Page 11 of Rev
Edge pulled his favorite knife from his pocket and twirled it absentmindedly through his fingers. His voice was dangerously lethal when he asked, “You think she was being chased?”
“Yeah.” The answer came fast because every instinct I had was already screaming it. Delaney’s voice had been drenched with fear when she begged me not to leave her there. And I could still feel the way her body had trembled against mine while she clung to me like I was the only solid thing left in her world.
Kane stayed quiet while I continued talking, letting me work through the details in my own order, the way he always did.
“Fresh rope burns around her wrists, cuts all over her legs and feet from running barefoot through brush, and she wore some weird old-fashioned dress that looked completely outta place. Cage checked her over, and somebody definitely restrained her recently.”
Nobody in this club reacted kindly to women being hurt, but the mention of restraints changed the atmosphere completely. The Redline Kings had never pretended to be good men. We belonged to asphalt and the shadows most people feared to tread. Violence ran through our veins as surely as loyalty was inked onto our skin. Some people saw us as criminals, others painted us as heroes. In reality, the truth lay somewherebetween the two extremes, depending on who was spinning the story.
The written laws of society didn’t matter much to us. Our rules were internalized—fierce loyalty, earned respect, and ruthless protection of what was ours. Some brothers walked closer to darkness than others, and Kings handled plenty of ugly business, but none of us would let someone cross certain lines. If someone stepped over one—like men who abducted women and tied them up—they fell squarely into the category of people we buried.
“You think abduction?” Kane asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded grimly. “I don’t know exactly what kind yet because she’s in no shape to give us a real statement, but every instinct I have says she escaped captivity. Which means whoever took her is probably already looking for her.”
Edge pushed away from the wall a little. “You think this is local?”
“I don’t know yet.” Frustration roughened my voice because I hated not having answers. “Could be some psycho holding women out in the woods for all I fucking know. Or trafficking. Maybe just somebody keeping her locked up privately. Until she can tell us what happened, we’re working blind.”
Kane nodded, absorbing everything while I continued pacing the office.
“She’s terrified somebody’s coming for her.” My jaw tightened as Delaney’s exhausted face flashed through my head again. “Every time I moved more than a few inches away from her, she panicked.”
Kane’s eyes narrowed at that. “She imprint on you already?”
“Feels like it.”
That answer earned another understanding look between both brothers.
Edge’s mouth twitched faintly. “Well, you’re fucked.”
“Helpful,” I muttered.
“Just honest.”
“She tell you her name?” Kane asked.
“Just Delaney.”
“No last name?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
Edge snorted softly, “You’re losing your touch, brother. Woman’s already wrapped around you like a seat belt, and you still don’t have her last name.”
“She was half-conscious,” I muttered.
“Still sounds like slacking.”
Kane ignored our back-and-forth, his focus still locked on me. “You trust your read on her?”
The answer came easier than it should have. “Completely.”
My certainty settled heavily through the room because every man in this club understood what it meant when one of us said something like that. We trusted our instincts with our lives. On the road, in fights, and during races. The moment something felt wrong, we listened because hesitation got people killed.
Kane leaned back against the edge of his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “Then she’s under club protection while we figure out exactly what we’re dealing with.”
Relief hit me hard enough that some of the tension finally eased from my shoulders for the first time since Delaney stumbled into my arms out on that road.
