“This place got cameras?” Dad asked and she nodded. “Show me any surveillance you’ve got outside.”
“I can’t do that. My boss would have my head if I just showed some random guy our security feed. Sorry, but I’m not risking my job for you two. I have bills to pay.”
Muttering a curse, I pulled out my phone and called Mila’s cousin Lexa. Once she realized her uncle Spider had welcomed me into the family, Lexa had been all too happy to do the same. She even gave me her number one night after dinner, when we’d all gone over to Bash and Raven’s house for a meal. Much to the unhappiness of her husband. But I was thankful for it now.
Fuck, maybe some nutcase realized who I was and had taken them. Maybe they were holding them for ransom because they knew I would pay it. I would pay whatever the hell they wanted as long as I got my Mila back.
Now I understood why Uncle Nik was constantly stressed over Aunt Emmie’s safety and sending bodyguards with her if he or one of the other Demons wasn’t able to go. I got why Mia’s husband was so growly about her leaving his side for more than ten minutes. Fuck, Lucy’d had her own bodyguard for years until she married Harris. I’d always thought it was stupid when I was a kid. Why did my responsible big sister need a babysitter? Yet, right then, I completely got it.
That train of thought was cut off when Lexa answered. “’Sup, rocker boy?” she said, and I heard Finn gurgling happily in the background.
“Mila and Monroe are missing,” I told her, and I could feel her sudden tension through the phone. “Their phones are both turned off. I’m at the café on campus, and I need the security footage to see why both their vehicles are still in the parking lot but they aren’t here. Can you have your husband come down here and help me out?”
“They’re missing?” she whispered. “Both of them?”
“I just said that, Lexa,” I barked, unable to control the volume of my voice as my panic began to push down on me.
“Lyric.” Dad tried to calm me down, but I couldn’t listen to him at that moment.
Something was wrong. I knew it, could feel it in my soul. Mila was in trouble. She needed me, and I wasn’t there to protect her and our babies. Sucking in a deep breath in a failed attempt to calm myself, I tried to lower my voice. “Please. Just send Ben over here.”
“Ben will be there as soon as possible. But I’m calling my dad and the boys. I…I think you’re going to need more help than the law will allow, Lyric.”
There was something in her voice that made my blood turn to ice. “What do you know?”
“Monroe…” She paused and cleared her throat. “Monroe stopped by to talk to me the other day. She needed to get a few things off her chest.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with either her or Mila being missing now?” I half shouted, my voice unsteady.
“She told me she’s in love with Gian Fontana,” she whispered, as if saying the guy’s name too loud would summon the devil himself.
“Is that supposed to mean something?” Because it didn’t mean shit to me.
“You wouldn’t understand. But trust me, my dad and Uncle Spider will. So will Ben. I’m calling them now. Along with my mom. Stay where you are. Ben will help you with anything you need, and then—” She broke off again, leaving me feeling like I was floundering, wondering what the hell “and then” meant.
Chapter 20
Mila
Walking into the café, the first thing I saw was my sister sitting in the back, openly crying as she looked sightlessly out the window.
“Mon,” I called to her and started her way.
She jerked at the sound of her name then blinked in my direction. “Get something to drink. And something sweet to eat,” she instructed. “Then we can talk.”
Cursing under my breath, I walked to the counter and ordered a skinny hot chocolate minus the caffeinated mocha drizzle and two cinnamon-apple scones. By the time I got back to the table where Monroe was sitting, she wasn’t crying, but her eyes were still damp and her face was blotchy. We were not pretty criers, that was for sure, but seeing the evidence of all her tears hurt my heart.
Placing our plates on the table between us, I cupped both hands around my cup of chocolate and sat back. “Tell me why you’re crying, Mon.”
“I’m just as pregnant as you are, Mila,” she murmured with a shrug. “Haven’t you been emotional lately, too?”
