“I fucked up by not condemning her to death?”
“No, you fucked up by bringing her here in the first place!”
“What else could I do, man? She was jammed up bad.”
Carl's face was flushed with anger. “What else could you have done? How about not trying to play the white fucking knight and saving damsels in distress? How about that? And in case you didn't notice, you're pretty fucking far from a white knight, man.”
Damon stepped forward and stood nearly nose to nose with Carl. His face was red with anger and his heart beat so hard, he thought it might burst out of his chest. He and Carl had some clashes before, but never to this extent – Damon had never felt like punching the older man before that moment. “You don't know what it's like, man,” Damon said, trying hard to keep his voice under control. “You have zero fucking clue what it's like to see somebody you care for getting beat day after day, feeling completely powerless, and wishing like hell you could do something about it. You just don't fucking know.”
“You best back down right now, Damon,” he said. “Before you do something that both of us are gonna regret.”
His breathing shallow and ragged, his adrenaline setting his every nerve ending on fire, Damon teetered on the edge of throwing a punch. But something in the back of his mind whispered to him, told him if he set foot down that road, he'd never be able to come back from it. After several long, tense moments, Damon took a couple of steps back, though his rage hadn't dissipated in the least.
“You're right, I don't,” Carl said as softly as he could manage. “And I'm sorry you do. But that has nothing to do with what's going on right now. What I see right now is you letting your emotions get the best of you. Your emotions are leading you to make some bad decisions and put the welfare of the club at risk. You're thinkin' with your heart and not your head.”
“That's bullshit.”
“It really ain't,” Carl said. “And right now, I need you thinkin' with your head. Now more than ever. But if you can't do that, I got no use for you. Now, why don't you go take a ride for a little bit? Clear your head and then come back so we can finish our discussion like calm, rational adults.”
“I don't need to take a ride.”
“It wasn't a request,” Carl said, his voice tinged with steel. “Go take a ride.”
Damon looked at him, his anger still surging up within him like a dark tide. But that little voice, that rational part of his psyche told him to walk away, that there was no permanent damage to his relationship with Carl, but if he gave in to his baser emotions, that relationship was going to be damaged beyond repair.
Without a word, he turned and walked out of the kitchen, heading for the garage.
***
Even up in her room, Cassie could hear Carl and Damon shouting at one another downstairs. When they got back to the compound, she saw the look on Carl's face and knew he wasn't pleased. When she overheard him telling Breaker to tell everybody to take a ride for a while, she knew it was going to get worse. And when Damon had asked her to go hang out in her room for a while, she knew it was going to get much, much worse.
She just hadn't counted on the all-out brawl downstairs. She knew Carl and Damon had a very healthy respect for one another. She sensed the bond between them and Damon had told her they were closer than brothers. But Carl was the club president and Damon wasn't – and he'd made it clear that when it came to club business, Carl held the power.
Her presence – and Andy's – most definitely impacted their club business. She felt bad but she had nowhere else to go. When she thought that Damon was going to leave her out in the middle of nowhere, she'd been terrified. Had no idea what she was going to do. Listening to them downstairs at each other's throats made Cassie realize she was in a bad spot and needed to figure out what she was going to do – and figure it out fast.
When she heard the screaming stop and the motorcycle start up, Cassie stood by the window and watched Damon ride off into the night. A knot formed in her stomach and began to tighten. She knew she was alone in the clubhouse with Carl. And she knew what she had to do.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she crossed the room and headed downstairs. She found Carl sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of beer in his hand. He looked tired. Worn out. And upset. Cassie grabbed a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, opened it, took a quick swallow, and then sat across the table from Carl who was looking at her curiously but without any malice.
“You okay?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Damon and I have butted heads before. We've known each other a long time. Been through the wars together. We'll be okay.”
Cassie nodded. “Good.”
They sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes sipping their beers, staring at one another. Cassie felt like there was a lot Carl wanted to say but was holding back. Maybe he wanted to yell and scream at her like he had at Damon. Maybe he blamed her for their falling out. Maybe it was a combination of it all.
“Do you really think I'm going to bring the police down on your heads?” Cassie finally asked.
Carl considered her for a long moment. He sighed and shook his head. “Not you, no. I wasn't sure what to make of you at first, but I got a gut feeling that I can trust you.”
“Thank you.”
“It's your ex that's the problem,” Carl said. “He's a wild card and I don't like wild cards. He might call the police; he might not. Either way, I don't want to spend my days worrying about him and what he might or might not do.”
Cassie nodded. She understood where Carl was coming from. He had his club to worry about. She was an extra burden that he didn't need. “If you want me to go, just say the word. I'll go.”
