Page 50 of Ryder
She was quiet for a moment. “You’re too… you’re… you wouldn’t understand. You’re just a man. You… everything is easier for men. You don’t have to be afraid. I… why are you calling me right now?” Fuck!
I forced myself to let out a soft moan.
“Because I want to finish what we started. I have the worst case of blue balls-”
“Bullshit. There’s a reason you’re calling me right now. Are they tracing me somehow? Are… what’s… NO!” She ended the call with a scream, and no amount of calling back was getting me anywhere, so I dialled Reacher.
“Getting a little lazy, aren’t we?” He never said hello when he answered his phone, grumpy asshole.
“Did they get her?”
He muttered something away from the phone.
“We haven’t heard back yet. Why?”
“We were talking, and then she screamed, and the call cut out. Did they get her? Was it us? Has someone else taken her? ANSWER ME!” I was yelling at my Club President.That was never going to end well.
Eighteen
Ididn’t know who’dkidnapped me. I mean, I had to assume it was the biker club. There had been a sudden noise behind me while I was on the phone, and then someone put a hood over my head, and I was half carried, half dragged out of there. I fought. I kicked. I struggled. I even tried screaming, and that’s when someone jabbed something sharp into my neck, and I felt woozy. I blacked out, and now I had no idea where I was.
I’d woken up in a room, on a bed, and I was tied to it. I was blindfolded, but I could feel the mattress beneath me. I could feel the ropes tied at my hands and feet, but I couldn’t tell if I was wearing anything. It was warm in the room. I tried wriggling, but I had no range of movement. I was trapped. Alone.Afraid. My breathing was fast, erratic. I couldn’t tell if there was someone in the room with me. I didn’t know if I was about to die, or if something worse was about to happen.
I found myself praying that it was him. Ryder.My biker. Because if I had been taken by anyone else, then I had to accept the fact that I was in the worst danger of my life.
Ryder
They came back emptyhanded. I was waiting outside, because I already fucking knew, didn’t I? Reacher had received a call to say they’d found the place empty. Just a smashed phone on the floor, and the room messed up. Someone else had taken her.Someone had taken my fucking woman.
It didn’t go unnoticed by me, that I was acting like she was actually mine. Like she was my old lady even. She wasn’t. She wasn’t someone I even knew if I liked. I shouldn’t. I should hate her with a passion, because what she’d done was appalling, and humiliating. And now someone might do the same to her, and it was killing me.
“Will you calm the fuck down?” Reacher grabbed the neck of my t-shirt, and dragged me to a halt. Yeah, I’d been pacing again.
“Ice, you getting anything?” He was busy trawling through CCTV footage he’d hacked, and then he cursed.
“Jesus, we missed her by like two fucking minutes.”
We all crowded around the screen to watch two big guys came out of the building I now knew to be hers. They were half carrying a struggling figure, with a cloth bag over her head, then they threw her into a van.
“FUCK!” I yelled, slamming my fist into the wall.
“Calm the FUCK down!” Reacher yelled at me, turning back to Ice.
“You got the number plate?” Ice groaned.
“Of course I fucking did. Can you guys keep the noise down, so I can work?”
“What’s taking so damn long? You’re supposed to be a fucking technical whizz, and you’re taking for-fucking-ever!” I yelled, coming back at Ice.
Someone grabbed the back of my neck in a tight grip, and marched me out of Ice’s room, taking me down to the bar in the communal area. He shoved me into the lounge corner, and nodded at Tommy, who was manning the bar.
Stitch. He shoved me back, when I tried to get up again.
“Stay the fuck there, or I’ll sit on you.”
I fought to do as my VP ordered, but it was eating at me. This urge to be up, and moving, and punching someone, or something. She was out there; she was alone, in danger, and scared. I couldn’t leave her to the mercy of whoever had her.
“Oi. I said, drink that.” Stitch pointed at a vodka that had appeared in front of me. He had a bourbon in his hand. He looked tired. Did we all look like that lately? Had anyone been sleeping at all?
