by Lilly Atlas
Her parents? Though she wasn’t looking at Acer, his stare was so strong she practically felt it. Someone called her parents? Of course they had. What did she expect? She couldn’t stay here, and they were her emergency contacts. It was the logical thing to do. Sure, they had some major issues revolving around her career, but they were family. Maybe this ordeal would help mend their differences.
“Please.” She motioned for him to continue. “Just say what it is you have to say. I can handle it. Do you not want me to go to the police?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to. Could she handle the interrogation, investigation, and maybe even a trial?
“No, I’m not saying that. I just need you to leave any mention of the No Prisoners out of it. You’ll need to come up with a believable story of how you escaped, a story that does not involve anyone in this room.”
“She gets it, Striker, that’s enough. It’s time for you to go.” Acer’s dismissal was spoken in a gravelly tone.
Striker narrowed his eyes and appeared about two seconds away from punching Acer. The last thing Fia wanted was for him to get in trouble on her behalf.
“Come on, Striker, let’s give them a few minutes.” Lila tugged her husband’s hand and he relented, following her out of the room.
Fia had to admire the way she handled her man. She did owe him a little peace of mind though. “Striker?”
From the doorway, he turned around.
“After all you’ve done for me, I would never put your club in jeopardy. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Thank you. I hope you feel better soon.” He slipped through the door and she was alone with Acer.
He dragged the hard vinyl chair from the corner of the room next to the bed. He dropped into it and they stared at each other for long seconds. Fia wanted to say something, but she was at a loss for where to begin. Really, they didn’t even know each other, and now they were connected by a bond of horror.
Finally, Acer broke the silence. “Can I hold your hand?”
Her heart squeezed in her chest and she nodded. Such a simple gesture, but that he knew enough to ask made tears spring to her eyes.
With a gentle touch, so opposite the hard expression on his face, he picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingertips. Then he placed it palm down on the bed and rested his forehead against her knuckles. “I’m so sorry, Fia,” he said, the words slightly muffled by the sheets.
Her throat thickened and she tried to swallow, but the muscles wouldn’t obey. His voice was so full of despair she felt an instinctive need to comfort him. It couldn’t be often, if ever, that he let his guard down like this. “Acer,” she whispered. “None of this is your fault.”
He barked out a harsh laugh and raised his head. “Everything about this is my fault. When I saw you in the gym on Friday—” He shook his head. “God, you looked amazing, Fia. Like a fucking dream. Then those assholes were chatting you up, flirting, eyeing you like they had some right to you. I saw red. All I could think about was getting you out of there before one of them crossed the line. And, now—”
“Acer, stop.” She lifted her hand to his cheek. Day old stubble made it rough against her palm. “Just stop. I won’t listen to you do this to yourself, so if that’s why you’re here, you can go. You and I both know who is responsible for this, and isn’t you. So, either we move off this topic or you leave.”
He smiled at her. “I’m glad to see your snarky attitude is still perfectly intact.”
Fia chuckled. This was what she needed. A moment of normalcy. “Don’t think anything in this world could knock that out of me.”
Chapter Eleven
Acer wanted details. He needed them like he needed his next breath. Needed to know exactly what the motherfucker had done to his Fia. The need to know ate at him until it felt like an actual wound. “Tell me,” he said.
She watched him with wide eyes for a moment and his stomach bottomed out. She might not tell him a word. She didn’t owe him anything. She wasn’t his. He needed to keep that at the forefront of his mind. “Please. I need to know.”
With a heavy sigh, she tugged the bottom of the blanket high enough it exposed her bandaged leg. “Well, this is infected.” She grimaced as she lifted the sore limb.
“Shit, babe.” Acer covered her back up. “Keep it still.”
“I’m infected, dehydrated, and bruised as crap. But I’m alive and out of there, thanks to you.” Her eyes shone with a gratitude he didn’t deserve.
“Fia, don’t start thinking I’m a hero. That’s the last fucking thing I am.”
She pointed a finger at the door. “Uh uh, we already had this conversation. Either can it with the guilt, or take your ass out of here.”
He brought her hand to his lips again. “I have one more question.”
“Please don’t ask it.” As though she read his mind, she turned her pleading eyes on him. “You already know the answer. You found me naked. You know the answer. I’m not ready to say it out loud yet. Please talk about something else.”
He dropped his head and stared at the stark white sheets. Having a knife stabbed into his gut would be less painful than hearing Fia had been raped, and though she couldn’t say the words, she’d confirmed what he’d held out a tiny hope hadn’t happened. His head swam with a maddening swirl of emotions. He had a strong feeling that something had been taken from him, something precious and rare. But he wasn’t the one violated and Fia wasn’t his, so the feeling had no basis in reality. That reminder didn’t make the sentiment go away. “Lila called your parents. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t sure if that’s what you’d want, but she obviously didn’t ask my opinion.”
She chuckled. “I figured it wasn’t you.” With a sigh, she shrugged. “Look, we have our troubles, but they’re still my parents. I’m sure they’ll help me through all this. It was the right thing for her to do.” She gave him a half smile.
