Halligan To My Axe (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 2) (26 page)

“Where are you?” He barked.

“The diner.” I said in horror.

“We’ll be there in five. We’re right around the corner.” He growled before hanging up.

That five minutes was the longest of my life.

As soon as they’d gotten there, they’d set up a command post of sorts, put out BOLOS, and questioned nearly everyone at the scene.

All the while, I stood back, watching with my heart nearly torn in two.

“Kettle?” I asked, suddenly remembering a joke between Viddy and me when she’d gotten stranded by our brother all those months ago.

“What?” He said distractedly as he looked at a map on his car.

The man with the scar under his eye was standing next to him, listening to every word he said.

“Kettle!” I said urgently, making him finally turn and look at me.

“What?” He snapped.

“Do you remember when I joked about getting Viddy a GPS tracker? Well, I did. It was one of the ones you stick on the stuff you don’t want to lose. I saw it on a commercial that had it on a dog’s collar, and they found him when he was lost. If Viddy was actually carrying hers, as she told me she would, wouldn’t that work right now?” I asked desperately.

The Native American man who’d been standing on the opposite side of the truck stepped forward, looking at me intently.

“Did she set it up?” He asked me.

“Yes, I did. But it’s one of the one’s you have to keep charged. And I don’t know if she’s been doing that or not. How would I know?” I asked worriedly.

“Did you set it up on the computer or your phone?” He asked.

“My phone.” I said, handing it to him.

He started punching in buttons, and then let out a curse of exhilaration. “Fuck yes, I got her. It’s giving me coordinates. Hold on,” he said as he placed my phone on the roof of Dixie’s truck and pulled his own phone out before he started typing. “Bingo. They’re on I-20 East Bound heading towards Alexandria.”

“Dixie, make sure she doesn’t leave. Take her straight home and sit on her if you have to. Adeline, I’m counting on you to not make me worry about you.” He said before kissing my lips, and roaring off, followed by eight more bikes and the truck that the Native American man and the one with the scar under his eye.

I watched with my heart in my throat as the love of my life set off to bring my twin home. The other half of my soul.

“It’s going to be okay, honey. They’ll bring her home. No matter what.” Dixie said as he pulled me in close.

That no matter what was what bothered me.

***

Kettle

6:59 P.M.

“They stopped at Lake Darbonne. They took Lake Darbonne Road, and then onto Lake Road from there. I have the property listed as belonging to a Reese Madison. That’s Gustavo’s married sister’s lake home. It’s empty and on the market, according to the realty records.” Jack said where we were stopped on the side of the road.

We’d stopped nearly a mile and a half away near some dumpsters.

“How are we going to do this?” Silas asked Sam, yielding to the judgment of the most experienced man on the team.

Sam looked taken aback at his father’s trust in him, but quickly took charge.

“We wait for dark. It’s only thirty minutes from now, and that should give your friend time to get here with his dog. You said he was another twenty minutes...” He trailed off as Trance’s personal truck started to zip past them before locking the brakes up and backing up until he was in front of the dumpster.

He hopped out of the truck and walked determinedly towards us, his face a mask of fear.

“Do you know where she is?” He asked apprehensively.

He visibly relaxed at our nods, calling Radar out of his truck, before he collapsed against the bumper in relief.

“Tell me what we’ve got.” He rumbled.

Sam started outlining what he’d like done; telling us who went where, and then we looked at the blue prints of the house and grounds.

“He hasn’t been here long enough to have anything set up. From what I can tell, he used his cell phone to call the sister in Iowa, where she lives now. They were on the phone for ten minutes before they hung up, and Gustavo’s course veered from Alexandria to Farmersville within two minutes of that call. It looks like he’s just looking for a place to hide out until he can figure out his next move. If we’re lucky, he’ll have no safeguards in place at all.” Jack said as his eyes flicked over the computer screen in front of him.

I couldn’t help the manic smile that overtook my face in that instant. It was really good to have that man on my side. ‘Cause working against a man of his caliber really wouldn’t be good.

