Reeve (The Henchmen MC 11)

I took the phone with shaking hands, gave him a tight nod, and ran.

Before I even made it to the front door, he was gone, completely out of sight as well.

"Sugar, this had better be important," a woman's voice met my ear as I slammed the trap door to the glass room, dropping my body down on it, trying to remember how to breathe.

"This is Rey. Sugar told me to tell you that V is back and to get to Summer right now."

Even through the phone, I could hear wind whipping as she, I imagined, ran. There was a slam of a door and the rumbling of an engine before she spoke again.

"I'm on my way. I want more details for when I call Reign."

Everything about her was collected. Calm, even. Professional, maybe. She was used to this. And I vaguely remembered Reeve telling me that Lo was Cash's wife. And that she ran Hailstorm. So I guess her ability to keep her wits about her made sense.

"Reeve and I were leaving She's Bean Around when a woman started talking to him. He told me to take his gun and run and tell everyone that V is back and that she likely took him."

"Okay. Take a breath," she demanded. "Where are you? Are you safe?"

"I'm in the glass room on the roof."

"Okay, on the wall right behind the trap door is a latch," she directed, and my gaze went up to see it. "Get out of the way and pull the latch. It is going to drop down and be super loud." She wasn't wrong about that either. It was like a bomb went off in the small space. But the inside of the wall that dropped down seemed lined with some kind of thick metal. "That is going to prevent anyone from pushing the door open. It is also bulletproof. As are all the glass walls. There is food and water there. But you won't be there long enough to need it. If not The Henchmen, then me and my people will be there to come get you."

"This is bad, isn't it?" I asked, completely in the dark.

There was a short pause where it seemed this badass woman was weighing how much to tell me. In the end, she went with the whole truth. "This is bad. But we will handle it."

With that, she disconnected.

I moved to sit down on the floor, putting the gun down, but not pushing it away like I thought I would want to do as soon as I could. I felt safer with it. Of all the crazy going down this night, that might have been the most shocking to me.

My hand went to my chest, my heart an alarming screaming thing under my ribcage.

Worry was a live wire through my system, sparking off every organ, fizzling over every inch of skin.

Whoever this V person was, was bad.

Very bad.

And she likely had Reeve.

My heart twisted painfully at that idea as I reached down toward my ankles, unclasping the little buckles to free my feet from the heels, trying to distract myself from the fear.

I had never really known it before.

Fear.

Discomfort? Dis-ease? Sure.

But not real, genuine fear.

It was a sickening thing, making your belly wobble and your mind race, making your insides - and outsides - feel shaky and foreign.

I saw figures running down the street, making my heart leap up as I jumped onto my feet, moving toward the window overlooking the front gates.

All the men came storming back in.

Well, all except Reeve.

Sugar's head lifted to look at me, holding out a hand with a cell in it. Not a second later, his phone lit up saying Roan was calling.

"He was gone," I guessed, hearing desperation in my own voice.

"Yeah, babe, he was gone," he agreed, moving over toward the bikes as two of the others came running inside. I could hear them below me in the basement. If I had to guess, I figured they were getting more weapons. "But we are going to find him. The guys and I have to go visit someone for some answers. You need to stay put. Lo is going to arrange to have someone come get you. But don't open that door unless someone calls you on my phone first and says Baby Bash."

I had no idea what that meant, but the instructions were clear enough. "Got it," I agreed.

"Breathe, babe," he demanded as his brothers came running out, exchanging out guns as they moved toward an SUV in the side yard. "Everything is going to be fine."

With that, he hung up, was in the SUV, and gone.

It felt like years that I sat there with nothing to do but wonder where they went, what they were doing to get Reeve back, and, of course, most of all... what was happening to Reeve?