CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Duke
Fuck. Carbon beat my ass good. And I let him. I didn’t even try to fight back. I deserved it and I knew it. It took all of the officers to pull him off of me. Phoenix was beyond pissed when they got us separated. He ordered us to stay out of each other’s way until further notice. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work, seeing as how his little sister was my child’s mother and she needed both of us to help her while she healed.
My head was throbbing and my whole body ached. Whatever Patch gave me for the pain wasn’t doing a damn thing to help. He wanted me to go to the hospital, but there was no way that was happening. I knew my nose was broken and at least one of my ribs was cracked. They couldn’t do shit for either one of those injuries.
Banging on the door caused my head to throb harder. “Duke! Duke! Get the fuck out here, now!” Dash yelled through the door. More banging. “Carbon! Out to the common room. Now!” A feeling of dread settled deep in my gut. If he was yelling for both of us like that, it could only mean one thing. Something had happened to Reese.
Despite the pain, I was on my feet and out the door in a matter of seconds. I didn’t stop in the common room, even when Phoenix yelled my name. I learned from the last time Reese was in trouble to not waste a single second. I ran out the front door and jumped on my bike, flying out of the lot with a spray of dust and gravel.
I wasn’t surprised in the least when Carbon’s bike pulled up right beside mine. We rode side by side hauling ass to the farm. I had no idea what was wrong, but I needed to get to my woman and my boy.
We skidded to a halt in front of the building that held our rooms. Coal came running outside when he heard us pull up. “The girls are missing! Neither one of them are answering their cell phones and no one has seen them in hours.” He was panting, his eyes full of panic. “I’ve got anyone I could find looking for them!”
“Where was the last place they were seen?” I demanded.
“Sarah that works with the hydroponic plants said they came by there a few hours ago. She didn’t know where they were headed, but I haven’t found anyone who has seen them since,” he told us.
“Keep gathering everyone you can. We’ll go building by building, room by room until we find them,” Carbon stated just as Dash, Phoenix, and the rest of the officers rolled up. Carbon filled them in on the plan and we quickly divided up the buildings, sending two people into each to start searching room by room.
Phoenix paired off with Carbon, I assumed to keep him under control, while Dash and I headed to the building assigned to us. I had not realized just how big the farm was until I had to comb through it inch by inch searching for someone.
I entered another room to find absolutely no one. Where in the hell could they be? I knew they wouldn’t have gone off the property. I’m not sure Reese could have even if she wanted to.
The next room I entered was L-shaped. At first, it just looked like a regular office, then I rounded the corner. Shock and disbelief coursed through me. There, between the bookcases, was a fucking tunnel. They wouldn’t be so stupid, would they? Of course they would.
“Dash! Get in here!” I bellowed.
He ran through the doorway. “Did you find them?”
I pointed to the opening. “Think they’re in there?”
His face reddened and his fists clenched. “Probably,” he gritted out as he headed into the tunnel.
It was dark and creepy as fuck. We walked deeper and deeper for several minutes, lights turning on as we passed. Then, I saw them. Reese and James. On the ground. I started running. “Reese! Are you okay? What happened?”
Her head popped up and she looked right past me. “Dash! Ember! That way! She disappeared. Look for the bottle!” She was pointing and screaming, not making any sense.
“Slow down. What are you trying to say?” he asked.
“Ember disappeared when we stopped to feed James. She was standing there one second and then she just vanished. I threw down his bottle so I could hold him and drive the chair to get help. Go find the bottle!” she screeched.
He took off at a sprint through the darkness. She turned her gaze to me, “Go help him.”
“No. I need to make sure you and James are okay,” I insisted.
“We’ve been here for hours, Duke! A few more minutes won’t change anything. Go fucking help him!” she screamed.
I didn’t want to leave them, but I also wanted to help Dash. Thankfully, the decision was made for me. “I got her!” Dash yelled from down the tunnel. “She’s okay!”
“All right, let’s get you two out of here,” I said gently, reaching to pick up my son.
Reese pinned me with her fiery green eyes. “I want my brother.” What the hell? Was she mad at me?
“Are you angry with me about something?” I carefully asked.
“Get my fucking brother!” she shrieked.
James jolted in my arms. Not wanting the situation to escalate, I relented and called Carbon. “We found them and she’s demanding to see you. Won’t let anyone else get near her.” I told him where we were and that was it. He never said a word, just disconnected the call. I knew he would be here soon though. If anything, he would always come when Reese called.
Not two minutes later, Carbon and Phoenix came barreling down the pathway. By this time, Ember and Dash had joined us. Reese refused to say anything to anyone other than when she asked for Carbon. He dropped to his knees beside her. “Are you okay, Reesie Piecie?”
“No, no I am not. Can you carry me back to my room? The wheelchair battery died. You can leave it here for all I care, but I would like to get out of this hellhole.”
He hoisted her up, careful not to jostle her leg or her arm and started walking toward the exit. I heard him ask if she needed Patch and I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard her say no. Otherwise, neither one of them said a word to the rest of us.