“So do we walk in?” Silas asked once we got the logistics of what the plan was. “I think that’s best. Although, I think walking along the outer tree line that lines the lake would be best.” Sam rumbled.

We all nodded in confirmation.

“Now, I want to be sure that we all understand that this is going to be a police operation. Loki, Trance and Radar need to be the only ones that fire anything or offer any deadly force. It’s going to be the only clean way any of this can be done without pulling strings.” Silas noted from his position at Sam’s side.

Although he said it to all of us, his eyes were pinned on me, making sure he got the point across.

I gave him an assuring nod, and we set out down the tree line.

The walk was less than a mile and a half walking distance through the woods, since we were able to cut off nearly half the distance that it took to drive there.

Everything that happened once we reached the property line was just this side of anticlimactic.

Viddy was sitting at the kitchen table with her hands and feet bound to the chair.

Gustavo was pacing and yelling into his phone, nearly the entire kitchen’s length away from Viddy.

Warily, Trance and Loki advanced on the door while the rest of us fanned out around the property.

I took the side door that led out from the dining room while Trance and Loki both took the sliding glass door that led into the kitchen.

Even better, the glass door was open, allowing the cool night breeze in through the screen door.

Allowing us to hear every bit of the conversation. Which was how we knew that Gustavo was alone, weaponless, as well as pissed way the hell off that he’d grabbed the wrong sister, risking everything to kidnap this woman which wouldn’t even get him anywhere.

I was inside the house and rounding the edge of the hallway, just barely able to see into the kitchen as Loki stepped inside, when Gustavo turned away in his pacing. He had his back to the door allowing Loki to step entirely into the kitchen before he turned and even saw that anyone was there.

Then he tried to run. Directly towards me.

Ignoring the earlier warning from Silas, I reared back my arm and punched the smaller man with every bit of fury that had built up in the past sixteen years. Releasing every single bit of it on the man, and then some.

The punch took him on the cheekbone.

I clearly heard the crunch of a bone shattering, and then he went down. Hard.

His head hit the tiled floor first, followed shortly after by the rest of him.

It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to keep from rearing my leg back and kicking him, beating the ever loving shit out of him until his face no longer resembled anything human.

But then Sebastian’s hand curled around my shoulder and hauled me back from temptation, practically dragging me backwards until I was back outside and standing in the cool winter air.

“You’re okay.” Sebastian said to me, and it was only then that I realized just how quickly I was breathing.

My lungs were billowing like a freight train, and each puff of my breath filled the cold night air like a cloud, surrounding me.

“You piece of shit. You stupid, goddamn piece of shit. I should fucking kill you. You’ve taken nearly everything from my sister. You don’t deserve to live.” Viddy screeched, making the tension in my shoulders ease slightly.

“Who are you calling?” Sebastian asked as I walked to where I could see the show unfold in the kitchen.

“My soon to be wife.”

***

9:37 P.M.

“Cameras are off, but I don’t know for how long. Keep it under control though. The captain won’t like this if you beat the shit out of him. Try to keep a lid on it, eh?” Loki confirmed as he showed me to the interrogation room Gustavo was in.

I walked into the room without saying a word of affirmation to Loki, and immediately clenched my hands into tight fists as not to pummel the little weasel’s face.

Gustavo grinned at me, instantly knowing who I was as soon as I stepped through the door.

I walked sedately into the room, trying with all of my ability to keep the fury I was feeling back.

“So you finally came to find out what my motives were, yes
cazzo
?” Gustavo asked.

Cazzo
. Dick. Glad he could be original.

My father had said that often when I was growing up

“Yes, cameras are off,” I said staring at the man. “Tell me why.”

“You got a letter. I would’ve left you alone if it wasn’t for the letter.” He shrugged.

“You wasted your time. I never even read the letter.” I growled in frustration.

