Lay It Down: Bastards MC Series Boxed Set (71 page)

The gun moved so fast I didn’t see it before it was slicing across my face.

“Lying bitch!” Scott spit, wetting my face with saliva before grabbing a handful of hair and forcing my head back up. “I’ve done my research. You are not her!”

Jessie started sobbing and Taylor was yelling at me to shut up, but I couldn’t stop now.

I laughed. “You’re an idiot.” The fist in my hair tightened, and I knew my hair was about to be ripped out. “I’m not Sam’s mom, no. But I’m not the decoy that crazy bitch is either.”

I didn’t take my eyes off Taylor, even though the gun was back at my temple.

Matty told me once that I was the worst liar on the planet and my face gave me away every time. But this prick didn’t know me. I only had one chance to sell this lie, but I could make him believe it. Once it was out, there was no going back. If one of the girls lived to tell Matty and I wasn’t here to explain, he wouldn’t understand. That was a chance I was willing to take.

Turning back to the madman in front of me, I said the words I’d wished were true a thousand times over the last nine years. “We have a daughter.”

Taylor gasped, her obscenities quieted for a minute. Jessie was shaking her head and rocking again. But the man in front of me narrowed his eyes and inspected my face.

“Get me the pictures,” he demanded of no one in particular.

Thing 2 moved quickly, grabbing a folder from the desk. Scott shuffled through it before grabbing one and holding it up to his face. Then he grabbed another and held them side by side. As he lowered them, I realized one was a school photo of Sammy and the other was Lily and Matty at the museum. He had his arm around her and was beaming at something she’d said.

I knew what Crazy Man was seeing. I’d held their pictures next to each other numerous times over the years. Sammy was the spitting image of Matt, a mini Greek God with brown eyes and dimples. Lily though was a Greek Goddess in her own right, with dark skin, bright blue eyes, and wavy blond hair that had already started to darken.

It was like two people who had been married a long time—when you watched them, you could see similarities. When you looked, really looked, at the three of our children, they looked as though they were related. Sam and Ben easily passed as cousins. Sam and Lily had been mistaken for siblings more than once. They had similar heart-shaped lips, thick black lashes, dark eyebrows that covered bright eyes, and the soft features that most children had. Give them five years and the similarities would be gone. But right now? They both could have been Matty’s children.

Scott stared at me with such glee, as if he’d just won the lottery, and it made me want to hide. “Where is she?”

It was quiet, too quiet, and I realized someone had turned out the blowtorch.

He really thought I was just going to hand over my daughter? I shook my head. “Do you want Matty or my kid?”

He sneered, holding up the gun. “Where. Is. She?”

I had him, so I didn’t have to worry. He’d bought it. I didn’t even think, just let more lies fall off my tongue. “At the safe house. If she isn’t there yet, she’ll be there soon. You let them go”—I nodded at the other girls—“to prove I can trust you, then you promise me that you’ll let my daughter and me go, and I’ll take you right to it. It’s an old family camp, and I can promise you, you’ll never find it on your own.”

Taylor was hollering again, screaming at me to shut up. Swearing and throwing whatever insults she could. I ignored her.

Scott’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not lettin’ ‘em go.”

Make it or break it time. “Then you might as well kill me, because I’m not taking you anywhere. It won’t be long before Mateo and the Bastards track you down. But for whatever reason, you seem to want just Matty. I can deliver him to you wrapped with a giant red bow. Or you can wait for all of them to come get me.”

“I tell ya what”—he dropped in front of me once more—“I’ll put ‘em in the back room, leave ‘em here safe and sound with a few of my guys. And after I get Mateo, you can come back here and get ‘em.”

I nodded. I knew he’d never let them live, but this was my only shot. “But I want to see where you put them before we leave. You’re not killing them.”

He smiled snidely. “Oh, little girl. I’m saving all my bullets for your baby daddy.”

