Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

Striker

"Where is she?" I demanded upon entering the clinic and seeing Connors and the resource officer along with two other people. "Where's Lila?"

Connors steps forward, her hands resting on her slightly rounded stomach. "She's in X-ray right now," she answers. "We're making sure she doesn't have anything broken. She was pretty beat up."

"The lady from the school said she was out of it."

"She was," Connors confirms. "First thing I did was get blood and send it to be tested. We'll know soon what she was given."

I nod and let out a breath, running a hand over my face and through my hair. "She's gonna be okay," I say more to myself than anyone else.

"She will," Connors agrees softly. "But because of . . ." She pauses and looks over my shoulder to the others. Dragon and Gadget move in on either side of her as she continues. "The police are going to have questions for her."

Great. The last thing I want to have to deal with right now is the cops.

"Soon as she's out of X-ray, I wanna see her," I tell Connors.

"I'll come get you as soon as she's done."

I nod and pivot on my heel, needing to get a bit of air. My thoughts are going ramped with the different scenarios of what ifs, and it's a rabbit hole I don't want or need to go down. For right now, I'll let my brothers deal with the cops. Twister and Horse should be able to get them out of here for the time being.

"Striker," Lila cries out as I step through the door to the little room they put her in.

"You okay?" I move straight to her side and pull her in my arms.

"No," she admits, shoving her face in my neck. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to fight more."

"Shh," I murmur soothingly. "You're safe now, that's all that matters."

"But Autumn isn't." Lila sobs. "She went to them willingly to keep me safe." She curls herself deeper into my chest and cries even harder. "It's all my fault. If I hadn't been running behind for school . . ."

"If you hadn't and they still wanted to get you, they could've run you off the road," I tell her. "No one is mad at you. Just glad you're fuckin' safe now."

"Do you know who took you?" Twister asks, and my sister nods. He and Horse had come back with me along with Vera and Adam. Everyone else stayed in the waiting room.

"Who?" I demand, keeping my voice gentle for her sake.

"Your friend . . . the one who knew Autumn. He and his friends who came to the house."

"You mean Tony, Rolland, and Jason?" I ask, leaning back in order to see her face.

"Yeah, them," she says, sucking in a breath. "It wasn't Tony who took me, though. It was his friends, but they took me to Tony, and he's the one who drugged me."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"Are you talking about Tony Decker? My daughter's ex-boyfriend?" Adam speaks up, stepping closer as Vera comes around him, moving to my sister.

"Yeah," I confirm, giving him my attention. Not liking the expression on his face.

"Son of a bitch." He sneers. "That little bastard?— "

"Language, Adam," Vera snaps. "Not in front of Lila." The way she curls her arm around my sister is something I don't think Lila's ever experienced. Other than from me and those close to us, surely not by our mother. And that's exactly what Vera has her in—a motherly embrace.

Adam glances toward Lila, and his gaze softens. I can see it now, these two are going to attach themselves to my sister's life, and I'm definitely not going to complain.

"Didn't you send Tony here to check on Autumn?" I ask, remembering the conversations from the house and at the café when he first showed up.

"I wouldn't have that bast, ugh, weasel check on a damn thing of mine, let alone my daughter. I hated Tony, always have, always will," Adam mutters.

Athena rushes into the room to grab my hand and pulls me, not bothering to say anything. I don't question it because she wouldn't have done it unless she had something for me.

In the waiting room, she comes to a halt next to Brass and twists to face me. "I was able to get some security footage from the building on the other side of Emerson's hair salon," she announces and goes on. "Autumn went out the back alley, got in the trunk of a black sedan. Lucian ran the plates for me. Came up with nothing important there, but . . . that same car was used to take Lila to the school. The men inside, they're the same ones who'd broken into her apartment."

"We know where they are?" I ask.

"Yeah," She smiles mischievously. "I've already rounded them up. Did that before coming here," Athena says and looks to Brass, "Lucian is taking Jesse for the night, so we're kid-free, and I'm more than ready to make these boys sing."

"Jesus," Brass mutters.

"Where'd you take ‘em?" Hades asks.

"Took them?—"

"Shhh, cops comin'," K-9 mutters.

I cock my head in their direction. "Officer Ryan."

"Striker," Officer Ryan greets. "Mind if we talk to your sister?"

"Yeah, I've gotta head out, but she's in there with my woman's parents. They're staying with her, so don't try to get them outta the room," I tell them and turn my attention to my brothers. "Let's go."

I figure Horse and Twister will catch up. There's no time to wait around. I've got to find my woman before any more time passes by.

I don't know if Tony would hurt her or not, but something about this whole thing doesn't sit well with me.

Athena said the men from the car, the ones who took Autumn and also dropped Lila off, they're the ones who broke into Autumn's apartment. On the security feed, they talked about the bossman. Is that bossman Tony? Do they have a connection to ‘Marionette'? To Autumn being taken the first time?

There are too many dots, and I'm not liking where they are leading.

"You ready to talk?" I ask, slamming my fist into the guy's face again. I decided to start with the pantie sniffer, I figured he'd be easier to break.

"Fuck you," he spits.

"Nah, you ain't my type," I sneer and slam my fist against his jaw. "Where'd Tony take my woman?"

"I ain't tellin' you shit."

"Wrong answer." Turning away from him, I move to the table with all the different tools scattered around. Picking up a butane blower, I grab a pair of work gloves and a metal pipe. I make my way back to the one I'd been beating up.

"Oh shit, looks like he's gonna take a page out of Twister's book," Hade mutters.

I ignore him and focus on the asshat. "You know what we do to those who cross us? We make ‘em pay. More than that, we make ‘em suffer. You might be working for the fucker I want, but you're gonna suffer the same fate if you don't tell me where the fuck he took my woman."

"I'd seriously tell him what he wants to know, man," Brass says, cringing. "I'm sure you don't want the fate he's got in store for you."

"Wh-what are you gonna do with that?" the guy asks, eyeing the pipe and torch in my hands.

"Well, this . . ." I hold the pipe up and grin. "It's going to be shoved where you surely don't want it." Holding up the torch, "This will be used to burn you from the inside out. I'll fry your ass until you take your last breath. How's that sound?"

"Damn, he's going to make it even more epic than Prez did." Thorn snorts.

The other guy I hadn't even started in on surprises me when he shouts, "He doesn't know where ‘Marionette' would take her, and all I know is he was taking her back to base."

So Tony is ‘Marionette'. This answers my question on if he was or not. Now, I just have to find where this base is.

I toss the pipe and torch over to Thorn and pull my gun out from where I keep it in the shoulder holster. I'd already secured the silencer, I didn't need ears to hear if there were any close enough to hear a gun go off .

If I didn't have a woman to find, I'd take my time and make them beg for mercy.

Aiming between the eyes of the one I'd beaten, I pull the trigger, ending his misery.

"Brother, before you kill ‘em, let's get your woman back," Brass remarks, sounding reasonable. "We need to keep him around in case we need to get more information from him."

I nod, seeing reason. All I care about is finding Autumn and getting her back before something else happens to her.