Ryder leaned out of his window, shouting to Hammer. “Get hold of Cobra. Tell him his son has been snatched. We’re going to the hospital to save Ratbag. I’m taking Summers with me to get us through the traffic.” His voice broke. I nearly felt sorry for Knox; he actually believed he could save the man on the back seat. Going to the hospital was pointless—I knew what a dead man looked like. And the black van had long disappeared.
I leaned over from the passenger side and gripped the steering wheel tightly with one hand. “Knox. Listen to me. It's too late. He’s dead. The hospital can’t do anything for him.” Ryder stared at me in disbelief, as if I were speaking a foreign language.
“No. We can save him. He’s just having difficulty breathing.” Ryder was losing it. I knew how close he was to his biker brothers, but surely he’d seen a dead man before? Even killed someone by his own hands?
“He’s dead, Knox. Stone dead.”
His eyes were wild. “You fucking cocksucker. Don’t say shit like that.” He spat at me, his voice filled with venom. He looked as if he’d take my head off. I wasn’t taking any chances—I punched him in the face, trying to bring him back to reality. If we wanted to save the child, we had to act fast. Now wasn’t the time to go into shock or to grieve. There would be plenty of time for that later. Like, years.
Knox’s eyes widened in shock. He rubbed his jaw, cursing, but at least I’d stopped him from wasting time. I whipped out my phone and pressed the buttons to dial the head office.
The squad was on standby, but I doubted they’d be deployed for the purpose they’d sacrificed their Sunday afternoon for. I knew Cobra would never go through with the deal.
Cobra! The man driving the fucking getaway van.
Was this a diversionary tactic? To take our attention off the weapons deal? What the fuck was going on?
This had to be a staged hoax: Cobra pretending to kidnap his boy so we’d give chase and forget about the guns being smuggled right under our noses. Jesus. I nearly fell for it.
I whipped out my gun and held it to Ryder’s head. “Call your boys off. I’ve been wanting to put a fucking bullet through your head for a long time. Don’t make me do it.”
“Have you gone stark raving mad, Summers? A man is dead and a child has been kidnapped. What kind of game do you think this is?”
“Just the kind of game the man who is screwing my naïve and innocent sister . . . without qualms . . . is playing,” I bit out, angry with myself for getting caught in this intricate web of deception.
Ryder turned to me, the look in his eyes one of desperation. “Listen. We have our differences, but I need you to know two things. One: I fucking love Jade, and I’d give my life for her. Two: Ratbag here would have died for nothing if we don’t get the kid back. Jamie suffers from A.D.D. and asthma; he’s going to be scared shitless and be scarred for life . . . if the fuckers who took him don’t . . . kill him.” He nearly choked on the last words.
Ryder Knox had bared his soul to me in this moment. He was telling the truth.
Did I want the blood of yet another child on my hands? Fuck no.
There were already two.
No more.
Chapter Forty-Seven — Ryder
Cobra’s bike came roaring down the road with all the boys he’d taken on this mission in tow. Clearly they’d decided to abort the weapons exchange. A heavy sigh escaped my chest: this was going to be one of the hardest things I’d had to do to Cobra. We’d been through a lot of shit together in our lives, but few things trumped your firstborn and only son to be snatched and possibly killed for an unknown reason.
Summers and I got out of the SUV and stood waiting in silence, our stances wide and arms folded across our chests, our eyes pinned on the bikers approaching us. There was an unspoken temporary truce between us. To my surprise, he’d turned a weird shade of grey, cold sweat breaking out on his skin, and a horrified expression had appeared on his face when he’d taken in all the blood on my clothes and where I’d wiped my hands on my jeans. He’d avoided looking at me, or at Ratbag. The sight of the bloodied body had somehow rattled him—I could have sworn he’d wanted to vomit.
His big-as-a-house partner had radioed the head office and helicopters were being deployed to help search for the black van, but I knew in my heart it was futile. These snitchers knew what they were doing. Jamie was more than likely going to be taken across the fucking border, and locked up in a dark musty room that would cause him to have an asthma attack. They might as well put a gun to the boy’s head—it would be more merciful than dying from a lack of being able to breathe. My heart crimped at the thought. I loved Jamie as if he were my own kid.