by Zoey Parker
“I’ll go back outside now,” he said, ambling to the door. “Let me know if you need me.”
“Thanks. I will.” He might have been a pig, but he was an obliging pig. I appreciated his time, even if all he had to do was sit on the back of a bike all day.
***
As I walked out of the diner, I waved at Hook. He pulled up to my car, and I rolled down the window for him.
“Everything cool?” he asked.
“Yes, thanks. Just going to my mom’s now to pick up my daughter.”
He nodded. “You want an escort?”
I was tempted to accept, but then I pictured the horror that would cross my mother’s face if she saw Hook out front. Parker was bad enough. Hook was another thing entirely. “Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” He shrugged with a grin. “See ya later, then.”
“Thanks again!” I waved, and he waved back as he pulled away. Maybe they weren’t all bad. Maybe Parker wasn’t the exception to the rule. No man so intent on protecting a woman could be bad.
I was still smiling to myself as I pulled up in front of Mom’s. I wondered how many of Parker’s friends I would meet. Maybe all of them if we stayed together.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the house was the quiet. It was completely silent. No TV, no anything. I thought Mom might have turned off the TV to give herself peace and quiet while Isabella napped, but it was way too late in the day for that. It was almost dinnertime. They would have been in the kitchen, fixing something to eat while the news played on the little TV on the counter.
“Mom?” Nothing. I walked through the little walled-off entryway between the front door and the living room, where coats hung along the wall. “Mom? Where are you?”
When I got to the living room, I found my mother on the floor with blood running down her face.
“Mom! Isabella?” I ran through the house, panicked. No sound. Nothing. “Oh God, baby! Where are you?” I ran upstairs, searched every room. I looked under beds, in closets. “Please, baby, if you’re here, tell Mama! Please!” Nothing. She was gone.
I fled downstairs, falling to my knees beside my mother’s body. She was so still, so silent.
With shaking hands, I dialed Parker’s number. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” I whispered, wiping the blood from my mother’s face.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“Hurry! Please! Please, come!”
“What is it?” I could hardly hear Parker’s voice, my screams overpowering him. “Ellie! Stop screaming. What is it? Where are you?”
“He took Isabella! He hurt my mother, oh my God, I think she’s dead!” I screamed and screamed, unable to stop. Terror poured from me.
“Where are you?”
“Her house!” I gave him the address, and he told me he’d be there right away. I dropped the phone to the floor, holding my mother’s face in my hands.
“It’ll be okay, Mommy. It’ll be okay.” I couldn’t think straight. It never occurred to me to call an ambulance. I could only think about Isabella. Where was Isabella? Would I ever see her again? How could I have been so foolish as to leave them alone? I didn’t even know how long ago he’d come for her! He could have had hours of a head start on me, and I would never know where he went. Ever. I would never see my daughter again. I let out a loud, heartbroken sob. I would never see my baby again.
Chapter 24
Parker
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, feeling like the world’s biggest ass. “I don’t. I want you to take care of yourself, but I wanna see you in front of the club for a long time, too. You brought the club more success than it ever knew before.”
“You sound like Hook or Pete,” he said, snickering.
“It’s true. And they say it because it’s true. You’ve done everything you could for the club, and we all love you for it. Nobody wants to see you go.”
“Even if it’s gonna save my life in the end?”
I sighed. “Nothing I say is right. Everything I say right now makes me look like the world’s biggest prick.”
Ryder laughed a little at me. “It’s not so bad. You don’t sound like a prick either. I’m glad you’re not standing at the head of the group, wanting to stab me in the back so you can take power.”
“Don’t even joke about shit like that,” I said. I wasn’t kidding. I didn’t want to hear it. The last thing I needed was for people to get the idea that I would kill Ryder to take the seat at the head of the table. I didn’t want it that badly—I didn’t want it yet, at all. I had too much to learn before I could do that.
“Sorry. I’m just trying to keep things light,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t want you walking around here with a frown on your face, expecting me to kick the bucket at any minute. I have time left. I just have to be careful with it, or else that little spitfire upstairs is gonna be what kills me.”
I grinned. “Yeah, Candy would kill you for not listening to the doc,” I said.
“That’s how women think, you know? Who knows, maybe she wants to do it herself. She doesn’t want any old heart problem taking me out.”
“Shh.” I looked up the stairs. It didn’t look like anybody was standing there, and I didn’t see any shadows on the wall. “Do you really want the whole club knowing about this right now?’
“See? You’re a smart kid. That’s why I know you’re gonna do such a great job with the club.” He grinned.
“Yeah, thanks.” The damp cellar was cold, sending shivers down my spine. I told myself it was just that, and not the idea of taking over the club so soon.
