“Dig in. I know you want to,” he taunted with a crooked grin.
Molly forked a piece of chocolate decadence, slipped the dessert into her mouth, and pulled the fork from her lips, with a little pleased moan escaping as the cheesecake melted on her tongue.
“Good?” he asked.
She nodded and took another bite then another before saying, “Jack. I am sorry for everything. I hope, one day you….” She paused. Her head was swirling. Was she going to faint? She stared at the fork in her hand, seeing it blur. Heat infused her throat and cheeks. Her gaze went to the cheesecake. Up to Jack. He tilted his head, staring at her—a piece of hair brushing across his forehead. “Jack?”
That was the last coherent word she made, before the world around her became nothing but darkness.
***
Was there something wrong with his phone? Ryker stared at the electronic device. He’d not missed any calls or texts, and it was twenty after eight in the evening. Something fiery twisted in his gut. He dialed Molly’s cell phone number. It rang and rang, before switching over to voice mail.
“Sorry I missed your call. Leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can,” her recorded voice said.
“Molls. You haven’t called and I’m getting worried. It’s after eight. Call me back.”
By nine o’clock, he’d called again and texted. By ten p.m. he was pacing the length of the living room. Something was wrong.
Grabbing up his keys, and then a pen, he wrote in his spiky scrawl across a note paper by the house phone.
Molly. If you get home before I get back, call me. I’m out looking for you.
—Ryke
Making tracks, he locked up the house and jumped in his car, coming out of her driveway hell bent for ninety, headed for her office.
Chapter Thirty-One
Present.
Panic had attached to Ryker’s spine and was constricting. Molly’s car hadn’t been at her office. The place was dark and locked up tight. He’d been calling and calling her cell phone, only to get her voice mail. Beyond worried, he’d drove to every group home address he was aware of, and her vehicle wasn’t at any of them. He even called her mother and her sister, not wanting to panic them, but asking as best he could if she was there. Neither Mary nor Madeline had seen her.
It was midnight now, and he’d just left the place where Jack Jamison lived. An easy Google search gave him the address. He’d banged on the bastard’s door, but no one answered, and he hadn’t seen the BMW Jack drove parked anywhere around the building he lived in.
“Shit,” he muttered, palms smacking his steering wheel. He made one last call to the house phone. Her cell phone. Molly didn’t answer either one. Then, he called his brother. “Deck,” he said, in a rush.
“Yeah, man? What’s wrong?”
“Molly’s gone.”
There was a brief moment of silence before his brother asked, “What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean, she never came home from work, and I can’t find her,” he said, voice stressed. “She’s not at her mom’s or her sister’s. She’s not at work. I can’t reach her. I can’t find her.”
“Ryke—”
“Fuck.” He was going out of his mind. “I’m calling the police then heading back to Molly’s in case she comes home.”
“Okay, bro. I’m getting out of bed now. I’ll meet you at Molly’s.”
***
Molly woke to a pounding head, finding she couldn’t move. The light in the place was dim, with candles flickering. Blinking, she tried to clear her fuzzed mind. What is going on? She glanced down to see she was seated in a hard-back chair. Her shirt had been unbuttoned, her arms were tied behind the chair back, and her ankles were secured to the wooden legs with something that bit into her flesh. Zip ties?
“You’re awake.” Jack’s voice filtered into her consciousness before she could focus on him.
Lifting her head, she saw him walking toward her, his hair disheveled, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“Jack? What the hell? Where are we?”
He brought a glass to his lips, and took a sip. He swirled the amber liquid around in the bottom of the crystal, then set the glass down on top of what looked to be a pine dresser.
“At my cabin,” he said. “The one I never got the chance to bring you to.” He grinned, and it was spooky. “What’s wrong? This is what you’re into isn’t it, Molls? Being tied up or led around by a collar and treated like someone’s property, right?”
Molly took in a breath.
“I’ve seen you,” he said. “Dressed up for him, wearing that dog collar on your neck while he parades you around for everyone to see in that club.”
“You’ve been in The Razor Club?”
“Yes.” He rubbed at his temple. “Do you do everything Ryker says?”
She was silent, staring at a man she didn’t recognize. He was looking at her with dead eyes.
“Answer me, Molls.” He reached and wrenched her chin, his fingers pressing too hard into her flesh. “Do you beg him for attention, and crawl on your knees for him?”
“It’s not like that,” she said.
His eyebrow rose. “No? Then, what’s it like?” Jack traced the thin collar around her neck with his fingertip. “He owns you. Isn’t that how this bondage shit goes?” He laughed. “Now I get the Neanderthalic, ‘she belongs to me,’ statement.” He tugged her hair, hard enough it stung. “If you wanted it rough, I would have given you rough.”
“Stop it, Jack.”
“Oooh, stop it, Jack,” he mimicked. “Maybe I should punish you for what you did to me. You’re into punishment, right? Do you like to be smacked around? Hit with a belt? Degraded?”
Jacked removed his belt, snap, snap, snapping the leather in front of her, the breeze brushing against her face.
“You need to let me go. Now.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m going to show you I can give you what you want, Molly.”
