Crash!
Glass breaking. Wood splintering. A stampede of footsteps and screams and loud, sharp, metallic sounds ruptures the air. Damien’s hand slides over my mouth, probably to keep me from screaming, but I’m too shocked to scream. Too shocked to do anything but watch, wide-eyed, as the shadows of men’s feet running through the hall spill through the little crack between the door and floor.
My heartbeat echoes in my ears. My body trembles beneath Damien’s. I can feel his hearth thumping on my back.
Damien holds me close and rolls us both out of the middle of his room, to the closet space behind his bed, where he holds me until the men pass.
I wish, once the men passed, that nothing else happened but that’s not the case. There’s more screaming, shouting, more awful sounds ripping through the night.
Damien pulls me up. “You okay?”
Am I okay? I don’t feel okay. I feel like the world is ending.
“Princess?”
The concern in his voice knocks me out of my fearful prison. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
“Good. I want you to stay here.”
“In your closet?”
“Yeah. Don’t move until I get back, alright? No matter what you hear.”
I don’t like the sound of his voice. I don’t like the concern in his words. “Damien, what’s happening?”
He glances at the door, eyes weary. “I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”
He sighs and his grip on my shoulders tightens. “This isn’t good, Princess. Just stay here and stay safe.”
“Where are you going?”
He gulps.
“You’re just going to leave me here?”
“My brothers need me. Your father. Our family.”
I shudder as more screams pierce the air.
“Princess?”
I nod, grabbing my knees and holding them to my chest.
“I love you,” Damien whispers. Then, he goes to his chest and grabs his gun. I watch it glint in his hand.
“If you get hurt I’ll never forgive you,” I whisper back at him.
In the moonlight, I can see him smile slowly, sadly. Then, he turns away from me and out the door.
It feels like an eternity passes. Each scream cuts my soul. My father. My brothers. My family. The man I love…
I hate how weak I am. I hate how Damien didn’t ask me to come out and help him, but instead told me to hide in the closet. I want to help them. I need to help them. But what can I do when there is so much violence all around me and I know nothing of violence?
I sit there, trembling, until the screams stop.
And then I realize there is something much more horrific than the sounds of anger and destruction: the silence that comes after.
***
There is a gun in my drawer.
My dad taught me how to shoot. How to load it. How to turn off the safety. It was one of the first things he taught me when I came to live with him. He didn’t want anyone messing with his daughter. If anyone fucked with me he was going to show them hell, but he also wanted to make sure that before he did, I’d show them hell first.
I grab it, hand trembling. I’ve shot bottles off a fence before. I’ve gone to the range with my brothers. But I’ve never used a gun against someone.
As I tiptoe down the hall, I realize that because of that, I’ve never really used one at all.
I keep my hand on the wall to steady myself. The lights are on, then off, then on again. Flickering like a heartbeat, then disappearing into darkness. What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck do I think I’m even going to be able to do? I don’t know but I keep moving, because it’s quiet now and Damien didn’t come back. Because it’s quiet and it shouldn’t be.
As I turn from the halls to the center of the clubhouse, it suddenly isn’t so silent anymore.
I don’t know what I was expecting to find but it wasn’t this.
Tables are turned over. Beer cans and bottles litter the floor. Mirrors are broken. Stools turned over. The boys had been celebrating the same way they did every Saturday night. Things had been loud, everyone had been drunk or passed out as they flirted with sweet butts and publicly staked their claim on their old ladies. They would have been vulnerable and easy to overcome. Especially if they’d been outnumbered at least 4-to-1.
Which is exactly what happened.
The men from Dawn’s Rebellion are on the floor. Most have their hands tied behind their backs. Everyone has at least one boot holding them down and one gun pointed at the back of their head.
I drop to my hands and knees and crawl two feet over from the wall to the bar, careful to avoid all the broken glass, clinging to my gun. Once I’m hidden behind the bark, I do my best to not hyperventilate.
