Ridge Creek Reunited (Ridge Creek Duology) Read online

  Damn.

  Hitting the accelerator again, I squirt Mazz the last stretch to the front of Jake’s house and slide her to a stop near Zane’s bike. I snatch my seat belt off and rip the door open. I’ve barely set my feet on the ground when I look back to see the headlights from the two bikes that were behind me hitting the last bend in the driveway. I briefly wonder how they have managed to cover so much ground in such a short time before. Aren’t Harleys supposed to be slow?

  With loud roars, both bikes gear down and roll to a stop next to Mazz. Ignoring the bikes, I duck my head back into the car and spy Jambo. He’s using his beak to climb up onto the passenger seat. “Stay here for a bit buddy, I don’t know what’s going on yet. I won’t be long, I promise.”

  Jumbo seems happy to remain in his ship as he continues his climbing mission so I swing the driver’s door shut and turn to head for the house. With only Jake now on my mind, I have to admit I’m not concentrating. This is confirmed when I slam face first into someone’s chest standing in the dark behind me.

  “What the fuck sort of driving was that?” I hear growled in the darkness.

  With an ‘oof’, I bounce off the chest in front of me and land back against Mazz’s driver’s side door.

  Luke.

  “Huh?” I snarl, annoyed that Luke is now standing between me and the house. I need to get inside and find out what the hell is going on. So does Luke. Why are we wasting time?

  “I said,” Luke growls again deeply, “What the fuck were you just doing driving your car like a Goddamned maniac and nearly crashing at the end of Jake’s driveway?”

  I can’t see his face clearly in the dark, but I sure can make out the shape of his very angry, very badass posture.

  What the?

  Pushing off the car door again, I stick a hand out to push past his body. Luke grabs my wrist firmly and warns, “Don’t ignore me.”

  Tugging for control of my arm I snarl, “I’m not ignoring you. I’ve just got more pressing matters on my mind than worrying about what you think of my driving. Move the fuck out of my way.”

  “You call that driving?” He snarls back bending in to get closer to my face. So close that I can feel his hot breath blowing gently on my face. My heartbeat involuntarily clicks up a gear.

  “That was defensive driving actually,” I snap as I continue to tug at my arm while pushing forward to get past him.

  “Defensive driving?” Another deep voice cuts through the night and I recognize Towball’s gravelly, cigarette affected voice. He sounds amused.

  “Yes, defensive driving,” I snap again. “I’ve done just about all the driving packages that you can do at this place in Melbourne that takes you driving in V8 supercars. I love driving – fast. I’m not stupid enough to do it without some skills so back the fuck off.”

  Luke’s hand loosens and he drops my arm. “Fuckin’ hell you’re crazy woman,” he mutters under his breath. “I do believe Zane may have bitten off more than he can chew.”

  Ignoring his mutterings, I take advantage of my free arm and push past him towards the house. It’s at this point that a feeling of pure relief washes over my entire body. Standing on the verandah is not just Zane, but Jake as well.

  Thank God!

  Neither of them seem happy but I can live with that. At least Jake is alive. I quickly roam my eyes over him as he stands in the light on the veranda and I sigh. He’s only wearing jeans. His feet are bare and he’s not wearing a shirt. There’s blood on the front of his thighs where it appears he has run his hands down them to wipe them clean. He also has a fresh white bandage wrapped around his huge chest passing just under his armpits.

  I speed up to a near jog as I approach the house. I can see that Jake has his eyes locked on me and by the set of his face, my stomach plummets. He looks livid. Which is scary because Jake is a huge guy. Not only is he huge, he is totally buff, drop dead gorgeous, inked well and more than easy on the eye. Nobody wants a huge, good-looking guy looking at them like he wants them dead.

  Especially not me.

  Uh oh.

  I slow down to a walk again as Zane reaches out and places a hand on his brother’s chest.

  Zane also looks pissed but somehow I can sense it’s not at me. I’m not sure how I know. I don’t know Zane that well (even though we’ve been hooking up lately), but somehow I do know. Which also surprises me. Because from what I can see before me, his brother’s just been shot and his brother’s girlfriend has been kidnapped. I’m supposed to be their new security expert to avoid such happenings. I’ve failed dismally.

