by Lilly Atlas
“All right,” Screw said. “Lay it on us.” Jazz sat on his lap with Gumby in a chair next to them. He had one arm across Screw’s shoulders and the other hand resting on Jazz’s thigh.
Now seated next to Shell, Cassie reached out and captured the younger woman’s hand. “Most of you know we came here from the Pacific Northwest. We being Viper, myself, and Sarge.” She squeezed Shell’s hand. “Shell’s father.”
A few of the guys nodded and grunted their understanding.
“Anyway, we didn’t leave Washington under the best circumstances and needed to stay hidden for a while, so we took a long, roundabout way here to make sure we didn’t have anyone on our tail. Partway through Arkansas, in a tiny, rural town…can’t for the life of me remember the name now.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway. We were riding along, and the bike just sputtered and died. Can’t remember what was wrong with it, not that I could tell you even if I did remember.”
She cast a quick glance at Gumby who was working toward opening an automotive shop in town, one that specialized in motorcycles. He winked and she smiled.
“So there we were on the side of the road in this town that…well let’s just say it looked like it needed a bit of TLC. I was nervous.” God, how she’d been anxious. Halfway across the country with two men she’d just met. Leaving her home, her people, her life. They didn’t know who if anyone they could trust, and every mile brought with it more worry over whether or not she’d been insane to leave.
“As if it wasn’t bad enough, Sarge started humming that song. You know the one from the movie…”
Maverick started laughing as he hummed the well-known banjo song.
Cassie laughed as she pointed at him. “That’s the one.”
“Squeal like a pig,” Mav said before making the requisite noises. Leave it to Mav to remember that line.
“Ohhh, Deliverance,” Shell said. She shuddered. “That movie was disturbing.” She slapped her free hand to her head. “Oh, my God, what was my dad thinking?”
“You know his sense of humor could be…off,” Copper said with a shrug as he rested his hand on Shell’s protruding stomach.
That was putting it mildly. Sarge had been an interesting guy. A great man in some ways, he’d fight to the death for those he loved and for what he believed in, but there was a core of darkness that hadn’t been revealed to her until after they’d settled in Tennessee. As the years went on, he seemed to submit more and more to that shadowy side of himself until he’d nearly destroyed the club with his decisions.
Shell snorted. “Yeah, he wasn’t exactly the man anyone would look to for comfort and soothing.”
“Viper was so pissed at him,” Cassie continued with a huff of laughter. Though thirty years ago, the image of Viper grumbling and cursing Sarge came back as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
“Really?” Shell shifted in her seat until she faced Cassie, still holding her hand. Though the story wasn’t about them, the rest of the club sat just as interested.
“He was. Every time Viper said something to reassure me we were fine and wouldn’t end up living out the movie, your dad would hum that damn song. If the bike hadn’t been out of commission, I’m pretty sure Viper would have tossed me on it and taken off, leaving Sarge in the dust.”
“Aww, look at Viper being all sweet to you. He was your hero,” Holly piped in. She sat next to her giant of an ol’ man, LJ, with her head resting on his wide shoulder.
Maverick snorted. “He was trying to get in her pants.”
“He’d already been there,” Cassie said as heat rushed to her face. The whiskey must be getting to her. She’d never admit that aloud otherwise.
“Dammmmn, woman,” Screw said as Maverick whistled.
A few of the others cheered.
“Get it, girl,” yelled Izzy, cradling her sleeping infant.
Cassie laughed, suddenly lighter than she’d been in ten days.
In fact, the mood in the entire clubhouse lifted as story after story was told about her husband. The booze flowed, and for hours, they all reminisced about the man Cassie loved more than anything on earth.
By the time she left with Copper and Shell, her cheeks hurt from smiling, her heart ached from missing her man, and her entire spirit had been fed by the love this club had for him. The night couldn’t have ended on a better note. What could have been a night full of sorrow and pain turned into a wonderfully important time honoring Viper.
Exactly what she’d needed to remember just how lucky she’d been to have that man in her life for so many years. She’d gotten her happy ending while so many didn’t. Sure, it didn’t last forever, but she was convinced it wasn’t over yet.
As they crossed the parking lot, Shell slipped her arm through Cassie’s. “He really was your hero, wasn’t he?” Shell asked.
“Sweetie, you have no idea.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
1982 - WASHINGTON
Cassie had scoured her brain for every possible escape scenario she could drum up, but each potential idea had ended in epic failure.
She couldn’t brute force her way out because she’d never be able to overpower whichever meathead her captors put on guard.
She couldn’t break out of the wrist bindings securing her to the bedposts—she’d been trying for hours. So long, in fact, the skin around her wrists had been rubbed raw and the white zip ties were now coated in red. Surprisingly enough, she barely felt the sting and burn. Fear eclipsed most physical sensations, though she could feel the unpleasant tingling in her fingertips from prolonged pressure.
When they released her, allowing a quick trip to the bathroom, she couldn’t outrun the long-legged men watching her. Especially since her legs had been wobbly like a newborn foal from hours of disuse.
Screaming would be fruitless. She’d noticed the lack of neighbors when they pulled in.
