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Jett groaned and tried to open his eyes. His body hurt all over. He couldn’t remember what happened. After another minute or two, he realized that he couldn’t move his arms and when his eyes finally opened, he frowned when he saw his wrists were tied together with thick, heavy duty zip ties. “What the fuck?” he muttered. The zip ties were attached to a hook hanging from the ceiling.
He looked down at his clothes and found they were torn and bloody. He could see dried blood on his body but he had no clue as to why or what happened. Then he heard footsteps coming toward him and lifted his head.
Out of the shadows came an older man. His face and head were covered in white hair down to his shoulders. His beard was hanging down beyond his chest and he sported a red eye patch with a black skull covering most of the patch. He wasn’t a thin man but he also wasn’t a thick man either, but somewhere in the middle. He also wore a cut of an MC club called the Antichrist Disciples.
The name on the patch said President but Jett didn’t know who he was. He’d never heard of the MC before. “Who the hell are you?” Jett grumbled. “And why am I here?”
The old man sneered. “You are here for my amusement. As to who I am, I’m your worst fucking nightmare.”
“What the hell happened to me?” Jett growled.
The old man shrugged. “I ran your bike off the road.”
Jett frowned. “Why? I don’t even know you man, why would you do something like that?”
“Because I wanted to. That’s why. I’m going to use you to get to someone who had my son killed. Blood for blood. I want my revenge and I want the man who took my MC down. I’ve been watching you bucko and you’re my way into the Savaged Souls MC.”
Jett frowned. “But I’m not one of them. I belong to the Soldiers of Hades MC.”
“Oh, I know but you want one the daughters of the president and she’s one of them isn’t she? I can use her to get to the ones I really want. I want Gunner and DeeDee along with Winona and Dana. Then I want the man who murdered my family to feel my wrath before I kill him.”
“How do you know this man is even there? And who the hell is your son?” Jett snarled.
The older man straightened his shoulders. “I know he’s there. I’ve been watching this group for a while now and I’ve seen this murdering bastard come and go. My son was a member of this group even though he was working his own trade and hustle. It was shortly after I found DeeDee that she led me to find this group. After watching them for a few weeks, I found that murdering bastard. I waited for over twenty years to find that punk and now I’ve found him and I’m not letting him go.” He began to pace. “It took me over a year to recover from his attack almost twenty fucking years ago. I had to go into hiding to recover and I hate hiding. Only a god dammed coward hides but I had to get my strength back. Then when I went looking for the bastard, it took me eighteen years to find him.” He fisted his hands as his eyes burned with pure hatred.
Jett could almost feel the rage in his body pulsing out in waves of hatred. He tried to wet his lips but had no spit to do it with. His throat was dry and scratchy. “So, why did you bring me here?”
“I told you I’m going to use you to get to Gunner and DeeDee. Then I’m going to get to Gunner’s daughters. They sentenced my boy to death. I want to watch Gunner and his tramp to go crazy while waiting to see if I’ll kill his girls or not. I heard they dragged my boy out to the woods and bled him waiting for the wolves to finish him off. Maybe I’ll do the same thing for their kids.”
“You’re insane.” Jett growled.
“I don’t fucking care!” the older man shouted. “He killed my son. He murdered him almost as if he stuck a knife in his back.”
“Actually, if you are referring to Gunner, he did nothing of the kind,” Jett informed him. “Gunner wouldn’t vote on Blacky. He wouldn’t use his position as President to sway the vote. It was a tribunal decision.”
“I don’t care!” he shouted and he stomped closer to where Jett was.
He struck Jett’s face with a clenched fist and hard enough that his head snapped back. Fresh blood washed down from his broken nose.
The other man stepped away. He walked over to the table and grabbed up Jett’s phone. Going back over to Jett, he reached up and using Jett’s thumb he opened his phone and took a picture with the camera app.
Jett’s body then sagged as unconsciousness claimed him again.
Dana sat alone in the main room of the club. The guys were all on guard and the front gate was locked tight. She thought Jett would have been here long before now, but he wasn’t here yet. She was beginning to think he wouldn’t come back for her and he would have a good reason.
Everyone else had gone to bed a long time ago. So Dana was sitting in the dark waiting for someone who may or may not return to the compound. She’d been hoping he would come back for her but now her doubts were creeping in and she was beginning to wonder if she’d misread the promise in his words.
