I raked my hands through my hair. I had to go after her. There was no other way.
I tore away from the guys, sprinting for my bike. They called after me, but I didn’t listen to their cries to stop. I raced for my bike. They had a good five-minute head start on us. But, if I could stick to the backroads and use the exits off the highway like I knew them, I could gain three minutes of that back.
“Thor!” Colt roared.
Someone’s hand came down onto my leather cut and tug on it. I ripped away from the grasp, but the tug happened again. Someone grappled for my jacket, slowing me down as I headed for my bike.
“Get… the fuck… off me!” I roared.
I tossed whoever it was to the ground before someone grabbed my legs. I fell to the concrete, feeling someone scramble up my body. An arm hooked around my neck. Pulled up tight. A knee came down into my lower back as my nails raked along the asphalt of the parking lot.
“Listen to me,” Colt glowered.
I drew in shallow breaths through my nose as I heard everyone else running for us.
“You can’t go off half-cocked like this. Dean has showed us time and time again that it doesn’t work. We need a plan. A solid plan if we’re going to get Willow out of this alive,” Colt said.
“If they haven’t already killed her,” I growled.
I threw Colt off my back and stood up. I rearranged my jacket and heaved a deep breath as I glared at him on the ground. I watched him get up, putting himself between me and my bike.
A very dangerous place for him to be.
“Move, before I move you myself,” I said.
“If they wanted to kill her, they would have done it when they grabbed her out of the window. Hell, that sniper would have kept shooting until they put a bullet in her head. They snagged her, Thor. It means they want her alive. As leverage, probably. Which means any second now, someone’s gonna call with instructions. So, we have to wait,” Colt said.
“I’m not waiting for some bullshit phone call you think is coming!” I roared.
“It’s the only play we’ve got that doesn’t get anyone else killed!” Colt exclaimed.
I glared down at him, watching this man buck up to me. The only man I still respected in the club, honestly. And even though I was pissed, worried, and even frightened, I also knew the man was right.
“Fine. But if we don’t get that call in fifteen minutes, we hatch a plan to go get her,” I said.
“Deal,” Colt said.
I looked everyone square in their eyes as I passed them. Jace. Duke. Maverick. Jagger. Even Dean. I wanted them to know I meant business. That every single one of those cartel asshole would be slaughtered tonight by my bare fucking hands if they laid a finger on Willow. I jumped up the steps of the porch and landed straight in front of the door. I slammed it open and began to pace, my legs nervous. My mind nervous. My heart nervous. I counted down the minutes. Fourteen minutes. Ten minutes. Seven minutes. Three minutes.
And at the two-minute mark, the lodge phone rang.
I lunged for it, but Dean held his hand up.
“I’m still the president, and no one answers this phone but me in situations like this,” he said.
I wanted to strangle his throat, but I nodded. I kept my arms at my sides as he picked up the phone, then immediately placed it on speaker. He walked over and put it on the kitchen table as all of us gathered around it, and I heard breathing on the other end of the line.
“Speak,” a voice demanded.
“Big booty bitches,” Willow said.
I didn’t know whether to laugh at her words or laugh with relief at the fact that she was still alive. Some of the guys around the table smirked, but Dean’s eyes were locked on the phone.
“Who is this?” Dean asked.
The phone shuffled around before I heard a crack in the background.
“For every bruise you put on that woman, I will backtrack your family tree and—”
Dean held his hand up, stopping my words as he shot me a look. Colt patted my back, trying to get me to settle down as my eyes widened. I heard Willow groaning in the background and it made me want to cry. For the first time since Debra’s fucking funeral, the urge to break down was heavier than ever. I felt it pushing me through the floor, weighing me down like fucking lead.
“Willow,” I whispered.
“This is Javier,” the man said.
“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?” Dean asked.
“Diego’s second in command,” he said.
“Diego’s bitch. Got it,” Dean said.
“We have Willow,” Javier said.
“So we’ve figured,” Dean said.
“We know she’s important to Thor. The two of them have grown… pretty close.”
I felt all of the guys slowly look over at me, Dean included. I knew that look in his eye. I was going to have to spill everything the second this phone call was done. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t give a shit what they thought. Literally no one in that circle other than Jagger had a right to judge me for taking on a woman during a crisis like this. Again, Dean included.
Our eyes fell back to the phone as Javier drew in a deep breath.
“She’s very pretty. It’s hard for me to keep one of my men from touching her,” Javier said.
“If you lay a fucking hand on—”
Colt cupped his hand over my mouth as Dean scooped up the phone.
“What do you want?” Dean glowered.
“Simple. If you want Willow alive and relatively untouched, Diego gets out of prison. This weekend,” Javier said.
I bit down into Colt’s hand and he pulled it back enough for me to speak.
“How the hell are we supposed to arrange that!?” I exclaimed.
All of the guys got around me, pulling me back from the phone. Cupping their hands over my mouth and pinning my arms behind my back. I struggled against all of them as Dean turned his back to me. Kept the phone at his lips so I could barely hear what he was saying.
“Dean! Cut it out!” I roared.
“Which day of the weekend?” Dean asked.
“You’ve got two days,” Javier said.
