Redeemed (Bad Blooded Rebel #4) Read online

  Chapter 3

  Ryder

  I watched as Everleigh sashayed away from me and went back to the table with Kris and Beau. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing she was safe and went into the bathroom to pee. I unzipped my pants and took a long piss in the urinal. I had just zipped up when I heard the bathroom door open and the sound of slow footsteps behind me. I tensed as alarm bells were going off in my head…something didn’t feel right. I was about to reach for my gun but before I could I felt a sharp blow to the side of my head and then everything went dark.

  “Ryder? Ryder, are you okay?” I heard someone say. It sounded like it was coming from far away at first, but then the voice got louder and louder. Where there was dark I now started to see light and when I opened my eyes I flinched from the brightness of the fluorescent bulbs. “Ryder? Fuck, he’s alive! Open your eyes, man, open your eyes!”

  My eyes focused and I saw Jude leaning over me, looking scared, which instantly made me tense up. If Jude looked afraid something was seriously wrong. I tried to sit up and my head started screaming. “Oh fuck, my head,” I groaned, putting my hand to my temple. “I’m going to kill that fucking prick!”

  “Listen, man, the ambulance is on the way,” he said, “just try to stay down.”

  I pushed against him and sat up against the wall. “I don’t need an ambulance, I’m fine. I need to go after that fucking asshole and stop him before he gets to Everleigh.”

  Suddenly the room was quiet and it made me take notice. I looked from Jude to Beau and Kris. They all looked panicked as they glanced at each other. “Ryder-” Kris started but I cut him off.

  “What the fuck is going on? What aren’t you telling me?” I yelled, causing my head to throb painfully and my eyes blur. “Where’s Everleigh?”

  Beau looked down at the ground before he looked at me. “Scott’s fucking got her, man.”

  My heart dropped at that moment and I growled out a yell so loud that it made the three of them flinch. “How the hell did he get her?”

  “She’d been back to the table for about fifteen minutes and then said she had to use the bathroom. We watched her come this way and it looked like she went into the ladies room,” Jude answered, a devastated look on his face. “After about five minutes she still hadn’t come back and you were still gone so we came to check things out and we found you in here.”

  Kris said, “A few witnesses outside told John that they saw Everleigh being forced into a cab by someone that looked like Scott. He was fucking too fast man. He had to be following us so he would know how to get to her.”

  I yelled out again and this time, the sound surprised me. It wasn’t a threatening growl, but a cry of desolation. The tears were pouring from my eyes before I could stop them and I thought I would collapse again. I tried to stand but I fell to the ground again and Jude caught me. I felt his strong arm around my shoulders holding me up as I broke down. My beautiful Everleigh had been taken by the sadistic fuck that tried to violate her, murdered her friend, and tried to kill me tonight. This was a huge city and rationally I knew there was no way in hell anyone would be able to find her in time before he raped her…or worse.

  I closed my eyes and tried to feel her…I had to know she was still alive. He could have her anywhere and he could be doing anything to her right now. I imagined her in some dirty motel room, terrified as he hovered over her. I imagined him tearing at her clothes and her screaming for help. I imagined him finally getting what he wanted…to violate my sweet Everleigh in such a heinous way and her being powerless to stop it. The thought made my heart break a thousand times over.

  I barely registered anything as I felt Jude’s arm leave me and several people crowding around me, touching my head and applying something to my cut that stung and burned. I heard someone say I didn’t need stitches and that I might have a possible concussion from the hit, and then I felt someone trying to stand me up. “Ryder, come on, you’ve got to focus. Everleigh needs you to be strong right now,” I heard Beau say. “We need to find her and you have to lead the way.”

  I shook my head and tried to dissipate the fog in my brain. Beau was right…my beautiful Everleigh needed me right now. I had to be strong for her and not let that fucker knock me down. If anything happened to Everleigh I wouldn’t be able to go on…I had to save her. “Right. Okay,” I said, gathering my thoughts and feel my urge for revenge burning through me. I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand and said, “Where is my phone?”

