One More Ride (Night Riders Motorcycle Club Book 3) (7 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Sitting in an interrogation room with mirrors for windows, Lauren held Blake’s hand tighter and gazed into his eyes.

“I’m scared,” she said “We shouldn’t have done this.”

“It’s going to be alright,” he promised her. “And I’m right here.”

“You don’t wish you had stayed back with the others?”

Blake stayed quiet, and Lauren started to shift in her seat when he kissed her quickly and stroked her cheek.

“Not a chance,” he said. “No place else I’d rather be.”

Lauren hesitated before believing him, and Blake took her into his arms and whispered into her ear.

“I got you,” he promised. “And we’ll make it work.”

Gazing into his eyes, Lauren tried to tell herself hat his words were true, and she sat with his hand in hers as the door pushed open a mismatched pair entered the room.

“Well, well, well. What have we got here?”

The younger of the pair with dark skin and a lighter uniform pounded his fist to the table before sitting opposite them and pressing his fingers together. Even as Lauren stayed closer to Blake, she feared the man slapping papers on the table. At least the older man, wearing a simple suit, gave her a kind smile and as he stepped into the shadows. If she was going to trust one of them, then he would be the one. But it was the other man’s show, and Lauren had no choice but to meet his dark eyes as he had laid out the entire timeline of her absence from so-called civilization under a series of cold questions.

“Lauren Nichols,” he started. “Went missing two months ago. No contact with family or friends.”

“We know the story, Kyle,” the older guy said as he tapped his shoulder. Kyle shrugged him off and glared at Blake as he continued to speak.

“And now here you are. Sort of like a miracle.”

Lauren blushed and started to give her version of events when Kyle stretched to his full length and glared at Blake.

“And who the hell are you?” Kyle challenged.

Blake looked to Lauren, and she thanked him with a quick squeeze of his hand.

This is still my show. And I can make it work.

“My… my friend,” Lauren said as she pulled Blake closer and peered into Kyle’s eyes. “He helped me get back. And I—”

“If I buy that, then I’ve seen it all.”

Kyle pushed his papers aside and nearly flew across the table as he leered into Blake’s eyes. “What’s your deal?” he challenged. “Keep her away from the people that only want her back and bring her back to the land of the living when you can get some green for your crime?”

Lauren started to shake her head when Blake let go of her hand and stretched to his feet.

“I’m here for her.” he spat. “And I never—”

“Aren’t you Blake Bell?” Kyle flipped one page over before he spoke and reached across the table for Blake’s collar before Lauren knew what was happening.

“Leave him alone!” Lauren screamed.

She was nearly on her feet when Blake pushed her back to her chair. Wincing in the wake of his action, she tried to stand again when he shot her a cold glare and shook his head.

“I saw that,” Kyle spat. “Want to keep her from telling us the whole story?”

Looking to the older man, Kyle’s eyes flashed and his partner or whatever held back as Kyle grabbed Blake by his neck and started to push his body to the ground. Lauren gasped and brought her hands to her mouth as Blake collapsed at her feet. Their eyes locked for all of a second, and Blake tried to smile when Kyle crushed his fist to his chest and drove the breath from his lungs.

“Stop it! Stop it! Don’t hurt him!” Lauren pleaded as she tried to pull Kyle away. If she could just talk to him, make him understand what had happened, she could tell her story and get Blake’s hand back in hers.

“Miss,” Kyle started, “I see this kind of thing all the time. Prick took you and your car. Sold the latter, and god knows what he did to you.”

Frantically shaking her head from side to side, she spoke quickly as she continued trying to touch Blake, longing to wipe away the tension expanding about his back as he remained doubled over in agony.

“It wasn’t like that!” Lauren insisted.

“And now he hears that there’s a reward for your safe return,” Kyle continued. “So he wants a piece of that action.”

Kyle gripped Blake by the scruff of his neck, and the cop forced the biker’s contorted face to his eyes.

“How’d you pull it off?” Kyle demanded as she slapped Blake’s cheek and pressed the heel of his shoe into Blake’s foot. “Tell her to play nice or you’d sic some of your scum on her family? The people that really care about her?”

A thin stream of blood left Blake’s lips, and he licked it away with a smirk and a groan as Kyle pushed him into the corner. Standing up straighter, Blake turned his gaze to Lauren and smiled weakly as his breath heaved in his chest.

“Think I don’t?” Blake managed, his words for the cop even as his eyes stayed on Lauren trembling just a few feet away from him. Again Lauren tried to move forward, her only thought to place her body between him and Kyle.

He won’t hit me. He’ll have to listen—

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Kyle said as he grabbed Blake again and shoved him to his knees, striking him again.

Lauren gasped when Blake summoned the strength to fight back. Winding his arms around Kyle’s legs, the cop lost his footing and nearly stumbled backwards into the table when Abbott whipped out a pair of handcuffs. In one smooth, swift move, he pushed Blake back to the wall.

