Axel (Dark Slayers MC Book 25), page 15
“Put them on speaker phone,” I told him.
The next thing I heard were their tearful voices. They were talking over each other, saying their dad took her and begging me to get her back.
“Hey, listen to me,” I told them in a calm voice. “I don’t know what happened, but we’re gonna get your mommy back. While I’m doing that, the two of you are gonna stay with Angel, okay?”
There was some back and forth, but they eventually agreed. “Don’t worry sweethearts, I’m gonna bring your mommy straight to you.”
I just had to hope I wouldn’t be breaking that promise to those little girls.
***
By that time, Storm, Grit, Breaker, Celt and several other brothers who happened to be on the premises were geared up and ready to go. We headed out, while Thunder rounded up another team to back us up. We made short work of getting to the West End.
I didn’t need to think about it. I knew this was Bryce’s doing. My mind was working overtime trying to figure out what Bryce’s game was. I got word from Roderick that Bryce had signed off on the divorce paperwork this morning and had a paralegal drop it off at our attorney’s office. Roderick filed it right away. That means the divorce was a done deal. What possessed him to divorce her and then abduct her? None of this made any sense.
And how did we not know the asshole was back in the country? If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have left Tracey with two prospects, I’d have been there myself.
We pulled up and parked our bikes, intent upon canvassing the area. Storm had heard from Hacker who’d managed to get access to a couple of security cameras in nearby parking lots. The thing that made my blood boil was who he saw with Tracey. He says Fred handed her over to Bryce and then took off on his bike.”
“What do we know about Fred?” I asked angrily. “Who vouched for him?”
“He checked out,” Grit muttered.
“Well maybe you need to review your fucking vetting process,” I spat back.
“Okay, enough,” Storm cut in. “First things first, we get your woman back. Then we see how we messed up with Fred.”
I was pacing the parking lot when Storm got a call from our contact at the police department. He put it on speaker and Harvey’s voice came onto the line. “Mack told me you guys have a situation on your hands. What can I do to help?”
I spoke up, “We need everything you’ve got on Bryce Sterling.”
Storm chimed in, “Pull his license, registration if you can get it. If you can’t, start with a black Lexus SUV and the plates I texted you last month. He has a second car, but I don’t know anything other than it looks like a collectible Bentley that he keeps garaged. We need to know the second he passes a reader.”
“I can do that,” Harvey responded without even a hint of judgment in his tone. He was a good friend of the club and had been for years. “Do you mind if I ask what this is about?”
“Sterling just signed divorce papers and then we caught him on a security camera abducting his ex-wife. He has a history of DV and a restraining order in place,” Storm explained. “Right now, we need to get to him before he does something batshit crazy to his ex.”
“Fucking hell, how do the Dark Slayers always end up with the really crazy ones?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
“I’ll go ahead and make a report about this and put out an all-points bulletin. What’s her name?”
I spoke up again, “Tracey Sterling, she hasn’t gotten around to changing back to her maiden name yet.”
“Roger that. I’ll let you know when something turns up.”
Storm’s hand landed on my shoulder from behind and I twisted around enough to meet his eyes over my shoulder. “We need to break up and start canvassing now. We’re burning daylight here. If you get anything approaching meaningful information, send it to the group chat.”
Nodding, I felt all kinds of restless energy building in my body. “Yeah, let’s get going.” When I started to walk off, he called out, “Don’t worry, Axel. We’re gonna bring her home and then we’re gonna rethink my cousin’s very fine idea on how to handle this fucker. Because men like him need to be taught a lesson.”
I ran in the direction of that side parking lot at top speed. All I could think of was what that evil asshole might be doing to punish her for leaving him. At this very moment he could be beating her senseless. I also wanted to beat Fred senseless when I got my hands on him. Would Bryce have gone so far as to get a mole in our club to spy on me? I wouldn’t put anything past the fucker. For Fred’s own good I hoped it was more that he joined us legitimately, and just got greedy. Anything else, and he was a dead man walking.
