Cole (Dirty Misfits MC Book 4)

I pulled up to the clubhouse and cradled my stomach as I stumbled up the stairs. I knew that a couple of my ribs were, at the very least, fractured, which made breathing an absolute chore. But the second I busted into the clubhouse and found the guys already scrambling, I realized just how much these bastards had caught us off-guard.

However, when Tanner laid his eyes on me, he rushed to my side.

“Cole! Holy fuck!”

I collapsed with a groan against him and he helped me over to the couch. “I need some ice and some water for Cole! Hurry!”

The guys quickly gathered around me and someone worked my jacket off. Tanner leaned me back in the recliner while Brooks stuck a straw in a water bottle for me, enabling me to drink as Tanner poked around at my ribs. I had taught all of the guys basic first aid. You know, basic tactics on how to keep themselves alive and well in emergency situations.

I tried not to show the entirety of my fear on my face as Tanner helped me sit back up in the recliner.

“The good news is that they aren’t broken. But they’ll feel like it for a few days. You took a damn good beating,” he said.

I gripped his shirt and pulled him close to my face. “She’s pregnant, Tan.”

He blinked. “What? Who?”

“Molly, the girl they took. My girl. She’s—”

Brooks slid my grip away from Tan and crouched beside me. “That girl you were crazy about there for a little while?”

Finn chuckled. “You mean the girl he’s still crazy about.”

I shot him a look. “This isn’t funny. None of this shit is funny.”

Porter dipped down into my gaze. “How far along is she, Cole?”

I shook my head and tried my best to count the time that had passed. “Six, maybe seven months?”

“Jesus,” Brooks said breathlessly.

But Tan was the one that reassured me. “We will find them, Cole. You know we always do. We just have to take a moment to reel in our panic before we get to work. Right, guys?”

“Do we have any way to track these girls at all? Possibly by cell phone, or some shit like that?” Archer asked.

Porter backtracked toward the computer room. “That’s not a bad idea. We can punch in their phone numbers and—”

Then, it hit me. “My phone. Hold on.”

I dug around in the pocket of my leather jacket before I pulled it out.

“What are you doing?” Finn asked.

“Find My Friends,” I murmured.

I had Molly’s number still programmed into my phone, and I couldn’t remember her cell phone dropping out onto the curb when they shoved her into that van. I chastised myself for not reacting sooner. For not pulling my gun sooner and just popping those fuckers in the head. I was trying to remove her from the situation before I killed every single one of them, and in the process of sparing Molly the scene, she was now in the claws of the enemy.

Suffering God-only-knew what at their hands.

“I’ve got her!” I exclaimed.

I leapt to my feet and swallowed my painful groans as I turned my phone screen around.

“See that blinking dot with Molly’s face attached to it? That’s where her cell phone last registered her.”

Tanner leaned in. “That’s not very far outside of Santa Cruz.”

Porter peered over his shoulder. “That’s barely outside the city limits. Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I’m positive. And if they’re still this close to the city, then her cell phone is still pinging her location. I mean, right now. Actively. They’re sitting there for some reason, and we can’t not go check.”

We all looked over at Brooks as he straightened his back. “Well, what the fuck are you standing around for? Get your damn gear and let’s go!”

We scrambled around, arming ourselves to the teeth before hopping onto our bikes. I sent the location to everyone’s cell phone so they could GPS it in case all of us ended up getting separated in traffic. Then, we were off, weaving through traffic and carving out back-road pathways for ourselves as we slowly inched our way toward our destination.

“I’m coming, Molly. Just hang in there,” I murmured.

Twenty minutes later, all of us turned down a gravel driveway that seemed to pierce through a random grove of trees sitting on the outskirts of Santa Cruz. And when a rusted-out warehouse came into view, fear pooled in my gut. Were the girls tied up and in that maze of a place? Were they hurt? Beaten? Being starved, or worse?

If anyone has laid a hand on my girl, they’re fucking dead.

But as the trees parted and the van came into view, the scene that unfolded before us wasn’t quite one we expected.

“Is that… a shotgun?” Porter asked.

I hit the brakes on my bike and practically flew off the damned thing. I didn’t even put the kickstand down, I simply let it fall into the dirt as I sprinted for Molly. I saw that Josie and Astrid had a man pinned to the ground while they pointed two pistols at his head, and Raven had her heel on the neck of another lanky guy while she pointed her gun at the small of his back.

