“Priest!” Lion yelled, jogging toward me as more cops converged with their guns drawn.
The rest were in the clearing, an ambulance wailing in the distance, cops gathered around the fallen Bennet and the injured kid.
I stood in the semi-circle of men in blue, not breathing hard, just vibrating with coiled tension. I’d kill them all if they didn’t get me to Bea.
“Priest,” Lion barked, stepping through the ring to my side. “What the fuck?”
“They took Bea, they said,” I ground out. “Moore took Bea to the station. Call that motherfucker, I want Bea’s voice on the line.”
Lion’s eyes widened fractionally before he could curtail the expression. “I’m sure she’s fine, brother. Just a precaution to get her outta here when shit went down.”
“Call. Him.”
Lion didn’t hesitate again. He shouted for Hutchinson, who was running operations on this with the RCMP rep. Hutch took one look at my face and blanched before he called in to Moore.
No one answered.
Conviction settled over me like a heavy mantle.
I knew what had happened.
It was a trap.
Distract everyone so they could send in some fucked religious convert to take Bea away from me.
I knew it before Hutch tried again and then again. Before he called the PD and confirmed with the receptionist that Moore hadn’t arrived.
In truth, I’d known it in my bones when I woke up this morning.
“Priest,” Lion said through the muffled chaos of my own mind.
But I was done.
Done with the fucking pigs. Done with the rules. Done with everything.
This man wanted Bea?
He’d taken my woman from me? Torn my shadow from my side?
I was going to make him pay so painfully, he’d weep blood as he begged me for mercy.
“We’ll find her,” Hutch was saying.
The cops around me had dissipated, called to duty to find the girl they’d let go.
Hutch stepped closer to me.
A mistake.
I hauled him into my arms and snarled viciously into his face. “You did this, motherfucker. I told you all it was a dumb fuckin’ plan, and you were too convinced of your own invincibility. Wearin’ a badge doesn’t mean shit if you don’t protect the fuckin’ innocent, and Bea was the best of that. I’m done. I’m gettin’ her back before the motherfucker kills her, and I’m doin’ it my way. You try to stop me, I’ll end you too. You hear me?”
He swallowed thickly but held his hands up in surrender. “I hear you.”
I tossed him away without another thought, stalking to my bike parked at the side of the ride. Bea’s helmet was still attached to the seat. Fury crackled through me, searing my skin, burning the backs of my eyes.
I was alive, alive, alive with fury.
“Priest,” Lion called.
I revved the engine of my bike to drown him out.
“I’m here,” he persisted, raising his voice even louder as I spun out into the street. “You need me, I’m here.”
I didn’t respond as I gunned the bike down the road. This wasn’t cop business anymore. It was club business. Family business. My fucking business.
I wouldn’t stop until I had this motherfucker’s blood on my hands and down my fucking throat.
My entire shite life had prepared me for this moment. It gave me all the fucking hard-earned skills I needed to hunt him down and end him. It taught me to embrace the pain instead of succumbing to it.
All the horror of my life was worth it if it meant I’d get my heart back.
Bea
I couldn’t wake up.
For what seemed like hours, oppressive darkness weighed down my lids, pressing on my entire body like I was encased in a concrete grave, buried alive. I tried to fight the sinking, terrifying sensation, but there was no give in the blackness. I could only lie there wondering if this was death. Not the soft embrace of the Reaper the way I’d always believed, but a deep, dark hole you sink into and never return from.
Gradually, so gradually it seemed to take an eternity, sensation returned to my limbs. There was a tingle in my fingertips that felt like an itch. I wiggled my toes, finding them cold and stiff in my boots.
With wakefulness came pain.
Pain as I remembered Cleo fighting for her life in the hospital.
Pain as I realized Priest would be going quite literally crazy knowing I’d been taken, wondering if I’d been killed.
Pain as I thought about adding more grief to my family when they were already so mired deep in hurt.
Then the blinding pain in my head that robbed my eyes of sight even when I was finally able to pry my lids open.
I gazed unseeingly as I remembered the events leading up to my being there. The gunshot in the clearing, Priest trying to get to me, and Officer Moore driving the car, telling me he was taking me to safety, taking me to a haven. The word haven had hit wrong; a discordant note struck in my mind. I’d questioned him about it, leaning forward toward the console. He’d slammed the brakes so hard, I’d swung forward and hit my head with a hard crack against the plastic. A moment later, his hands were coming at me with some kind of syringe in his grip.