Carl sighed again. “It's not like that, Cassie. It's not necessarily you I want to see go. And ultimately, I think you're good for Damon. But you come with some baggage that I can't have right now.”
“I understand. I don't have much, but let me just grab my things and I'll go.”
Carl ran a hand through his hair and then stood up. “I'm sorry, Cassie. You seem like a nice girl. This isn't your fault. You're just kinda caught in the middle of things.”
“You don't need to apologize, Carl. I appreciate you taking me in.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of bills. He looked at it for a moment and then handed it over to Cassie. She accepted the wad of cash and looked up at him. “It'll get you were you need to go,” he explained. “Get you a couple a hot meals.”
She gave him a soft smile. “Thank you, Carl. And, again, I'm so sorry. For everything.”
“You have nothin' to apologize for.”
“When Damon gets back, would you tell him – ” she thought about it a moment and then shook her head. “Just tell him I said thanks.”
Carl nodded. “I will. Can I drop you somewhere?”
Cassie shook her head. “No, I'll be okay.”
***
An hour later, Damon rumbled into the garage and cut the engine on his bike. He put the kickstand down and got off. He'd had a little time to cool off and put things right in his own mind. He knew he needed to apologize to Carl. Taking a deep breath, he walked into the still empty clubhouse and to the kitchen where he found Carl in the same spot, sipping a bottle of beer.
“Look,” Damon started. “I know – ”
“She's gone,” Carl said.
Damon looked at him and cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”
The older man looked up at him. “Cassie. She left about fifteen minutes ago.”
“What did you say to her?”
Carl shrugged. “Not a lot.”
“What did you say to her, Carl?”
“She asked if I wanted her to go. I said yes. The choice was hers.”
The tide of anger Damon had managed to stem earlier came flooding back with a vengeance. His clenched his fists at his side and stared daggers at the older man. “Yeah, I'm sure it was her choice,” he hissed.
“Believe it or not, it was. I didn't force her to go.”
“That's bullshit.”
Carl just sighed, shook his head, and took a long pull from his beer. Damon continued to stand there, staring daggers at him. He was getting dangerously close to punching the older man in the mouth.
“Which way did she go?” Damon asked.
“You can't bring her back here, Damon.”
“Fine. I'll find some other place to put her up. I'm not going to leave her stuck out there on her own.”
“This is what I'm talking about, Damon,” Carl said. “You're thinking with your heart and not your head. You're making some bad decisions.”
“Yeah, fine,” he snapped. “I can live with that. Won't be the first bad decision I've made and it won't be the last.”
“You're putting the club at risk, Damon.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I need to re-think some things in my life.”
“You're putting yourself before the club because you're in love with this girl.”
Damon shook his head in denial, but Carl's words hit him like a hammer blow to the chest. He hadn't had the time to really sort through his feelings about Cassie and, at the moment, it was the farthest thing from his mind. He had bigger problems to deal with. “Which way did she go, Carl?”
“Last I saw, she was heading north along the Esopus Creek back towards town.”
Without another word, Damon turned and walked out, leaving Carl alone in the kitchen with his bottle of beer.
CHAPTER NINE
Before leaving the clubhouse, he'd stopped by Breaker's office and grabbed the kid's dog, a white pit bull named Max. Cassie had formed a pretty good bond with Max while she'd been there and Damon was hoping he had some ability to track her.
Putting Max on a leash, Damon headed out onto the main road and headed north. He was gambling that Cassie had followed the same path since there was an easy track to the creek bed about half a mile up and she wouldn't need to stumble along in the dark to get there. Once she found the creek bed, she would be able to walk alongside it a lot easier back toward town.
Max was pulling hard against him, urging Damon to walk faster. He wasn't an expert in dogs – he barely knew anything about them – but he was hoping the dog's eagerness to follow the road was a good sign that he'd picked up Cassie's scent and was following it. She didn't have too big of a head start so he was hoping he could catch up with her.
When he reached the path that would take them down to the creek bed, Damon's blood ran cold and a knot formed in the pit of his stomach. Parked on the side of the road near the path was Andy's car. Damon touched the hood and found it was still warm. Max growled low in his throat. “Shit,” he muttered.
Max pulled at his leash, trying to drag Damon down toward the creek. They started off down the path the dog setting a quick pace. He just hoped they'd get to Cassie in time – and that Andy hadn't found her first.
***
Cassie walked along the bed of the creek, tears streaming down her face, and her mind a maelstrom of emotions. Being turned out like that had hurt her deeper than she would have believed a week ago. In her short time at the clubhouse, she had grown fond of some of the members and had really started to feel safe. She started to think of it as a home and some of the bikers as her family.
