Devil's Angels Boxed Set: Bikers and Alpha Bad Boy Erotic Romance (26 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ellie was humming a tune as she pulled into her drive. Her escort had gotten caught by a light awhile back and still hadn’t caught up. She didn’t see any reason she should wait to go inside.

The porch light was off. She couldn’t remember if she’d turned it on or not. Even if she had, the light could have burned out. It did that fairly often. She got the key in the lock and opened the door, reaching in to turn on the light in the foyer.

She dumped her keys on the table and ran her thumb over the slider to unlock her phone. A little bit of guilt lingered over leaving Rex to deal with the mess she’d made by kneeing the blonde. Opening a new text she was just about to start typing when the front door began to close.

Fear made her heart thump painfully. She turned her head and saw him, leaning casually against the opposite wall, what he surely thought was a paternal look on his face. It wasn’t paternal. It was frightening.

“Ellie, my precious daughter. It’s been so long since you’ve come to see me. What a shame that I had to hunt you down just to see how you’re doing.”

His pose against the wall was deceptively calm, but she could see the muscle jumping in his jaw and the way his hands were fisted by his sides. He was having a hard time controlling his rage. “I’ve been busy.”

“I guess I should be relieved that you didn’t try lying to me. We both know why I’m here.” He moved away from the wall and Ellie took a step back, bumping into the table behind her. “Nowhere to run, Ellie girl.”

“Please, just leave.” The text box was open on her phone, but there was no way for her to type a message out without him seeing. She’d already clicked on Rex’s name. If she could just type in the code word, maybe she could stall her dad long enough for him to get here. She moved her thumb and his sharp eyes lit on the movement.

“Trying to text your new lover?” He shook his head, disappointed that she would be so stupid to think he wouldn’t see. “Put the phone down on the table behind you.”

Ellie moved to do what he said, afraid like never before. As she set it down she noticed the talk to text button. Sliding her thumb over it she activated the option, glad she had her phone’s volume turned off. It lit up and she hoped that it worked. “What do you want?”

“Well, what I’d like to do is throttle you for thinking you could embarrass me this way.” Xander rubbed his hands together, the thought of her neck in between them almost too irresistible. “You look so much like your slut of a mother. Too bad you picked up her whorish ways. Spreading your legs for that lowlife son of Manny’s.

“Your momma liked Manny too. Must be something in your genes that makes you weak for his type. She couldn’t wait to spread her legs for Manny. Too bad she passed away before I could make her pay for that little indiscretion again.” He looked at his knuckles, remembering what it had felt like to slam them into the face of the woman who’d made a complete fool out of him. He thought he had killed her that night, but she had managed to hang on until Manny found her and got her to a hospital. Another little check mark against the man he was determined to put in the ground.

“I don’t believe you. They were friends, nothing more.” Ellie tried to fight the tears that were burning her eyes. “What is wrong with you?”

Xander’s chuckle was dark. “There’s nothing wrong with me, Ellie girl. I’m just doing what I have to do. You see, I have a very lucrative deal with some south of the border friends and Manny is in my way. Again. Manny, and because of you, his son.”

“Don’t put Rex in this. He hasn’t done anything to you.” Ellie got a little of her fire back, reaching up to wipe the one tear that had managed to escape her eye.

Stepping forward, he got in his daughter’s face, his twisted in obvious disgust. “Hasn’t he? He’s been in you often enough to piss me off. That’s more than enough in my book.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t dare give him an inch. “So nice of you to finally show some fatherly concern. Too bad it’s a little late.”

He slapped her, hard. So hard her teeth rattled. “Watch your mouth or I’ll give you the same treatment I gave your whore of a mother when she defied me.”

Ellie’s hand came up to cup her cheek and she felt blood leaking from the corner of her mouth. He’d meant to scare her with the slap, but instead it had made her mad. He wanted control of her, to use her as a weapon. She couldn’t let that happen. “I won’t let you use me to get to Rex and Manny.”

“You have more loyalty to those two inbreed assholes than your own father?” Xander got in her face again, so angry that when he spoke, spittle flew from his mouth and hit her face.

Willing her hand not to shake, she reached up and wiped his filth from her face and wiped it on her pants. Her father stepped back, looking hard at her with an expression she couldn’t interpret. It wasn’t anger. It was more like—amusement.

“Oh, aren’t you the tough one? A little more like me there with that temper than your wimp momma. I’m going to enjoy breaking you.”

The gleam in his eyes turned Ellie’s stomach. This wasn’t a man. He was a monster. A real living, breathing monster. “You’ll never break me.”

He stepped closer again, staring into her eyes so she could see the crazy that lived inside him. “You’ll break—or I’ll break the man you love.”

