Page 57 of Eight Bikers' Heir

“Yeah, I had to stop by the pharmacy to pick up some more vitamins for her, but I’m about to pass the café now,” Auden said, not sounding as on edge as all of us were. Maybe we were overreacting, and Aisling was having too good of a time to cut the day short just yet.

“Is she there?” I asked. Each second that passed felt even more terrible than the last one, and I was about to go down there myself to see her with my own eyes. That was the only way to put myself at ease for now.

“Shit, she’s not. I told her not to leave without telling one of us!” Auden said, the volume of his voice shooting up. His rapid breaths sounded next as he hurried down the sidewalk. “I don’t see her. Have you guys tried to call her?”

“Someone call her!” I barked out.

“I got it,” Lincoln said as he fumbled with his phone, pressing it to his ear and listening. He then frowned and shook his head. “Voicemail.”

“Fuck,” I bit out. “She wouldn’t go anywhere else but here. Something must’ve happened.”

“I’ll check around the area before I come back,” Auden told me before hanging up.

I tightened my grip around my phone, doing my best not to throw it and break it in case Aisling tried to call me.

“All I can think about is the worst,” I murmured in a low, tense voice as the others gravitated toward me.

“The Hornets found her and took her,” Chris gritted out with narrowed eyes, speaking my fears.

A ripple of tension seemed to go around the room as we all looked between each other. Fists tightened. Eyes narrowed. Jaws clenched. We were ready to go to war over her and our child.

“They must’ve been watching us, and we didn’t even know it,” Bradley gritted out. “We should’ve noticed!”

“We’ve been so focused on the fact that the baby is coming soon,” Claude sighed as he shook his head in a defeated, agitated manner. “Too busy watching her on the inside than patrolling the outside.”

“Well? What the hell are we waiting for? We need to go to the Hornets’ clubhouse and take them down once and for all!” Bradley said, his head whipping around.

Hayden nodded in agreement.

“She can’t stay with them long. Who knows what they’re going to do to her?” he pointed out.

“Stop,” I told him in a firm voice, not wanting to hear it. My thoughts were bad enough without him adding a bunch of twisted scenarios. I looked over at the front door as Auden stormed inside, shaking his head.

“I can’t find her. I think the Hornets took her,” Auden said before holding up one of Aisling’s beaded bracelets. “I found this on the ground. She wouldn’t have left it.”

I reached out and took the bracelet, staring down at it in my palm as my heart ached. She’d never leave this behind. One of my worst nightmares had come true. How could we let this happen to her?

“I don’t understand why we’re still standing here,” Bradley said. “We need to take the fight to them!”

Claude put his hand up to try to calm Bradley down.

“We can’t storm over there without a plan. They’ll crush us and probably punish her in response,” he replied.

Cameron moved to his brother’s side and nodded.

“He’s right. We have to be careful about this for her sake and the baby’s sake. We have to remember that she’s bound to deliver any day now,” he told us with a firm look on his face.

I wanted to demolish the Hornets, to strip away every bit of power they had. Maybe we didn’t have as many numbers as them, but we had more strength and more drive than they ever could. People cast wary glances at us for a reason. Because we were known to stand our ground and fight for what we wanted, even if that ended with some blood spilled.

The Hornets deserved to be punished for what they just did, but I also recognized that the stakes were different this time. It wasn’t just us involved in this situation, and I refused to put Aisling and our son in even more danger than they already were.

“Quiet!” I shouted, cutting off all the arguing going on around me. My gaze swept over tense, angry faces that reflected my own thoughts and worries. “I’m just as pissed off and worried as all of you are. Aisling… she… damn it.”

Where did I even begin? She made me feel things that I didn’t know I could even feel. Being without her felt like a damn blade to my heart, and I was going to bleed out without her. She was the most amazing woman I had ever met, and I would go to any lengths to get her back safely.

“Look, Aisling means a lot to all of us. Hell, I’ve even fallen in love with her, despite me trying not to,” I admitted, pressure settling on my chest at the thought.

Bradley’s jaw tensed before he sighed and shook his head.