JUSTIFIED (Motorcycle Club Romance) (7 page)

I settled back into the flat cushion of the mattress with Tuck in my arms. The smell of soggy diapers filled the air, and a painful silence served as a hopeless reminder of how powerless I was.

I shut my eyes and leaned back against the hard wall. The vrooming sound of motorcycles and the rumbling of loud trucks seeped in through the barred window, and I stood up on my toes to look out of it. I prayed, hoped and crossed my fingers that it was the Black Dogs coming to save me, but I knew it was impossible. They were six hours away.

I squinted to try to see the men, but none of them looked familiar. They were all Cottonmouths. I sunk back down and took my place on the mattress. Nothing but despair filled my mind.

I had to have faith, I reminded myself. My daddy wouldn’t let them win. I knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to let them take his family or take him away from his family. He wouldn’t let them blackmail Ash into turning himself in.

The metal door flung open and hit against the wall behind it. A man whom I’d never seen before with thick, curly black hair up and down his arms and a shaved head walked towards me. Clenched in his hands were zip ties.

“Get up,” he said with a growl in his tone. Without saying another word, he reached out and grabbed my wrists, squeezing them hard before wrapping the zip ties around them and pulling them tight. “Come with me.”

I followed behind him, purposely taking my time, as Tuck toddled behind me. “Where are we going?”

He turned his gnarled face towards me and sneered, as if to say I was an imbecile for even asking. It was none of my business, I knew. We marched down the hall before ending up at a heavy, metal door leading back out towards the alley. The door flung open by another member and a rusty, purple cargo van with the side door wide open awaited us.

Soggy tears stained my cheeks as I tried, and failed, to stay strong for Tuck. I kept my face turned to the side and prayed he wouldn’t notice. I didn’t want him to see the fear in my eyes or the helplessness on my face.

“Get in,” the man commanded. His patience for me was wearing thin.

There were no seats in the back of the van. Only open space. A few unmarked cardboard boxes lined the back area, but that was it. Nothing else. The man climbed in the van and started it up. A loud rumble vibrated the floor space, slightly startling tuck into my lap. The van shifted hard into drive and we plunged forward, out of the alley.

Sitting on the floor of the van, I could hardly see out the windows, but if I sat up just enough, I was able to catch glimpses of street signs and buildings around us. I tried to remember each turn. Left, left, right, left, right, straight…

When we approached a busy intersection and got caught up at the red light, the man took the opportunity to fish around in his pockets for his cigarette.

“Damn it,” he muttered when he dropped his lighter. He reached one burly arm down on the ground, fingers searching, and eyes focused on the stoplight. He was paying no attention to us whatsoever.

I sat up, slightly, on my knees, praying I’d go unnoticed, and took a look around. My heart fluttered when I saw it. Our trusty Ford was two cars behind us with my beloved Ash behind the wheel.

A relieved smile washed over me for a second…until I realized that they were still winning. They wanted Ash to come rescue us. They wanted to get their revenge on him, not us.

I rested my face on the top of Tuck’s soft, brown hair and took comfort in his familiar, little boy scent. I’d do anything to protect him, and I knew Ash would too. I couldn’t blame him for risking his life to save us.

Five short minutes later the van pulled into the gravel driveway of an old house. Tall, shady oak trees and lush green bushes lined the drive and provided the cover he needed to get us into the house unseen.

The man hopped out of the van, slamming the door behind him, and yanked open the side door.

“Get inside,” he barked at us. “Hurry.”

I nudged Tuck out of my lap and the man reached out and grabbed him, plopping him on the hard cement floor, feet first. I scooted across the floor of the van until I was able to get out, which was a challenge with tied hands.

“Go, go,” he said as he placed his solid hand on my back and pushed me towards a door where another man was waiting.

“Downstairs,” the other man said, his beady eyes focusing on Tuck and me. Our driver stayed on the main floor while the new guy followed us down to the basement.

A few faint lights provided just enough light for us to see the outline of our figures, and Tuck clung close to my side. Dampness filled my lungs and a musty odor that must have been decades old lingered in the air.

“Sit down,” the man ordered. He pointed to an empty space on the cold, cement floor by a cinder block wall.

I sat down and leaned my back against the cool wall, which instantly sent shivers down my spine, and Tuck curled up in my lap.

We waited, in silence, with our guard’s eyes upon us at all times. He never flinched. Never blinked. Just stared. I assumed he was given orders not to let us out of his sight and not to let us move a muscle. Things were getting very real, very quickly.

The shade of the late evening sun swept through and took out the last of the remaining daylight that trickled in through a tiny, rectangular window on the far side of the basement.

The echo of footsteps coming down the stairs, jolted all of our heads in that direction. They weren’t heavy stomps, like those of a man in big, leather boots. They were lighter steps.

“MJ,” the guard said as she came out from the stairway. “What are you doing down here?”

“There’s a situation upstairs,” she said. She spoke to him, but her eyes were on mine. A mix of hopelessness and fear glinted through her stare.

