Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“They’re at lunch.”
“Where?”
Carl frowned. “I don’t know since I don’t keep tabs on them. That’s Lyric’s job.”
“Well, you fuckin’ should!” he wanted to scream. “You’re the only goddamn man that works in this fuckin’ shop! You should be lookin’ out for the women!”
He pulled in another breath and swallowed all that back down. Lyric was really picky with who she hired. He didn’t want to be responsible for this asshole quitting.
Or ending up in the hospital after Rage punched him in the throat.
He tipped his head to the left, cracking his neck, then to the right, cracking it again, then pulled in a third long breath and unclenched his balled fingers.
He dug his cell phone out and texted Lyric. He waited sixty seconds for her to respond, and when she didn’t, he called. It rang three times before her voicemail picked up. “Where you at? My appointment was fifteen minutes ago.”
Yeah, he was late, but whatever. He had a fucking business to run. With a bunch of catty women who liked to claw at each other’s eyes, rip out each other’s extensions, and try to pop each other’s breast implants.
His jaw shifted.
Gabi needed to do a better job of keeping those crazy bitches under control.
“Know what time she left?” he reluctantly asked Carl.
“Like I said, I was on break, so…”
What a motherfucking asshole.
He waited another minute for her to return the call. When she didn’t, he rounded the front counter and headed toward the back.
“Hey! You can’t just—”
“The fuck I can’t,” he muttered. He strode into her office and stopped dead at seeing her desk.
Jesus fuckin’ Christ. It looked like a tornado had hit it.
She needed a part-time secretary or something. Crow and Jazz had always kept the shop organized and neat. Clearly, that gene had skipped Lyric.
He pulled her laptop out from under a small mountain of paperwork. For fuck’s sake, she better not be ignoring any important bills. The office chair groaned when he sank into it before opening the computer.
No surprise, the screen was locked. One side of his mouth pulled up when he realized she never deleted his access. But then, she probably didn’t know he added himself.
Of course, he had a good fucking reason. Since he helped set up the security system, he had programmed his fingerprint to unlock it so he didn’t have to keep asking her to do it while she was busy tattooing. He had no idea at the time that it would come in handy in the future.
He ignored the fact that her email icon had a red number indicating she had over a hundred unread emails.
He ignored the fact she had some fucking shirtless, tattooed guy as her computer’s wallpaper. She probably thought the fucker was hot or something.
He also ignored the fact that there were at least a dozen folders on her computer’s desktop that weren’t labeled.
If she wasn’t one of the top ink slingers in the area—hell, probably in the state—and it wasn’t backed by the DAMC, he had no doubt In the Shadows Ink would have gone under like a boat with a huge hole in it.
Lyric really needed to get Jazz into the office to get it organized if she didn’t want to hire another person. Her mother had helped Crow run the shop for probably over twenty-five years and she knew what the fuck she was doing.
With an irritated shake of his head, he clicked on the security camera icon and pulled up the footage from earlier. He started at the point the shop opened and fast forwarded to see when she left…
He blinked.
What the fuck? Was he seeing shit? He leaned closer, rewound, blinked a few times to clear his vision, and replayed it.
He shot out of the seat like it had burned his ass. “What the actual fuck?” he yelled. “Holy fuckin’ shit!”
He yanked the laptop free of the charger, rushed out of her office with it tucked under his arm and back into the shop where Carl was now jawing with a customer.
“She was fuckin’ kidnapped!” he yelled at that worthless piece of shit.
Carl cocked his head. “She was what?”
Rage’s heart beat was pounding in his ears and his vision was turning red.
Should he call or text everyone? Or head over to the clubhouse and try to figure out what the fuck was going on first?
He paused only long enough to text Zeke: Lyric. Snagged. Church. He didn’t have the time or patience to type out any long explanation. And with the way his body was vibrating with fear for Lyric and fury over the situation, he would’ve had a tough time typing shit out, anyway.
He slammed both palms against the door, not giving shit if it came off its hinges, then raced to his sled and back toward Church.
Chapter Seven
Rage arrived at Church at the same time Zeke did. They headed inside and he placed Lyric’s laptop on the bar.