Chapter 25

Ifeel the sun on my face.

We forgot to black out the bedroom, but then again, we practically passed out earlier this morning from all the lovemaking. My body feels deliciously sore, every muscle tingling with delight as I stretch my legs out, my eyes slowly peeling open. Having Nadia for the whole night really took it out of me, but I don’t regret a single second. That woman was literally designed for us.

I expect to see her when I turn my head, but I only find Orion and Drake gradually coming to their senses. Nadia is nowhere to be seen, but noises downstairs tell me she’s probably in the kitchen, making herself a cup of coffee. I check my watch. It’s almost noon. Quick is going to be pissed when she walks through the door later.

We’ll deal with him another time and in a respectful manner, provided we bring the whole Colton issue to a favorable conclusion.

“We shouldn’t have promised her that,” I say out loud, prompting a sleepy groan from Drake as he sits up on the edge of the bed.

“What?”

“That we’ll come back to her alive. We can’t promise that,” I sigh deeply.

“She needed to hear it, Kai,” Orion says and stands up, his arms out for the world’s greatest stretch in front of the window. It’s a good thing the beach is secluded, otherwise whoever looks up right now would see one hell of a morning wood. “Nadia needed some reassurance. Besides, we do intend to survive this.”

“But we can’t guarantee it,” I insist. “You’re right, though. She’ll sleep better and stay put if she knows we’ll do everything in our power to pick up where we left off.”

“Speaking of, we’re going to have to talk to Quick as soon as …” Drake says, checking his phone. “Twenty missed calls from the old man. He knows she’s gone.”

“He’s pissed,” Orion mutters. “Just text him back and tell him she’s with us. We’ll bring her back and drop her off at the gate.”

Slowly but surely, we pull ourselves into a standing and fully functional positions, the three of us going in different directions to take a shower. There are four full bathrooms in this house, including two half baths. The promise of a new day ahead used to mean a lot more to me when we didn’t have such a shitstorm unraveling on the horizon, but we’re getting closer to our endgame.

Almost there, Kai. Almost there, and you might get your shot at a happy ending, after all.

It could be wishful thinking, but a man can still dream.

Nadia isn’t crazy asking us to promise we’ll come back to her alive. She planted the thought so deep in my head, it has become fuel for my will to live.

After showering and getting dressed, we meet up in the hall. “Done,” Drake says once he’s finished texting Quicksilver. It prompts another persistent call, but he switches the phone to silent and lets it go to voicemail.

“He will punch your lights out the next time he sees you,” I tell him.

“And I will probably deserve it,” Drake shoots back. “In the meantime, I’m dying for some coffee.”

Orion smiles. “I can already smell it.”

We head downstairs, and my heart fucking stops when I realize it’s not Nadia waiting for us with freshly brewed coffee. Our holstered guns are on the sofa, where we left them last night, yet I still reach for mine instinctively.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Colton Harrow says, casually sitting at the counter island, smack in the middle of Drake’s kitchen. He looks eerily calm, his red beard recently trimmed and oddly matching his red shirt and black leather vest thrown on top. One hand palms a coffee mug; the other rests on a gun on the counter. “Don’t even think about trying something stupid. I’m not here to kill you.”

We’re standing in the kitchen doorway, frozen in place, staring at him, trying to understand the situation. One thing is certain—everything we had planned up to this point has just gone up in smoke. Fear grips my heart when I don’t see Nadia anywhere.

“Where’s Nadia?” Orion calmly asks, but his tone is deadly cold.

“Somewhere safe until you surrender the club and all of your businesses over to me,” Colton replies with a wry smile. “It took me a while to figure you out, dudes, but I’m glad we’re able to have this conversation now. Honestly, I abhor violence.”

“You sent twelve of your men to their deaths,” I say.

“I did, yes. But I got the intel I needed, and it helped me understand precisely what you’re capable of. Unfortunately for you, teaming up with the Feds won’t get you the desired results. There are more of us than there are of you, and given your recent betrayal of the bikers’ creed, I’m afraid the other MCs have agreed to support my bid for Orange County in exchange for leniency.”