  I’d be mad at me if I were him.

  Jake doesn’t wait for me to climb the front steps to meet him before his voice cuts through the night, sinfully deep and pissed off. “Tell me your fuckin’ cameras caught every fuckin’ second of that and that you already know who the fuck it was who just tied me to my own squat rack and then took off with Arianna.”

  Taken aback I rock to a stop at the bottom of the steps.

  Whoa there.

  Who the hell does he think I am? That chick on the television show Criminal Minds? Fuck, I’m good, but not that good. That’s television good, which is very different to real life good.

  Although if I were perfect…

  I’m snapped out of my thoughts by his quick movement to throw his brother’s hand off before he starts descending the stairs in front of me. Stopping about halfway I find myself staring mesmerized at the stains of blood on his jeans.

  Gross.

  Dragging my eyes from his bloodied thighs, I tilt my face upwards to meet his stare. Up close, he looks even worse than I thought. Not only does he look pissed, he looks worried, stressed and in pain. His normally bright green eyes have dulled out and I can see the worry lines fanning out from his eyes.

  “Yes I did catch it all on the camera’s but no, and for this you have no idea how sorry I am, I don’t know who they are. The good news is that I can confirm she was still alive when they took her.”

  A look of relief floods Jake’s face and takes a deep breath. His eyes blink slowly as he lets the air go again.

  “I can also tell you that none of them were Vincent Altieri. Not even the older guy who appeared to be running the show. I’ve seen a picture of Vincent Altieri and unless he’s lost a truckload of weight in the last few months, he wasn’t there. Vincent is a big, fat, flabby man who is balding. Vincent is more your Jabba the Hutt style of guy. The older guy, the guy you gut punched and then Arianna popped a bullet into, looked lean and fit. He also looked like he came from money. His clothing was too well tailored to be off-the-shelf. If he was sent by Vincent, he must have cost him a bomb. That said, even though he looked well-dressed, I can’t say he looked like he was very um… skilled in, you know, extractions? It looked more like they just happened to get lucky when you didn’t see them coming up behind you. And considering the guy on the ground appeared to take his time lining up to shoot at you, he couldn’t shoot real straight could he? Thankfully. Or you wouldn’t be standing here. Although he did hit you didn’t he? That is a bullet wound you’ve wrapped up isn’t it?”

  Jake continues to blink slowly as he stares at me with his dull, pained eyes. I can see he’s busy inside his head processing the little information we have. “She shot one of them?”

  I nod to confirm and watch as a faint ghost of smile tweaks the edges of Jake’s lips. Vanishing as fast as it came, his jaw and lips stiffen again. “It’s a small nick to one of my lats,” Jake rumbles as he stares down at me not moving closer whilst also not allowing me to move up the steps and closer to him either. “Tell me you have a home address for Altieri. I’ll be leaving in five minutes.”

  Well he doesn’t plan on wasting any time.

  “Um… yes, both of them, but not on me. I need to get back to my computer.”

  “Then get back to your fuckin’ computer. We’ll move out, you text me the address when you have it,” he snaps at me and I startle.

  “We still don’
t know it’s Altieri…” I find myself cringing as I point out this tiny detail.

  “It’s fuckin’ Altieri and he will regret his decision to send someone to take my Arianna about two minutes after I get to whichever house the fucker is staying in today. We’re getting her back and so help me if anyone has harmed even one more cell on her body. One single cell and I will bury them.”

  Woah there.

  My Arianna.

  It appears there’s more going on there than I first realized. I knew those two had something going on but to be honest I thought it was a bit more like what I have going with Zane. Hook-up when you feel like it, but nothing too serious. Serious is not what I do with men. Ever. And I have plenty of reasons for that.

  “Right then. Perhaps I’d best turn round and get back to my computer then…”

  “Perhaps you had,” Jake mumbles in a slightly less pissed off voice. It’s only as I start to back away from the steps that he makes his final descent down the steps and places a hand on my shoulder to stop my movement. “And Emma…”

  “What,” I murmur looking up to meet his face. He looks livid again and I sense the danger in his words before he says them.