She felt so alone. She began looking back on her actions and realized she had put herself at the bottom of the barrel. She had slunk as low as she could go. Her heart was breaking but she couldn’t even shed a tear. She realized just how wrong she had been for treating Winona and DeeDee like shit but, she just couldn’t keep herself from snapping at them. Things had been changing around here and she couldn’t handle change. She hadn’t wanted her dad to love anyone but her. She knew this was selfish on her part but that was how she’d always felt growing up.
Then Winona came through the doors and things were being ripped from her. Everything in her life was slipping away and she couldn’t stand it. Pulling her legs up on the chair, she wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the phone in her hand. For the first time in her life, she felt broken and sad. She let out a long sigh. And she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t heard from Jett.
Had he already changed his mind and given up on her? She didn’t want to even think about that. She didn’t want it to be over, not yet. When she looked at her screen, it was still blank and her hand began to tremble. She laid her head on her knees and closed her eyes. Her mind was going a mile a minute and coming up with no real conclusion. Did they run into trouble when they went to Moss Bluff? Or did they just go back to where they'd come from? Did Jett just decide that she wasn't worth the effort?
Her head pounded as her thoughts were going round and round. She kept trying to hold on to her hate for Winona and DeeDee but Jett's words kept drifting in. 'My woman will be a real woman, not a spoiled child.' She heard the clock in the kitchen begin to chime, noting that it was four in the morning. Dana held her hands over her ears, as she wanted to scream.
Then she heard the pinging on her phone, announcing she was getting a message. She sucked in a breath with anticipation. A smile crept across her lips...It was from Jett! She gasped and almost screamed as a photo popped up on her screen. Blinking at the image, she started to tremble as her hand went to cover her mouth. Jett was bleeding while hanging there with his hands tied to a hook on the ceiling.
He looked like he’d gone three rounds with a prize fighter and lost. His clothes were torn and his body bloody. His face was all beat up and she could see fresh blood below his nose. His eyes were swollen with blood running down from his wrists where the ties were digging into his skin.
Her heart broke. Taking in the whole picture, something clicked in her mind about the background— it seemed familiar to her. Wracking her brain, she found something behind Jett that seemed very familiar to her. Her eyes widened as she realized that she knew where he was.
She might not know how he got there or who took him but she did know where he was. She figured the sun would be up in a couple of hours. She looked down the hall to where her father was. She should tell someone about this but who? Would anyone even listen to her?
Looking down at the picture again, she began to shed tears when she realized she did care for him. Cared for him a lot. She couldn’t stand that he was suffering. She wiped the tears away and knew what she had to do. She had to save him. She was all alone in this, as the club hated her.
She went to her bedroom and changed her clothes. Slipping on her shoes, she remembered had GPS in her sneakers. She made sure she had them on and prayed they still had the GPS unit working. If it was, they could track her and find them both if something went wrong.
Just before she left, she forwarded the picture she got to father’s cell, then to Boone’s phone. She knew they might not see it until they woke up but it was the best she could do for now.
Dana then made her way down the hall to the kitchen. She would have to sneak out using her old way to get out of the compound, but she was determined to leave undetected. She hadn’t used the back way in a number of years but when she was younger, it had worked a number of times for her to escape so she could go party with her friends.
Keeping to the shadows, she made it all the way to the back fence line before she hit her first obstacle. A year or two ago, the men had secured the fence line so it wouldn’t be easy to get through. She paused for a moment to think about the fact that there might be someone waiting for her on the other side but that thought was fleeting as she imagined what Jett was going through. He could be dead by the time anyone came to rescue him.
She began to climb over the fence. Once she reached the top, she took a deep breath and jumped down on the other side. Then she ran into the tree line and disappeared into the darkness.
The sound of the fence sensor woke Rigger up from sleep. At first, he didn’t know what the sound was but then he sat up quickly and looked over at his security monitor. When he saw a flashing red light, he bolted up to check it out.
He checked the tapes and saw Dana climbing up and over the fence, then jumping down on the other side. Rigger looked at the time and debated on whether to wake up Gunner or not but decided he didn’t want to have his ass kicked by his prez. Yes, the girl was exasperating and violated the lockdown orders but she was also his daughter.
