I gave him a small smile, feeling very much like a little girl again suddenly. “Yeah, Daddy,” I agreed.
“Okay, baby,” he said, kissing my temple and closing the door behind me.
He had kept it exactly as I had left it when I was eighteen. Pale lilac walls, canopy bed with white, billowing fabric draped over the top and a plush white comforter laid over the bed. Two shabby chic white nightstands with lamps. There was a small golden jewelry box on top of one of them. On the other, the remote for the television, hidden away on the wall across from my bed in a huge white cabinet. To the left behind the door to the hallway, was a door to my walk-in closet. To the far on the right was the door to the en-suite bathroom which boasted a huge soaking tub and a shower bay with four shower heads along with a huge round tufted ottoman and a vanity across from the sink and mirror.
The whole thing was bigger than most New York city apartments.
It wasn't unfamiliar over time. I had stayed in my old bedroom on many occasions when I visited my father. The brushes on the vanity in the bathroom I had used over the last Christmas season. The drawers under the sink cabinet were stocked with the products I used as an adult woman, not the ones I had used as a teenage girl. Complete with my perfume and cosmetics.
I had actually forgotten about makeup. It had been so long since I had put any on.
I turned into my closet, looking for something even remotely suitable to wear. I settled on a pair of light wash skinny blue jeans and a white long sleeved t-shirt. And, oh yeah, a bra. I forgot about bras too. I grabbed fresh panties and socks and made my way to the bathroom, locking the door behind me.
I gave myself an hour to relax. To shower, dress, fix the cut on my face, apply a little mascara and lip gloss. I dried my hair.
Then the worry set in.
Worry about Cash. And Vin. But mostly Reign.
What was he going to think when he got a call from Cash saying I was gone and two of his men (technically one of his men, and one traitor, but he wouldn't know that) were busted up?
I couldn't imagine how that would make him feel.
Because he would think V had me again.
He would want to storm in there looking for me.
I couldn't let that happen.
I had to do something.
I rushed out into my bedroom, full of possible ideas. Because I had no phone numbers. Not Reign's or Cash's. Not the compound's. Not Reign's house. I had no one to call. But I was sure I could find some way. Call information. Go do a quick search online and find something. There had to be a way to contact them.
Then I froze as I reached for the phone. The pretty, white replica of an antique rotary phone.
Because the phone wasn't there.
It wasn't there.
My heart immediately started thudding, the swirling feeling in my stomach instantly telling me something was wrong. I couldn't say what, but something was wrong. Something was off.
I turned, moving toward my television cabinet, intent on dragging out my laptop for a search. But when I opened it, the laptop was gone. The laptop. And the TV. And the DVD player.
The swirling turned into a solid lead sensation in my stomach.
I glanced around, my throat feeling tight. Looking for anything else that was wrong. Out of place. Missing.
I went to the windows, pulling the lock on top, then trying to haul them up. But they didn't budge. Not one of them.
Heart in my throat, I walked slowly toward the door to the hallway, already knowing. But I reached for the handle and tried to turn it. Tried. Because it was locked. From the outside.
I backed away like it would burst open at any moment, feeling sick. Sick. I felt like I was going to throw up all over my own feet.
I was trapped.
My father had me trapped.
I looked over my shoulder into the bathroom, seeing my boots laying there discarded and I flew at them, shoving my feet in, lacing them loosely. Giving me a gap to slip my hand in and grab my gun if I needed it.
I sat back down on the ottoman.
What. The. Actual. Hell. Was. Going. On?
There was a soft tap at my door a few minutes later and I rushed to my feet. I caught my reflection in the mirror, seeing the wide eyes, seeing the shock and alarm.
I needed to tramp it down. I needed to play it cool. I didn't know what the fuck was going on, but whatever it was was not good. And I needed to act like I had no idea about the missing phone and laptop. The locked doors and windows.
For all my father knew, I was happy to be home. Relieved. Thankful.
He couldn't know I was freaking out.
And he damn well couldn't know about a gun tucked into my boot.
“Baby girl?” he called, opening the door.
“Coming,” I called, sounding cheerful as I walked into the bedroom. “Sorry... I got carried away. It's been so long since I had... my stuff.”
He gave me a smile. “You look much better. All that black,” he said, shaking his head. His gaze went quickly over my outfit and landed on my feet, a brow raising.
“They're comfortable,” I offered. “I, ah, had some nasty cuts on my ankles.” Not entirely untrue, though it was several weeks before. “These don't hurt.”
His eyes got sad and I knew I said the right thing.
“Come on, honey,” he said, holding out an arm for me to step into. “Let's go get you some good food.”
I gave him a small smile, every bit of energy going into not trying to run the fuck away from him. Because something was wrong. Something was off about him. I couldn't put a finger on it. But it was there.
“Coffee?” he asked, already grabbing a cup and pouring for me.
“Yes, please.” I needed every bit of energy I could get. That being said, I watched every movement his hands made. But he didn't do anything to my drink. I took it and sipped, enjoying the kick it made to my system.