  “If I ever see you driving your fuckin’ car along a gravel road like that again, there will be consequences. Gravel roads are dangerous and you should treat them with respect. Right now, you’re the only person I know that might have a chance at finding my Arianna and you driving around like that, putting yourself at risk, does nothing to help her. If you end up injured or dead, the way I figure it, she’s lost. Take more fuckin’ care of yourself. You mean a lot to her on any given day, but today you’re her lifeline. Don’t fuck that up by ploughing into a tree on the way home.”

  Holy shit.

  I do believe he loves her.

  Relieved that Jake appears to want me alive, I nod my understanding, turn and walk to my car. As I open my door, Jambo screeches a happy hello and flies straight out of the car to land on my shoulder. I see four heads shaking as the four men stare at my bird by the dim glow thrown from the car’s interior light.

  I give Jambo a quick chuck under the chin and fold myself into the driver’s seat. Jambo jumps straight to the dashboard to assume his favorite position as Captain of his ship. Backing slowly away from the house I turn Mazz to face back down the driveway.

  Bah – consequences.

  Dumping the clutch, I hit the accelerator and Mazz responds. With a decent spray of gravel from the back tires, I fly off down the driveway.

  So much to do.

  So little time.

  Chapter Two

  That’s My Girl

  Jake…

  Irritated, I watch Emma’s car fly down my driveway. Seemingly the woman is fuckin’ deaf. Lucky for her she’s Arianna’s girl and despite the bad play of events tonight, she’s good for business. If she wasn’t, I’d be encouraging her to move the fuck on. She’s already causing tension between my boys as they circle waiting for Zane to finish with her. They all know Zane better than he knows himself so like hyena’s to a lion, they’re waiting for him to finish with the carcass before they all start fighting over the remains. What’s worse is I think she can see what’s going on and she’s baiting the lion by tempting the hyena’s to come closer.

  My thoughts redirect once again as I feel the foreign twist of pain in my gut.

  Mother fucker.

  If I didn’t know better I’d think that bullet tagged me in the gut, not the wing. I don’t like it. It reeks of pussy whipped, a place I’d sworn I’d never go again. Especially not after that last bitch I’m still struggling to scrape off. But damn, what do you know, here I go again. There’s something about this girl that had me the minute I laid eyes on her. Even totally fucked up and lying next to a log on the side of the road, I knew there was something about her I needed. Not one to normally believe in that shit, I’m even thinking there was a reason I was the person who found her on the side of the road and not someone else. Maybe, just maybe, she’s my reward for not going with my first instincts and killing that other bitch to get an easy out of our fucked up marriage.

  Maybe she’s my reward for hanging in there. For putting up with that other weak as shit bitch. Maybe fate decided to send me a tough one. One that wouldn’t let life suck her under and down into the depths where a person loses sight of what matters and lives life wanting more out of it than it ever had to give.

  The way I see it, Arianna was sent to me which also means she was meant to be mine. And she fucking will be. That dipshit Altieri has no idea what he’s gotten himself into by coming after her. When I’ve finished with him, he will be left with no doubts that she is off-limits. Why the idiot didn’t just accept our offer yesterday is beyond me. He could have been enjoying easy cash. All he had to do was leave her the fuck alone. From what we already knew, he was chasing money. Something that literally seems to be growing on bushes around me so why didn’t he just enjoy the low hanging fruit?

  Is he really that stupid?

  Not that the mother fucker will get a red cent out of me now. Now that I know the real reason he needs money, he’s fucked. He should have taken the offer yesterday and his life would have run a whole lot smoother. By being greedy, he’s shot himself in the foot. If he’d have taken the offer, Emma might not have continued to dig so deep. If she hadn’t have dug so deep, I’d have been none the wiser on his wife problem.

  His sending someone for Arianna tonight was a game changer.

  I feel the twist in my stomach again. It’s becoming more persistent the longer I stand here and the longer Arianna is unaccounted for.

