Page 4 of Her Angel: Elias

Visions of what I would do if that ever happened played inside my head until it was pulsing.

Abi knew me too well and decided that a night of watching movies and eating all the chocolate we could get our hands on was not going to be enough of a distraction. We ended up at Hannigans’, where one beer after another was shoved into my hands while my father-in-law and his brother egged me on to shark a group of tourists.

I played the ditzy airhead well for the first two rounds, and right when the men thought they had an easy mark, I switched personalities so quickly their heads nearly spun off their bodies. Two grand later, I was on beer number six, and Tanner was howling with laughter as he watched the disgruntled tourists walk out the door, cursing me under their breath.

Counting out the bills, I walked over to the bar and ordered another round. Hayat and Abi were seated on stools talking to Mila, who was technically Hayat’s aunt by marriage. Mila was with River and their husbands. Maverick shifted aside so I could get up to Abi and Hayat.

“Six beers and whatever my girls are having,” I told Colt, tossing three hundred dollars on the bar top. “And keep them coming.”

Lyric threw an arm around Hayat’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m taking my wife home. Good to see you, kid. Stay out of trouble.”

“See you later, Uncle Ric. Love you!” She waved as the couple walked away, then quickly turned and snatched my phone out of my hands as soon as I pulled it from my pocket. “We’re dancing.”

I made a point of exaggeratedly glancing around the biker bar. “When did this place get a dance floor? And what are we even going to dance to?”

From the audio system overhead, I heard some old outlaw country song playing. They had a playlist on rotation. It took three hours from start to finish, and then it looped. It was an eclectic blend of music, from honky-tonk-style country to metalcore and everything in between. None of it was what Hayat would have danced to, although Autumn’s Slumber did have a song that came on two hours and thirty-two minutes into the playlist.

“We’ll make our own space to dance,” she said, linking her arm through mine and shifting her gaze around the moderately crowded bar. Her gaze stopped on a back corner with a maybe six-by-six area that might work.

While Hayat dragged me back there, Abi followed dutifully, leaving River and Maverick behind to finish their own drinks. Releasing my arm, Hayat started rearranging tables to give us more room and then looked up at one of the overhead security cameras. “Yo, Vaughn. Give us something fun to move to.”

The outlaw country song was abruptly cut off, and something techno filled the speakers. My brother had also adjusted the volume, causing more than one grumpy biker to start complaining as the walls started to vibrate from the bass.

Shaking my head at how ridiculous my friends and family were, I stared along with everyone else in the building while Hayat danced. She was hypnotizing to watch, all long limbs and wild hair, her hips moving to the beat like it was a part of her. In another time, she could have been a belly dancer. Between her exotic aquamarine eyes, killer body, and the shade of her complexion, she was gorgeous in a way I would have been irrationally envious of if she were anyone other than one of my dearest friends.

Realizing I was only watching and not participating, Hayat took both of my hands, and with her disarming dimpled smile, she started dancing with me. Once I was moving to the beat, we both pulled Abi into the group. For a short time, I allowed myself to get lost in the moment with them, their laughter warming something inside me.

But that uneasy sensation kept nagging at me. What could only be labeled as panic crushed my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs faster than the workout of dancing could. Effortlessly, I stole my phone back from Hayat and opened the encrypted app.

Location, right where I expected.

Blood oxygen level on the lower side but still within what would be considered a safe range.

Heart rate…

Blinking, I refreshed the app, convinced I was reading it wrong. Elias was healthy. He worked out regularly and ate well enough that I didn’t stress over his diet. His heart rate should not have been as high as it was. Not even when he was in the middle of acting as the angel of death did his heart rate rise above one ten. I knew because I’d watched the app while in the same room with him as he’d put a bullet in a man’s skull.

One-ninety was a number he’d rarely gotten to. I had years of logs to back that up. The high heart rate, combined with the lower blood-ox level, was definitely concerning. Was he having a cardiac emergency?

A cold sweat started on my back and spread to the rest of my body. All the noise in my head became too loud to think for a full count of five. Holding my breath, I tried to call him. It rang for what felt like eternity before rolling to voice mail.

Around me, the world narrowed, my tunnel vision engaged. Something was wrong. I could feel it in my gut, and as my mother had taught me, I never ignored that feeling.

Deep breath. Hold for a count of ten. Release.

The panic receded enough for me to think clearly and follow the steps that needed to be taken to ensure my husband was safe.

Hitting my brother’s contact, I waited for Vaughn to answer. “I need eyes on him. Now.”

Elias

Struggling to breathe, I slowly shifted on the dirty floor. Resting my head back on the wall, I hugged one arm around my ribs. Beside me, Kingston was in worse shape, face so swollen he couldn’t see. Blood was dried on the edge of his mouth from where a tooth had broken off. I knew it had broken off because he’d spat it out the minute he’d been shoved back into the cell with me, wrists chained to the bar cemented into the floor like my own were. The tooth had rolled across the grimy floor and gotten stuck in a crack between two boards.

The cell had bars on three of the walls, showing the torture chamber that took up most of the room. We had a few similar to this one, but I’d never been on the receiving end of our tactics. On the cold metal table, not unlike what a morgue would have on which to perform autopsies, Max was strapped down.

Three hours, he’d been on that table, and they hadn’t gotten a single sound out of him. With each passing minute that they couldn’t break him, our captors only grew more and more pissed off.

We’d been gone for two days. Barely forty-eight hours since I’d kissed my wife goodbye and headed east. But the moment we’d arrived at the Obsidian Souls’ clubhouse after getting the distress call from their VP, we’d walked straight into a trap.