Chapter 210

My bike didn't slow, no matter how hard I pushed the it, nor how hard I pushed it, it wasn’t fast enough...nothing was.

Rain hit my face hard enough to sting while the city blurred around me in streaks of dirty yellow light, every turn grinding the same thought deeper beneath my ribs. Marlowe was gone. Taken. And I’d let her walk away angry.

“She’s not here,” Rook’s voice cut through the earpiece, rough beneath the wind. “We checked the east lots.”

“I know,” I muttered, scanning every alley and side street anyway.

I didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Because stopping meant accepting it, accepting that somebody had actually gotten close enough to touch her, and I wasn’t there yet. Wasn’t sure I ever would be.

The bike snapped hard beneath me as I cut another corner too fast, tires spitting water across the pavement while the engine screamed under the strain. I didn’t care, let it scream. Let it tear itself apart if it wanted to. It wouldn’t matter. Nothing mattered except finding her.

My mind kept replaying it in pieces while I tore through another intersection. Reif gets hit. We get distracted. Marlowe leaves alone, exposed. Car waiting. Timing. Too clean. Too deliberate.

My grip tightened harder on the throttle, the engine jerking beneath me like it felt the rage crawling through my chest.

“Reif's attack wasn't about him,” I muttered finally.

Silence crackled briefly through the line before Rook answered. “Say it,” he ordered quietly.

I didn’t want to. Didn’t need to, because the truth already sat there beneath everything else: cold, sharp, certain.

“This wasn’t about the club,” I replied as I cut sharply onto another street. “It was about Marlowe.”

The words settled ugly between us because once they were spoken, everything changed. Every piece of it realigned into something cleaner. Something worse.

This wasn’t about territory, nor retaliation. It was personal.

My jaw tightened hard enough pain shot up the side of it while another memory slammed into me without warning. Marlowe laughing in the kitchen, flour streaked across her cheek while she flipped me off for stealing food straight from the pan.

Christ. The image hit so hard it almost knocked the air from my lungs, because she should be at the clubhouse. Mouthy, alive, safe…and probably still pissed at me over earlier.

Instead some bastard had his hands on her. That thought nearly sent me through another stop sign.

I slowed near the curb abruptly, boots hitting pavement while the engine idled beneath me. The sudden quiet hit harder without the roar of the bike around me, the world snapping sharply back into focus.

Something near the gutter caught my eye. Small, aut of place.

I crouched immediately, fingers dragging across wet pavement before closing around cold metal. Her keys.

My jaw locked instantly. The keys were still faintly warm, rainwater slick across the metal while my hand tightened hard enough the edges bit into my palm.

“She dropped something,” I muttered.

“What?” Rook questioned sharply, sounding like he already knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Keys,” I replied quietly. “She dropped her keys.”

Silence answered first. Then quieter: “She fought.”

I looked back toward the street again, eyes tracking faint scuff marks near the curb while pieces started locking together harder inside my head. Drag marks. Heel streaks. A broken scrape in the dirt near the gutter where she planted her foot trying to stop them.

“They knew where she’d be,” I muttered, my pulse flattening colder with every passing second.

“Knew she’d be alone,” Rook added grimly.

The words settled heavier because that wasn’t observation. That was information.

My stomach tightened sharply. Inside information. Someone fed them movement. Someone fed them timing. Someone close enough to know exactly when she’d leave and exactly how exposed she’d be once she did.

Rain rolled down the back of my neck while memory hit fast and ugly. Brian; standing in the apartment. The times he watched too carefully. Listened too closely. He was always there, always calm…too calm.

My eyes narrowed slowly while pieces started clicking together harder than I wanted them to: the timing. The clean route. The fact Marlowe walked out emotional and distracted right after a fight almost nobody else knew happened.

Something tightened instantly in my chest.

“Rook,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Pull everything on Brian,” I told him.

Silence, then, “What?”

“He knew she left angry,” I replied while turning slowly back toward the bike. “Knew she was alone.”

The line went dead quiet after that because almost nobody knew. Not enough time had passed. Not enough exposure…unless somebody close fed it directly…or watched it happen himself.

“Torin,” Rook started carefully.

“I know how it sounds,” I cut in as I swung back onto the bike. “Just pull him anyway.”

Rain hammered harder around me while the engine roared violently beneath my legs, the vibration ripping straight up my spine as another realization settled heavy in my chest. If Brian was involved… Then this wasn’t business. Wasn’t club politics. It was obsession.

That thought chilled me worse than the rain ever could, because obsession made people reckless, unpredictable. Dangerous in ways normal violence wasn’t.

My grip tightened again while the bike idled beneath me impatiently.

“Marlowe,” I muttered quietly under my breath, the sound of her name scraping raw through my throat.

For one brutal second, panic tried clawing up the center of my chest. Images hit too fast afterward. Marlowe scared, bleeding. Waking up somewhere alone calling for help that wasn’t coming fast enough.

The panic flattened instantly into rage so cold I almost felt calm.

They took the wrong girl, because whoever put their hands on her tonight had just guaranteed I would tear through every single thing standing between me and getting her back. Slowly if I had to, violently if I wanted to.