Page 61 of Ace

Chloroform.

Everything went black.

Chapter 23

Ace

Entering the bar/clubhouse, he didn’t look around for Vipers, because he knew if he saw one, he’d get angry and blow his own cover. Instead, he scanned the crowd for friendly faces, until he noticed a grizzled old rider, and BACA friend sitting on a barstool.

“Duke!” He greeted the older man warmly when he approached and easily engaged him in conversation, keeping one eye on the back of the place the entire time, and the other on his watch. He’d give her ten minutes and if she wasn’t done by then, fuck appearances, boundaries and propriety, he was going in after her.

“Ace!” Duke cried, clapping him on the shoulder. “I haven’t seen you in a minute. Went out of town for a month ‘cause the daughter had a baby girl and the wife was griping about not getting time with the grandbabies, and when I came back, King’s was gone. I heard it was burnt down. Intentionally, wasn’t it? They ever figure out who did it?”

Ace gritted his teeth to keep from blurting out that it had most definitely been a Viper, because that was not a conversation he wanted to get into at the moment. Instead he just shook his head, and changed the subject, sliding onto a barstool beside his old friend.

“How is the new grandbaby?” he asked, because Duke may look like a grizzly ol’ motorcycle man who only cared about tough-guy stuff, but his real soft spot was family. Especially his kids and grandkids.

Just as Ace had expected him to, Duke launched into a whole proud grandparent rant about the newest addition to his family, Miss Ainsley Grace. Ace listened to him rattle off her birth date, height, weight, labor details, and latest accomplishments, nodding with interest while keeping one eye on the door to the back. Six minutes had passed and so far, nothing seemed to be amiss or out of sorts. There had been no yelling, no loud crashes and nothing to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. And yet it was.

Duke had pulled out his phone though, and was scrolling through pictures of baby Ainsley, showing her off just like any proud grandpa would, and Ace was doing his best to ooh and aww over every single image, hoping that the baby pictures would calm him down. It worked a little. Ace would be an old man just like Duke one day, sitting in a bar in his downtime, reliving his glory days, and waxing poetic about family and legacy and showing off the accomplishments of the many kids and grandkids he hoped to have.

Ace smiled at the thought, finally relaxing as the clock ticked to nine minutes, and Ace pulled up a group picture of Duke and his wife with their six kids and eighteen grandkids, all dressed in matching outfits, with not a leather vest in the mix and the grizzly grandpa he knew looking damn near respectable in a button-down red flannel and clean, not worn-out jeans.

“They made me,” he said by way of explanation, with a grumpy tone even though it was as clear as the grin on his face that nobody had to make him do anything because making his wife and kids happy was his life.

“Bull,” Ace said and before he could say more, the familiar sound of Lizzie’s work truck backfiring stopped him in his tracks. “Shit!” He swore and ran to the door,, pulling it open just in time to see the old delivery truck peel out of the lot and onto the highway. Lizzie wasn’t driving.

“Lizzie!” he screamed, tearing through the bar and into the back. The kitchen and storeroom were completely deserted. A knife had been tossed haphazardly on the counter, and a red doo rag was sticking out from under the door. He grabbed it and squeezed it in his hand. It was slightly damp, and he knew instinctively that it wasn’t sweat.

“Fuck!” he screamed, frantically pulling his phone from his pocket and dialing Lizzie’s number. Of course she didn’t answer. God, how could he have been so stupid? She’d fought him every step of the way and insisted that everything was fine, and he was overreacting. She’d sworn she would be okay and griped about him interfering in her workday and causing her to portray a less professional front by dragging her boyfriend along on her calls. Because she’d used the term boyfriend, spitting it out like it was a dirty word, and because they’d always kept a clear line between their dynamic and the rest of their lives, he’d had a weak moment and given in, agreeing to stay out of sight, or blend in. He should have known better. He did know better.

With regret stabbing him in the gut, he dialed her again, and of course it rang a few times before going to voicemail.

It felt like ages had passed since he’d seen them pull out of the lot, and that in itself was sending him into a further spiral of hopeless panic. It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, really because Duke came skidding into the kitchen at top speed, huffing and puffing. “Ace!” he cried, as he skidded to a stop. “What happened?” He stopped and looked around then, as if just realizing that they were the only ones in the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

“No time to explain,” Ace yelled, sending an SOS text to the rest of The Saints. “But can I take your bike?”

Duke only hesitated for a millisecond before digging the keys out of his pocket and tossing them to Ace. “You know where I’ll be when you’re done with it,” he called as Ace raced out the same side door Lizzie had entered, and apparently been taken from. He rushed around the front of the bar to where he’d seen Duke’s bike, grabbed the helmet from the handlebars, and put it on because he couldn’t be much help to Lizzie if his brains were mashed all over the highway, turned the key in the ignition and breathed a deep sigh of relief when the machine roared to life with a souped-up vengeance. He’d barely made it to the edge of the lot when Bear and Axel raced up beside him, squealing to a stop when they saw him on a bike that wasn’t his.

“Fuck,” Axel swore. “What happened?”

“She wouldn’t let me go back with her so I stayed in the front talking to Duke and they took her. The bastards took her.”

“On their bikes?” Axel asked, scanning the road.

“No. In her delivery truck.” Ace answered before peeling out in front of them, racing in the direction he’d seen the truck going. He had no idea where they would take her, if he should turn or get off at the next exit, or what. He had no idea which way Axel and Bear would go or if anyone had called the police. There’d been no time to discuss any of that because every minute he wasn’t on the road gave them more headway, and a better chance to lose him. He came up on an exit, said a prayer and kept going straight, praying he hadn’t just made the mistake that would cost Lizzie her life.

Lizzie

“Great. So now we’re kidnappers, car thieves, and guilty of aggravated assault. God, you dickheads, what is wrong with you? I said swing by the club, help me scare her a bit, get her to give up where her boyfriend and his friends are staying. And you fuckfaces heard, ‘Let’s commit every felony we can think of’.”

Joey was the one speaking. Lizzie rolled around on the cold floor of the delivery truck, willing her eyes to open, and they wouldn’t. She was too groggy. Everything felt heavy and drugged, even her eyelids. But she knew it was Joey. She recognized his voice, and even as out of it as she was, she still felt a zing of satisfaction that she’d apparently been right about him. Joey was pretty harmless. Stupid but harmless. Unfortunately, his friends weren’t.

“What assault?” the one she was pretty sure was Meathead growled. “We didn’t do shit.”

“Chloroforming someone is aggravated assault, I’m pretty sure,” Joey informed him. “And if it’s not, holding a knife to someone’s throat is.”

“Shut up, Joey, you’re such a pussy. Quit whining. Fuck, maybe we oughta knock you out too.”