“I don’t know how I can keep this from her.”

  And I didn’t know if she’d forgive me.

  “You have to,” Gage said, holding out a glass of whiskey for me.

  I took it and downed it in one gulp. I was going to need more than that. I handed the glass back to Gage. “She’s going to be devastated.”

  “She won’t know. He doesn’t contact her,” Trev pointed out.

  But I would know.

  “Come to the house. We can sit out at the pool and drink until we pass out. Just like old times,” Trev suggested.

  I shook my head. “No. I have to get back to Haisley.”

  I needed to hold her. Remind myself why I was doing this. Get my head wrapped around how I was going to handle it.

  “All right, fine,” Trev replied.

  “Not a word to her, Sax,” Levi said as he opened the office door to leave.

  “I won’t,” I replied.

  Lying to her about what we did was one thing. Having to lie about her brother was another. At least I wasn’t going to be the one to kill him. I couldn’t live with myself if I had to do that.

  Twenty-Eight

  Haisley

  New Year’s Eve was tomorrow, and I couldn’t wait to spend it with Saxon. He was taking me to downtown Ocala for an event they were having there. We had left the tree up so that we could come back here and sit on the sofa, watching the ball drop in New York City with our tree lights and a fire.

  Saxon had been around a lot this past week. He didn’t work at the stables when I wasn’t at the yoga studio. We had been spending all our free time together.

  “Hey, Haisley,” Trace said, coming up beside me. “Our schedules haven’t been matching up. It’s almost as if we are purposely being kept apart.”

  I glanced at him, realizing I hadn’t seen him but from a distance since the day Saxon had walked in on Trace flirting with me.

  “Uh, yeah,” I replied, not wanting to talk to him now either.

  “So, you and the baby daddy still getting along?”

  “His name is Saxon,” I said. “And, yes, we’re doing great. Thanks for asking.”

  Trace leaned too close to me and smirked. “If it goes south, you let me know.”

  “It won’t,” I snarled, annoyed. “I have to go.”

  I took my purse and headed outside. Trace was laying it on thicker than usual. Maybe our schedules would continue to be at different times. I preferred not dealing with him.

  I had two hours before my next yoga class, and I was craving a chocolate milkshake. After my next class, Saxon would be here to get me, and I was anxious to see him. I found myself clinging to him the more we were together.

  Silver had been behaving better since Christmas and had even spoken to me on the phone once. She texted me back when I sent her texts, so that eased my mind. My mom hadn’t said anything about the gift certificate to get a pedicure and manicure we’d given her. I didn’t know why I’d expected her to, but it hurt that she hadn’t even mentioned it.

  With Silver doing better, I wasn’t constantly worried, and I could enjoy being in love. My future with Saxon felt safe and solid. Life was being good to me.

  “Hey, sis.”

  AJ’s familiar voice startled me.

  I spun around to find him leaning against the wall inside the alley between the yoga studio and the health food store. He had on a baseball cap and dark sunglasses, but I knew my brother, even with his bad excuse for a disguise.

  I scanned the area around me before walking into the alley. “What are you doing here?” I hissed.

  He smirked. “I thought you’d be happier to see me.”

  “I would have been happy if you’d called. You can’t be in Ocala, AJ. You know that!”

  He leaned closer to me. “Why? Because your baby daddy and his friends don’t want me here?”

  My nails dug into my palm. “So you do know I’m pregnant, and you haven’t called once to check on me?” I asked angrily. “Do you know Mom kicked me out? That Silver was dating some thug in a gang? That she was taking drugs?”

  AJ chuckled as if this were funny. “Red Kings aren’t a fucking gang. They’re kids acting like they’re badass because they sell some shit drugs inside the high schools. Silver is fine, and clearly, you’re doing great. Designer yoga clothes, expensive kicks, and Oakley sunglasses. I was surprised when I found out you’d gotten knocked up, even more shocked about who the daddy was.”