“What the fuck was that?” I uttered to no one in particular.
Ember shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen her like that. I’ve seen a lot of her moods, but nothing like that. I don’t know what happened between me falling through the wall and now.” She looked up at me and gasped. “What happened to your face?”
“Another time,” Dash murmured. She nodded and didn’t say anything else about it.
“I’m going to head back to my room. You guys coming?” I asked.
“No, not yet. Ember fell into a hidden room, one we had yet to find. There are some things in there that we need to look through. You go ahead, but call if you need us,” Phoenix said. “Dash and I will bring the wheelchair over to Reese when we’re done here.”
With that, I left.
***
The following few weeks were hell, to say the least. Reese would hardly speak to me. I tried several times to talk to her, but each time she told me to leave and threatened to call her brother if I didn’t. I wasn’t scared of Carbon. Yeah, he was bigger than me and would likely whoop my ass, again, but I wasn’t afraid of him. I did, however, respect him, so when she asked me to leave, I did. Even though she didn’t want to have anything to do with me, she did let me see my son whenever I wanted.
I felt like I was stuck, like my life was on hold and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. We hadn’t been able to track down the person or the car that ran Reese off the road. We had nothing on the Manglers, no suspicious activity, no rumors circulating about them. Boar and Omen kept to their clubhouse most of the time. As if that wasn’t enough, my fucking wife had dropped off the face of the planet. Byte couldn’t find that bitch anywhere. That in itself was disturbing. Byte could find anything. So, until we got a lead on one of our issues or Reese decided to acknowledge my existence, everything was on hold, at least for me.
I was sitting at the bar at the clubhouse trying to drink my problems away when Phoenix dropped onto the stool beside me. “You doin’ all right, brother?”
“Just fine,” I uttered.
&n
bsp; “Don’t sound like it. Don’t look like it either,” he observed.
“No disrespect, but I don’t want to discuss it.” I really didn’t. I didn’t want everyone at the bar to hear my business. The brothers gossiped worse than the Old Ladies and club whores.
Phoenix nodded. “Ah, I see.” He stood ad gestured toward the hall. “Follow me to my office.”
He didn’t ask so I figured I didn’t have much of a choice. I got my ass up and shuffled toward his office.
I unceremoniously flopped into a chair, my glass of whiskey almost empty. Phoenix reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of the high dollar stuff he kept hidden from the rest of us. He gestured toward my glass. I swallowed what was left and placed my it on his desk. He filled it half way and slid it back to me. “Sip on that while you listen.”
I picked up my glass and took a sip. Phoenix started talking. “I know what you’re going through right now, probably more than you think. You feel like you’re at a standstill, right?” I nodded. “That’s how it is for me with Annabelle, not knowing what happened to her, if she’s dead or alive. There’s no telling how much shit we’ve yet to discover hidden away out there on that land. Every time we find something new, I think it’s going to be the time that I find something that will bring her back to me. Then, it turns out to be nothing to do with her and I’m right back where I started. I can’t move on until I’ve gotten her back or let her go and I can’t do that until I know what happened to her.”
He paused and brought his own glass to his lips. “Ember would understand, too. I know she and Reese are tight, but you could trust her to keep things to herself if you asked her to.”
He paused for a moment and studied me. “You know why her and Dash haven’t gotten married yet?” I shook my head. I had no idea why they hadn’t had the wedding yet. “Because she’s waiting to find out what happened to Annabelle and that just tears me up inside. It’s one thing for my life to be on hold, but her life just started, literally, and now it’s on hold because I can’t find her mother. But this ain’t about me nor her right now, it’s about you. I just wanted you to know there are people around this place that are in that same boat with you.”
I swallowed, my throat feeling clogged with emotions. “Thanks, Prez.” I looked down at my glass and twirled it with my fingers. “Reese won’t talk to me,” I uttered before I could stop myself.
Phoenix’s eyebrows rose. “Why not?”
I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the floor. “I’m not sure. She’s been angry, really angry, since we found the girls in the secret passageway. I don’t know what happened in there, but I’ve been on her shit list ever since that night.”
“Did you talk to Carbon about it?” Phoenix asked.
“No, we haven’t seen much of each other since you told us to stay away from each other.”
“Shit, Duke. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant for a week or so, until you both calmed down some. Go talk to him. He knows her better than anybody.”
“I'll think about it.”
“Don’t think about it. Do it. Better yet, go talk to Reese. If you want her, go get her and tell her how you feel. At least she’s right here in front of you, alive and almost well.”
Shit, he was right. Here I was moping about Reese, when all I had to do was go talk to her. He didn’t know if the love of his life and mother of his child was dead or alive. “Thanks, Phoenix, appreciate it.”
I was going to make her talk to me, but not tonight. I already had too much to drink to go anywhere and this was a conversation we needed to have completely sober. With nothing else to do, I went back to the bar and kept drinking.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Reese
“You don’t know how good this feels,” I squealed. Ember was driving me back from the doctor’s office. He removed the cast from my arm and gave me a splint to wear if needed. He also put me in a walking boot and gave me the green light to start using my ankle again, slowly at first, but still, no more wheelchair.