  “I have it,” Kris said. “She hasn’t called yet, man. My guess is that Scott took her phone. Just try to stay calm, okay? At this point I don’t think he will kill her. He’s been desperate to get her back so if anything he will try to…”

  “Don’t fucking say it, man,” I said, stopping him. I knew what he was thinking. Hell, we all were probably thinking the same thing but if I stopped to think about it again I might kill someone.

  The cops came into the bathroom at that moment and we all walked out into the hall so we could talk. They introduced themselves but I knew I wouldn’t remember their names later. When I finally focused on what they were saying, I heard one of them say, “Mr. Matthews, we are doing everything we can to find your girlfriend.” That statement made me see red.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I snapped.

  “Ryder, calm down, man,” Jude said, grabbing my arm, but I shoved him off.

  “You are doing everything you can? That’s fucking hilarious. Where the hell were you assholes when we called you last week telling you that Scott Adams had fled Indiana after murdering a woman and was here in the city stalking my girlfriend? Where were you when he showed up at my penthouse a week ago and sent a picture of Trisha Cramer’s dead body to Everleigh? What have you all done to try and find this psycho before he tried to kill me and then kidnap my girlfriend? Oh yeah, that’s right, you’ve done nothing!” I screamed, not caring that my head was pounding so painfully I was on the verge of passing out.

  “Mr. Matthews, I am sorry that we haven’t been able to track down Mr. Adams, but I can assure you that we have every available officer on this,” said the cop, who was trying hard to stay calm.

  “Well, that doesn’t fucking mean a thing to me. Until I see Everleigh again and she’s safe and unharmed everything you say to me at this point means dick,” I snapped. I looked out around the club and it had emptied while I was out. My eyes roamed and landed on Danni, who was inconsolably crying. Sadie had a stone hard look on her face…the same one she always got when she was flaming mad. She never cried, she always got pissed and right now I’d never seen her more pissed in my life. Jessie was crying too but she was holding onto Danni and trying her best to comfort her. I looked back to Beau, Kris, and Jude, and they all looked exactly like the girls did…they were devastated that Everleigh had been taken. We weren’t a family without her and I was better off dead if I didn’t find her.

  The cops said more things to me but I just tuned them out. I didn’t care about anything but finding my girl. He could have her anywhere in this city. He could be doing anything to her right now…and I was helpless. Short of calling every single hotel and motel in the city I was at a loss of what to do. I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and I heard Jude say, “Come on, man, let’s go to the station.”

  “I’m not going anywhere but out to find her,” I said.

  “Ryder-” he said but I stopped him.

  “No! I have to find her, Jude! I have to stop him from touching her in any way. I can’t let him defile her…I…can’t…” I said, and I broke down again. God, where could she be?

  Three hours later, we were no closer to finding Everleigh than we were when I woke up. We were all sitting at the police station, waiting for any news to come in on Scott and Everleigh’s whereabouts. I felt like time had completely stopped while I watched the clock on the wall slowly tick the time away. I had gone from devastated to desperate to desolate to just plain numb. I couldn’t believe I let this happen. If I hadn’
t taken Everleigh into the hallway to have ten minutes of sex with her this wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have been alone for Scott to attack me, and Everleigh wouldn’t have slipped away long enough for him to grab her.

  I had completely zoned out and I didn’t register anything around me until I felt a tiny hand on my shoulder. “Hey, brother,” I heard Sadie say. “I got you some coffee.”

  I took her hand and squeezed it. “Thanks, Squirt, but no thanks. I don’t want anything right now.”

  “Come on, the paramedics said you might have a concussion. You need to stay awake and you look like you are on the verge of passing out. Drink this,” she said, forcing the cup of coffee into my hand. “It tastes like shit but it will get the job done.”