***
The police were worthless, and Ryker was seething, clasping his head in his hands, sitting in the living room of the house he shared with Molly. The police wouldn’t take any proactive measures based on Ryker’s suspicions. They took a report but weren’t looking in the direction Ryker wanted them to, telling him to let them do their jobs. Every fiber of his being told him Jack was involved with Molly not coming home. And all he could see behind his closed lids was Molly scared, and hurt, needing him.
Damn it. He had to do something. What though? He needed to think straight.
“Bro,” his brother said. “We’ll find her.”
“Does her car have OnStar?” Tiffany asked.
Ryker’s head came up. God bless her, he could kiss the woman. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
“Yes,” he said. “She does. And Jack’s BMW will, too.”
“People can’t just vanish in this day and age. They leave trails, don’t they?” Deck asked. “Can’t you trail her cell phone through GPS or something, too?” His brother put a palm on his shoulder. Squeezed. “With your connections, and computer knowledge—”
“I can track Molly’s movements,” Ryker said, cutting his brother off. “Even Jack Jamison’s.”
Grabbing his cell phone, he dialed the service number he had for OnStar, starting there first.
***
Against her will, Molly was transported back to the days of being young and terror stricken. The times when her father would rage, hit her, and lock her in the dark for days.
“No,” she muttered, broken when Jack drug the chair she was secured to into a closet and shut the door, leaving her in the darkness.
For a moment, she couldn’t gain air, the fear constricting her lungs as the tears streamed down her cheeks, and then, like she’d trained herself long ago, she took measured breaths, slowing her heart beat, and counting the breaths she took.
One. Two. Three. Four….
The passing of time became measured in
those breaths, until she had the oxygen she needed. She had to keep her head. She couldn’t break. She wasn’t a kid any longer, and she had to do something to help herself.
Wiggling, Molly tried to loosen the tie around her wrists, feeling a little give. Her arms ached, but she’d ignore the pain and keep working her wrists until she was able to get one, or both, free.
***
Fist balled at his sides, Ryker stood, staring at Molly’s car sitting silent in some parking garage, with her cell phone in the front seat.
“Call the police again,” said Deck. “We’ve located her car.”
“I’m going after Jack,” he said through gritted teeth. “Call the PD about Molly’s car when I go.”
Ryker had used some of his more questionable connections, and had a track on Jack’s cell phone. He also had the information he needed, via an e-mail, of where his BMW had been parked for the last few hours.
“I’m coming with you,” his brother said.
“No. Stay here in Denver with your woman. I need someone here at home. I can’t prove she’s been taken by that asshole, so I’ll call you when I know Molly’s with him.”
“Bro.”
He recognized the worried tone in his brother’s voice.
“Deck. I’ll be okay.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Present.
The morning was starting its shift from darkness into light when Ryker arrived at the end of the dirt drive his GPS indicated he needed to be. Without wasting any time, he parked his car, got out, and went to a security gate. A locked security gate.
“Fuck this,” he muttered, and climbed over.
Walking the narrow, unpaved, goat path of a driveway, he kept taking deep breaths in order to keep his mind clear, refusing to let his overwhelming fear and panic for Molly and her safety get the better of him. Instead, he listened to the birds chirping in the trees and pictured having Molls in his arms, feeling the breeze brush against him.
When he saw the rustic log cabin tucked in the trees, and the black BMW parked a few feet away, he almost growled, feeling a feral need to rip Jack’s throat out with his bare hands.
“Keep your shit together, Ryke.”
Taking to the trees for cover, he made his way over to the north side of the cabin, located a window, and peeked in. It was a tiny kitchen. A tiny empty kitchen. He went to the next window and saw a brown leather chair facing a fireplace. A table. Couch. His gaze narrowed in on the feet hanging off the end of the couch. They were masculine. Molly wasn’t in the living room.
Circling around to the back of the cabin, he looked in that window. Through a sheer curtain he could see a bed with a pine headboard, a pine dresser, and a side table. No one was in there though.
“Shit. Where is she?”
The cabin wasn’t that big. He was just about to move, see if he could find a bathroom window, when he saw something black, on the floor, by a door. Perhaps a closet door. He focused on the red sole. Molly’s shoe. He recognized it. It was one of the Louboutins he’d bought for her a few weeks ago.
Rage swirled up from his stomach, turning into a tornado inside his head. As soon as he had Molly safe, he was going to beat the ever-loving shit out of Jack Jamison.
He had to get his head straight. Think. He took a deep breath and stared at the window. He tried lifting. Bingo. Luck was shining on him. The window lifted, so as soon as he had it open, he hoisted himself up and crawled through, trying to be as quiet as possible when he touched the floor. Turning, he put the wood-clad window back down, then headed to pick up Molly’s shoe. With her shoe in hand, he rotated the knob on the door, afraid of what he would find behind it.
***
Molly’s head lifted when light trickled in from the door, which was inching open. And for yet another brief moment, she was transported back in time, balled up, lying on the floor of the closet in the Greenwood Village house, humiliated by the stench of being there in that small enclosed space, pants soaked in her own urine, mouth parched, and stomach grumbling in hunger.
