“Why don’t you come hang with me tonight? I’ll show you a real good time, babe.”
I heard the muffled sound of Hawk answering my call and tried not to gag at the thought of spending the kind of time with Harley that he was suggesting. He wasn’t bad looking, but the way he was making me feel right at that moment was enough to repulse me to the point of vomiting. “I’m really tired, Harley.” I spoke a little louder in hopes that Hawk could hear me clearly. “I think I’m going to pass and go home.”
His smug smile turned cold in the blink of an eye and he straightened to his full height. “Oh yeah?”
The way he said it, the look on his face, and the new tension that felt thick in the air made me nervous. I was anxious to get out of there, away from this guy that had seemed so harmless hours ago. I’d been so wrong earlier. Hawk could never make me feel like my dad had made my mom feel. Weak. Defenseless. Terrified.
This guy? That was an entirely different story. I knew that look and swallowed hard as I tried to keep my calm. That was the look my dad had gotten in his eyes right before he would hurt my mother.
“Gracie, I’m on my way,” I heard Hawk yelling from my phone and was quick to turn the thing off before Harley heard him.
“Yeah, I can barely keep my eyes open,” I smiled brightly, hoping to hide my new fear of the man standing just feet from me. “But I’ll see you at the garage on Monday.” I reached out blindly for the gearshift. “Bye.”
I should have just put it in drive and put my foot on the gas. I should have never even rolled down my window in the first damn place to talk to him. There were a thousand ‘I should haves’ that ran through my mind in the instant that Harley’s fist went through the driver’s window and he caught hold of my hair in a grip that made me scream out in pain.
His grip on my hair tightened and I tried to fight free, my nails scratching at his wrist. The next thing I saw was an up close and personal view of the steering wheel as he slammed my head into it…
Chapter 8
Hawk
My heart had never pounded so hard in my life. My hands clenched around the cellphone in my hands as I stared down at the silent piece of technology. I knew I should be moving but I felt like everything w
as frozen.
This was fear like I’d never felt in all my twenty-nine years.
Raider pulled my phone from my hands and I realized my hands were shaking. The screen to my phone was cracked, but I didn’t care. “Go,” Raider ordered, pushing me toward the door. “I’ll call Bash and Spider.”
All I could do was nod once before my brain finally rebooted and I made a run for the door. Behind me I heard my brother yelling for everyone to listen up. Since church earlier, most of the guys had hung around with the exception of Bash and Spider…
And Harley.
My gut twisted as rage boiled in my veins. I jumped on my bike and burned rubber as I tore out of the parking lot. Aggie’s was five miles away so there wasn’t a second to lose. The quiver I’d heard in Gracie’s voice made me want to hit something.
I was going to end Harley. End. Him. I didn’t care if my club brothers didn’t approve, that I could be kicked out if I ended him without their voting on it. If he touched one hair on her head and I was going to chop him into so many pieces and scatter him across the state so that they would be putting him back together for decades.
The ride over to the diner passed in a blur. I saw nothing of the scenery that I passed. Couldn’t tell you how many other vehicles I’d met along the way. My mind was on autopilot as visions of what I could possibly find when I got to the diner flashed through my mind, making me half insane with a pain and rage that were beginning to consume me.
I pulled into the parking lot to find the Chevelle still running, the driver’s door wide open and glass from the door’s broken window scattered on the ground. Blood was dripping down the door and it covered the glass on the ground. Someone was hurt and there was no sign of Gracie or Harley.
Was it Gracie’s blood? Was she hurt and scared? I wasn’t used to the fear that was making my stomach churn. I didn’t normally let my emotions get in the way when shit needed done. This was different, though. Gracie was my heart, the goddamn air in my lungs. Fuck! I was going to kill Harley and take my time to maximize the pain before ending him. Yesterday I’d thought that the biggest threat to her was Kevin Samson. Less than a day later she had an all-new danger to contend with.
I leaned into the car and found her purse on the passenger’s seat and her phone on the floor. I turned off the car and slammed the door shut. Raking my hands through my hair I bellowed to the dark sky, “He’s fucking dead!”
The sound of approaching bikes had me stiffening, wanting with everything inside of me for it to be Harley coming back, but I knew it wasn’t. He must have used his truck or some other cage, because he wouldn’t have been able to take her on his bike.
I turned to find Bash, Spider, and six others coming to a stop several feet from my own bike. “Any idea where he would take her?” Bash asked the men beside him, and I tried to concentrate on which of my club brothers had come to help, anything to calm myself down enough to think clearer.
Raider, Matt, Tanner, Uncle Jack, Razor, and Trigger had come from the bar while Spider and Bash had come from my house. Tanner took off his helmet. “He wouldn’t dare go home. That would be extremely stupid and Harley wasn’t usually stupid.”
“Did you guys cull out all of Westcliffe’s followers when Jet went inside?” Bash looked from Uncle Jack to Spider.
“We were confident we had gotten them all,” Spider’s voice was low and rough, a very dangerous sign. The enforcer was at his most dangerous when he used that tone of voice, but there was no way in hell that he was taking care of this.
I was going to handle Harley, not him.
“Harley didn’t follow Westcliffe,” Trigger’s deep voice rumbled. “But there’s always been something off about that boy. Gets too obsessive over things. I should have kept a closer eye on him when he got so heated over Hawk showing up for lunch with Gracie today.”