Page 32 of Blood Revealed

“What now?” he asks.

Hero squints at me, asking ‘Now?’ without words, and I do a quick chin dip in return. He immediately shifts to ‘lockdown mode’.

Like ripping off a bandage, Duke gives it to him. “It ain’t Hannah got taken. It was Elise.”

“The fuck?” he roars, shooting up from the stool and it takes both me and Hero, especially me because of Hero’s injury, to keep him seated. “Let me go. I’m gonna kill a fucker. Fuckin’ let me go!”

“Stop,” I demand.

“Get your fuckin’ hands off me.” He struggles against our hold and given the size of him, I’m not sure either Hero or I got it in us to keep him down for long. “I gotta get to my wife,” he shouts. “My boy?” he asks and damn, if that word doesn’t crack.

“No. Your boy’s safe,” I say.

He struggles to throw us off, but we keep hold. “You can’t do anything with that injury,” Hero says. “Sit down.”

“Fuck you. You were willin’ to fight me over sayin’ the Brown women didn’t belong at the club. You’d be the same way.”

“Listen, I get it.”

“No, you don’t,” Boss argues.

“The fuck I don’t. We haven’t told a lot of people, but Brin and I are getting married. She’s carrying my kid. So Idoget it. But you’re injured. What do you think you’ll accomplish going off halfcocked in your condition?”

“He’s got a point, Boss,” I add. “We need to plan. You need to heal. We’ll get her. Blue and Scotch can get on calling up other Lords chapters and any allies the club has. Let’s go back to your room so we can discuss this in private.”

I need to get him back to his room because there’s blood seeping through his jeans. I think he ripped open his stiches when he shot up off the stool. Hero sees too and looks to me, nodding before taking off to find Hatchet.

Boss leans his weight into me while I help him back to the room they’ve set up for him. A few minutes later, I’ve got a semi-calm Boss lying on the bed with his back propped up against the headboard when Hero and Hatchet walk in.

“Tore your damn stitches,” he says after giving Boss an examination. “Let me fix this.” Then he sets to work sewing up the wound where Boss reinjured himself. Asshole. I get it, but he’s still an asshole.

The brothers who are left converge in Boss’s room. When we tell Blue and Scotch what’s happened and what we need them to do, they’re on it. Duke orders us to stay here at the Missouri compound until we make contact with the other chapters and allies. Then we’ll set up a meet to take the plan further. If Escalante’s people have Elise, they certainly don’t have her in Illinois, so where have they’ve taken her?

We put in a call to Tommy Doyle.

“Already on it,” he tells us all over the speaker phone. “Caity got pics of the car and plate. We’re tracing it. When I got enough to give you, I’ll give it.”

“She got plates?” Boss asks.

“Yeah. It’s a Texas plate. But, Boss, let me do my job here first. I promise, I get better than Texas, I’ll tell you.”

Boss agrees, although we can all see he’s not really agreeing. What he’s going to do is cause us problems, I feel it.

“Thanks, Tommy,” Duke says.

“No problem. I’ll be in touch.” Then he ends the call.

I move away from the group to give my woman a quick call and she doesn’t fucking answer the call. She better be passed out asleep with her sister, exhaustion taking over after the trauma of the day or some shit.

“Duke, Hannah’s not answering her phone,” I tell him. “Time to give Boss the rest because I gotta find out if my woman’s done something stupid.”

“What the hell you talkin’ about?” Boss shouts. “The rest of what?”

“The man who took Elise,” Hero answers for us.

Boss twists on the bed to glare at Duke, his face growing redder by the second. “Who the hell’s got my wife?” he bellows even louder than before. A feat I didn’t know was possible.

“Carlos Escalante.” The words hardly leave my mouth when the room goes wired. Boss is a star gone supernova collapsing in on itself, sucking all the air from the room. Now were just waiting for the massive explosion to level us all.

---