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“Where’s my old lady?” Ryder demanded, panic swelling in his gut.
“The tracker on her cell looks like she went to the house and just kept right on driving,” Cork said, much to Ryder’s relief. “Since she disabled both the cell phone and the GPS unit in her car, we know only that she was headed west.”
“I’ve a good idea why she left the club, but I’m at a loss to explain why she drove all the way to our house and then didn’t go in.” When he got his hands on her, Ryder had a good mind to turn her over his knee and give her a good, hard spanking.
Cork replied decisively, “My best guess is that something spooked her.”
Ryder took a step closer to the man. “Did anything look out of place when you arrived?”
Frowning, there was a pause as Cork concentrated for a brief moment. “Only a couple of things stood out to me. The first was that her vehicle wasn’t in the driveway. I thought it was because she put it in the garage. Second, I thought she was home because, though the light in the living room was off, the kitchen light was on.”
“Lights being on that we both turned off before leaving the house might have spooked her. Maybe she thought we couldn’t protect her,” Ryder guessed. “She’s been running from that asshole of an ex for a fucking long time.”
Peb’s timid voice cut in for the first time. “I ran her credit cards and ATM card. They haven’t been used, even for gas.”
“She keeps a full tank, but she’ll have to stop for gas, food, or a hotel soon,” Ryder surmised. “Stay on that shit, Peb.”
“I will, man. I’m really sorry—”
“Don’t bother. You can’t make a woman do shit in this world, my friend. We can only be there for them when it goes to hell and pull them through to the other side. Do we know anything about our John Doe?” Ryder asked, needing confirmation for what he was thinking.
Cork spoke up. “He didn’t have any identification on him, nor did I find a vehicle nearby. That makes me think he was either too stupid to keep up with his wallet or a professional who didn’t want anyone to identify him if things went bad.”
With the way things had been going lately, Ryder would bet on the latter being true. “No vehicle means one of two things. Either he parked farther away and walked to the house, or he was dropped off by cohorts. If it was the second, they’d still be after her. That means we have to find her first.”
“You’ve got a dozen of us on this situation,” Peb said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Looking into Peb’s hopeful face, Ryder felt a chill creep up his spine. “I hope you’re right. She told me her ex used to keep her chained up outside in the elements as a punishment when she ran. This is no kind of weather for a woman to be outside all night.”
Cork cursed under his breath, and Peb’s eyes got big. “I understand. We’ll find her.”
“Let’s get to it, brothers.”
Watching them hurry away, Ryder shoved his hand through his hair. He somehow managed to resist the impulse to punch himself in the side of the head for being so stupidly negligent. Being in love was a totally new experience for him and had clearly lulled him into a false sense of security. He’d been stumbling happily along, laughing, fucking, and enjoying his time with Tiffany.
What he should have been doing was incrementally getting her used to club life, explaining his rationale, and helping her understand that he wasn’t some renegade bent on remaking the world according to some warped concept of right and wrong that he concocted in his own mind.
Instead, he’d just thrown her in the deep end and expected her to figure it all out on her own. She’d put the pieces of the puzzle together haphazardly, and in doing so had created a skewed version of the masterpiece that was his life. That in and of itself didn’t surprise him. It was an easy mistake to make from the outside looking in.
Ryder would be the first to admit that in his fast-paced world, there never did seem to be enough time for all the things he wanted to do. Preparing Tiffany to deal with club life should have been at the top of his list of priorities. It would have been if this thing with Darkness hadn’t cropped up so unexpectedly.
Finding out her ex was still stalking her had also been a huge fucking distraction. Rolling from one complex, dangerous situation to another had him off balance and struggling to keep everything tucked in around the edges.
A rough voice pulled him from his internal recriminations. “Hey, dipshit, your mind is wandering off into Neverland. It needs to be focused on the here and now.”
Pivoting around to face Ace, Ryder shot him an annoyed look. “Thanks for that amazing piece of unsolicited advice. What are you going to pull out of your sleeve next, a bunny?”
Taking a few steps closer, Ace shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked at the gravel with the toe of his boot. “Just trying to get you back on task, brother.”
“Yeah, I’m all kinds of aware of exactly how I fucked this one up.”
“Did you fuck it up or did she?” he asked seriously.
Ryder felt his brow drop. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Ace’s head snapped up to look him in the eye. “The way I see it, you treated her like gold. You brought her here when she had no place to go and gave her a nice home, bought her anything she wanted, and showed her how you felt. Hell, you even made nice with me for fuck’s sake. Any bitch would have been happy with you, so don’t go blaming yourself.”
Ryder bristled. “First of all, my old lady ain’t no bitch. If I had wanted a woman who considered herself lucky to trade a nice lifestyle for companionship, I’d have picked a club whore. I chose Tiffany because she’s decent, kind, and loving. I should have known that she’d be put off by the killing and whores. The thing is, sometimes people need to be killed, and there’s no getting around it.
