Holding Mia

by Terri Anne Browning

  In the few weeks I’d been her teacher, I’d noticed that when Howler dropped her off, she was all smiles and bounced around like she had all the energy in the world. But the one other time her mother had dropped her off, she’d seemed sad, and I’d felt uneasy when Gwen had picked her up.

  There was a look in Josie’s eyes that night that had left me feeling so unsettled, I’d called my own mom.

  “What’s wrong, baby girl?” Momma had asked as soon as she’d heard my voice.

  “Momma…” I started, then hesitated. She’d never kept it a secret from Jagger or me that she’d been abused when she was a little girl. Her mother had been a drug addict who eventually overdosed, and Momma had become Uncle Jesse’s ward. But before that life-changing event, she had suffered unimaginable things that made me cry every time I thought about it.

  “Mia, is everything okay?” she’d demanded, sounding out of sorts. “You’re worrying me.”

  “How can you tell when someone is being abused?” I finally asked.

  There was a long pause on her end as I stood inside the dance studio, waiting on Barrick to pick me up. I could have easily walked it, but he’d thrown a big stink when I’d tried to the first time, and I’d given in, letting him drive me to and from…well, everywhere.

  “I’ll ask you again, Mia Nicole. What is wrong?”

  Sighing, I told her about my gut reaction to Josie and Gwen, and she’d gone silent all over again. Then she listed off all the signs I should watch for, which I’d done the following week. But Howler had been the one to bring and then pick up his daughter that night, and I hadn’t seen anything that even suggested something was wrong with Josie.

  Josie started to stretch her arm over her head, and I stood there watching. When she lifted her hand, I gasped and dropped to my knees beside her. When I gently grasped her wrist, she tried to lower it quickly, her face turning white as a ghost, but I refused to let her hide what I’d just seen.

  Bruises under her arm near her armpit. Finger-sized bruises that looked fresh and painful.

  Because of my gasp, the other littles stopped what they were doing to watch us, and pink filled Josie’s cheeks. Not wanting to embarrass her, I stood and clasped her hand in mine, giving her and then the others a bright smile. “All right, little princesses. Josie and I are going to step outside for a moment. Keep stretching.”

  Keeping my smile in place, I opened the door and stepped through with Josie at my side. Thankfully, the door was glass, so I could watch the others while I spoke privately with her.

  “I-I fell down at the park today,” Josie quickly supplied before I could even ask her what had happened.

  “Sweetheart, I can tell the difference between bruises caused by a fall and those from someone who hurt you on purpose.” Crouching down so I was at her height killed my knee, but I needed to be on her level. “And I think maybe these on your arm aren’t the only ones. Where else do you hurt, Josie?”

  Her bottom lip trembled, and she shook her head. “N-Nowhere. I’m fine. I j-just fell.”

  I lowered my lashes, hiding the tears that blurred my vision. But I couldn’t let her see them. “All right, Josie. Go back in and continue stretching.”

  She practically ran away from me, and it broke my heart. But I couldn’t let this go. My instinct was to call Howler and tell him, but I didn’t know his number. Which left only one other option.

  I quickly grabbed my phone out of my bag in the locker room and rushed back so I could watch the littles through the door as I hit Lyla’s number.

  “I’m at the gym,” Lyla said, out of breath when she answered. “Can I call you back? I’m about to show this cousin of mine just who is boss.”

  “I need to tell you something,” I confessed, and there was suddenly tension on the other end of our connection. “It’s about Josie.”

  “What about her?” she half shouted. I knew she was close with Howler’s daughter, so I could only imagine the explosion this was going to cause.

  “Josie was acting off. You know how bubbly she is, and she’s always ready to be my star. But tonight, she’s been acting like she’s sore and stiff. I just… There are bruises under her arm that look like fingerprints and I think she might have them other places, but she keeps saying she fell at the park. But, Lyla, these aren’t the kinds of bruises from a fall off the jungle gym.”

