The Bad Boys of Summer (26 page)

M
aggie’s hands
had been deep in the saddle bag of Jase’s bike when the van squealed up to a haphazard stop on the sidewalk. After that, everything happened fast. The rear doors on the van flew open before it had even come to a full stop. She saw limbs come tumbling out in a rush, and suddenly men in masks were bearing down on her. She didn’t remember screaming, but she did remember the feel of the Bersa in her hand when she pulled it out of her waistband. She had it cocked by the time the first one reached her, but he couldn’t stop her squeezing off two wild shots. One of them shouted over the sound of busting glass. A man’s big hand twisted cruelly in her hair and Maggie’s vision spun as he yanked her backwards. She heard the crisp sound of electricity buzzing. Then something painful dug itself into the flesh of her shoulder, and the world went black.

When she came to, Maggie couldn’t move. They had bent her legs and arms back and zip-tied them together. She laid on her side, helpless, as they maneuvered her around the van’s space with little concern for her comfort. Since she couldn’t see through the cloth bag on her head, every touch came as a shock.

“Is he still behind us?” one of them said, breathless.

“Fuckin’ dude is crazy!” said another in a much harsher voice.

Maggie groaned in pain. “You motherfucking cowards…” she spit out as she wriggled pointlessly in her binds. Her arms were already aching, pulled back in such discomfort. Despite being dressed in a tank top and jeans, she had never felt so vulnerable or exposed, and it enraged her just as much as it frightened her.

One of the men responded by pressing a monstrous hand around her neck and squeezing hard enough to cut off her air supply. Maggie choked and sputtered a few seconds until he released her. “Why don’t you just keep your mouth shut, you stupid bitch, before I shut it for you.”

“Here, use this,” said one of the other men. There was faint rustling. Someone lifted the cloth over Maggie’s head just a bit, and roughly stuffed a white cloth into her mouth before putting the hood back down. Maggie cried against the gag until she felt another hand around her neck.

“I mean it. Shut the fuck up. Don’t make us give you something to cry about.” The hand around her neck disappeared and one began groping her breast with harsh fingers. Maggie clenched up and whimpered as tears began to soak the black cloth hood over her head. After the hand lifted, she took a deep thankful breath. She tried to quiet her crying as the van jostled over rough bumps and around sharp highway curves. Wherever they were taking her, it wasn’t in LeBeau.

When the van finally came to a stop, rough hands yanked Maggie out onto the ground. Someone cut the ties on her legs and feet, allowing her to walk but with her arms still immobile. She bit down on the cloth gag in her mouth every time she felt her feet slip on the blind walk. A few times her captors let her fall to the asphalt before they pulled her back to her bare feet and pushed her forward. Judging by the laughter, they were clearly enjoying the entertainment. She felt clumsy gropes at her ass and legs a few times when she was ‘helped up’.

They entered some building big enough to produce echoes, and someone took Maggie’s arm the entire walk from the front door, keeping her on what was probably a narrow path. Wherever they were must have been industrial, dangerous if she fell. The hand around her arm gripped tightly enough to hurt and cut off further circulation, but she was too scared to struggle. She let them lead her through a dark maze and into what sounded like a smaller room, where she was tied to a chair and left alone for several minutes.

The room was quiet and muffled enough that she could hear the racing of her own heart. She couldn’t believe her life could end like this, especially now. She had finally begun to heal her greatest wound, her biggest regret. Of course it would be now when the reaper decided to come calling. She felt cursed, like her father felt cursed. And as fearful as it was, her heart was equally wrenching in pain for Jase. After all of this, was he just going to have to bury her? Pick out some stupid dress for her cold corpse to wear for eternity? What had she done? Maggie started crying again, wishing she had never come back to LeBeau.
I should have let Evan kill me in Eagleton. I should have run anywhere else. I destroy everything I touch.

Her thoughts cut off quickly when the big metal door into the room creaked open. She jumped at the sound. Footsteps, many footsteps, entered the room. More men than had been in the van in the first place.

“Nice work,” said one of them. “And the invitation has already been sent. Shouldn’t be long.”

“It better fuckin’ not be, after all this,” said another. “Already got a guy with a bullet in his arm and this shit ain’t even finished yet.”

Someone approached her and Maggie tensed up as if it would protect her from being touched. Rough hands removed the black hood from her head and pulled out the cloth gag. Pain from the sudden brightness stung Maggie’s eyes, and she squinted as she breathed freely for the first time in hours.

“Hello there, darlin’. I sure am glad to see you.”

When her eyes finally adjusted to the light, Maggie opened them to see Evan’s cruel smile in front of her face. He bent down right in front of her, his gaunt face cut sharply in the harsh light. Around them stood a bunch of men with weapons, whose faces and shaved heads she didn’t recognize. The blood drained from her stomach.

