Huck (Golden Glades Henchmen MC 1)

That was one perk to the bad areas. People minded their own business. They knew how things went. You talked, you caught a bullet too. And while we weren't in the business of killing innocent people, they didn't know that, and their fear worked in our favor.

"Wash your hands," I said to Remy as he stepped out of the basement, looking a little less crazed than he had been a couple minutes before. "You're sure you wiped everything?"

"Yeah," he agreed, always being a little quiet when he was coming back to himself.

"Where to?" McCoy asked, holding the list.

"That one," I said, pointing to the address that matched the text conversation Che and I had looked at.

"Are we just going to pick through this list?" McCoy asked.

"If that is how we can get her back, yes," I said, moving out.

The second house was more of a meeting spot than the first one, meaning we had to fight our way in, two cocky guys taking a bullet before we could even talk to them.

"They drew first," McCoy said, as if I had any objection to the fuckers biting it.

"Don't give a shit," I growled, holding onto my own bastard as he tried to kick and bite the arm I had around his neck. "Help Remy get these bastards downstairs and talking," I said, flinging the guy at him, turning to make my way through the house, calling out Harmon's name.

"Prez," Che said, making my head snap over. "There's a detached garage out back," he told me, making me break into a run, barely able to think of anything but Harmon back there, chained up, or huddled in a corner, scared, alone, praying to be rescued.

I was nobody's white knight, but I wanted to be the one to save her, to tell her she was safe, that she was going to be okay, that I would make the bastards who took her pay.

Finding the door locked, I grabbed a rock, breaking the window in the door on the side, and reaching in to turn the lock, feeling the broken glass cut into my hand and arm, the burning sensation making it clear I was bleeding. But all I could think of was finding Harmon as I threw open the door, rushing inside.

My pulse was pounding, my stomach twisted into a painful knot.

"Fuck!" I growled, grabbing the side of a wooden folding table, flipping it - and all its contents—onto the floor.

Goddamn it.

Nothing.

Not a hint that anyone had been inside here, save to tinker with a car.

"We'll find her," Che said, voice calm, as he stepped in behind me, taking in the mess. "You're bleeding everywhere," he told me, a mix of concerned and frustrated. Because I was making shit more complicated by bleeding all over the place, leaving my DNA carelessly around a crime scene. "Here," he said, grabbing a handkerchief off a work table, handing it to me. "Wrap it up. I will deal with the clean-up," he said, shooing me out.

I was just walking back into the house when I heard my phone ring in my front pocket.

I reached for it, finding Seeley's name there.

"We're busy, Seeley," I said in greeting.

"Doing the wrong thing," he told me. "No disrespect," he added, sounding tense.

"Don't give a fuck about formalities right now, Seeley. Trying to find my woman."

"Yeah, that's why I'm calling. I've called a dozen times. You're looking in the wrong place."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, stomach clenching at the idea that we were torturing and killing people who had nothing to do with the drive-by, with taking Harmon. "Arty said these were the guys."

"Who shot me, yeah," Seeley told me. "But not who took Harmon."

"How do you know that?"

"Because we got this person on camera. And they don't match up to any of those guys in that cartel."

"Then who the fuck are they?"

"That's what I'm getting at. He doesn't know yet. Wait," he said when I tried to speak. "He's working on it. You know him. He's on it. But the thing is, he thinks this isn't about us."

"What do you mean it isn't about us? They took her from our clubhouse."

"Yeah, but he thinks that we had two things going on that were unrelated. Well, technically, we only had one thing going on. Harmon had something else."

"Harmon?

What the fuck could she be involved in?"

"Not involved. Stalked," he said, and it felt like my stomach bottomed out.

I mean, stalking was common in general. But add on the fact that she was relatively famous in her circle, that she was hot, that she was accessible to her fans, some of whom I'd seen for myself were fucking inappropriate with her, and, yeah, I could see her having a stalker.

"Why does he think that?" I asked, feeling the rage simmer down, finally letting me think more clearly. "Che, tell McCoy to call it off. Shit has changed," I said when he walked into the kitchen to grab a bottle of bleach from under the counter.