Her Rock Hard Mountain Man: Rough & Rugged, Book Two Page 9

  Also, there’s an iPad with Angry Birds still open. It shuts itself off as I watch.

  “A cell phone?” Calder is asking. He’s sitting in a tall-backed executive leather chair, his flannel sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his Semper Fi tattoo just barely visible on one forearm. “You need us to track a girl’s cell phone?”

  “I thought you had girls stalking you,” Mason says, trying to lighten the mood.

  I attempt a smile, but it fails.

  “Something bad is happening to her,” I say, trying to stay calm. “I think she’s being kidnapped, or kept under house arrest, or… something. I don’t know.”

  “By a biker gang,” Calder says, like he’s still trying to get up to speed.

  “Right,” I say. “I know it sounds crazy, but…”

  I tell them the whole story: meeting Mia at a wedding, finding out that her dad ran the same motorcycle club that hung out at my bar, sneaking out with her every night.

  Then I tell them about getting busted by two other MC members, and how Mia convinced me that her dad was fine and would never hurt her. I tell them about going to her father’s house, about the bikes in the driveway, about the men I could hear but not see. How I’m certain that Mia was terrified of something just out of my line of sight.

  They ask me questions for what feels like hours: about her father, about the Diablos, about their habits at the bar, about the bikes in the driveway. I don’t know half the information they want, but I tell them everything I can.

  When I finish, Mason and Calder are quiet for a long moment, and they glance at each other.

  “I don’t like it,” Calder says, twisting back and forth in his chair. “No. Sounds like she’s under some kind of duress for sure, but hard to say with limited information like this…”

  “I’ve heard some ATF chatter about the Diablos,” Mason says casually, picking up the iPad.

  “You work with the ATF?” I ask.

  “Not officially,” he says.

  I don’t ask more questions. Both of them turn around, and all the screens in the room come alive at once. Most of them are just boxes with text in them. Looks like computer code, which is completely indecipherable to me. A few are video feeds that look live, like they’re from surveillance cameras or something.

  One or two are just flashing some sort of warning across them, but Mason and Calder ignore them, so I do too.

  “The cell phone is all you’ve got?” Mason asks. “She hasn’t got a GPS, or one of those smart watches, or anything else electronic?”

  I comb through my memory, trying to remember anything like that, but I come up blank.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “Just a phone.”

  He nods, already staring at the computer screens. They both work silently for a few minutes, as various pictures and text boxes flash and fade in front of me. There’s one that looks like it’s calculating coordinates, another that seems to be strobing through faces at a fascinating rate. It’s been ages since I used any of this stuff, but that’s why I came here. To these guys.

  After a while they look at each other. Mason nods, and Calder nods back.

  “We’ve got the cell phone,” Calder says. “Looks like it hasn’t moved. Surveillance in that part of the county is pretty light, but if they take her anywhere, we’ll know practically before they do.”

  “We’re running background searches on anyone involved with the Diablos now, but it could take a little while,” Mason tells me. “There’s a whole lot of chaff to sort through before we actually get anywhere.”

  Calder looks back at me and grins.

  “Have a seat,” he says. “Let’s take down some bad guys.”

  * * *

  I’d nearly forgotten how intense something like this is: the planning, the strategy, the making backup plans for backup plans. But in that cellar with Mason and Calder, it all comes flooding back. Old habits and all.

  I’m just glad that they’re still in the life that I left. When I finished with the Marines, I was done — I just wanted to settle down somewhere far from civilization and run a bar.

  These guys were lifers, though. They left the Marines at the same time I did, but they started a consulting business together. Mercenary stuff. High-level, black ops type stuff.

  I just pour drinks, make sure the bar doesn’t run out of whiskey, and tell bikers not to puke on the pool table.

  But Mason and Calder were always the most intense. Best friends since before they joined up, their bond only got cemented by their time in the corps — all the missions they ran together, all the times they were holed up in the same place for ages. It seemed only natural that they’d live together and start a business together when they left.

  Then there’s the other stuff they do together, too. I found out how much they liked to share women the time we went on R&R in Italy and I could hear a girl screaming both their names practically all night through the hotel’s thin walls. I thought it was a one-off thing, but then it happened again and again.

  Turns out they like it better than one-on-one. I don’t quite get the appeal, but hey, I’m not about to judge.

  We’re sitting around their kitchen table, laptops open, maps in front of us. It’s the dead of night and we’ve got a plan drawn up in front of us.

  And it’s go time.

  “You ready?” Mason asks.

  I nod once, curtly. Adrenaline is pumping through my veins. I’ve been ready to go rescue my woman for hours.

  “I was born ready,” I say.

  I follow him to another room — a closet, really — and he hands me a bulletproof vest, a black jacket, a side holster, and a gun. I hesitate for just a moment, and he claps his hand to my shoulder again.

  “I know you don’t like guns, but just take it for peace of mind,” he says. “The bad guys’ll have ‘em.”

  I sigh, putting my gear on. Give me close-range, hand-to-hand combat any day, because guns are almost always more of a liability than they’re worth, at least in my opinion. It’s not a very popular opinion.

