Page 54 of Chains

Parking our bikes in the service way behind the house, we made our way on foot so that we didn’t wake up the neighborhood with the sound of the pipes from our sleds. The house was clean and looked well kept, with a green lawn and flowers blooming.

Walking up to the front door, it swung open; standing there was Kon, looking dishevelled and exhausted. I wondered what that was all about? Seeing him this way, and not his usual put together self, was a shock.

He stood back to let us enter, and what we came face to face with was a lot of gruesome.

“Fuck me.” I was the first to speak. I’ve been in the Devil’s Carnage MC for over a decade now, and we weren’t choirboys, but this was on another level of crazy. I turned to look at him, my brows arching.

“You’ve been here the whole time? With all this?”

“I didn’t want her to be alone,” he simply says.

I shake my head. “Is it okay for us to be here? What about the police?”

“The police won’t be here. We have free rein of the place.” Kon tells us, and I believe him, since he has most of the Dallas PD under his control, and he swiftly dealt with those who didn't comply like the assholes that arrested me. I’d heard Detective Anderson suffered a stroke not long after I’d been let out of jail. Poor man can’t speak or even take care of himself now. What a shame. I’ve yet to thank Kon for that, though. I make a mental note to do so on this trip.

“What the fuck happened here?” I straight up asked. Everyone else seems to be speechless.

“You can see for yourself what happened,” Kon replies, shoving his hands into the pockets of his wrinkled pants.

Unfortunately, I could. But I wanted to scrub my eyes with bleach and unsee everything. But that was impossible.

Blood covered the room. On the coffee table sat a head—soon revealed to be Zoe’s mother’s—while her body lay a few feet away.

“What kind of sick motherfucker would do such a thing?” I inquire, looking from Kon to Kick, then back again.

“That’s why I called you guys.” A look passes between the two brothers, and a knot forms in my stomach, as it suddenly clicks.

“So, you called us to what, take us away from the clubhouse so that I couldn’t protect Zoe from the monster she married? And what about Max, her father?” I demand.

“Well, that’s the interesting bit,” Kon replies, retrieving his phone from pants pocket. Playing around with it for a few seconds, he hands the phone to Kick.

We crowd around the small screen as the video begins. It’s of a dark basement type room. Concrete all around, with no distinguishing features except for the man strung up by his wrists in the middle of the room. He’s covered in blood, and his face is black and blue, and his eyes virtually closed from the beating he’s received; his breaths coming out in a wheezing sound. Even with all of that, I recognize the man as Max. Zoe’s father.

“Motherfucker! How long has he had Zoe’s dad?”

“It’s hard to know, but judging by the look of him, he’s been there a while, at least a few days.”

“If he thinks that’s the way to get Zoe back, he’s stupider than I thought.” Kick pipes in, a little calmer than me. “He’s had so much time to just disappear and go to ground. We never would’ve found him. But now, I wanna string the son of a bitch up by his balls and watch him bleed.”

Handing back the phone to Kon, he takes his own out, and puts a call into Knox, telling him about the video with Max, and to find out ASAP where he was being held.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding when Kick spoke those words. It validated my wish to take the asshole down.

Just then, my phone rings, and I almost didn’t answer it, but remembered Zoe and the other women were alone and at the clubhouse. Seeing it’s the prospect Stingray, I step out onto the dark porch for some privacy before answering it.

“What’s up?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm and level.

“Sorry to bother you, but I thought you should know. Sin got into it with your woman.” I fisted my hand and gritted my teeth.

“She didn’t hurt Zoe, did she?” I demand. Thinking of all the things I would do to the bitch if she harmed one hair on my little one's head.

“Not at all. In fact, it was your woman that gave Sin a bloody nose.”

Unable to contain my laughter, even though the setting was awkwardly inappropriate, I found all eyes in the room zeroed in on me. Clearing my throat, I told him to throw her out of the club. Quickly ending the conversation with the prospect, before tapping on Zoe’s number, ignoring Kick’s harried look in my direction. I needed to make sure my girl was alright.

“Hello?” I hear her breathy voice answer on the other end, and my cock does an inappropriate dance in my jeans at the sound of her voice.

“How’s my slugger doing?” I ask, unable to keep the amusement and pride from my voice. She giggles, letting me know thankfully that she was okay.

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