What the fuck did I just get myself into? Why the fuck did I come out of the closet?
I was afraid to take out one man, not...how many were out there? I peek around the corner of the bar.
Too many to count.
Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit, shit! And then, even though I know I should retreat behind the bar and continue hiding, I freeze.
Time goes still. I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
In the center of the room, my father kneels in front of a man. Another man holds his head up. My father’s face is so swollen and red it’s almost unrecognizable. More red stains his greasy white shirt.
The man he’s kneeling in front of shoves a gun in my father’s mouth.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t fuckin’ find out?” the man rasps, “Or were you hoping they’d finish us?”
The man’s cruel, cold voice cuts through me, making me shiver. Even from this distance away, I can tell it’s a strain for my father to raise his puffy eyelid. His eyes gleam in the darkness as harshly as the gun in his mouth.
“Well?” the man asks, voice louder than before. In a swift motion, he rips the gun from my father’s mouth and my father falls forward. He probably would’ve fallen right on his face if the man behind him wasn’t still holding him up.
“Answer me!” the man with the gun yells, spinning around.
My heart stops.
No.
The man’s leather jacket can barely contain his large, muscular frame. Every part of him is taught and poised for violence. He’s ruthless. Unbreakable. Unbendable. Every villain in every story who’s gone too far to ever be redeemed.
And I know him.
No. Look away.
I want to look away, but I can’t. I know him. I thought he was different. He told me he wasn’t, but I didn’t believe it. I wanted to see something else so badly that I convinced myself something else was there, but he was right.
He’s not a good man. He has never and will never be a good man.
“No answer, huh?” Vice turns his beautiful, angular, cruel face back to my father and raises the gun.
He’s going to kill him. He’s going to kill my father right in front of me and everyone else. He’s going to destroy everything I love. I have to stop him.
“NO!”
Vice’s head turns.
My heart pounds. I know that voice. It can’t be. Please don’t let it be!
My eyes whip to the other side of the crowd where Damien is glaring up at Vice, his face beaten, bloodied, and full of righteous anger. I whimper as one of the men holding him from behind kicks his back.
“Please,” my father begs. “He has nothing to do with this. He’s just a kid.”
Vice’s eyes narrow as he takes a few steps towards Damien.
“Damien, shut up!” my father yells.
Vice ignores him. “You got something you want to say?”
“Our president had nothing to do with it,” Damien says.
“Really?” Damien asks. He kneels down before Damien until they’re seeing eye to eye. “Then who was it?”
“Damien!” my father warns.
Damien shuts his eyes. “I did.”
“You?”
“Yes
.”
“Only you?”
Damien closes his eyes. “Yes.”
Vice goes still. “Fine. Bring him up, too.”
Damien tries to stand as the men drag him forward. “What do you mean, too? I said that the president wasn’t a part of this! It was me!”
“Yes, you alone,” Vice drawls. “I heard.”
“What the fuck!” Damien growls. “Let him go!”
“Even if he had nothing to do with it, I can’t. A president should know everything that goes on in his club.” Vice’s eyes narrow lethally. “Everything.”
My heartbeat pounds. What the hell is he getting at?
Vice circles the room. “You fuck with me again, you’re all dead. We lost two men. Two men.” He raises his gun. “And to repay that debt, I’m going to start with these two.”
No. The room tenses, and then the struggles start. Every conscious person in Dawn’s Rebellion is fighting with everything they’ve got, but they’re all subdued.
Everyone except for me.
Adrenaline courses through my body. Stop shaking, I tell my hand as I grip the gun. Stop shaking.
I stand. The room is pure chaos—a potent concoction of violence and anger that can only end with one thing.
And I was going to make sure that it did not end in that one thing.
I get on the bar, amongst broken glass and blood, as the men who’ve been like a family to me are kicked and beaten and hurt. And I raise the gun at the man who has his pointed at my father and my lover and scream.