She refused to look away. Holding on to what little strength she had was vitally important. “You won’t break me because I love him. Ever since we were kids. No matter what you do to me, that will never change.”

“I guess we’ll find out. You made your choice.” Xander grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out of the house where two of his guys were waiting. She fought, kicking and screaming until finally Xander knocked her out with a punch to the back of the head.

“Load her in the truck. If she wakes up and starts making noise, give her another love tap. Don't put a mark on her or I’ll mark you two up. She’s off limits to everyone but me. Understood?”

The two brawny men nodded, lifting her limp body into the truck. They drove off and Xander got on his bike, heading back to his club and the men waiting for him there. He had important business to discuss.

***

Once again, Rex was breaking every traffic law to get to Ellie. The knot in his gut was burning. He couldn’t erase the look on Tara’s face when she said she had gone to Xander. Of all the things that she could have done—

He knew it was over the minute he pulled into the driveway. The front door was open and the light was on. He jumped off his bike and let it land in the grass. He pushed open the door carefully, a pistol in his hand just in case, calling out her name. Nothing. She was gone.

Her keys and phone were on the table in the foyer. He picked up the phone and swiped this thumb across it the way he’d seen her do a hundred times. The open text was on the screen. His beautiful, smart Ellie. She’d found a way to make sure he knew what had happened. He scrolled up to the top and read everything that had been picked up by the mic.

His worst nightmare had come true. Xander knew everything and he’d taken Ellie.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Manny Pershing watched his son pick at yet another meal. In the past couple of weeks, the boy had lost a good thirty pounds. He was beginning to resemble one of those monsters from that popular television show.

They were all tired and stressed out. There had not been even one small sighting of Ellie and they didn’t even have a tiny clue as to where Xander might be holding her. Every moment he wasn’t searching, planning, or plotting, Rex sat and imagined the worst. It was taking a hard toll on him.

They explored every possible avenue. Through a little bit of dirty trickery, they found out that Ellie’s work was informed that there was a family emergency that required her to take an extended leave. Her house payment and other bills were paid out of her bank account electronically. As a result, they were left with absolutely nothing to work with.

The day after Ellie was taken, Rex used her keys to go in and take certain things from her house. Her laptop was the top priority. He also took her books and a tiny picture frame full of dried weeds. After that one visit, he hadn’t gone back.

The worst part of it, for Rex especially, was watching Xander go about his normal activities. Xander knew they were watching him, of that there was no doubt. He stayed close to the club or his house and engaged in very little activity otherwise. All movement at the storage buildings had stopped and he’d even cut back on the amount of drugs that he dealt out of his place. Although his bank account should have taken a hit from the reduced income, he seemed to be in the black more than ever. 

Manny set up a meeting with a couple of cops that he trusted. He wanted to have something more substantial to present to them, but considering that Xander was on the local radar for years, it was possible they would take Manny and Rex at their word and help them find Ellie. Everything else would have to wait until she was safe again.

The longer this went on, the more he worried that Ellie was already dead and that they’d never find her body.

***

Rex didn’t sleep. Every night it was the same thing. Physical exhaustion forced him to try to rest, but he wasn’t able to turn his mind off. All he could think about was Ellie. He couldn’t help but blame himself. He shouldn’t have let her go home without him.

The little frame full of weeds sat on his nightstand, next to her phone and keys. A couple of times every night he would click on her phone and read the words that were saved there. One night, tired and upset, he called her number just to hear her voice on the voicemail greeting. 

It scared him that the words on that screen might be the last he would have from her. It scared him even more that she might have known that, and consequently, she made sure he had them so he would know how she felt. She loved him. Even when he was a bad, selfish kid, she loved him.

Ellie’s laptop sat on top of his dresser. So far, he hadn’t been able to get past the locked screen, since he didn’t know the password.  He wasn’t going to be able to shut his eyes again tonight, so he thought he might as well give the password another shot. He was thankful she didn’t have a lockout system. He could enter passwords all night long and never worry about the computer shutting him out permanently.

Like so many other nights, he opened the computer and began using any word that he could think of that might be significant to her. When he ran out of words to try, he worked on dates. Any significant date he could remember he’d try, including her birthday, her Mom’s birthday, and any combination of those same numbers with words. So far, nothing had worked.

Rex’s mind was scattered tonight. Maybe it was the fact that Manny had contacted the police and gotten them involved. He wanted to believe they could help, but they said there wasn’t much they could do. They had been apologetic, even cautiously interested in the facts Manny presented; but, without hard proof, their hands were tied.

