Twenty-Nine

Saxon

I slammed the truck door at the back parking lot behind the health food store. My heart was beating against my chest so hard that I was struggling to breathe. My eyes scanned the area until I saw it lying there. Haisley’s purse. It was against the back wall going inside the alley. I broke into a run. My throat felt like someone had a vise grip on it.

Picking up her purse, I scanned the area around it for any sign that could tell me what had happened to her. The bike engine roared as it pulled inside the parking lot, followed by Trev’s G-Wagon. I opened her purse and reached inside to pull out her phone. Holding it in my hand, I wanted to throw it against the wall and scream. The fucking tracker in it did me no good if it wasn’t on her.

The moment she had left the studio, I’d known. It alerted me. But that was normal. I wasn’t worried until it was time for her to go back to the studio and she hadn’t moved. A heavy dread settled over me. I’d known something had happened.

“How long has her purse been there?” Levi asked as he climbed off his bike.

“Twenty minutes,” I replied.

Trev climbed out of the driver’s side of his vehicle, and Gage got out of the passenger seat.

“That doesn’t mean she left it there twenty minutes ago. Let me see your phone,” Levi said, and I pulled mine out of my pocket and handed it to him.

He studied the tracking app that was loaded on it while Trev came up to me.

“It’s going to be okay.”

I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t sure about that.

“No, it’s not,” I told him through clenched teeth.

“We’ll find her,” Gage said, sounding more convinced.

“Looks like she was taken at the alley entrance beside the studio. Brought down the alley, then out to there.” Levi pointed to a parking spot, the farthest away from where the alley exit was. “The purse was brought back here and dropped after that. Someone took her in a vehicle.”

“How did they get her from the alley entrance to out there without her causing a scene or screaming for help?” Trev asked, frowning.

Levi looked at me. “They either knocked her out … or she trusted them.”

I felt like my skin was on fire. A slow fury started to roll over me. “AJ.”

He nodded. “Makes the most sense. AJ would have surprised her. She would have walked with him, talking to him. Then, once he got her far enough away, he took her.”

“Fuck,” Trev muttered.

Gage’s eyes locked on mine. “He was a dead man, but now, I’m guessing you might want to be the one to pull the trigger.”

“If he hurts her, I’ll kill him.”

Gage smirked. “Then, let’s find the bastard.”

“Huck’s getting Blaise. Trev, you get Kye, Mattia, and Six. Y’all take the Escalade to Orlando. Liam’s men will meet you there. Sax and I are meeting Huck and Blaise at the airstrip. We’re going to Tampa.”

“Won’t AJ take her to Orlando?” I asked, not liking the idea of being away from her a second longer.

Levi looked at Gage, who nodded. “If they want to bring us to them and are using her to do it, they will take her to Acid. They’re trying to draw us to Orlando, where they think we will react the way we did with Shiloh. What they don’t know is, we have the LA Vipers ready to clean house behind us.”

Fuck. I didn’t want to think about Haisley being in the middle of all this.

I had to get to her. I couldn’t fall apart. She was going to be okay. She had to be. Both her and the baby. My eyes stung.

“Then, let’s get to the airstrip,” I said, stalking toward my truck.

Gage opened the passenger door and climbed in. He held out a pack of cigarettes to me. I shook my head and started the engine.

“You need to learn to smoke. Takes the edge off,” he said, lighting one up.

“I’m gonna be a dad. I don’t want to shorten my life.”

Gage laughed. “Too late. You were born into the family. We face death all the damn time.”

He had a point, but I wasn’t going to add another thing that could take me out of this world too soon. I wanted to be a grandfather one day with Haisley sitting beside me, watching our grandkids play. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. She had to be okay.

“Can I just say, you are one calm motherfucker? When I was in your shoes, I threw shit, went insane, lost my mind.”

I cut my eyes at him. “You’re already insane.”

He smirked. “Yeah, good point.”

“But when I find out who took her and if any man laid a hand on her, I’m going to take them out of this world and enjoy watching them bleed,” I said, feeling the rage inside me humming in my veins.

“That’s the shit I’m talking about. I can’t wait to fucking watch.”

My leg bounced as I stared out the window of the plane. The closer we got to the ground, the more impatient I got.

I needed to get to Haisley. Get her safe. Then make sure no fucker ever got near her again.

This shit was my fault. I’d let her go to the yoga studio and work, even when I knew AJ was dirty. I hadn’t fucking thought he’d come get her. Jesus, she was his sister. If he had taken her, then he was using her as bait to cause a damn war.

What if we were wrong? FUCK! I needed to know where she was. Who had taken her. Not knowing was driving me insane.

Blaise walked back into the main cabin. “Liam’s men found AJ already. Trev is heading to them now. He’s about an hour out. He’s isolated. No one was with him.”

“He doesn’t have Haisley?” I asked, standing up. I couldn’t sit anymore.

I’d already known that Blaise believed Haisley was sent to Tampa, but I’d been holding out hope that AJ had kept her with him.

Blaise shook his head. “No, but he’s angry, and he’s not talking. Well, he’s currently unconscious. He spit on Tex, and he knocked him out in return.”

I ran my hand through my hair and began pacing.

What if someone else had taken her? If we were on the wrong path and something happened to her while I was chasing fucking Vipers …

I struggled to breathe. Motherfucker, my chest hurt. I needed to know where she was. I had to find her.

Blaise and Levi both felt like she was in Tampa. Levi was good at this shit. He had to be right.

“Trev has the order to bring him to Tampa. He’ll know where Acid has her. We will unleash the LA Vipers on them once we have Haisley safe, and Gage gets to put a bullet in Acid,” Blaise said.

“I’d rather slice him up,” Gage told him.

“No time for that. We need to handle what we came to do, then let the others have their fun.”

Blaise took a seat and motioned for me to do the same. “We’re about to land.”

Please be there, baby. Please let us be fucking right.