Forever Rockers (40 page)

As the door shut behind us, I grabbed Liam’s phone and read through the messages he’d said Gabriella had been sending him. They looked just like the others in the message queue. The words were the same, the abbreviations were the same. Nothing about them made me think that anyone but Gabriella had sent them to him.

My gut, however, was screaming that they were all a lie. Something was wrong. Why had it taken her more than an hour past when she had promised she would arrive? Traffic shouldn’t have been that bad.

“Call her,” I commanded Liam as I pushed the phone back into his hands. Hands that were just as cold as my own and trembled twice as badly. “Don’t stop until she answers.”

He nodded and put the phone to his ear. I watched him as he waited. And waited. And waited some more. “It’s going to voicemail,” he told me in a choked voice and tried again. “She’s not picking up.”

“Keep trying,” I snapped at him and turned to face Shane and Peterson. Nik was beside me now, his hands going to my waist, but I was numb. I didn’t feel the usual fire from his touch. My entire body was cold, feeling as if it were turned to solid ice.

All I could think was that Mia wasn’t there and she should have been there. Gabriella wasn’t there, and even though I had days when I didn’t want to see her, I wanted her there now. Harper was missing. She’d just disappeared from the baby shower.

Disappeared. Almost as if she hadn’t even been there to begin with.

I hadn’t questioned Mia’s absence when I should have. Hadn’t listened to my gut instinct when she and Gabriella hadn’t shown up at the promised time. I’d even tried to downplay Shane’s concern when he first couldn’t find Harper. Stan not answering his phone should have set me into gear. I should have done something. I should have already been looking for her. Should have called Roger, who had the day off, and had him go with Mia that morning to begin with.

“Tell me all about your wife,” Peterson ordered Rex as he stepped closer to the man.

I watched him pale, which should have been impossible with how pasty his skin already was right then. He looked like an accident victim with his paleness and the dark circles under his eyes. It had been a while since I’d last seen Rex Brennen, but I remembered him having a little more meat on his bones. It was obvious to me something was wrong with him.

Rex’s Adam’s apple bobbed twice before he started talking. “I married Helena six years ago. We only dated for about six months before her parents started dropping hints that they would like to see us married, so I popped the question.”

Shane crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the man. “You said earlier that she’s been having issues, that the two of you have had problems. Do you think she could hurt herself? Could she hurt Harper?”

Rex’s eyes widened. “No, she wouldn’t hurt herself,” he started to assure us adamantly, but then his gaze clouded over. “I don’t think she would, anyway. I can’t understand why she would try to hurt Harper, though.”

Peterson lifted a brow. “What is her maiden name?”

“Saunders,” Rex was ready to supply. “She was a trust fund brat. I don’t think she’s ever worked a day in her life, but she did go to college and has a degree in journalism. I tried to get her to work at the magazine, but she refused. She would rather stay home and spend my money.” Rex gulped nervously, but then again anyone probably would have been nervous to have Peterson staring at them like he was currently doing to the man.

“How did you meet her?” I asked, trying to piece their marriage together, hoping that it would help figure all this craziness out.

“At a concert. I was supposed to do an interview with Nik and Jesse after a Demon’s Wings concert but I got sidetracked when I bumped into her.” He gave me a grim little smile. “You tore me a new one when I never showed up.”

The fact that I’d let him have it for leaving my guys hanging didn’t surprise me. “She was at a concert?” That did surprise me, however. What little I’d seen of Helena, I hadn’t put her down as the typical groupie who normally followed the band around, even back then. I tried to think back to all the chicks I’d kicked out of my guys’ lives but there were just too many of them. Helena was too coldly collected, her makeup always perfect. Never so much as a hair out of place.

Rex gave a small laugh, pulling at the collar of his shirt uncomfortably. “Yes, she was a wild one back then. I’m pretty sure her parents were fed up and would have cut her off if she hadn’t married me when she did. They were grateful to me for turning her around. She changed her hair, started covering up the birthmark on her chin, and got a new wardrobe. She was pretty daring back in the day, but then again, I might not have noticed her if she hadn’t been.”