And then there was Damon. Her feelings for him were…complicated. To say the least.
But that was all over now. She had no idea where she was going to go or what she was going to do. Her only hope was that her friends, the ones Andy had made her abandon, still cared enough for her to help her in her time of need. If they didn't, she didn't know what was going to happen to her. But first things first. And the first thing was to get back to Kingston and figure out the rest of it from there.
The path along the creek bed was soft and easy to walk on, but the trees pressed close to her. The moonlight over her head sparkled like silver off of the water in the Esopus and cast the path in front of her in a well-lit but monochromatic light. But the overhead canopy in the forest beside her was so thick. It obscured the light and cast it in a pool of shadow darker than ink. It was creepier than hell and Cassie was fighting to keep her heart under control.
The sound of a twig snapping drew her up short. She stopped and looked around, trying to peer through the gloom of the forest next to her. The sound came again and she was positive it was the sound of somebody walking through the undergrowth, snapping the small twigs and branches that littered the forest floor.
“H – hello?” she called out.
The only answer was the sound of another twig snapping. Somebody was walking out there amongst the trees. Following her. She wanted to deny it, but in the pit of her stomach, she knew it was Andy. He'd followed her from the clubhouse and was now out there. Stalking her. She didn't know how she knew it, but she knew it all the same. Knew it as well as she knew her own name. He'd found her and he was closing in on her.
Cassie picked up her pace and started to walk faster. She knew she was exposed. Too far from the clubhouse to go back and probably not close enough to Kingston to make it before being overtaken by Andy. Her heart thundered within her breast and she felt her body begin to tremble.
As she jogged along the path, she was watching behind her, expecting to see Andy step out of the shadows of the forest. It wasn't until it was too late that she realized her mistake. Cassie stopped dead in her tracks, but not before Andy – who had gotten ahead of her and had come out onto the creek bed path in front of her – grabbed her by the arm.
“Well hello, my love,” he said.
Andy delivered a vicious backhand that knocked her onto her butt and left her head spinning. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth and Cassie felt it trickling down her chin. She looked up at Andy who was staring down at her with naked hatred and rage.
“Andy, I'm sorry, I – ”
He reached down, grabbed a handful of her hair and hauled her to her feet, standing nose to nose with her. “Oh, you're sorry, huh?”
“I am,” she cried. “I'm so sorry. I'm ready to come home now. Please forgive me, Andy.”
He reared back and punched her square in the face. Cassie felt an explosion of pain around her eye as she was sent sprawling backward. She hit the ground with a thud and was left staring at the nighttime sky with blurred vision. Tears mixed with the blood that ran down her face. She knew she needed to get up. Needed to run. She knew the longer she laid there, the closer to death she was.
Cassie tensed her muscles and started to rise but then Andy's weight was on top of her. He straddled her chest and delivered a series of slaps that left her head ringing and her face stinging worse and worse with each successive blow. She tried to cry out, but every time she opened her mouth, Andy's hand smacked it shut again.
“You ungrateful bitch,” he roared. “You fucking whore! Letting yourself get passed around by a bunch of greasy bikers like a common street whore.”
“A – Andy please – ” she started to scream
“Disgusting fucking whore!”
And then his hands were around her throat. She felt his thumbs dig into her windpipe painfully. With him straddling her chest, her arms were pinned down and she couldn't move. She felt Andy squeezing harder as she choked and gasped, fighting for breath.
“Now you're going to pay for what you've done,” Andy laughed.
He kept squeezing harder and darkness began to creep in at the corners of her vision. The already blurry sky above her grew even blurrier, and as she continued to be deprived of oxygen, it grew darker as well. Cassie couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. She couldn't do anything but sit there and wait for a death that was just moments away. She heard the sound of a dog barking, but it was muted, sounding as if it came from miles away. She lay there dying, but even so, it sounded odd to her.
“Get the fuck off of her right now,” she heard a voice call out sounding as fuzzy and far away as the dog barking.
The grip Andy had on her
throat loosened and suddenly sweet oxygen began flowing into her lungs once more. She gasped, inhaling as much air as she could.
“I said, get the fuck off of her,” came the voice again.
It sounded much closer this time as did the barking of the dog. She was still pinned to the ground, but she was positive it was Damon's voice. He'd come to save her. A million feelings washed through her, but the overwhelming emotion was relief.
“This isn't your concern,” Andy said.
“Actually, it is my concern,” Damon replied.
“She's my wife!”
“And you're trying to kill her. So stand up and back off,” Damon said, his voice ice cold. “Now.”
Merrick: Harlequins MC Page 32