“Here,” the guard said as he headed towards the stairs. “Take this. Don’t let them move an inch.”

He shoved a Glock 42 into her arms as he stomped up the stairs. I hadn’t even noticed he was carrying a gun, and now I was sure he had others on him. That one was must have been reserved especially for us.

MJ gripped her fingers around the gun and then dropped it to her side, keeping her gaze honed in on us.

The faint murmur of scuffles, stomps, and growls on the floor above us echoed throughout the basement. Something was happening upstairs, and I knew it could only mean one thing: Ash was there.

One man against ten, or however many others were up there, could never end well. I hung my head as hot tears rolled down my cheeks and landed on the top of Tuck’s head. My eyes traced over to where MJ was sitting. She had cocked her gun and had it pointed at the base of the stairs. If Ash came down, she would shoot him for sure.

The scuffles above abruptly stopped, and heavy footsteps stomped down the creaky basement steps.

“Ash! She has a gun!” I yelled out to warn him before he came bursting out from the bottom of the steps.

MJ’s hands quivered just a little, and I knew deep down she wasn’t a horrible person. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She was just loyal to her club. Just doing what she was told to do.

Ash ducked out from around the bottom of the steps and revealed himself under the faint glimmer of the fading light bulb above. As the light cast shadows on his face, he looked scary, intimidating, and determined. There was no stopping him now.

“Drop the gun,” he said, his eyes locked tight into MJ’s indomitable glare.

“MJ, please!” I yelled with high-pitched desperation in my voice. “Don’t do this!”

Ash took slow steps towards MJ, who had popped her gun out towards him by then. “You don’t have to do this. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

MJ’s lips quivered. “Yes it does. This is how it has to be.”

“You can get out now,” Ash said. “We won’t tell a soul you were here.”

“Right, like I’m supposed to believe that,” she said with an eye roll. Her gun was still pointed straight at Ash’s chest.

“This is your chance to redeem yourself,” he said. For someone with a gun pointed straight at him, Ash was eerily cool and collected. But he was doing it for us.

Tense silence filled the space around us all as we waited for MJ’s next move. The slightest tremble of her finger could’ve meant a fatal demise for all of us, but instead she pursed her lips, dropped the gun, and bolted up the stairs. We listened for the backdoor to slam shut before we wallowed in any sort of relief.

“Marina,” Ash said as he rushed over to me. He pulled a knife from his pocket and cut the zip tie, freeing my hands. He scooped Tuck up into his big, strong arms and kissed his chubby cheeks. “Tuck, my sweet boy.”

“We have to get out of here,” I said, my eyes urging Ash to move quickly.

The three of us ran up the wooden steps and flew out the back door. It all felt like slow motion and we couldn’t move fast enough. I climbed in the backseat of the Ford and buckled Tuck and I together as Ash peeled out and got us the hell out of there.

I spun my head around to see that awful house growing smaller in the distance. “How’d you find us?”

“You gave me that information about the businesses and the streets. I did a search, and then I pinged your phone,” he said, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “Lead me straight to you.”

“I thought it was a Trac Fone?” I asked. “Untraceable?”

“It was a Trac Fone,” he said. “I put a tracking device into it. And thank God I did.”

“But LeRoy smashed my phone into pieces,” I said.

“I pinged it the minute I knew you were taken,” he replied. “Led me to that warehouse. Got there just in time to see them moving you and Tuck to another location.”

I covered my mouth with my hands. Had he been a minute later, he might not have found us.

“Is it all over now?” I asked. I stared up at Ash, my hero, as I raked my fingers through my sleeping Tuck’s hair.

“I think so,” he said. “I think we sent our message loud and clear.”

“What’d you do to those men?” I asked. “Wait, maybe I don’t want to know…”

Ash’s fierce eyes squared. “I’m sure you can imagine, Marina.”

“Mom! Dad!” I yelled as I burst through the doors of my parents’ home.

“Marina!” my mother came running and wrapped her warm arms around me tight. “Oh, my goodness. I was worried sick.”

My father stepped out from behind her and placed one strong hand on my shoulder, giving me a half smile. He rarely showed emotion, but I knew he was glad to see us.

“You did good, kid,” my father said to Ash. “You saved my daughter and my grandson. For that I owe you everything.”

“Nah,” Ash said. “I just had to protect the two people I love the most in this world.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me into him.

“You mean the three people you love most,” I said to him as I patted my belly.

“What?” he asked, his eyes wild with excitement. “You’re…?”

“Yep,” I said with a reserved smile. “Number two is due in May.”

I patted my belly as Ash pulled me in tight for an enormous bear hug.

“I’m so happy, Marina,” he said as he cupped my face in his hands and kissed my lips. “For the first time, I feel like we can finally move forward from everything that’s happened. We can live our lives happy and free.”

I nodded and kissed his delicious lips once more. “I can’t wait for our lives to truly begin.”