her when she went.

  She was half-naked, putting her toys into various hiding places under her clothes, when her bedroom door burst open. She twirled around and her baton extended in an instant, ready to take the head off of anyone in her path.

  That was until she saw the two intruders in question were Kid and his best pal Maddox Guerra. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered as she reached for her shirt. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Baby’s missing,” Kid told her, unmoved by her anger. He was carrying plenty of his own. He was ready to pull the beating heart out of that asshole Xavier, and squeeze it in bloody fingers while the dying jackoff looked on.

  “I know. I’m on it.”

  “Then you’re going to need this,” he said, holding up folded pieces of sketch paper. Her brow creased as she opened it and cycled through the drawings. She knew instantly they were Baby’s. There was a drawing of her parents, likely her own home in North Carolina. But there was also a drawing of a scary bedroom that looked more like some demonic lair.

  A decidedly familiar demonic lair.

  “Oh my God,” she breathed as she scanned through the pages, which included even more details on the house where Baby had clearly been trapped until she managed to get away. There was even a drawing of a battered angel with broken wings scaling down a steep, treacherous cliff.

  Kid stood a little straighter, jutting his chin out as he squared his shoulders. “We’re coming with you.”

  “Hell, no,” she decided instantly. If these drawings were of Dominic’s secret compound, and she was 100 percent sure they were, it was no place for a couple of kids.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “Snake would never agree—” she started, but Kid wasn’t having it.

  “I don’t give a shit what Snake says or does! And neither do you!” She faced him and they stared each other down. “You don’t get to make my choices for me, M.J. No one does. I’m not a kid anymore. Don’t you fucking dare treat me like one. Not you, too.”

  She sighed. She had had that exact argument with Snake a gazillion years ago, in those dark days following her grandfather’s death. “And just what are you going to do, Logan?” she asked. He was practically a man . . . but he was still family she had to protect, like a little brother of her own. “Where are you going to go?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But don’t ask me to go home and wait patiently while you both are fighting on the front lines. I owe it to her to do something . . . anything.”

  There were unshed tears in his eyes. M.J.’s lips thinned into a hard line. “You’re a liability as long as you’re thinking with your heart and not your head.” She glanced at Maddox behind him. “You too.”

  Mad Dog wasn’t having it. “Like you could just sit and do nothing if it was your grandfather.”

  That hit her at her core. Suddenly she knew she couldn’t saddle them with the heavy regret she’d felt for more than a decade. Despite being young, they were both highly skilled and could contribute to the cause. “Fine. But what I tell you to do, you have to follow to the letter this time. Got it?” She gave Kid a pointed stare.

  Kid nodded. “What do you want us to do?”

  She led them into the living room and opened her computer. “There’s a club called Slick. I think he’s taken her there, expecting me to follow.”

  “A trap,” Kid said, and she nodded.

  “His favorite thing,” she muttered as she opened up a blueprint of the second floor that she had created. “There are a bunch of rooms on the top floor. He uses it for a brothel, and each one has a theme.” She pointed to a room. “This one was the Green Room. For ‘green’ girls, new to the streets. That’s where I found the last victim, the other girl from the photo.”

  “You think he’s taking her there?”

  “Depends how cocky he is. He knows the law needs a search warrant to get access to the second floor, and he has accomplices all throughout the legal system, so he has advanced warning.”

  “Which is why he always comes up clean.”

  M.J. nodded. “My guess is he’s taken her there, knowing that I would use that window. He probably plans to remove the both of us to a second, more secret location the minute I show up.” She held up the drawings.

  “So you’re going to the club?”

  “No, you are,” she said. “There’s a video security system overseeing the premises at all times, and a pretty advanced security system he can control from his office. You’re going to have to hack into that system to override it. But you have to work quickly. If they hear that the LAPD is going to raid the joint, and they will, they’ll shut everything down in a matter of minutes. I want you in and out of there as fast as you can. Find her, get the hell out. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Where are you going to be?” he asked.

  She pocketed Baby’s sketches. “I’m going to hit him where he lives.”

  Baby slowly regained consciousness. Her wrists hurt from the strong adhesive tape binding them together, and a blindfold was secured around her eyes. She could hear someone pouring liquid nearby.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” she heard a man say. The familiar voice sent shivers down her entire body. Before she could place it, the blindfold was snatched from her face, and she was staring into the coal-black eyes of Dominic Isbecky. He chuckled as her eyes opened wide.

  “Yes, my dear. I found you. You had to know it was only a matter of time.”

  “What do you want?” she demanded in a trembling voice.

  “You,” he said as he traced her face with his fingers. They felt like snakes crawling on her skin. “Beautiful, unblemished you,” he added, bending close. “My ingénue. My sweet girl next door.” He played with her hair. “You may look like a whore of the underworld, but your girlish charm is still intact. Ah, look at those big doe eyes and those trembling hands,” he said, savoring his moment. “Sweetly fearful. Frighteningly obedient. I can smell it on you.” His voice was soft, hypnotic. His eyes narrowed as they stared into hers. “You’ve been dominated before, haven’t you, baby girl?” He trailed his fingers along her arm. “It may not have been your choice, but you enjoyed it every time, didn’t you? Admit it to me, Baby,” he whispered in a hiss. “You were born to submit.”

  She shuddered, and he chuckled more in response. He closely inspected the new tattoo on her wrist. “Still. It was quite stupid of you to do this.” He traced the outline of the Wyndryder insignia. “You really think they’re going to keep you safe?”

  Her blue eyes hardened as she thought about M.J. and Snake and Kid. Her chin tipped with what defiance she had left. “Yes.”

  With a snarl, he pulled her arms over her head. “Foolish girl.” He lifted her effortlessly in the air. “All you’ve done is undercut your own value. I was going to give you to some of the wealthiest a
nd most powerful clients that I have. Handpicked, vetted, and exclusive. Your pussy would have been a crown jewel befitting royalty. Now you’re trash like any other gutter whore. Anyone can have a whore. And now everyone will.” He slammed her up against the wall, and his mouth landed on hers in a punishing kiss. She felt like she was going to vomit right into his mouth, but he pulled away first. “Unfortunately for you, I will not be one of your clients. Shame, really. You would have been a hell of a lot of fun to initiate.”

  He let her slide down the wall until she crumpled in a ball at his feet. “I wouldn’t let you fuck me if you were the last man on earth,” she hissed.

  He bent down to face her. “For your sake, be glad I never will. I punish trash like you.”

  He stood just as Xavier entered the office. “You called?”

  “Take her to the Goth Room,” Isbecky ordered. “For now,” he added before he turned back to Baby. “That room has been empty for a while. I have a backlog of customers ready to fuck a little punk like you. Enjoy yourself, Miss Roberts,” he said with a slick smile.

  She was stunned speechless when he called her by her real name. Before she could ask how he knew, Xavier was dragging her from the room by her homemade restraints. He wore a scowl as he led her a few doors down the hallway, to a locked door. She stared at him while he unlocked it. “Why are you doing this?”

  He shoved her through the open door. “It’s not personal,” he said without looking her in the eye.

  “I thought you liked me,” she said in a small, accusing voice.

  Finally his eyes met hers. “We all have our debts to settle, Baby.”

  With that, he closed the door and locked her in.

  Agent Benjamin Llewellyn got the photo at 10:15 that evening. His heart sank when he saw Baby’s smiling face in the message sent by Jimmy, who was finally conscious and cooperating with the police.

  “What’s the matter?” Chief Bennett asked.