Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Smoke shakes his head once. Slow. Controlled.
“They didn’t make it back.”
A cold, electric silence descends.
I don’t hear the tools anymore.
Or the radio.
Or the voices outside.
Just that sentence.
“They’re missing,” Smoke adds.
I step forward until we’re chest to chest. “Say that again.”
His jaw flexes. “She’s gone, Stud.”
“Gone how?”
“You know how. You brought the problem here.”
My heart slams against my ribs. A roar fills my skull.
“Don’t play games with me.” My voice is barely human. “Where. Are. They?”
Smoke’s expression isn’t challenging now. It’s stripped bare, all the bravado burned off. Fear lingers under those icy eyes.
“Tiff sent one text,” he says. “Half-mangled by autocorrect and panic.”
He pulls out his phone and shoves it toward me.
The screen shows a text from Tiffany:
Dad—smth wrong road blocked blue car HELP
That’s it.
No follow-up. No pin drop. No call.
Nothing.
My chest hollows out.
“They didn’t come home when Key was expecting them. She called me and said she couldn’t reach her mom.” Smoke explains. “I tracked her phone to a dead zone northwest of town. Then it cut off. I rode the perimeter twice, found her Jeep, but no Tiff and no Holley. I assume you know Holley. Keyleigh told me you did and she was with Tiffany. But there are no signs of them. Nothing.”
I shove a hand through my hair, pacing hard enough to leave grooves in the concrete.
Holley.
Tiffany.
Gone.
My breathing shatters apart. The room feels too small, too hot, too tight.
Smoke steps in my path. “Look—hate me all you want. Hell, I deserve it. But Tiffany matters to us both.”
I whirl on him. “You don’t get to say her name like she’s yours.”
“Like hell I don’t,” he fires back. “I loved her from the moment I met her. I fuck up all the time, but don’t ever say I don’t fuckin’ care. She’s mine too, old man.”
My fist flies before I think. It connects with his jaw in a crack that echoes through the garage.
Smoke stumbles, spits blood, straightens.
“Feel better?” he growls. “Because this isn’t helping shit.”
“No,” I say. “But it was necessary.”
He swipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Then get the rest out so we can find our women.”
The word women nearly breaks me.
Holley.
Soft and strong and scared.
Tiffany. Honey
Tough as steel, stubborn as hell.
Both out there.
Both missing.
Both unsure and we have lost hours.
I step toward Smoke again, but not to hit him this time.
I grab the front of his cut.
“Who took them?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t know yet. Got a brother looking into cameras and seeing what we can sort.”
I release him with a shove. “We’re finding out.” My gut tells me Holley was right in her feelings about being watched after all.
He straightens, wiping the last smear of blood. “Agreed.”
We look at each other, not as enemies now, but as two wolves circling the same prey.
“Tony,” he says, voice steady, “we gotta work together, dammit.”
My throat is tight. “Yeah. We do.”
“Then let’s get your boys.”
“My boys?” I bark out a humorless laugh. “You got a fuckin’ patch too. I didn’t strip that from you.”
Smoke steps closer. “Bullshit. Once a President, always a President. They’ll follow you before they follow anyone else.”
A beat.
He’s right.
I hate that he’s right.
“All right,” I say roughly. “We go to the clubhouse. Call a sermon to Country Boy now.”
He nods. “Finally something we agree on.”
The Hellions clubhouse explodes into motion the second I throw the doors open.
Conversations die. Chairs scrape. Eyes snap to me.
Every man here has seen me angry.
None have seen me like this.
“What’s wrong?” Grinder asks instantly, stepping forward.
“Tiff and Holley,” I say, voice ringing through the room. “They’re missing.”
The reaction is immediate.
“What?”
“Impossible.”
“Where were they?”
“Who took them?”
I raise a hand and the room quiets so fast it feels like gravity snapped.
Smoke stands behind me, arms crossed, bruising already blooming on his jaw.
“They went out two hours ago,” I say. “Never came back.”
Every member straightens like pulled by a wire.
Miles pushes to the front. “We riding?”
“Not yet,” I snap. “We do this smart. Not sloppy.”
Hellions don’t fear chaos.
They fear losing family.
And these women—My daughter.
And Holley…
Holley who slept curled against my chest last night—They matter.
I clear my throat and step forward.
“I’m calling in Tripp and all the charters.”
A shocked murmur ripples.
No one calls that lightly.
It means war footing.
It means all hands.
It means every man in this room drops everything until the targets—our girls—are back safe.
Grinder speaks quietly. “You’re sure? I get it for Honey. That’s your daughter and Smoke’s once upon a time ol’ lady. But Holley, she ain’t yours. I don’t know that Tripp will pull all the resources for random pussy, Stud. And Smoke hasn’t claimed Honey in years. He threw that out when he went Nomad and tossed her off his property on the table that night.”
I inhale sharply. I remember that all too clearly. I should have killed him for it then. Right now I have to shake all of it off. The Hellions have a code and I know what I have to do.