Page 82 of Hunter

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I was numb on the surface, but I could feel the horrid rush of fear draining the blood from my head and arms to my legs, telling my body to escape.

“Whatever.” He shrugged then looked over his shoulder. “They dead?” I couldn’t hear the footsteps through the pounding in my ears, but now I realized where the other man was.

I didn’t believe my heart could beat any faster, but it did. My adrenaline doubling, I began to shake.

Be quiet, baby. Don’t make a sound. Be quiet for Momma, I prayed and prayed. It felt like an eternity before the guy spoke.

“Yeah,” he said. “Dude wasn’t even patched in, and the kid is covered in blood. Probably caught a bullet.”

Relief flooded me, but I forced my shell not to break, not to let anything show. Instead, I let out a small sob, resulting in a harsh shake from the man holding my hair.

“Quiet,” he snapped before turning back to his ally. “Leave the bodies, then. Local PD can deal with this. No security cameras, no witnesses. Grab Racer’s body and shove him in the back of the van.”

“Right.” The other one nodded. He was as big, if not bigger than the guy holding my hair, more than capable of grabbing a body.

The main guy dragged me toward a van. I put up some resistance, knowing none might be too suspicious, and I was rewarded with a hard slap to the face. It would bruise later, if I lived long enough.

“Stop struggling, bitch.”

I hissed, spitting in his face.

I had never been punched in my life, and I wished I never had.

My body hit the floor hard, throbbing pain radiating from my cheek across my face and down my neck. My skin split and blood leaked down my chin. I didn’t even get a chance to get up as he grabbed another fistful of hair and yanked me to my feet.

The guy pressed the gun to my throat, the black van now in front of me and Racer’s body dumped inside. “Now, get in the fuckin’ car, bitch, before I make you.”

“I—”

“Mallory!” a voice screeched from down the road.

I heard a bullet bounce off the car and roars of engines. I turned to see Jax, Wolf, Lamb, and the rest of the Black Angels tearing down the road.

My phone call.

Relief hit me so hard that I felt weak at the knees. Then I collapsed, realizing it wasn’t relief that had hit me. It was the butt of a gun.

Everything became quiet and blurry as I lay on the hard ground, aware of muted shouting and exchanging gunfire. One of my kidnappers hit the floor beside me, blood seeping out of a bullet wound in his head and chest. Then I was hoisted from the floor.

I looked up in time to see Jax screech to a stop, leaping from his bike with his gun drawn and firing as he ran toward me.

Then I was thrown in the back of the van, and the engine roared to life.

I wanted to say I could still hear the bikes chasing me, but I couldn’t. Pain sunk me deeply into unconsciousness, and I was lost in the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hunter

Ilookedup at the articles pinned to the wall. Each one was from a different newspaper in this tiny town, all detailing the death of a motorcycle club’s member in a road accident. It was all the information I had gathered over the past four years, yet none of it could tell me who would have the information that could destroy the Hell’s Runners.

This was the reason I hadn’t let Mallory in my room back at the house. Because it hadn’t just been four walls and a bed. It had been the room that had completely detailed my obsession of revenge spiraling out of control from my brother’s accident. This was what had kept me grounded after Wolf dragged me back from the edge. It had been how I was understanding my brother’s accident. Years and years of information.

It was all useless.

“Who the fuck did you give it to, Noble?” I growled, shoving my fist hard into the wall. “This is it. It’s the chance to get rid of them forever. Get that target off Mallory’s back. Give your son the safe home he deserves.”

I dropped my fist, looking down at the image of Mallory’s face pinned at the bottom. It was her driver’s license photograph. She must have been about eighteen. She looked young and peaceful; a lot to look forward to in her life. Now she was twenty-eight with a three-year-old and a target on her back the size of Jupiter. I wondered what she had been like before I had known her. I wondered if she had been as stubborn, or if that had been what being on the run with a kid had made her.

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