The sun was beating down on my shoulders, but I refused to leave any stone unturned. I rushed to the side lot and walked every square inch of it. I stood where the camera picked up Tracey because I needed to get the angles right in my head for when I watched the footage. I wanted to stand where she stood and know what her line of sight entailed.
I saw Celt stalking the far end of the lot, inspecting every single thing he passed. We met in the middle of the lot. There was a piece of paper on the ground and Celt bent to pick it up between two fingers.
He held it out to me. “This belong to your old lady?”
I took it from him and responded, “Yeah, it’s her school supply list of all the things the girls need for school.” I quickly folded it and put it into my pocket.
“Axel,” Hacker said in my ear. “I finished analyzing that security footage. My preliminary report was spot on. Your old lady came through the doors with that new prospect, Fred. He’s walking a step ahead and isn’t forcing her to come with him. He gestured like he was guiding her to the Land Rover. Thirty seconds later, Bryce steps out of the gap between a minivan and that black Lexus SUV you said he drives. I didn’t get a visual on the actual grab. They moved out of frame to the left. I’m searching to see if there are any more cameras we can access.”
“Can you tell what direction they went when they left the parking lot?”
“Westbound,” he answered.
Celt knew every inch of this town, he spoke up, “If they kept straight, they’d have hit the service road. I know there are warehouses out that way.”
My phone rang almost immediately. It was Harvey on a group call with the club officers. “I got a hit on your boy Bryce. He hit a reader two minutes ago heading west on County Road 14. I was able to tap into a traffic cam and there were two occupants in the vehicle.”
“Distance from the plaza?” Storm asked.
“He was about five miles,” he said. “If he hit that reader, he’s pointed towards the industrial park or the two-lane that hugs the river.”
Storm said, “I’m gonna have all available brothers converge on that industrial park. I’d bet my bottom dollar that’s where he’s taking her.”
Grit swore under his breath. “My guess is he either owns commercial property there and knows it’s isolated and empty most of the time or he scouted it out ahead of time. Either way, his ass is ours.”
“Harvey,” Storm said. “Can you get us a unit near the industrial park on the downlow. I don’t want multiple patrol cars with lights or sirens, because I don’t want to scare him off.”
“I’m five minutes out myself,” he answered. “I’m driving my personal vehicle today, a blue Jeep Cherokee.”
“Much appreciated,” Storm responded. “Best case scenario, we catch up with him before he makes it to that industrial park because once he gets inside that huge fucking area, it’ll take hours to find them.”
We jumped on our bikes and sped off in the direction of the industrial park. It felt good to have my club brothers at my back and to know I wasn’t in this all alone.
I should have been planning strategy for when I came face to face with Bryce but all I could think about was Tracey and how she got to this awful place in life. No woman wants to end up in a bad relationship. Tracey was a smart woman. If it could happen to her, it could happen to anyone. I remembered how she was during our college days. She had all the same dreams and aspirations that the rest of us had. She wanted to become a dentist and give people beautiful smiles. It seemed like such an attainable goal until Bryce drove a train through her life, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.
The road to the industrial park was long, with multiple hairpin turns. I snaked through each one by hugging the inside of the road. At one point my need to get to her took over my better judgment and I slowly opened the throttle, picking up speed.
The radio crackled. Harvey again. “Black Lexus SUV just arrived at the industrial park,” he said. “I’m gonna try to follow him in as inconspicuously as possible.”
“We’re less than three minutes out,” I told him.
“Two minutes ahead if you hit the green light,” he said. “I can’t tail without making him nervous.” Storm added, “Don’t approach until we get there.”
“Roger that,” Harvey replied.
We pulled into the industrial park and found Harvey’s Cherokee. He stepped out to greet us, pointing to a warehouse in the distance. “I saw Sterling step out to meet a couple of men and they walked back into the building about five minutes ago.”
