by Sophia Gray
Brett’s eyes turned back to the game. “The other girls…they want a good old man.” Ah, I thought, so they do call it that. “But they’re okay with looking around. They’re not in any hurry to settle down. It doesn’t matter if they bounce around from guy to guy.” She took a deep breath, letting it out in a shaky sigh. “I never wanted anybody else. It never felt right.”
My heart went out to her. I hoped Vince had been careful with her. Some men would have loved having a pretty girl like Brett hanging around them, without thinking of how it could affect their feelings. Vince didn’t seem the type, though. I might not have known him well, but I had a strong feeling about him. If I thought he was the type to hurt her, I wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with him.
She turned to me. “I wanted you to know, because he’s not the type of person to tell you himself.” Then she trailed off, suddenly shy.
“Tell me what himself?”
“Nothing happened between us last night. I don’t know whether it matters to you or what, but if it does, I didn’t want you to hate me or something. You know, thinking I was sleeping with your man.”
I cocked my head to the side. “He’s not my man.”
She smiled, a little sadly. “Isn’t he?”
Just then, a loud noise came from the Monopoly room.
“Told you,” she muttered, hurrying in to break up the fight. I shook my head and laughed at a bunch of grown men getting into a fight over who had ownership of Park Place.
So they thought he was my man. Did he share that opinion? I warmed a little, flattered. I only wished I could be one hundred percent into the idea. His world was so risky.
I was alone in the lounge, still a fish out of water. There wasn’t much for me to do. I wished I at least had a few books with me, or a phone that actually worked. I wondered if there were any emails awaiting my attention, or any texts. My fingers were itching for something to do.
Then, I thought about the laptop in the office. It was still open and, on peering into the empty room, I saw it was unlocked. I wondered if anyone would care if I used it for personal reasons and decided it couldn’t hurt. It was like losing part of my arm, not having tech at my fingertips. I felt disconnected.
Facebook would be the place to go, I decided. A few minutes of checking in with my friends’ feeds, taking a mindless quiz or two, and I felt better. I wondered briefly if I should check in with my mom to let her know I was all right. She might have tried to call, could be worried after not hearing back from me. We talked fairly regularly. I didn’t want her to be worried.
Then again, assuring her I was all right might only worry her more. I tapped my fingers on the desk, wondering what to do. For all she knew, I could have been sleeping in or out with friends. She had no idea how close I’d come to real danger. Why should I upset her? I could just tell her my phone broke and I couldn’t get in touch. That wasn’t really a lie, thanks to the way I landed on it.
Then, she made up my mind for me. A little box popped up at the bottom of the screen. It was Mom. Crap. She’d found me, and just as I was about to log off.
Erica! Where are you?
I squinted at the screen. Where would I be? We talked frequently, but it wasn’t as though we were joined at the hip.
I replied, Sorry, my phone broke, and I have to get it replaced. What’s up?
Almost immediately, Your father’s hurt. He’s at the hospital. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!
My heart took off at a gallop. What’s wrong with him?
Her reply, Too much to get into. Just get here as fast you can.
Crap! My eyes darted to the open door, and the people outside. Onyx was among them, and he looked in my direction once or twice. No way I was getting past him. No way he would let me go, even with a chaperone. Vince’s rules, after all. Onyx was only there to enforce.
But I had to go! I thought about my poor dad, in the emergency room, hurt. Mom made it sound like a real emergency, too. What if he died and I wasn’t there? I couldn’t live with myself if that were the case.
I glanced out the door again and saw that the action had moved back into the smaller room off the lounge. Tempers seemed to have cooled off—I didn’t hear any more yelling. With one eye still on the open door, I called the cab company I’d used the night before and gave them the address of the clubhouse, which I found on a piece of mail in the drawer.
I then thought better of my plan. I turned in the chair, looking out the window. “There’s a warehouse two blocks from here with an American flag out front. Please have the driver meet me there.” If a cab pulled up in front of the building, everyone would notice. I had to get out before they saw me.
