Page 4 of Guarded By Atlas

My first thought is that someone died or is about to. What else could explain this level of reaction and distress?

Fuck, it’s no use speculating.

I approach Saint, but he stops me before I reach him. He motions to talk outside the office, and we both step out. There’s something akin to concern in his eyes, and it puts me on edge.

He clears his throat, his voice strained when he speaks. “Someone’s been kidnapped.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Marie. She isn’t from the club. She works at the nursing home where Chelsea and Ransom’s grandmother lives. She was taken tonight after leaving work. Since Chelsea and Scarlett were there visiting, and they said Marie and Scarlett were wearing the same coat, we suspect that Scarlett was the intended target and these assholes grabbed the wrong woman.”

My mind reels for a moment, trying to keep up with Saint’s rushed explanation. “So who do you think is behind it?”

“The Chrome Vipers.”

I suppose it makes sense, but I’d thought there was nothing left of the Vipers but bad memories. A few months ago, the Steel Rebels took down our rival motorcycle club after we had gotten evidence that they were involved in trafficking and auctioning girls. Scarlett, whose father, Stone, was the president of the Chrome Vipers, helped a great deal in bringing them down. Many of them weren’t killed in the final showdown were delivered to the authorities along with the evidence to put them away, and those who managed to escape, fled. Or so I’d assumed.

“What the fuck do they expect to achieve even if they’d gotten the right girl?” I ask, confused by the news. “The Vipers don’t exist anymore.”

“Revenge,” he explains. “I suspect some Vipers have been watching our building for a while, and they must have seen Scarlett and Chelsea leave and followed them to the nursing home. Marie’s kidnapping was simply a case of mistaken identity.”

“How can we be sure? What proof do we have that it was the Vipers? What do we know about Marie?”

“Ransom was able to get some footage from outside the nursing home. He and Scarlett recognized the driver of the van.”

Fuck! The Vipers were well known for their lack of boundaries and propensity for violence. There’s no telling what they will do to her when they realize they got the wrong woman.”

He doesn’t respond, not that he needs to. Now I understand the concern I read in his eyes. The Vipers are literal vipers with no regard for human life.

“We need to find her fast.”

A loud curse sounds from the office, pulling Saint’s attention, and I follow when he walks back in. Ransom is seated in front of three monitors, typing frantically at his keyboard, but my eyes shift to the monitor replaying the surveillance footage of the kidnapping.

I watch as a woman in a red parka steps out of a building, tugging the hood over her light hair. It’s the same coat the sobbing Scarlett is still wearing on the sofa behind me. The woman spares a single glance at a white van slowly driving toward her before turning away.

It all happens in seconds.

I watch as a man in a dark hoodie slips out of the van and moves swiftly toward her. She barely has time to react before he has a knife to her throat and then shoves her into the van before speeding off. It’s pure luck that they drove right past the camera, the driver’s face clearly visible through the windshield.

Just as the van pulls out of the drive, a woman rushes out of the building, waving her arms and yelling at the van before rushing back inside.

“Give me some good news, Ransom,” Saint tells our hacker, impatience clear in his voice. Everyone in this room knows that every second counts. Especially when the Vipers are involved.

“I’m trying my best,” Ransom growls. “We have the make and the plate of the van, so I’m trying to hack into the BMV to get an address off the registration and match it with known Viper properties… Got you, son of a bitch!”

“You have it?”

“The van has been registered to two different addresses. It was previously registered as a commercial vehicle with the address of the Vipers’ clubhouse, but right after we took them down, it was re-registered to a private individual. I don’t recognize this second address…”

“Scarlett,” Saint calls to her urgently. “Can you take a look and see if you recognize this address?”

Looking over my shoulder, I see Scarlett extract herself from Jade and stand. Just then someone else bursts through the office door and rushes toward her. I have barely a second to recognize Gray, another of my club brothers, pull her into his arms. Scarlett returns his embrace before pulling away to look at the monitor over Ransom’s shoulder. Gray’s presence seems to have given her renewed strength. “It’s an apartment building.My dad owned it. It’s one of the few properties he didn’t put in the club’s name…or mine. I haven’t been there in years, but I remember it being a run-down dump.”

“We’ll split up.” Saint grabs the paper Ransom wrote the two addresses down on and tears it in half before turning me. “Blaze is already waiting in the garage. You two take the apartment building. Hound and I will go to their old clubhouse,” he says, passing me the torn paper. “It’s unlikely that they would go back there since Scarlett sold it, but we have to be sure. Perhaps they’re hoping to make some kind of statement by bringing her to the place they think still belongs to them. If you find her, call Doc; he’s on standby in case she is hurt. Let's go!”

We don’t waste time as we all rush to the underground parking lot where we find Blaze ready to roll out. There is no need for words as everyone climbs onto their bikes and the space fills with the roar of engines before we’re tearing out of the lot.

The cold night wind screams past my helmet as I try not to think about the woman in the grasp of monsters.

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