Chapter Thirty-Nine

BISHOP

Our heavy footsteps thumped against the tile floor, the sound bouncing off the walls of the hotel lobby. The walls were mirrored and decorated with gold accents and expensive-looking statues, making the small space look bigger than it was.

The girl behind the front desk got to her feet, watching us approach with wide eyes.

Rafe stepped up ahead of me. "We're looking for Vinc—"

"No," I cut in, and the receptionist's gaze drifted between us, a confused frown on her face. "Sarah said he asked her to use a fake name when she set up the reservation."

"I'm sorry, can I help you with something?" she questioned. She smiled, but I could tell it was forced as the way she clicked her pen revealed her nervousness and anxiety.

I sucked in a long, deep breath, trying to keep calm. "Did a young woman come in here with a well-dressed man? She has reddish hair and may be injured or look extremely uncomfortable with the guy she was with."

Her eyes widened.

She knew.

I grabbed the edge of the large, glossy, wooden desk in front of us, the top of it falling right at my chest. She fell back into her seat on the opposite side, looking up at me, which didn't exactly help my efforts not to be intimidating. "Look," I started, clearing my throat before lowering my voice. "This guy, he took her… snatched her right off the street, and I think he's going to hurt her. Maybe even kill her."

I checked security out of the corner of my eye. So far, they hadn't moved but were watching closely, sizing us up.

"She did have a little bit of blood on her head, but Mr. Vanderbilt brings women in here all the time, and they always leave smiling, so I just thought maybe she'd hurt herself," she rambled, clutching the pen in her hand tighter. "You really think—"

"If she's still alive, it won't be for long. We need to get to her," I urged, inhaling deeply. "Please."

I had to hope she could see the truth and the sincerity in what I was saying so that I didn't have to go room to fucking room in this hotel looking for my Old Lady.

There was no time for that.

There was no time for this!

She sat, staring at the computer screen in front of her and chewing her lip. This was a dilemma for her. She would have to break the rules and risk losing her job to give me what I needed.

"Screw it," she finally whispered, her hands suddenly moving at lightning speed across the keyboard. "I knew something was wrong when she came in, but I didn't say anything. I should have said something."

"This man is dangerous. I don't blame you for not saying something," I assured her. "You did the right thing."

If she'd have said something, he might have run. At least now we knew they were here. And the rest of the club would join us soon.

I was taking Shay home with me.

There was no fucking other option.

She grabbed a plastic card and swiped it through a machine before grabbing a cell phone from the desk and leaping to her feet. She ran around the left side of the desk and headed for the elevators. "Come on!" she called back over her shoulder. Rafe and I glanced at each other in shock before we finally hurried to join her.

"You don't have to—"

"Yes, I do," she cut in as we waited for the elevator doors to open. "Women are meant to look out for other women, and I saw that something wasn't quite right, but I didn't do anything, and now…"

The doors dinged and slid open. The three of us stepped inside.

Rafe held out his hand, a grin on his face. "My name's Rafe," he announced, then pointed across to me. "That's Bishop."

"Natalie." She took his hand timidly, though her eyes met mine. "She's important to you?"

I nodded once. "Very."

That was all I was able to say without my emotions getting the better of me, and I ended up destroying the whole fucking hotel. I needed to keep my head straight. Stay calm.

I was no help to Shay if I went off like an atomic bomb and demolished us all.

The elevator doors slowly began to ease shut. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement and turned just in time to see a face.

A familiar fucking face.

Vince paused outside the elevator, his eyes wide in shock as he looked back at me.

The doors closed, and I launched myself at the keypad. I slammed my palm against the open-door button, my heart leaping out of my chest.

Rafe gasped. "Was that—"

"Yeah. Get to the room!" I ordered, slamming my fist against the doors as I frantically pressed the damn button. "I need to catch him in case he's got Shay somewhere else!"

The moment my body could fit through the small space, I squeezed out between the two metal doors, staggering back into the lobby and spinning, searching for Vince. Finally, I spotted him running further into the building, away from the front doors.

He stumbled and slammed into a swinging door across the room. I was already powering after him as he disappeared inside, every single inch of my skin tingling as my blood began to pump furiously through my veins.

I hit the same door just seconds later, slamming my palms against it as it swung back at me. It opened into a stairwell, the sounds inside amplified tenfold, pounding footsteps and people talking assaulting my senses.

Grabbing the banister, I peered over the side just in time to catch sight of another door a floor below ease shut. I couldn't let him get away.

Sprinting down, I burst through that door and into the hotel's underground parking lot. The hotel had valets, so they were the only ones who came down here to park and retrieve cars. The place was almost silent.

I pulled my gun from the back of my jeans and, one step at a time, walked out, my eyes scanning cars and the spaces between them, searching for some kind of clue. A reflection. A movement.

Vince wasn't calm. He was panicking. He was going to slip up.

"Might as well come out!" I called, my voice echoing within the large concrete dungeon. "I've got men upstairs and outside."

Lie.

Though, hopefully, I would have soon because it was sure as hell not going to be easy to get this shit for brains out of here without making a scene. I was going to need all the help I could get. Preferably sooner rather than later because the second I got my hands on him, it was going to take every bit of mental strength I had not to put a bullet through his skull the second he popped up.

Like in that carnival game where you shoot the ducks.

"I didn't mean to kill her."

I spun around just as he stepped out from behind a car, gun in his hand pointed directly at me, though it was shaky. Mine was not as I lifted my gun and instantly lined up my shot so my barrel was pointed directly at his head.

