“Fuck,” I hissed. “I need to get to an airport,” I said, hearing someone coming up behind me.
“You can’t fly with guns. And you’re never going to get a gun down there if Raúl has his men looking for you,” Seth reasoned.
He was right. Of course he was.
“I can’t just stand here and do fucking nothing.”
“I’m not—“ Seth started, trailing off when my phone rang.
“It’s Chris,” she said, cutting to the chase. “I found some chatter online,” she told me.
“Saying what?”
“That someone saw a woman jump out the back of a moving truck.”
“What?” I hissed, heart constricting at the possibility.
That she wasn’t on a plane.
That she wasn’t with Raúl.
That she maybe, possibly, got away.
“Yeah, I mean it’s the social media account to some teenager. And I see nothing else. But who would lie about that?”
“Does it say anything else?”
“Just a lot of ‘no fucking way, man,’ type comments,” she said. “But five minutes on his account said it was either over around Bank Street where he lives, or that basketball court over on Hamilton where he posts videos and selfies all the time. Not much to go on, but if you get feet down in the area, you might be able to get more.”
“Chris, thank you,” I said, voice a little thick with relief and hope.
“Bring her home,” Chris said, hanging up.
“What is it?” Seth asked.
“Some kid saw a woman jump out of a moving truck somewhere between Bank Street and Hamilton.”
Voss’s gaze slid back to the truck.
“Punishment?” he said, shrugging.
“Hear me out, Zaddy,” Dezi said, wiggling his shoulders. “Our girl took out the fucker in the back. Raúl took out the driver for not realizing shit went down.”
“You think Abigail shot him?” I couldn’t picture that. This woman had been beaten down year in and year out. But she’d never once tried to steal a gun and shoot her way out. She’d bided her time instead and took a chance on a risky escape instead.
“Think she’d do anything not to go back,” he said, shrugging. “Let’s go find your girl.”
“Fall out of a moving truck,” Voss mumbled, since all he did was mumble and grumble. “Gotta be banged up.”
“She left her phone at the apartment,” Seth said as we got to our bikes. “She’s probably bunkering down somewhere to make sure no one is looking for her. She can’t call. Safest thing to do is hide.”
That sounded right.
Problem was, the area between Bank Street and Hamilton was full of businesses, apartment buildings, and abandoned buildings.
She could be anywhere.
And it wasn’t likely we were going to get a hell of a lot of cooperation from the locals who knew how shit went in the area, and didn’t want to get involved in some sort of possible street war.
I didn’t give a fuck if I had to burst into every fucking apartment in the area to look for her. No one was going to get in the way of getting her safe, of making sure no one touched a goddamn hair on her head again.
I had no idea what safe was going to mean at this point. Especially now that Raúl likely knew the club was involved. But that was shit I could work out after I had her in my arms again.
It only took us maybe twenty minutes to get back to the right area, and we all parked in the lot of the park, deciding this was best done on foot.
“Blood on the street,” Voss rumbled, jerking his head toward the pavement.
My heart flew into my throat, fearing the worst, before I saw just a couple of red streaks. I didn’t even know how he saw them, let alone decided immediately it was blood.
Then again, I didn’t know much of anything about the man.
“Would run for a bit,” he declared, moving forward to stop at the next cross street. Lifting an arm, he waved down it, asking a silent question.
“Yeah. We’ll start here,” I called to the others.
We didn’t get anything to go on there, so we moved onto the next street.
I was just about to head into a pretty fucking unsafe-looking abandoned building when I heard Dezi call me.
“This miniature human said he saw a bloody woman going into his apartment building today,” he said with his arm draped over the shoulder of a kid of maybe nine or ten who looked equally fascinated by and terrified of the man at his side.
“Hey, bud. Which apartment building?” I asked, waving at the two of them I could see from where I was standing.
“That one,” he said, pointing.
“Thanks, little man,” I said, barely able to keep myself from running in that direction.
“Do you guys have motorcycles?” the kid asked.
“Sure do,” Seth said, nodding.
“Can I see them?”
“Tell you what, if we find our friend, I will bring my bike right here and let you check it out, okay?” Seth asked, waving toward the curb.
“Can I tell my friends?”
“Sure. But you have to promise to wait until we find our friend, okay?”
“Fine,” the kid grumbled, likely used to adults making promises that they didn’t keep.
“I’ll sit here and wait with you to see if they find her,” Seth said, waving toward the front steps of the apartment building as Dezi, Voss, and I moved inside.
I gave him a nod as I moved into the foyer, looking around as if I would find her just sitting there and waiting for me.
“I’ll go up,” Voss said, going toward the stairs without waiting for a response.
“What are you doing? She wouldn’t be in the elevator,” I said when Dezi moved inside it, keeping his foot in the way of the doors so they didn’t close.
“No. But she did use it,” he said, looking up at me, waiting for me to move into the car to see what he was pointing to.
The floor buttons.
Well, one in particular.
With blood on it.
The basement.
Yeah, that made sense, didn’t it?
The upstairs floors risked her being seen by someone who might give her up if the guys came looking for her.
But the basement was likely abandoned and private. It would give her time and space to lick her wounds, to try to figure out her next move.
Dezi moved back to let the doors close as he punched the basement button again.
“At least if we plummet,” he said when the elevator creaked and groaned, which explained why the floor was so damn dusty, like no one had stepped inside it for ages, “we would probably survive.”
The car stopped, the bell chimed, and the doors slid open.
The two of us moved out in unison.
And we both froze in unison too when we heard the hollow click of a gun with an empty chamber.
It was half of a second later that I found the source.
Abigail, standing in the doorway of a small room, her whole body shaking.
But still making her last stand.
“Hey, love,” I murmured, voice soft, not entirely sure she was fully comprehending that it was us standing there. “You’re okay. Put the gun down,” I said. “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”