by Sophia Gray
The cop car turned on its sirens, howling as it shot down the road. After a few seconds, they disappeared beyond the horizon. “No!” Antonia screamed out. She collapsed to her knees, stuttering out sobs as she listened to the fading sound of the police car’s sirens screaming out into the otherwise silent night.
Her baby was gone.
Chapter Eighteen
Cal
Cal was in the middle of preparing dinner, frying up some asparagus, when he heard the piercing sound of sirens cut through the air, incredibly close to his house. “What the fuck?” he asked out loud. His anxiety rose in his throat. He turned off the stove and headed for the front door. He was halfway out the door when the sound of the sirens faded away, muffled by the quickly expanding distance between the car and Cal’s house.
He scanned the horizon, searching for some clue about what had happened. Then his eyes landed on a dark spot that contrasting sharply with the otherwise perfect green of his front lawn. “Antonia!” a small voice called out. “Antonia, what’s wrong? I’m scared. Where’s Daniel?”
It was Bobby’s voice, Cal realized, swallowing hard to clear the lump in his throat. He forced himself into motion, slowly walking down the porch and crossing the lawn to get to the bundle of limbs that had apparently collapsed onto his lawn moments before. It’s Antonia, he realized as he got closer, her hair becoming more distinct against the contrasting colors around her. What’s going on?
The next moment, Bobby ran up to him and tugged at the bottom of his shirt to make sure that he got his attention. “Cal! Cal, what’s going on?” his son asked, looking up at him with a panicked expression on his face.
“I was hoping you’d tell me,” Cal said with a sigh. He leaned down to look Bobby in his eyes. “What did you see, buddy? What happened?”
Bobby’s eyes darted from Cal to Antonia and back again, his young face contorted with worry as he stared up at his father. “There was a policeman. I think he was a policeman, anyway. He had one of those blue shining cars. But he took Daniel! And now Antonia won’t answer me when I say stuff to her.”
“Okay,” Cal said, blowing out his breath in frustration. “Okay, I’ll take care of it.” He forced himself to pat the top of Bobby’s head, as soothingly as he could manage, before approaching Antonia. He dropped to his knees so he could whisper in her ear. “Hey, Antonia. I’m here. I’m here with you.”
“Go away,” Antonia moaned out, keeping her eyes hidden behind her long hair.
“Why?” Cal said. “What’s going on, Antonia? Talk to me.”
Antonia sniffled loudly and shook her head. “He took Daniel. It’s over.”
“Who did? Your ex?” Cal asked.
Antonia nodded but didn’t say anything out loud.
Cal was unsure what to do for a few moments. He watched as Antonia’s shoulders shook, her body trembling as silent sobs overtook her. He reached out to place a hand on her back, but Antonia’s spine stiffened underneath his touch, so he pulled away the next second, keeping a safe distance between their bodies.
“Okay,” Cal finally said. He blew out his breath and reached out his hand towards Bobby, who refused to grab it, shaking his head and backing away from his father in response to the gesture. Cal felt a little twinge of pain in his chest at that, the sting of rejection from his son. I shouldn’t care, he told himself as he adjusted his feet so that he was squatting more comfortably on the ground. He’s not my son. Not really.
He cleared his throat a few more times while trying to summon up the ability to solve this fucking disaster of a situation. “We’ll get Daniel back,” he finally said, keeping his tone as confident and self-assured as he possibly could. He wanted to be strong for Antonia. He wanted to show her that there was nothing to be afraid of, even if the whole world was stacked against her, ready to smack her down.
Antonia shook her head slowly and curled forward, burying her face deeper. “No. We won’t.”
“What? Why are you saying that?” Cal asked.
“Because he’s a cop!” Antonia cried out, finally turning her head to stare at Cal through her fingers. Cal could see that her face was splotchy with tears, her chest rising and falling ridiculously quickly as she panted for breath. “He’s a fucking cop. He has friends in high places, and he can do whatever he wants. I should’ve known better than to accuse him of anything.” Her words trailed off into whimpers as she re-buried her face, sniffling into her hands.
Cal swallowed around the lump in his throat again, willing himself to be brave. I have to do this, he thought. He balled his hands into fists by his sides. I have to be strong. For Antonia. I have to tell her everything. Even if she doesn’t understand what I do, I can still use the resources of the MC to help her. I have to tell her. Now.
“Antonia, I—” Before Cal could get any more words out of his mouth, the sound of sirens returned, screaming over their heads. Antonia to lifted her face out of her hands and looked around in every direction to find the source of the noise.
The next second, Cal saw it. A pack of police cars, their sirens screaming wildly as they shot down the street toward Cal’s house. There was no time to get away, even on the bike. They were stuck, easy prey sitting on the lawn, ready for law enforcement to come do whatever it was they wanted to do.
Antonia stood first, slowly getting to her feet and walking to the edge of the lawn. As the police cars slid to a stop, she walked forward holding her arms out toward them. Cops spilled out of the vehicles and swarmed around Antonia.
