Hellbent Hero by Naomi Porter
32
Hero
“ROJA, WHAT HAPPENED? Tara!” I yelled into the phone, then looked at the screen. We weren’t connected anymore. “Fuck!” I dialed her back. Nothing. “Goddammit!”
Track bumped my elbow for the tenth or more time. “What’s going on?”
“Gotta get back to town, fucking yesterday! My woman’s in trouble!” I leaned toward Cobra’s chair in front of me. “Does your phone work out here?”
“No, sorry.”
“Fuck!”
Raul shifted forward in his seat. “What happened?”
“Her motherfucking father happened. Walsh!”
Raul hiked a dark eyebrow. “And?”
I scrubbed my hands over my face, helplessness flooding my chest. We were getting ready to take off. Hours away from home. My fucking phone wasn’t working.
Could I be overreacting? No.
She was at school. There were a lot of people there. Doesn’t matter.
Storm would be there any minute and would keep my woman safe. He would if he wanted to see the birth of his baby.
Fucking hell, I couldn’t stop hearing her scream my name.
“Hey!” Raul barked, jerking me out of my thoughts. “What about her father?”
I didn’t want them to know how Tara’s dad abused her. She asked me not to tell anyone. I understood her feelings of embarrassment, but she didn’t need to be. What her old man had done to her wasn’t her fault. Still, I’d given her my word.
I leveled my gaze at my VP. “He’s a lunatic drug addict she hasn’t seen in ten years. He recently crawled out of the hole he’d been in.” Okay, so not the whole truth. He’d been in prison, serving his time for murdering her mom. Close enough.
“Fuck,” Track muttered from behind me.
But Raul? I swore he was reading my mind and knew there was more to it. “Can we step it the fuck up so we can get home faster,” he snapped at Cobra.
Thank fuck.
Cobra shot him a death glare sans a reply.
Fifty-four fucking minutes and fifteen seconds into the flight, I finally got a signal after trying Storm’s phone continuously.
“Answer goddammit!” I heard the click, but no response. “Storm!”
“Jesus, fucking Christ, man. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you.”
“Where’s Roja?” I dialed into the hum of voices. Where the fuck was he? “Storm!”
“Hey, I was stepping back so I could talk freely. Man, where are you guys at?”
My heart thundered in my chest. Whatever was going on was my worst nightmare. I felt it in my bones.
“Is Roja okay?” It was all I cared about. My woman needed to be okay.
“We think she is.”
“What do you mean we think she is?” I bent forward, feeling like I was about to hyperventilate.
Storm sighed. “When I got to the school, everything seemed normal. I was in Angel’s classroom when we heard a woman scream.”
“That was Roja! She screamed my name when I was on the phone with her.”
“That makes sense. I went to her classroom, but the door was locked. I banged on it. Got no answer, then Angel ran out of her room with her phone in hand.”
“Stop beating around the fucking bush! What’s going on?” This was it. I was losing my shit eight-five hundred feet in the air when my woman needed me.
“She’s in the middle of a hostage situation.”
“Hostage situation? Who’s the hostage?”
“She is.”
Her father. Her fucking father got to her at school.
“Paul Walsh!” I roared into the phone, my hand squeezing the shit out of my cell.
“Calm down, man. You’re not good to her if you lose your fucking mind. From what we know, she’s not the only one in the room. There’s a kid, a woman, and a cat.”
“Luna, her kitten? What are you doing to rescue my woman?”
“My hands are tied right now. Sheriff Bush has the building surrounded. Hendricks is out here too. I’ve got Grizz trying to dig up anything that might help us. The school doesn’t have cameras in all the rooms, so we don’t know what’s going on.”
“And what does he want? If he’s holding them hostage, what the fuck does he want?”
“I talked to him when he called Angel’s phone. The dude is tripping. I’m not sure what he’s on, but he’s talking nonsense.”
“What did he say?” I choked out, dread crashing down on me while my brothers all eyed my breakdown. I should’ve been embarrassed for looking like a goddamn pussy, but it was my woman in danger. Mi vida.
Storm growled in frustration. I didn’t give one flying fuck if I pissed him off.
“He’s delusional. Said he wanted to be with his family forever. That he wanted Dorothy to click her heels together so they could go home to the Emerald City. Nonsense, I tell you.”
“The motherfucker’s going to kill them!” My vision blurred as I dropped the phone. I couldn’t lose another woman I loved. I buried my face in my hands, lost in hopelessness.
I heard Raul grab the phone, talking in a hushed tone to Storm.
“Get it together, brother. Your woman needs you.” Track gripped my shoulder.
“I’ll raise hell if anyone comes between me and her.”
“Feed on the anger,” Dodge hissed as if he felt my despair. “Don’t let her down. Don’t let her fucking father take what’s yours.”
My brother knew the pain I felt. He’d been living without his woman for months now. Feeding on the anger. Seething with rage. Turning into a deadly motherfucker, biding his time before he took her back.
After steeling myself, I stayed in my own head even when I heard Raul tell Storm to have a cage waiting for us at Winters Airport.
I couldn’t talk. Didn’t care about anything else, only getting to my Roja.
I prayed, though. A lot.
Begging God to not take another woman I loved from me. Praying for her safety. To protect all of them.
I begged and pleaded… Pleaded and begged the whole way home.
