Defying Destiny (Forsaken Sinners MC Series Book 3) (16 page)

The man has a mask on. He rushes toward me, trying to get his hands on me, but I start kicking with everything I’ve got. “No!
No!
Leave me alone!” I yell as I kick and hit, trying my best to make purchase, but it’s no use.

He grabs a hold of my hair and yanks me to my feet. Still, I fight, even though I know it’s futile. I’m not strong enough to fight him off, but I won’t go down without a fight.

I’m able to hit him in the face. It’s not hard enough to hurt him or slow him down, but it’s enough to piss him off. His fist moves toward my face in slow motion and the only thing I can see is Louie’s sad and angry face. I wish I could see him happy and smiling, even if only one more time.

Pain explodes across my face and I feel wetness run down my nose and I can taste it in my mouth. I fall backwards and hit the wall behind me. But the guy isn’t done yet. I think he’s going to hit me until I either pass out or he kills me. At this point, with the pain in my head, I think it could go either way.

“Please, don’t. What do you want?” I plead, but I’m not expecting an answer.

Good thing I wasn’t because this way I’m almost ready for the next blow. It hits me in the stomach.

I’m hunched over and can’t breathe, the wind knocked out of me. I cry out in pain, but I wish I didn’t because it just causes more agony to rip through my body.

I’m almost thankful when the next blow hits me in the face, on the same side as the first, and I start to notice black around the edges of my vision.

I’m getting lightheaded and feel my eyes closing, but it must not be fast enough for the man. He punches me once more in the face, and this time the only thing I can do is succumb to the blackness.

Chapter 15

Louie

I can hear her screaming and what sounds like a struggle. “Harlow! Please, babe, pick up the phone,” I yell, hoping and praying she somehow is able to fight off whoever is hurting her, but the fight continues.

She cries out in pain once more, then there is nothing but silence. “Harlow. I’m coming, babe. I’m almost there,” I say into the phone even though I know she can’t hear me. I’m saying it more for myself than for her. I need to hold out hope that I’ll make it there in time to save her and pray that when I do, she’s still alive.

I don’t hear anything else on the other end; no struggling, no talking,
nothing
. I don’t know if the intruder left or what the hell he’s doing, but I swear on my father’s grave that I will find him and kill him. I will make him pay for every scream that came out of Harlow’s mouth and every drop of blood that falls from her body.

My tires squeal as I whip around the last corner, then again as I skid to a stop in front of her stairs. Putting my phone in my pocket, I replace it with my gun. Looking around, I don’t see anything out of the normal; no one is out here, there is no car, and there are no further signs of a struggle.

I want to rush up those stairs and burst into her apartment, but that’s not the smart thing to do. If whoever was hurting her is still up there, I need to be as quiet as possible so I have the element of surprise. Then, I can be as loud as I want torturing him and making him pay. I’m going to kill him slowly and painfully, maybe even drag it out for a few days—
weeks
even—before I finally put him in the ground. Maybe I’ll even bury him alive.

Creeping up the stairs quietly, I keep listening for anything that will give away what I’m about to walk into, but I hear nothing.

As soon as I’m at the top of the stairs, I see part of Harlow’s door lying in the hallway.

Stepping over the pieces, still trying to be as quiet as possible, I look around the apartment. No one is in the kitchen or living room, so I make my way to the bathroom and what I see has me seeing red; and it’s not all the blood I see smeared everywhere, it’s from the rage running through my veins about what has happened. Someone broke into Harlow’s apartment, hurt her so badly that there is so much blood I wonder if she’s even still alive, and took her.

She’s not here and neither is her captor.

“
Aaaggghhh!
” I yell, wanting to tear this apartment apart with the anger I feel running through me.
I
did this.
I
left her at the shop.
This is all my fault.

Punching the mirror, I watch as it shatters and the pieces of glass fall into the sink and onto the floor. My hand is bleeding but I can’t feel the pain. At least not in my hand. My heart is another story.

Blood drips from my hand and lands on the floor, mixing in with Harlow’s. I wish it were all my blood. I wish I could take her place. She’s hurt, probably scared, and no doubt hates me for not saving her. I wasn’t fast enough, good enough, to be here to help her and now she’s suffering because of me.