Ryder stood up, having to duck when his enormous height left his head almost scraping the ceiling. “Do me a favor and keep this between you and me, huh? And I mean in every way possible. I don’t want your shitty attitude ruining things either.”
“Got it.”
“There’s plenty of time, okay? We’ll work it out. I just thought you should know.” He patted me on the back and might as well have added, “It’s your funeral.” Because that was how I felt. I’d always seen myself being happy to take over the reins when Ryder retired. I didn’t want it to be for such a shitty reason. I didn’t want to look like I was taking advantage of him being sick.
Rule number one, I thought, stop caring so much what other people think of you, or what they might see in you. It doesn’t matter when you wanna be an effective leader. It was something Ryder had told me years before, and I remembered it then. I had to stop caring so damn much how things might have looked. It wasn’t my problem what the rest of the club thought. Ryder was our leader, and if he decided to step down, they had to respect that.
I had it on my mind when I went upstairs, and I called in the liquor order only half paying attention to the names and quantities I ordered. I had the girl read it back to me twice to be sure I got it all right. The last thing I needed was a bunch of bitching when I didn’t order somebody’s favorite liquor.
I sat at Ryder’s desk after I hung up the phone. It would be my desk soon. How soon? I didn’t know. I still hoped it wouldn’t be for a long time, but I had the feeling the clock was ticking—no matter how much better Ryder tried to make me feel about it.
Don’t be a pussy. Another pearl of wisdom from Ryder. He had never said it to me, but he said it to the other guys in the club sometimes when they didn’t want to do something that was in the club’s best interests. He would tell them to man up and stop being a pussy. I needed to do that myself.
I would be president. It wouldn’t be long. I had to step into the role and take it over and not look back. I was ready. More than ready—Ryder had groomed me for it for years. Once it was mine, nobody could take it from me unless they wanted to run the risk of banishment, or worse. I would have the power.
And I would need an old lady. Candace was right about that, and so was Ryder. I would need somebody at my side to be there when I had the tough choices to make. I would ask Mason to be my VP, but that wasn’t the same as having
a steady old lady at home, someone to talk with when the day was rough or the club was going through tense shit. A woman who would help a man see his way through things. It was what Candace had been for Ryder ever since they got married, even before then. It was what I needed.
And Ellie was that kind of woman. The only problem was I didn’t know if being an old lady was something she wanted. She might have seen it as being beneath her. She went to college. She could still have a bright future. And there I was, thinking about asking her to help me run an MC. What the hell was I thinking? She was too good for the sort of life I led. I needed a woman who was used to things being the way they were, who wouldn’t question the late nights, the dangerous situations, the activity we got into. If we went into lockdown and I needed to bring her and the kid to the clubhouse, would she put up a fight? That kind of old lady didn’t help anything. She would only get in my head and make me a bad president.
I went out to the bar, pouring myself another drink without looking around to see if anybody noticed. I had too much on my mind to give a shit, anyway.
“What’s the matter?” Candace asked, still sitting at the bar. She only drank water, and was more than halfway through the crossword puzzle she had started before I went downstairs.
“Nothing,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“Really? That’s your second drink this afternoon, and I happen to know you were in the cellar with my old man.” Her voice had dropped to nearly a whisper. “So you talked to him, huh?”
“He doesn’t want me to tell anybody,” I said.
“Of course he doesn’t. But I knew he was gonna have to tell you sometime, honey. You need to know. But you’re the only person who does, so we’ll leave it here.”
“We will,” I agreed.
“Now you know why I want you to settle down.”
“Yeah, I thought about that already. You’re pretty obvious.”
“Only now that you know the full story,” she pointed out. “Before that, you had no idea.”
“You’re not just pushing me into something with Ellie because you want me to settle down, though, are you?”
“No. It’s because she’s the right woman for you, if you think you can handle it.” She pushed her reading glasses up on top of her head, looking at me. “Listen, she’s got a lot of issues with her past. She’s got a kid. She’s not going into it without baggage, and neither are you. That’s a big responsibility for the both of you. If you can both handle it, I say why not. She’s a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders, and you obviously care about her. Go for it, then. I think she would fill my shoes just fine.”
I wasn’t so sure, and the look on my face must have said so.
“Listen, none of the girls around here would know their ass from a hole in the ground if they had to help their old man run this club. I remember Kelly fondly. She was a great girl, and she was good for you, but she didn’t have that…that grit, you know? She was a great doctor, but she was still too much in the other world. Ellie, though? She’s got what it takes. She knows how shitty life can be, but she knows how good it can be, too. She’s a fierce mama, too, which means a lot. She’ll be a mama to this pack of idiots whether she likes it or not. I think she has a heart big enough to handle that.”
“But can she handle me? That’s my question.”