  I lifted the cup to my lips and drank a little bit of it to satisfy her. “Thanks, Squirt.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, taking a seat next to me. “How are you holding up?”

  I shook my head and rubbed my hand over my face. “Not good, Sadie. I am feeling about as low as anyone possibly can feel right now.”

  “Oh Ryder,” she said, hugging onto my arm. “She’s going to come home, bro, I can feel it. In fact, I have a feeling that she will find us in the end. She’s going to surprise us all.”

  “I hope you’re right, Sadie. She’s been so scared that this would happen and I promised to protect her and I failed her. Not only her but I also failed her father. I promised him on his death bed that I would take care of her and I haven’t. I promised I wouldn’t let him down and now she’s out there all alone with a crazy fucking psycho and there isn’t anything I can do to protect her.” I could feel burning my eyes.

  “Well, in the short time I have known her I don’t think she’s a shrinking violet like she seems to think she is. She’s got balls under all of her insecurity and she’s going to fight to get back to you. Have faith in her,” she said.

  I prayed to God Sadie was right but after seeing how fragile Everleigh truly was I didn’t know if she was strong enough to survive this. “I hope so, Squirt,” I said and I pulled her into a hug. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime, brother. I love you man.”

  “Love you too.”

  “I’m going to go get an update. Be right back, okay?”

  I nodded at her and didn’t say anything as she walked toward a desk with a couple of cops standing around it. I took a deep breath and barely had a moment to think before Jessie sat down next to me. “You okay?” she asked me.

  “Of course not, Jess. How did this happen? Fuck, we’d all been so careful.”

  “I know, Ryder,” she cried. “This feels like a nightmare. I can’t believe this is happening. You and Ev don’t deserve this.” She placed her hand on my back and tried to comfort me.

  I was going to respond but the sound of Danni’s audible cries caught my attention. She had been silently crying ever since we’d gotten to the police station and wouldn’t let anyone near her. We hadn’t really spoken because we were both crippled under the weight of our own grief. I knew how desperate I felt, being terrified for the love of my life, but I’d only known her a little over four months. Danni had loved Everleigh like a sister for more than twenty years.

  Everyone tried to stow their emotions for our sakes but everyone was so worried about me that I think people were forgetting Danni in all this. Seeing her breaking down in that moment, I knew she was the only one that could truly feel my pain. I stood up for the first time in three hours and walked to where she was sitting with her knees pulled up around her face.

  I sat next to her and without saying a word, I lifted her chin so she could see me and I pulled her into my arms. She looked at me for a split second before we both broke down together. Everyone that knew Everleigh loved her but there weren’t two people in the world that loved her more than we did.

  I knew there was so much we wanted to say to try and calm ourselves, but neither of us could find the words as we held onto each other, consumed by our mounting pain. I held onto Danni as she cried for what seemed like hours. I didn’t realize anyone was around us until I felt Jessie’s arms hugging me around my back. I opened my eyes and blinked through my tears to see Sadie, Jude, Beau, and Kris all huddling down around us, joining Danni and me in a group hug. I looked up to see John still standing, and he had glistening tears in his eyes as well. He was always so tough and strong but he loved Everleigh as much as anyone and was just as desperate to get her home.

  His jaw was hard as he mouthed the words, “We will bring her home,” and I nodded at him, hoping like hell he was right.

  We all sat and held onto each other and prayed to any God that would listen to make our family whole again. I couldn’t live without Everleigh in my life and I prayed hard that I wouldn’t have to try.

  We’d been huddled together for a few minutes when I heard someone’s phone ring. We sat up and glanced at each other for a split second before we all were scrambling to get to our phones. I heard everyone saying that it wasn’t their phone as I reached into my pocket. I pulled it out, pleading and hoping that it was mine. When I focused more clearly and heard the ringtone, “Don’t Cry” by Guns ‘N Roses, my heart filled with hope and adrenaline surged through my veins. It was Everleigh’s ringtone. I swiped the screen and held the phone to my ear with a shaking hand, both hopeful and terrified of what I would hear. “Everleigh? Evie, baby, is that you?” I asked, my voice hoarse and weak. Please be okay, baby…please be okay.