I had refused to even look at it after being trapped in the passageway, but I finally realized that I had to use it if I wanted to do things like use the bathroom by myself. I still didn’t use it much and I never left my building. I wasn’t going to end up in another situation where I was trapped because the damn battery died. In short, I didn’t trust the stupid chair. I couldn’t wait to send it back.
We got out of the car and I picked up my son. Cradling him in my arms, I walked to the front door with a huge smile on my face. It was a simple action, one many mothers do every single day, but for me, it was a moment I would cherish forever. I propped him on my hip and tottered toward the stairs.
“Let’s take the elevator. You know, just to be on the safe side,” Ember hesitantly called out.
I frowned, but turned and tottered to the elevator. I wanted my full independence back, but she was right, I shouldn’t push my luck. I damn sure didn’t want to end up back in a wheelchair.
I fed James and put him down for his afternoon nap. “Do you mind listening out for him? I’m going to take a shower and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”
She grinned. “Go on, you deserve it.”
I did enjoy every second of that shower. I stayed in there until I ran out of hot water. I deep conditioned my hair and shaved everything that needed shaving. I was afraid the amount of hair I removed was going to clog the drain. Things south of the border had gotten a little out of hand, but I couldn’t shave and balance with one good arm and one good leg. As much as I loved Ember, I was not going to ask her to shave my hoo-ha for me.
Dressed in only a thin tank top and shorty shorts, hair wrapped in a towel, I entered my room to find a wide-eyed Ember and a fuming Harper staring at me. Well, fuck me sideways, what was Duke’s sister doing here? And why the hell did she look pissed off at me?
“Harper, what an unexpected surprise. What are you doing here?” I asked, feigning nonchalance.
“Really, Reese?” she shrieked. “You and my brother have a baby and no one bothers to tell me?”
“Shhh!” I hissed. “You’ll wake him up.” I glanced back at James to make sure he was still sleeping. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know Duke hadn’t told you.”
She scoffed. “I find that hard to believe. Didn’t you think it was odd that I hadn’t come to see my nephew?”
Seriously, she needed to have this conversation with her brother, not me. “Honestly, Harper, no I didn’t think it was odd because you didn’t even cross my mind. I was a little busy healing from my near-death experience a few weeks ago. You know, when my car was pushed off the side of a mountain by some deranged lunatic.”
She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “What?” she asked shakily.
I rolled my eyes. Her scaredy cat routine wasn’t going to work on me. “You should really talk to your brother about this.”
Her lower lip started to tremble. Oh, give me a break. “I will,” she quietly said, “but can I see him first? I promise I won’t wake him, I just want to see him.”
I gestured to the crib. “By all means…”
I knew I was being unreasonably catty toward Harper, but she caught me off guard and her accusatory tone immediately put me on the defensive. Plus, I was still pissed off at her brother. He was hardly around, so I was directing my hostility at her.
“He looks just like Duke,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “he does.”
“I can’t believe he kept this from me,” she said, sounding hurt.
Crap, she was making me feel bad and I really shouldn’t care what she thought. I wanted to let her think Duke kept it from her, but for some unknown reason, I just couldn’t do that. “He didn’t know about James until six weeks ago. I can’t say why he hadn’t told you in that time, that’s something you will have to ask him.”
“He didn’t know you were pregnant?” she gasped.
“No, he didn’t. I was going to tell him, but thi
ngs happened and he was…you know, I really don’t want to discuss that part with you. It is what it is. I didn’t tell him, moved away, had the baby, had a wreck, and he found out when the daycare called him. That’s the short version, Duke can fill in the details.”
“Do you know where he is? I thought he was working today, but I went by the horse barn and no one was around. He didn’t answer his door either.”
“I don’t have a clue where he is. Did you call him?” I asked.
“No, I didn’t want him to know I was coming,” she explained.
“...thanks, Dad,” Ember said, cell phone in her hand. She looked over to us. “He’s at the clubhouse. Do you want me to drive you over there?”
“Yes, thank you. Reese, are you coming, too?” Harper asked, begging me with her eyes.
“Nope. I don’t want to take James to the clubhouse this late in the day, especially since it’s the weekend. There’s too much smoke and other debauchery for him to be around.”
“I bet Coal’s mom would be happy to watch him. She loves little James.” Thank you, Ember.
I flopped down on the bed and started combing out my hair. “Fine. Call her and see.”
Thirty minutes later, we dropped James off with Mrs. Martin and were on our way to the clubhouse. I didn’t want to see Duke, but knew I inevitably would. That meant I had to dress carefully. I wanted to look good, but not look like I tried to look good. I wore my cutoff jean shorts and a black Blackwings MC tank top that was probably a size too small, but did wonderful things for my boobs. Since the outfit was so casual, I did my eye makeup a little heavier than usual. Leaving my hair down, I styled it in subtle beachy waves. For the first time since the accident, I felt good about myself.
Duke Page 9
