Page 57 of Wolf

Mom grips me hard enough to bruise. “You bring hell down on that man,” she snarls, her eyes snapping with a sudden and awful impotent rage. She’s furious and can’t do anything about it.

Which means that it’s up to me.

I grab up my phone and call Wolf. I know he’s supposed to work later, but he should still be…

He picks up on the first ring. “Hey, baby, you didn’t get enough of me earlier?”

The grin in his voice makes me tear up. Things were so good and now they’re so bad.

“Julia? You there?” I can feel his smile fading.

I squeeze my free hand into a fist and recall what Mom said. I pull in a shaking breath. “Wolf, something bad’s happened. You need to get over here and get the whole MC on high alert. Now.”

He doesn’t ask for details. He just hangs up, and it’s not half a minute later that I hear the first motorcycle engine roaring. More join the first, and the whole world rumbles as basically every member of the Steel Riders descends on the little house.

I stagger outside with my arms wrapped around Mom, just in time to see the first riders pulling up. Wolf is among the first. He leaps off his bike before it comes to a stop, leaving it to collapse and scrape on the road as he charges toward us. He grabs mine and Mom’s shoulders and bends his head to look down at us. “What’s happened?” he demands, as more and more bikers arrive and cross the yard toward us. “Shit, Ruby, your eye!”

Mom’s face collapses as she breaks down completely. A woman rushes up to us, her light hair flying out behind her. It’s Stephanie, who must have ridden along with her husband. She grabs onto Mom and coaxes her to sit down on the porch.

“It’s Artie!” I cry and grab Wolf’s arm tight. My heart aches so bad I can barely speak enough to get the dreaded words out. “Malcolm was here. He took Artie!”

Wolf’s eyes flare wide. He spins away with a roar that makes the cords in his neck stand out. He slams his fist against the side of the house, howling out in rage.

“Shut the fuck up, man!” Edge runs over and shakes him. Wolf shoves him away and then the two of them are facing each other like they want to fight. Edge thumps his fist into his palm, grinding his knuckles and making frightening crackling sounds. “Ain’t got no time for your dramatics. Shut your trap and listen!”

Steel somehow manages to look like the eye of the storm, calm in the midst of chaos. “This is a kidnappin’. This fucker is goin’ to prison for a long damn time. That’ll take care of every other problem you got, but we got to find him, and we got to make sure that little boy gets home safe. Don’t worry, Julia, we’re gonna get him back for you.”

My name in his voice startles me. I snap my head up.

“You got any idea where Malcolm possibly could have gone?” Steel asks. “He wouldn’t go back to the city. Has he got relatives somewhere?”

“No, his parents died and he never talked about any aunts or uncles.” It’s all I can do not to break down and scream out like Wolf did. My son is out there, and I don’t know what’s happening to him. Literally anything could happen to him. It will be all my fault. I should have stayed with Malcolm even though he hit me. I should have tried harder to make him happy, been the wife that he wanted. I should have cooked better meals, and serviced him whenever he wanted it, and done holiday parties to rival all the other perfect lawyer wives. Then we’d go on perfect vacations, the kind that he could brag about…

“Vacation,” I whisper, suddenly remembering something.

“What’s that?” Steel leans down. “He got a vacation home?”

“It’s a cabin.” I raise my head. “His father had a hunting cabin. Malcolm wasn’t a hunter, but he talked about it. He bought it maybe ten years ago and he always talked about fixing it up, making it a vacation cabin for us. He never did, but he visited it a few times every year to make sure no one had broken in.”

“Does anyone else know about the cabin?” Steel waves a hand at the bikers surrounding us and those who had dismounted went back to their bikes. Their faces were grim with anger and determination. There were enough of them to make up an army.

“No, he wanted to wait until he fixed it up to tell anyone. You think that’s where he’s taken Artie?”

“Could be. I’ll have Tracker searchin’ cameras in the area and some other guys patrolling the town just in case Malcolm’s gone to ground nearby. The rest of us are takin’ to the streets. What’s the address of that cabin?”

“I-I don’t know,” I stammer, and then I tell him what I do know, that it was in a forest to the north, and that pictures he showed me had a river in the background.

“That gives us a direction to work with. We’ll figure out the specifics on the way.” Steel grabs Wolf by the collar of his shirt. “Can you keep yourself in check enough to ride with us? If you can’t control yourself, you can’t come.”

“Like hell I ain’t comin’, that asshole has my son!” Wolf growls. He turns to me, grabs me, and kisses me hard in front of all those people. He stares into my eyes with our foreheads pressed together. “You send us all the information you can think of, and I’ll bring our son back.”

“Yes,” I whisper, and kiss him, then shove him away. “Go, Wolf! Go get our son!”

Wolf gives me a quick nod with determination shining in his eyes, and then he takes off at a run. Someone has righted his bike for him, and he throws one leg over it to straddle the seat. He cuts a powerful figure there in his leather vest with all the patches declaring his club and town. His thick thighs hug the bike. He sets his hands on the handlebars and tears out, and the air thrums once more with the sound of dozens of motorcycles. They fall in line behind Wolf. Even though he’s not the president, he leads.

I think there’s a time in every person’s life when they have to lead, and right now it’s Wolf’s time.

I watch him go, and I pray to whoever’s listening that he will come back to me this time.