  Chapter 4

  Everleigh

  The entire time we were in the cab, I sobbed silently to myself. I thought of Ryder lying on the floor of the club and I felt overwhelming regret because I never got to tell him everything I wanted to. I’ll never get to kiss his lips again. I’ll never feel his strong arms around me again. I’d never hear him laugh or hear him tell me loves me again. I felt grief like I’d never felt before closing in on me and I totally shut down. I’d lost Daddy, Trish and now Ryder. Knowing that he was dead and I’d never get to tell how much I really loved him was too painful for me to feel. In that moment I went completely numb.

  I barely registered when the cab stopped outside a grungy motel. Scott forced me out of the cab and I slowly got out. He threw some money at the driver and then pushed me forward. He moved us toward the front door of the motel and through the lobby. The knife was still at my back, hidden from any guests that might see it and call for help. As soon as we were out of the lobby, we reached the door of Scott’s motel room. He put the key into the door. Once he unlocked the room, he shoved me inside.

  I don’t know what it was but I felt something strong in that moment. Something that made me stop dead in my tracks…survival. Ryder’s energy must have found me and was trying to tell me to fight.

  “Get in there!” he shouted, still holding the knife to my back. I felt like I was going to faint but I held on to myself and forced myself to stay conscious. I knew that Scott if I passed out, Scott would be able to do what he wanted without me being able to fight back. If I owed Ryder anything out of all of this, it was to fight for my life since he no longer could. There was no way I was going to make it that easy for Scott.

  Once we were inside, he shut and locked the door then gave me a hard shove that sent me tumbling onto the bed. He then looked at me with a terrifying smile on his face. “Alone at last.”

  “Why did you do this to him, Scott?” I whimpered, the first time I’d been able to form words since I was taken from Shadow. “This was about me and how angry you are that we aren’t together anymore, not about him. Why did you have to kill him? Why are you throwing everything away on a woman that doesn’t want you? You have to know that this won’t end well.”

  A crazy smile crept across his face that sent a chill shiver down my spine. He put the knife in his back pocket and calmly, he said, “Oh it’s going to end just the way I planned. We are supposed to be together Everleigh, can’t you see that? These past three years apart have just been a little hiccup in our relationship
.”

  “A hiccup? Are you really that delusional?” I asked, unable to stop the tears rolling down my cheeks. They just wouldn’t stop and it was becoming difficult to see anything through them.

  “You are the one that’s delusional, baby girl. We are meant to be together. I’ve waited patiently for three years for you to see that but when you met that piece of trash rocker I knew that our time apart was over. Clearly you needed reminding of what we shared and that he’s not the one for you.”

  “And your way of reminding me was to kill the man I love and kidnap me at knifepoint?” I cried. My legs drew together and as my ankles touched I felt something hard inside my boot…oh my God, the gun! In all of the commotion I had completely forgotten that I had it tucked inside my boot. I thanked Ryder in that moment for being an alpha male and insisting that I take it with me. Because of his persistence he’d provided me with a way to fight my way out of this nightmare. If I could only reach inside my boot and get it…

  “Well, after the restraining orders you two filed against me back in Indiana and here in New York I couldn’t exactly walk up to you, now could I? I had to take drastic action,” he said, as calmly as if we were sitting and having tea, not hiding out in this motel room.

  I cried harder as I thought of Ryder lying lifeless in the night club. He must be lying all alone on the dirty floor right now, dead and cold. Had anyone even found him yet? “Scott, you know someone will find me. Even though you killed Ryder,” I choked out, the words slicing my heart and draining the life out of me, “the rest of the guys are on alert as well as their bodyguards. If you let me go now I’ll make sure no one hurts you and you get the help you need.” Keep him calm…