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I tried her phone again, but it went straight to voice mail.
Cassidy hadn’t run away.
But she was fucking missing.
I ran out into the clubhouse and found Hawke leaning up against the bar talking to Animal.
“Have you seen Cassidy?”
“Yeah, man. She left here an hour or so ago sayin’ somethin’ about a necklace.”
A mix of relief and alarm spiraled through me. She had put herself in danger by going to the cabin, but at least I knew where she was heading.
I started running for my bike but my phone rang. It was Tommy, the VP from the Kings of Mayhem California chapter.
“Tommy!”
“Hey, brother. Thought I should let you know Wyatt disappeared yesterday afternoon.”
I stopped walking. “He’s missing?”
“We found him about an hour ago. Unconscious and beat up pretty badly in an alleyway.”
“Is he going to make it?”
“Doctors think so.”
“Any idea who did this to him? Did he say anything?”
“He hasn’t regained consciousness yet, but I suspect whomever you had him tailing didn’t want him tailing him no more.”
Fucking motherfucker.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
When I asked Wyatt to follow Barrett, I didn’t think he’d get hurt. It was a simple tail and report job. Now he was unconscious in hospital.
Barrett did this.
It meant he probably knew about the tail all along. Probably found it amusing.
But worse, it meant he was on his way to Destiny.
He was coming for Cassidy.
“Keep me posted. I want to know if he wakes up or if his condition changes.”
“Will do, brother.”
I tore out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell. Panic ignited every cell. I weaved in and out of traffic with skill, my mind focused on one thing and one thing only—getting to Cassidy and taking her as far away from here as fucking possible. I would stop at nothing to protect her. I had already walked through hell once before, and I would crawl through it on my hands and knees if it meant protecting her from harm.
Hitting traffic, I roared up the middle and then took my chances through a red light. There was less traffic on the road to the river, and I took the Harley off the chain and let her roar like a wild cat as we tore along the wide-open road.
Coming to the small township just before the turnoff to the cabin, I slowed down. There was more traffic here. A cab. A family sedan. A station wagon towing a caravan. A black van.
I overtook them and tore out of the little main street and back onto the road, toward the turnoff.
That was when I noticed the black van behind me.
Something wasn’t right, but the realization came too late.
The black van roared passed me but then swerved at me, running me off the road and into a ditch, catapulting me off my bike. I hit the ground with a dusty thump. It knocked the wind out of me and made me see stars. Winded, I struggled to inflate my lungs with oxygen, my breath only coming in short, sharp rasps. A short distance away, I heard car doors slam and the sound of boots on asphalt. I couldn’t move, but I knew I would probably die if I didn’t because whoever ran me off the road wasn’t done with me yet.
Still struggling for breath, I hauled myself up onto all fours because I had to find Cassidy. And goddammit, I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Whoever those motherfuckers were, they were going to pay.
A twig snapped behind me. I wasn’t alone. And before I could even register it, I was hauled to my feet by one very unattractive man with a heavily pock-marked face while a redneck who looked like Billy Ray Cyrus circa his “Achy Breaky Heart” era slammed a heavily ringed fist into my mouth. I barely had time to taste the blood before a second punch to the side of my face made me see stars and sent me to the ground again.
If I was winded before, then it was nothing compared to being kicked in the stomach with a set of steel-toe boots. No. Wait. It was nothing compared to being slammed in the gut by two sets of steel-toe boots. Excruciating pain spread from my stomach, and blood sprayed out of my mouth, followed by the sudden eruption of air from my throat as a second blow got me right in the groin.
When Billy Ray decided I deserved a third blow, I grabbed his ankle and yanked it out of under him, making him lose balance so he stumbled into the dirt beside me. Before his sidekick could derail me with another blow to the head, I broke Billy Ray’s arm in two places and gave him his own galaxy of stars with a powerful hit to nose.
With him in blinding pain and distracted, I kicked the legs out of the other man, and he hit the dirt with a ground-shaking thud. From there it was easy. I got up onto my knees and swung at him with an almighty fury. Blood spattered across his face, and my knuckles, followed by more when I broke his nose and sent him to the ground unconscious.