“Birthmark?” Liam repeated, lowering the phone he’d kept to his ear for the last few minutes as he kept trying to call Gabriella. He stepped forward, getting in Rex’s face now.

Rex took a step back, more intimidated now by the rocker than the bodyguard. “Yes. She has one on her chin.” He lifted a finger and drew a weird circle on his chin. “Right here.”

Liam’s hands balled into fists but his eyes were full of something I couldn’t even begin to name when he turned them on me. “Emmie, that was one of the things Brie remembered about the chick who shot her. The birthmark.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “She has nightmares every night, and every time she can’t stop talking about the birthmark.”

Fear tightened around my heart, making my chest feel like an elephant was sitting on it. “Mia said the same thing. ‘The funny spot on her chin, Momma. The funny spot.’” Tears burned my eyes and I turned away from them all, burying my face in Nik’s chest. “Oh, my gods,” I cried as it fully set in that something had happened to my daughter. “Mia.”

I felt him trembling, knew that he was just as shattered as I was, but trying to be strong for me. Right then no one could have been strong enough for me. My world was crashing down around me. So many things were falling into place, but none of it made sense.

“Helena’s the stalker,” Shane growled. “She’s the one who did all that shit. She nearly killed Ranger. She took Mia and shot Gabriella.”

Around me everyone started talking all at once, their voices angry and violent, but I couldn’t hear a single word that was said.

Where was Mia?

“But she’s been here all day,” Jesse said, trying to be the voice of reason. “The chick and Rex, here, were some of the first to arrive. Liam actually talked to Gabriella before that. Maybe Mia and Gabriella are just stuck in traffic like she keeps texting they are.”

The faintest glimmer of hope filled my heart, only to be squashed into nothingness when Rex spoke again. “Sean,” he said, spitting the name out like a vile curse.

“Who the fuck is Sean?” Nik spoke for the first time. His voice was low and rumbled in his chest, making my heart beat faster at how dangerous it sounded.

“Sean?” Shane barked. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“He’s Helena’s cousin,” he muttered. “I hired him as a favor to her parents. Harper wanted to get rid of him, but I couldn’t just fire him. I’m the one who put him in the customer service department.”

A mixture of tears and fear blinded me as I turned on the man. “Are you saying that you think Sean has Mia?”

He grimaced. “It’s possible. The two are as close as brother and sister. If she’s really been doing this crap to Shane and Harper, it’s possible he was in on it. You said a while back that whoever it was would know Harper’s email and password. Sean was her personal assistant. He would have been one of the few people who knew.”

“Fuck!” Shane bellowed, running his hands through his hair. “She didn’t trust him, but she didn’t think he was a part of the stalker shit.”

Peterson was already punching something into his phone. “We did a background check on the PA. He came back clean. Didn’t have a record and there was no way of connecting him to you or anyone else, Shane.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Shane snapped.

“I need Gabriella’s phone number,” Peterson said, speaking to Liam now. “I can get a trace on her cell and track it, but it might take a little while.”

The more I told myself that this wasn’t real, the more I realized that it was. There was no denying it now.

What was going to happen to Mia? To any of them? I didn’t know, and I desperately needed the answers. Tracking Gabriella’s cell was good work, but who knew if that would even find her?

Or if she would even be alive if it did.

My hands started to shake even worse than they had been and I felt bile rise in the back of my throat. I swallowed it back. There wasn’t time to vomit right now. After I had Mia back, then I could let go and empty everything inside of me. For now, I needed help finding my daughter.

I walked away from the men standing there, still talking, still going over all the new things that we’d just found out. I pulled out my phone and swiped my finger over a name I never thought I’d have to call again, but was thankful all the same for having it tucked in my contacts.

It rang three times before a soft voice answered. “Emmie?”

“H-hi,” I whispered.

“Emmie, what’s wrong?” Felicity demanded immediately, sounding concerned.

Fresh tears filled my eyes and I was helpless to hold them back as I leaned back against the wall outside the room where I’d just left Nik and the others. “I need some help.”

There was a long pause on the other end. Finally, she blew out a hard sigh. “Can you send us a plane?”

