“What did her message say?” Axel roars.
Tattum is crying, “She... she just wanted to let me know that shit was going to go down. That I might want to leave… Sh…she teaches my kid and knows I am one wrong move from losing him to the system… sh… she just wanted to warn me in case I wanted to get out of here before everything went down.”
Fuck.
Axel looks conflicted, strain is written all over his face. He steps back from Tattum and starts to pace again.
Angel’s voice drops. “Take the girls back to the bunk room, they don’t leave or talk to anyone until we find out what the fuck has been going on.”
One of the brothers ushers the girls out of the room.
I feel like I can’t breathe.
Angel looks at me, then Axel, Ledger and then the door.
“He ran because he knew we were coming for him.”
Silence settles across the clubhouse like a storm front rolling in.Razor isn’t inside the club anymore. He isn’t contained and he is done pretending. He’s loose and he knows we’re coming for him. Which means…
He might already be looking for her.
“He’s not going to go into hiding,” I say quietly.
Angel looks at me, “No.”
“He’s hunting.” I say on a hard breath.
No one argues, because we all know I’m right.
Angel starts giving orders to track Kori, let Four know he needs to question Marisol, with the priority to find Bex and Mara.
I don’t wait, I am out the doors and moving for my bike.
I need to find her before he does.
CHAPTER 22
CLUTCH - POOF
A week after Razor went missing and we are still no closer to findinganyone.
When I left the clubhouse that afternoon, everyone walked away with instructions. The kind passed between men who know exactly what’s being asked without needing it spelled out. We were going to investigate our own. Without making it look like we were doing it.
Four couldn’t risk the DA seeing movement inside the club that looked like retaliation or obstruction. Angel couldn’t risk the club tearing itself apart before we knew if anyone outside of the rats in the shed were actually responsible for the shitstorm we were in.
So we would dig, but not where anyone could see us digging.
I felt like I was constantly searching and no closer to finding Bex. Every day the pain in my gut, the tension in my chest got worse. I was on my way back from a lead that didn’t pan out, but I couldn’t go back to the clubhouse… Instead, I took the long way around the valley, riding the stretch of highway where we’d found Bex’s car.
I knew the spot, the road dips there, curves around a low stretch of bush and broken rock before climbing again toward the hills. The kind of place most people wouldn’t notice twice if they passed it during the day.
But I saw it.
The gravel pulled slightly off the shoulder, the faint impression where a vehicle had been dragged onto the low tow bed. I slowed my bike until I was right where her car would have been, then I killed the engine.
The silence after the motor cuts is always strange. Like the worldsuddenly remembers how to breathe without the sound of steel and gasoline.
I swung off the bike and stood there for a moment, watching the wind move across the desert grass in soft waves.