Chapter 29

Rocky

Peyton hadn't answered my calls or messages all afternoon, and I felt like a scorned fucking schoolgirl about it.

Three missed calls, and one unanswered text. I pulled my phone out and stared at the marker that showed she hadn't even opened my message yet, and my fingers hovered for a second about to type another message, before I growled and shoved the phone away once more. My footsteps quickened angrily as I powered away from the clubhouse and made my way towards my bike.

She was mad at me, and it was more than just her usual annoyance. She always answered my texts, even if it was just to tell me to fuck off. But now she was conspicuously quiet, and I felt empty without her.

A twisty, guilty, ugly feeling wormed its way through my chest as I revved my bike. I couldn't concentrate on anything because of it all afternoon, even as we finished off one last briefing at the clubhouse after dealing with the Red Skulls, I had only been half listening.

Peyton had told me she wanted more than just physical shit with me, had told me she was starting to get feelings and that we couldn't continue the way we had been anymore. And what had I gone and done? Knowing all that I knew?

I'd gone and fucked her again last night. And then I wondered why she wouldn't talk to me.

It didn't matter that she'd told me she was sure. She wasn't thinking straight, and I hadn't realized, and now I felt like the biggest fucking dickhead in America. I honestly didn't even know why she still wanted me, it was beginning to become clear to me that I was extremely emotionally fucked up.

Why? Because something was shifting within me, and I hadn't even bothered to tell her. I just let her go on thinking nothing had changed.

And now her silence was beginning to make me feel like she didn'tstill want me, not anymore, and that was making me… I was feeling like…

Like I'd made a big fucking mistake. Like I hadn't even realized what I wanted, until it was taken away from me.

I craved her attention, for fuck's sake. Since when did I need someone's attentionlike that? Never. Not until now.

She wasn't responding to me and suddenly, my brain was thinking up what would be the best way to tell Nolo about me and her, how long it would take him to stop hating me and accept that she was in my life.

Accept that she was in my life? Since when had I planned to keep her around?

Since a long fucking time ago, dumbass,

Since she made you realize how empty your life was by filling it with her brash, fiery warmth.

Jesus fucking Christ.

I ripped my phone out of my pocket and dialed her as I sped along the road, connecting my cell to the bluetooth in my helmet and mentally demandingthat she pick up the damn call. It rang out, and I shoved it angrily back into my pocket.

That was fucking it. When I got home, she was going to cop an earful about the importance of answering me so I wouldn't get soworried about her, and then we were going have a fucking talk.

It was well past due.

I should have told her what she meant to me when I found her crying at the clubhouse. Or before I fucked her. Or after. Or maybe even woken her up this god damned morning with my tongue on her clit, and told her then.

But no, my dumb, avoidant ass just had to keep waiting. Honestly, if I was her, I'd be disappointed in me, too.

I pulled into my driveway and practically leaped off my bike, ripping my keys angrily out of my back pocket and shoving them noisily into the lock.

The door swung open easily, and I bellowed, "Peyton!" as I lobbed my keys into the bowl a couple of steps from the door. I paused for a second. There was a crack in the bowl that wasn't there this morning. But then I shrugged, and walked in.

"Peyton, come down here!"

Making my way into the kitchen with long strides, I yanked open my fridge and pulled out two beers, clacking the tops off with my teeth and taking a long pull from one as I placed the other on the countertop for Peyton.

Who was still ignoring me.

"Peyton," I snapped loudly, and then I slammed my eyes shut and forced myself to relax. I was the one in the fucking wrong, what right did I have to be angry?

I took a deep breath to cool off, and when I opened my eyes again, ready to grab Peyton's beer and take it up to her as a peace offering, I noticed a set of keys on the floor, almost entirely hidden under the fridge.

My brows furrowed, and I went to grab them. Peyton's car keys… Why the fuck were they in the kitchen? Had she thought about leaving?

Fear trickled through me and my heart skipped a beat, but I shook my head. She obviously hadn't driven off if her keys were in my hand. But I noticed the jagged edge of them had a smear of red, and when I brought them closer to inspect, I realized it was blood.