Offering the men money had been a waste of words.
Threatening them with her wealthy father’s wrath hadn’t worked either.
That left one option. A sickening one, but considering what was in store for her, she’d have to get used to the idea.
Seduction.
Maybe if she offered a blowjob or even sex, one of them would let her go. Or perhaps she could catch them at a weak moment and escape. Her skin crawled at the idea of touching any of those men. Could she even do it? Part of her worried she’d completely melt down the second one of them laid a hand on her, shooting her chances for escape to shit.
Though still a virgin, Cassie wasn’t stupid or naïve. She lived in the real world, and had no illusions that sex was only for marriage, love, or some sacred moment between two people. Her friends had sex all the time with fuck buddies, significant others, random hookups. Sometimes an itch had to be scratched. She’d just never found someone she wanted to scratch hers. After living with a father whose repeated and public affairs had destroyed every relationship he’d had, she just couldn’t take such a casual approach to her body.
Cassie wanted to at least be sure she wouldn’t be left humiliated, shamed, and with a mountain of regrets the first time she’d had sex. So she’d waited. And now she fucking regretted that because she sure as fuck didn’t want her first time to be with some disgusting biker who thought of her as nothing more than a fancy sex toy. Her entire body locked up at the thought. But if it would work to get her freedom, she might just have to suck up the revulsion and do it.
The fate waiting for her if she failed to escape promised to be far worse than one romp with a dirty biker. Before yesterday, the notion of human trafficking had been an abstract one. Something she’d occasionally read about in the paper when a young woman went missing. Something everyone pitied but never quite devoted much brain power to. Especially the people in her life who only cared about three things, their public image, their wallets, and who they were fucking. It was those very people who’d driven her to get trashed in a bar alone, forgetting Street Smarts 101.
Not two da
ys ago, she’d discovered her married father had been screwing her best friend Marissa. It’d been going on since Marissa had turned eighteen, three years ago.
During those three fucking years, her friend had been meeting her for coffee dates on study breaks, partying with her on weekends, crying during difficult times. Three years she’d been deceiving Cassie and sleeping with her father behind her back.
Her father.
Were there a greater betrayal, she wasn’t aware of it.
And how did she find out? Well, that would have been when her four months pregnant ex-best friend showed up at Cassie’s apartment sobbing and begging for advice. The entire story spilled out in a torrent of tears and hysterics.
The nerve of her, thinking Cassie would somehow, what? Empathize?
Cassie supposed if she’d been a better person, she’d have felt some compassion or even pity toward her friend, but she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
All she’d felt was rage, hatred, and betrayal—well, after the initial blinding shock. When Marissa confessed to being in love with Cassie’s father, Cassie had nearly fallen over. Her foolish friend wanted nothing more than for Jim—as she’d referred to the man she’d called Mr. Falk since she could speak—to leave his current wife and raise the child with her. She hadn’t really come to Cassie for guidance, but to implore Cassie to speak to her father on Marissa’s behalf. Maybe the pregnancy hormones had made her stupid, but Marissa actually believed Cassie would support their…their thing.
She refused to refer to it as a relationship.
Good Lord, her father was her best friend’s baby daddy. Their families used to vacation together. Just five years ago, they’d all gone on a six-day yachting cruise in the Mediterranean. Marissa had been sixteen. Had her father been watching her? Lusting after her as he sat there sipping champagne with Marissa’s parents and his own wife?
That was about as screwed up as it got.
After kicking her bawling friend out, Cassie had turned her fury on her father. All that accomplished was being told she was acting like a spoiled child and to grow up. Excuse her for thinking her fifty-three-year-old married father knocking up her twenty-one-year-old best friend was fucked up.
In a fit of illogical rage, she’d threatened to go to the media if he didn’t support her friend financially and stop seeing her romantically. He’d laughed and said his lawyers would handle it and her “pathetic, social-climbing” friend would never see a dime. He’d then threatened to cut Cassie off if she went to the media. So, she’d taken care of the problem herself and stormed out of the house determined never to return. Screw him and his money. Maybe had this been his first twisted offense, she could have considered forgiving him, but her father’s sexual proclivities had put him in hot water on more than a few occasions.
Hell, another shameful affair with a barely legal teen had been the reason his second wife left in the dead of night and never returned. She’d often wondered if the same thing would have happened to her mother had her life not ended tragically early.
Her father was part of the wealthy, corporate, high society elite, yet he was far trashier than any of these bikers. Men her father would consider the lowest of low. She wanted no part of that life anymore. With extreme wealth came lies, manipulation, backstabbing, and greed. Family didn’t matter, friendships meant nothing. All those people cared about was money and how to earn more of it. And once they had it, they saw it as a license to do whatever the hell they wanted.
After the disastrous confrontation with her father, Cassie had wanted nothing more than to forget the day. So what had she done? She’d driven to a seedy bar she’d never been to. No rich assholes there to recognize her. Then she’d proceeded to drink her troubles away while not paying attention to her drink but paying plenty of attention to the handsome guy who’d offered to watch it while she went to the bathroom.
