chapter Twenty-Nine
“You know Liam will come for me.”
Denise said it in a sing-song voice because she had no doubt that he would be there soon, guns blazing, pissed the hell off, and ready to take her home. She did it to deliberately taunt the man who had taken her. It pissed her off that he had come into her backyard and taken her unwillingly.
Richard glared at the woman, his hard eyes telling her to shut up. Since she had awakened from the chloroform an hour ago, she had not stopped talking. He had listened in the beginning because he hoped that she would say something he could use. Instead, what she had spoken about were things that he already knew. It was now getting on his nerves, and he was starting to get sick of it.
To throw her off, he smirked at her, giving her a wink. “I’m countin’ on it darlin’.”
The skeevy way he smiled made her want to puke. Was this the man who’d raped Meredith? Was he the one who caused all the issues that were going on with the club right now? What else could she find out? Maybe she could help the club in the way a member’s girlfriend normally did.
“Are you gonna rape me the way you raped Meredith?” Her eyes were clear, and she showed no fear as she asked him the thing she wanted to know most.
That question took him aback. “Let’s get one thing straight. I didn’t rape, nor did I have the reporter raped. I’m surprised that you came right out and asked me that though. Maybe you do have the backbone that I originally didn’t think you had. That’s pretty ballsy Ms. Cunningham.”
Her gut told her that he might be telling the truth, but for some reason she just couldn’t let this go. She wanted to do something to help her friend, and at this moment in time this was all she had. “But you know who did? You probably ordered it. Have you been watching us? I mean how else would you know who I am?” The questions poured from her mouth, all things she wanted to know, and all things she felt that he could answer.
“Jesus Christ, how does Liam put up with all your f*cking questions? Does he f*ck you all day and night just so he doesn’t have to listen to you? Shut the f*ck up.”
The glint of anger in his eyes made her obey him. This man was capable of things she had probably never imagined. She could see that in the way he tightened his fists at his sides. Maybe it would serve her best to do what he said and just wait for the rescue she knew would be coming.
“What does he hope to do taking her?” William asked the group of officers.
“My bet is that he needs money. If he ordered the hit on her and the hit on Meredith, he owes somebody for that. Richard is not one to get his hands dirty,” Tyler said quietly.
“So what’s he gonna do? Ransom her?” Liam asked.
“Possible,” Tyler was thoughtful in his quiet way, probably going over every scenario that they would be faced with.
“I feel like an a*shole just sitting around here, not doing anything. We need to be going to where that GPS says she is and get her out. There’s no telling what he’s done to her,” Liam growled. He wanted vengeance, and he wanted it now. He was sick of sitting around, waiting on something to happen. He would be damned if what happened to Meredith happened to Denise when he could prevent it.
“We need a plan.” William argued. It was obvious in the way his members were looking at him that he was losing them. Liam was becoming much more of a vocal leader, and they were beginning to follow him without question. William knew that, son or not, he had to get this shit under control.
“F*ck a plan. It’s obvious he’s getting desperate, which means he’ll get sloppy.”
William held his hand up. “We don’t want to be sloppy. We want to do this right.”
Liam fumed. “None of this has been done right. None of this has been handled. We have one woman missing. We have another lying in a bed beaten, raped, and scared of her shadow. F*ck a bunch of this shit. I’m going. Who’s with me?”
He stood up and watched for the other members. Many of them stood up, obviously wanting to be with him. All battling the bloodlust inside them, wanting to do something to make a difference.
Fighting to keep hold of his club, William banged on the table. “I have not dismissed this meeting yet.”
“It’s not yours to dismiss. It’s my old lady he’s got, not yours. This is my problem, and I’ll f*ckin’ take care of it.” Liam had never openly defied his president at the table, but he felt strongly about this. No one cared more about Denise than he did, and if anyone was going to get her back it would be him. He would crawl through a desert with no water, walk barefoot over a road of glass, but nothing was going to stop him from getting her back to her family where she belonged.
William hissed as he saw everyone behind his son walk out of the meeting. “Shit.”
Meredith lay in Tyler’s bed trying to convince herself to get up. She’d lain in bed for hours, and it hadn’t made her feel any different. She thought that maybe it would make her feel better if she got up and walked around a little bit. Maybe it would lift some of the heavy blanket that felt like it was pressing against her chest. As she contemplated the type of energy it would take in order to do that, the door opened and Tyler walked in.
“I didn’t scare you did I?” he asked, walking over to the closet.
She shook her head, shy around him. Why, she wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Interested, she watched as he began pulling weapons out of a trunk in the closet and put on a bullet proof vest.
“Where are you going?” she asked quietly. She had never seen someone other than a soldier casually strap on that much armor before. It scared her, and it made her wonder just what in the hell was going on. What had happened in the time she had been out?
He leveled her with a gaze, his brown eyes serious as she had ever seen them. “Some a*shole has Denise. We’re going to get her back. Hopefully we’ll get to her before he can do to her what was done to you.”