  I pointed at his chest and pushed hard. “But you weren’t there when we needed you.”

  “Because your boyfriend and his Mafia family ran me out of town,” he said with a sarcastic tone.

  “You took Aspen from the hospital,” I reminded him. “That Gina woman hurt her. Broke her arm!”

  He looked annoyed. “Gina paid for it. With her life. That’s not my concern.”

  “Your life had better be your concern. Get out of this town. Go back to Orlando. But call and check on things. Don’t just disappear without a word again. Mom doesn’t need that. She’s already lost one kid.”

  He sighed and pushed off from the wall. “Okay, this is getting annoying,” he said as his hand wrapped around my upper arm tightly.

  I jerked at it, and his grip became painful. “Let go of me!”

  “No, I don’t think I will, sis. You’ve become valuable. I had to wait to be sure,” he said as he began pulling me further into the alley and away from the street. “See, at first, Saxon didn’t want you. He was pissed off about the pregnancy. I wasn’t sure if your pretty face was going to win him over.”

  The deeper we went into the alley, the more I fought against his hold. He ignored it, shoving me forward without letting go.

  “Then, next thing I see is him coming to get you from work and not being able to take his hands off you. Looking at you with those eyes full of love.” He shoved me around a corner and toward a back parking lot. “That’s when I knew you’d just become important. And fucking easy to use.”

  I tried pulling away as he stopped at the back of a van that said something about carpet cleaners. “What is wrong with you, AJ?” I asked, starting to panic.

  He was talking crazy.

  “Nothing, sis. I’m doing real damn good today.”

  The back of the van opened, and two men were back there, smoking. They had on the stupid Viper vests and the snake tattoo that AJ had on his arm.

  One with red hair, shaved on both sides, grinned. “You got her.”

  “Of course I did,” he replied, taking my purse off my shoulder, then pushing me toward the open doors.

  I was not getting in that van. I tried to elbow him, but he grabbed me and tossed me toward the redheaded guy.

  “Tie her up, Tick. She’s feisty,” he said to the man.

  Tick tossed his cigarette out of the back. I opened my mouth to scream, but his hand slapped over my face.

  “Get me a gag!” he told the other guy.

  “Don’t trust her. She’s smarter than either of you. Get her to the shack. And don’t hurt her. She’s my sister. If someone has to hurt her, it’ll be me.” His eyes locked on mine. “Don’t make me hurt you. Because I will. I’ll slice you up if I don’t get what the fuck I want.”

  My heart raced as I tried to talk over the gag they’d tied around my head.

  What was he saying? He would slice me? This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. AJ wouldn’t hurt me. Sure, he wasn’t a great brother. Most of the time, he sucked at it, but he wouldn’t hurt me.

  “Play nice,” he said with an evil grin and slammed the doors to the van.

  “She’s fucking hot. He said she was pretty, but damn.” The other guy had a fully shaved head and piercings in his nose, lip, and both eyebrows. There were also tattoos of numbers randomly on his neck.

  “Don’t touch her,” Tick reminded him. “He’ll fucking take your head off.”

  The other guy reached out and ran a finger down my face as Tick finished tying my hands together tightly behind my back.

  “He said don’t hurt her,” the guy drawled, tilting his head to study me. “You got the looks in the family, didn’t you, love?” he said.

  My throat burned from the bile. I jerked my face away from his touch, and he laughed.

  “Fuck, she’s hot and feisty. Acid is gonna love her.”

  “No shit,” Tick replied.

  The driver’s door opened, and another man climbed inside. “She tied down good?” he asked the two beside me.

  “Working on her ankles now, but she’s not fighting,” Tick called back.

  “Let’s go to Tampa,” he replied.

  Tick stopped and looked at the driver. “Tampa? AJ said to take her to the shack.”

  The guy turned around to look at Tick. The right side of his face had been burned at some point and was scarred. He had long, dark hair that seemed to help cover some of it. “Acid wants her brought to him.”

