GRIT: A Spartan Riders Novel

by J.C. Valentine

  Gabby turned as her father approached her and accepted his welcoming embrace. “He sure is.”

  “Your mother and I drove by the construction site earlier this week. It’s coming along real nice, though when I saw the price they’re planning to fetch for each unit in the paper, I needed to take a double dose of my meds to keep my ticker from stopping dead on the spot.”

  She’d seen that article too. “Yeah, they’re definitely not geared for the locals.”

  “Who the hell ‘round here could afford it!”

  Gabby just patted him on the back. Talking about money with her father was a vacuum she wasn’t mentally prepared to get sucked into tonight. “You go on ahead and get ready for dinner before Mom decides to start without us. Ash, you go with him. I’ll be right there after I give your dad a call, okay?”

  Having been there before, Ash took the separation in stride and went without complaint. Gabby went to the phone—the same one she’d grown up with, complete with a curly, tangled-to-hell cord. It was as if time made a pit stop in each decade, then ceased to exist altogether after the nineties under her parents’ roof. She took a moment to bathe in nostalgia before picking up the handset and dialing out before she remembered that Blake didn’t want her calling when he was away dealing with club business.

  Shockingly, he picked up right away. “Hey, teach, what’s up?”

  “I’m sorry, Blake. I completely forgot that you said not to bother you. Just call me later when you can. I’m at my parents’.”

  She was preparing to hang up when she heard him call out to her. Pressing the phone back to her ear she let him know she was still on the line. “It’s fine that you called. Unless I say otherwise, my line is always open for you. Got that?”

  Her reply was a soft “Yes.”

  “Good. Now what’s this about you being at your parents’? Is something wrong? Did that bitch, Jodi, show up at the school again?”

  The anger in his voice was startling. Gabby rushed to reassure him that wasn’t the case. “No, no. I just didn’t feel like cooking tonight, and besides, it’s lasagna night.” As if that spoke for itself. And in a way it did. Her mother’s lasagna was kickass.

  “Lasagna, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling. “Think you can come?”

  His voice growing husky, he said, “Baby, you know I can.”

  “You know what I mean,” she replied, growing breathless at his endearment. The warmth creeping into her cheeks also told her she was blushing. Her gaze cut to the kitchen doorway where she could see everyone claiming seats around the dinner table. Damn him. She needed to get a handle on her libido before she got off the phone or else everyone was going to be suspicious.

  “Yeah, baby, I do.” He grew quiet for a moment before saying, “Give me a few to wrap up here, and then I’ll be over.”

  “Okay,” she breathed down the line. “I’ll save a seat for you.”

  Blake spoke a few parting words into her ear that left her in even worse condition by the time she hung up with him. Hell, she thought, feeling the flush spreading all the way down her body, liquid heat pooling between her legs, she felt like a cat in heat.

  Resigned to the knowledge that she’d spend the majority of the evening teetering on a knife’s edge of arousal, Gabby stood to head toward the kitchen when she glimpsed the growing mail pile on the sideboard.

  She’d been spending so much time at Blake’s, she’d been neglecting the details of her own life. Dreading the bills that were no doubt waiting for her, she sorted through the stack of envelopes, extracting those with her name printed on them.

  Halfway through, she came across one that stood out from the rest. Her name in handwritten ink shouldn’t feel like a stab through the chest, but Gabby couldn’t prevent the way her heart hammered just looking at it. Maybe it was the lack of return address, or the missing postage that had her internal alarms ringing, she wasn’t sure, but it was as if her sixth sense had picked up on something her brain had yet to comprehend.

  Which was ridiculous. How harmful could a letter be? It was probably just a neighbor welcoming her back to the cul-de-sac and had chosen to hand deliver rather than bother with the post.

  Just to prove to herself how stupid she was being, Gabby tore into the letter, finding a greeting card inside—the serene image of a single rose lying on a sandy beach with crystal blue waters lapping in the background. As cards went, this one was about as unthreatening as one could get. Relieved, she laughed to herself at her own absurdity as she stuck her thumb in the seam, reading the poem on the front first—Roses are red, Violets are blue—before flipping it open.