Falling to my knees, I give myself only a second to feel sorry for myself. To feel the pain that’s lodged deep into my heart. “I’m so sorry, Harlow. But I promise you, I
will
find you and I
will
make them pay for what they did to you. I swear it, babe. If it’s the last thing I do, I will save you.” I bow my head and picture her in my arms and happy, not hurt or scared. Then, standing up, I put my game face on. I channel all the fear and pain I’m feeling and turn it into hate and rage. I shut everything off that makes me a man and focus on the part of me that I’ve repressed for so long; the monster inside me. I’ll need him to do what needs to be done and I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way. Harlow means more to me than my own life.

Pulling out my phone, I dial Mack. “Louie. You find something?” he asks, having no clue exactly what it is I found.

“Dani and Sara make it to the safe house?” I ask, needing to at least know they are okay before continuing on with what has to be done. I don’t know what I’d do if Harlow wasn’t the only one taken. But then again, if she was the one singled out, what does that mean for her?

“Yeah. Blaze just called and said they are getting them set up. Why, what’s going on?” He doesn’t sound worried yet, but his voice has gotten a little harder.
Good
. I’m going to need the ruthless, Mack. I need him to help me do whatever it takes to get Harlow back.

“Meet me at the shop. Bring whoever is available.”

I hang up the phone without waiting around for his reply.

Looking around the apartment once more to see if there is anything I can use as a clue to find her, I then make my way downstairs to wait on my brothers. I can’t be up here anymore. It will just bring the pain back and I can’t let that happen. I need the cold hard monster that I have become to get through this and find my girl.

Once downstairs, I try the knob on the shop door to see if it’s locked. I have no idea if Harlow was stalked inside here and chased upstairs or if it happened after she closed up, but being that she was able to lock this door, I would assume it happened after.

Taking a quick look around to verify nothing is out of place, I make my way toward the front. I start to go through all the paperwork from the last few weeks to see if I can see something that doesn’t look right. Since I don’t even have a starting place for who would take Harlow, I don’t know if it was a customer or someone else.

I want to wait for my brothers to get here so I can see what we have on the rival club. I don’t know if they are involved or not, but it would make sense. But why Harlow? They could have hit us in a million different places before setting their sights on her. So the fact that they didn’t makes me think something else is at play.

In the distance, I hear bikes approaching which means Mack and the others are almost here and we’ll be able to start figuring this shit out. The sooner we have a starting place, the closer I’ll be to finding Harlow.

The bikes shut off and seconds later, the door opens and Mack rushes in with Tom Tom, Tyke, and Jax behind him.

“What’s going on, Louie?” he asks with a hard edge in his voice, but it’s not directed at me like he’s irritated or pissed. He knows I wouldn’t have asked him here if it wasn’t important. And I wanted to wait till they were here before I told them, that way we could figure it out together.

“Harlow was taken,” I say calmly, but I’m anything but calm. I just know that nothing will get done if I start raging and yelling at everyone. I need to hold myself together in order to get to her. Save the monster for the fucker who hurt her.

“What the fuck? What do you mean she was taken?” Mack roars, rage taking him over just like it did me.

“She called me. Said someone was trying to break into her apartment. I could hear him break the door down and there was a struggle. By the time I got here, it was too late; Harlow was gone and there was no sign of who took her.”

Mack is pacing by now and it’s Jax who starts asking questions. “Do you have an idea who did this?”

Shaking my head, I go back to what I was thinking before they got here. “I have no idea. I started going through some paperwork here to see if maybe it was someone who came into the shop, but I don’t see anything out of the usual. The only people who have come in the past few weeks have been regular customers,” I say, then I look at Tom Tom. “Do we have any new information about our little friends?” Maybe they’ll know something new about The Street Kings and it will either condemn them to their fate or clear them of suspicion.

“No, nothing yet. The two prospects are hanging back, sitting on the clubhouse to see what they can gather, but they haven’t seen any movement yet. No one has come or gone for the past few hours, but that could just mean they left before we got there and haven’t come back, or they are holding her somewhere else.”

“Do we have eyes on their warehouses and places of business? If it is The Street Kings, maybe they’re holding her at one of those locations,” Jax says.