  “They always do,” I say. “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll explain on the way,” he says, so I follow him out the door.

  Mason drives, and Calder and I sit in the back, geared up like we’re about to make a tactical assault on Fallujah. He’s got the iPad out, though it’s no longer got Angry Birds pulled up. Instead, it’s showing a green-tinged night-vision feed of a car flanked by motorcycles, winding down a dark road.

  “We’re nearly positive she’s in there,” he tells me.

  I frown, taking the iPad from him.

  “This is live?”

  He just nods.

  “How?”

  “Drones,” he says, looking vaguely satisfied. “Someone owed me a favor.”

  “Where are they going?”

  Calder frowns, then looks out the window. It’s pitch-black outside, midnight in the mountains.

  “Have you ever heard of the Priests of Chaos motorcycle club?” he asks.

  “It sounds familiar,” I say. “They may have come into the road house once or twice to do business with the Diablos.”

  “You have any idea what that business was?”

  “I tried not to listen,” I say.

  The second this is all over, any Diablo is gonna be persona non grata in the road house, that’s for damn sure.

  “The Priests have a particular specialty among the vices,” Calder says, taking his iPad back from me. “Some MCs run guns, some run drugs. The Priests run girls.”

  My blood goes cold. My vision blanks out for a moment and all I can see is pure black.

  “I’ll murder every last one of those sons of bitches,” I say. “I swear to God if they lay a single hand on Mia I’ll rain fire down from the heavens—”

  “And we’ll help,” Calder interjects, still perfectly calm. “Though we don’t think they’re sending Mia there to be trafficked. We think they’re sending her there to be taught a lesson. It’s somethi
ng that the FBI has long suspected other MCs do with their, uh, wayward women, but this might be the first proof we have of it.”

  My blood is boiling. Lucky’s a fucking monster, and I can’t believe I didn’t know that until now. He wants to teach his wayward daughter a lesson by sending her to another MC for God knows what?

  Just the thought of her there, like that, makes me nauseous. I grab the iPad back from Calder, who’s started smiling.

  “We got a plan yet?” I growl, my eyes glued to the cars driving down the dark road.

  From the front seat, Mason chuckles slightly.

  “You ever felled a tree before?” he asks.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mia

  It’s pitch black out, the only light the white cone cast by the car’s headlights, along with the headlights of the motorcycles flanking us. But other than that, it’s dead dark, the vague shadows of trees looming over us the only indication that the car is moving.

  I’m alone in the backseat. I’d love to say that this is my father’s first mistake, that it’ll somehow lead to me getting out of here, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

  Despite that, I crawl my hand across the seat toward the door. I’m still looking dead ahead, determined not to give away the fact that I’m looking for some way, any way, to escape. I finally reach the door, drift my hand upwards to the handle, and pull as quietly as I can.

  It’s locked. I glance over quickly, trying to see if the locking mechanism is visible, but it’s not. Child locks.

  God, fuck child locks.

  Not that I know what I would do if I escaped besides run into the dark woods and hope the MC couldn’t find me. If I managed to get out of the car without breaking any bones, I might have a decent chance, but it’s unlikely that I jump from a moving vehicle without breaking anything.

  Besides: child locks, so it’s all pointless. I look out the window at the black nothingness and keep trying not to panic, but one of the men in the front seat is Gage, the president of the Priests of Chaos MC.

  I already don’t like him. I don’t like the way he looks at me. I don’t like the way his voice sounds or the way he smells.

  And I really, really don’t like the way he talks to me, like I’m an object to be owned. Earlier I overheard him talking to my father, calling me already ruined.

  What the fuck is that? Already ruined because I have a boyfriend? Ruined because at twenty-fucking-one I’m no longer a virgin?

  If I get out of here, I’m never talking to my father again. That much I’m sure about.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been in the car when suddenly, it slows. My stomach jumps into my throat, and even though I’m trying to play it cool, I can’t help but crane my neck to see where we are, and why we’re stopping.

  We’re there. Wherever ‘there’ is.

  My new prison.

  The bile rises in my throat, and for a moment, I seriously think that I’m going to throw up in the back of this sedan, but I fight it down.

  Besides, we’re not anywhere. In front of us is more road, the motorcycles stopped on either side. I sit up higher in the seat, looking out, and then I see it.

  There’s a tree down across the road. In the driver’s seat, my father sighs.

  “Fuckin’ highway maintenance,” he mutters. “Can’t even keep the trees off the road…”

  He gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Now it’s just Gage and me.

  The thought raises goosebumps on my arms. Bad goosebumps. Gage just turns around and smiles at me, and I realize that one of his canine teeth is broken off.

  I shudder despite myself and look back outside. Now all the Diablos are off their bikes, and they’re standing around like they’ve never seen a downed tree before. My hand finds the door handle again, and I pull it once more, just in case. Maybe when my father opened his door, it unlocked everything.

  Nope.

  “I respect you for trying,” Gage says in the front seat, his ugly voice like sandpaper on my ears. “I’m glad you’ve got some fight in you, even if it didn’t seem like it at first.”

