Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Serena

I’ve been living and working with Smoke for just over two months now, and on one hand I am happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life. On the other hand, I sometimes feel like I’m going to burst from the secrets I’m keeping from him. Knowing that Marge is his mother and not letting on is hard, but I trust that she’s going to tell him when she finds the right time. My other secret is far bigger, and I’ll have to tell him soon, before it becomes obvious.

When I went to see my new OB-GYN last month to get my birth control shot, they did a bunch of tests. I’d missed my period and had put it down to the stress of moving and what happened with Gina. Turns out I’m pregnant and it’s definitely Smoke’s, because I hadn’t slept with Stan since he shoved me into the cabinet. Despite it being a shock and coming at the worst possible time, I was in no doubt about what I wanted to do—I was having our baby. But I hadn’t yet gathered the courage to tell him, I’d confessed to Marge, because I needed to tell someone, and there was no way that Cleo would have kept this from my brother. So there we were, the two women in his life keeping the biggest imaginable secrets from him.

I’ve got to be in court in an hour and haven’t had my morning coffee. As I walk along the sidewalk, I’m not too surprised to find Evan waiting outside when I head to the local coffee shop. I’m not entirely sure why, but he seems to hang around in town a lot. Since he’s a talker and a coffee fanatic, I continue to buy him caramel frappé when he shows up.

“You going to get coffee, Miss Serena?” Evan asks, as he falls into step with me.

“Yes sir, I sure am. How’s your morning been?” I ask chipperly.

He glances suspiciously over his shoulder before answering. “So far, so good.”

It occurs to me to ask, “Shouldn’t you be in school?” When he doesn’t immediately answer, I explain. “It’s only April. School doesn’t let out until May or June. Ergo you should be in school.”

Instead of flipping his head to the side like he normally does to get his hair out of his face, Evan brings up one hand and rakes it nervously to the side. “It’s spring break, but anyway my mom made arrangements for me to finish out this school year doing online classes. In the fall, I’m going to start the new school year with everyone else my age. My parents think I need some down time to recover from my trauma.”

“That makes perfect sense,” I say without missing a beat. “Anyone would need downtime after being abducted and held hostage.”

Evan glanced across the street and made eye contact with another prospect before responding to my statement. “Describing it as being held hostage makes it seem a lot worse than it really was. It’s not like I was getting beat up or anything bad.”

“Still, it couldn’t have been pleasant for you,” I say compassionately. He was downplaying things, I’d heard how he had gone without food and water and was hours from death, when Rigs got to where he and Mattie were being held. But everyone has different ways of dealing with trauma, and from all accounts he was coping well.

“The hunger and the thirst were terrible. The strange thing is after a while your body just stops telling you that you’re hungry. Being thirsty was a different matter. Going without water was unbelievably difficult. I don’t know how to describe it, but even now I always have to carry a bottle of water just so I know I can drink whenever I want to.”

This poor kid was breaking my heart. “Like a comfort blanket type of thing.”

“Yeah, that sums it up nicely.”

“I think in time, that issue will go away.” When he doesn’t immediately answer, I add lightly, “In the meanwhile I’ll just keep buying you caramel frappés. Does that sound like a plan?”

He responds shyly, “I should probably tell you that my dad gives me a good allowance and I get extra cash helping out at the club. I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination but I can buy my own coffee.”

“You can buy whatever you want, but when you’re with me I’m buying your coffee.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you why you do that,” he stammers.

I flash him a quick grin. “I enjoy having company on my walk to the coffee shop. You’re polite, a good conversationalist and we have thought-provoking conversations. That deserves a reward.”

He shoves his hair back out of his face with one hand that gives me a jerky shrug, “I suppose that makes sense. You’re kind of my first new friend since getting rescued. Did you know that?”

I glance up to look him in the eye. I have to admit he looks totally sincere. “What about your parents? Surely you consider Rigs and Mattie your friends. You let them adopt you after all.”