  I need to get moving.

  It started the second Zane appeared before me, ready to untie me from where those two jerkoff’s had tied me up. He didn’t even wait for me to ask. He knew what I wanted to know. He knew me well enough to just answer the question he could see on my lips. “Gone.”

  His word gutted me. Until that point there had still been hope. Hope that she’d learned enough yesterday to be carrying her gun and had managed to defend herself long enough for the others to get here. Now that hope was gone. Although knowing she was still alive when they took her and that she tagged one of them before they took her down gives me hope. Hope that even though she’s been through so much before, she’s still willing to fight. She went down fighting.

  That’s my girl.

  Deciding I’ve wasted enough time already, I look out into the darkness towards Towball. Although I can’t make him out clearly, I know he’s there by the tip of his cigarette glowing in the darkness as he lifts it to his mouth and draws deeply before dropping it to his side again.

  “Good to see you’re still standing brother,” his gravelly voice rasps through the darkness towards me.

  “You’re her new best friend,” I announce as I tip my chin down the driveway towards where Emma’s car disappeared around the bend in the driveway. “I don’t think we should expect trouble for her, but I’m no longer taking risks.”

  “On it,” Towball acknowledges my request. The still glowing cigarette falls to the ground before disappearing under his boot as he stomps it out. His boots crunch on the gravel as he moves towards his bike. Seconds later, the bright light of his headlight blinds me as his Harley roars to life. Without another word, he rolls his bike backwards, turns and disappears down the driveway after Emma.

  Watching the taillight on his bike vanish around the bend in the driveway, I sense movement to my right. Luke steps in close. He’s been standing silently in the darkness, absorbing the conversation as he always does. He won’t have missed a single word. By now he will have sifted through the information he has and already be planning how he’ll respond. He’ll already know where I’m at and I know he will be with me every step of the way. The man’s a fucking genius and I love him like a true brother. “Thanks for coming man, but you don’t need to ride out with me. I’ll do this one on my own.”

  “No you won’t,” he announces as he lifts a han
d to my neck and squeezes my nape. “You’re gunna need backup and me and Zane are it.”

  I look back to the verandah to see Zane nodding. “I can’t ask you to do this man, it could go South…”

  He cuts me off. “It goes South, we go South with you. You aren’t doing this alone. We bring her back. Today. Now get inside, cover up, get us some weapons and we’ll hit the road.”

  Deciding that I don’t have the time to waste arguing with him or Zane, I nod my acceptance. A short time later, my brothers and I are on the road to Melbourne.

  Chapter Three

  Safe

  Meanwhile, Arianna…

  So this shit just got weird.

  I’ve woken up in the back seat of what I figure is a hellishly expensive car. A car with a white leather interior that’s so soft I feel like I’m sitting on a fluffy white cloud. There’s a flat screen on the back of the seat in front of me and a full center console complete with buttons, screens and dials between the two rear passenger seats. My mind instantly decides that this car has more of an MC Hammer feel than a Melbourne crime boss feel. Vincent Altieri must really be rolling in the cash.

  Even weirder, Pierre is lying on my lap, drooling lightly and snoring. He looks fine.

  Why did they kidnap my dog too?

  I suppose I should be grateful that at least Pierre appears okay. For now.

  I’m also okay, for now. Apart from a light headache I don’t feel too worse for wear. Which seems nothing short of a miracle and leads me to believe I must have a very hard head.

  Which reminds me how I got here.

  I tense up instantly as my fear and flight instincts spark back to life.

  Ohmigod Jake.

  What happened to Jake? Is he okay? I need to know what happened. I need to know if he’s okay. I also need to escape. And I need to escape working on the understanding that it is unlikely a person gets two divine interventions in one lifetime so I’m likely on my own this time.

  Fuck.

  My gun is gone, which one would expect. I think I made it reasonably clear I was willing to use it. Shooting someone would seem to demonstrate that. Interestingly however, I am once again not tied or restrained. Is Vincent really as dumb as Tony? Doesn’t he already know I’m capable of an effective escape?