Honey Whiskey (A Bastards MC Novel) (39 page)

He’d gained weight, and his eyes
were cold and dead, which I hadn’t noticed from the picture.
Charles Manson eyes. But, it was without a doubt Scott. He cocked
the gun and moved before I could say a word, the cold metal biting
into my flesh. Jessie whimpered.

I laughed. “I’m not the stupid one
here, Scott.” I leaned my head against the barrel, trying to prove
that I knew him, that I had something none of the other women
had.

“Someone remind me why you grabbed
this one instead of his sister,” he challenged the group as a
whole.

The voice that answered wasn’t
near me, and I couldn’t see a face. “Because the sister fell
through. We went with plan B and grabbed you the next best thing
the whore he spends all his time with. He has her guarded 24/7.
Figured she’d be easy to crack.”

Scott pushed the gun into me
harder. “Even to us
you’re
just a backup,
something
that’ll work in an emergency,”
he
sneered.

“You heard what
the other guy said. I’m always with him. But, that’s ok. Pull the
trigger.” My eyes challenged him.
He
thought for a moment, and I knew he was replaying the reasons
they’d grabbed me.

He didn’t lower the weapon, but tipped his
head. “Oh, yeah? And why are you so valuable to him?”

I wanted to lap my lips, they were
so dry I was afraid the next words I spoke would crack them.
Instead, I ignored the urge and watched Taylor over his shoulder.
“Because, she may be engaged to him, but I’m the mother of his
child. He would move Heaven and Earth to keep me safe.”

The gun moved so fast, I
didn’t see it before it was slicing across my face. “Lying
bitch!”
Scott spit, wetting my face with
saliva
before grabbing a handful of hair
and forcing my head back up. “I’ve done my research. You are not
her!” Jessie started sobbing and Taylor was yelling at me to shut
up, but I couldn’t stop now.

I laughed. “You’re an idiot.” The
fist in my hair tightened, and I knew my hair was about to be
ripped out. “I’m not Sam’s mom, no. But, I’m not the decoy that
crazy bitch is, either.” I didn’t take my eyes of Taylor, even
though the gun was back at my temple.

Matty told me once that I was the worst liar
on the planet and my face gave me away every time. But, this prick
didn’t know me. I only had one chance to sell this lie, but I could
make him believe it. Once it was out, there was no going back. If
one of the girls lived to tell Matty, and I wasn’t here to explain,
he wouldn’t understand. That was a chance I was willing to
take.

Turning back to the mad man in front of me, I
said the words I’d wished were true a thousand times over the last
nine years. “We have a daughter.”

Taylor gasped, her obscenities
quieted for a minute. Jessie was shaking her head and rocking
again. But, the man in front of me narrowed his eyes and inspected
my face. “Get me the pictures,” he demanded of no one in
particular.

Thing two moved quickly, grabbing
a folder from the desk. Scott shuffled through it before grabbing
one out, holding it up to his face. Then he grabbed another and
held them side by side. As he lowered them, I realized one was a
school photo of Sammy and the other was Lily and Matty at the
Museum. He had his arm around her and was beaming at something
she’d said.

I knew what he was seeing. I’d held their
pictures next to each other numerous times over the years. Sammy
was the spitting image of Matt, a mini Greek God, but with brown
eyes and dimples. Lily, though, was a Greek Goddess in her own
right, with dark skin, bright blue eyes, and wavy blonde hair that
had already started to darken.

It was like two people that had
been married a long time; when you watched them, you could see
similarities. When you looked, really looked, at the three of our
children, they looked like they were related. Sam and Ben easily
passed as cousins, and Sam and Lily had been mistaken for siblings
more than once. They had similar heart shaped lips, thick black
lashes, dark eyebrows that covered bright eyes and the soft
features that most children had. Give them five years and the
similarities would be gone. But right now? They both could have
been Matty’s children.

Scott
stared
at me with such glee, like
he’d just won the lottery
, and it made me
want to hide.
“Where is she?” It was
quiet, too quiet, and I realized someone had turned the blowtorch
out.

He really thought I was just going to hand
over my daughter? I shook my head. “Do you want Matty or my
kid?”

He sneered, holding up the gun. “Where. Is.
She?”

I had him, so I didn’t have to
worry. He’d bought it. I didn’t even think, just let more lies fall
off my tongue. “At the safe house. If she isn’t there yet, she’ll
be there soon. You let them go,” I nodded to the other girls, “to
prove I can trust you, and then promise me that you’ll let my
daughter and me go, and I’ll take you right to it. It’s an old
family camp, and I can promise you, you’ll never find it on your
own.”

Taylor was hollering again, screaming at me to
shut up. Swearing and throwing whatever insults she could. I
ignored her.

Scott’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not lettin’ em
go.”

Make it or break it time. “Then,
you might as well kill me, because I’m not taking you anywhere. It
won’t be long before Mateo and the Bastards track you down. But,
for whatever reason you seem to want just Matty, I can deliver him
to you wrapped with a giant red bow. Or, you can wait for all of
them to come get me.”

“I tell ya what,” he dropped in
front of me once more, “I’ll put ‘em in the back room, leave ‘em
here safe and sound with a few of my guys. And after I get Mateo,
you can come back here and get ‘em.”

I nodded. I knew that he’d never
let them live, but this was my only shot. “But, I want to see where
you put them before we leave. You’re not killing them.”

He smiled snidely. “Oh,
little girl. I’m saving all my bullets for your baby
daddy.”

Thing two cut Jessie’s binds and
yanked her into his arms. I saw her wince in pain and try to avoid
his touch, and then I saw the tears that were running down her
cheeks. Taylor, on the other hand, fought like a cat being forced
into a bathtub, spitting, crawling, and biting Thing one. Scott
sliced my ropes and let me walk, keeping a firm grip on my arm, and
led us to the room where I’d been held. He grabbed my jeans and
shoved them at me. I tugged them on, thankful to have something
between me and Thing two’s roving eyes.