As I’ve already established, I’m pretty loud.
My battle cry rips through the room. Vice’s eyes whips towards me. Surprise briefly flickers in his eyes, but then he sees the gun I’m pointing at his chest and it turns into something so dark that I almost drop the gun.
Shit!
I take a deep breath. It’s okay, Annie. It’s okay. You got the gun, you got this!
Then, I see that it’s totally not okay, because I’m not the only one who has a gun, and I don’t “got” anything except a dumbass hero complex.
At least twenty dudes have their guns pointed at me. They all look like seasoned killers. Seasoned killers who are glaring at me like I just spilled their beers.
Alright. I maybe could have thought this out a little better. Like, even though everyone would’ve been mad at me, I could have called the cops instead of jumping on top the bar right in front of everyone and trying to Rambo it with a revolver. I mean, fuck. Even Rambo doesn’t try to Rambo it with a revolver! He wears ammo vests, not…Damien’s old Ninja Turtles t-shirt.
I want to duck behind the bar, but I have a feeling that now is not the time for sudden movements. I’m too afraid to even blink. Which means I’m staring straight at Vice. I know it’s stupid and makes no sense, but his eyes are so ruthless and cruel that I feel like they’re going to shoot lasers at me at any second.
“If any of you hurt her, I’ll kill you,” Vice yells, keeping his eyes on mine.
Wow, really? Did he seriously just say that? He sure did, because all around me guys are lowering their guns. What the hell? Why did he just say that?
“PRINCESS!” Damien yells. “WHAT THE—?”
The man holding Damien back kicks him in the back. Damien groans and falls forward, lax, coughing something dark on the floor.
Oh my God. He’s beyond hurt. It looks like he’s dying. If I don’t stop this, Damien is going to die right in front of me.
“Let them both go!” I scream.
Vice glares at me.
Okay, it’s time to show him what you’re made of. “I will kill you if you don’t let them both go right now,” I continue.
Vice’s eyes narrow.
Oh man, laser light show of death time. I so wish this was an argument I could win by just taking my shirt off.
“Annie, put the gun down,” my dad says.
My dad can’t be telling me to drop the gun. Vice was about to execute him and the man he’d groomed to take his place in front of all his men. Damien is right next to him, wheezing and coughing, the front of his shirt darker than the shadow his broken body casts on the floor.
And then, Vice starts walking towards me.
What the fuck! I wave the gun around. Doesn’t he know what this means? “I’m a crazy bitch ready to start shit, Vice!”
This doesn’t make him stop.
Why the hell isn’t it making him stop? Does he have a death wish?
“I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it! I’ve shot lots of things before.” Like…lots of bottles and…more bottles and…fuck. “And I’m good at shooting them.” Pretty good, at least. “If you come any closer I’ll end you just like I ended all of them!”
He comes closer and I don’t end him.
“I swear to fucking God, I will rain bullets down into your head until you’re raining blood all over the floor. And I won’t mop up all your blood either, because it will be gross and that’s how I roll!”
He does a WTF frown.
Alright, I guess that last bit wasn’t quite as threatening as the first part.
And then his forehead hits the barrel of the gun.
I shut my eyes. “I’m gonna do it! I swear! You better watch it, ‘cause—FUCK!”
He grabs my hand and twists it. Pain shoots through my wrist and I cry out as he takes the gun out of my hand. Then, he grabs me, hauls me off the bar, and sets me down on the ground. One of his strong hands grips my left shoulder, the other squeezes my chin and tilts my head up so I have to look at him.
Except I totally don’t want to look at him so I shut my eyes again.
“Annie,” he growls.
Oh god. My entire body trembles.
He leans in closer and whispers near my ear. “I told you to make sure I don’t see you again.”
My eyes fly open. Did I say he looked mad before? Because Vice isn’t mad. He’s transcended anger. This is…something else. There’s no name for it because everyone who’s witnessed it before has refused to name it so they can pretend like it doesn’t exist.
