Ruined (Devil’s Handmaidens MC Alaska Chapter #3)

Chapter 6

SIX

DYLAN

W hen I come awake, the bed next to me is cold and the house is eerily quiet. I remember the dogs barking and rush out of the room. Looking out the window, I don’t see her small SUV parked outside.

“Son of a bitch,” I yell into the quiet, and the dogs scurry away from me.

I notice her cut and a note on the table. I storm over to them, upset that I finally pushed her away. Remembering what her professor said, I pick up the chair and chuck it across the room. It lands with a crack and slides into the back of the sofa.

I turn my attention to the table, taking in everything she left. Her cut, her phone, the necklace I gave her, a note, and another necklace with a red crystal heart and black rose wrapped around it. I’ve never seen her without it. She wore my necklace and that one all the time. Since the moment I put it on her, she didn’t take it off.

I pull out another chair and fall into it to read the letter she left for me.

Dylan,

Remember what I told you. Always remember that. I need to leave though.

I’m not whole, and the only way to be is to do this. I need some time to get used to us. Please take my cut to Riddler so she can take care of it and find someone else worthy to be their secretary. Also, the necklace with the rose goes back to Vixen. Tell her I love her and always will. It’s time for me to let go.

Love,

Minuet

Her words flow through me, and I’m so angry with myself. I did this. I pushed her too far.

I read the letter again, and again. The words at the top give me pause. Remember what I told you .

I rush to get dressed and head for the clubhouse. I’ll get Keys to look for her. Something tells me she’s not in a good place in her head.

An hour later, we are all standing around Scout’s office.

“What the fuck did you do to my daughter?” Vixen slams her hands into my chest.

“I told her I love her,” I confess as I drop my chin.

Keys walks in with her laptop. “She somehow disabled her GPS. The last location I have for her is on the Parks Highway down by Big Lake.”

“Anything else?” Riddler asks the group.

She refused to accept Minuet’s cut and said she would get her back.

“She was acting weird last night at dinner. I swear she started crying when she hugged me,” Vixen adds, and I nod.

“She cried several times last night after Vixen and Terry left. I thought it was because I told her I loved her, but then she said that she loved me too.”

“How long ago was that reading at Big Lake?” Riddler asks Keys, and I look over to her.

“It was about four hours ago. She got there at the crack of dawn, and that’s it.”

“How would she disable it?” I ask. This doesn’t sound like something Minuet would know how to do.

“Fuck. She’d have to have someone good at computers do it.” Keys confirms what I was thinking.

“So, it wasn’t you telling her you love her if she was upset before that. What was she doing yesterday?”

“She had the kids and went shopping, but she came home without any groceries,” I tell them.

“Son of a bitch. Can you bring Sky here, honey?” she asks Thad, and that’s when Titan walks into the room.

He’s got one of his laptops. Last month he scrubbed the footage of Minuet off the internet, but anyone could have seen it before that.

“Wilder?” The thought hits me, and I ask the group. Everyone pauses and stares at me. “I know a lot. She didn’t tell me it all, but I’ve seen the reports.”

“It’s possible, but he would have taken her. She walked away of her own free will.”

“Her GPS was disabled at six thirty this morning. The box says another computer linked up and wiped it,” Titan offers as he clicks away. No one asks how he’s able to find things that Keys can’t. It’s not just because he’s that good, which he is. But it’s also because he has access to programs that are military grade.

“Do you have an address of where she was when it went dead?”

“Yeah.” He rattles off an address, which sets Jinx off.

“We know who’s there. She did this on her own. I still don’t know why.”

“Mommy, what’s up?” Sky walks into the large office. She looks around, and I can tell she’s a little nervous. She’s hiding something.

“Little Bear, where did you go with Frenchie yesterday?”

She smiles and starts rattling off places. “After Tae Kwon Do, we went to Fred Meyers, but they didn’t have what she wanted. So we went to Safeway next. But she didn’t buy anything there.” She looks down and starts fidgeting with her fingers.

“Baby, did something happen at the store?”

“Um.” She looks around the room and walks to her dad, who picks her up.

“Little Sunshine, tell Mommy what she needs to know.”

“I can’t,” she says so softly that we all lean forward to hear. “I pinkie promised.”