He replies quickly, “They’re my parents. That’s a little different from friends. I ain’t never had parents before. Mattie and Rigs are good to me, I love them both for taking me in. I hang around with Haze and Vapor when I’m at the clubhouse, they’re nice guys, they help me with my art, and when I’m older they’re gonna teach me tattooing. But I like having you for a friend because I never had a female friend and I’ve got questions about girls.” Glancing around nervously, “You know the kind of questions you don’t wanna ask your mom.”

I’m both stunned and delighted to find that Evan has latched onto me in a mentoring type of capacity. Knowing that he’s looking for someone to sound off ideas about dating, suddenly makes the situation with him make more sense. “Any questions you have, I’ll be happy to answer. You can rely on me to always give you accurate information. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll help you find it somehow.”

A look of genuine happiness spreads across his face. “I appreciate that.”

We enter the coffee shop and I place our orders.

“When did you start drinking decaf,” he asks with a frown.

Since I can’t tell him it’s because I’m pregnant, I just tell him, “It’s healthier for me.”

We grab a table and I sip my coffee as we talk.

“Alright if you have questions shoot,” I say gamely.

Once again Evan once again glances around before getting down to the business of talking about girls with me. “Do you think that girls like geeky guys or just jocks?”

“I think girls like both. Some girls might have a type, but mostly they go for qualities like niceness and your ability to have a conversation about things that interest them.”

Evan explains, “My experience has been that girls like jocks because they have big muscles and might end up being rich professional ballplayers.”

Taking a sip of my coffee, I let the hot liquid slide down my throat, warming me from the inside out. “I’m sure some girls do prefer athletes. However, there are a lot of girls who actively avoid athletes because of misperceptions about them being meatheads. I’m not saying any of that is true, I’m just saying that there are advantages and disadvantages to being an athlete.”

Evan thinks over my words for a moment before responding. “I’m glad to hear you say that because I was thinking about signing up for football in the fall, because I thought that’s what girls wanted.”

“I think your best bet is to simply be yourself. You’re an intelligent, personable guy. I don’t see any reason why girls wouldn’t warm up to you. Play football because you want to, not because you think it might make girls like you.”

Evan’s phone jingled. He pulls it out, reads a text message and then immediately comes to his feet. “Thank you for your advice, Miss Serena. I have to go. My mom just reminded me that I have a dental appointment at noon and it’s gonna take us a half an hour to get there. Maybe the next time we meet we can talk about conversation starters, cos I never really know what to say to a girl. Every time I just stand there trying hard to think of something to say and things get awkward fast.”

“I imagine that it does. I’ll be thinking over a few conversations starters and then we can brainstorm some more together. How does that sound?”

“It sounds pretty amazing. Even though you’re an old lady you’re still a good friend.”

I was about to take him to task about calling me old, but then I realize he probably means it in the biker way, and he sees me as Smoke’s old lady. Though I guess to him I probably am old anyway.

I wave goodbye. Evan seems like a good kid, having coffee with him every now and then is no big deal.

***

About that time, the alarm on my phone goes off, alerting me that it’s time to head to the courthouse. I must have spent more time talking to Evan than I thought. I immediately get up, toss my empty coffee cup in the trash, and leave the coffee shop. The courthouse is a couple of blocks away. I’ll get there in plenty of time to meet for a few minutes with my client, before proceedings start.

I walk down to the end of the street and wait for the crosswalk to flash green. Unfortunately, a white panel van drives up and stops dead in the street right in front of me, literally blocking my path. Who just stops in the middle of the road? The person behind them is even honking. I don’t like that the van is so close to me, so I start to take a step backwards.

Before I know what’s happening the door slides open and a muscular arm jerks me inside by my arm. Someone behind me is yelling for them to stop, but they pay the person no heed. It takes me a second to realize I’m being abducted off the street in broad daylight. It’s such a shock that my mind blanks out for a second. I’m like a rag doll as the man slams me down on a seat. All I can think of is protecting my unborn child, so I instinctively try to fold my arms over my body.

