Darkness Embraced (Hades Hangmen 7)

“Adelita!” I boomed out, and gave everything I had to tear these fuckers off the bed posts. “ADELITA!” The cable tie on my right arm gave way. I yanked on my left arm, when someone crashed through the door to my room.

I looked to the doorway. Tank was in his jeans, no shirt, gun in hand. His eyes were bloodshot, like he’d just woken up.

“Tanner. What the fuck?”

“Cut me the fuck free!” I demanded. Tank didn’t hesitate. He pulled his pocket knife from his jeans and snapped the cable ties at my ankles and wrist, ignoring the blood and torn flesh. I launched from the bed and threw on my jeans and boots. In seconds I burst out from my door. “Adelita!” I searched every room I could find, but she wasn’t anywhere. I punched through the door of the bar. There was no one there either.

“Adelita!” I screamed. I turned and raced back to my room. Tank was right behind me.

“What happened?” he asked. Viking and Rudge appeared at my door.

“What the fuck’s all the noise, mate? Some of us are about to fuck our sluts for the fourth time and all I can hear is your fucking mouth. It’s off-putting,” Rudge informed me.

“Four?” Vike asked Rudge, shocked . . . then he smiled and folded his arms over his big chest. “I’m on round six.” Tank went over to the door and slammed it shut.

“Tell me what the fuck is happening.”

Pushing past him, I went to the monitors in my room. In minutes I was searching for any airports nearby. Any of them which had a last-minute private flight booked in. I stopped when I saw a small airport not too far away had a last-minute flight scheduled before it had been quickly deleted from its system. But I hacked my way in enough to find a trace. It hadn’t had a time or flight numbers logged—that told me everything I needed to fucking know.

I was on my feet and throwing my shirt and cut on. I rushed to the door, but Tank grabbed my arm. “Tanner. Where the fuck is Lita?”

“Gone!” I snapped and pulled my arm back. My heart fired off again, and panic fucking whipped through me. “She fucked me, tied me to the bed, drugged me, then left.”

“What? Why?”

I ran my hands down my face. I could still feel the last of the drug in my system. My legs and arms moved slowly. But I had to go. I had to stop her from fucking leaving. “I’m going to stop her.”

I pushed out of the door and ran to my bike in the yard. I hadn’t even started the engine when Tank came out and jumped on his bike too. I didn’t say anything to him. At first he didn’t say anything to me.

“There’s a war, in case you didn’t hear. We ain’t supposed to leave.”

“Just fucking drive to wherever we’re going.”

Tank waited for me to pull out and then was right on my tail. I didn’t fucking care if the Klan or cartel were near. I’d fucking welcome the chance to tear someone apart right now. I drove so fast my Fat Boy roared along the back roads.

I pulled into the small airport. The runway was little more than a dust path. An old control tower sat to the left. Blood like rapids in my veins, I parked up and smashed through the door. Racing up the stairs, I busted through the entrance to the main center. Some middle-aged fucker jumped to his feet. My hands were on his collar in seconds. “You have a plane going to Mexico?” The guy’s face turned bright red as my hands tightened. “Speak, cunt! Is there a plane to Mexico?”

“Tann,” Tank’s hand came down on my shoulder. “Fucker can’t breathe.”

Forcing myself to calm, I slackened my hands on his collar. The guy looked about ready to have a heart attack.

“It’s gone,” he said, and I felt my stomach fucking drop. “It left earlier. To Mexico.”

I couldn’t fucking speak. My eyes wandered to the runway. To the fresh track marks that were dug into the dust.

“Was there a woman on board?” Tank must have realized I couldn’t speak, so he did it for me.

“Yes.” I closed my fucking eyes and pushed the guy from me. “Her and a couple of men. All Mexican.” I heard the guy swallow. “They paid me to give them clearance last minute. A lot of money. I immediately deleted it from the system so I wouldn’t be found out. They told me when they arrived to leave no trace. How . . . how did you know—”

Anger burned inside me. So fucking insidious, it was all I became. Just a walking fucking volcano ready to explode. My hands fisted, and on a growl, I slammed them into the controls below me. I punched the fucking things until the lights started flickering out. “Tann!” Tank’s voice cut through my red mist. But I only pushed past him and rushed down the stairs. As soon as I hit the fresh air, I held my head and fucking screamed. Adelita was gone. She was fucking gone!

I was too late.

I heard Tank come out of the door behind me. Yanking on my arm, he pulled me around and gripped my face. “We’ll get her. We’ll tell Styx and go in after her. We’ll get her back.”

“They’ll kill her,” I rasped, as the truth of those words started to hit me. “They’ll fucking kill her because she’s with me . . . and she knew it. She went knowing they’d kill her.”

“It might not be too late,” Tank said, trying to be convincing, and pushed me to my bike. “We’ll go tell Styx.”

I got on my bike and pulled out of the airport, heading back toward the compound. But I fucking knew. She’d be killed. Some dark kind of intuition tore in my gut, telling me so.

The minute we got back to the compound, all the Austin chapter brothers were in the bar. Tank must have called them from his bike. I hadn’t seen him do it. But then I hadn’t noticed much of anything on the way back. All I was thinking about was Adelita. About her face as she told me goodbye. All to save t

he club. This club . . . and me.

Bitch was wrong. Without her, there was no fucking me. Everything I’d done so we could be together was for nothing.

We entered the bar, and all the brothers looked my way. Styx and Ky got to their feet. “She’s gone,” I said before anyone else could speak.

“We just checked. She left on a plane this morning to Mexico,” Tank added.

I could see the suspicious looks on the faces of my brothers. Apart from Smiler and Ash. Smiler just looked fucking dead inside. Eyes lifeless. And Ash looked like he was about to stab any fucker that pissed him off.

“She didn’t leave because she wanted to.” I made sure all my brothers were listening. “She left because she knew if she didn’t go they’d be coming for her.” I met Styx’s and Ky’s eyes. “She wanted to protect your old ladies from getting hurt. Your old ladies and your kids.” I fisted my hands. “And she did it knowing she’d fucking die the minute Diego got her back.”

“She did it to protect us.” Tank backed me up. “She risked her life to help us. To protect our families. To try and stop another cartel attack on us. So we gotta go and get her. She’s Tann’s old lady. She’s one of us now. It’s what we do.”

I couldn’t read Styx’s face, couldn’t tell what the fuck he was thinking. He raised his hands to say something, when Wrox and the brothers from his chapter came bursting through the door. Wrox plowed past us and flew his fist straight into Flame’s face. Flame launched off his chair. Vike and AK were beside him in seconds. Flame rushed at Wrox and knocked the stupid motherfucker on his ass. Flame jumped on top of him and started smashing at his face. AK and Vike charged at Wrox’s men who had tried to rip Flame from Wrox.