  I don’t answer him, just stare out the window and think. If I could just get Gage out of the car for a few moments, I could get out through the front seat and just run, because I’d definitely take being lost in the woods over going somewhere with Gage.

  “I’ve always liked getting the fight out of girls,” Gage goes on. My stomach turns, but I force myself to stay stone-faced and not look at him. He doesn’t even deserve that much. “Don’t worry, sugar. I won’t even be keeping you for long.”

  Another pause. The bile’s rising in my throat again, and I’m glancing around the back seat for something, anything I could use as a weapon.

  The seatbelt, maybe? If I could get it out fast enough and wrap it around his neck, maybe he’d pass out before anyone noticed and I could run…

  “Your father’s got other plans for you, once you’ve learned your place,” he finishes.

  “Fuck you,” I finally spit, unable to keep my rage in check anymore. “And fuck my father. I hope you both die and rot in hell.”

  Gage smirks, but as he opens his mouth to reply, there’s a huge crash from behind us. We both turn and look out the rear windshield, just in time to see another huge tree come down, right across the road. Both trees are easily two feet across, and now the biker escort is shying away from them, backing toward the middle.

  They’ve all drawn weapons. Every last one of them is carrying some sort of enormous, unwieldy, shiny gun, and they’re all pointing them here and there at the forest.

  I lower myself down in the car, closer to the back seat. I don’t trust any of these guys not to accidentally shoot someone else any second now.

  “Fucking clusterfuck,” mutters Gage in the front seat, looking around, then glancing back at me. “Fucking told Lucky not to bring his idiot patrol, but no, he had to have armed backup—"

  He’s cut off by a gunshot. It comes from somewhere over to our right, but I don’t investigate because the second I hear it, I’m on the floor of the car, both hands over my head, heart pounding.

  Don’t let me die like this, I think, over and over. Not in this car with this man on this road.

  Please.

  Outside is pandemonium. Bikers in full leather are waving their guns around and screaming at each other. No one knows who fired the shot, and whoever did it isn’t saying anything. I just make myself keep breathing, lying on the floor of the car.

  It smells like motor oil. And popcorn. And mildew. It’s a bad smell.

  There’s another shot, and this time I can’t tell where it’s coming from but the scene outside reaches a fever pitch as I flatten myself as much as I can, holding my breath.

  Not like this. Not like this.

  “Fucking idiots,” Gage says.

  Then I hear the car door open. The sedan bounces slightly on its suspension as he gets out, screaming at the other bikers at the top of his lungs. Now everyone is screaming, all at once, and I can’t hear anything that’s going on at all.

  But he’s gone.

  This is my chance. I might not get another one.

  For a moment, my nose still taking in the disgusting bouquet of the car floor, I think about it. I think about being Gage’s plaything for however long my father decides is appropriate.

  I think about what my father intends for me once I’m broken and subservient. Who he’ll be giving me to or selling me to then.

  And I think, last but not least, of Elias. Of all the nights spent in his arms in the yurt. Of all the sweet, goofy texts, of the way he didn’t want to leave me at my father’s house, but I insisted.

  I have a feeling that he’s not far right now. One tree down over the road is just life.

  Two? Not so much.

  I take a deep breath. Everyone outside is still screaming and shouting, probably still waving their stupid hand-cannons around like a bunch of morons who want to shoot themselves accidentally.


  And I go.

  I shove myself through the gap in the front seats, kick the steering wheel with my shin by accident, and lunge for the driver’s side door handle. It’s still unlocked and I spill out onto the blacktop on my hands and knees, skinning my palms and one knee since I’m still in my skirt, but I get back up.

  Lights go on, so bright it feels like it’s suddenly daylight, bathing everything in their blue-white glow and casting shadows sideways.

  I run anyway. Someone is barking orders through a megaphone but I’m not even listening. I’m not about to stand here and wait around for something to happen, and I sprint between surprised bikers as fast as I can, heading for the woods.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Elias

  “WEAPONS DOWN!” I shout, my voice magnified through the cool night air, though I’m still sweating beneath my body armor. “LET US SEE YOUR HANDS!”

  The car door bursts open, and a human form spills out onto hands and knees. The moment I see her I know it’s Mia, and relief floods through my whole body.

  She scrambles to her feet instantly and sprints. She ignores the lights, the shouted commands, the confused bikers waving their guns around, and heads for the side of the road at top speed.

  “NOW!” I shout, and finally, I get some results: the burly men in leather start putting their guns on the ground, holding their hands over their heads, squinting into the high-powered floodlights we brought on the other truck.

  Mia disappears into the woods, and I fight the urge to throw down the megaphone and go after her. I know she’s fine and safe, and I know that in five minutes she’ll be in my arms, but I want her there now. I can only imagine what she’s been through.

  When they’re all still and unarmed, I finally lower the megaphone and raise my radio to my mouth.

  “All right,” I say. “Get ‘em.”

  Instantly, a dozen men, all wearing black fatigues and body armor, move in from the sides of the road, guns drawn on the bikers. To their credit, the bikers don’t make a move to fight back — I guess they’re smart enough to know when that would be suicide.