They tied Taylor
to the hooks that hung down from the ceiling and laid Jessie on the
bed in the corner, securing her wrists to the bedposts. She turned
her head away, and I prayed she wasn’t reliving the horror of her
first time on that bed. Stretched out on the bed like she was, I
could see all the damage that had been done to her, and bile rose.
I knew I was going to throw up, so I turned away and wished I had a
way to convey to them that all they had to do was hold on a little
longer.

The door was closed and
locked, but even as we walked down the hall, I could hear Taylor’s
screams, telling me I was stupid, before they turned to wordless
shouts. I wished I could tell her that there was no safe house,
that Matty wouldn’t let my kids go to the woods in the middle of
nowhere when the club must be searching everywhere for us and was
probably on a lockdown. That I would never risk my child, and that
I was only doing this to give the club time
to find her and Jessie. Maybe if they made it out of this
alive they would be able to tell Matty where I’d taken
Scott.

I wanted to believe that neither
would tell him what I said about Lily, that they’d be so grateful
to be rescued that it wouldn’t even cross their minds. I wanted to
not worry about something so simple right now, because chances were
that I wasn’t going to make it out of this alive. I tried to tell
myself that in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that
important. But, it was. If he believed the lie, it would life
altering for the man I loved.

Scott’s fingers dug into the
bruise, bringing me back to the present. “Where are we going, Baby
Momma?”

I hated everything about this man,
and the way his mouth was close to my neck, his breath blowing on
my skin when he talked, made me want cry. I didn’t know where we
were, so how was I supposed to give him directions? I didn’t dare
ask him, though, because I knew he’d only hurt me.

“
Take the turnpike to Gray, Maine,
and then get on 26 north. I’ll give you better directions once you
get there.”

Scott opened the back of a big
blue box van with tinted windows and I stepped in willingly. Thing
one got in behind me as I sank to the floor and leaned my head back
against the cold metal side. All I could do was pray that the
Bastards found Jessie and Taylor soon.

Chapter 35

Matty

They tell you that after twenty-four hours the
chances of getting a kidnapped victim back alive are slim to none.
But, if that’s the case, why can’t you report someone missing until
after that much time has passed? A lot could happen in a single
day.

I paced around the great room once again. I
should be in court with my brothers, or home holding my kids, but I
couldn’t sit still. So I walked in circles.

Jo had been gone almost twenty-two
hours. We’d gotten the exact time of the fire alarm from the
prospect. He was still sitting on some fucking bench Jo left him
on, waiting for her to finish her test, when we’d called. He was
destroyed. And, apparently afraid I was going to murder him with my
bare hands. He didn’t have to worry, though, ‘cause I didn’t have
the time or energy to punish him.

Billy came out of court and
stopped short when he saw me. I would never get used to seeing that
fucktard in my home, but I knew he was trying to help and that we
needed him. That didn’t make me stop hating him, though. This whole
fucking mess was his fault, and one day I would make him
pay.

After my brothers had dragged me
off the floor yesterday and forced a few drinks down my throat, I’d
called the twat. I used the club phone instead of my cell and he
actually answered on the second ring.

“
This is Will.”

“
Billy.”

The phone got muffled as I heard
him ask whoever he was with to give him a moment and then a door
close before he uncovered the mouth piece. “Matt, I’m at work. This
better be important or so help me Christ, I’ll file a restraining
order on you.”

“
Shut up, Billy. Just stop fuckin’
talking. Jo’s gone.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I know she’s
gone. She moved to get away from you. How’s that feel?”

“
No, Billy, she didn’t. She moved
to Boston to be with me.” I swallowed. “I need to know who you
hired to spy on me last year.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“No!” I’d
screamed into the phone. “You don’t understand. Jo is really gone.
Someone has her. He took her. We think it’s related to information
you dug
up
.” I’d lost it then, the words
sinking into my thick skull as I’d spoken them. This wasn’t Billy’s
fault. It was mine. My past put her in danger. Rocker had taken the
phone from my hands and finished the
conversation.

To give him credit, he had left
work and driven straight here. And he’d helped as much as he could.
The investigator he’d hired was also missing, but Billy had all the
emails they had exchanged as well as all the digital files of the
shit he’d dug up. Wiz had been busy, running prints off the men
Cris and Neo had murdered behind the gym, searching video footage
to see if Tink also had been followed, and searching through my
history to see why I was the target.

Hawk’s dad had some of his buddies
working on it, talking to their CI’s on the street, and Greenwood
and his team were talking to every sleazy client they had. Rob was
sure we’d find something.

That was before they’d kicked me
out of court though. It had been late last night or early this
morning—I wasn’t sure because time had run together—when Doc came
in to give us the final word on Cris. She was stable and sleeping.
He’d had to relocate her shoulder and set a broken wrist, so he’d
given her pain meds and knocked her ass out. She had a few broken
ribs, a few sprained fingers, and lots of bumps and bruises. But,
she was alive and would heal.

I was ecstatic that my baby sister
was going to be ok, don’t get me wrong. But, Rob and the boys
didn’t seem to be as worried as I was. They were taking their time
finding Jo, as if she was an afterthought. When Rob told me I
needed to calm down, I lost it.

“Are you fuckin’ shittin’ me right
now?” I screamed. “You have no fuckin’ idea what I’m going’
through. She might not come back, don’t you get that? I don’t know
what they’re doin’ to her, how badly they’re hurtin’ her! I’m about
to lose my fuckin’ mind! I don’t wanna calm down! I wanna get on
our bikes and track this fucker down!”