“Ms. Rogers?” the eldest cop on the scene said to Antonia, brandishing a pair of handcuffs. Cal silently screamed at Antonia to run, to make a break for it, to do anything other than stand there and wait for it.
But instead Antonia nodded and said, “Yes? That’s me. What is it?”
“You are under arrest for reckless endangerment,” the cop said. He flipped Antonia around and locked the handcuffs around her wrists. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you….”
“Antonia!” Cal called out, following along as the cops forced Antonia into movement, pushing her towards the cars at the edge of the street. “Antonia, wait! Don’t say anything!”
“I’m sorry, Cal!” Antonia called back. “I’m so sorry!”
“You didn’t do anything!” Cal screamed back. “Please, just wait, don’t say anything, I can help you!”
“I’m beyond helping,” Antonia called back right before her head was shoved down by the senior officer on the scene. He pushed her into the backseat of the vehicle before moving around to the front, hopping in seconds before the car set back into motion, the sirens blaring again as the car disappeared down the street.
“Fuck. Fuck, shit, fuck,” Cal said to himself, kicking the nearest rock on the ground just to release some of the frustration in his body. “Fuck!”
Cal sagged down onto the ground, his head pressing down onto the lawn beneath him as he listened to the ragged sound of his own breathing, praying silently to any god that might have been listening. Please, please, let this be a nightmare. Let this be a bad dream. Please, don’t let this be real. Please.
A few moments later, Bobby tapped him on his back. “Cal,” he said. “Cal?”
“What is it?” Cal snapped, too angry and lost to be careful of his tone, even when talking to his four-year-old son, who stared up at him with wide, worried eyes.
“What’s going to happen to Antonia?” Bobby asked in a small, insecure voice. “And Daniel? Where is Daniel?”
Cal sighed. His limbs collapsed more against the grass under his knees. He felt completely empty, like all of his hope had been cut out of him with a huge, spiky knife. His heart beat slowly in his chest, all urgency sapped away like he’d already lost the biggest battle of his life up to this point.
“They’re in trouble right now,” Cal finally said, turning to look at h
is son. He struggled to keep his face even and blank, so as not to show how panicked and upset he really felt. “We have to help them, okay?”
Bobby chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth between each of Cal’s for several moments before he finally nodded and said, “Okay. We will fight for them. That’s what families do, right?”
Cal was at a loss for words. His blood rushed almost painfully within his veins as he slowly lifted himself back on his feet. Bobby’s words rolled around in his head like a giant boulder, crushing every other thought down into the ground under its heavy weight.
That’s what families do, right? Cal’s inner voice repeated inside his mind. His stomach turned over painfully as he forced himself to head back inside the house.
“Cal?” Bobby said from behind him, following along as he headed back towards the house.
“Yes,” Cal finally forced out. His tongue felt heavy and useless in his mouth even when he was using it to speak. “That’s what families do. They’re our family now, Bobby. We have to take care of them. No matter what.”
He realized after saying the words out loud that he was saying them for himself, not for Bobby. I really believe that, he realized with a sobering sense of reality. He scooped Bobby up into his arms as he marched back into the house. I believe in my family. And there’s no way in hell I’m just going to give it up this easily. I have to fight for us. I have to fight for Antonia. And Daniel. And Bobby. For all of us.
There was no more time for fucking around, no more time to lie to himself about his feelings for Antonia. He had to fight for the people he loved.
Chapter Nineteen
Cal
“Hey, excuse me, I’m here to see about Antonia Rogers,” Cal said to the policewoman on duty at the front desk of the local jail. “I believe she was booked here about an hour ago. I’d like to see if there’s any way I could post her bail.”
The policewoman sighed and shrugged, then punched at her computer keyboard, staring at her screen for several long moments before she turned back to look at Cal. “Sorry. Her hearing isn’t till tomorrow morning.”
“What does that mean?” Cal asked, barely keeping himself from punching a hole in the glass partition that separated the policewoman from him.
“It means you can’t do anything today,” the cop told him. She smacked her gum rudely before turning her attention back to her computer. She punched listlessly at her keyboard for a solid minute before she realized that Cal was still standing there, staring at her. “What?” she asked
“She’s not supposed to be here,” Cal said. “She’s been framed. I need to meet with her so I can arrange a lawyer to represent her in court tomorrow.”
The cop rolled her eyes and blew a bubble with her gum before answering him. “You can see her tomorrow. For now, she’s still being put through processing. Just come back in twenty-four hours and you can visit. Okay? Okay. Have a nice day.”
Cal held his ground, turning to look back at Bobby, who was sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting area, an anxious look spread across his little face. “I’m not leaving here till I see her,” Cal said. He was trying to keep his tone hard and firm but still unthreatening. He was dealing with enough conflict with his MC at the moment that he really didn’t need to start bullshit with the police department, who probably recognized him from all the drug busts that had been happening during the Bone Breakers’ deals over the past couple of months anyway. He needed to keep a clear head if he was going to help Antonia out of this clusterfuck of a situation.
