Steel 6: Blackthorne MC #6 (3 page)

I heard a movement behind me and jumped. I hadn’t realized there was anyone else in here.

The light was dim, and I leaned back against the door, terrified, as my eyes searched the room.
 

I was sure
something
had moved. Had it been a rat?

Then I heard a voice. “Ella, is that really you?”

My hands flew up to my face, and I smothered a sob.
Holy crap
. I recognized that voice.
 

“Claire!”

***

Nick

I stared at Jackson as all the pieces fell into place.

I tugged on his arm. “Can I have a word?”

Jackson nodded once and followed me as I walked outside the bar.

Outside, I took a couple of deep breaths and looked up at the darkening blue sky. It wouldn’t be long now until it was dark.
 

Jesus. Where the hell was Ella? What had they done to her?

Jackson stood beside me. “Steel, what do you want?”

I shook my head. It all made sense now. How could I have been so blind?
 

Jackson might be a traitor and a cop, but right now, I needed to get Ella back, and he was the only one I could trust.

“You’re the cop,” I said. I didn’t waste any time getting to the point.

Jackson flinched, but he didn’t deny it. “Listen, Nick the most important thing right now is getting Ella back.”
 

My temper flared, and I got up into his face.
 

“You think I don’t know that?” I shoved a hand into his chest, pushing him backwards.
 

It felt like my fucking heart had been ripped out.

“You need to help me.” I spat the words at him. “We have to find her. If we don’t, I’m going to tell Victor who you are.”

Jackson narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t respond to my shove. “You don’t have to threaten me, Steel. I want to find Ella and make sure she is safe just as much as you do.”

I really doubted that. I physically hurt to think of her in danger. Imagining her somewhere I couldn’t protect her was driving me crazy.

“I’m going to help you,” Jackson said. “But first there’s something I need to tell you.”

I gritted my teeth as he looked at me, and I longed to land a punch on him…on anyone just to release some of this pent up frustration.

“It was me,” Jackson said cooly. “I took Ella to the sheriff’s office.”

I shook my head as I tried to process the information.
 

“
You
took her?”
 

The very idea that Ella had chosen to trust Jackson over me twisted my gut.
 

But I quickly pushed those thoughts away. None of that mattered now. It only mattered that we found her.

“Why didn’t you stick around to make sure she was okay?” I asked accusingly, feeling the anger surging through me.

Jackson took a deep breath. “I should have. I wish I had.”

Jackson must have read something from the expression on my face, and he looked at me with pity, reaching out to slap me on the back.
 

“We are going to find her,” he said.

“How?” I could hear the desperation in my voice.

Jackson ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know, but we need to make a start. If she was taken by Venom, we need to find out which of their properties is closest to the sheriff’s office.”

I thought hard, trying to remember, and then it came to me.
 

“There’s a bar under their control about ten miles from Marcham. It’s called Sizzle.”

Jackson nodded. “Then there’s a good chance that’s where they’ve taken her.”

I nodded. He was right. I set off at a run towards my bike.

Jackson called after me, “Hang on, Steel,” he called out as he followed me. “Aren’t we going to tell Victor?”

Screw that
.
 

“I’ll tell him when I get back,” I yelled, straddling my bike as it roared to life.

Ella

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw Claire huddled in the corner of the room, sitting on an old, saggy bed. She leaned forward with wide eyes as if she couldn’t quite believe I was really standing in front of her.

I rushed forward. “Claire, oh my God. It’s really you. What happened? What are you doing here?”

Claire clutched my hand. “I’m so glad you’re okay. When they took you, I thought…” Her voice trailed away, and she shuddered.

I sat beside her on the bed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll get out of this,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

Hell, I’d been kidnapped
twice
. Could my luck have really gotten any worse?

“Tell me what happened that night. I got your message — the one you left with the girl along with your phone.”

Claire closed her eyes and smiled. “I’m so glad that worked. I was desperate to get in touch. I figured if you’d managed to get away you’d be trying to call me.”

“How long have they kept you here?”

“Only a couple of days,” Claire said. “But I don’t have a watch, so I lose track of time. But hey, at least I have a room with a view,” Claire said lamely, pointing to the small window that looked out onto the parking lot.

I stood up and peered outside. It was already dark now. Nick would have realized I’d left. He would think I’d left of my own accord and that I hadn’t trusted him.

Jackson was probably on top of the world, thinking he’d done the right thing and gotten me away from Blackthorne safely.

I wondered how they would react if they could see me now.

“You didn’t tell them you saw anything that night, did you?” Claire asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

Claire smiled and looked relieved. “That’s good because the Venom MC are known for being ruthless.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “So that’s who took you? The Venom MC?”

Claire nodded. “Yes. They took you, too, didn’t they?”

I shook my head and returned to sit beside her on the bed again. “No. It was the Blackthorne MC.”

Claire’s face screwed up in confusion. “Blackthorne? But they are Venom’s deadliest rival.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Join the club, I thought.

“So what happened to you that night,” Claire asked.

I took a deep breath and began to tell my story, confessing to Claire that I didn’t really remember much about that night at all.
 

