REIGN: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (23 page)

~
32
~

Reign stared at the desk, the items arranged in a neat row on the wood
surface. His arms, laying on the table, created a perfect frame.

A photo.

A lock of hair.

And a toe.

Three days, three gifts.

Poised in the center above the collected evidence of Gabriella’s
kidnapping was the note, almost humorously cliché with its cut-from-magazine
letters and words.

Come alone.

Amidst the directions for the drop-off and the demands, those were the
words that stood out the most to Reign. Because, of course, he couldn’t go
alone. He wouldn’t risk his neck like that, he wasn’t stupid.

Except, maybe, he was stupid, because he wanted to go alone. The sane,
safe, logical thing to do was bring some of his brothers, have them wait at a
distance for the all-safe and storm the stronghold, kill the bastard who’d
taken her, and ride off triumphantly into the sunset.

But what if that didn’t happen? What if, instead of coming away the
victor, he’d come away with Gabriella’s blood on his hands because he couldn’t
follow simple damn directions?

It had been three days since he’d sent the club out to scour the
countryside for Gabriella, but they’d all returned empty-handed. The following
day, the picture had shown up in an unmarked envelope slipped under Reign’s
door.

The picture…Reign winced as his eyes fell on the poorly-lit Polaroid.
Gabriella’s beautiful face was bruised and beaten, bleeding from wounds that
clearly needed treatment, her mouth forced open by a gag that seemed to cut
into the sides of her lips.

Her eyes were half-open, but nothing in them said that she was alive
in her mind. She looked dead behind those eyes. Her black hair stuck to the
sides of her face. When Reign first saw the picture, it took everything he had
not to tear it into a million pieces and running screaming onto the road. It
had hurt him as though it was
his
face
that had been brutalized.

And then the lock of her dark black hair.
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair
: the lines
from the poem had rung in his mind once more as he’d fingered each strand, tied
together with a light blue ribbon. He’d even held it to his nose and smelled
it, hoping to inhale the slightest scent of her. But all he’d smelled was pain
and violence and fear.

And then the ghastly toe, a pinky toe, cut clean from the foot. He’d
dropped it when he opened the oddly bulky envelope, which had come to his P.O.
box, no return address. And then he’d been sick, not even making it to the
bathroom.

Now, laid out before him, the three little souvenirs taunted him, told
him there would never be another woman like her, that he would never save her,
that she would suffer and suffer and then be lost to him forever.

Unless he did what the letter said.

Reign wasn’t much for following orders. He hated anyone telling him
what to do; this was no exception. But if it was the only way to get Gabriella
back…

He lowered his head, eyes shut tight, knowing that each second that
went by was a second that he needed to make a decision. The letter said that it
was to happen at 8:00 pm that night. It was just past 6. It wouldn’t take him
long to get to the location described; he knew it all too well.

Oh, was it irony, or a cruel joke? The place Gabriella’s captor
demanded they meet was the very same oasis where they’d last enjoyed each
other, where he’d told Gabriella his darkest secret, where she’d come to the
sudden and surprising decision to leave.

Fuck,
Reign
thought, his hands shaking on his lap.

Reign was not used to feeling like this: indecisive, fearful. Usually,
he was the one telling everyone what to do. Usually, he was the one making
people quake in their boots. Usually, he knew how to twist the knife just right
to get what he wanted.

Now, he was on the other side of that equation, and he didn’t like it
one damn bit.

He wished, not for the first time, that Gabriella had kept driving.
They’d both be safer than. She wouldn’t be bound and gagged and near death in a
sadistic stranger’s clutches, and he wouldn’t have this hole in heart that
threatened to swallow up everything else inside him, like a vortex. He wouldn’t
be sitting in that chair, the silence of his apartment broken only by the
constant rattling of the air conditioner.

With a start, he jumped from the chair, letting it fall behind him in
his rage. He strode to the air conditioner and, with a single mighty push,
dislodged it from the window. It fell to the ground with a crash that would
have been satisfying if anything could have satisfied him.

She probably doesn’t have air conditioning,
he thought, his anger taking control of his
thoughts.
So why should I get to have it?

The heat seemed to burst into the room from the open window, and soon
Reign was sweating in his jeans, still standing in front of the window and
staring down at the now-demolished air conditioner. His mind had gone blank.
There was nothing left of him, only anger and need and guilt and desperation.

He’d do anything.

And if that meant dying, alone, in the desert, then so be it.

He’d get her back, he’d get her safe. He’d go alone. He’d bring the
money. He’d do whatever that fuck wanted him to do. It was his only choice, and
her only chance. He stormed into the kitchen and grabbed the box of Raisin Bran
from the top shelf of his pantry. Setting it down with a
thunk
on the counter, he fished inside, cursing the jagged edges of the cereal
against his skin, until his fingers grasped the gun hidden inside.

He kept it there for safe keeping, had another stashed under the bed
and a third in a safe in his closet. But this one was his favorite, his lucky
Smith and Wesson. Fully loaded and ready to go. He held it against his chest,
fingers wrapping around the trigger lightly. He felt better holding his gun.

He wasn’t going to fuck this up. Not like Miranda. He was going to be
the hero for once in his sick little life, and nothing was going to stop him.

Not even himself.