“I don’t remember giving you the idea that our arrangement had an opt-out clause,” said Evan, smiling, his tone suggesting everything was sunny. She supposed it was, for him. “You hurt me real bad when you took off, babe. You always thought you were so much fucking smarter than me, but not smart enough to realize I’ve had a low-jack on that car of yours since the first time I fucked you.” He reached out and ran a hand through her hair. When she instinctively tried to pull away from him, his touch became tangled talons yanking her back to look at his face.

“Now, now, you’re coming home,” said Evan, whispering close to her. He held her head still while he hovered over her, his lips brushing against hers with increased force. He licked his tongue across her closed mouth. “No need to fight it. I already have a long list of new friends for you to meet.” Evan kept his face close to hers, breathing on her. His hot breath on her skin smelled like cheap beer. He panted on her while he trailed a hand down her jaw, her neck, and her chest, before crudely molesting her breasts. He stared at her face when she tensed and sucked in a breath, wanting to fight but helpless to do so. He loved watching her realize she had no control.

Evan made a little moan against her and she felt sick. She closed her eyes when his hand dropped between her breasts, snaking down her stomach towards her center. She felt his fingertips on her mound when one of the other men in the room interrupted. “We don’t fucking have time for this.”

Immediately Evan stood and removed his hands from her body. Maggie released the breath she realized she’d been holding and tried with great difficulty to hold back her tears.

“Fair enough,” said Evan. He walked up to the man who had spoken. Maggie realized then that everyone in the room except Evan had his head shaved or buzzed down to nothing. “I just feel like a kid on Christmas, that’s all.”

The apparent leader of the other men seemed impatient with Evan. “There ain’t gonna be a Christmas for nobody if her old man don’t pay up like you promised.”

“He will, he will! It’s his only daughter, of course he will pay,” said Evan.

Maggie listened with interest as the pieces began to fall into place. Evan must have trailed her from Eagleton somehow, and when he saw that Maggie had the protection of the MC, he probably did what he was best at: recruit someone else to do the hard work for him. Whatever ransom they were trying to extort from Henry and the MC would no doubt be the payment to the thugs he had hired.

And then Evan would drag Maggie away with him and disappear into the underground, and Henry and Jase would be left double-crossed, ransom paid with no hostage. Or worse—the thugs would simply murder them for the cash at the exchange.

Maggie began to cry at the thought that Jase, and her father, were about to meet their doom. “Evan, please. I’ll go with you without a fight if you just promise not to hurt them.”

Evan turned from his conversation to face her. His expression was one of cruel amusement. “Oh, sweetheart. Will you really?”

“Please, I’m begging you,” said Maggie. Her vision blurred behind tears. “Just leave them alive. Don’t kill them.”

Evan leaned over in front of her again, face to face. “You keep getting these ideas that you’re in some position to negotiate, and I just can’t figure out why.” He laughed for a few seconds, and then he whipped a vicious backhand across Maggie’s face. The sting tore through her nerves.

He forced Maggie’s head up again to look at him and said, “Leave them alive, to come find you and rescue you like some storybook princess? I don’t think so. I made the mistake of underestimating you; I won’t do the same with your old man. That life is over for you now, so just sit tight until this is finished and then I’ll get you out of this shithole.” He smiled at her and gave a sharp yank of her hair before he stood. He left the room, followed by the other men with their rifles. The metal door shut and she heard the creaking of a big latch being dropped into place.

Maggie wept uncontrollably.

I’m sorry Jase. I’m so sorry.

R
eports
of a naked biker going on a chase through half of LeBeau understandably traveled fast, so Jase wasn’t surprised to see half the sheriff’s department, along with the entire club, waiting for him when his bike rumbled down the long drive. But they weren’t there to arrest Jase so much as assist with what they knew was really behind the chase.

Jase had returned home long enough to throw on clothes, grab his weapons and phone, and see if the van had dropped any other clues he could use. He made a quick emergency call to Henry before he rushed to the clubhouse.

Jase hadn’t even killed his bike when the group was descending on him. “Where is she? What happened?” Henry yelled as he stalked over.

“They fucking took her right out of my driveway!” said Jase, barely able to contain his growing rage. He met them halfway. “They didn’t kill her, Henry, they snatched her. This was a kidnapping.”

“How the fuck did that happen?” asked Beck.

“You tell me. They had to have been waiting out there for us all fucking morning. She hadn’t stepped ten feet from the house and they were on her.”

“I thought I told you to keep her armed!” said Henry.

“She shot one of them in the arm, took out a rear window. It wasn’t enough… I wasn’t fast enough,” said Jase. He put his hands on his waist and let his head hang, overwhelmed by the intensity of his pain and anger at that moment. “Henry, something is very wrong. These motherfuckers were staking out my house, and I didn’t even know we were going to end up there last night. How did they know?”