And when Molly peered over her shoulder at me, relief rushed through my veins.

“They’re here!” she exclaimed.

Brooks came trotting up behind me. “Don’t move, girls. Let’s get them restrained first. Porter! Finn! Over here!”

I stood there, frozen in time as I studied Molly’s current position. She had a man at her feet with a shotgun pointed at him while he cradled his knee and begged for mercy. Her curves were swollen with life and she was ripe with my child, and yet the strength and coordination something like this would have taken quite literally ripped the breath from my lungs

I’d never seen a woman more powerful and more beautiful than Molly in that moment.

Everything else happened in a blur. Some of the guys got those Black Flag assholes tied up and hauled off while I took the liberty of checking the girls to make sure nothing was seriously wrong. Tanner took the liberty of stripping the van down of all its smart components and disabled the GPS so we could use it to get these three Black Flag adventurers back to the clubhouse for a little bit of one-on-one time with all of us.

And as Tanner and Finn pulled away with the van full of rival crew members, I walked up to Molly and cupped her cheeks.

“I am so, so, so fucking sorry, Molly.”

She smiled softly. “It’s all right. I’m all right. We’re all right.”

I furrowed my brow. “So, you’re not upset?”

She shrugged. “What’s there to be upset about? I learned more about you in the past thirty or so minutes than I ever did in your presence.”

My hands slid to her shoulders. “Okay, I deserved that.”

“Yes, you did,” Josie whispered as she walked behind me.

Molly giggled as I took her hands in mine. “This is why I pushed you away, though. This chaos. This danger. It follows me everywhere because of the life I’ve chosen for myself. And it’s a life you don’t deserve. Neither of you.”

My eyes fell to her stomach before she cleared her throat. “Look at me, Cole.”

I did as she asked. “Yeah?”

She shook her head. “You’re as stubborn as they come and even more bull-headed than you seem, but I get it. I understand, okay?”

I blinked. “You do?”

Her smile grew brighter as she stepped closer, her stomach pressing against my abs. “To be fair, I knew you were involved in some shady stuff. I just didn’t understand how shady and what kind of stuff it was.”

I grinned. “I guess I’ve always been a bit of a bad boy.”

She giggled with me before she turned to the side and came close enough so that she could lay her head against my chest.

And I welcomed her presence thoroughly as I embraced her as tightly as I could.

“I’m not leaving. Not again, okay?” I murmured.

She sighed with relief. “Good. That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll always protect you, and you and our child will never want for anything. I swear it.”

“Really?”

I kissed the top of her head. “Really, really. It’s just what happens when you love someone.”

Her gaze slowly made its way up to mine. “You—you love me?”

I nodded. “More than anything—or any person—that has ever been in my life. I love you, Molly. I love both of you. And now? You’re stuck with me, so I hope you can deal with that.”

She stood on her toes and kissed my lips softly. “I love you too, Cole.”

I captured her lips in a searing kiss that left the guys clapping for me as the girls shook their heads and tried to get them to shut up. I didn’t care, though. All I cared about was the fact that they were safe. That Molly and our child were safe.

And after we cleaned up the mess that had been made, we all headed back to the clubhouse so we could rest and get some food.

But I should’ve known the fun wouldn’t stop there.

“Hey, you guys. Come look at this,” Archer said.

I kissed Molly’s forehead and showed her to my room before I met the guys out at the kitchen table. Archer held a piece of paper up for the guys to read, and the way their faces grew stoic told me it wasn’t good. We had just gotten back in from an abduction clean-up, and there was more shit for us to experience?

When would the chaos end?

“That fucking bastard,” Brooks growled.

I rushed behind Archer before I read the note, and when I did my eyes bulged from my head.

“Is he fucking kidding? He’s got to be fucking kidding,” I murmured.

But when we all turned to face Tanner, the man looked like he was about to pass out.

“Tanner!” Brooks exclaimed.

Scratch that, the man did pass out.

“Is it true?” Brooks asked as he caught the man. “Is what Chops saying in that note true?”

I scooped up the note and took it to Tanner, but not before I read it again. Not before I attempted to digest the information for myself before I crouched down and handed it to Tan.