But it does.
He clenches his jaw. “Do you have any idea what you just did to me?”
“What I just did to you? What about…”
His eyes turn into black holes ready to rip out my soul.
You know what? I don’t have to finish that thought.
His grip on me tightens. “Don’t pull a stunt like this again.”
Okay. You got it.
“You throw your life away, I’ll fuckin’ drag you back from hell and you won’t like how I’ll do it or what I’ll do to you after.”
Great. You don’t even have to tell me what you’ll do, because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like it either. In fact, it’s probably best if you don’t explain anything.
He grabs me again and pushes me towards another man. “Get her out of here.”
The man yanks me back. Vice turns his back to me and starts towards my father and Damien.
He wants me gone so he could kill them. The moment I leave he’s going to pull the trigger. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. Every cell in my body knows it.
And every cell in my body starts to rebel.
I don’t feel strong, but I have to be.
I don’t feel like I can face my worst nightmare, but I must face him.
Fate doesn’t give you options, and sometimes, the right thing to do is the thing you want to do the least.
I swing my arms but the men holding me back are stronger. “No!” I scream, kicking. My legs are immediately caught before they can impact anything important.
Shit! My feet aren’t even touching the floor! I start throwing my weight back and forth, trying to get out of their steel grip. But instead of giving up, I fight harder. The only way I’m leaving this room is in a body bag.
If he wants me to leave then he’ll have to kill me too. He can’t take everyone I love away from me like this. “Don’t do this!” I scream. “There has to be another way!”
“Will someone shut that dumb bitch up?” one of Vice’s bikers calls out.
Someone’s hand comes down over my mouth, hard, trying to gag me. I turn my head, gasping for breath, as their thick nails scrape my cheek. I’m running out of time. With every bit of strength left in me, I scream, “Take me instead!”
And then the hand closes around my mouth, my throat, and my vision goes black. The sweat on the man’s palm is salty and thick on my tongue. My heart thumps in my ears once, twice, as the dark room around me begins to roar.
Why is everyone yelling? Why is there so much noise? The men who are carrying me rush in the opposite direction, then set me down, their rough hands holding me in place.
I blink. Vice is in front of me, all caged violence and determination, pointing his gun at my father’s cheek. But he isn’t looking at my father. He stares at me, his eyes growing darker by the second. “What are you suggesting?”
I cough. “Take me.”
A man behind me hits my shoulder. “He can’t fuckin’ hear you. Speak up.”
Vice glares at the man who struck me. “Don’t hurt her.”
“Just tellin’ her to speak up. I mean, the bitch was so fuckin’ loud a moment ago.”
Vice works his jaw. “Don’t do anything unnecessary.” Then he looks away from the man, dismissing him, back at me. “The rest of you, let her go.”
Damien tries to move but the man behind him kicks him again.
Oh God. This can’t be happening. It’s too much. “I, um.”
The man behind me sighs, exasperated.
Well fuck you too, buddy. I ball my fists. I can’t let anything distract me. Vice’s eyes follow my hand as it grasps the necklace around my throat. I feel my heart thumping beneath my chest, beneath my grip.
“This is my family. If my father wronged you, then I wronged you too. Don’t hurt him. If you’re going to take it out on somebody, it should be me.”
“Princess, don’t…” Damien whimpers, earning himself yet another kick.
My father works his jaw. “She’s young. She doesn’t understand what she’s saying, or what she’s doing.”
Vice tilts his head to the side. “It sounds to me like she knows exactly what she’s saying—her life, for both of yours. Isn’t that right, Princess?”
I’ve never heard anyone utter that word with anything less than love. Well, maybe Damien did sometimes use it sarcastically, but it had always been good-hearted sarcasm. Vice made the word “princess” sound like something filthy and corrupt.
Bad & Bold - A 7 Book Bad Boy Romance Collection! Page 73