  “I’m on my way,” she said without hesitation, her voice ice-cold. “Braxton, call Howler. I have to go. Tell him to get to Josie’s dance class.”

  “What’s—” But I didn’t hear the rest of what Braxton was asking because she’d already hung up.

  Clutching my phone in my hands, I glanced back inside the classroom. Josie stood in front of the wall of mirrors, stretching out like the others were, but she still wasn’t moving like she normally would.

  There were still thirty minutes left of class, and I needed to teach. But tonight, I couldn’t concentrate. Instead, we had fun, dancing to some of my favorite songs while I showed them some of the other dance styles I’d learned on my summers traveling abroad.

  The girls loved it, including Josie, and by the time Lyla stormed into the class fifteen minutes later, she was all smiles.

  “Lyla!” Josie squealed and jumped into the other woman’s arms. “Did you come to pick me up?” she asked, and the spark of hope in her eyes broke my heart all over again.

  Lyla held her close, kissing the top of Josie’s head as she inhaled deeply. “I’m never going to let you out of my sight again,” she vowed to Josie.

  “Really?” The little girl’s head fell back, a beaming smile on her beautiful little face. She looked so much like Howler with her dark-blond hair, and the feminine version of his features gave her an almost angelic appeal. “You promise?”

  “Pinkie swear,” Lyla said, her voice choked as she offered the little girl her finger.

  Howler’s entrance had the other littles scurrying to the other side of the classroom, and I quickly put myself between him and them. This class was my final one of the day and I was the last teacher in the building, but I knew I was going to have to tell Mrs. Cora what had happened. I’d already texted her before I’d come back in that I thought one of my students was being abused at home, but I’d told her I was handling the situation with the other parent to make sure the little girl was safe.

  Barely a minute passed before the door to my classroom opened again, this time to give Barrick entrance. He was in workout clothes and sweat soaked through his shirt, but it was his eyes that worried me.

  They were wild and dangerous, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be the person who got in the way of whatever he was searching for.

  Which was me.

  He wrapped his arms around me in the next second, making my students giggle. “Are you okay?” I nodded against his chest, trying to breathe because he was cutting off my air supply from holding on to me so tightly. “Braxton called me and said something was going on and that Howler was on his way. I didn’t know what was happening. I was scared something had happened to you.”

  Across the room, Howler was waiting impatiently for Lyla to hand over his daughter, but she was refusing.

  “Barrick,” I gasped out. “I need to get the girls out of here before Howler blows up.”

  His hold instantly eased, and he nodded. I turned to my other students. “Who wants cookies?” I offered.

  “Me! Me! Me!” They chorused. Laughing, I rushed them out of the classroom with Barrick’s help and down to the staff lounge. There was a whole pantry of snacks, and I pulled out a package of cookies, making a mental note to replace them as I handed each girl two Oreos.

  While they sat on the floor eating their snack, Barrick pulled me off to the side. Some of the wildness had eased from his dark eyes, but not all of it. “What’s going on? Did something happen to Josie?”

  “She has bruises under her arm,” I confided. “They looked like fingerprints. I think she’s being ab
used.”

  “Not by Howler,” he rushed to defend. “He’s a good dad, Mia. He would never—”

  I held up my hand, stopping him. “I didn’t suspect Howler. I think it’s Gwen.”

  “Motherfuck,” he whispered fiercely. “That selfish bitch.”

  “Barrick,” I chided when the girls looked over at us with wide eyes.

  He quickly smoothed out his facial features and put on that smile that always melted my panties. “Sorry, sweethearts. Grown-up talk over here.”

  Soon, the other parents started showing up to take their daughters home, and I stood in the lobby with them so they didn’t intrude on what was going on in the classroom. When we’d passed by on our way to the lobby, I’d noticed Lyla had Josie’s leotard pulled down her back and was running her fingers over the little girl’s lower back.

  Just as the last student was walking out the door with her mother, Gwen walked in. She looked unsteady on her feet, and I caught the smell of booze in the air. Her eyes went past me and straight to Barrick, and she stopped in her tracks.

