Saving Sami

Chapter 11 Storm In The Distance

SAMI –
For the first time in days, the clubhouse felt… quiet.
Tank and his crew hadn’t so much as looked her way since the blow-up. In fact, most of the guys gave her a wide berth now — like she was wrapped in barbed wire and had Ace’s name stamped across her forehead.


Good. Let them keep their distance.
She didn’t belong here. Not really. But she belonged with Ace — and if that meant tiptoeing through a minefield of leather and ego, so be it.


She sat outside on the back steps, a mug of coffee warm in her hands, the early morning sun starting to burn off the chill. A few members rolled out of the lot on bikes, their engines loud but familiar now — almost comforting.


Ace had left early with Grimm and Reaper. Something about a weapons run. Club business. He hadn’t wanted to go, but she’d kissed him softly and told him she’d be fine. That she’d stay out of the way. That she wasn’t scared.
That last part was a lie. But she was getting good at those.
Inside, she heard footsteps — lighter than boots. Then a voice.
“Hey.”
Sami turned. It was Roxy, one of the only girls around the clubhouse who didn’t treat her like a virus.
“Morning,” Sami said, surprised.
“Figured you’d want a heads up,” Roxy said, lighting a cigarette and sitting beside her. “There’s been talk. Not from inside. Outside. Randoms asking about you at Dusty’s and that gas station on Greenway.”
Sami tensed. “Me?”


Roxy nodded. “A girl matching your description. Red hair. Green eyes. Tight little ass. Sound familiar?”
Sami swallowed. “Who’s asking?”
“That’s the thing — no one’s sure. Not MC. Not cops. Just strangers. But it’s enough to raise flags.”
A chill worked down Sami’s spine, and it had nothing to do with the morning air.
“They know about me?”
“They’re starting to,” Roxy said. “Ace doesn’t know yet, but he will. And when he does… he’s gonna lose his mind.”


ACE –
Grimm pulled the van into the lot behind the clubhouse just after one. The sun was high, heat rolling off the pavement, and Ace was already tense.
He felt it before he saw it. Sami wasn’t outside anymore. Not on the porch. Not waiting.
He moved fast, taking the stairs two at a time, heart pounding a rhythm that said something’s wrong.


She was in his room — safe. Sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands balled in her lap. When she looked up, her eyes told the truth before her mouth could.
“What happened?” he asked, already crossing the room.
She stood and met him halfway. “Roxy said people are asking about me. At stores. Gas stations. Places I’ve never even been.”
Ace’s blood ran cold. “Locals?”
“No. Outsiders. She said they don’t belong to any crew around here.”
He clenched his jaw. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because I knew you’d come back ready to fight, and I wanted to talk first.”
Ace stared at her like he was memorizing her face. Then he sat down, running both hands over his face like he was trying to breathe through a fire.
“This isn’t random,” he muttered. “This feels planned. Staged.”
“You think it’s Tank?”
“No,” he said. “Tank’s a cockroach, but he’s scared now. He wouldn’t risk another move — not this soon.”
“Then who?”
Ace’s gaze hardened. “Someone outside the club. Someone who wants leverage.”
Sami’s stomach dropped. “Leverage for what?”
Ace stood again. “That’s what I’m gonna find out.”


Unknown Location – Later That Night


Two men sat in a car across from the local diner. Inside, one of the waitresses with red hair and green eyes smiled at a table full of truckers.
“She looks like the girl in the picture,” the driver muttered.
“Not her,” the other said, flipping through photos on his phone. “That one’s got freckles. The real one doesn’t. Keep looking.” They waited another hour.
Then they drove off — toward the highway. Toward the clubhouse. Toward her.


SAMI –
She barely had time to scream.
They moved fast, like they’d done this before — one grabbing her arms, another slamming the door shut behind them. She kicked, thrashed, tried to dig her nails into flesh, but they were too strong. Trained. Prepared.
One of them yanked her phone from her hand and threw it against the wall. The other wrapped something around her wrists—plastic zip ties that bit into her skin.
She shouted Ace’s name, over and over, until a rag was shoved into her mouth. She could still scream through it, but it came out muffled, panicked. And no one heard.


The first man looked at her, masked eyes flat and cold.
“Wrong guy to fall for, sweetheart.”
He lifted her like she weighed nothing and hauled her out the back, past the hallway, through the back door that must’ve been jimmied open minutes earlier. No one saw. No one stopped them.


She kicked again, managed to clip him in the side of the head. He cursed and slapped her hard enough to make her ears ring.
Then she was tossed into the back of a van — cold steel, no windows, no sound.
Dark. Alone.
The doors slammed shut.
The lock clicked.
And the engine rumbled to life.


ACE –
He knew the second he opened the door and found the room empty.
Her phone on the floor.
Mug broken.
The rug half-shifted from where she’d struggled.
He barely registered Grimm’s voice behind him or Reaper’s hand on his shoulder.
“She’s gone,” Ace said. “They f*****g took her.”
Reaper turned away, barking orders. “Lock the gates! Nobody leaves. Call Bones, get eyes on the east road. If anyone saw a van—”
“She’s not in town,” Ace said, already moving. “They wouldn’t risk that. They planned this.”
Grimm caught up to him at the stairs. “Ace. Slow down. Think.”
“They were watching her.”
“You don’t know that.”
Ace stopped short, turned around, and shoved Grimm backward, voice cracking.
“They knew she was alone.”
Grimm stared at him, breathing hard. Then his hand came up and rested against his cousin’s chest. “I’ll help you find her. But you have to stay clear-headed. We can’t save her if we fall apart first.”
Ace didn’t answer.
He just turned and walked out the door.


SAMI –
She didn’t know how long she’d been in the van.
Every second bled into the next — slow, thick, heavy.
The engine droned. Tires crunched gravel. One of the men muttered something in the front seat, but she couldn’t make it out.


She worked at the zip ties behind her back until her wrists were bleeding. Every time she twisted, the plastic sliced deeper. But she didn’t stop.
Pain meant she was alive.
And as long as she was alive, he would find her.
She closed her eyes and focused on Ace’s face. His voice. The way he’d held her that morning, lips at her temple, murmuring something soft and private.
“You’re not alone anymore.”
It echoed through her now like a prayer.
She repeated it to herself in her head until it became a chant.
Not alone. Not alone. Not alone.


ACE –
He didn’t wait for backup.
Didn’t ask Reaper for permission. Didn’t bother with a plan.
All he knew was this: someone had taken Sami.
And he was going to make them bleed.
Grimm gave him the last known direction the van headed — a tip from one of the MC’s contacts near the scrapyard. He tore out of the lot on his bike, engine screaming under him, mind sharp and burning.
Every red light blurred.
Every car felt like it was in his way.
He replayed her voice in his head — the way she whispered his name, the way she’d looked at him when she said she wasn’t walking away.
Now she was gone.
And he didn’t know what they were doing to her. Where she was. If she was hurt. Scared.
He couldn’t breathe through it.
He couldn’t think around it.
He just kept riding.


UNKNOWN LOCATION – Edge of Town
They parked in a clearing behind an old warehouse that hadn’t seen activity in a decade.
The door slid open. One man dragged Sami out, legs wobbling beneath her.
She could barely stand.
But she stood.
The second man shoved her toward a metal chair inside. She didn’t fight now. Didn’t scream.
She was saving her strength.
Waiting for the moment.
The one where Ace came crashing through.
Because she knew — knew — if he was still breathing, he was coming for her.
And God help the men who stood in his way.