Storm asked, “Any idea who they were?”
“No, I wasn’t close enough to hear their conversation. If I had to guess, I’d say they were his muscle. They looked like private duty security, and they were wearing earpieces. It made me wonder who they were communicating with.”
I spoke up, “Probably whatever company they were from. There are several in the area. I know that because they’re direct competitors with our club’s security firm.”
We approached the building cautiously and surrounded it. Harvey and Storm approached the front door with me at their heels. I wanted first crack at my former friend because he’d crossed a line that should never have been crossed today. Kidnapping Tracey was one in a long string of bad decisions, and I wasn’t gonna stop until he was behind bars or six feet under.
The building looked worse up close than it did from far away. The paint was peeling off the door and the exterior of the building had been tagged with graffiti. That let me know it hadn’t been used in a long time. It pissed me off that Bryce brought Tracey to a shitty place like this. The only reason Bryce managed to get his hands on her was because some idiot prospect thought betraying his brothers would earn him a payday.
Storm lifted two fingers, signaling quiet, and we froze in place. Celt moved up beside him, muttering under his breath. “Place reeks o’ trap,” he whispered.
I didn’t speak up, but I agreed with him. Something about the fucking situation was setting off my Spidey senses.
Storm just whispered back, “Stay sharp. The difference between a trap and a regular fucking day is awareness.”
Everything about this situation was wrong. It was too isolated, too easy to find and way too quiet for my liking. A prospect turned on us, and now we were walking into a fucking trap. I’d bet my bottom dollar on it. Without thinking about it too hard, I went ahead and pulled out my weapon, ‘cause trap or not, I had a woman in need of rescuing.
Breaker shifted beside me, restless and annoyed with Storm stopping to press his ear against the door. “Fucking hell, let’s quit staring at the damn paint and get after this asshole,” he grumbled.
Storm shot him a sharp look. “The four of us are first wave. We go in standard formation.” His gaze landed on me. “Don’t fuck this up by being too eager to get your hands around that asshole’s throat.”
Storm wasn’t wrong to warn me to keep my shit together. I wanted to rip the doors off their hinges, shoot every fucking thing in my path until I had Tracey back in my arms. But Storm was right. One wrong move, and someone could wind up dead. I gave him a tiny nod. “Got it, Prez.”
Storm raised his fist. We lined up behind him, ready to make a move.
When Storm gave the signal, Celt placed a crowbar into the latch and snapped it loose in one brutal motion. He eased the door open enough for Storm to get through and the rest of us followed. Our boots made barely a sound against the concrete floor.
The reception area was empty.
Celt’s voice carried low. “It’s too quiet, cousin. Way too quiet.”
Storm raised his chin towards Breaker, motioning him left. “Let’s get movin’.”
We eased ourselves through the open doorway and into the back of the warehouse. It was full of rusted out floor-to-ceiling shelves that had once held merchandise. Bryce, Tracey, and his security guards were somewhere nearby. I could feel it all the way down to my bones.
Grit motioned up with his gun. “Do ya see the cameras?” He tapped his temple with one finger. “That fucker is probably watching us right now.”
Storm’s hand went up to the earpiece he used to communicate with Hacker in real time and mumbled something I couldn’t make out.
My anxiety went up a notch. Why had Bryce lured us here to record his little showdown? He was the criminal, not us. It didn’t make any sense.
We passed through another set of metal shelves, going deeper into the storage area.
That’s when I heard a soft, muffled noise. It was a woman’s whimper. I froze in my tracks, trying to figure out where it came from. “Tracey,” I whispered.
I almost surged forward to find her, but Storm’s hand shot out, blocking me. His eyes were annoyed because I was doing that thing he told me not to do. “Hold,” he mouthed.
The whimper came again, along with words being muffled. She was trying to speak but he wouldn’t let her.
Celt murmured near my shoulder, “She’s bait, lad. Don’t lose yer head.”