Thing 2 cut Jessie’s binds and yanked her into his arms. I saw her wince and try to avoid his touch, then I saw the tears that were running down her cheeks. Taylor, on the other hand, fought like a cat being forced into a bathtub, spitting, clawing, and biting Thing 1. Scott sliced my ropes and let me walk, keeping a firm grip on my arm, and led us to the room where I’d been held. He grabbed my jeans and shoved them at me. I tugged them on, thankful to have something between me and Thing 2’s roving eyes.

They tied Taylor to the hooks that hung from the ceiling and laid Jessie on the bed in the corner, securing her wrists to the bedposts. She turned her head away, and I prayed she wasn’t reliving the horror of her first time on that bed. Stretched out on the bed as she was, I could see all the damage that had been done to her, and bile rose. I knew I was going to throw up, so I turned away and wished I had a way to convey to them that all they had to do was hold on a little longer.

The door was closed and locked, but even as we walked down the hall, I could hear Taylor’s screams, telling me I was stupid, before they turned to wordless shouts. I wished I could tell her that there was no safe house, that Matty wouldn’t let my kids go to the woods in the middle of nowhere when the club must be searching everywhere for us and was probably on lockdown, that I would never risk my child, and that I was only doing this to give the club time to find her and Jessie. Maybe if they made it out of this alive, they would be able to tell Matty where I’d taken Scott.

I wanted to believe that neither would tell him what I had said about Lily, that they’d be so grateful to be rescued it wouldn’t even cross their minds. I wanted to not worry about something so simple right now, because chances were that I wouldn’t make it out of this alive. I tried to tell myself that in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that important. But it was. If he believed the lie, it would life-altering for the man I loved.

Scott’s fingers dug into a bruise, bringing me back to the present. “Where are we going, Baby Momma?”

I hated everything about this man, and the way his mouth was close to my neck, his breath blowing on my skin when he talked, made me want to cry. I didn’t know where we were, so how was I supposed to give him directions? I didn’t dare ask him though, because I knew he’d only hurt me.

“Take the turnpike to Gray, Maine, then get on 26 North. I’ll give you better directions once you get there.”

Scott opened the back of a big blue box van with tinted windows, and I stepped in willingly. Thing 1 got in behind me as I sank to the floor and leaned my head back against the cold metal side. All I could do was pray that the Bastards found Jessie and Taylor soon.           

Chapter 35

Matty

They tell you that after twenty-four hours, the chances of getting a kidnapped victim back alive are slim to none. But if that was the case, why couldn’t you report someone missing until after that much time had passed? A lot could happen in a single day.

I paced around the great room once again. I should be in court with my brothers or home holding my kids, but I couldn’t sit still. So I walked in circles.

Jo had been gone almost twenty-two hours. We’d gotten the exact time of the fire alarm from the prospect. He had still been sitting on some fucking bench where Jo left him, waiting for her to finish her test, when we called. He was destroyed. And apparently afraid I was going to murder him with my bare hands. He didn’t have to worry though, ‘cause I didn’t have the time or energy to punish him.

Billy came out of court and stopped short when he saw me. I would never get used to seeing that fucktard in my home, but I knew he was trying to help and that we needed him. That didn’t make me stop hating him though. This whole fucking mess was his fault, and one day I would make him pay.

After my brothers had dragged me off the floor yesterday and forced a few drinks down my throat, I’d called the twat. I used the club phone instead of my cell, and he actually answered on the second ring.

“This is Will.”

“Billy.”

The phone got muffled as I heard him ask whoever he was with to give him a moment then a door closed before he uncovered the mouth piece. “Matt, I’m at work. This better be important or, so help me Christ, I’ll file a restraining order on you.”

“Shut up, Billy. Just stop fuckin’ talking. Jo’s gone.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I know she’s gone. She moved to get away from you. How’s that feel?”