“So, Saturday. Got it.”
“If we don’t have Diego by Saturday at sundown, Willow’s body will be dropped off on your doorstep.”
The last sound I heard was the phone droning as the man on the other end hung up the call.
“How the fuck are we supposed to… arrange this!?” I roared.
I finally found my strength to toss the guys off me and went barreling for Dean. I ripped the phone out of his hand and placed my palm against his chest. I backed him straight into a wall. Pinned him there, our eyes never wavering from the other. My nostrils flared. My teeth bared as a growl fell from the back of my throat.
The two of us stared at one another as my muscles pulsed with anger.
“I want you to listen closely. Are you listening closely, Dean?” I asked.
The man nodded, but he didn’t say a word.
“Up until this point, you have fucked every single thing up. The raid on Sebastian. The shoot out. That dumbass plan to take out Diego—”
“Wishing you would have hopped on board now?” Dean asked.
My hand slid to his throat and I felt the entire room fall silent.
“You might be our president, but you sure as hell have lost your damn mind. And if you think for one second I’m letting you take the lead on this, you are sorely mistaken. I won’t let you fuck this up. I won’t let your recklessness and your fading mind take Willow from me. Do you understand?” I asked.
“I could toss you out of this club for your words,” Dean said.
“But you won’t. Because deep down, you know damn good and well we’re right.”
And when he didn’t argue, I released his throat and turned back to the guys.
“We need a plan, and we need it now. So, start talking,” I commanded.
Chapter 19
Willow
When my eyes opened, my head fucking ached. The room around me spun. For the first few seconds, it felt like I was going to vomit. I knew I’d been captured. That much was completely obvious. But with my vision shaking, I couldn’t see much around me. It was dark. The air around me was musty. I wiggled around enough to take stock of my physical condition. My wrists were bound. So were my ankles. It didn’t feel like rope. Or chains. Or leather. It felt like plastic. Which probably meant zip ties.
Cheap. Common. Useful.
I drew in some deeps breaths, trying not to vomit from the smell of the stale air. I closed my eyes, trying to get the room to stop spinning. Fuck. I really hoped I didn’t have a concussion. That didn’t bode well for me if I did. My ribs hurt. My back hurt even more. And for some reason, my left calf hurt. My head leaned back. I groaned, listening to the sound around me. My voice didn’t echo, so the place I was wasn’t all that big. Either that or it had a lot of padding. But I wasn’t skilled enough to deduce more than that. I hadn’t trained for anything like this.
I only trained to keep myself alive. Not defend myself against captivity.
I worked my wrists and my ankles, trying to free them. And when the pounding in my head subsided, my eyes finally focused. The world appeared around me and my stomach settled down. A good sign for that supposed concussion I was almost sure I didn’t have anymore. But I was presented with a new set of problems.
I was by myself in a motel room.
I looked down at my ankles. They were bound by zip ties to the legs of a wooden chair. The only advantage I had was the fact that my wrists were bound together. Not to the chair. Sloppy work, in my opinion. I meant whoever tied me to this damn thing was in some sort of a hurry. The downside was that I wasn’t double-jointed. So, that still meant my hands were behind my back.
“Come on,” I groaned.
I looked around the darkened room, trying to find anything I could use. Something sharp. A knife, or a razor. Anything to slowly hack through the plastic holding me to the very uncomfortable chair I sat in. The must smell was strong. And when I gazed around the room, I knew why.
It looked like I was in an abandoned motel.
“Shit,” I hissed.
The fabric curtains rotted away with stains. The carpet underneath my feet had holes in it from where mold and bacteria had literally eaten away at it. I could practically hear the bedbugs crawling across the mattress. The place was a dank, disgusting, rundown piece of shit. And as I focused on the sound outside, my stomach turned over for a different reason.
There was no sound outside at all.
There were no cars or planes. No trains or foot traffic. No one vomiting while coming out of a club and certainly no show going on in the distance. Wherever I was, I was secluded. By myself. With no power, no running water, no food, and no way to get out of this fucking chair and get to anything.
Which meant if I screamed, no one would be around to hear me.
The more I craned my neck around, the more helpless I became. There was nothing I could use at my disposal to get me out of this chair. All of the training that ran through my mind was null and void the more I looked around. And the worst part was, I had to pee.
Of course, I had to pee.
The turning of the doorknob caught my attention. I whipped my head around, listening as the rickety door gave way to a slit of light. My eyes narrowed. Okay, so the place did have power. Were these assholes hooked up to some sort of generator? I looked over at the clock on the bedside table. It wasn’t illuminated. Neither was the air conditioning unit. The box television didn’t have any sort of lights on it. But, when someone opened that door, the outside hallway light was on.
Curious.
“Comfortable?”
The thick accent hit my ears as the door swung all the way open. A tall man stood in the doorway. Thin. With long hair that blew in the light breeze of Redding. He dipped down into the hallway and picked something up, and I watched the light move. The lantern came into view and I groaned, rolling my eyes.
No electricity.
Just some stupid fucking electric lantern.
“Disappointed?” the man asked.