Tearing off a small piece of the scone, I threw it at her face. She swatted at it before it could hit her, glaring at me. “Don’t be a brat. You’ve been avoiding me all week. Yes, I’m emotional more often than not, but I don’t sit around sobbing like you so obviously were doing when I got here. You can pull the blinders down over Mom and Dad, but I’m your twin, Monroe. Your other half.” Reaching over, I clasped her hands in both of mine. “I love you. Please, just tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help.”
“No one can help,” she whispered brokenly, fresh tears filling her eyes. “I messed up. I love him, Mil. I love him so damn much. And I know everyone thinks he’s a monster, but he isn’t anything like his father. I swear he isn’t. I tried to tell Lexa that, but she wouldn’t listen to me. I-I know she has more reason than anyone not to believe me, but he’s a good man.”
“Who?” I asked softly, while inside my head, my mind was going crazy, trying to think who the hell she was talking about.
“G…” She swallowed hard, her hand going to her neck. She wrapped her fingers around that damn medallion, and I realized it was the first time I’d noticed she was wearing it again since she’d returned from Italy. Had she been wearing it this whole time, and I hadn’t realized it? “G is Gian Fontana.”
“Ah fuck, Monroe,” I breathed, sitting back as the realization of who her stalker was hit me with the force of a wrecking ball. “Is he the father of your baby?” I touched my own belly. “It is just one, right? Not twins like me?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I haven’t had a scan yet. I-I only did a home pregnancy test a week ago and told Mom and Dad once I knew I was pregnant. I was waiting…”
“For what?” I whisper-shouted. “You could be carrying twins right now. I’m having issues with my blood pressure like crazy. Lyric is a mess, worrying about me every other minute of the day. What if you have issues like that, too? What if something else is going on? We’re identical, Monroe. Identical twins, especially females, are more likely to have twins of their own.”
“I’ll see the doctor as soon as I can,” she promised. “I just have to tell G first.”
“So, tell him already!” I yelled at her.
“I don’t know how!” she yelled back.
“What do you mean, you don’t know how?” I demanded, lowering my voice. “You don’t have his number?”
“I don’t have anything,” she admitted, tears spilling over her lashes. “I woke up in Italy one morning, and he was gone. No note, nothing. I waited for him to come back for days, and he… He never did. We’d had a huge argument the night before, and…” Her cheeks filled with pink, and she looked away. “And when I woke up the next morning, he was gone.”
“The sonofabitch just abandoned you?” I gritted out.
“No,” she denied, her head shaking adamantly. “He wouldn’t do that to me. I know him. He… He…” But her face began to crumble. “I thought he loved me like I love him,” she whispered.
I stood carefully so my blood pressure wouldn’t give me a problem, then sat down beside her. Pulling her head to my chest, I hugged her tightly, rubbing her back as she sobbed into my neck. “Fuck him,” I growled close to her ear. “You don’t need him anyway. We’ll help you through this, Mon. Don’t worry about anything.”
It took me a few minutes to get the tears to stop flowing, and then I fed us both the scones. Using a fork, I would feed her a bite and then take one for myself. She sat with her head on my chest, letting me baby her until the last crumb disappeared.
Our drinks were cold by the time we were done, so
I went and got us new drinks. Coffee was out, so I ordered us smoothies. Once I’d returned to our table, Monroe had gone quiet again, so I distracted her with all the details of the wedding I knew so far.
I’d never been the type of girl who dreamed about a wedding before. I honestly didn’t care what everything looked like and who attended. All I really worried about was not looking fat in my wedding dress, Dad walking me down the aisle, and Lyric waiting for me with the minister. Everything else was immaterial to me.
“Do you think I’m crazy for marrying a guy I don’t even really know?” I asked as we walked out to our vehicles a while later. “River said I was insane for agreeing to marry Lyric so soon.”
She gave me a strange look as she paused between the SUV and her Jetta. “Do you love him?”
“More than I ever thought it was possible to love someone,” I confessed. “It’s kind of scary loving someone this much. Letting him have all this power over my happiness and my heart.”
