Page 60 of Hawk's Cry

“Eli outside? He know you couldn’t find her?”

“Yes, and yes.” His eyes meet mine. “That shut down mood he’s been in? Well, he’s swung the other way now. The prospects are having a hard time holding him.” Wraith shakes his head. “I’ve seen him the past few days, Drummer. Seen him at his worst. Now he’s got a need for action, and it’s tearing him up. He’s just taken a swing for Nathan, desperate to go and look for her himself, even without a clue where to start.”

“Get him in here, Wraith,” Prez demands. “Can’t have him running off as a loose cannon.

“I’ll go,” Joker offers, and then stands and disappears out of the door. Only seconds later it reopens, and Eli pushes past him to get in.

I notice Eli sits next to Wraith, but doesn’t look at him. I’m still angry with the man myself. I’d never have let Olivia go off alone whatever her arguments had been. But I don’t say a word. One look at the man shows he’s suffering enough without anyone pointing his fuck-up out.

Eli, himself, looks agitated. His hands fidget, his body almost seems to be twitching as though it’s too great an effort to keep himself still. I suspect he’s avoided taking another of his antidepressants this morning.

Prez bangs the gavel. “Eli. You’re here as a guest not a member.” He breaks off and looks pointedly at Marvel, before he resumes, “Olivia’s missing and we’re going to help get her back. What you don’t yet know is that we’ve got good reason to believe she’s been taken by Archangel.”

Eli looks like he’s stopped breathing. His hands fist, his knuckles go white. Instead of the constant movement, he looks like he’s frozen.

This is it, I think silently, watching him carefully. This is the point where he loses it completely, or resurrects the man I know is still inside.

“Breathe,” Marvel says from beside him. “Fuckin’ breathe, Brother. You’re not on your own now. Need your head in the game to get her back.”

I think we’re all surprised it’s Marvel who speaks to him. Then again, you never know which way that man will jump. That it is the one most likely to have confronted him seems to pull Eli up.

He does indeed take a couple of deep breaths, visibly struggling to pull himself together, then addresses Prez. “Why…” His voice cracks and he tries again, “Why do you think that?” His voice becomes a little firmer. “What evidence have you got?”

Prez nods my way. I take over.

“A man calling himself Gabe appears to have befriended Olivia.” As a pair of distressed eyes in particular come my way, I elaborate, “It’s sounds like an innocent friendship. It’s not the first time they had coffee together. Though from the message thread on her phone, they’ve only been in contact for a few weeks and only ever met at the coffee shop.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Eli…

Liv’s gone.

When I’d first heard, my immediate thought was that she had left me. I couldn’t blame her, I’d pushed her away. But Liv would have faced me, told me, not left without explanation, if only to tell me what an ass I’d been. Then, I expected the baby was coming early, and hell, that was such a scary thought, I just filed it away. I’m not ready. I’d left it to Wraith and Sophie to go to the hospital, unable to cope I’m ashamed to say.

When she hadn’t been found, well, that was the point it had gotten through the mists in my brain. Liv was missing.

For the first time in months, thinking of someone other than myself breaks into the depths of despair and self-loathing that I’ve been drowning in. Just a crack in the walls I’ve been hiding behind. I feel I’m stumbling my way through a thick fog, knowing I’ve two options facing me. I could take the easy way out, stay here immersed in my pain and misery, or I could start looking for a way out. A way to contribute to finding my wife.

Believing I was still on my own, that no one would help a lost son of the Satan’s Devils, my first impulse had been to ride around the streets of Tucson, just trying to find a trace of where she might have gone.

The prospects had to physically restrain me. I became more and more agitated that I was helpless, held back from doing anything at all.

Then Joker had come out to collect me and had brought me into the space I’d never thought to enter again—the hallowed meeting room where the Satan’s Devils hold church. It seems strange to sit here without the comforting weight of my leather cut on my shoulders. For a start, I don’t understand why I’m here. I do notice Drummer’s sitting in the VP’s seat, the place that so recently was mine, and once again, I’m relegated to a position lower down the table beside Wraith.

When I listened to the chilling rendition that they think Archangel has Liv, I froze. My brain screaming, I can’t do this. I could walk back into that fog and disappear behind those walls I’d built for myself. Nothing can hurt me there as I don’t care.

“Breathe,” Marvel says from the other side of me. “Fuckin’ breathe, Brother. You’re not on your own now. Need your head in the game to get her back.”

Need me? What good am I to anyone? I swore to love and protect her. I can’t give up on her now. They think Archangel has her. Why would they think that?

So I ask, and get an answer I suspect I was primed to hear.

Oh, Drummer made it sound innocent, a friendship growing between two people who had conversation over a coffee together. But what exactly would Olivia had shared with him? That she’s married to an asshole who barely speaks to her, who’s expressed a desire to find someone else, who doesn’t act like he wants the baby? Archangel must have been laughing his fucking ass off as he listened to her.

I’d made it easy by rejecting her.

Or was she so starved of affection she’d take it from anyone? Even from the man who was our worst enemy.

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