  Her heart stopped.

  Brace yourself, puta, I’m coming for you.

  Trembling like a leaf in a thunderstorm, Gabby somehow drummed up the strength to close the card and tuck it away in her purse. The last thing she wanted was for someone else to find it before she could figure out what to do about it.

  She could go to the police, but something inside her told her that whoever these people were, they were beyond the police. Anyone who worked outside the law and was as vicious as that man had been had ways of getting what they wanted, and she had zero doubts whatsoever that what he wanted was her dead.

  Because she sure as hell wasn’t planning to give him what he wanted.

  What scared her most was that he clearly knew where she was at, and because of her stupidity and weakness, she’d led him and his lackeys right to her parents’ doorstep. Now not only was her life on the line, so was everyone she cared about.

  ***

  It took some convincing, but Gabby finally allowed Blake to talk her into staying the night with him. It was commonplace now, she imagined, for her to do so. At least, that was the impression everyone had left her with. When she’d attempted to stay home, Blake and her parents homed in on her, questioning her reasoning and asking if she was okay.

  All through dinner she’d kept her focus on the conversation around the dinner table. She responded, laughed, and nodded at all the appropriate times, but apparently she hadn’t been hiding her apprehension at all.

  They all appeared to have reached the same conclusion: that something was on her mind.

  They weren’t wrong, but she fought to make them believe they were. It was for their own good. Until she could figure out what her next steps were, she needed to keep this new development to herself.

  She just wished that she was at home now, so she could watch over her parents. If anything happened to them because of her…

  She bit her bottom lip and sucked in a quiet breath to stem the flow of tears that threatened to fall. No sense in dissolving into a blubbering mess. It certainly wouldn’t solve anything.

  Lying in Blake’s bed, staring up at the ceiling, she wondered where’d she’d be now if she had resisted him the first time. If she hadn’t accepted that invitation, she would be lying in bed now, in her parents’ basement, keeping vigil over the two most important people in her life.

  Instead, she was pinned beneath the hulking arm of the man who was slowly but surely stealing her heart, hating herself for dragging him and his precious son into her drama.

  Her heart drummed faster at the thought of having not just one, not even two or three, but five lives in her hands. If only she’d run in another direction, she’d only have to look out for herself, but she’d been selfish and look where it’d gotten her.

  She’d never forgive herself if anything happened to any of them.

  Turning her head on the pillow, Gabby watched Blake sleep as she thought of all the laughs, the smiles, and the warmth he’d brought into her life in such a short amount of time. Even tonight, in as dour a mood as she was in, he managed to pull her into his orbit and make her smile. It was nothing more than a simple, bearded nibble to that sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder, but it’d worked. He’d pulled her out of her funk just long enough to gift her with a few last moments of normalcy—story time with Ash, followed by sweet, passi
onate lovemaking before crashing for the night.

  For a brief moment, she allowed herself to linger, to expand her thoughts to the future and entertain a world of what-ifs. A world that resembled closely the one she’d glimpsed in that box of pictures sitting on his closet shelf.

  The fantasy shattered like so much glass, yanking her back to the cold, stark reality laid out before her. The seriousness of her situation hit her full-force, as well as the understanding of the danger her staying there represented to everyone around her. In that moment, she knew what she had to do.

  Carefully, Gabby extracted herself from the bed, lingering only long enough to look back and ensure that Blake remained asleep, before tiptoeing around the room, gathering her clothing and her overnight bag. There was no other way that she could think of to protect those around her than removing herself from the equation altogether. If Blake knew what she was up to, he’d do everything in his power to bar her from leaving. And she would be weak enough to let him.

  Escaping into the bathroom, she rushed through getting dressed and packing the few toiletries she’d placed out on the counter—further evidence of a world and a future that would always be just a little too far out of reach. Then, as silently as possible, she crept to the front door and worked the latches, slowly opening it and slipping out. Reaching back in, she depressed the lock on the handle before closing the door behind her. The only sound of her leaving was the soft click of the latch hitting home.