“Believe me, I know what you mean.” She bit her lip, then shook her head. “No, Mil. I don’t think you’re crazy at all. As long as you’re happy, who cares what other people think?”
I threw my arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I love you so much, Mon. You know that, right?”
She wrapped her arms around me. “I love you too.”
We stood there just holding each other for the longest time, neither of us even trying to move away from the other. I knew she was hurting, and it made my heart ache for her. All I wanted was to fix this for her, mend her broken heart—and maybe take Dad’s knife to G’s balls. That asshole was why my sister was feeling like this, and I wanted him to hurt just as badly as she was.
The sound of squealing tires had us both snapping our heads around. A nondescript black sedan screamed to a stop at the back of the SUV. Two men in jeans and black hoodies jumped out, and instinctively, I moved in front of Monroe protectively.
The one who’d been in the driver’s seat said something, but I didn’t understand a single word of it. It wasn’t until the other guy spoke that I realized they were both speaking Italian. This time of day, everyone was either at work or in class. It was why Monroe and I had decided to meet so late in the afternoon, to avoid people listening in on our conversation. But it meant there was no one in the parking lot or even driving by to help us if we needed it.
“Where are you, Gian?” I heard Monroe whisper, her fingers clenching in the back of my shirt. “I need you.”
“Mon, are these friends of yours?” I hissed over my shoulder, keeping my gaze on the two men approaching us with purpose.
“No,” she whispered back. “I’ve never seen these two before. But…”
“But?” I muttered, noticing the guns the two men were packing. The driver pulled his and aimed it right at my stomach. I felt the blood drain from my face.
Did this guy know I was pregnant?
Did he know Monroe was?
Ah fuck. Had they been watching us?
The other guy said something to the driver, and Monroe sucked in a deep breath.
“What?” I demanded. “What did he say?”
“I think he said our babies would get a good price on the market, so they need to try not to hurt us too badly.”
How she knew Italian, I had no idea, but I was glad she could understand them. Carefully, I pulled my phone from my back pocket and started to open my contacts. But seeing I was calling for help, the driver moved faster than he had before and snatched my phone out of my hands before I could hit connect on Lyric’s name.
As he pressed the end of his gun harder against my abdomen, his friend came around behind us. Monroe’s gasp told me she now had a gun pressed against her somewhere too. My instinct was to punch this asshole in the face. He couldn’t possibly have the balls to actually pull that trigger.
But I had more than myself to worry about. Not only was my sister in danger, but both of us were pregnant, and our babies were the most at risk in this situation. Clenching my eyes closed, I prayed for this to be just a bad dream, or for patience if it wasn’t so I didn’t do something stupid and get us both killed.
When I lifted my lashes, the guy in front of me was still there, his gun pressed even harder into my flesh. But his eyes, they were on Monroe, as if he found her the most curious thing he’d ever set eyes on.
He said something that had my sister’s fingers biting into my flesh through my shirt.
“What did he say?” I whispered to her over my shoulder, keeping my eyes locked on him.
“He wants to know if my pussy is made of gold if Gian is willing to die for me,” she gritted out, fear lacing every word. “He…He’s going to rape me, Mila. Oh God, Gian, where are you?”
“Come,” the other guy said in thickly accented English. “No trouble. We not hurt you.”
“Bullshit,” I snarled at him.
“Get in,” he repeated. “Or I shoot you and take Fontana’s woman anyway.”
“Mil, don’t struggle,” Monroe pleaded. “The babies…”
“I know, damn it,” I snapped. “Fine. But tell your boy to back up so I can move.”
He spoke rapidly to the driver, and he took a half step back, but he barely moved his gun from my gut. I’d seen the damage a bullet to the gut had done to Tavia, and I knew this close, neither the babies nor I would survive being shot.