  “Does AJ know?” Tick asked.

  “No. Acid said not to tell him.”

  Tick shook his head and sighed. “Fuck.”

  “AJ might control Orlando, but Acid is the boss.”

  The other guy beside me grunted. “I’d rather face off with AJ than Acid.”

  “Exactly,” the guy up front replied. “We’re taking her to Tampa.”

  I screamed against my gag, and all three sets of eyes looked at me. I tried pleading with my eyes.

  Did they know I was pregnant? If I made them angry, would they hit me? I had to figure out a way to get away from them.

  “Damn, she’s gorgeous,” the driver said. “Don’t fucking mess with her. Acid will burn you both alive. He’s gonna want that one.”

  He turned back around and started the van. I closed my eyes as a tear ran down my face. Saxon wouldn’t know where I was or what had happened to me. Would he think I’d left him? Oh God, my chest hurt. What if I never saw him again?

  “Don’t cry, love,” the guy beside me said. “Acid don’t hurt pretty things like you. He just collects them.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Saxon

  I slammed the truck door at the back parking lot behind the health food store. My heart was beating against my chest so hard that I was struggling to breathe. My eyes scanned the area until I saw it lying there. Haisley’s purse. It was against the back wall going inside the alley. I broke into a run. My throat felt like someone had a vise grip on it.

  Picking up her purse, I scanned the area around it for any sign that could tell me what had happened to her. The bike engine roared as it pulled inside the parking lot, followed by Trev’s G-Wagon. I opened her purse and reached inside to pull out her phone. Holding it in my hand, I wanted to throw it against the wall and scream. The fucking tracker in it did me no good if it wasn’t on her.

  The moment she had left the studio, I’d known. It alerted me. But that was normal. I wasn’t worried until it was time for her to go back to the studio and she hadn’t moved. A heavy dread settled over me. I’d known something had happened.

  “How long has her purse been there?” Levi asked as he climbed off his bike.

  “Twenty minutes,” I replied.

  Trev climbed out of the driver’s side of his vehicle, and Gage got out of the passenger seat.

  “That doesn’t mean she left it there twenty minutes ago. Let me see your phone,” Levi said, and I pulled mine out of my pocket and handed it to him.

  He studied the tracking app that was loaded on it while Trev came up to me.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t sure about that.

  “No, it’s not,” I told him through clenched teeth.

  “We’ll find her,” Gage said, sounding more convinced.

  “Looks like she was taken at the alley entrance beside the studio. Brought down the alley, then out to there.” Levi pointed to a parking spot, the farthest away from where the alley exit was. “The purse was brought back here and dropped after that. Someone took her in a vehicle.”

  “How did they get her from the alley entrance to out there without her causing a scene or screaming for help?” Trev asked, frowning.

  Levi looked at me. “They either knocked her out … or she trusted them.”

  I felt like my skin was on fire. A slow fury started to roll over me. “AJ.”

  He nodded. “Makes the most sense. AJ would have surprised her. She would have walked with him, talking to him. Then, once he got her far enough away, he took her.”

  “Fuck,” Trev muttered.

  Gage’s eyes locked on mine. “He was a dead man, but now, I’m guessing you might want to be the one to pull the trigger.”

  “If he hurts her, I’ll kill him.”

  Gage smirked. “Then, let’s find the bastard.”

  “Huck’s getting Blaise. Trev, you get Kye, Mattia, and Six. Y’all take the Escalade to Orlando. Liam’s men will meet you there. Sax and I are meeting Huck and Blaise at the airstrip. We’re going to Tampa.”

  “Won’t AJ take her to Orlando?” I asked, not liking the idea of being away from her a second longer.

  Levi looked at Gage, who nodded. “If they want to bring us to them and are using her to do it, they will take her to Acid. They’re trying to draw us to Orlando, where they think we will react the way we did with Shiloh. What they don’t know is, we have the LA Vipers ready to clean house behind us.”