“Shit.” Riddler moves around her desk and to her daughter. “Little Bear, sometimes you can break a pinkie promise if the other person is in danger.”

“But Frenchie won’t ever trust me again if I break our promise.”

“Yes, she will, baby,” Thad says, trying to get her to tell us what she knows.

“You promise?”

“I do, Little Sunshine.”

“A man came up to us. She accidentally hit him with the cart, and I thought he was mad about that. But then he leaned down and whispered to her. All I heard was that he would ‘kill them all.’ He was super scary, Mama. He was also stinky.”

“Thank you, Little Bear.” Riddler kisses her cheek and then lets her mom take her out before we start again. “That sounds like Wilder.”

“Keys and Titan, I need footage of the Safeway on this side of town. We need to confirm it was him.”

“On it,” they both say, then sit down, mumbling.

“I need to make a phone call. You can stay here.” She points to me. “Vixen, give the man a break. By this note, she loves him too.”

“I’m worried. The last time she said she wasn’t whole and had to go was when she tried to take her life.” Vixen’s words cause my heart to clench.

“No, she isn’t that low,” I say.

“You don’t know. You weren’t there. She was a complete wreck. Then her mother called her ruined and used up.”

“I love her, and I want her alive. If it means I walk away from her to help her, I will.”

“Give me a moment,” Riddler says as the sound of ringing fills the room. She has the phone on speaker.

“I knew you’d call.” A man’s deep voice comes across the line.

“Did she go to you?”

“I told her I wouldn’t lie to you if you asked me out right.” He pauses, and I wait, perched on the edge of the chair, for his answer. “She did.”

“What did she want from you?”

“Her GPS disabled and a place to stay. I’m pulling up to the rental I put her up in right now. Give me a sec.”

After a moment, I hear him knocking, followed by cussing.

“What’s the matter?” I shoot to my feet and yell into the phone.

“The place is trashed. Feathers from the pillows and comforter are everywhere. There is blood too.”

“What?” I slam my fist into the desk.

“You must be the man she is trying to protect. Looks like her past found her before she could get away.”

His words make my knees buckle, and I almost fall to the floor. She left to protect me.

“She said he threatened all of you, including Mr. Lover there,” he says, and I turn to look at Riddler.

“We are on our way, Zero,” she says, her gaze holding mine.

“No, stay there. I’ll give you an update and then we’ll go from there. I can have Vortex, along with your hacker, start sweeping facial rec for her.”

“That won’t work,” Riddler says softly. “If Wilder does what he’s done in the past, she’s in a box, like a coffin.”

This time when my knees buckle, I fall to the floor. Thad and Reaper are trying to help me up as everything comes together. We might not ever find her.

“I used your location and hacked the security camera on the porch across the street. Plus, your security system on the place,” Titan says. “He grabbed her about twenty minutes ago.” He continues to click away on his laptop, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Wait. I passed a van heading toward the Parks on my way up here. I didn’t get a plate,” Zero says, and I finally plant my ass back in the chair. I need to hold it all together so I can save her.

“Got it,” Keys says. “He’s heading toward Anchorage.”

“We’ll head that way.”

“I’ll get us plane tickets so we can get there as soon as possible.”

“I’ll send a prospect to meet you at the airport.”

“Thanks.”

Riddler hangs up and then looks at me. “You going to be able to handle this? She’s going to be completely back at the beginning again. It could take some time.”

“I’ll do whatever needs to be done. Even walk away from her,” I say again, even though my heart is battling me not to.

Riddler nods, and we spring into motion.

I could fly us down, but my plane isn’t big enough. Then a thought hits me.

“What if I get a cargo plane that we can fly?”

“Go for it,” Riddler says, and I start making calls.

An hour later, the phone rings.

“Anything, Zero?” Riddler asks.

“He put her on a small plane and took off. I can’t get the flight manifest.”

“I can.” Titan is back on his laptop.

“What kind of plane?” I ask Zero. “Did you see the direction he took off out of Merrill Field?”

“He took off toward the south but then circled to the north.”

“Okay.”

I pull my phone from my pocket and start looking at possible places he could head. He could be bringing her back this way for all we know.

I make a call to the Fairbanks Flight Service Station and Tower, giving them the tail number Zero gave me, and ask them to let me know if it appears on their system.