  Tears gathered in her eyes as Gabby jogged to her car. There was no helping the sound of the engine or the crackle of the tires on the packed gravel, but nonetheless, it was several hours before the calls began streaming in.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “She signed in as a guest at Swan Creek two minutes after the doors opened this morning. They have her logged for fifteen minutes. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.”

  Blake’s entire body vibrated with blind fury, and with a bellow, he loosed his fist straight into the wall. Dust exploded into the air and bits of drywall crumbled to the floor. When the dust settled, he was no less angry…and his hand hurt.

  From his place on Blake’s couch, Country gave him a bored look. “Feel better now? Get that all out of your system?”

  Blake’s jaw popped, but he gave a sharp nod and resumed pacing the living room floor. At precisely seven that morning, he’d woken up to the alarm and an empty bed. There was no reason for the instant jolt of panic that shot through him, but somewhere in his mind, he’d known she was gone. How could a house actually feel empty in her wake when she’d barely lived in it?

  Immediately, he’d called her cell phone, only for it to go straight to voice mail. After several calls like that, he’d shown up at her parents’ hoping she’d gone there, but they hadn’t seen her since dinner the night before. His visit set them on edge, and he’d spent several wasted minutes trying to reassure them that nothing was wrong, eventually feeding them some lame story that she’d left to get ready for school and he forgot to remind her of some plans later and was hoping to catch her.

  Thankfully, after giving him some funny looks, they bought it. He didn’t see any need to get them involved or upset until there was something to be upset over. Hopefully, he’d have this all straightened out by the end of the day, but, Blake promised himself, when he did get his hands on Gabby, he was going to tan her hide and then fuck her senseless for getting him so upset. Disappearing acts were not okay in his book.

  “I got Repo following a couple leads, and Cricket’s gonna see what he can find out from some of her coworkers. I have a few things I found on the Web this morning I want to follow up on as well, before the trail grows cold.”

  Blake stopped in his tracks, hope surging in his chest. “There’s a trail?” Why hadn’t anyone told him there was a fucking trail?

  “There’s always a trail.” He said it as someone might say peanut butter and jelly should always be served on white bread—simple fact.

  Arms crossed over his chest, Blake worked to keep his temper in check. There was no point in losing his mind when there was so much work left to do. “What should I do?”

  Country leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, his straightforward stare assessing. “Ain’t nothin’ for you to do, Prez. We got this covered.”

  “Don’t give me that shit, Tuck. I can’t just stand here, idle, when my woman is MIA.” The fear in his voice couldn’t be masked. No words needed to be said for Country to understand the place Blake was coming from. They’d both seen what Cruiz was up to, what he was capable of.

  Having no way to tell when Gabby had disappeared, Blake couldn’t say for sure what had driven her to leave, but he suspected it had something to do with her strange behavior at dinner last night. To know that she was out there, alone, without protection was driving him out of his mind with worry. A number of possibilities flashed through his mind, but the most prominent was Cruiz getting ahold of her and him never seeing her again.

  “I just can’t understand why she left without saying something first. Whatever it is, I could have helped.” He couldn’t even think about what her disappearing act might do to Ash. The boy had already lost his mother. How would he react to losing the only other woman in his life that’d meant something?

  “Can I get real with you for a sec?” Country’s serious tone captured Blake’s attention. Brows pinching together, he crossed the room and sat in the chair opposite him. Country fidgeted, his hands clenching and unclenching, his gaze skittering around the room before settling on his booted feet.

  Blake’s anxiety shot through the roof just watching him. For as long as he’d know him, Tucker Abrams, stalwart and brave as he’d ever seen a man, had never been nervous.

  “That night when we talked, after the guys left?” Blake nodded his understanding, recalling with perfect clarity watching the fight on television with the guys then his talk with Country afterward. “You mentioned Gabby’s past, where she came from, who she was with. I did some digging around. It all checked out.”

