Page 226 of Under an Endless Moon

I had to get to them. Find her. Stop it the way I hadn’t been able to do before.

Desperation streaked through my veins when my cell rang, and I yanked it from my pocket. My lungs closed off when I saw it was Cash.

I fumbled to answer it, praying to God he had news as I pressed it to my ear. “Please tell me something good.”

“Think I got a lead.”

“What is it?”

“Been hunting for anything on Gideon since you asked me for information.” The repercussions of that request hung heavy in the dense air. Echoes of his warnings of what my thirst for revenge might do.

“I finally got a possible hit. The spelling of his last name was different, but the birth date and social security number matched. It was a marriage license to one Sienna Perdue. I was able to locate a picture of her. It’s from about five years ago, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s the same Sienna who met Raven at the club last night. I thought she looked familiar, but I didn’t make the connection until this morning when I got the call that Raven is missing.”

“Oh fuck,” I wheezed.

River angled down, listening the best as he could, and Kane came up on my other side, also inclining his ear.

“She rented a house over on Pine. Way on the outskirts of town,” Cash continued. “Saddle up. I have the address incoming. Theo and I are already on our way. And this time, this motherfucker is going to feel the wrath of us all. Of this entire family. The way it’s supposed to be.”

He ended the call.

A crash of hope and despair ripped through me.

A drive of ferocity and hate and the love that shined so fuckin’ bright.

River looked at me for a beat before he stretched out his hand with the stacked Ss tattooed on the back and muttered, “That’s fuckin’ right. That’s what this club does. It’s what this family does. Now let’s go get your girl back.”

SIXTY-ONE

RAVEN

Rope bitdown on my skin where they had my wrists and ankles bound to a hard wooden chair that had been pulled out from a small dining table.

It’d been placed in the middle of the kitchen.

Plastic covered the floor underneath, and duct tape sealed off the whimpers that groaned in my mouth.

Gideon loomed ten feet away, a demented smile on his face as he studied me with a hunting knife dangling languidly from his right hand.

Sienna was on the couch in the living room, appearing to be bored as she flipped through a magazine. Completely indifferent. Her friendship fabrication and deceit.

It wasn’t hurt from her betrayal that drummed through me.

It was fear.

Harsh pulses that thrummed like poison through my veins.

Sickness pooled in my stomach as bile lifted to my mouth. I tried to swallow around it, but it was impossible. No way to subdue the way it felt like I was being strangled by the horror that ensnared every cell in my body.

Sweat slicked my flesh as I sat there waiting for this fiend to have his way with me.

He slowly stalked forward, a gleam in his eye when he reached out and ripped the tape from my mouth, leaving a burst of pain in its wake.

Gasping, I struggled to bring large gulps of air into my aching lungs.

To stay calm. To believe.

But I’d seen firsthand what this monster would do. I’d seen the evil that occupied every recess of his mind.

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