“Oh, get over yourself. You’re not that hard to handle.” Candace laughed, lighting up a cigarette and ending the conversation. Mason strolled up. We switched topics.
“I was just telling Ryder we’d better buy a Jack Daniels distillery if some people don’t stop drinking it all the time,” I said, clearing my throat.
“Like you didn’t just have two drinks today. I don’t wanna hear your bullshit.” Mason rolled his eyes.
Candace laughed. “Just blame it on the new guy and his party. It’s always good to have a new patch around so you can blame everything on him.”
Mason and I looked at each other, nodding. That made a lot of sense.
My phone rang. Ellie. I smiled, figuring she would tell me she was back home and wanted me to come over. I stirred at the thought of her. Would I ever get tired of having her in my arms? I didn’t think so. I hoped not, anyway.
When I answered the phone, all thoughts of sex with Ellie were wiped out by the sound of her screaming.
“Hurry! Please! Please, come!”
Everything went fuzzy and gray around me. The only thing I could hear was her voice, and the blood suddenly rushing in my ears. Candace stood, her face showing she could hear Ellie’s screams.
I couldn’t understand anything she was saying, though. “Stop screaming. What is it? Where are you?”
“He took Isabella! He hurt my mother, oh my God, I think she’s dead!”
My body went cold, numb. I should have known. Fuck him. I should have known. I should have thought it out. I was too cocky. I put them in danger. He took Isabella. That fucker took her away.
“Where are you?”
Mason looked at me, obviously shaken by my tone of voice. I couldn’t pay attention to him, or to Candace. I needed to know where to find Ellie.
“Her house!” She screamed out an address, then just shrieked for a while before I told her I would be there, and hung up. I saw red. I didn’t know what to do first. I needed to find him. No, I needed to make sure Ellie was safe. Then I needed to find him. But what if he was getting away?
I needed to get to Ellie first.
“Parker?”
I didn’t answer Mason. I didn’t have the time. I ran out the door, on my bike in the blink of an eye. The address Ellie gave me wasn’t far from the clubhouse, probably in the middle of the route I took to get to the apartment. I hoped traffic would be light because I didn’t have any time to waste.
The whole way there, I looked for Connor’s Lexus—it didn’t seem likely, but I hoped, anyway. Who knew when he had taken her? It could have been right after Ellie went to work. Why the hell hadn’t I posted somebody in front of her mom’s house? I knew she was taking Isabella there, she’d told me so. Damn it! I wanted to scream, curse, howl. I never felt so helpless in my life…except that night.
No. This wasn’t Kelly all over again. I would fix things this time. I would get Isabella back. Ellie would be happy. She would be happy with me. That was the way it would go because that was the way it had to go. I had to win this one. I couldn’t lose twice in one lifetime.
I couldn’t think straight. Isabella. Ellie. Isabella. It was all I could think, do, breathe. They were every beat of my heart. Isabella. Ellie. Isabella. Isabella was gone. I had to find her. First, I had to get to Ellie. I should have asked her if she was sure she was alone, damn it. What if somebody was hiding out in the house?
When I got there, I saw the door standing open. My heart in my throat, I ran up the stairs, gun still in my kutte pocket but my hand around the butt in case I needed to draw.
“Ellie?” I heard her rather than saw her, lying on the floor next to her mother. No Isabella. My heart sank. What could I do?
Chapter 25
Ellie
That was how Parker found me, in a heap on the living room floor, my mother’s body at my side. He checked her first, holding his fingers to her neck.
“She’s alive,” he said. “Here, let me put her on the couch.”
“What if she has a neck injury?” I asked.
“I think they hit her on the head. See? There’s a cut here. It’s probably no more serious than that.”
“No more serious? How can you say that?” I was frantic, unable to think straight or reason. Everything was a mess in my head. I didn’t know what to think or what to do. Blind panic overtook me.
“Ellie!” Parker took me by the forearms and shook me until I cleared up a little. He didn’t hurt me. I didn’t think he would ever hurt me. He only wanted me to get my act together. “This was how you found her?” he asked. I nodded, gulping for air, trying to keep my head straight. “And there was no one around? No cars out
front, nobody sneaking out the back door? Nobody at all?”
“Nobody I knew of,” I whimpered. I tried to think back. “I didn’t see or hear anybody, and I was paying attention. Oh, why did I leave her? Why?” I started spiraling out of control again.
“Calm down!” He barked it, and it was enough to snap me out again. “Listen to me. We’re going to get her back, okay? No matter what, he couldn’t have gotten far with a kid. We just have to find him. I’ll have my guys look his financials. His credit cards and stuff. They’ll track him.”
“How can they do that?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I thought it would be best not to know, anyway. He pulled me to my feet, then lifted Mom onto the couch. Her head dropped back, and Parker lifted it carefully, gently, as he lowered her.