Reaching behind me, I locked my fingers in the belt loops of Monroe’s jeans and held on tight as I started walking toward the sedan. The driver opened the back door and pushed me inside. Monroe followed, along with the other guy. I tried the handle of the other door, but of course, the child-safety locks were already engaged.
Fuck.
“You listen,” the guy beside Monroe repeated. “We no hurt you.”
Monroe grasped my hand, clinging to it as she huddled away from him as much as she could in the cramped space of the back seat. The driver got in and tore out of the parking lot. But as he got on the road, he settled into a natural speed, not drawing anyone’s attention.
As he drove out of town, heading north once he got on the interstate, I felt like every mile he put between us and Creswell Springs only decreased our chances of ever seeing those we loved ever again.
“I’m cramping,” Monroe whispered an hour into the drive north.
“What?” I whispered back.
“Cramping,” she repeated, her chin trembling. “I think…I think it’s the baby.”
“Mon,” I gasped, clutching at her hand. “How bad is it?”
“It’s getting worse. And I think…” She glanced down at her lap as tears spilled over her lashes. “I think I’m bleeding.”
“Bleeding?” the guy beside her repeated in his heavily accented English, his brow furrowed as if he didn’t know the meaning of the word. “You are hurt?”
“She’s having a miscarriage,” I raged at him, even as I mentally prayed I was wrong. “Stop the car. Find her a hospital.”
“No,” he said calmly. “No stopping.”
“She’s losing her baby!” I screamed at him and threw myself across my sister to get to him. I was tired of this shit. Tired of being scared and sitting there like a weak little victim.
My nails scored down his face, causing him to shout in pain. He was so surprised, his hold on his gun slackened as he tried to push me off him, and I grabbed it. Sitting back, I turned it on him, just as the driver slammed on the brakes.
I jerked forward, my shoulder connecting hard and painfully with the front passenger seat. The next thing I felt was a sharp pain in the side of my jaw.
Monroe screamed my name, but it sounded far away as the world went black…
Chapter 21
Lyric
Spending my life around hard-core rockers made me think I’d grown up with badass men. But my dad and uncles had nothing on the Angels.
Bash, Hawk, and Masterson showed up first, then Mila’s brother, Maverick, and a few of his cousins. Soon, an entire army of MC broth
ers was filling up the parking lot, quickly followed by the sheriff’s cruiser pulling in with his mother-in-law in the front seat. There was something about Raven Hannigan Reid that, from the first moment I met her, told me I needed to respect her.
She reminded me so much of Aunt Emmie despite the two women being polar opposites in looks. They both had this aura around them, demanding everyone bow down because they were the fucking queens of their world.
She was out of the cruiser and headed for the group surrounding me before the sheriff had even opened his own door. “What do you know?” she asked the group at large, but there were no new details to share. I had zero information to offer, and I felt useless just standing there watching them.
“Raven,” Ben called as he moved toward the front door of the café. “You with me?”
“Be right there,” she called back, her eyes searching and finding me. “Lyric, let’s go.”
Glad to have something to do besides standing around losing my mind worrying about Mila, I went with her as she followed her son-in-law inside.
Ben was already speaking to Tiff, who seemed to be realizing the importance of giving me what I wanted now. After a few more words were exchanged between the two, she led the way to the back office, where she pulled up the security footage on a dated computer. She messed with a few keys, but Ben moved her out of his way and sat in the rolling chair behind the desk. Muttering under her breath, Tiff left us, returning to the front of the café and leaving us alone in the office.
Moments later, the screen filled with the images of the parking lot. The camera didn’t reach all the way back to where Mila and Monroe were parked, but it showed a black sedan brake sharply near them not long after they had left the cafe. Several minutes later, Mila and Monroe appeared just long enough to be forced into the back of the car, and several seconds later, the sedan sped away.
“I saw the gun on Monroe,” Raven said. “If those two idiots put a gun on them, Mila wouldn’t have put up much of a fight.”
Savoring Mila (Angels Halo MC Next Gen & Rockers' Legacy Book 3) Page 13
