No one initially came to mind. I’ve worked hard to keep the wolves at bay since becoming president. I thought I’d done an okay job. For the first time in years, there is peace in this town, in this whole damn county.
Do I think it will last? Hell, no. There's always some motherfucker out there who thinks they have the right to invade our territory. Drug pushing, pimping, even human fuckin’ trafficking. Not in my town. I’m many things, but I don’t push any of that shit.
Guns and ammo? Of course, I’m not a fuckin’ saint. The club has to make money somehow.
I’ve been to all the fucks who’ve once wanted to take on my MC. I’ve probably caused a war with a couple of ‘em. They can come for me; I don’t care, I just want Lynette back safe and sound.
However, the more I search, the more the thoughts of never finding her fill my head. What will I tell the kids? That their mom is never coming back? That she’s dead? Oh God, I can’t even entertain that thought. If I lost her like that, it would fuckin’ kill me, and I do mean literally.
Lynette is the other half of me. Without her, there is no me. I love my kids; God knows I do. I would do anything for them, but without Lynette there to guide me, I am so lost.
Jett called me a little while ago to tell me every man in the MC is out looking for my wife. Lynette is a much loved First Lady, and everybody wants her home safe. Then he told me to get my ass to Lovers Creek. Jett said there was something I needed to see. He sounded scared if I'm honest. So here I am, pulling up beside a dozen bikes next to a silver Volkswagen, all but one door open at the back.
I get off my bike and make my way over to Jett, Tank, and Hammer. Red, Ace, Stryker, and couple more guys stop talking and look at me. Something is up. Something ain’t right here.
“What’s goin' on, Jett?”
“Dad, there’s something you should see.” His face is ashen, and I’ve got a ball in my stomach, churning away. Something awful lurks, waiting to pounce and ruin everything I ever knew.
There’s too much pity flowing off my men. Every one of them is watching me with a look of sadness, and something tells me nothing I see here will be good. Nothing I see will ease my weary mind.
Right now, I’m not ashamed to say how fuckin’ terrified I am that my son is leading me towards my wife’s body. You have no idea of the images flitting in and out of my mind. Images of Lynette’s naked, abused, dead body lying by the lake. Images of her beaten, mangled, and with limbs missing. I feel a sickness inside of me that I have never felt before.
I’ve killed, I’ve maimed. I’ve destroyed lives both because I wanted to and because I had no other choice. I never really thought about the families of those men, nor how they’d feel when they found out their loved ones were dead. Still, I imagine it felt something like this. A pain so deep and dark that its like drowning. Being pulled under, being held there, your lungs fighting for air, your body’s natural instinct to stay alive, but the more you fight, the quicker you die.
“There,” Jett points to something on the ground beside the car, near the back door on the right side. There’s something – material, I think – on the dusty ground. I know what it is, in my heart I do, but I don’t want to acknowledge it.
At least it’s not her body, Shepard. Be thankful for that.
“Do you recognize them, Prez?” I don’t look at Roman. I can’t tear my eyes away from what I know are my wife’s panties, torn up and thrown to the ground like paper. I bought her that pair. Red lace, French knicker style. I love her in red. They were a present for her birthday. She was wearing them today with the lace balcony bra that matched.
“Prez?”
“Yeah, I recognize them.”
He raped her. Whomever, the guy, was who took Lynette, raped her. The scene before me is evidence of that. He brought her to Lovers Creek to rape and kill her. I know it in my heart without anyone having to tell me anything.
Why and who would do this to her? Lynette doesn’t have a bad or mean bone her beautiful body. She’s everyone’s friend, and she’s there for anyone who needs her, no matter what. How could someone do this to her?
The only thing I can think is that some pervert saw Lynette outside BlackJack’s with Max and took a fancy to her. Why they were out front when everyone else was out back, I’ll never know. I should have known because I know if Lynette had been out in the backyard, she would have stopped me going off on Stryker the way I did.
Lynette is the most beautiful woman I ever set eyes on. My beautiful wife who possessed the kind of beauty Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn did. Those green eyes of hers would penetrate me the way no one else's eyes ever could. She saw right through me. She knew my heart and soul. She knew them because they belonged to her, and she took such good care of them.
Did I take good enough care of hers? She gave them to me so willingly. Always has she been there for me and my boy, even Nova when she was here. Willow and Lynette are best friends, and she’s perfect with VJ and Max. She’s our rock.
What will I do without her?
Why the hell am I even entertaining the thought that I won’t see her alive again? My Lynette is a fighter. Hell, she’s so strong that she’s put me on my ass a couple of times when training in the gym with me. We did that a lot together through training. I have to keep myself in peak physical condition being who I am, and Lynette often joined me, training her perfect body as a weapon just in case.
I just hope all that training didn’t leave her mind when she was at her most afraid. I hope she fought the sonofabitch with all her mite. I hope she caused the piece of scum some real fuckin’ damage. The same way I will when I catch the cunt because I will catch him, and when I do? I’ll tear him the fuck apart!
His car is still here, that means he’s still here, either burying her body or hiding in the woods somewhere until we give up and leave. I’m not leaving until I find my wife, dead or alive!
“Search the woods, and don’t one of you give the fuck up until you find her!”
“Half the brothers are already in there searching for her, Prez.”
“Good,” I nod at Ace. “The rest of you get in there. Two of you stay by the car in case the cunt who took her comes back. I want every damn inch of those woods searched! She has to be here somewhere! You see that bastard, you shoot him, but not to kill. I want that motherfucker for myself.”
“You got it, Prez.” I get a collective set of nods of agreement before they take off in different directions, everyone but Jett.
“We’re gonna find her, Dad. She’ll be just fine.”
“I hope you’re right.” Because if you’re not, I don’t know what I’ll do.
It’s getting darker. The further I walk into these woods the darker it gets. Pretty soon, it will be too damn dark to see anything. I need a little more time. I know in my heart there’s something in these woods that will help me find her. Don't ask me how I know, I just do.
I can hear my men all around me yelling my wife’s name, Jett yelling, Mom into the night. My heart is pounding in my chest so hard I can feel the pain of it radiating down my arm. I clutch my right arm and wince. I have to shake it off. I’m not going out the way my old man did. I need to find my girl.
A gurgling sound pulls my attention to the left of me. A smirk creeps across my face. “Well, well, what do we have here?” I step closer to the lump slumped against a tall tree, its root's showing. It’s not as light as it was, the night owls are out, I can hear them all around me as I walk towards the lump.
It’s too dark to make him out from where I am right now, and it is a him, I can hear him groaning in pain. I get down on my haunches in front of him. His arm is wrapped around his middle in pain. Smells like he's pissed his jeans. I don’t know what’s worse, the smell of piss or the smell of sweat.
“You just gonna sit there lookin’ at me, or you gonna help me?” Help him? I should, but I won’t, not until he’s told me what I want to know. Somehow, I know he knows.
“Where is she?”
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“I should’ve known it was you,” There it is, admittance. He took my wife! “Bitch told me she’d married a filthy biker. You always did want her, from the day you fuckin’ met her. It was too damn obvious!”
I grab his fucked up face in my hand and squeeze. “Who the fuck are you? What have you done with Lynette?!”
“You know who I am, asshole, just as much as I know who you are.”
“Is that so?” I have no fuckin’ clue who this dickhead is! “Where is she?!”