“Stop!” I yelled, reaching the car just as she yanked the door closed. “Stop! Someone help me!” I beat on the windows, trying to run alongside the car as the woman peeled out so fast her tires squealed, leaving black rubber strips on the concrete.
“Oh my God,” I cried frantically, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. “Someone just took my son!”
Farah ran up to where I’d just collapsed onto the ground. “Yes, I need to report a kidnapping at—” She rattled off the address in a panicked voice that I could barely hear past the blood rushing in my ears as I stared off in the direction the car had just disappeared.
“Someone took my son,” I repeated on a sob as everything else around me went fuzzy.
Jensen
The shopping center where Shane had been with Farah and Brantley was just outside of town, so I got there fast, but by the time I whipped into the parking lot and slammed on my brakes, I saw the place was already crawling with sheriff’s deputies.
I jumped out, leaving my truck running and the door open as I raced over to where Shane was huddled, wrapped in Farah’s arms as she talked and waved frantically at one of the deputies on the scene.
“Jensen,” she breathed the moment she spotted me, her shoulders slumping as her face crumpled. “She came out of nowhere,” she insisted, nearly falling into my chest as she gripped my shirt and started to hyperventilate. “He was right there. Right in front of me. Then this car—I couldn’t get to him—she took him.” She began to cry harder. “She took our boy. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into my chest.
“Shh.” I clutched her to me, stroking my hand down her hair as my heart firmly lodged itself in my throat. “It’s not your fault. This isn’t your fault. But I need you to calm down for me, sunshine. We have to be strong, okay?”
I watched, falling more in love with her as she worked to pull herself together, shoring up her strength and getting a grasp on her tears. When I felt like she was no longer at risk of breaking, I shifted her in my arms and looked to the officer she’d been talking to, noticing for the first time that he was someone I knew. Holton Clarke.
“From what Shane and Farah were able to tell us, we’ve got a description of the woman who took your son. Dark hair, baggy jeans, nondescript tee. She was wearing sunglasses and a ballcap, so they weren’t able to get a very good look.
It wasn’t much to go on, but living in a small town, there weren’t many dark-haired women vicious enough or who hated us enough to kidnap our son in broad daylight. There was only one person I could think of at that moment.
“Rina Martin,” I said on a growl. Taking Shane’s chin, I tipped her head back and asked, “Baby, do you think it could’ve been her?”
“I-I don’t know. I mean, it happened so fast I didn’t get a good look. But . . . maybe?”
“I’ll radio that in,” Holt said. “Get some deputies to track her down.” He looked back at Shane, his features softening. “We’re gonna find him, Shane. I promise.”
I sure as fuck hoped so, because if I had to, I’d burn this goddamn town to the dirt and salt the fucking earth if that was what it took to get my boy back.
“I told you I didn’t have shit to do with takin’ no goddamn kid! Now let me the fuck outta here.”
The call came in after I got Farah and Shane back to Elite Security offices where Scooter, Stone, and Caroline were already waiting, along with Poppy and Wynn. Deputies had located Rina at home, passed out from a bender the night before. When I knew Shane’s girls had her back and would keep her from falling to pieces, I’d gathered the guys, and we took off for the station.
“This is a waste of fuckin’ time, man,” Stone grunted from beside me as we watched one of the deputies question Rina through two-way glass. “Bitch didn’t do it.”
Gage muttered, “We need another lead.”
“Then let’s go find one,” Laeth announced. Together, we moved out of the observation room and were heading toward the exit when Holt called my name.
“Not sitting this one out,” I growled as he came to a stop in front of me.
“Would never ask you to. I know the kind of work you guys do. I know the skills you have. I’m not gonna ask you to take a back seat. All I’m gonna ask is that you be smart. That boy of yours is comin’ home tonight. Make sure you don’t do anything that’ll prevent you from bein’ there when that happens.”
“I don’t intend to.”
With that said, my group turned and marched out of the station.
“You got the video from the security cameras on the scene?”