“There is no way in hell you’ll ever accomplish that,” Orion says. “Colton, the Feds are on to you. They know your real name and they have your priors. You’re going down, so you might as well get the fuck out of Orange County while you still can.”

“Don’t worry about me; I’m virtually untraceable,” Colton replies. “Worry about Nadia, instead. I understand she’s very dear to the three of you. So, here’s what I’m proposing.”

“I will fucking kill you,” I hiss.

He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You and what army? Do you think I’m afraid of the Feds? Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, as I was saying. You hand over the Blackthorn Riders MC. All of it. The clubhouse, the ownership deeds, all your cash reserves, all the stash houses and storage facilities. The businesses. You issue a county-wide announcement that you’ve done so, and then you’ll get Nadia back alive and in one piece. Does that seem fair? It seems fair to me.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Orion says. I admire his ability to remain calm under such circumstances because frankly, I’m itching to rip this fucker to shreds. “We’ll consider your demand and act accordingly.”

“You have twenty-four hours,” Colton replies. “I’m not an idiot. Consider this my last attempt at resolving things in a civilized manner.”

“There is nothing civilized about any of this,” Drake hisses.

Colton gives him a cold, spine-tingling grin. “You have no idea what I’m capable of. Trust me when I tell you, I’m actually being nice here.” He gets up, cautiously eyeing each of us, waiting for a physical reaction. But we remain still. We are ready for anything, but if we kill the bastard now, we’ll never find Nadia safe. I need her unharmed and back in one piece. “So, twenty-four hours, gentlemen. And then you hand over the club and all of its assets. Otherwise, your precious Nadia gets sliced and diced and scattered across the whole of Orange County.”

He walks out as the sun bathes him in its golden light; we stay behind. Each inhale is painful, as if nails are piercing the membranes of my lungs. Every exhale burns all the way up to my throat. Fear takes hold and paralyzes me, my joints buckling as I struggle to keep myself from falling apart.

Minutes pass in unbearable silence.

“They’ve got her,” Orion finally whispers. “We weren’t careful enough.”

“We were careful enough, just not about the right people,” Drake replies harshly. “We were looking out for Black Devil minions, but this was more of an inside job. Someone betrayed us. Someone who knows enough about us to give the bastard an opportunity to get this close.”

“He said he got all the information he wanted with the clubhouse shooting,” I say, going over Colton’s words with a fine-tooth comb. “I don’t think he was talking about the actual shooting, but rather the aftermath.”

“We have a mole,” Orion concludes. “And Nadia might die because of it.”

“Not while we’re still breathing,” I remind him, the blood coursing feverishly through my veins. Once the initial horror of Nadia’s kidnapping subsides, my natural instincts kick in. “Call the Feds, Orry. Our time has just run out.”

We have twenty-four hours to do something that would normally take days, if not weeks, to prepare for; a single day to save Nadia and to destroy Colton Harrow, to bury him so deep that future generations won’t be able to find him when they’re brushing the dirt off this city’s bones. We have twenty-four hours to bring this nightmare to an end and get our woman back.

This is worse than anything we’ve dealt with during our Navy service. Emotions are involved now. The enemy wasn’t domestic before. We were dealing with insurgents, terrorists, power-hungry warlords with predictable patterns of behavior. We had an intelligence service that functioned with Swiss precision. We had information and the entire United States Navy fleet at our disposal.

This time, it’s different.

We only have ourselves and a handful of trustworthy men. Sure, there are federal agencies involved, but there are statutes and regulations that they still need to abide by. Warrants and exclusions are required. Order amidst chaos while Colton and his Devils keep moving just below the radar, threading the line as they get away with too much. Every fiber in my body screams for me to do more, but I understand our limitations.

Hell, we’re going to have to make it work.

I will let my darkest side out for this part of the game. The inner beast that slept so well until Colton’s people decided to shoot up our clubhouse, until Colton decided to kidnap Nadia. This fiend inside me is thirsting for blood as much as it is hungry for Nadia’s sweet, soft comfort.

And this fiend will stop at nothing until she is safe and, in our arms, again.