The fuck?

I dropped them on the counter and bounded up the stairs, bursting into Peytons room. It was empty.

Calm down, Rocky. She likes to sleep in your room sometimes, remember?

But my room was empty, too. As was every other fucking room in the house.

"Peyton!" I shouted, this time with real worry clawing its way through me, but she wasn't anywhere inside, or in the yard, garage, or the back shed. She wasn't anywhere to be found.

Taking slow, deliberate breaths, I pulled out my phone and called her, still no answer. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I called Slate.

"Yyyyello?"

"She's missing."

"Uh, hi Rocky. Who, why, when, where, what are you talking about?"

"Peyton," I snapped, feeling my heart thudding frantically against my ribcage as I stalked back into my house. "She's not at home. There's blood on her keys, and…" I squinted down at where I'd left the beers and felt my own blood run cold. Right on the edge of the counter was a tiny splatter of red. "And there's blood on my counter. Looks like it's been wiped away, but someone missed a bit. If that's her fucking blood…"

There was a brief silence and the clacking of computer keys through the receiver. "Her phone's still in the house with you."

"Well, she's not fucking here with it, Slate."

"Alright, I hear you, I hear you…"

I shoved my palm down on the counter, and then immediately bounced off again and started pacing. "Check through my security footage."

"Already on it, give me a sec."

All I could see in my mind's eye was Peyton, terrified, grabbing her keys and trying to make a run for it. If there was blood, it means that someone made their way into my house. Maybe she used her keys as a weapon, tried to fight and scream to get away, and I wasn't there.

I wasn't there to protect her.

I turned and stalked back upstairs as I waited, taking them two at a time. Then I burst into Peyton's room and rummaged around looking for her phone.

"There. About three hours ago," Slate said, just as I saw the phone lying partially hidden in her tousled bed covers. "Someone came by. A man. Baseball cap, can't see his face."

"I didn't see signs of forced entry anywhere." I grabbed her phone, but I didn't know her pin code, so I just shoved it in my back pocket.

"No, he walked right up to the door. Flashed something at the peephole, a badge or something."

"The cops?" I ran a hand through my hair and headed back downstairs. "You sure?"

"I dunno, man. I ain't never seen a cop rip the door open on his own and enter like that."

My hand slaked through my hair again. "Then what?"

"Hold on, I'm going through it now. Looks like he stayed just under ten minutes, and then—fuck me. Peyton's unconscious in his arms, he's carrying her back out."

"Who the fuck—" I clenched my fist and forced my mouth shut. Screaming wasn't gonna help jack shit right now.

"I'm sorry, brother, I can't ID the prick. He's keeping his face well hidden."

I grabbed my keys and jogged back to my bike, not even pausing to shut the front door behind me. The only thing of any importance at all in my house had been Peyton, and she was fucking gone.

***

In less than ten minutes I was back at the clubhouse in Slate's office, leaning over his chair trying to see if I recognized anything about the son of a bitch who kidnapped my woman. But I didn't have a fucking clue.

He was just some skinny, pale nerd I wouldn't have looked twice at as a threat on the streets.

"I've gone through all your cameras," Slate said, bringing up several angles of security footage over the two screens of his desktop. "You can see the car here and here, but he parked just far away enough, and at just the right angle, so that you can't see his plates. It's like the fucker knew where every one of your cameras were."

My hand fisted on the back of Slate's chair, and I suppressed the overwhelming urge to movefor just a little longer. "Looks like a hatchback."

"Yeah, maybe a Hyundai? Look at that symbol there."

"That's a fucking blur to me." I bounced off the back of his chair, and he swiveled to look at me, a helpless expression on his face.

"Could it have anything to do with her roommate's death?" I asked, but Slate began to shake his head before I could finish.

"I checked in with the cops already. They've got a suspect in custody as we speak, been there since last night. Some dude called Henry Lukacik. Balding, married fifty-year-old with kids." I started pacing as Slate spoke, just to give my raging energy somewhere to go. "They've matched him with the pictures you found at Peyton's apartment, and they're going with my theory of a secret boyfriend. Only they seem to think Lukacik himself, and not his wife, is the murderer. Something about that Chloe girl being pregnant and blackmailing him with her pregnancy, or some shit."

