Page 56 of Hawk's Cry

Dad’s pacing. I half listen as he speaks to Wraith. “Why didn’t you go with Olivia?”

Wraith sighs. “I should have, but Olivia got in one of her moods and made a good point. What was the difference between today and the past two months?” He pauses. “She made me feel fuckin’ guilty. If Eli hadn’t collapsed, we wouldn’t have thought about protecting her.” Wraith waves his hands aimlessly. “I was still trying to come up with a good enough response when she walked out.”

I smile. Yeah, that sounds like Liv. Once she throws shit like that at you, it’s hard to argue with her good sense.

“You’re going to get there.” Mom’s still talking to me. Her voice is soothing. For a while she just lets me sit and relax. I’m disturbed when Dad answers his phone.

“Jesus H Christ!” he shouts at the top of his voice. “Are you fuckin’ sure?”

“What’s up?” Wraith’s voice is full of concern.

“Olivia’s car is at the coffee shop. No sign of Olivia. He questioned the waitress who said she left with a friend—she’s been there with him before. She said Olivia looked faint and that her companion had to help her outside. She thought it was to do with her being pregnant.”

A man? I feel the blood drain from my face. Is she leaving me? Have I been successful and pushed her away?

“Maybe it is,” Mom states, standing and taking hold of Sophie’s hand. “She’s eight months pregnant. The baby could be coming early. He could have taken her to the hospital.”

Wraith’s checking his phone. Then he places a call. “Throttle. Her phone is still showing… Yeah, ask the waitress. I’ll hold… Yeah?... You sure?... Yeah. Call me back.” He ends the call. “Her phone’s not been handed in. Throttle’s looking for it outside. It’s there, somewhere.”

My eyes flick between them all, my brain focusing again on one word. Him. A man. She’s been seeing a man behind my fucking back. She’s been doing what I suggested I’d do to her. But it’s her who’s taken the next step. Why would she leave her phone? She must know that’s how she’d be traced.

“She’s left me.” The words come out of my mouth. “It was all a lie. She didn’t want to come back to the compound, so she’s left with someone else.” Suddenly her betrayal, which was what I encouraged after all, doesn’t seem as bad as the thing that hits me most. “What if I never see her again? My baby!” The final words leave me in a wail.

I did this. I chased her away.

“Fuck!” Dad’s voice seems to come from far away. “Take it straight back to the compound and give it to Mouse. See what he can come up with. We’re heading back now.”

Suddenly I’m pulled to my feet. Hands come around my shoulders and shake me. “Stop it, Eli. Stop it now. You think you pushed Olivia away? You fuckin’ think she’d have left you without a word? That is not the Olivia I know. You wallowing in self-fuckin’-pity right now isn’t helping anyone. We need to find her!”

Find. Her. Dad’s words, the expression he wears, feels like a slap to my face.

“She might be at the hospital,” Sophie cries out. “This may be nothing to worry about.”

Wraith’s there, holding her to him. “We’ll fuckin’ check. Drummer, we’ll go by the hospital she’s registered at. She’ll have headed there if the baby was coming.”

Drummer nods, then shakes his head. “If that were the case, she’d have gotten a message to you.”

“Not if she dropped her phone,” Mom offers reasonably. “There’s a chance, Drummer. If the baby’s started to come early, or something’s wrong, she could have lost hold of it.”

Either she’s left me, or… “The baby’s coming early. She’ll be at the hospital.” I shake my head, willing myself to think she left of her own volition.

Wraith swears as his eyes flick to me, then he holds Sophie close, hugging her before releasing her. “Sam could be right, we’ll get to the hospital and check it out. Wherever she is, we’ll fuckin’ find her, Soph. I swear it to you. We’ll find her.”

The hospital. It’s the only acceptable explanation.

Chapter Twenty

Drummer…

I’d felt a glimmer of hope when Eli had come out from seeing the doctor. There was a slight difference in his bearing which suggested while he’d hit his lowest point, there was a chance he was going to pull himself out of the hole he’d gotten himself into. Clearly he couldn’t do it without encouragement and help, but now with the whole club rooting for him, I believe there’s a good chance he’ll pull through.

Then, my temporary rise in my spirits had come crashing back to the ground when we discovered Olivia was missing.

Any man not in an MC wouldn’t have immediately thought the worst. The waitress’s explanation that she thought the baby might have started to come would have been the one most likely and probably accepted by the majority of the civilian population. But I am not a normal man, and I don’t clutch at innocent explanations. I also dismissed the thought that she’d been having a secret liaison, and that rather than return and be confined to the compound, she’d decided to throw in her lot with another man. That wasn’t the Olivia I knew, nor the woman worrying herself sick about the state of Eli, the woman who’d been crying in her bed these past few nights.

No. Someone’s taken her.

I’m angry she’d made it easy. If I’d been here, I’d never have let her go off alone. I’m fucking furious at Wraith, fighting not to let that ire show as I know he’s blaming himself for so badly fucking up. She must have twisted him around her little finger as daughters are wont to do. Damn everything to hell and back. I’m enraged for her sake, she’s like a daughter to me, and for my son’s. That she’s missing isn’t going to help his recovery at all.

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