“We don’t have the manpower right now to cover that many locations. Blaze and Toby left with the kids and girls to get them situated. We’re posting two prospects to guard them so they can come back. As soon as that happens, we should have enough guys to cover the clubhouse and other locations,” Tom Tom says.

“Are we even sure that it’s them? If it’s someone else who has her, we’d be wasting our time while whoever
did
take her has free rein.” Tyke speaks up for the first time. What he said pisses me off but he’s also right. We don’t know if it was The Street Kings, but it’s our only lead right now.

“We’re wasting time by you delaying our plan to check out the Kings! It’s all we have right now. So we can either all sit on our thumbs trying to come up with all possible leads or we can
do
something; we can watch them or even rush in there and get answers by any means necessary,” I say, done with all the questions. I can’t just sit here and talk while she’s out there with God only knows who and they are doing God knows what to her.

“Calm down, Louie. We’re just trying to figure out the best course of action,” Mack says, noticing that I’m about ready to lose my shit.

“The best course of fucking action would be to storm into their clubhouse and kill each and every one of those motherfuckers. Then we can search the place for Harlow, not stopping until we find her!” I roar, done discussing this.

Turning around, I make my way toward the back door to do just that when I feel a hand on my shoulder stopping me. Whipping around with my fist already in motion, I swing out and hit Mack right in the face.

“Don’t you dare fucking stop me, Mack! I played by your rules last time, but we’re doing it my way now! You hear me?” I yell, ready to hit him again if need be, President be damned.

When my father was killed, I did everything Mack told me. I was able to rein the monster in, at least a little, until the time came to unleash him. I can’t do that this time. I can’t hold myself back. Not with Harlow taken and hurt. If I have to go against my club to get her back, then so be it.

“I’m not telling you to stop! I’m telling you to hold the fuck up so we can do this the smart way. If they
do
have her and you go in there guns blazin’, do you think they’ll let her live? They’ll
kill
her right fucking there! We need to be smart, Louie. I want her back just as much as you do, but we need to be together on this,” Mack yells back, trying to talk sense into me. And I know he’s right. I know that if I go in alone and unprepared, they’ll just kill her, but I can’t handle this shit. I need to be doing something,
anything
, to try and save her.

“I know what you’re feeling and I know what you’re doing. You’re shutting everything down like you did years ago when your father was murdered. But you need to take back control. You need to let in more than just the rage, otherwise you’ll risk losing yourself too. What good will you be to Harlow if you’ve lost all your humanity, huh?”

His words start to penetrate, but I still fight it. I hold on to the monster inside until I know I can do this without him.

Mack must see my inner struggle, but instead of continuing, he turns to my brothers who are standing there watching all this transpire. “Call Blaze and Toby, get them caught up and have them get their asses back here. Make sure they don’t tell the girls. Then call Slayer to check in on the Kings. Louie and I are going upstairs to see if we can find a lead. We’ll meet back here in ten.” With that said, Tom Tom, Tyke, and Jax take off outside to do his bidding and Mack pushes me out the door and up the stairs to Harlow’s apartment.

I hesitate outside her door, not wanting to go inside and see the scene I saw earlier. It’s too much and I’m afraid that if I go in there again, I will break down. I’ll lose my carefully composed rage and it will turn into pain. I’ve never wanted to be a monster as much as I want to right now; as much as I
need
to right now.

“Quit being a pussy and get the fuck inside.
Now
,” Mack says with all hardness in his voice.

“Fuck you,” I growl, turning around to deck him again, but he catches my arm at the elbow by hooking his arm with mine, effectively stopping my punch.

“No, Louie. Fuck
you
,” he says, then pushes me inside. “I know exactly what you’re doing. You want all the pain and anger to drive you to find Harlow. I get it and I think that’s what you need too. But you can’t turn everything off. You need every one of your emotions to get this shit done. Without it, you’re just a cold bastard that will probably get himself killed—if not others around you.”

I want to yell and hit him, but part of what he says rings true, I’m just scared to admit it and even more scared to let the pain back in. There’s a good chance I could lose Harlow tonight. And if that happens, I don’t know if I can go on.