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My father just laughs, with genuine happiness, a sound I’ve never once heard before. “Look at that,” he says to Caleb. “My grandson drew blood, and he was right to do it. You tried to lay hands on a woman who didn’t belong to you.”
My father crosses the room without showing any concern about the knife in Noah’s hand. “The boy taught you an important lesson. Don’t touch my daughter again.”
He looks down at his grandson with pride. “He defended his mother’s honor at nine years old. We need to write that down somewhere.”
Noah keeps the knife raised. “Agreeing about one thing doesn’t make us friends.”
My father moves faster than I expect from a man recovering from heart surgery. One hand knocks the knife from Noah’s grip, sending it sliding across the floor in Caleb’s direction. His other hand grabs the front of Noah’s shirt and lifts him onto his toes. I don’t let go, so he can’t lift him very far.
The color drains from Noah’s face. Before my father can get worked up, I pull Noah free, dragging him against my body and taking a couple of steps back.
“Teach the boy the difference between courage and insolence, or I will,” he tells me while staring down at us.
He leaves with Caleb, who grabs the knife on their way out. And again, nobody searches Noah to see if he has more knives. They’re so arrogant they can’t conceive that he could have more knives on him.
Noah shakes in my arms for a bit. When he finally speaks, he adds some of Sabre’s natural confidence to his whisper. “Don’t worry. I have two more throwing knives.”
“Noah,” I say in a warning tone.
He interjects quickly, “They come in sets of three.”
I hug him and smile as I hold him close. I’m terrified, but I can’t help myself.
I don’t sleep. I sit beside the cot and organize everything I’ve learned because understanding the plan is the first step towards surviving it. My family didn’t bring me here simply to hide me until the search ends. This house is the first part of a program designed to break me down and place me under someone else’s control.
Between the two of us, Noah is the real prize. They want their grandson to be raised under my father’s authority. I can’t let that happen. No matter what, I need to get him out of here.
He looks up at me as the footsteps recede. “Sabre is coming,” he states with certainty.
Sabre is the father of my unborn child. He made me his old lady and put me in his property cut. And he’s not only protected us, but he’s also never broken a promise to either of us. I have no reason to doubt him. None at all.
“Yes,” I tell my son. “Sabre will come for us, and like you said, we need to be ready.”
Chapter 20
Sabre
By sunrise, the Home Place is covered in twenty-seven of my Savage Legion club brothers. We don’t do things by fuckin’ half measures. We ditch our bikes far enough away not to be heard and converge on the location.
We see a half dozen men milling around, along with Linsey’s mother. By dawn nine more men show up, greet each other on the porch and shoot the shit for a while. They’re all smiles and dressed for church. A casual observer would guess they were attending a church function rather than becoming accessories after the fact to a kidnapping. These assholes are in for a rude awakening because they have no idea the Savage Legion has formed a ring around them and is waiting for the right moment to pounce.
Siege quietly checks each team through our earpieces. Talon covers the front entrance with four brothers, while Rigs has three men near the kitchen. Rider and I are assigned to the stairs because we believe Linsey and Noah are being held in one of the upstairs rooms. We saw movement during the night.
Brothers from an allied club are covering the roads and outer perimeter. Two brothers went on a stealth operation, removing all the valve cores from the tires. Even if someone gets past us, they won’t be driving away.
Siege crawls over and settles beside me in the grass. “It took a lot to get here, Sabre. Are you ready to do this thing?”
“Hell yeah.” I’d been watching the room where Linsey and Noah were being held. I knew it was them because I could see their shadows through the drawn curtains. As far as I could see it was just those two.
“You never know for sure what you’re gonna find when you find a hostage, so be ready for anything, brother.”
I can’t take my eyes off that window. I’m rewarded when a hand pulls the curtain away from the window. The gap stays open for only a second, but it’s long enough for me to see familiar honey-blonde hair and part of a woman’s face that I know so well.
An older man walks the perimeter at sunrise with a pistol displayed openly on his hip. He passes within forty yards of a cluster of brothers hiding in the tall grass and doesn’t even know they’re there. When he rounds the woodshed, Tusk moves behind him and takes him down without drawing the notice of any of the others.
They zip-tie the guard, gag him and sit him in the dirt. He starts talking before Tusk finishes describing what will happen if he shouts a warning.
Everything Tusk gets out of that terrified guard he tells us through the open communication channel. I hear through my earpiece all about how they plan to draw lots to see who gets to marry my Linsey. The drawing is scheduled to happen before noon, which explains why so many men arrived during the night. Linsey’s father brought in a minister because he wants her married before the end of the day.