Was she seeing things? She blinked. Her thoughts were clearing from her childhood home and coming back into the present.
“Ryker?”
Her heart started hammering in her throat. Her vision wasn’t playing tricks on her. It was him. How had he found her? She didn’t even understand where she was other than a cabin that belonged to Jack.
“Shh….” He placed a finger to her lips and shook his head.
She soaked in every line of his face, and the hard set to his jaw as he took in her gaping shirt and the way she’d been bound to a chair. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if the sight were too much to bear.
“I’m going to kill him,” he said low, under his breath. So low, if she hadn’t been focused on his face and mouth, she might have missed what he said.
His lids lifted, determined eyes locking gazes with her. He reached and palmed her cheek, then put her shoe on her lap, tucked a hand into the front pocket of his jeans, took out a beefy pocket knife, and cut the restraint from her right ankle, then her left. She rotated her ankles and curled and uncurled her toes, trying to work the cramps out of her feet.
When he reached around her and cut through the ties on her wrists, she wanted to cry tears of relief. Her arms had long passed the hurt stage, falling into a sort of numb. Feeling the protest, she brought her arms around to her front, fingers curling around the heel on the shoe in her lap.
Ryker rubbed at her shoulders and biceps an instant before he grabbed her up into his strong arms.
“Are you okay?” he whispered into her ear. She was now. She nodded. “You’re not hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let’s get you out of here.”
“How did you find me?”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
Relief warred with the pissed-off state Ryker was in, but joy at having Molly in his arms might have inched both of the other emotions to the side.
“Let her go,” Jack said, followed by the distinct sound of a cocking shotgun behind him.
Ryker let loose of Molly, narrowed his eyes on her, and mouthed, “Stay behind me.” When she nodded, he turned around to face the dickhead holding the Winchester.
“You screwed the pooch by breaking in here, Ryker.” Jack smirked. “Ryker Cage. The man who couldn’t accept that Molly had come to her senses and left him, so he tracked her down and broke into my hunting cabin.”
The douche-nozzle cocked his head.
“Came to her senses and left me?” If the veins in Ryker’s forehead weren’t bursting from anger, they soon would be. “You had my woman tied up in a fucking closet, you delusional piece of shit.”
“You’re the piece of shit!” Jack yelled. “Degrading Molly by traipsing her around like some kind of dog with a collar.”
Ryker balled his fists.
“Jack,” Molly said, stepping out from behind him. He was going to freaking paddle her sweet ass for not obeying him and putting herself in Jack’s line of vision.
“Molly,” Ryker snapped.
“Jack,” she said again. “Please. Stop this. This isn’t you. You don’t threaten and hurt people.”
“Molly-mine,” Jack said, grinning. She’s not fucking yours, Ryker thought. Damn it, he wanted to smash the corn nut’s teeth in. “Don’t you realize I’d do anything to keep you safe from this man who abuses you?”
“What?” She gaped. “Ryker doesn’t abuse me.”
“Molly. Do you hear yourself? You sound just like all those women we work with. Many of them don’t think being smacked around is abuse either.”
“Ryker doesn’t smack me around. And he’s never drugged me, taken me some place against my will, tied me up with zip ties and threatened me, or thrown me into a dark closet. You’re the only man in this room who qualifies as being abusive.”
“Jack,” Ryker said, bringing the butthole’s gaze to him and off of Molly. “I’d say you’re the one who’s screwed the po
och.”
Jack lined the gun up with Ryker’s gut. “Is that so?”
Molly screamed an unholy sound.
Ryker reached for her and saw something fly past his head.
Then everything broke down into a surreal moment when her spiked heeled struck the asshole in the face. Jack jerked. The gun barrel flew up as Ryker pulled Molly down to the floor. A shot rang out in an echoing boom. Splinters of wood rained down on them.
Jumping up, Ryker leapt over Molly and hit the mother fucker, his shoulder plowing into the dude’s chest, taking him down, and down hard. The shotgun skittered along the wood floor and spun. Ryker’s fist flew. He felt the crunch of Jack’s nose. Blood arced.
“You won’t be so pretty now, will you, asshole?”
Jack cupped his nose and tried to curl into himself, but Ryker wasn’t done. Using his knee, he slammed it into Jack’s ribs, then hammered his jaw.
“Oh my God, oh my God!” Molly spluttered, crawling on her hands and knees to Ryker. “Stop before you kill him!”
He was about ready to slug the dickhead again, ram his fist through his face, when Molly grabbed on to his arm and clung to him like a burr, pulling him out of the bloodlust.
“Are you okay, babe?”
“Yes,” he said, his body pumped hard and coursing with adrenaline.
“Did you kill him?”
“No, but I want to.”
“Oh, God,” she muttered again, her arms going around his neck and squeezing. “He’s not moving. Are you sure he’s breathing?”
“He’s breathing. He’s just out. The pansy can’t take a punch.”
“I thought he was going to shoot you,” she squealed.
“Better me than you, Molls.” Ryker pulled her back from his neck, so he could see her face. “Any time I tell you to stay behind me, or to stay where you are, you need to God damn listen.”
Claimed by the Bad Boy Page 17