I crouched over the back of Laeth’s chair, staring at the computer monitors spread out in front of me like a gamer’s wet dream.
“Just came in a few minutes ago. Quality’s shit, that’s why the cops haven’t been able to pull anything from it yet. But you’ve got something they don’t.”
“What’s that.”
“Me and shit-expensive equipment that’ll allow me to clean the video up a lot fuckin’ faster than they can.”
“Get on that. Holler when you get somethin’.”
He nodded, never turning his face from the monitor as the video started to load.
Exiting his office, I headed into mine where Shane was camped out with her girls. She looked up from her place, curled into the corner of the couch, her eyes still swimming with tears but brimming with hope. “Did you find anything?”
I moved to her, crouching down so we were eye level, and took her hands in mine. “We just got the video in from the security cameras in the area. Laeth is working right now to clean it up.” I leaned in close and brought her hands to my lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “I’m gonna find him, baby. I swear that to you. I’ll find him, and I’ll bring him home.”
“I know you will.” It came out in a whisper, but the truth of those four words rang out through the room like a church bell. She didn’t have a single doubt that I’d do exactly what I promised. “I just hate that it’s taking so long. He must be so scared. I can’t—”
“Don’t,” I said when her voice broke and she started crying again. “Our boy’s tough. He’s gonna be fine.” Christ, please let that be true.
“You don’t know that.”
I somehow managed to smile even though I felt like everything inside of me was breaking the longer he was gone. “Of course I do. You raised him. He’s the smartest, strongest, bravest kid there is. He’s gonna be fine because he’s got you as a mom, and that’s how you taught him to be.”
Her tears started to fall slower. I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips, pulling back just as Laeth shouted across the offices. “I got somethin’!”
I was on my feet and running back down the hall. “What do you have?”
“Well, I got the image cleared up and was able to pull a partial on the license plate. Only problem is, it’s a rental car. It’ll take me a little time to track down who rented it.”
I looked from the car to the woman on the screen. “Get Gage to start on that, but in the meantime, zoom in on her. We need to try and see if there’s anything discerning; tattoos, birthmarks, scars, anything.”
He zoomed in on a still image of the woman. In the cap and the huge sunglasses, it was impossible to make out any of her features. There was nothing I could see that could help in identifying her, and I was just about to throw the goddamn computer when I heard a soft voice speak from behind me.
“The necklace.”
I spun around and saw Shane standing inside the doorway. Her face had leached of all color, and her wide eyes didn’t move from the huge monitor. “The necklace. I recognize it. I-I’ve seen it before.”
“Where, Shane? Where’d you see it?”
She finally turned her eyes to me, and what I saw inside them chilled me to the bone. “Your mother was wearing it the day she cornered me in the parking lot of the grocery store.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jensen
“Fuck that shit,” Stone growl
ed when he spotted the lockpick kit I’d just pulled from my back pocket. Don’t got time for that.” Lifting his booted foot, he slammed it into the middle of the solid wood door. He had to be the only man on the planet I knew who was big enough to kick in a door like that one. Goddamn man was a beast. The door flew open so hard it smashed into the wall, sending the expensive art crashing to the ground.
Whitman came rushing into the entryway with a spooked expression on his fucking face. “What the hell? Get out of my house! You have no right—”
His sentence was cut off when I slammed my fist into his face, sending him flying backward into one of the expensive pieces of ugly-ass antique furniture the house was full of.
Blood poured from his nose as he looked up at me in shock. “That’s it! I’m calling the police!”
Grabbing him by the collar, I jerked him off the ground and slammed him into the wall, wrapping a hand around his throat as I bellowed, “Where the fuck is she?”
He sputtered as his face started to turn purple.
“Calm, brother,” Laeth said from behind me.
I felt Scooter close in, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Fucker can’t talk if you’re chokin’ the life out of him.”
