Page 15 of What Lies Within

I half-jog behind him, attempting to keep up as we pour into the open space to welcome back the rescue party.

Deo's already there, striding along the line of parked bikes to the old truck at the back of the procession. Tyke veers left, making a line for Minion, who walks across to meet his president. I stay focused on the maddened blond who circles the truck and swivels his head along the line of bikes again.

“Where the fuck is she?” Deo’s hollered question bounces off the iron walls of the clubhouse, filling the spaces between the now silenced vehicles. “Why isn’t she here?”

"The fuck?" Digger darts from behind my left shoulder, jogging across to his brother.

My gaze falls on Tyke, on the way his hands press against his head as he paces back and forth, fingers knitting tight into his hair. A rumble starts, his growl growing in intensity until he lunges left and grabs ahold of a trashcan, upending it across the yard.

I've never felt so helpless in my life. I want to soothe, to comfort, to tell Tyke that everything will be okay, but I don'tknow if I can when I don't feel that in the depths of my heart. How can I offer lies and hope they don't worsen the situation?

"Shit." Sweetie stands at my right shoulder, Minion's daughter Jamie on her off-side. "This don't look good."

“Why isn’t Maddie here?” I ask. The answer is there, in the echoes of my mind, yet I refuse to give it credence. “Is she still on her way?”

“Honey…” Sweetie wraps her arm around my shoulders, coaxing me into the taller woman’s side. “I’d say they didn’t find her, lookin’ at Tyke’s reaction. God be with that poor child.”

Her warmth undoes me. Her compassion for somebody less of this world as she is in this emotionally charged moment. I hide my face against the front of her loose shirt and let the despair wrack my body, a choked sob coming out in place of the tears that refuse to fall.

Yet it’s anger that steels my jaw. Anger that forces my throat to close and the pain to push back down.

Shit.“It’s my fault,” I grumble against her as Tyke continues to holler at the handful of men hanging on his every word. “This whole fucking thing happened because of me.”

“You don’t know that,” she coos. “Hush now. We’ll hear the details when the boys have it all straightened out.”

There's nothing to straighten out.

I phoned my best and only friend that day, desperate for somebody to fix the problem for me. I was selfish, unable to face the gravity of a situationI’dput myself in. Fuck it all—Kane was right.

I tripped headlong into a red-flag-lined relationship, and now Maddie pays the price.

I jerk free of Sweetie and turn for the clubhouse, determined to get upstairs and out of sight. I don't need these people to look at me and be reminded of my part in this. I don't want themangered at my distress, angered that I dare to be upset about something I caused.

I stride toward the open door and halt when Marco's dark form slides into my periphery. He leans a shoulder against the wide door frame, hands in his pockets, as he watches me storm toward him. I lift my head and meet his eye, his slight smile haunting me as I pass by and come face-to-face with the woman who has the least right to be upset at this moment.

Maddie’s fucking mother.

6

MADDIE

Each breath pulls the dusty fabric closer to my mouth, the little dirt particles flitting into my mouth and coalescing across my tongue. My eyes adjusted to the filtered light a little while ago, yet I still can't make out enough from the shadows and shapes on the other side of the hood to know where I am.

“This is pointless,” I say, spitting fibers from the fabric out after the last word. “Why hide where I am when I know who took me, Uncle?”

Footsteps scratch across the ground before me. From the noise, we're somewhere with a concrete floor—dusty or dirty. However, the lack of a breeze or clear sounds of the night tells me we're inside, which means we're somewhere industrial. Or maybe on a farm. Somewhere with a large building that is exposed to the elements from time to time.

“Whatever you’re after, you won’t get it.”

My head jerks to the left, and the screech of tape precedes the hot and dirty fabric pressing against the tip of my tongue. The gutless fucker tapes my mouth in place, jaw open, and unable to speak.

I force my breath through my nose to avoid the taste of the crude hood, yet the air isn't enough. I draw a breath through my mouth and promptly gag at the shit that comes along with it.

"Jesus, fuck." Uncle Fox utters from my left. "Tape your goddamn whore hole closed, and you still manage to make noise."

Fuck you.I scream the insult in my mind, nose wrinkling with the force of the anger that shoots through me in hot waves of adrenaline-fueled rage. Rage at the fucking injustice of this. Rage at the knowledge that the day I'm used as a pawn in a game, it's my goddamn family who do it to me.

Of all the fucking people I could have guessed, Fox was low on that list.

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