“No, why?”

“He’s watching Harlow but he’s not answering his phone.”

“You want me to go and check that everything’s alright?”

“No, I’ll go,” I said as I stood up.

I was halfway down the hall when Lisa called me.  “Hey darlin’, you okay?”

“Scott, I’m outside Harlow’s house because she picked me up from school but had to come home to close windows.  She’s been inside for ages and I saw a man just come out to have a smoke.  I don’t think he’s from your club.  Can you come here and see if she’s okay?”

Fuck!

“On my way, darlin’.  Stay where you are and hide if you can.  Do not go inside, Lisa.  Okay?”

“Okay,” she answered me and we hung up.

“Nash!” I bellowed down the hallway.  When he appeared at the door, I yelled, “Black Deeds have Harlow at her house.”

“Fuck!”  He followed me outside.

There was going to be fucking hell to pay for this.

***

We pulled our bikes up a couple of houses down from Harlow’s and ran the rest of the way.  There were four bikes parked further down the street; I felt ill thinking about what we were going to find inside.  Harlow’s car was parked in the driveway and I tapped on the window to get Lisa’s attention.

“I want you to run that way,” I said, pointing down the street, “Keep going until you hit the shopping centre and wait there.  I’ll either come get you or I’ll send someone.”

She nodded fearfully, but did as I said.  It would be safer for her there than here.

Nash was already at the front door.  He eyed me.  “I sent a message to J to round the boys up.  Hopefully they’ll be here soon but we’re going in regardless, yeah?”

“Yeah.”  I pulled out my piece and looked at him, “Ready?”

When he nodded, I lifted my foot and with as much force as I could muster, kicked the door in.  We entered and were soon greeted by three Black Deeds members.  Nash lived for this shit and charged them.  They obviously hadn’t been expecting either of us to do that and he managed to catch them unprepared.  He knocked the first motherfucker out and then took aim at the next one.  While he took those two on, I punched the third one hard on the jaw, knocking his face to the side.  He stumbled from the impact, and hit the wall.  I shoved him to try and get him off balance and then followed as he lurched backwards, punching him again on the other side of his face.  He tried to regain his balance but I’d managed to put him off, and he fell to the ground.  I hovered over him and punched him repeatedly in the face until he passed out.

Nash was still fighting with the second guy who was giving him a good run for his money.  Fighting was in Nash’s blood and I’d never seen anyone get the better of him.  Whenever I had something that needed to be taken care of with violence, Nash was my man.  It was like he zoned out into another state of consciousness, and the punches just kept flying.  However, the guy he was fighting was holding his own so I got in there and threw a couple of punches too.  After a couple of minutes, I decided to try another tack.  I lifted my leg and kicked him fair in the balls.  He doubled over and this gave Nash the perfect opportunity to pistol whip him on the head.  When the guy finally collapsed face first onto the ground, Nash reefed him up and turned him onto his back.  He was semi-conscious and Nash wanted him knocked the fuck out so he kicked him hard in the head.  He kicked him a few times and would have kept going except the first guy we knocked down, sat up and took aim, shooting Nash in the arm.  The bullet grazed him and slowed him down but didn’t bring him to a complete halt; he had too much adrenaline pumping through him for that.  Instead, he turned his attention to the guy that shot him, knocked the gun out of his hand and lunged at him; wielding a punch as he went.

“You motherfucking asshole,” he roared as he finally knocked him unconscious.  Turning to me, he asked, “You want me to put a bullet in these assholes?”

I shook my head.  “No, they’re out for the count and Blade wants to deal with them himself.”

Stopping to listen for sounds in the house, I realised that I could hear a whimpering sound coming from down the hall; from the direction of Harlow’s bedroom.  Fear mixed with adrenaline and I took off in that direction.  I was blinded by desperation; nothing would have stopped me from reaching my destination at that moment.  When we hit her bedroom, I was sickened by the sight we found.  Harlow was gagged, and laid out naked on her bed, her hands tied to the bed above her head, and her feet tied to the bedposts.  She was conscious and her terrified eyes locked onto mine, silently begging me to save her.  Bullet was straddling her, holding a knife to her neck.

“Fuck,” Nash thundered, and Bullet turned feral eyes on us.  In that moment, I fully grasped what a madman he was.  I started to move into the room, mentally calculating how the fuck I was going to get Harlow out of this alive.

“Don’t take another fucking step, or I’ll slash her throat quicker than you can blink,” Bullet threatened, pressing the knife harder against her neck.  He pressed it hard enough to draw blood, and Harlow whimpered.  Her cheeks were damp from her tears and I experienced a pain in my chest that I’d never felt before; like it would fucking explode and my heart would shatter to a million pieces if I didn’t get her out of there.