I loosened my grip enough for him to talk, but not enough that he could breathe comfortably. “I asked you a goddamn question,” I snarled. “You make me repeat it and I’m gonna start breaking your fingers one at a time.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he rasped.
“Your wife!” I drew my free arm back and punched a hole right through the wall two inches from his head. “The bitch who kidnapped my son today!”
His eyes bugged out, fear floating to the surface. “I-I-I had nothing to do with that!”
“Bullshit! You might be too smart to get your hands dirty with something like this, but that woman doesn’t fuckin’ sneeze without your say-so. You better start talking or so help me God, after I beat you an inch from death, every goddamn thing I have on you is going right to the cops.”
That did it. The threat to Whitman Rose’s reputation was all it took to make the man cave like the weak piece of shit he really was. “I didn’t think she’d really do it!” he gurgled. “I thought it was all talk!”
“You have three seconds.”
“Son—”
“I’m not your son, motherfucker,” I hissed. “One.”
“You don’t understand!”
“Two.”
“Nashville!” he shouted. “She’s at the ranch in Nashville! We agreed that’s where she’d go if things went wrong. She’ll have taken the boy there.”
Using my hold on his neck, I pulled him from the wall and slammed him back in, cracking his skull against the drywall. He crumpled to the ground when I released him, sucking in air frantically.
“You got all that?” I asked, looking back to Gage.
He held up the phone he’d been using to record the whole thing. “Every word. On top of everything else we already have on this piece of shit, we can add accessory to kidnapping to the list.”
“Make sure that gets to the sheriff’s department along with everything else.” I turned to Laeth and continued barking orders. “Call the department here and the police in Nashville. Give ’em the address and tell them we’re already en route. If they don’t get there first, I can’t promise that bitch’ll be alive by the time they do.”
Whitman’s arm shot out, his fingers grabbing the leg of my jeans. “Wait! You said if I told you where she was you wouldn’t leak that stuff!”
“What’s the point of having power if you don’t use it?” I asked with a sneer. I kicked my leg, shaking loose from his grip. Bending my knees so I could crouch down and get in his face, I hissed “You better fuckin’ pray she didn’t harm a hair on my son’s head, or I’ll make sure your boyfriend in prison is the biggest, meanest motherfucker in there.”
Rising to my full height, I spun on my boot and stormed out of that godforsaken house. Once and for all.
I could hear my mother screaming and crying over the sounds of chaos as I followed after the team of cops into the house on Rose Ranch.
“I wasn’t going to hurt him!” she cried. “I’d never hurt him! He’s my flesh and blood!”
I did spare her a passing glance as I ran from one room to another searching for my boy. The police detained Cordelia and were working to clear the rest of the first level as I ran up the stairs two at a time.
“Brantley!” I shouted, desperation clawing at my throat as a cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. “Brantley! Buddy, where are you?” I threw the door to one room open, then another, and another. “Brant, bud, I’m here. Daddy’s here!”
A door at the end of the hall flew open, and my son came racing down the hall right at me. “Daddy!”
I dropped to my knees just before he hit me, wrapping my arms around him and holding on for dear life. “I’m here, bud. I’m here. I got you.” As much as it pained me, and the pain was damn near unbearable, I released him and took him by his little arms to push him back so I could examine him. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did she do anything to you?”
“N-no,” he stuttered, breathing hard and a little pale, but for the most part, he looked okay. “Sh-she just scared me a little. But then she brought me here and let me have ice cream and watch TV. But I still don’t wanna be here, Daddy. I don’t like her. She threw me in a car and I bumped my shoulder. I don’t wanna stay with her. I wanna stay with you and Momma.”
“You’ll never have to see her again, buddy,” I promised, pulling him back into me and taking my first full breath since this whole thing started. “Never again. Your momma’s gonna be so happy to see you, bud. How about we go home?”
“Okay.” I stood up, lifting him with me and keeping him in my arms, unwilling to let him get more than a few inches away. He pulled his head back and looked down into my eyes with a seriousness beyond his years. “But can we get cheeseburgers on the way home? I’m real hungry.”