“No! Lauren protested as Kyle recovered and she tried to pry Abbott away from Blake’s side. Despite his apparent age, she was no match for Abbott. Losing the battle before it even started, Lauren turned her head to the sight and the sound of other uniforms entering the room.

“Let’s put this prick on ice.” Kyle ordered as Abbott pushed Blake’s crumpled form into the arms of the other officers. Lauren screamed as Blake was led away, but Abbott’s hands on her shoulder kept her feet locked on the place where she stood even as her arms flailed wildly.

“Dumb move, Bell,” Kyle spat. “But who knows? Maybe you’ll talk if we promise to go easy on you.”

Again he drove his fist into Blake’s back, and Lauren felt as if her heart tore in the two as he winced and moaned.

“But not too easy,” Kyle threatened. “About time someone put you assholes in their place. Or at least get a mole.”

As soon as Blake was gone and the door slammed shut, Lauren felt Abbott push her into one of the abandoned chairs. The older man fell to his knees and took her hand even as she continued to struggle.

“Calm down, little girl,” he said in a soothing tone.

“No.” Lauren protested. “You guys have it all wrong!”

“Shhh,” he soothed. “Easy now. I know how horrible it must have been for you. Being taken by a man like—”

“Will someone just listen to me?” Lauren cried as she threw her head back and pressed her palms to her flushed cheeks. “He didn’t take me. Not at first, I—”

Slapping her hand over her mouth, Lauren fell silent in fear. She had said too much, and without wanting to, these men who were sworn to serve and protect could easily spin her words, twist them into a series of sharp nails that would close Blake’s coffin.

“Sounds like a story,” Abbott said as he pulled one of the other chairs to her side and sat slowly. His mouth curled into a soft smile, his wrinkles seeming to expand across his leathery face as he patted her knee gently.

“Okay, Miss Nichols,” he started. “Just you and me right now. Let’s say you give me your version of events.”

“And… and then you’ll let Blake go?” she asked, her heart fluttering at the prospect that he would be free and that she would be able to hold him again.

“Can’t promise you anything,” Abbott admitted. “To hear Kyle tell it, Blake’s been known to stir up some shit in his time. Rides with a rough crew.”

Rough? No. That was the wrong word. Fierce was better, loyal to their own code above all else. Kyle could beat Blake until he was bloody, and she knew that Blake would never give him a name let alone a location where his boys could be found and captured like animals in need of cages.

And Lauren wouldn’t play that game either.

“I… I don’t know anything about that,” Lauren lied. “He never hurt me. You don’t believe me?”

Abbott’s tongued curled around the inside of is cheek, and she sat on the edge of her seat, her heart in her throat as she hoped, prayed, that he would accept her version of events.

“I’d like to Miss Nichols,” he said. “But you got to admit, there’s a lot of gaps to fill in.”

“I know,” Lauren muttered under her breath.

“Like if it’s all so innocent, why wouldn’t you just call your family and let them know where you were.”

She was on the verge of spinning the story of her wanderlust just desperate for adventure. Sure it was selfish and made her look like a monster. Lauren would take the brand if it just meant that—

“Do you have any idea what this did to them?”

Lauren started to speak again when Abbott pulled his phone from his pocket. Swiping the screen to life, he brought up a video feed and forced the moving images to Lauren’s eyes. There, in the home of her childhood, she saw her parents sitting side by side. Carter Nichols seethed as Quinn kept her eyes on her feet. The sight of her mother’s tear-stained face tugged at Lauren’s soul. And yet she thought she saw a slight smile on her lips as Drew, sitting tall and stony-faced at her mother’s other side, pled into an unseen camera.

Lauren, if you can hear this, if you can hear me, we just want to know where you are. And if… if someone has you, then… then just try to—

If someone had my daughter, I will hunt them down and show no mercy.

In the video, Quinn chided her husband to calm down and finally turned her eyes upward.

I just need to know that you’re okay, honey. Please.

As Abbott ended pushed stop and pressed the phone back into his pocket, Lauren’s eyes burned with tears, and she held her face in her hands as her shoulders quaked. She couldn’t go through with it. Not according to her original ill-advised plan. Because if she really was just off for some fun, if she had the chance or the choice, she would have called her mother, and Quinn Nichols would have understood. She said as much before Lauren took off in the first place.

“So?” Abbott asked as he took her hand again. “How did it really go down?”

Treading carefully, Lauren told him the truth of her kidnapping and the horror that was the night of the auction.

“And Bell bought you to play around with, right?”

Giving into the memory of Blake’s touch for all of a second, her mind struggled with how to make it sound anything but dirty and brutal, searching for a story that this man might believe so that she could win his Blake his freedom.

And then her mind turned to Grace.

“No,” Lauren stated firmly. “He… protected me. And I’m going to stay grateful to him for that.”

“Protected you?” Abbott asked as he arched his eyebrow and crossed his arms over his shoulder.

“Yes,” Lauren continued. “He’s never made me do anything that I didn’t want to do.”

Which was entirely true. Maybe she hadn’t known what her body longed for most before she knew what it was to have his hands on her, but it was real and more than she had had with any other man.