But I was beyond listening. I pressed past Storm’s outstretched hand and stalked towards the sound. The whimpering led us to the very back of the huge, cavernous warehouse.
Tracey was sitting in a chair. No, she was tied to a chair. Her wrists were bound behind her. I didn’t like the way her hair hung in her face. I couldn’t see if she’d been crying or if he’d bruised her up. I rushed over to her, smoothing her hair back. “Baby, are you okay?”
“Axel,” she choked out breathlessly. “Get out. It’s a trap.”
I started untying her, and whispered in her ear, “Yeah, we know.”
And that’s when a voice filled the stillness of the warehouse. Bryce’s tone was loud and smug and slightly amused.
“Well, well. Took you long enough.” Bryce stepped from the shadows of a metal shelf in a finely tailored suit looking like he was about to present the annual figures at a board meeting. His smug smile let me know he thought he had us all playing his game. After surviving a brutal prolonged war overseas and busting my ass to earn my Slayers patch, I could see Bryce honestly had no idea that he was the one in the viper’s den right now. He’d invited all the vipers himself.
Tracey fell into my arms the moment her hands were free. She held onto me with force, trying to get away from Bryce. I picked my gun back up and tried really hard not to just shoot the stupid fucker on the spot.
But then that would be doing exactly what he wanted. Mounted on the wall behind him were several cameras. This was Bryce’s stage, and this was meant to be his last opus. I could see it all so clearly now. Those might be his private duty security but more importantly they were his witnesses. If I shot him, they’d shoot me or serve as eyewitnesses so he could put me behind bars.
“Always knew you’d come running, like the nice guy you are, Axel.” Bryce said smoothly. “You could never resist white knighting. Especially, not back in college and certainly not now.”
My grip tightened around the Glock until my knuckles ached. “Step back. I’m taking her outta here.”
He actually chuckled, like I’d just told him a funny joke. “You hear that, Tracey? He sounds just the way he did when you were mooning over him back in the dorm hallways. It didn’t matter how many times you brushed him off, he kept right on chasing after you, like a little lost puppy. Back then, you only had eyes for me. Because I was the one who gave you everything you wanted, remember?”
Tracey’s claws dug into my arm, and her eyes pinned him with an angry glare. “That’s not what happened. You’re lying,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Am I?” Bryce’s self-satisfied grin widened. He took a step closer and seemed to thrill at how she recoiled into my arms again. “Time to tell the truth. You were a woman who wanted nice things. You never looked at Axel because he was skinny, poor, and socially awkward.”
I cut off his bullshit tirade. “You’re a fucking lying piece of shit, Bryce. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”
“Because you were stupid back then. Both of you were.”
“We’re done talking asshole,” I ground out.
“I think not,” Bryce stated, lowering his voice. “Remember that little friend of mine I paid to run her mouth?” Glancing at Tracey, he added, “You remember her, don’t you? She told you Axel was already spoken for. And you believed it. Just like I knew you would.”
Bryce turned his gaze back on me. “And you always wanted her. You didn’t deserve her, but you wanted her. In fact you’ve been standing in the wings, waiting for the right moment to swoop in and steal her and my girls away,” his grin twisted. “And you’re stupid enough to think I’m just going to give my family up.”
Rage rose in my chest until it was fit to burst from my chest. I shook Tracey off and came to my feet. He’d stolen her, abused her, tried to break her spirit, and the bastard was proud of it.
“You don’t have the capacity to love but more importantly, you can’t even understand how precious a good woman is. Tracey is mine. Those girls of yours, the ones you signed away to get out of paying child support, they’re terrified of you. You failed as a husband and a father,” I ground out, voice low, shaking with fury. “Where exactly does that leave you.” Looking him over, I shoved my gun back into the holster. “I guess that leaves you parading around with that personal assistant you’ve been cheating with as if she could ever come close to what you lost.”
“You spoiled what I had, turned my wife into a biker’s whore. Any man would feel some kind of way about that.”