  Blake never had any doubt that it wouldn’t. “That’s a good thing, Tuck. What are you getting at here?”

  “You know I like to be thorough,” he continued. “On paper, she looked perfect. Good worker, grad student, stayed out of trouble, never even had a parking ticket. I moved on, but no matter how hard I tried to put her out of my head, something just kept nagging at me. So I went back again. Still couldn’t find anything. So I started checking up on the ex.”

  “Shane.”

  “Shane Douglas,” he confirmed. “Man, Blake, this guy…I know you said he was into some bad shit, but you don’t know the half of it.”

  Blake sat forward, his brows knitting together. “Tell me.”

  Country blew out a weighted breath, as if it physically pained him to speak the words. “I’ve been doing this a long time. Gathering intel is my shtick, and I’ve seen a lot of shit. Terrible shit that will give you nightmares. This guy, he wasn’t exactly the bad guy, but he wasn’t the good guy either. And he most certainly wasn’t smart.”

  “Quit pussyfooting around. What the fuck was he into, Tuck,” Blake growled.

  “The better question would be who he was into it with.” Country’s intense gaze met his and held for a heartbeat too long. “Ricky Cruiz.”

  Blake’s back slammed into the chair, his breath gusting past his lips. His hands went to the top of his head, his fingers combing through the dark strands. “Fuuuuuuuck.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You sure it was Cruiz?”

  “He worked hard to keep any evidence that might point to him buried, but yeah, I’m sure. If you know what to look for, and I do, it’s obvious his stamp is all over it.” He grew quiet again, the air thickening around them. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Blake’s mind churned with possibilities, finally settling on the worst one. “You think he’s the one who hurt Gabby?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Add to that the fact that Cruiz showed up in town just weeks after she did…”

  His words trailed off, but Blake didn’t need them to make a connection. Skirting their territory, moving in on Jodi, lingering in the shadows. He’d even bet that suspicious SUV he’d seen hanging around belonged to him. Hell, he’d been doing his own recon work the whole time. It just hadn’t been on the Spartans. “He’s here for Gabby. Goddamn it, that’s why he hasn’t made any moves on our turf. He’s been here for her the whole fucking time.”

  “And if we don’t find her before he does—”

  Blake’s hand shot up, stopping him midsentence. He couldn’t hear that mess right now without blowing a fuse. “We’re going to find her. If I have to turn over every goddamn stone to do it, we’re going to find her.”

  “You sure she’s worth it?”

  Blake’s blood boiled at the question. He pegged his friend, his right-hand man, with a lethal glare. “I’ll bleed for her before I let anyone hurt her again.”

  Country studied him for a long moment before pushing to his feet with a resigned sigh. “Then we’d better get out there and find your girl.”

  ***

  Blake watched Ash playing his second round of Jenga with Ginger in the middle of the clubhouse floor. Knowing the kind of shit the bunnies did with those blocks to entice the brothers had him hoping like hell Ginger had enough sense about her to disinfect them first.

  Normally, he wouldn’t bring his son near the place, but with everything that was going down, he needed to keep him close, especially if Country was right and Cruiz was behind all of this. And there was no safer place he could think of than right in the middle of a bunch of bikers who’d lay down their life for any one of the people under its roof. Besides, everyone here was good people. They knew how to act when kids were around, and they definitely knew how not to act when the president’s kid was in-house. Everyone was on their absolute best behavior.

  While his men were hard at work trying to track down Gabby, Blake was stuck behind the scenes, playing babysitter, while waiting for word to come down the line about where his woman was—Country and several of his brothers were out in the field, turning over every stone to find her, but it seemed she’d disappeared without a trace. He’d never seen anything like it. As Country said, there’s always a trail. So where was hers? It was almost as if she’d walked into that nursing home and never walked out again. But the copy of the records Country had obtained—no doubt through nefarious means thanks to his SpecOps training—clearly showed her signature and time out on their ledger.