Chapter Eighteen

Hunter's fingers ached from gripping the console of the truck so hard. "Drive faster," he grated out.

Colton didn't remove his gaze from the road leading to Badlands. "I've got the pedal to the floor. We'll get there." He swung his gaze to Hunter. "We'll find her."

"How are you so calm? You let Meadow drive to the hospital alone!"

Colton slanted a look at him. "Marks is tailing her. I know she made it safe."

Fuck. If they took her… His mind floundered with the thoughts spinning through his head ever since he heard those two words that changed him forever: Ivy's gone.

His gut boiled with dread. His heart was cold, black ice, dead to anything until the minute the love of his life was back in his arms, safe and sound.

When a terrorist took a hostage, they didn't fuck around. The damage they caused left the hostage forever broken. Would that happen to Ivy?

No. He would reach her before they stripped her will to live.

"Faster," he ground out.

Colton found another level of speed. The truck shot like a bullet down the road between surrounding pastures. They careened around the final curve leading to the main street of town.

"God help any pedestrian who steps into the crosswalk." Colton didn't even touch the brake as he flew on toward Badlands.

As they closed the gap—fifty feet, twenty—Hunter's heart blackened more. He wouldn't just maim then kill the man who dared to touch his woman. He'd make him wish he was never, ever born.

Colton whipped into the parking lot. The truck hit the gravel and went into a skid, but he was adept enough to pull them out of it before they struck the building. Before the vehicle came to a complete stop, Hunter whipped open the door and leaped out.

Colton's voice stayed him. "Stay here. Let me go in."

Hunter rarely took orders from anyone without many more chevrons on their sleeve than he had, but in this case, he deferred to his friend.

"I'll check out her truck."

As Colton strode into Badlands, Hunter rushed to the vehicle. The door hung open. Two big bags of food were dropped on the ground. Some of the takeout boxes had opened, and food spilled out in the gravel at his feet.

"Where the hell did you take her, you son of a bitch?" He barely got the question past his lips when an SUV turned into the parking lot.

His sixth sense told him to jump behind the closest vehicle and hide. From his crouched spot, he watched the black SUV pull up next to Ivy's. A man with a shaved head jumped out of the driver's seat and snatched Ivy's brown leather purse off the ground.

Hell fucking no.

Hunter lunged out of his hiding spot just as the man jumped into the SUV and took off with Ivy's purse.

He ran to the door of the saloon. "Nox!"

His bellow brought Colton running. Waving for him to follow, Hunter took off running to the truck again. He hurled himself in the passenger seat and Colton leaped behind the wheel.

"Follow that black SUV!" Hunter jabbed a finger at the road where the taillights were vanishing around a corner.

"What the fuck did you see?" Colton peeled out in a spray of gravel. Hunter heard rocks strike the building before they were out of the lot.

"A guy pulled up and took Ivy's purse. He knows where she is!"

"Jesus Christ!"

He could have minutes—precious seconds—to reach her before it was too late.

"Did you recognize him?"

"No." Hunter's tone was a razorblade over his already shredded senses.

Colton followed at a close enough distance that it wouldn't give them away while keeping the SUV in sight the entire time. No way were they letting this guy get away.

The vehicle continued on his slow route as though he hadn't just swiped the purse of a kidnapped woman and instead was dropping off his kid at soccer practice. When he took a right onto a back road, Hunter held the console harder.

"Where does this road lead?"

Colton shook his head. "I haven't been here much longer than you have. I've never been on this road."

"What's that sign ahead?" He picked out the small sign along the grassy side of the road. Leaning forward in his seat to see better, he scanned the words.

"A body shop."

"Are we talking about cars or something else?"

"No one better lay a fucking hand on her. If she even has one bruise—" Struggling, he broke off.

"We'll get to her."

His jaw ached from clenching it. "Someone is gonna die today."

When the vehicle turned onto another small road branching to the right, they followed. Now it was very apparent that they were trailing the SUV—but there was no turning back now.

The driver turned onto a bumpy, rutted lane.

"He's trying to lose us." Hunter's hand twitched toward his weapon. The urge to shoot out his tires and stop him in his tracks raged stronger than any sense of right from wrong. He only saw justice.

And Ivy.

Despite the cloud of dust and the spray of gravel from the tires of the SUV, Colton followed hot on the guy's tail. Finally, the lane came to an end, leaving the guy no choice but to stop in front of a house.