“I can charter one from the closest airport to you,” I promised her. I would give her anything she needed, pay any price.

“How many will you need, Emmie?”

“As many as you can bring,” I whispered. “As many who will come.”

Felicity

The flight was the quickest I’d ever taken. Emmie had gotten the fastest plane money could rent. Normally it was over a three-hour flight, but the private jet was fast and got us there in half the time. As soon as we’d touched down, there had been two big, black SUVs with drivers already behind the wheels waiting on us.

Jet still looked a little green, but now that we were on the ground he was quickly turning back into the alpha biker I loved more than life. To see him right then, no one would know that he was geared up to go to war.

None of the six men I’d brought with me had so much as blinked when I’d asked them to do me this favor. Bash, Hawk, Spider, Colt and Raider hadn’t hesitated when I’d said that I needed help but that I couldn’t tell them what was going on. Emmie hadn’t told me anything other than she needed help and I’d jumped to offer it to her.

That’s what family did, and Emmie was my family. Because Jet and his brothers—both by blood and MC—were my family too. If she needed me, then she needed them. That was all that mattered.

With those six men with me, I was sure we could deal with whatever Emmie needed taken care of. Hell, I was sure with just Jet I could get it done. The other five were kind of overkill, but I liked to be prepared.

I hadn’t needed Emmie to get the guys guns because they had carried their own since the plane was privately chartered. The pilot hadn’t questioned us when he’d seen the arsenal the guys had been carrying. I was pretty sure Emmie had paid him enough not to question anything, least of all the amount of guns we were packing.

It was raining and it made the trip slower going but we were soon stopping in front of a place I didn’t recognize. Frowning out at the building, I shot a quick glance at Jet who was riding in the back with me. “Ready?”

He gave one curt nod and glanced at the other two men who had ridden with us. “Hawk? Colt?”

“We’re ready, brother,” Colt assured him.

The driver stepped out, opening Jet’s door. Once he was out he reached in for me and I slowly exited the powerful SUV. I saw Emmie immediately. She was standing just inside the entrance of the building, her face pale, her eyes haunted. I didn’t pause to check with Jet, but ran toward her, desperate to hug her and find out what was going on.

What the hell had put that look on her face? I’d seen it one other time and the reasons behind it still gave me chills.

Mia had been taken.

The door to the building opened and Emmie stepped out, meeting me half way. For someone so little she was deceptively strong. She clutched me hard, her body shaking but I instinctively knew it had nothing to do with the rain. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she sobbed.

I held her for only a minute before pulling back, needing to know what was going on. “What happened?”

Her face tensed. “The stalker took Mia.”

I felt the color drain from my face. “You’re sure?” She nodded. “Do you know who it is?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll have to give you the short version.” She tightened her hold on my hands. “We think she has an accomplice, a cousin or something. She took Mia and Gabriella.” She swallowed with difficulty. “And Harper.”

“Damn.” Three innocents who could get hurt if we weren’t careful.

“Harper’s eight months pregnant,” Emmie rushed to explain.

Oh, shit. While I was happy for the girl, I realized that her condition had probably signed her death warrant if Emmie was right and the stalker thought herself in love with Harper’s husband.

I looked over my shoulder at the six men who had joined us, not caring that rain was pouring down on them. “Let’s get inside. We have to get a plan.” I turned back to Emmie. “Do you know where they are?”

She bit her lip, and for the first time since I’d met Emmie I realized she was uncertain. “It’s taken some time, but they were able to trace Gabriella’s phone. Only to within a fifteen-mile radius, though.”

Bash stepped forward, taking charge like the MC president he was. “That’s good enough for us. We’ll find them, ma’am.”

Emmie looked up at him. And up. And up. Bash was a beast of a man, but he wasn’t much bigger than Wroth Niall who I’d learned quickly was the ultimate rage monster. Emmie didn’t even blink at him. Any normal person would have been intimidated, but there wasn’t any aspect of Emmie that was normal. It was probably why we’d connected so easily when I’d first come to work for her. “Yeah, but will it be in time?”