Everyone fell silent and watched Henry, waiting for his reaction. Jase could see and well understand the storm of emotions brewing behind Henry’s eyes. A kidnapping meant his daughter was likely still alive, and they all knew that meant there was a chance to get her back safely. But there were all sorts of things to go wrong between here and there.

“Where are we with the Afghanis?” said Henry.

Beck spoke, “Will’s on the line with them now. They said they had some tracks from that burner Maggie found.”

“Good, then we—“ Henry stopped. Drake was coming up the drive in a rush, yelling over his engines. He stopped just short of the group and hopped off his bike. He had a padded brown envelope stuffed under his arm that had already been ripped open.

“Boss!” said Drake. “Boss, this was at the front fence, I didn’t think before I opened it.” He reached out and handed the envelope to Henry with a wide-eyed look on his face. Henry shoved his hand inside and came out with a note. He read it without speaking, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and began to send a text, reading the phone number off the note. Within seconds, someone on the other end replied.

It was a photo of Maggie, tied to a chair in some indiscriminate and beat-up concrete room. Her reddened face glistened, wet with tears; someone was holding her head up by the hair. Below the picture, a number: “$500,000”.

Another text arrived a few seconds later: “One hour. Dirt road east of exit 9. No cops.”

Before he could stop himself, Jase snatched the phone from Henry’s hand and stared at the photo in shock. The fear in her eyes shattered his heart. He had utterly failed her. “Oh my god…” he muttered to himself. Someone took the phone from him and got it back to Henry. Jase stumbled to the edge of the group to catch a breath of fresh air. He thought he might be sick.

“We need to open the safes. Get the money collected.” Henry’s voice came strong from behind him. Drake led several men into the clubhouse to fulfill his order.

“You’re gonna pay it?” asked Beck, though it was without a lick of judgment.

“Not just,” said Henry. He called for someone to bring Will to him. Jase took a few deep breaths and returned to the group to take part in the updates. Will trotted up from the clubhouse still on a call, which he ended just before he approached.

“Aamir had his men in Eagleton do some sniffing around with the numbers we found in Maggie’s burner,” said Will. “Two of them were still active. One led to a junkie who was a regular client of Maggie’s ex. They couldn’t track down the owner of the other, but only because they weren’t in Eagleton—the signal is active in an area about ten miles north of here, west of Howlett.”

“Evan’s men,” said Jase. “One of them hasn’t ditched their phone in a while.”

“That’s what I think,” said Will. “Aamir couldn’t get anyone to pick up when called, but it seems pretty unlikely that it’s just a coincidence the signal is so close to LeBeau. It has to be them.”

“It might be where they’re keeping Maggie,” said Henry.

A rush of hope filled Jase’s chest and he almost let himself believe in it. “We have to try for it.”

“I’m with him,” said Will. “Let’s send a small team to these coordinates to check out the site while you answer the ransom call. Having two teams out means the chance is better one of us will succeed.”

“It could get Maggie killed,” said Beck.

“I don’t want to make a single move that would give these assholes reasons to take it out on her,” said Henry.

“Let me take Ghost and go in small,” said Will. He put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “We can handle it.”

The sheriff stepped up. “We can coordinate patrolmen waiting on the highway to stop the kidnappers once they leave the drop point.”

“Only if they’re far enough away that you won’t get spotted, and you don’t move in until I say,” said Henry. The sheriff nodded and moved to give out orders to his own men lingering on the edges of the crowd.

“Head out,” said Henry to Will. “Take Ghost. See what you can find.” Immediately Will ran for his bike and hollered for Ghost to follow him. From the house, Drake and the rookies returned with a black zippered duffel bag stuffed with cash. Henry took a cursory look and then zipped it back up. “The full half-mil?”

“Right, boss, but that emptied every safe in the house,” said Drake.

“Fine. Tommy, I want you to hold down the fort here with whatever men the sheriff leaves. I want two men along with the sheriff’s checkpoints on either side of the highway as backup in case the sheriff can’t stop them. Beck, Drake, and Jase, you’re with me on the drop.” Henry looked at him with steel in his eyes and Jase nodded sternly. No one was keeping him at the clubhouse waiting this out, regardless of what Henry’s orders were.

No one argued, but scattered to their respective duties. Henry had one quick last word with the sheriff before he climbed on his bike, parked next to Jase’s, and strapped his helmet on. Beck had already pulled out one of the panel vans from the side of the clubhouse; he would be transporting the money bag, and presumably Maggie upon her return.

The sound of bikes roaring to life filled the air. As a few began to buzz down the driveway, Jase looked over at Henry as he adjusted his helmet. A million thoughts exchanged between them without a single word being said.

“I’m going to fix this,” said Jase. “I’m going to get her back.”

“We will get her back together,” said Henry. He clapped a hand on Jase’s shoulder. Jase waited and followed a few meters behind, praying to himself that they weren’t too late already.