“It doesn’t matter,
cazzo
. I’ve been meaning to find you and say thank you for years now. I would’ve never known if you hadn’t sent that package from Iraq. I never intended to hurt your
bastardo
that bad, but once it happened, well, it just happened. Rosalie was kind enough to keep it quiet, although I did have to threaten her a wee bit.” He said holding up my fingers a short distance from the other.

“Anyway, I thought for sure when your papa delivered that letter to you, that you would read it, but you didn’t. Only that girl of yours did. Of course, then I had to kill her. I used her brother. Those stupid little twit kids. Nobody could follow through, so I had to do it myself. Sorry about your sister, though. That’s too bad.” He grinned and bared his teeth.

Hearing what I needed to hear, I started to leave the room, but stopped when I reached the doorway.

“Just remember this,
cazzo
. Don’t drop the soap. I hope you enjoy playing the bitch.” I hissed before crashing out of the room.

***

10:18 P.M.

I watched as Adeline and Viddy reunited, keeping my mouth shut and letting them have their moment.

“So she was kicking him?” Adeline giggled. “Did Trance toss her over his shoulder before or after she kicked him in the face?”

“After. Trance had her nearly outside before she squirmed her way loose, heading for the downed man
.
Then, she reared back and kicked him in the face, breaking his nose and spraying blood absolutely everywhere.”

“Yeah, I think it got in my hair.” Viddy groaned from the couch beside Adeline.

Adeline giggled even more as she pulled her sister towards her, and buried her nose in Viddy’s hair.

“I can’t believe you did that. Thank you.” Adeline whispered.

“I guess you should really thank yourself. You’re the one who bought me that dog tracker thing. Worked out well, too. I had it around my neck.” She said as she pulled the object that was on a chain around her neck from beneath her shirt.

It was a circular medallion type thing that was the size of a quarter.

“No, that was you keeping it charged. Without that, it would’ve been useless.”

Viddy waved the comment away with a flick of her hand. “Whatever.”

“Squeeze you to pieces, Viddy.” Adeline said as she curled a little more into her sister.

“Squeeze you back together.” Viddy replied.

Ride with me forever.

-A note from Kettle to Adeline on their wedding day.

Adeline

“Alright, I’ll be back momentarily. I want you to start reading the lab manual, and then we can get started on the lab. Rebecca, can you...”

Beeeeeeep.Beeeeeeep.Beeeeeeep.

The fire alarms started ringing, making my heart lurch up into my throat. Although I’d known we were doing a fire drill today, it still scared the crap out of me. The fucking thing was louder than hell, and on the verge of giving me a seizure.

“Alright ladies and gentlemen, line up at the door. Leave your things. Cell phones too.” I said to the class before heading to the door.

As they filed out, one by one, and started heading for the nearest exit, I counted my class until I was sure I had them all, and then followed behind them. “Head to the football field. We’re at the thirteen yard line, remember?” I called up ahead.

They all grumbled their acknowledgements as we made our way down the hall and outside into the cool spring air.

It’d been two months since that horrible night my sister was abducted, and I still woke up in night sweats just thinking about how she’d been taken right in front of me.

Viddy, on the other hand, had seemed to come out of her shell. She’d started coming to more of The Dixie Wardens’ Barbeques, as well as any party that they threw. I was enjoying each and every minute of having her back, too.

“Gentlemen, stop holding up the line. Please continue to follow the crowd to the field. Jackson Freeman, what did I say...oh, my God.” I gasped.

The boys I’d been yelling at moved all at once, and there in front of me, down on one knee, was the love of my life. Decked out in his bunker bottoms and helmet.

It took me a while to get past the fact that my man was down on one knee in the middle of a fire drill, but then I happened to look down in front of him to see ‘
Will You Marry Me’
written out in fire hose.

I looked at the man, staggered for a few stunned seconds before I took off running, tackling him to the ground and giving him kisses on the face, nose, and mouth. Practically any part of his body I could reach without it being indecent.

“So I take that as a yes?” He asked happily.