At least ten junk cars parked in the yard revealed that this was the auto body shop—or once was—as much as the sagging sign over the garage did.

"Jesus—he's been right under our noses the entire time."

The driver jumped out. Waving his hand and yelling to the inhabitants of the house to alert them that he was not alone, he took off at a dead run for the front door.

Hunter was big but known for his speed, and he used it to his advantage. In seconds, he crossed the yard and leaped at the guy. Tackling him to the ground, he pinned him flat.

"Don't make a sound," he bit off.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Colton approach, weapon in hand. He bashed the guy across the brow, knocking him out.

Hunter sprang to his feet. Weapon at the ready, he rushed to the door, aware that Colton was using zip-ties to secure the man he just tackled. When he glanced back, he caught sight of his friend dragging the man around the corner of the house.

Hunter threw open the door. Just as he expected, two men had heard their partner yelling about being followed and appeared armed with black market assault weapons.

Hunter didn't think twice about drawing up and shooting each. Bodies fell, and he simply stepped over them.

In a quick sweep of the house, he discovered a third man seated at the kitchen table in a wife beater tank top with a stain down the front. The place smelled like unwashed bodies and dirty dishes. Jered Smythe clearly wasn't paying his cohorts to live well.

The man looked up, pausing with a needle he was pushing into his vein. Before he could react, Hunter strode forward and locked a hand on his neck. He crumpled as Hunter dug his fingers into the pressure points that would knock him out. He slipped to the floor, the needle still hanging out of his arm.

Hunter moved on, swift and silent. When he heard voices projecting from a room, he stopped. Ivy's incensed tone brought him up short.

Thank god she was alive—and still sassy.

Quickly, he poked his head around the corner to scope out the situation. A trashy guy in a dirty white T-shirt with several gold chains around his neck stood over her.

Ivy was tied to a chair.

Fury pounded through Hunter's system. If they hurt her… Well, he would kill them no matter what.

He didn't need to turn to know that Colton just appeared on his six.

Hunter held up one finger to indicate the number of men in that room with his woman.

"Where's my water? I asked you for a drink an hour ago." Ivy's voice carried loud and clear.

"The water I gave you wasn't good enough for you. Fucking woman."

Hunter wasn't waiting a second longer. He walked right into the room as if sent there by the head honcho himself.

Ivy's eyes shot open wide. Her chest heaved on a silent gulp of air.

Hunter gained the guy's attention. "Annoying, isn't she? I know. She annoys me too."

Ivy's jaw dropped.

The man began to reply, but Hunter swooped in on him. "She is also my woman. And if you lay a hand on her, it's not gonna go so well for you."

Ivy turned her face toward him, giving him a perfect view of a bruise blooming on her cheekbone. One of her hands lay limp in her lap. Unnaturally limp.

The motherfucker had hurt her.

Hunter shot out a hand. He closed his fingers around the captor's throat and squeezed.

Ivy shrieked. "He's got a—"

With a ruthless twist, Hunter squeezed the man's windpipe. The color faded from his face, and he dropped like a stone. Hunter sank to one knee, fingers still around his throat in a vise grip.

"Hart." Colton's voice grated into his haze of fury. "Let go now."

Still holding his throat, he turned his head to meet his buddy's eyes.

Colton nodded. "Let go."

With disgust, he thrust the man away from him and spun toward Ivy. She was roped to the chair by the ankles. In seconds, he cut her free.

Colton moved to lift Ivy from the chair.

"I got her!" Hunter positioned himself between her and Colton.

"I'll help you get her to the truck."

He issued a low growl. "I said I got her."

Nobody was touching Ivy but him. He lifted her into his arms.

She trembled in his hold as he carried her out of the house with Colton on his six. Outside, there was no trace of the guy they'd followed from town. Hart wasn't about to ask questions—not in front of Ivy. Later would be soon enough.

He strode toward the truck.

Colton called out to him. "Get her safe. I'll do a sweep of the house."

He stopped in his tracks and swung toward his brother-in-arms. "Not without me you're not."

"You take care of Ivy."

She brushed her fingertips over Hunter's jaw. "I'll lock myself in the truck."

"I'm not taking the risk."

"You can't risk any of these guys getting away!" When she shifted in his hold, pain rippled over her features.

Fury pounded through his core. One look at her wrist and he knew it was snapped. Shock had set in—she was pale and cool to the touch.

Every man in that house was going to pay for what they'd done to Ivy and all the Graceys.