He held the lantern up to his face and I caught a good view of him. Which only served to make me more frightened. If I saw this man’s face, that probably meant I wasn’t going to survive this encounter. Or at least whatever this bullshit was I’d found myself in. Everything about him was dark. His hair. His skin. His eyes. His demeanor. Even his fucking clothes. The man walked into the room and closed the door behind him, then sat down in a rickety chair at a desk that was practically hobbling on its last leg.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“No one important,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes as the man sat the lantern down onto the bed.
“Might want to be careful. You could set it on fire,” I said.
“A bit rundown, yes. But, perfect for what we do,” the man said.
“Which is?”
“Work.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“The kind you don’t,” he said.
Well, he wasn’t going to be easy to pry answers out of.
“Get comfortable, because we have some time to kill before the real show starts,” he said.
“Care to enlighten me on the plot of this show?” I asked.
“You’re a good fisher, I’ll give you that.”
“Apparently not good enough.”
“No one’s good enough for me,” he said.
“Pompous and an asshole. Your mother must be proud,” I said.
“If she weren’t dead, maybe.”
“The sympathy card?” I asked.
“No.”
A breeze filtered through a window and I heard the glass rattling around. Great. One of the windows was broken, so I wouldn’t even be protected from the cold desert night. The man locked his eyes with me. Watched me. And I took great care in my movements. I didn’t try to bust out. I didn’t try to wiggle around. The only thing I did was flex my kegel muscles in an attempt to keep myself from peeing down my damn leg.
Then, the man grinned.
“Need a restroom?” he asked.
“I’m good. Thanks,” I said.
“Are you sure? Because you look like you’re struggling.”
“A show I’m sure you’re enjoying.”
“Maybe a little bit,” he said.
“What do you want with me?” I asked.
“Not sure yet. The plan changed when my men returned with you and not the DEA agent.”
“Good,” I spat.
His men. That meant there for at least four men for me to contend with if I could even bust out of this damn place. And judging by how tightly my ankles and wrists were bound, that didn’t seem likely at any point in the future.
“You’re a feisty one. I see why he likes you,” the man said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Thor.”
“You leave him out of this.”
“And protective. Interesting. You fall in love easily?”
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ It’s interesting, though. Thor’s pretty rough around the edges. My men have been trying to figure out how to take him out for a few weeks now. He’s the major threat in that group. But I think we figured out a way to do that,” he said.
My blood froze. Thor was in trouble?
“You won’t lay a hand on him,” I growled.
The man stood up slowly from his chair.
“No, but we will lay hands on you. And that will bring him right into our trap.”
“You leave him alone!”
I struggled against my bonds before a hand wrapped swiftly around my throat. I choked. Gagged. My eyes bulged and watered involuntarily. The man clamped down onto my windpipe and stroked my carotid. He forced me to look into his eyes and I saw nothing but darkness. Fire. An endless pit of despair. My legs qu
ivered. My body felt weak as I gasped for air.
I couldn’t hold my muscles any longer.
The man smiled. “I smell it.”
My lip quivered as urine trickled from my body.
“I smell your weakness,” the man whispered.
“I… won’t let you hurt him,” I choked out.
“You can’t even hold your piss, bitch. How do you expect to help him?” the man asked.
I soaked myself before he released my throat. Tears drifted down my cheeks, but I refused to cry. Refused to sob. Refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he pulled that from me. I cleared my throat and swallowed hard, trying to rid my body of the knot it had been tangled into. The idea of Thor being hurt, well… hurt. More than I wanted to admit. More than I could stand.
More than I wished.
“Who the fuck are you?” I whispered.
“None of your concern,” the man said.
“I asked you a question and you will answer it!” I roared.
“And what makes you think you’re in charge?”
“Who are you? What do you want? Why the hell are you targeting Thor? Why the fuck did you want Liv? Who are you? What do you want? Why the hell are you targeting Thor? Why the fuck did you want Live? Who are you—”
“Shut up,” the man said.
“What do you want? Why the—”
“I said, shut up!”
A hand cracked across the back of my face. Then, he did the one thing I was hoping he would do. He jammed a gag into my mouth. The bandana shoved down my throat, causing me to cough and sputter. I panted into the thickness of the cotton. My eyes rolled back in pain as I felt something cold and metallic press into my temple. I heard the cock of that gun as my body quivered with fear I refused to acknowledge. Refused to allow myself to experience, despite my adrenal glands saying otherwise.
“If you make one more peep, I won’t hesitate to shoot you. Torture you. Place holes in your body while you writhe and cry out in pain. I killed my own mother because she pissed me off. Don’t think you’re any more important than that,” the man said.
My eyes widened and I slowly turned my gaze up to meet him. What? He killed his own damn mother? The gun moved to my forehead before he slowly slid it down my nose. Down my lips. Down my neck. He slid that damn thing all the way down my body before he jammed it into my knee. I felt the cap moving. Dislocating. Straining against the metal of his gun. He wiggled it around, cutting a perfect circle into my skin as I roared out into the bandana. Spit dripped from my lips. The fabric worked its way further down my throat. This wasn’t going at all like I thought it would, and I cursed myself for trying.
Thor (The Black Hornets MC Book 5) Page 11