  Down the hall, the door to the classroom opened, and Lyla came charging out, telling me she must have been listening for Gwen’s arrival.

  Seeing my friend coming, the other woman took a step back before smirking at her. “If it isn’t the little puppy who’s always chasing after my man. What’s wrong, Lyla? Mad again that Howler won’t touch you? Or is it that he knocked me up when he was supposed to be in love with you?”

  One second Gwen was running her mouth, the next she was on the floor and Lyla was beating her face in. “You disgusting excuse for a human being,” she raged as blood flew from Gwen’s mouth. “How could you hurt something so precious? How could you touch that baby with anything but love?”

  It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to react, but Barrick was plenty fast enough. He wrapped his arms around me and swung me up into his arms, carrying me away from the bloodbath Lyla was creating right there in the lobby.

  “Wait!” I yelled as he carried me toward his Jeep. “Lyla might kill her. We need to stop her.”

  “First rule of Lyla. You get in her way, you get bloody. I’m not that brave, baby.” He placed me in the front passenger seat then shut the door. Walking around to the driver’s side, he jumped in and started the vehicle. “We’re going to go pick up Braxton, and then we can come back and clean up the mess.”

  “But what about Josie?” I whispered, worried for the little girl I’d come to care about. “What if she sees…that?”

  “Howler won’t let that happen,” he assured me confidently.

  “But…”

  “Gwen has everything she’s getting right now coming to her,” Barrick said as he drove in the direction of the gym. “Don’t feel sorry for her.”

  “I don’t,” I rushed to tell him. “I just don’t want Lyla to get in trouble.”

  His laugh was hard. “Don’t bother. Lyla can handle anything. Including if Gwen wants to press charges. If she’s able to talk when Lyla gets finished with her skanky ass.”

  “O-kay,” I muttered as he pulled up in front of the gym. A few seconds later, Braxton walked out, his gym bag slung over his shoulder. When he saw me in the front seat, his shoulders relaxed noticeably, until he got in the back and Barrick told him we had to go clean up the blood.

  “The fuck you mean, blood?” he demanded, leaning forward.

  “Lyla was beating Gwen’s ass when we left,” his cousin informed him as he drove back to the dance studio.

  “Good. That bitch had it coming.”

  When we walked back into the studio, there was no sign of Lyla, but there were two guys in suits picking Gwen up off the floor. She was bloody, already bruising, and I felt a keen sense of justice for Josie.

  I stepped into her space, and she gulped when she saw me. “That pain you’re feeling, that fear coursing through your veins and making you tremble right now, I’m sure that is nothing to how Josie felt when you put those bruises on her.”

  “I-I didn’t,” she sobbed out the denial.

  “Then you let someone else do it, and that’s just as bad. You’re pathetic. I hope you never get the chance to see that sweet little girl again.”

  “Get her out of here,” Barrick commanded of the two suits, who gave a curt nod and half dragged, half carried Gwen out of the studio.

  The bathroom door off to the side of the lobby opened, and Lyla came out, drying her hands on a paper towel. Her dark hair was a tangled mess, and both hands had cuts and dark red bruises already forming on her knuckles.

  “I’m going home with Howler,” she told me as she tossed the paper towel in the trash. “Could you go back to the dorm and pack me a few things? I don’t know how long I’ll be there, but I’m not leaving Jo-Jo right now.”

  “Yes, of course,” I assured her. “Whatever you need.”

  Her eyes drifted around the lobby, her lips grimacing. “Sorry about the mess,” she said, waving a hand at the blood spatters on the floor. “Judge’s people will clean it up after they deal with Gwen.”

  “Um, how exactly are they going to deal with her?” Not that I really cared what they did to her, but I didn’t want to have the cops suddenly show up at my door asking awkward questions if Gwen’s body washed up in some river.

  Her lips twitched for a second before she shook her head. “Sweet, innocent little Mia. Don’t worry. They just took her to the hospital and will cover the bill.”

  “Aren’t you worried she will call the cops?”

  “Nope.”