Was it the right thing to do? She had a few serious issues with her parents, but family banded together in times of crisis. Didn’t they? He almost snorted out loud. His sure didn’t. Ask her to stay. He shook his head at the ridiculous voice in his head. She couldn’t stay with him, probably wouldn’t stay with him. He ran her out of the gym and into the arms of a madman. He was the last person who should see her through this trauma. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“This probably isn’t the time for this…but…anyway, why did you come to the gym? You said there was something you had to tell me.” He still held her hand, needing that connection.
Fia’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. She sat straight up in bed with a wince. “Oh my God. I’d forgotten all about that. Shit!”
“Honey, lay back and relax. I wouldn’t have asked if I knew you’d get all worked up.” He wanted to crawl into the bed next to her and hold her until his mind was satisfied that she was actually safe. But he didn’t. He had no rights to her, and after what she’d just been through, the thought of a man in her bed was probably repulsive.
“I’m fine, Acer. And it’s very important. I overheard a phone conversation your father had. I was in a booth behind him at a restaurant. I don’t think he knew anyone was there or he wouldn’t have spoken so candidly.”
Acer froze. His father’s threats had been in the back of his mind the past few months, but with no further communication, he assumed the old man was all talk and bluster. Now, unease crept up his spine. She wouldn’t have traveled to a different state to tell him something that wasn’t significant.
“What did you hear?”
“I didn’t quite understand it all, but he spoke to someone about a project starting in Arizona, near the border. He talked about packages coming from Mexico and being delivered to the site of his new hotel, which I think is on the outskirts of Vegas.”
“Yeah, from what I hear, he’s trying to pull traffic off the strip. He say anything else?” Packages his ass. Those packages were illegal workers shuttled across the border only to be exploited
by his prick of a father.
Fia smoothed a wrinkle in the blanket that covered her hospital gown. “Yes.” She met his gaze and her eyes were somber. “He said he offered you a chance to get in on the deal months ago, and you declined. Then he lowered his voice and I could barely make out what he said, but it was something about your club. I’m sorry it’s not more, and now that I say it out loud I realize I may have overreacted, but at the time I felt like you needed to know.”
Acer blew out a breath and leaned back in the chair. His mind whirled with possibilities. He’d kept one eye on the border traffic for the first two months after speaking with Reginald, but found nothing. Time to do a little investigating. He’d have to take this to Shiv as well. Damn his old man and his greed.
“You know what he was talking about, don’t you?” She worried her lower lip between her teeth.
Acer took her hand again, interlacing their fingers this time. Her hand was warm and small. Like she was. “Yeah, baby. I know exactly what he’s talking about.”
“And you’re not going to tell me, are you?”
He smiled at the spark of annoyance in her voice. “No. You’re already too involved. And now that your parents are coming, people will find out you were here. It’s too risky.”
She nodded. “Just be careful.”
Guilt hit him full force. Here he was thinking about his own problems when Fia had just barely been pulled out of hell. “I’m such an asshole. We shouldn’t be talking about any of this now. You need to rest.”
“Oh, no. Not you, too. Everyone is going to be telling me I need to rest and heal and all that crap. From you, I need normal. Promise me.”
“Babe—”
She shook her head. “Not from you, Acer. Please. It’s different with you.”
This was the perfect opportunity for him to remind her they weren’t anything to each other, and that’s the way it needed to stay. She belonged in Beverly Hills, not the off-the-grid town of Crystal Rock. He opened his mouth to tell her just that. “I promise.” The words slipped out before he had a chance to stop them.
“Good. Now I’m tired and I need to rest.” She shot him a sassy smirk. “So go talk to Striker, I know you’re dying to.”
Acer laughed at the way she used the words she’d just admonished him for, he couldn’t help it. She was hilarious, and sweet, and sexy even in a hospital gown. He should be shot for having those thoughts about her right now, but he couldn’t help it. Everything about her called to him.
“All right, baby. I do need to talk to Striker, but I’m going to sit with you a bit more.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to tell him she was just going to sleep, but he cut her off. “Sleep. I’ll just sit here while you drift off.”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
Her eyes fluttered closed and within seconds, the even rise and fall of her chest alerted him to her slumber. The muscles in her face relaxed, making her look younger than her thirty years. She was small, helpless and delicate, dwarfed by the large hospital gown. Purple circles ringed her eyes and her face and arms bore the bruises of a brutal assault. The marks didn’t detract from her beauty, but they roused a protective instinct he hadn’t felt since Penny. Only it was different this time, with an adult intensity he hadn’t experienced twenty years ago.
He did need to speak with Striker, but all he wanted to do was watch over her while she slept. That fact alone was enough to uproot him from the chair.
The moment he stepped from the room, he was bombarded with a flood of unfamiliar emotions he’d been holding at bay for hours. He rested his back against the wall outside Fia’s room, needing a moment to clear his head.
He didn’t do emotions, feelings. Two decades ago, he locked down his heart and closed off the ability to feel anything besides anger.