“I’d had too much to drink, but when I woke up there was a huge biker guy, who I later learned was called Chad, blocking the doorway, and I was holed up in some horrible motel room. Then they wouldn’t let me go. They didn’t hurt me but…” I trailed off and looked at Claire. I had a horrible feeling she hadn’t been as lucky as me. “Did they hurt you?”

Claire exhaled a long breath and then pointed to a slight shadow on her cheekbone. “I got this when I dared to talk back to one of them.” She sighed. “I wish I had managed to block that night out, too, but unfortunately, I remember everything.”

“What happened?”

“We were in the bar, which was pretty much empty, still drinking, when the guy you hooked up with came back. Remember him?”

I swallowed hard and nodded. I certainly remembered more things about Nick Steel than Claire could ever imagine.

“Everything seemed to happen at once,” Claire continued. “Four bikers burst in the main entrance and started shooting. They killed a guy — someone at the pool table. It was awful, there was blood everywhere. And then the guy you hooked up with, he got shot.”

“Nick,” I mumbled. My chest ached.

“I’m not sure what happened to him,” she said.

“He’s okay,” I said. “They got him to a doctor, who got the bullet out, and he’s going to be fine now.”

Claire looked at me a little oddly as if she was surprised by the tone of my voice when I spoke about Nick. But she didn’t ask me about it and continued on with her story. “In the confusion, we got up from the table and tried to get to the door, but I didn’t make it. You were almost outside when a guy grabbed me. I later found out he was David Kidd, an important member of the Venom MC. I can remember you screaming and chasing after us as he dragged me outside, but you couldn’t get to us before a crowd of people swallowed you up.”

Claire shivered. “Everyone was trying to get out of the bars at the same time. The bar we were in was practically empty, but outside, it was mayhem. People had heard the shots and left all the bars along the strip. I couldn’t see you, and he made me get on his bike, telling me he’d slit my throat if I didn’t. Since then, it’s been one long nightmare. They took me around the state, and we stayed in dive after dive. All the places were just like this one — run down and in the middle of nowhere.”

Claire leaned back against the wall and sighed. “Somehow, they forgot to search me, and I still had my phone. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a charger, and my battery was soon dead. But the girl I met a few days ago had a compatible charger, and I asked her to give you a message if you called.”

I squeezed Claire’s hand as she wiped away a tear.

“She said she would have charged the phone for me and given it back, but I was scared they would kill me if they found out I had a phone. Besides, I quickly realized you can’t call the cops on them as the law around here seems to be under MC control. They boasted about that the first night they took me.”

I nodded ruefully. I’d found that out the hard way. Sheriff Morrison was clearly under Venom MC control.

I spotted a bottle of water beside us on the nightstand next to the bed.
 

“Is it okay if I have some,” I said, gesturing to the bottle. “I’m so thirsty.”

Claire reached over, picked up the bottle and handed it to me. “Don’t drink too much of it, though.”

“They ration your water?”
 

I couldn’t believe it.
The assholes
. Would it really have killed them to give Claire enough to eat and drink?

Claire shook her head. “No, it’s worse than that. I think they drug the water to keep me quiet.”

I stared down at the bottle in my hand. Suddenly, I wasn’t quite so thirsty.

Nick

When Jackson and I reached the club, it was already growing dark.

There were a ton of bikes lined up in the parking lot, and a huge, great, flickering, neon sign stood on top of the roof. Painted flames framed the name of the club:
Sizzle
.

I was ready to go in, guns blazing, through the front door, but Jackson persuaded me it would be better to use covert tactics.

He was right. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just needed to get in there and find out if they had Ella. I couldn’t bear not knowing where she was or what was happening to her. It was killing me.

We parked up a short distance down the road from the bar, where there were a few prickly bushes we used for cover. Despite our best attempts to hide the bikes, headlights from passing vehicles, would illuminate the shiny chrome, but we could only hope they weren’t any passers-by curious enough to investigate further.

We jogged back to the club, along the side of the road, but then stopped a few yards away. Jackson was determined to scout out the location before we got any closer.
 

The music from the club was loud, a heavy, thumping beat that carried out on the desert air.

I could feel my blood boiling as I stood beside him, watching, looking for any sign to tell us where Ella was.

I’d been an idiot. If somehow, we managed to find her again, I promised myself I would do everything differently.
 

Screw Victor and the Blackthorne crew.
If I could just get Ella in my arms again, I wasn’t ever letting her go.

I should have gone with her when she asked me. My pathetic attempt to act in what I thought was her best interests had been a total failure.
 

I’d been scared. Scared to turn my back on this life and try to build a new one. Scared that I’d let her down. Scared that she would one day realize I wasn’t good enough for her.
 

I couldn’t wait any longer. I needed to find her.
 

I took a step forward, but Jackson reached out, tugging on my arm. “Wait!”

This was a dangerous situation to be in. We were on Venom land, enemy territory to us.

“Do you see that guy over there?” Jackson said, nodding to a biker, who was almost as wide as he was tall.

The man’s neck was bulging with muscle, and his huge shoulders were hunched as he walked around the perimeter of the club. To a casual observer, it looked like he was just taking a walk while smoking a cigarette, but I knew as well as Jackson did that this guy was on security detail.

“That’s our only chance of getting in without being seen.” I said to Jackson. “We need to take him out.”