Both my hands found their way up to rake through my hair, and I growled. "That doesn't make any fucking sense. What the fuck would he want with Peyton, if that's the theory we're going with?"

"Even if shewas fucking him," I immediately rounded on Slate, who raised his hands in defense. "I don't think she was. Becauseeven if she was somehow involved with him, he's been in custody since last night. It's gotta be someone else."

I paused mid-step, a sudden thought occurring to me. "Zachary."

Slate's eyes widened. "Oh shit, that college friend of hers we all told you not to worry about?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. I'm so fucking stupid, why didn't I think of him earlier? "She just fucking messaged me about him again this morning. Fuck."

Immediately, Slate's chair swiveled back to his computer, and he started clacking away on the keyboard, muttering, "Zachary, twenties, Hyundai. Great, so much to work with…"

"Can you enlarge the video footage, make it clearer so we can see a face?" I asked.

Slate let out a snort of derision, "This ain't CSI or some shit where I wave a magic wand and you can count his fucking zits. That pixelated image is the best we're gonna get."

I reached into my back pocket and threw Peyton's phone down on the table before him. "Isn't there something on here that can help you?"

"Well…" He grabbed the phone and plugged a cord into it, but his expression didn't look hopeful as he turned back towards his screens. "I'll have a look, but since the messages had been patched through a VPN, they…"

I stopped listening and started pacing again instead.

Five minutes later, I was fairly sure I was going to lose my fucking mind.

"Okay, okay, I have some…medium news."

"Lay it on me." I was immediately by his side and staring at all the bullshit on his screens as if they meant anything to me.

"There are twenty-eight Hyundais registered to assorted Zacharys in the city."

"Text me a list," I said, immediately grabbing at my keys and striding for the door. "I'll search them one by one."

"Jesus, hold on a second!" He threw me an incredulous look and gestured at his desktops. "I can do better than that, thank you. Damn." I released the door handle and turned back to him. "I've hacked into the traffic cameras around you and checked the video footage at the time Peyton was taken. I thinkI've found a match for his car. Possibly. Dark blue Hyundai that crossed a red light a couple of streets from you, driving away from your direction. You can see a male driver wearing a cap, same coloring as the guy at your door, but no passenger. She could be laid out in the back, though. Or in the trunk."

I clenched my fist at the thought and stalked back over to try and memorize the car on the screen, tapping its registration plates into my phone. "Can you cross-reference the vehicle to your list? Get an address on him?"

There was a furious tapping as Slate started entering the details on his laptop, while keeping one eye on the PC screens, "Will do—damn it!"

"What?" I asked.

"He's gone. Tracked him until he disappeared on the interstate. I'm hacking into highway cameras now, but so far, nothing."

"Shit. What does that mean?" My heart pounded inside my chest, so loud that I could hardly hear the world around me, and so hard that it was difficult to breathe.

"It means that it's likely he took one of the hundreds of off-road exits, unmarked or private roads from here to the California border."

I nodded, and gave Slate a long, hard look. "Thanks, brother. I'm heading towards the interstate now."

"Wait, but I haven't—"

I stood up straight and started walking. "Keep looking, and text me that address as soon as you can."

"Rocky, he's clearly heading out of the city, this could be a long shot—"

"Slate." I whirled around, everything in me pushing me to move,to go now, to do something, before it was too late. "Somebody has Peyton, don't you understand?" My chest heaved with the effort I was extending just to stay put those few seconds longer, panic and anger whirling through me. "They have my Peyton. They could be doing fucking anythingto her, right the fuck now, and I'm not there to protect her. I promised I would protect her."

Slate remained silent for a moment, staring at me. But then he let out a sharp huff and nodded. "Alright. I'll text you as I get more info. Don't turn your phone off, I'll send the boys in after you."

I nodded, turned, and went after my girl.