Then the words he'd said processed, and my knees almost gave way.

"What… what did you do?" I hissed, taking a step closer to him.

Even with a gun in his hand, he still took a step back as I advanced, glancing over his shoulder and moving back toward the stairwell we'd both exited just moments before. "She should have just done what I told her. Then I wouldn't have had to…" he paused, his breathing growing heavier and heavier. "It was the only way to calm her down!"

I cringed at the boom of his voice in the enclosed space.

I took another step, forcing him back again. "What. Did. You. Do?"

This fire inside me was alight, ready to burn this whole fucking building down if he wasn't lying. If he'd fucking killed Shay.

"It's your fault," he suddenly spat, jabbing his gun forward. He was rattled and losing control. Vince didn't get his father's cool, calm, and collected genes. Frank never lost his shit, faltered, or got overwhelmed, which almost made him more fucking scary. "You could have kept her in line. You could have told her to mind her own business!"

I rolled my neck, trying to fight the tension settling in. I needed to keep loose and not think about what he was saying. Shay was fine. She must be fine. "And you could have just left those women the fuck alone and lived your miserable little life without dragging them down with you."

"I needed them," he answered, shifting from one foot to the other. "I needed them so I could show Dad I wasn't the fuckup he made out like I was. I was going to prove it. to him and everyone else. Then your bitch fucked it up!"

"Call her that again," I warned, practically spitting venom. "You fucked it up and got in bed with the wrong people, didn't you?"

He jerked as if I'd already shot him, and I took the opportunity to inch forward again, making him stumble back. He reached back, searching for the door handle, now only a foot behind him.

That door had a lock on the stairwell side.

If he got in and managed to lock it, he'd be far gone before I managed to get out the exit they brought cars through.

So I slowed down. I took a breath.

"Wait." I ground my teeth together, trying to think of a way to keep him talking and distracted. "Tell me what happened. I need to know what happened."

He froze, sweat dripping down the side of his face. "I just wanted her to calm down," he muttered, swiping a hand through his damp hair and making it stick up.

"And…"

"And the pills—"

"You gave her pills!" I roared, launching forward, no longer giving a damn about fucking anything other than getting my hands around Vince's throat.

He panicked, his eyes shooting open wide before he pulled the trigger.

Once.

Twice.

Three times before I ploughed into his body, slamming him back against the door.

Stunned, his gun hit the concrete, clattering across it as I stepped back and swung my elbow into his jaw. He dropped like a sack of bricks, groaning loudly and rolling onto his back.

I made quick work of gathering his gun, tucking both his and mine into the back of my jeans and pulling my shirt over them before walking back to where he was still trying to drag his body to the stairwell door.

I swung my leg back before driving my boot into his ribs, the force lifting him off the ground.

"You gave her fucking pills," I spat, kicking him with my heel so he turned onto his back. He was writhing, twisting, and cursing under his breath, the pain consuming him.

I know Shay would not have taken anything willingly.

So, if he managed to get any kind of pills into her, it would have been by force.

"You fucking bastard." Fury built higher at the thought of what must have been going through her head after fighting for so many years to keep clean.

I grabbed his shirt, lifting him off the ground and driving my fist into his face.

Over. And over. And ov—

"Bishop!" Hands grabbed me, fighting to pull me back, but I hit him with one final swing before I finally allowed them to drag me away. Vince's body hit the ground with a lifeless thump. "Bishop, look at me."

I blinked a couple of times, my chest heaving as I finally turned my head to find Blue and Cain, their hands in the air as if they were trying to calm a vicious animal that had just attacked while Cash made quick work of zip-tying Vince's hands behind his back.

"Come on. Take this off," Blue urged, tugging at my shirt. "We need to swap so you can hide that graze and go with them. They're waiting."

Graze?

Waiting?

I pulled my shirt off over my head, wincing and looking down at the offending injury.

"Fucking hell," I cursed. "Asshole actually got me."

One of the bullets he'd fired had skimmed my shoulder, taking a small but, as I was suddenly realizing now that the rush was wearing off the painful slice out of the skin.

Blue took my shirt while thrusting his at me. "Put it on. We don't need any more questions today about shots being fired when you get to the hospital."

I slipped it on, almost autonomously, my head a little in the clouds as the shock began to set in. "I don't need to go to the hospital."

Right at that moment, the only thing I wanted to do was take to the bastard lying on the ground in front of me and make him feel every little bit of pain surging through my chest in that moment.

"Not for you," Blue insisted, pulling a bandana from his back pocket and lifting my sleeve. He tied it over the gash in my arm, and I gritted my teeth as he pulled it tight to keep it from bleeding. "The EMTs are with Shay. They're gonna bring her down soon and load her into the ambulance to take her to the hospital. We told them we'd find you so you can go with her."

The fire burning in my chest eased a little, the world around me coming back into focus through the thick fog. "She's okay?"

"Rafe said they Narcan'd her," he answered with a heavy sigh. "But she's alive."

I raced toward the stairwell door, pausing as I grabbed the handle. "Can you—"

"I swear to God, old man, if you don't get the fuck out of here and be with your woman, we're gonna have a problem," Blue cut in, not one to usually speak to me like that, but he was fucking right. I would have said the same. "We will gather up this trash pile and talk about what we're going to do with it later."

I nodded, looking back at the bastard on the ground who'd tried his best to destroy me and everything I fucking cared about.

"I already know," I answered confidently. "We're gonna burn it."