None of it made sense. I had a pit in my stomach, warning me that this could be some sort of trap. But how could one Wolf trap me? Besides, I had three guys waiting not a hundred yards away.
I went to the door. It was open. Yeah, something was up. The Glock was heavy in my hand as I entered the building.
One man, only one, sat at a table with his back to the door. I crept up behind him, though I didn't need to. The radio was loud enough for me to walk right in without him even flinching. When my arm snaked around his neck and I pressed the Glock to his temple, he stayed fairly still.
"Hey there," I said. "You alone?"
"Yeah," he said. For a man with a gun to his head, he was pretty calm.
I loosened my grip, and he stayed still. With the gun pointed at his head, I moved to the radio and turned it off. "Keep your hands where I can see them," I ordered.
He glanced down to where they were resting on the table. He'd been playing solitaire.
I looked over the cards. "Black nine on the red ten," I said. Then I turned my attention to him. "Tell me what you know about Lance."
"Who's Lance?" He smirked.
"That's strike one," I warned, thrusting the gun toward him. "You get two more before you're out. I'm gonna ask you again. Tell me about Lance and what he had to do with your shit club."
"I don't know who you're talking about."
"Strike two." I looked him over. "You're not a bad-looking kid. I bet the ladies love you, huh? They won't love you so much with half your fucking face gone."
He gulped. I got the impression he knew I meant business. I pressed on.
"Listen, I don't know who you are or why they left you here alone. Maybe Alexander doesn't give a shit about his lackeys, who knows?"
"I'm nobody's lackey," he said.
"Aren't you? You weren't important enough to go wherever the rest of your club went today. You were left here for me to find. That doesn't sound so important. That sounds like a lackey's job."
"That's what you fucking know," he spat.
"Fine, then. You wanna die for some asshole who left you on your own to face God knows how many Fury Riders? That's your choice. Or, you can tell me what I wanna know," I sneered. "Unless you weren't important enough to be in the know. That's understandable."
That got to him. I saw his face change from smug calm to indecision. He wanted to prove I was wrong, that he was valuable to Alexander and his club. But he probably didn't know much. That was likely the reason it was safe to leave him behind-he couldn't tell me much of anything.
But he had to know something.
"I'm getting bored, and you're wasting my time. I'm gonna ask you one more time before things get messy." I aimed the gun at the kid's forehead. From the patch sewn into his kutte, I saw his name was Steven. "Steven, last chance. What do you know about Lance?"
He took a shaky breath. "I don't know anything." When I lowered the gun, he looked relieved. That was before I lunged at him.
His chair tipped back, throwing him to the floor on his back. I pinned him to the grimy floor, filthy with years of dirt and spit and spilled beer and cigarettes. I wondered who the fuck ever cleaned this place as I pressed my knee against his chest. He gasped for air.
When I was sure he was immobile, I pulled the hunting knife from the sheath on my belt. His eyes went wide with terror when the dim light from the dirty windows fell on it, making the blade gleam. He gasped when I put it to his throat.
"You ever go hunting, Steve? And if the answer's no, I wouldn't shake my head." I grinned, pushing the blade ever so gently against his skin.
"N-no, man." He was gasping for air, nearly hyperventilating.
"Stay with me, Steve," I murmured. "I used to hunt. Still do sometimes. There's nothing like it. It feeds the animal side of me, I guess." I watched him carefully. His eyes kept going from my face to the blade and back again. "Anyway, you remind me of a scared rabbit right now. The way your eyes are so big and round. That's what a rabbit looks like when it knows it's about to die. Only, I'm usually pretty easy on the rabbits. They didn't do anything to piss me off." I leaned closer to him. "You're pissing me off. Get my point?"
"Yeah. I get it." He was close to crying. The kid couldn't have been more than seventeen, maybe eighteen years old. He wasn't even a full member yet. The back of his kutte was blank, the club's patch missing. Alexander picked the weakest to do the grunt work. Fucker.
"Okay. Now that we understand each other a little better, I'm gonna ask you again. I think I've been pretty nice up till now, don't you?" I pressed a little harder against his throat. The hissing noise he made, and the little yelp he gave, told me I just broke the skin. I was a pro with the knife, though, and I knew it would take more than that to slit his throat. Not much more, but more than what I was doing.
"I'm telling you," he whispered. "You were right. I don't know shit. You're wasting your time." Then his eyes hardened just a little. "You better get out of here before it's too late."
"Too late? For what?"
"They're gonna be coming back soon. Maybe they were expecting you to do this to me, and wanted to wait until your guard was down." Son of a bitch, he thought he was in control. He got a little of his confidence back. All I could do was laugh, and when I did, the confidence drained from his eyes again.
"I gotta give you credit, man." I chuckled, adding a little more pressure to his throat. Now there was a thin line of blood trickling from the spot where the blade met his skin
"For wh-what?"
"For acting like you have control over the situation when I'm the one with a knife to your throat. One little slide. That's all it would take. But you're still standing strong. I give you credit. You've got balls."
"Uh … thanks," he whispered. His eyes were still on the blade. He was barely breathing, afraid to make a move.
"Maybe it's your balls I should be focused on instead." I pulled the gun from the waistband of my jeans and pressed the muzzle to his crotch.
"No! No! All right, I'll tell you everything I know. But it ain't much, I swear!"
"Tell me." I pressed a little harder with the knife, and he hissed in pain and panic.
"They went after her! That's where they are!"
"What? Who's they? Who's her?"
"The girl! The girl from last night! They went after her."
I stepped away, seeing him gasp and put a hand to his throat. It didn't register in my mind, though. I took a step away, then another.
They knew I would come. They knew she would be alone.
I ran outside, pulling out my phone as I did. Axel and the others looked stunned but followed me in getting on their bikes.
"They went after her!" I screamed, starting the engine. The phone at the clubhouse rang and rang. "Where is everybody? Shit!" I wanted to throw the phone on the ground but slid it in my pocket and settled for peeling away from the Wolves' clubhouse.
It didn't occur to me to care what my men thought about the way I raced away, after Erica. All that mattered was finding her.
Chapter Thirteen
Erica
I couldn't help feeling a little shaky when Vince left, though I did my best to hide it. With him no longer there, it was just the rest of the club and me. I felt more comfortable while he was around.
I knew I was safest in the clubhouse. It was the chasm of difference between me and the people who surrounded me that left a bad taste in my mouth. On any given day, I would have crossed the street to avoid these people. While the past twelve hours had been proof of how wrong I was, the feeling of being a fish out of water was hard to shake.
It didn't help that the men treated me with kid gloves. Was that because Vince told them to leave me alone? Was I … his woman?
I looked at the men as they passed through the lounge, wondering what they were thinking. Did they see me as a new "old lady"? Was that what they called it in real life, or was that just something from TV and the movies? Regardless, did they think that was who I was?
Did I want to be?
It was impossible to separate the man from his club. Granted, I didn't know him very well. But I wanted to. For now, the line between who he was and what he did was blurred.
I wanted the man. I wanted the way he made me feel. There was an instant spark between us, something I couldn't deny.
I didn't want the club. I didn't want to have anything to do with the world he traveled in. These women, so cheerful and helpful and on top of things. I didn't want to be them, essentially playing den mother to a bunch of little boys. Den mothers didn't sleep with their boys, though. That was the key difference. I knew these girls did.