Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I didn’t tell Rook a whole lot about that old life. But I did tell him I was from New Mexico. And knowing him like I did, he would remember that.
If all I could do was bide time until rescue, then so be it.
But I wasn’t giving up on escape.
This was clearly a home that had been abandoned suddenly. Someone skipping town. Someone dying with no heirs.
It was a time capsule full of everything the previous tenants owned.
While I didn’t give Randy a lot of credit, I was sure he would have removed any guns or knives if he’d found them. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be items around that I could use to defend myself.
In all the time I’d known Randy, I’d never known him to go without a weapon at all times. A gun at his waist, a knife in his boot, something.
So if I could just… incapacitate him when we were alone, I could find the weapon and use it against the other bikers.
The me who’d crept across the clubhouse floor while the men slept, body shaking so hard I swore my bones clanked together, would never have considered violence against the men who’d enabled their president to keep her captive.
This new me?
I would rip their throats out with my teeth if I needed to.
I was not going back.
I’d rather die.
If that was my fate, at least I’d known a few months of freedom, a few weeks of affection toward and from a good man.
But I was going to fight like hell to get back to him. And if that happened, I was going to finally drop my walls. I was going to tell him all about my years under Randy’s thumb, how he’d broken my spirit, how he’d left me no choice but to run away and live in my car in hopes of a new life.
And when I was done with that story, I was going to tell him what I’d barely been able to admit to myself in those quiet moments before sleep when I was wrapped up in Rook’s arms and satisfied from lovemaking.
That I was pretty sure I was in love with him. That I didn’t want our marriage to be of convenience anymore.
I wanted a life and a future with him.
With those thoughts chasing away some of the terror in my mind and body, I reached for the top drawer of the dresser, pulled it open, and searched inside.
Maybe I’d been giving Randy a little too much credit.
Because I found my road to freedom right there in the goddamn top drawer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rook
I heard the rumble of bikes as they rode all around Shady Valley, looking for a sign of Tessa. Or someone who may have seen her.
“Hey, okay,” Coach said, grabbing my shoulder to stop my pacing beside Tessa’s abandoned car. “That shit ain’t helping anything. Calm down and focus.”
“I can’t.”
My mind was shooting off in a million different directions at once. None of those paths particularly well-lit or leading anywhere positive.
“Alright, look,” Coach said, grabbing my other shoulder too. “Take a breath and calm your ass down. You aren’t helping Tessa if you’re lost in your own useless fears.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The rest of the club—and even the women who didn’t have kids to watch after—were out looking for her. While I lost my shit on the side of the road.
I sucked in a deep breath, feeling it narrow my thoughts down. So I took another. And another.
“There you go,” Coach said, releasing me. “Now tell me what I don’t know about Tessa’s past.”
Which was everything. Since she told my brothers even less than she told me.
“She grew up in biker clubs. Bad ones, from the sound of things. And I think she was… running from someone. Someone powerful.”
“An ex?”
“That’s my best guess.”
“Okay. Before we go assuming he found her, is there any way he could have found her?”
“I dunno. Maybe. Yeah. I think marriage records are public in California. But, I mean, that’s some serious digging to get to that.”
“There’s no other way she could have—”
“Fuck,” I growled, leaning back to look up at the sky.
“What is it?”
“She got a ticket driving home from visiting my mom.”
“Those are public in California,” Coach said.
“Yeah, they are. And easier to find than the marriage records, I’d think. For a novice.”
“Alright. So, it’s possible he tracked her here. But how did he get her out of her car?” he asked, gesturing toward it. “If she saw him, she never would have gotten out willingly, if she was on the run from him.”
“True.”
“How could he have gotten her then?”
My gaze lifted to him then as my mind narrowed to a precision point.
“Grocery delivery,” I said. “He could have ordered groceries.”
“And if he did—”
“The app would have the record of the address,” I said, practically lunging across the front seat to grab her phone.