“No, Billy, she didn’t. She moved to Boston to be with me.” I swallowed. “I need to know who you hired to spy on me last year.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“No!” I screamed into the phone. “You don’t understand. Jo is really gone. Someone has her. He took her. We think it’s related to information you dug
up
.”

I’d lost it then, the words sinking into my thick skull as I spoke them. This wasn’t Billy’s fault—it was mine. My past had put her in danger. Rocker had taken the phone from my hands and finished the conversation.

To give him credit, Billy had left work and driven straight here. And he’d helped as much as he could. The investigator he’d hired was also missing, but Billy had all the emails they had exchanged, as well as all the digital files of the shit he’d dug up. Wiz had been busy, running prints off the men Cris and Neo had murdered behind the gym, searching video footage to see if Pixie had also been followed, and searching through my history to see if I was the target.

Hawk’s dad had some of his buddies working on it, talking to their CIs on the street, and Greenwood and his team were talking to every sleazy client they had. Rob was sure we’d find something.

That was before they’d kicked me out of court though. It had been late last night or early this morning—I wasn’t sure because time had run together—when Doc came in to give us the final word on Cris. She was stable and sleeping. He’d had to relocate her shoulder and set a broken wrist, so he’d given her pain meds and knocked her ass out. She had a few broken ribs, a few sprained fingers, and lots of bumps and bruises. But she was alive and would heal.

I was ecstatic that my baby sister was going to be okay, don’t get me wrong. But Rob and the boys didn’t seem to be as worried as I was. They were taking their time finding Jo, as if she was an afterthought. When Rob told me I needed to calm down, I lost it.

“Are you fuckin’ shittin’ me right now?” I’d screamed. “You have no fuckin’ idea what I’m going through. She might not come back, don’t you get that? I don’t know what they’re doin’ to her, how badly they’re hurtin’ her! I’m about to lose my fuckin’ mind! I don’t wanna calm down. I wanna get on our bikes and track this fucker down!”

Rob had slammed his fist onto the table and stood. “You’re not the only one worried! I understand what you’re going through. I love L.K. too!”

I sneered at that. “Don’t you fuckin’ tell me you understand! The love of your life is safe and sound fifty fuckin’ feet away. It’s not Cris out there—it’s Jo! So the priority isn’t as great as it would have been, is it? You don’t have one fuckin’ iota of a clue what I’m goin’ through!”

He grabbed me and shoved me against the wall, getting in my face. “Shut the fuck up, Matty! Jessie is out theah too! I thank Christ that Cris is heah, that she’ll heal quickly, yeah. But I have a prospect who’s MIA. Tank’s ol’ lady is still missin’. And I don’t know if Jessie is dead or alive and bein’ hurt. I love her!” He hissed. “So I fuckin’ get it!” He let go of me and backed up. “Get the fuck out! Don’t come in heah again until this shit is ovah!”

So now I had nothing to do but pace the room and apparently stare at the dickhead Jo used to be married to. Fucking fantastic! I grabbed a bottle of water and threw myself onto one of the couches.

Bear woke me up later. I didn’t know how long I was out, but I sat up in a panic. “What’s wrong?”

“Wake your ass up, Mateo, we got something!”

I was up and off the couch in seconds flat, following him into court. It had been turned into a command center of sorts. Papers and pictures lined the walls, laptops and tablets covered the tables, and someone had set up a projector so everyone could see what Wiz was looking at.

Rob stepped up to my side. “Scott Dyer died three yeahs ago.”

I snapped my head toward him, shocked. We’d have known, wouldn’t we?

“After Providence, he never came home because he was convinced someone was looking for him. His little brother, Seth, inherited everything when he died.”

“There was no record of a little brother,” I said.

Rob looked at the wall where Wiz was using his finger to draw a circle around a building. “His parents sent him away when he was young ‘cause he had the same issues as his brothah—a sadistic fuck from the word go. They even went as far as changin’ his last name to his mother’s maiden name so that he wasn’t associated with them.”