“Darling girl,” he said, standing across from where I was sitting at the enormous kitchen island.
“Dad... where's Mae?” I asked, looking around. I don't think there had ever been a time in my entire life that I went into his kitchen and she wasn't there. Cooking, cleaning, looking over recipes, writing letters to her family.
Her missing was another huge red flag.
“Oh,” he said, looking around. “Her daughter is getting married,” he supplied with a shrug.
Yeah. Right.
Her daughter was a thirty-five year old virgin with an attitude problem and a hatred of all things masculine.
“Oh, good for her,” I said, smiling.
“You seem... worried,” he said, his blue eyes watching me. Keen. I had never known he was so observant before.
“Sorry Dad, I've... it's been a really bad couple of months.”
At that, his face fell.
Fell.
With genuine sadness.
“Summer if you want...”
“I don't,” I said immediately. “I just... it's too soon. I'm just happy to be here. Away from it all.”
“Thank god I found you,” he said, nodding at me.
“I knew you would,” I said, giving him a smile. “The whole time... while things were... bad... I just kept thinking that you would save me from it all.”
“Of course. I was never going to stop until I got you back,” he said. “I've taken... precautions to ensure you stay safe this time,” he supplied.
“Precautions?”
He nodded. “I've hired more men like Lee to keep an eye on the property. I've had your windows sealed so no one can get in that way. I've had your doors locked.”
I couldn't help it.
I really tried to keep my mouth shut.
I just couldn't.
“From the outside?” I asked, my tone sharp, watching him.
And it was good that I was watching so hard. Because if I hadn't been, I would have missed it. It was there and then gone faster than a blink. But it was there. And I saw it. A darkness. A hardnes
s. A side of my father I hadn't known had existed. All my life he had been good. Over protective. Kind. Worried. Perhaps a bit stern about my life choices, but always out of kindness. Out of fatherly concern.
But whatever passed his face, it didn't belong to the man I had known for twenty- some-odd years.
“You're a sharp girl, Summer,” he said, surprising me. “Always were.”
“Sharp enough to know that if someone was coming for me, that having the door locked from the inside is the only way to keep them out. Having it locked from the outside, Dad, that is how you keep someone in.”
The look was back.
But that time, it was stronger.
No longer needing the Dad mask.
He was just... another person.
Someone I didn't know at all.
“I can't have V getting you back. And I can't have you running back to that lowlife Henchmen you are in love with either. I am covering my bases.”
What.
The.
Fuck?
“Lee,” he called and Lee appeared out of nowhere, nodding at him.
I noticed a small wince as he moved and felt my spine straighten, felt my pride surge. “How's those ribs, Lee?” I asked, smiling over my coffee cup.
To my surprise, he winked at me.
“I raised you better than that,” my father shot at me, making me almost shrink away from his disappointment before I remembered what was going on.
“You didn't raise me,” I clarified. “A man who was sweet and good and loving raised me. I don't know who the fuck you are.”
“I see you've picked up the crassness of those base creatures.”
If he was looking for a compliant hostage, he was going about it wrong by calling my saviors names.
I looked down at my cup and before I thought about it, I flung it hard across the room toward him, watching it shatter directly behind his shoulder, pouring the rest of the hot liquid over his suit. He didn't even flinch. “Rot in hell, Dad,” I spat.
“Lee,” he said calmly, “I think it's time my daughter went to rest.”
And with that, I was grabbed and dragged toward my room, fighting it the whole way, managing a few elbows to his center, rewarded with grunts of pain from his busted ribs.
“You've got spirit, I'll give you that,” he said calmly.
“You're going to be sorry you're working with him,” I warned as I was thrown into my room, slamming hard against the pillar of my bed.
“Who is gonna make me pay, princess? You? For trapping you in your little girl bedroom?”
“Reign is going to make you pay,” I supplied and saw the slightest trace of worry mark his eyes before it got pushed away.
“Reign won't be a problem for long.”
Shit.
Twenty-two
Cash
“Cash! Mother fuck fuck fuck!” Vin's voice yelled and I flew out of my bedroom, down the hall, into the main room. Because Vin sounded freaked. And Vin was a tough old fuck, he never sounded freaked.
“What's...” I started, seeing him dragging a beat and bloodied Repo in from outside. “What the fuck?”
“They got Flee too. Q found him out in front of the gates, bleeding the fuck out. Got him to the hospital.”
“Who was it? Did they get...”
“Cash,” he broke in.
“We need to know what the threat is. We need...”
“Cash!” he hollered.
“What?” I asked, looking over at him.
“She's gone.”
“What? Who is gone?”
“Summer. They got Summer,” he said through clenched teeth.
And that, I was pretty sure, was how I died. Heart stopped. Right then and there.
“What?” I asked, my voice a strange raspy whisper.
“They got Summer. She was out back. She's gone. She's fucking gone.”
“Fuck!” I yelled, turning and slamming my fist into the wall, watching it slip under the plaster past my wrist. I pulled it back out, reaching into my pocket for my phone.
It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. The worst news I had ever had to bring to someone. And he was still fucking a day out. A day away. Fuck.