My brain switches back on, and I realize the best way to protect my child is to get away from my abductors. Therefore, I fight against the person who roughly pulled me into the van. The problem is he’s bigger and stronger than I am, so there’s not much of a fight. I don’t recognize this man at all. He’s large with tattoos and bad breath. He easily holds down one of my arms and zip ties it to the armrest and does the same with the other. I keep kicking him until he loops one around both of my feet and pulls it tight around my ankles. After that I’m just stuck. No matter how hard I fight against the restraints, I can’t free myself.

The van is moving but I can’t see anything as the windows have been blacked out. By the way I’m being thrown around I can tell, the van is going at breakneck speed and swerving around other cars to make their getaway. I’m not safe because the way they’re driving is insanely reckless.

I open my mouth to scream, wondering why I didn’t think of doing that when they first grabbed me. At this point, I don’t even know who would hear me or if it would matter but I’ve got to try something. I can’t just let these strangers cart me off.

Before I can get a sound out, his big hand comes up and clamps over my mouth. I realize all too late that he’s not trying to muffle sounds with his palm. Instead, he has a big piece of masking tape that he’s sealing over my mouth. Doesn’t matter how hard I scream because nothing comes out. The tape is also covering part of one nostril which makes it hard to breathe and even has a clump of my hair taped to my face.

I don’t know who this person is a what he wants with me but I’m furious. The reality of my situation only slams home when another man turns around from the driver’s seat and says, “Calm the fuck down, little lady. We just want to talk to you for a minute, and then you can be on your way.”

It’s lies, all lies. I can tell by the coaxing way he articulated the words. If they only wanted to talk and let me go, then I wouldn’t be trussed up like a chicken ready for roasting.

The realization that I’m being abducted sends me into a spiral. I shake my head violently and make raspy noises of panic in the back of my throat that I didn’t know were even possible to make.

“Damn bro,” The man who pulled me into the van says irritably. “This woman is going to give herself a damn heart attack panicking. What in the fuck did Stan do to make her so reactive?”

“Not a fucking thing. He already told you, she’s batshit crazy.”

My heart sinks. I’d been still holding onto the hope that Stan hadn’t been behind Gina’s murder and the threats, but it’s now clear that it’s all him, and he wants to make me pay. I left Stan and got a restraining order that says he’s not supposed to be within a hundred feet of me so he hires a couple of thugs to do what he can’t—though that doesn’t make one bit of sense, if he’s going to kill me, then why would he bother about a bit of paper saying he can’t be within a hundred feet?

I feel my eyes rolling back in my head and I think I’m going to faint. This can’t be happening. I can’t pass out. I have to stay strong for Smoke and our unborn child.

We’ve been so careful. Smoke and I thought I’d be safe as long as I stayed in view of the public, the MC’s IT guy hadn’t found any hint as to Stan’s whereabouts, and the cops were still investigating Gina’s murder so there were no leads there. We didn’t anticipate shenanigans like this.

I still can’t believe Stan is behind this. It makes me wonder if this was what it was like when Gina got kidnapped. It’s like lightning hits my brain and everything becomes so clear. He abducted her to get to me, and it worked. He used her cell phone to find my number so he could get at me. As a public defense attorney, I’m not difficult to find, but when I moved back home, I hadn’t expected to gain myself a stalker, the number change was more to avoid Stan’s ranting phone calls telling me what an uptight bitch I was. Now, he’s going to do the same thing to me that he did to her. I’m dead meat. And unless I miss my guess, he’s going to make my death twice as bloody and gruesome because I was his primary target.

I begin hyperventilating, it’s been a crisis response I’ve had for the better part of my life. Talk about bad coping skills. I feel my world going black. My last thoughts are of Gina and how she didn’t deserve to have these pricks do the things they did to her. And how Smoke is going to lose his mind, that the one thing we were so careful to avoid, is happening anyway.