Sure, he loved his club brothers, would die for them. But even they didn’t have all of him. No one knew about Derek and Penny, no one knew where he disappeared to one weekend each year when he went to the prison charity fundraiser. The club’s harsh policy on loyalty was one of the main draws. The rules were simple: betray the club and you pay, severely. It was the closest he could get to a guarantee of trustworthiness. And even then, it wasn’t a true guarantee. Members had betrayed the club in the past. But retribution was swift and harsh, and that gave him a sense of security and comfort. Fucked up as it may be.
Allowing people too far into his personal shit gave them power over him, gave them control. Acer was never powerless, nor without control.
But now, standing outside the room of a woman who’d been beaten, raped, and terrorized, a woman he knew intimately and who’d pierced his armor in an unsettling way, Acer struggled to keep the walls around his heart from shattering.
The guilt was hardest to ignore.
She didn’t blame him now, but she would. At some point, when the trauma wasn’t so acute, she’d realize that if he hadn’t rushed her from the gym, none of this would have happened. And then what would he do when Fia no longer looked at him with admiration and wonder, but a darkened anger?
Acer took a breath and pushed off from the wall. He needed to find Striker. Problems for his club were the number one priority. Fia would be fine. She was strong, and she had her family in her corner. She wasn’t his to heal, wasn’t his to worry over, and he didn’t want the position anyway.
He strode down the hall in search of Striker, ignoring the voice in his head whispering, liar.
Chapter Twelve
A subtle sense of déjà vu scratched at the back of Fia’s neck as she wiped her sweaty palms down the front of her baggy jeans. She wasn’t outside the gym, and she wasn’t technically here for Acer, but she was outside the No Prisoners clubhouse and just as nervous as the first time she’d come to this town.
That wasn’t true.
The stress was greater this time around. She was here for a reason, but as with her first trip, she could have called. Something had to be done to snap her back to reality, back to her life. For two weeks, she’d hidden. She was tired of hiding at her parent’s home, tired of being afraid, and tired of her family. Acer offered to send a club brother to look out for her until Mike was caught, but her father refused in dramatic affront. He hired a security firm, but it didn’t do anything to allay her fears. Instead, the large men hovering around only increased her nerves.
Enough was enough. It was time to face her fears head on, and, never one to do things in half measures, she decided to go straight to the source of her fears, Crystal Rock, Arizona. She’d slipped out in the middle of the night and drove the trip from Texas to Arizona, the thought of a crowded airport enough to make her physically ill.
What had the therapist called it, flooding? Immersing herself in the phobias until the fear subsided.
Easier said than done.
She opened her car door and forced her body out into the hot desert sun. After two steps toward the door, the world spun, her vision blurred, and her chest constricted.
Shit, not a panic attack, not now.
Fia turned around and took the two steps back to her car. She bent forward and placed her palms down on the hood of the car, ignoring the heat that seared her skin.
In, out, in, out, she chanted in her head over and over in an attempt to regulate her gasping breaths. Within a minute, her heart rate began to slow and the pressure in her chest subsided, allowing her breathing to calm as well. At least she was finally gaining some measure of control over the paralyzing anxiety.
She straightened and tried again, this time on weak and shaky limbs. The panic attacks always left her drained. “Suck it up, girl,” she murmured to herself.
As she approached the door, the feelings of fear and unease started to abate. There was a good chance Acer was behind those walls, and the thought of being near him steadied her, made her feel safe.
It was a stupid thought. They were nothing to each other but a one-night stand plus a one-night horror show, but at this point, she’d take a
nything that made the fear diminish.
“Well, hey there, gorgeous. You going inside?” A very tall, thin, almost gangly man stood about fifteen feet away, holding the door to the clubhouse open for her.
“Oh…yes…I…um…” She had to get it together. There was simply no other option. Well, there was, she could live in her parent’s house forever, sleeping in her teenage bedroom and hiding from reality while she slowly went out of her mind.
She cleared her throat and tilted her head back to get a full view of his face. “I’m sorry. Yes, I’m on my way in.”
He winked. “No worries, I have a tendency to make women speechless.”
Fia laughed, and it felt great. Humor had been lost on her in the past weeks.
“You looking for someone in particular, doll?”
She looked up at the slender giant. “Actually, yes, I’m looking for Striker.”
The man’s mouth pulled down and he stepped in her path, effectively blocking the entrance. “You know he’s got an ol’ lady right? They’re fuckin’ tight, so if you’re here to shit on that, I’m gonna have to tell you to turn around.”
She gasped. “What? No! I’m not here to…shit on anything. It’s business, strictly business. I know Lila.”
His face hadn’t kicked back up into a smile, but he nodded and moved aside. She passed through the entrance, careful to stick close to the right side of the doorframe so as not to brush against him. Last thing she needed was another panic attack.
“Yo, VP. Classy lady here to see you. Says it’s business,” he called into the room. “He’s at the bar, darlin’.” He pointed at a large mahogany bar generously stocked with bottles.
Her face heated as the five or so large bikers in the room all turned and stared at her. “Thank you…um…”
“Gumby.”
She smiled. It fit. “Thank you, Gumby.”
“No problem, doll. You looking for a little entertainment after your meeting, I’ll be right across the lot, in the garage.” He winked again and left.