The dried up weeds in the frame kept distracting him. Why hadn’t he seen it? Years ago, he had picked her flowers when she was sad to cheer her up. He wouldn’t have cared if some other girl was sad, even if he had been the one to cause that sadness; but, Ellie had always been special.

He used to know the name of that weed because she taught it to him when she was six years old and wanted to be a botanist. He smiled at the memory. Ellie had changed her mind about what she was going to be when she grew up to be on a weekly basis. No matter where they went, she always had a couple of notebooks and pencils with her and she was always writing or taking notes on things she found fascinating. It was no surprise to him that she’d become a writer. Her imagination was vast.

Lupines. The word popped into his head. Those little, purple weed-flowers that grew all around were called lupines. He could almost hear her lecturing him about them, as they walked along the ditch.

He sat up, his mind racing. It couldn’t be. Could it? Placing his fingers on the keyboard, he typed the word into the box and hit enter. Her world opened up to him with that one click.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

She wasn’t broken. It was a mantra Ellie repeated over and over. It didn’t matter what he did or what he said, she wasn’t broken. She believed that Rex would find her. He wouldn’t give up on her.

The past few weeks were terrifying. Xander’s mind games and the physical violence were horrifying. She stopped thinking of him as her father the first time he put his hands on her.

The physical pain was actually bearable. It was the mental torture that scared her. He went so far as to tell her that he had killed Rex and Manny in an attempt to get her to break down. She didn’t believe him. He was still far too agitated and paranoid for either of them to be dead.

How did a human become a monster? She couldn’t decide if Xander had always been insane or if years of drug use and power had caused him to become deranged. Either way, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of giving in to him. 

When she had come to the night she was taken, she had been so sick from the blow to her head that she hadn’t noticed where he held her captive. It wasn’t until the next morning that she recognized the place. They had torn down the old house long ago, but not the cellar. It remained with its tunnel that connected to the club at the back of their old property.

Xander had obviously been using the cellar and connecting tunnel often over the past few years. The ceiling beams were reinforced with newer wood and the door to the entrance had been replaced, as well. A huge lock kept out anyone who might stumble onto the place. Another huge lock was on the door that led to the tunnel.

Electricity had been run inside, but he only turned on the lights when he was there. The rest of the time she was in the dark. A twin bed had been set up along one wall for her to sleep on and an old standing TV tray served as her table.

After the first couple of days, she reminded him that if he didn’t let her do certain things and take care of certain obligations, people would report her missing. The police would start looking and that would lead them to his door.

He finally let her use his cellphone. While he watched, she made her payments for the house and electricity. Then, she called her publishing company and told them that she was taking a leave of absence to deal with a family emergency. He wouldn’t let her check her email at all.

Tonight, he was bringing the phone to her again, so she could make her payments. She had already decided that this time she wasn’t going to make her payments. She was going to access her email and try to get a message to Rex.

***

Ellie’s entire life was saved on the fancy laptop. She even had a file that contained all the passwords to her accounts. It was also password protected, but it used the same password as her laptop. Not exactly Fort Knox safe, but he was grateful for that at this point.

He opened up his own email first, hoping against hope that she’d been able to find a way to send him a message. There was nothing other than a crap load of junk mail.

Ellie had three email accounts listed. One was obviously for fans. That email address used her pseudo name and was linked to the publishing house’s account. He still went through it, in case it was the only one she could access. He opened any email that didn’t have a distinct name on it. He got a glimpse into why she wrote under a pseudo name, since some of the fan emails were over the top strange and slightly disturbing. There were hundreds of them in the account and they hadn’t been accessed since a couple of days before the kidnapping.

Moving on, he opened the next account. It looked like it was set up for online purchases, newsletters, and social media notifications. Again, nothing appeared to be from her and none of the emails had been accessed since before that night. 

The final email account looked purely personal. There were emails from a couple of friends, one from an aunt that lived on the East Coast, and something from her publisher. Same as the other accounts, it hadn’t been accessed recently.

Frustrated, Rex closed the browser and began randomly clicking on files. Most of them were Word files containing drafts of her books and outlines for stories yet to be written. She had them categorized by year. He glanced over them, but didn’t waste much time exploring.

The picture folders were next. She had them categorized much the same way, by month and year. There were photos that she had scanned in from actual photos and also ones taken with digital cameras. Cellphone pictures had their own folder, as well.

There were lots of pictures of her as a kid, since her mom had always had a camera around. He wasn’t surprised to see photos of himself when he was younger, too. What did surprise him was how often he was smiling. Manny was right. He had always been happy around Ellie.

He looked at pictures of her until his chest was so tight that he couldn’t breathe. It was worse than any torture. He refused to believe that she was dead. She couldn’t be dead. She was out there somewhere and he was going to find her.