“What?” his voice growled at me, impatient.
I sucked in air. “Someone got in the grounds, fucked up two probies and, fuck,” I said, lowering my head, “they got Summer, man. They got her.”
The silence on the other end of the phone was the worst sound I had ever heard in my life. It was the loudest kind of noise.
It felt like it lasted forever.
Then, “No.”
And there was so much in that word. Desperation. Anger. Disbelief.
“Yeah, yeah, man. She's gone. She's fucking gone.”
“I'm on the road.”
Disconnect.
I turned back to Vin, feeling the weight of leadership in a way I never had before. That was always on Reign. Even when he was out of town and I was technically in charge, it had never been real. I had never needed to make decisions. I never had to deal with consequences alone.
“What the fuck we do?” Vin asked, mopping some of the blood off of Repo's face with a torn piece of his shirt.
I ran a hand over the shaved side of my head.
Shit.
Fuck.
What the fuck were we going to do?
Reign was a day out.
A whole fucking day.
A day where fuck-all knew what was happening to Summer back at V's. Reign told me about the scars on her back. I'd seen the ligature marks on her wrists and ankles myself. When she had her hair pulled up, I'd seen the whisps where her hair was growing back after being pulled out.
She had been through fucking hell.
And she was going through it again.
And we had to fucking sit on our hands for a whole day?
“We need to call in all the men. Tell them we had a break-in. We need to double up men on the perimeter. Not just fucking probies. The men too. We need to find out how the fuck they got in. And we need to see if we can find any leads. Tire treads. People who saw something. Anything we can. When Reign gets here, we need some fucking answers,” I concluded, going through my phone and shooting off a group emergency text. I turned back to Vin. “How bad is he?”
“Looks like broken eye socket and nose. A rib or two. Prolly a concussion. He'll pull through.”
“He need a hospital?”
“No. Doc can deal with him when he gets here.”
I nodded, going behind the bar and grabbing one of the semi-automatics. “I'm checking the mother fucking grounds.”
Outside, I took a breath that I hadn't realized I had been holding.
“God damn it,” I said to the night as a whole.
Reign was probably shitting bricks on the road, pushing the bike as fast as it would go. And I knew why even if the stubborn fuck didn't know himself. He fell hard for Summer the first night he met her. It was pathetic storybook shit. But it was real. Every single second he could spare, he spent with her. I saw it. The men saw it. The bitches definitely saw it.
And fucking Summer looked at him like he hung the moon.
He would go on a suicide mission to get her back.
He would bring on a full-blown war to get her back.
And, for once, I wouldn't fight him on it.
Twelve hours. Twelve fucking hours.
I was sitting on top of the bar, hand clenching at my gun, sick of inactivity. The men were everywhere. We'd found the hole. We'd found the tire tracks. Something heavy. Truck. SUV. That was it. No one knew shit. Repo was still unconscious in one of the bedrooms with Doc. Flee was still in surgery at the hospital with Q standing guard.
There was nothing to do.
Vin's eyes kept flashing to mine and I could feel the tension in his body match mine.
Then the door opened.
And Reign was there.
Twelve fucking hours.
I didn't even want to thin
k of the speed he'd had to travel to make a day's journey in half the time.
He looked like hell. His entire body, head to feet, was tight. His face hard. His fists clenched. His eyes though, his eyes were burning.
Wolf came in hot on his heels and his eyes had that edge to them. That edge that said he was barely holding it together.
Hell, it looked like all the men had fallen for Summer.
“What do we know?” Reign asked through clenched teeth.
“Not much,” I started. “Hole in the fence. Tire tracks. Something heavy. Flee is in surgery. Repo is unconscious in one of the rooms. Signs of struggle out back. No witness. Nothing. We got shit, man.”
He nodded his head tightly. Then he turned to Wolf.
“Find something,” he demanded. The words were barely out of his mouth when Wolf nodded and took off.
“We'll get her back, man,” I said, attempting comfort.
“I told her she was safe here,” he said, staring off into the room. “I shouldn't have fucking left her.”
He was barely holding on.
I'd seen Reign in a lot of situations in our time together. I'd seen him leaning over our father's dead body, riddled with bullets. I'd seen the horror slowly getting replaced with a thirst for revenge. I'd seen him look into the eyes of traitors, the look of rage so strong it was catching.
But I'd never seen him like that before: utterly wrecked.
Vin was the one who broke the silence. “You had business,” he told Reign, subtly reminding him that club business trumps all.
On a normal day, that would have snapped Reign out of his inner struggles.
But on the day when the only bitch he ever gave a shit about in his entire life went missing, falling back into the hands of men who made her scream in her sleep every night... yeah... it only served to uncage everything he was keeping buried deep.
His hand reached for the closest thing, a stool my feet were resting on, picking it up, and hauling it at the flatscreen.
It shattered quickly, the metal stool slamming painfully loud back onto the ground.
Five men came running from different directions, guns at their sides, looking around for some kind of threat. Seeing Reign, they stood down, looking at the destruction, looking at their president, understanding coming over their faces.
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