One stupid, fucking mistake and now she was contemplating offering her body to a man who curdled her insides.
Cassie willed her churning gut to remain calm and ignored the internal voice screaming at her not to abort this mission. A quick glance down her body revealed the purple bra and panty set she’d purchased just three days before was a hot mess. Filthy from all that she’d been through, it would have to do. Her less than hygienic state hadn’t seemed to deter any of the guards from pawing at her. Hopefully it wouldn’t turn them off when it came to having sex with her. Her stomach lurched at the idea.
You can do this. Shove the revulsion in a box and store it on the highest shelf.
Just as she was about to call out to her babysitter, the door to her room swung open.
“You!” she said on a gasp as the handsome young man from the previous night filled the doorway. He stepped forward and she huddled against the headboard.
Who was he? Why was he there? For a split-second last night, she’d been positive he was about to protest her treatment, but then he’d kept his mouth shut, proving he fit in with the others.
Her heart sank.
God, were they moving her already?
“What’s your name?” he asked, not moving from his spot. Despite his scowl, and the authority radiating from him, his voice didn’t convey the threat she’d felt from the other men.
“C-Cassie,” she said. “Cassandra.” She held as still as possible as if not moving would somehow make her safer were he to lunge for her.
“Will anyone have reported you missing?”
She studied him. He gave off a different vibe than the other men. The sense of fear and imminent danger she’d been battling for the past day faded in his presence. Something about him, made her feel…at ease? Safe?
No. Those ridiculous thoughts were dangerous. What? Because he was handsome, muscular, and sexy she shouldn’t fear him? Perhaps he wouldn’t harm her outright, but he was still one of them. His leather vest boasted the same patches as the men who’d been holding her there for the past day. Wouldn’t these guys die before betraying their motorcycle clubs? Or was that just in the made for TV version?
Still, as foolish as it might be, something compelled her to tell the truth. “Um, I’m not entirely sure.” She cleared her throat and fought to hold his intense milk-chocolate gaze. “Normally, I’d say yes. B-but I, uh, had a falling out with my family. Which was why I was at that bar and distracted. The guy slipped something into my drink and…” She shrugged, shifting her attention to the wall.
What’s the very first thing all women are told before going to a bar for the first time? Don’t leave your drink unattended. And what did she do? She chatted up a guy who seemed so…interested in her. He’d boosted her freaking ego and she’d allowed him to watch her drink while she hit the restroom to refresh her makeup.
Stupid, naïve mistake.
One she now paid for dearly.
The man nodded, face tightening as though he didn’t approve. Then why was he with them? Wasn’t this what his club did? Could he be different from the rest? Could he be an undercover cop?
God, she really had seen too many made for TV movies.
“Your folks rich? Powerful?”
Well, there it was. One of the bikers willing to take her money, perhaps? It was a nail in the coffin on the undercover cop theory, but, maybe she could work this to her advantage. Her palms grew slick and she wiped them as best she could given her limited range of motion. She had to play this right. Make it worth a huge betrayal to his club. “Yes, they have money. They’ll pay you. If you let me go, they’ll pay you.”
Would they? Did she even speak the truth? As she’d been storming out of her father’s house, he’d called after her, screaming that she was no longer in his will. No longer welcome at her childhood home. Not that she’d taken a dime from him in ages; most of her money came from a trust set up by her grandparents. They’d known what a controlling asshole her father could be and what a money-grubbing shrew her stepmother had proved to be. Despite the animosity between them, the notion of being exiled from he
r family cut deep. Not because of the money, but since they were all she had. A father, a stepmother. No other blood relations.
A lonely existence.
Throughout her schooling, she’d lived off the money her grandparents left her in a trust upon their deaths, but she planned to support herself with only what she earned once she graduated and began her own career. “Or I will if they won’t. I have money. I can pay you myself.” Not nearly as much as her father, but enough to keep his attention…hopefully.
He tilted his head and stared at her. Under his assessing gaze, she felt as emotionally stripped as she was physically.
He really was attractive. Not like any man she’d ever felt an interest in before. The few she’d dated had been so proper compared to him, so stuffy. Ralph Lauren polos, khaki pants, weekends spent golfing while days were spent in boardrooms or courtrooms. And of course, she couldn’t forget the Sunday brunches at her family’s ritzy country club of choice.
She’d bet this guy had never come within one hundred yards of a swanky country club. He was more the beer and pool type at a rundown bar. He was…well he was an outlaw biker, clearly. Everything about him radiated raw power from his height, to the rigid set of his jaw, to the bulging arms folded across his chest, to the hard glint in his eyes. She bet there wasn’t a thing in the world this man feared.
Must be nice.
And there she was, dirty and mostly naked on a bed without chance of escape. The most vulnerable position a woman could be in. Yet, she felt less fear now, even with him staring at her than she had since she’d been taken. His gaze heated her unclothed skin, eliciting a full-body tremor. Her nipples tightened and Cassie nearly died from the thought of him noticing her body’s mortifying reaction to his presence. She hugged her knees tighter to her chest. At least they’d left her legs unbound so she had some way to cover her near nudity.