Cocky Secrets (Cocker Brothers #29)

17. Sofia Sol Cocker

SEVENTEEN

Sofia Sol Cocker

F rom an uneasy dream where I’m walking on a deserted beach under threatening storm clouds, I awaken, confused by the distant sound of a siren. Where is that coming from? We never hear them out here.

It’s a struggle to blink my eyes open, but I glance to the moonlight pouring in through our bedroom windows, a desire for clarity forcing my brain to clear. I throw my feet over the side of our four-poster bed and walk, naked, to see what the wailing is all about. Did our neighbor call an ambulance?

My eyes widen. “Luke!” I call out, rushing to the abandoned jeans and tank top I tossed onto a chair before crawling into bed. “Luke, wake up!” I throw them on as he squints at me.

“What is it?”

“A cop is here. It’s gotta be that same one.”

“Bear,” Luke grunts, jumping out of bed. “He just won’t give up.”

We freeze as we hear Bear’s voice reaching far and wide from the patrol car’s staticky microphone, “Honey Badger, open the gate!”

Luke leaps out of bed, “What is he doing?” and gets dressed as quickly as I did.

“I don’t know, a grand gesture for your sister?”

“If this doesn’t change Dad’s mind, nothing will.”

“It’s not just your Dad’s he has to change.”

“I know, Soph! But I just want my sister to be happy. This whole thing sucks.”

Luke is right behind me as I race out of the room. The whole house is waking up, some groggily, others like they’re on fire. Honey Badger and Margaret are of the last variety.

“I’m gonna kill him!" Honey Badger says.

“Now, Antonio,” Margaret warns, “He’s in love. Give him patience!”

“I’m gonna kill him!”

Celia grabs my arm as we race down, with little Jack trying to hold onto her, crying out, “Mommy, can I ride in the cop car?”

“Plenty of time for that when you’re grown,” Celia flatly replies.

Our children are of the groggy variety, “Mom,” Malakai calls down, rubbing his eyes from the second floor, looking at me from between the railing’s bars. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing we can’t handle, baby. Go back to bed.”

Kenzie pokes her head out of their bedroom door. “I’m sleepy.”

“Go back to sleep, honey. Daddy and I have this.”

“Okay,” she whispers, high-pitched voice sweet and innocent, half in dreamland.

My father calls out to Sage’s dad, “Honey Badger, he’s not going away without being heard,” and hits a button inside the foyer, flying open the electric gate we had installed five or six years ago. It was one of the rare times we’ve spent money updating this ghost of a place. Leaving the plantation in a state of decay is a personal choice The Ciphers made long ago to never forget its disgusting history. The fact that we, those who save the innocent, live here is aligned with our beliefs because we’ve taken something bad and made it good. But not too good. We’ll never slap on new paint and restore this place. If anything, we’ll sand it down to bare bones if the paint chips off enough. Let it stand as a skeleton that houses the saints who seem, to those who don’t understand us, like sinners.

The porch fills up with curiosity and anger. Dad, Mom, me, Luke, Atlas, Celia, Sean, their son Jack, Melody, Scythe, Denita, Shay, Mylar, Tonk Sr. and Carmen, all stand on the porch while Honey Badger and Margaret hurry down the front steps and up the driveway to meet their daughter’s determined suitor.

I glance to my husband. “Luke, where’s Sage?”

His gaze flicks upstairs. “Hiding out in her room so she doesn’t lose her resolve?”

“Does that sound like your sister?”

Atlas answers for him, “She said she wouldn’t try and see him again. It was a vow.”

“Was it?” I ask, uncertain. Might be a little sarcasm there, too.

The patrol car skids to a stop, sending dust flying into splintered light of stark headlights. Bear steps out in his police uniform, tall and imposing, his face a mixture of urgency and…what…fear?

Honey Badger demands, “What kind of crazy bastard wakes up an entire household to?—”

“—Sage has been kidnapped.”

A collective gasps shoots through our club. Margaret steps back as if she’s been sucker-punched. Honey Badger freezes, unsure if he correctly heard what Bear just said.

I grab Luke’s arm as he goes rigid.

Atlas, starting to pant, speaks first. “She was with you?!”

Bear sears him with fierce eyes, voice seething, “If she were with me, no one would’ve been able to take her.”

“Well, nobody could have taken her from here!”

Luke growls, “It’s impossible.”

Margaret cries out a pained, “Sage!” and rushes past us into the house to check her daughter’s room. I lock eyes with Melody and Carmen before they rush inside to support their friend.

Honey Badger watches the second floor window for Sage’s light to go on and shed some answers.

“We don’t have time to check if I’m telling the truth. I’m telling you, she’s been kidnapped. She’s been taken by The Spiders.”

Honey Badger’s head whips to Bear. “The Spiders!"

My father descends the steps. “I’m Jett Cocker, President of our club. We know The Spiders. We’ve…met them…a few times. The last one didn’t end well.”

Margaret throws open Sage’s window and shouts down to us, “She’s not here!”

Bear squares off with Dad and Honey Badger. “An employee at the gas station around the corner from my house saw The Spiders take Sage against her will.”

“From your house!” Honey Badger snarls. “So she was with you!”

“I haven’t seen her since you turned me away from here. And tonight I’ve been on patrol since six. Best I can gather since it was so near my house, is that she might have tried to come see me. And when she found me not at home, Sage gassed up for the ride back here. Jett, you say the last time didn’t end well. What does that mean?”

“Use your imagination. What did the gas station attendant tell you?”

The club is silent, hanging onto every word as Bear informs us all, “He said that Sage came in, paid cash for a fill-up. She was nice to him, and when she left, he went back to reading his comic book. He heard the gang drive up but didn’t look outside at first because he was used to engines coming and going. People usually pay at the pump, he said. But then he heard shouting, looked out the window and saw she was being dragged to a guy who seemed to be the leader. The attendant shouted for them to leave her alone, but he was outnumbered and called the police rather than trying to fight them. Dispatch called me. I arrived on the scene to find the Harley you bought from me abandoned at the pump.”

Margaret shouts in anguish from Sage’s window. “She fought them?!”

“She did. From what I understand, their leader…”

Honey Badger can’t even talk so my Dad fills in the blank, “His name is Soot.”

Bear’s teeth grind together. “Soot…punched Sage and knocked her out.”

Honey Badger lets out a roar like he was there to witness it.

Margaret screams and we hear a thump from upstairs. Melody calls down, “She fainted. We’ve got her.”

Tears of rage spring to my eyes, and I’m not the only one.

Celia whispers, “We should have forced her to train.”

Atlas growls, “I’ve been saying that for years!”

Luke shuts them down. “This isn’t helping.” He calls to his father, “Dad, what now?”

Honey Badger shouts, “We find them and make them pay!”

Bear informs us, “Dispatch has other patrol cars searching for her. I came here first to tell you, since she’s your daughter. But not only that. I want us to work together on this because what I need to know is,” he shifts his weight, eyeing The Ciphers, “where would a motorcycle club take someone they kidnapped?”