Shame rolled through her body, and she ducked her head. Nobody should have to live through that and she wanted to tell him that, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk to him. The only thing she could bring herself to do was say a little prayer for her friend and hope that whoever this was would have mercy on her.
“We’ll be back later,” he told her.
Taking out a gun, he checked the chamber and safety. “If someone who is not a part of this club tries to come through that door, you shoot first, ask questions later. Do you understand me? All you gotta do is click the safety off. There’s one in the chamber.” He flipped it over in her hand to show her how to take the safety off and then laid it on the bed next to her.
She nodded as she picked it up, weighing the heaviness of the gun in her hand. She watched as he left and then had a seat Indian style on the bed. This was the one thing she could do. This time she could protect herself if worst came to worst. For the first time in her life, she knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to put another human being down if it came to that. It gave her a power that she needed, and she knew that she would do whatever she had to.
“I figured your old man would be here by now,” Richard taunted Denise as she sat tied up in a chair. He sat on a chair directly across from her. He was straddling the back, feigning indifference as he loosely held a gun in his hands, but she could tell by the bunching of his shoulder muscles that he was beginning to feel nervous.
In truth she had too, but she wasn’t worried. “I’m sure he’s trying to think of the most interesting way to kill you,” she smiled her most bitchy smile at him.
“He’ll have to come here first, won’t he? Maybe he’s decided that you aren’t worth it. How does that make you feel?” Richard couldn’t help but needle her. Liam Walker had never been able to commit to just one woman, and Richard couldn’t see him doing it now either. Not with this woman.
“I’m fine, at least I didn’t get kicked out of my club,” she taunted him in return.
That stung. She really was a bitch. “Shut your damn mouth,” he growled as he backhanded her across the face with the butt of his gun.
“You’re really gonna wish you hadn’t done that,” she told him, spitting out blood that was already pouring into her mouth from where she had bitten her lip.
He leaned the chair forward so that they were nose to nose. “You’re gonna wish you’d never gotten involved with the Heaven Hill MC.” He raised his hand to hit her again when the door exploded and members of the club rushed through, guns blazing.
Liam, throwing caution to the wind, ran over to where Richard hovered above her and grabbed him by the collar of the shirt, rocking the chair so far back that Richard’s head almost hit the concrete floor. “You are a miserable piece of shit, you son of a bitch.”
“Now, Liam, I have a business proposition for you. I just need some cash to help get it off the ground.” Richard held his hands up in surrender and had the nerve to laugh, letting the gun fall to the ground.
Grinning at the older man, Liam made sure his fist connected with Richard’s face. It felt good to cause him pain, it felt gratifying as his knuckles cracked over the bones in Richard’s body. “This is where you can take your damn business proposition.”
For long minutes, the two of them beat the absolute shit out of each other while Tyler freed Denise. She shrieked as Richard landed a blow to Liam’s ribs.
“Let them go. He’s got it coming to him after this,” he said calmly, holding her back.
She watched as Liam got the upper hand and then picked up the older man, slamming him face first into a concrete wall. Liam was strong, but she had no idea he was that strong. It was amazing what adrenaline did for someone.
“Did you get rid of it, or when I rip this shirt off of you are you going to still have it?” Liam spat, breathing heavily, blood spilling from his mouth.
It struck Denise that they had matching battle wounds. Surely that proved to everyone just how serious she was about this man.
Richard groaned, rolling his head around on his shoulders. Liam ripped the shirt from his body and showed the rest of the club what Richard hadn’t gotten rid of. He still wore the tattoos of the Heaven Hill MC. The sleeves covered his arms.
Liam slapped his back, his gloved hands making the sound muted. “Don’t worry, Dickey boy, we’ll take care of you.”
Tyler handed Denise over to a Prospect. “Get her out of here.”
“What are they going to do?” she asked the Prospect, Layne she thought was his name.
“Get back their respect and then take care of the problem,” he told her softly. He had never been present at anything like that, but he knew the code of the club and he knew just how bad of a deal it was that Richard still wore the ink.
“They’re going to kill him?”
“Only after he wishes he was already dead,” Layne confirmed, leading her out of the building and to a waiting van so that she wouldn’t see anything.
He immediately took her back to the clubhouse, where Drew and Mandy stood, their arms wrapped around one another. Tears clogged Denise’s throat as she caught sight of the worry on their faces. She hadn’t meant to cause that worry – had never meant for any of this to happen.
“Mom,” Mandy screamed as she ran to the van, helping Denise open the door. All Denise could do was open her arms and let the girl fall into them. In his own stoic way, Drew stood to the side, waiting for the emotions of the girls to die down. Much like he had done his whole life, he waited until there was an opening and then he put his arms around the both of them, holding them tightly.
As she looked at her children, she was excited to know that she would be around to see them grow up. However, at the same time, Denise felt sorrow, but not for the man who had done so many bad things to other people. She felt sorrow because she assumed the identity of Meredith’s rapist died with this man. It hurt her heart that they would never get revenge for her, but she couldn’t say that this man didn’t deserve to die. With him, maybe old hurts and secrets would go too. Maybe now they could all start anew.