The policewoman looked unimpressed with his idle threat, tapping her long, intricately painted fingernails against the desk. “Sir, you’re welcome to hang out in the waiting room as long as you’d like, but you’re not getting in to see her until tomorrow. So if I were you, I’d go ahead and skedaddle right now, before you waste any more time.”
Cal groaned quietly, considering his options for a minute, before he noticed Bobby tugging harder on the bottom of his pants, trying to get his attention. “What is it?” he asked, kneeling down to look Bobby in the eyes.
“Can we see Antonia and Daniel now?” Bobby asked. He bit down on his bottom lip anxiously.
Cal sighed and rubbed the top of Bobby’s head. “Not just yet, buddy. We’ve got to do some stuff first.”
Bobby frowned but didn’t say anything right away, his little brow furrowed up in frustration and confusion. He stared at Cal for a long moment with wide, pleading eyes then reached up and tugged Cal’s arm down. For a minute, Cal was confused, unsure of what his son was trying to do, but then it finally clicked. He wants me to hold his hand, Cal realized. He felt a twinge of pain in his chest as he awkwardly wrapped his hand around his son’s. It felt weird, almost unnatural, and he was tempted to pull his hand back and force Bobby to cope by himself, but he quickly realized he couldn’t do that. He misses Antonia, who’s basically been acting as his mom for the last several weeks. He needs comfort. Cal didn’t know how to do that—comfort a sad and confused little boy—but he knew he had to try.
“Come on,” he said. On impulse, he reached down to scoop the little boy up into his arms, encouraging him to wrap his arms around his neck as he headed out into the jail’s parking lot, where he’d parked Antonia’s car five minutes earlier.
“Where are we going now?” Bobby asked. Cal dropped him into the car seat in the back of Antonia’s car.
“My clubhouse,” Cal said. “The place where all my friends hang out. We’ve got to find the MC’s lawyer so we can get Antonia back.”
Cal was tempted to speed the whole way to the Bone Breakers clubhouse, but he could hear Antonia’s voice in his head berating him for even considering it with Bobby in the backseat. So instead, he focused on gripping the steering wheel as hard as he could, praying that Simon, the club’s lawyer, would still be at the compound at this late hour.
“Okay, come on, buddy,” Cal said as he pulled Bobby out of the backseat. “Keep your head down in there, okay? I probably shouldn’t even be bringing you in with me.”
“I won’t tell,” Bobby said, wrapping his arms back around Cal’s neck. “Mommy told me that good boys never tell what happens to them.”
Cal paused, then, craning his neck back so he could look Bobby in the eyes as he held him close. “Bobby. Listen to me. Your mommy was wrong, okay? I know that doesn’t make sense right now, but she told you to do things that were bad for you. I won’t do that to you, okay? You can trust me.”
A little wrinkle popped up between Bobby’s eyebrows, and his eyes narrowed as he whispered, “What does ‘trust’ mean?”
Cal’s heart ached a little as he formulated a response, pulling Bobby closer to his chest so he could whisper in his ear, “It means you know that someone won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you. Ever. I promise.”
Bobby pulled back a little, looking up into his father’s eyes uncertainly. “But you’re going to send me away, right?”
Cal’s jaw dropped open a little and his eyes went wide. His own thoughtless words were rebounding on him like a spiked boomerang. He cleared his throat and shook his head, saying whatever came to his mind in this moment, where everything seemed clearer than they’d been before. “Bobby. I’m not going to do that to you. You have a home now. I’m not going to take it away from you.”
Bobby stared up at him silently for a long moment, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. Cal couldn’t exactly blame him. He hadn’t been the softest or the sweetest person to the kid over the past several weeks. But he knew now that he would never be able to give him back to Briana, even if she showed up totally sober the next day. Bobby was his now, a part of him that he couldn’t cut out or ignored. Antonia had shown him that much.
Cal patted Bobby’s head again, hoping to get him to relax a little bit, but it was no use. The little boy was lost without Antonia and Daniel. Cal realized that it was futile to try to make the little boy forget what was going on. He was too smart, having lived through too
much in his short life so far that he couldn’t be deceived that easily. He needed to know the truth.
“Bobby,” Cal said. He brushed some of his hair away from his forehead, a move that he’d seen Antonia do a couple times at dinner a few weeks ago. “We’re going to get them back, okay? I swear to you. I’m not going to stop fighting until we’ve got them both home.”
Bobby was staring down at the floor now, silent for several long moments until he finally looked up, his eyes now full of tears. “Why?” Bobby whispered hoarsely, his tearful eyes unblinking as they looked at Cal for an answer.
The answer came to Cal’s mouth before his brain had even processed it. He supposed the reply came straight from his heart. “Because we’re a family. Families look out for each other. It’s what we do.”
A couple tears fell from Bobby’s eyes then, splattering his cheeks. Cal reached forward and wiped the tears away with his thumb, forcing a gentle smile for his son’s benefit. He had to be strong. For Bobby. For Antonia and Daniel, too, he realized. We’re all in this together. I can’t stop until we’re all home, safe.