  Fuck. I didn’t want to think about Haisley being in the middle of all this.

  I had to get to her. I couldn’t fall apart. She was going to be okay. She had to be. Both her and the baby. My eyes stung.

  “Then, let’s get to the airstrip,” I said, stalking toward my truck.

  Gage opened the passenger door and climbed in. He held out a pack of cigarettes to me. I shook my head and started the engine.

  “You need to learn to smoke. Takes the edge off,” he said, lighting one up.

  “I’m gonna be a dad. I don’t want to shorten my life.”

  Gage laughed. “Too late. You were born into the family. We face death all the damn time.”

  He had a point, but I wasn’t going to add another thing that could take me out of this world too soon. I wanted to be a grandfather one day with Haisley sitting beside me, watching our grandkids play. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. She had to be okay.

  “Can I just say, you are one calm motherfucker? When I was in your shoes, I threw shit, went insane, lost my mind.”

  I cut my eyes at him. “You’re already insane.”

  He smirked. “Yeah, good point.”

  “But when I find out who took her and if any man laid a hand on her, I’m going to take them out of this world and enjoy watching them bleed,” I said, feeling the rage inside me humming in my veins.

  “That’s the shit I’m talking about. I can’t wait to fucking watch.”

  My leg bounced as I stared out the window of the plane. The closer we got to the ground, the more impatient I got.

  I needed to get to Haisley. Get her safe. Then make sure no fucker ever got near her again.

  This shit was my fault. I’d let her go to the yoga studio and work, even when I knew AJ was dirty. I hadn’t fucking thought he’d come get her. Jesus, she was his sister. If he had taken her, then he was using her as bait to cause a damn war.

  What if we were wrong? FUCK! I needed to know where she was. Who had taken her. Not knowing was driving me insane.

  Blaise walked back into the main cabin. “Liam’s men found AJ already. Trev is heading to them now. He’s about an hour out. He’s isolated. No one was with him.”

  “He doesn’t have Haisley?” I asked, standing up. I couldn’t sit anymore.

  I’d already known that Blaise believed Haisley was sent to Tampa, but I’d been holding out hope that AJ had kept her with him.

  Blaise shook his head. “No, but he’s angry, and he’s not talking. Well, he’s currently unconscious. He spit on Tex, and he knocked him out in return.”

  I ran my hand through my hair and began pacing.

  What if someone else had taken her? If we were on the wrong path and something happened to her while I was chasing fucking Vipers …

  I struggled to breathe. Motherfucker, my chest hurt. I needed to know where she was. I had to find her.

  Blaise and Levi both felt like she was in Tampa. Levi was good at this shit. He had to be right.

  “Trev has the order to bring him to Tampa. He’ll know where Acid has her. We will unleash the LA Vipers on them once we have Haisley safe, and Gage gets to put a bullet in Acid,” Blaise said.

  “I’d rather slice him up,” Gage told him.

  “No time for that. We need to handle what we came to do, then let the others have their fun.”

  Blaise took a seat and motioned for me to do the same. “We’re about to land.”

  Please be there, baby. Please let us be fucking right.

  Thirty

  Haisley

  “AJ isn’t answering his phone,” Tick said, walking back into the sanctuary of the abandoned church he’d left me in with the other guy who had been in the back of the van, who I now knew was Skid.

  They had blindfolded me until we were out of the van and inside, but I could clearly tell this had been a church. The cross over the pulpit, the broken church pews scattered about, and the stained-glass windows with depictions of Jesus’s life in them all made it an easy guess.

  Skid shrugged. “Acid is almost here.”

  Tick sharply jerked his head to the side three times. He did that a lot. I figured that was where he had gotten the name Tick.

  “I need a hit,” he said, clawing at his arm.

  The wooden doors swung open, and a tall man with dark hair and eyes and a wide mouth, almost like Steven Tyler, along with a snake tattoo covering both his arms and going up his neck walked inside. His eyes locked on me, and he smiled.