~
33
~

Silas listened to her moaning. It didn’t annoy him. He’d shut his brain
off, pretty much, after doing away with the cop. As though remembering that he
was out of milk, a little chime in his brain reminded him that the body was
still buried under a very loose covering of dirt. It would need better hiding
soon. Or not. It was hot as shit, the body was probably reeking to high
heavens. Better to just burn the shack to the ground when he was finished.
Nudge Jeremy’s lifeless corpse towards the flames and let it all go down. Ashes
to ashes and all that.

As for the girl, she might as well have been bound and gagged in
another state for all the mind he paid her. Twice a day she’d wake up and moan
for a while and, after an hour or two, he’d give her another sleepy shot and
she’d go back to la-la land. If anything, he was doing her a favor by keeping
her under.

If she was awake, she’d just have to deal with the pain and the
knowledge that her future was uncertain at best. Of course, he wasn’t going to
tell her that hope was futile; he was at an impasse, philosophically, about whether
she’d be better off knowing that she was going to die or whether that little
bit of hope that she might live would sustain her.

It didn’t matter to him, but it was an interesting thing to ponder.

As the night began to creep over the landscape on the day that
everything was going to come to fruition, Silas felt an unusual strain in his
temperament. Almost as though he were nervous. It was good to be alert and
aware of possible downfalls in a plan of action. It was not good – or
comfortable – to be nervous.

Especially not for Silas, who couldn’t even tell you the last time he
felt anything close to worry. Why should he worry when he’d done far worse
things, and done them with considerable less care? This job was so easy
compared to many of his others…yet he felt a nagging unease. Perhaps it was
merely the amount of money at stake; it was one of his biggest payouts to date,
and being so close and yet so far (to borrow the cliché) wasn’t the worst
reason to have a bit of rumble in one’s stomach.

Sighing, he stood and turned towards the girl, whose eyes grew wide as
she stared at him. The shadowy light in the little cabin ensured she could
never confidently ID him, but that didn’t really matter, considering she’d be
dead in a matter of hours. He walked towards her and then crouched down onto
his haunches, watching sense flicker on and off in her big green eyes.

She was a pretty one, he had to hand it to her. Reaching out, he
brushed a strand of hair from where it stuck to her sweaty brow, the most
contact he’d had with her. She cringed, eyes tearing, filling with fear and
disgust. He thought when all this was done he’d look for a girl like her to
spend a night or two with. It’d give him a sick sort of pleasure, which was the
best sort of pleasure in Silas’ book.

He reached into his shirt pocket, bringing out a needle with a half
dosage of the knock-out juice he’d been pumping her with. No need for a full
shot this time, since she’d be dead before opening her eyes again.

~
34
~

Honey watched out the window of the bar as Reign threw his leg over
his bike, sitting straight and tall on the seat, then kicking the engine to
life. She bit her lip, an empty, gnawing sensation in her gut. When had she
last eaten? It seemed like days. She hadn’t had an appetite since Reign’s royal
dressing down.

In fact, this was the first time she’d caught sight of him since then.
He’d gone full-on hermit on the club, accepting visitors to his apartment but
not coming down to the bar since the search for Gabriella had turned up
nothing. They’d kept searching, sans Reign, but no one had found hide nor hair
of her or her captor.

He looked bad. Drawn and pale, he looked like he hadn’t eaten in days,
either. Or slept.

Where is he going,
Honey wondered, brow furrowing. As though, deep
down, she didn’t kind of know. It could be that he was just tired of sitting
around, needed some time on the road, wanted to do his own sweep of the area.
But she’d seen his face when he got on the bike. It was the face of a man who’d
made a decision, a decision that hadn’t been easy to make.

He was going to get her. Somehow, someway, he’d found her, and was
going to get her.

Or he was leaving for good.

Either way, he was going alone.

And that, Honey knew, was a bad, bad, bad thing for him to do.

She wanted to step outside, stand in front of him, block his path and
knock some sense into his skull. But she couldn’t bear picturing what he’d say
to her. Not after the verbal whipping he’d given her only a few days ago. She
would never be able to look him in the eyes again…

He sped past the window, not noticing her as she stared after him.
Turning onto the main road, he went left, towards town. Honey moved quickly,
pulling open the drawer under the cash register. It was still there. Of course
it was still there. No one knew it was there except her and Endo, and neither
had had to touch it in years. Now, as she picked up the gun and tucked it into
the waistband of her jeans, Honey prayed that it would still fire. She didn’t
have time to test it out.

The bar door slammed shut behind her. The evening was growing dark,
the moon and the sun sharing the sky, purplish light beginning to blend the
distant mountains together in a haze. Honey strapped her helmet on and adjusted
the gun once more.

She’d show him that she wasn’t what he thought. She knew he’d said
what he’d said out of anger, but she also knew just how true some of what he’d
said was.

But there was always time to change.

She’d learned that a long time ago.

~
35
~

Reign pulled up to the still, small lake fifteen minutes early. The
darkling sky reflected on its mirrored surface, the moon standing out whiter
and brighter as the sun fell. He spit onto the dust, lit a cigarette with
fingers that shook. He cursed his shaking fingers, willed them to be still.

From under his jacket he pulled a worn, black billfold. Inside was all
the money Gabriella’s captor had demanded. In the distance, he thought he could
see a blowing tornado of dust coming his way, but couldn’t be sure it wasn’t
just his eyes playing tricks on him.