  “But—”

  “Mia,” she said with a heavy exhale. “There is a reason my brother’s cage name is Judge. Just take it at that and let this go. Gwen won’t ever show her face around here again. Because if she does, I’ll fucking kill her.”

  I couldn’t help shivering, because I believed her. If Gwen were smart, she would pack up and leave.

  Howler came out of the classroom down the hall with Josie in his arms, her sleeping head on his shoulder. As he walked up to me, his free arm shot out, and he pulled me against him in a tight hug.

  “Thank you,” he said gruffly.

  A growl-like noise came from directly behind me, and I knew without looking it was Barrick. Howler dropped his arm, and I stepped back, my concerned eyes on Josie. “How is she?”

  “She’s scared. Thought I would be mad at her. Like any of this is her fault.” Shaking his head in disgust, he readjusted his daughter so she was more comfortable. “Out of everyone in this shitshow, she’s the only innocent one.”

  “Truth,” Lyla muttered half under her breath.

  “We will drop your things off to you,” Barrick told his cousin, grasping my hand.

  “Yeah, thanks. I’ll make sure this place is locked up and taken care of.”

  “You need any help?” Braxton asked her, but she shook her head.

  “Thanks. I’ll call you.” She hugged him, then me. “I probably won’t go with you to New York Friday night. I’m sorry.”

  “No, no. It’s fine. I completely understand. Josie is much more important.” I hugged her tightly then let Barrick pull me out the door.

  “You’re not going to New York alone,” my boyfriend informed me as he opened the passenger-side door for me.

  “Don’t start,” I told him as I got in.

  His possessive alpha-ness was sexy most of the time. It made me feel like maybe he cared more than either of us had said yet. But sometimes it got out of hand and he started bossing me around like he had the right. Or worse, like he was my dad. And that was when we argued.

  “I mean it, Mia.” He stood there with the door open, his eyes narrowed on me.

  “So just come with me,” I said exasperatedly. It’s not like I wanted to go without him anyway.

  When we were apart, even for a few hours, I felt off. I craved him beside me, which scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to feel like that with anyone. It gave them too mu
ch power over me, and I wanted to be the only one who wielded it.

  Yet, at the same time, I liked it. Maybe even loved it.

  Just like I was sure I was in love with him.

  “I can’t,” he muttered. Jaw clenching, he glared off into the night.

  “You don’t have a fight, so what’s the problem?” I asked, miffed. I knew he had plans for Friday night, because I’d asked him to come with me more than once already. But he hadn’t told me what they were.

  “I have a meeting,” he said evasively.

  “With the CIA?” I snarked, and his lips twitched.

  “Funny.” Leaning in, he kissed my forehead. He knew it would normally shut me up because his forehead kisses always took my breath away. But I was too upset to let him distract me.

  “I’m serious. You’re acting so mysterious about whatever it is you’re doing, and it’s starting to make me wonder what the hell you’re really up to.”

  “I’ll go with her,” Braxton quickly offered from the back seat, trying to put a stop to the argument that was about to blow up. “Who wouldn’t want to go on a private jet with some rock legend and two hot girls?”

  “Yeah,” I muttered, clasping my hands together in my lap and looking straight ahead out the windshield. “Who could possibly turn that down?”

  Barrick, that was who.

  Nevaeh and her grandfather were going to be stopping to pick me up on their way to New York City. Cole Steel, the biggest legend the rock world had ever seen, was hosting me and any friends I wanted to bring with his eldest granddaughter for the entire weekend.

  And apparently, my boyfriend had better things to do.

  Chapter 13

  Barrick

  There was already a huge private jet waiting on the tarmac when security waved me forward. Driving up almost to the steps of the massive thing, I glanced over at Mia, who’d been quiet the entire drive.

  She was pissed at me.

  I was pissed at me too, but there was nothing I could do about that. Not yet. And if I didn’t want to lose her—which I fucking didn’t—I couldn’t tell her a damn thing about this meeting I was going to after I put her on that jet.