Just like that, I knew he’d be okay. Because Shane had raised him to be strong.
Shane
The relief I felt when Jensen walked through our front door with Brantley in his arms was something I’d never experienced before. Five hours of searching and worrying and praying had left me feeling like my soul had been ripped from my body. But seeing my baby in the arms of his dad, safe and sound and back where he belonged, pieced my soul back together.
Brantley had been checked out by the EMS on the scene at the ranch and given a clean bill of health before Jensen brought him home, and for the most part, my boy seemed no worse for the wear. But I was struggling. That night I’d made sure he slept in the bed with Jensen and me, tucked snuggly between us so no one could get to him.
After the day he’d had, my kid scarfed down a cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate milkshake, and crashed out on the couch in the middle of the third Avengers movie. Now he was in our bed, sleeping peacefully, but I couldn’t find it for myself.
“Sunshine,” Jensen said in a low voice. “He’s okay. Nothing’s gonna happen to him. He’s safe”
“I know,” I whispered back. “I just . . . I can’t stop looking at him.”
He reached across our boy and pressed his fingers beneath my chin so I’d look at him. “They’re never gonna hurt him again, baby. They’re both going away for a long time. And I swear to you, I’ll never let anything hurt him or you ever again.”
As it turned out, when I refused to help Cordelia, she’d taken to stalking my every move, trying to build up the courage to snatch my son in the hopes that she and Whitman could make it look like it had been someone else. Then they’d swoop in with a plan that would save the day, and Jensen would be so grateful, he’d drop the lawsuit. It was pure insanity, and now they were both fucked.
“I know,” I replied with a gentle smile. “Honey, I never doubted you for a second. I knew you’d bring him back to me. Just like I know you’ll protect us both with your
life. I’m not worried about any of that.”
“Then what is it? What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“It was just a long time,” I answered, heaving a heavy sigh. “Those were the longest five hours of my life. I’m going to be okay. It’ll just take a little while. That’s all.”
“What can I do to help? What do you need from me?”
God, this man.
“This. I need exactly this. You, here with me and our son, loving us and protecting us for the rest of our lives.”
He leaned in, slipping his hand around the back of my neck and pulling me closer to speak against my lips. “You already have that, sunshine.”
“Then, like I said, I’m going to be just fine, because I have absolutely everything I need right here.”
Epilogue
Shane
Three months later
“For crying out loud. This is getting really old.”
At Farah’s declaration, I glanced in the direction she was looking, scanning the bar from where our group was sitting up by the pool tables.
It was one of my nights off, but Caroline and Scooter were watching Brantley for us so Jensen and I could have a night out with our friends. Most people would have balked at the thought of spending their night off at the place where they worked, but I wasn’t most people, and Bad Alibi was an awesome bar. To me, there was nothing better than sitting on my man’s lap, enjoying a few beers and a lot of laughs with the people I loved.
Letting out a sigh, I rolled my eyes and turned back to our group. Cannon was here with Farah—who was also enjoying a night off. Jase and Poppy were also here, along with Wynn, Stone, Holt, Clay, Gage, and Laeth—who’d wandered away several minutes ago when a brunette at the bar started giving him fuck-me eyes.
“I keep telling Darla and Buck to ban her for life, but they haven’t done it yet.” Rina let out a loud whoop and started gyrating faster from her place on top of the table a group of Iron Riders had camped out at a couple hours earlier. She hadn’t arrived with them, and from the looks on a lot of their faces—including the hottie from a few months back—they weren’t too happy that she’d crashed their party. She held her arms up in the air as she slithered down, dropping it low like she was dancing for singles in a strip club. The problem was, this wasn’t a strip club, and her skirt was obscenely short so everyone in the vicinity got a nice little crotch shot for their troubles. Let’s just hope she was wearing underwear. “Maybe after this they’ll actually listen to me.”
Bittersweet (Redemption Book 3) Page 24