He pulled his pants on and walked down the hall to Gunner’s door. Knocking softly, he hoped not to wake DeeDee.
Gunner yanked the door open a couple of minutes later, glaring at the other man. “What the fuck Rigger?”
“I’m sorry boss but you need to see this.”
“Let me grab my phone,” Gunner mumbled going back into the bedroom. When he returned, he motioned for Rigger to lead the way.
Rigger walked back to his bedroom and rewound the security tapes. “The alarm woke me and I saw this. Dana set off one of the sensors.”
Gunner watched as Dana went over the fence and disappeared into the trees. He swore under his breath and opened his phone to call his daughter. He paused when he found that she’d sent him a message and went to open it. What he saw shocked him. “Son of a bitch!” Gunner swore. He looked over at Rigger. “Wake everyone up. Dana’s going to get herself killed. We have to find her.”
Rigger nodded and went out into the hall to bang on the doors.
Gunner spun around and walked out of the room. He went down to Boone’s door and pounded on it loud enough to wake the dead.
When Boone answered the door, he stared sleepily at his prez. “What is it boss?” he asked grumbling.
“Dana snuck out and look at what’s on my fucking phone.” Gunner growled as he shoved the phone in Boone’s face.
Winona appeared behind Boone and gasped at the photo she saw on her dad’s phone. “Oh, my god... what happened?”
“I’m not sure yet but your crazy sister jumped the fence and is out there somewhere alone without backup.” Gunner felt like he was gonna lose it at any minute. “Shit! I need to let Cobra know he’s down a man.”
“Oh, that’s not going to go over well,” Boone replied.
“He’ll want to be here when we find him. Can’t blame him for that,” Gunner said as he hit speed dial. He glanced over at Boone and muttered, “Get dressed, we need all hands on deck.” He walked toward the main while room flipping on lights. Texting on his cell, he informed Cobra as the men began to wake up.
Boone joined him with Winona a few minutes later with his phone in his hand. “She sent it to me too, boss.”
“Didn’t she think we would need an address to go with it?” Gunner growled.
Boone shrugged. “That girl doesn’t think, she just leaps.”
Rigger had joined them with his laptop and was busy searching for something. He looked up at Gunner. “Boss, she’s got her sneakers on. We can track her and see where she’s going.”
Gunner and Boone went over to where Rigger was sitting and they watched the little red dot on his screen. “At least there’s that,” Gunner grumbled.
Boone nodded, as he looked surprised. “Well maybe, she was thinking after all?”
Gunner studied the dot. “I’m wondering how Jett got taken and Cobra didn’t know it? They haven’t come back from Moss Bluff yet. What the fuck is happening out there?”
Rigger just shook his head.
Winona went to the kitchen and found her mother there making coffee.
DeeDee looked worried. Staring at Winona, she asked, “Why would she do something like this?”
Winona went over to her mom and wrapped her arm around the older woman’s shoulder. “I don’t know, she has never showed good sense but this isn’t a good thing.”
“Did you see what all the fuss is about?” DeeDee asked her.
Winona nodded. “Someone has Jett tied up and they’ve beaten him badly. There’s nothing else there, not even a message, just a picture of Jett. He’s hanging from a hook in the ceiling. He looked to be in a warehouse of some kind.”
DeeDee gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “And Dana just left the compound? What does she hope to do, rescue him by herself?”
Winona shrugged. “I don’t know but she put herself, Jett, and this club in danger by leaving here tonight.”
“Oh, my god,” DeeDee trembled. “Why would she do something like this?”
Winona sighed and looked at her mother. “Didn’t you do the same thing to dad when you left here to keep him safe? Do you think your daughter would do anything less for her man?”
DeeDee shook her head while looking confused. “You think she loves him?”
Winona nodded. “Only love would give her the courage enough to break the rules like this. To even put herself in danger for someone else. She’s too selfish to do it for just anyone or anything other than that.”
“You could be right about that,” DeeDee whispered after she thought about it for a moment. “Maybe there’s some hope for her yet.” She looked hopeful as she got out the trays to put all the coffee mugs on.
Winona didn’t feel convinced of this part. “Let’s just pray the guys can find her alive to see if there is any hope at all for her,” Winona said as she finished gathering cups and stuff for the coffee her mom had made.