The front door was across from the stairs, just beyond the game room. It seemed like things were going better now. I thought that if I pretended to be on my way upstairs no one would pay attention. It was now or never. I had no time to lose.
I walked casually past the room, hoping no one would notice. Only somebody did.
“Where you goin’?” I turned to find Onyx staring intensely at me. Vince had been right about one thing—it was getting easier to see him and not just the scarring on his face.
“Upstairs,” I said. “Bathroom.” I shrugged like there was nothing out of the ordinary.
He wasn’t so convinced, I could tell, but what could he do? My heart was in my throat. What if he decided to escort me? Or if he demanded I take one of the girls with me? No, there was no reason for that. Still, it was a struggle to keep cool during the long moment in which he fixed me with his stare.
Then he shrugged and went back to the game. He wasn’t playing so much as he was keeping things under control. I let out a sigh of relief.
With his back to me, and his body blocking most of the doorway leading to the game, I thought it was the perfect chance to sneak out. No one around the table would see me. I waited until a loud burst of laughter carried out into the lounge and opened the front door, then slipped out and closed it behind me without so much as a sound. So far, so good.
Then I took off running. I was wearing the clothing I’d been in the night before, and I pulled the sweatshirt’s hood over my head as I went. As I went, all I could think about was my dad. I saw him lying on a gurney, tubes in him, monitors beeping. What could have happened to put him there? He was hurt? How? She hadn’t even said what kind of accident he had, if he fell or was hit by a car or in a car accident. Every thought made me sicker to my stomach.
I reached the building with the flag out front and waited for the cab. If only the driver would hurry! I was shaking with fear and nervous energy, ready to scream. The worst part was feeling so helpless. There was nothing I could do.
I heard a motor approaching, and I stepped out from the shadows so the driver could see me.
Only it wasn’t a cab. It was a black van. And it was slowing.
So many things went through my head at once. I didn’t know the people inside the van, but they looked as though they knew me. They weren’t just driving through. They were looking at me, slowing for me. They were both wearing leather kuttes.
Oh, no.
I turned to flee, realizing too late that they had me trapped. I heard the van door sliding open behind me and a male voice shouting for someone to catch me. My life flashed before my eyes as I ran, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.
Then, the most beautiful sight I’d ever see came squealing around the corner, heading toward me. A man on a motorcycle. Vince. My heart leaped.
“Get down!” he screamed, and his hand went to the waistband of his jeans. He was going for his gun, I realized. I dove to the side out of sheer instinct, landing in a thick patch of weeds.
The van backed away, its tires squealing, as Vince fired on it. I heard metal hitting metal, but wherever he hit the van wasn’t enough to stop it from escaping.
Vince stopped beside me, a string of obscenities streaming from his mouth. I had the feeling my would-be captors were the least
of my problems.
Chapter Fourteen
Vince
When I was a kid, my mom would use the word “conniption.” Like, “You kids are gonna make me have a conniption if you don’t calm down.” I used to wonder what that meant, like what a conniption actually was. What did a person have to be going through to have that happen?
When I saw Erica running from the black van, I knew what Mom had meant. I was about to have a fucking conniption all over the place.
I wanted to disable the van. Actually, what I really wanted was to kill the sons of bitches who thought they could take Erica from me. Killing them wouldn’t help, though. Dead men couldn’t tell me who’d sent them or why. Even though I knew who sent them and I had a pretty good idea as to why. I wanted to hear it from their mouths.
And I wanted them to tell me who in my crew had been a traitor, besides Lance.
I should have just killed them since they got away without a scratch. When I pulled up next to Erica, I saw red. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t speak except to scream every bit of profanity I knew. I had to do something to let off some of the blinding rage I felt.
And then I looked down at her, and I didn’t feel the same spark I’d felt when I found her on the street the night before. This time, I didn’t feel sorry for her. She brought this on herself.
“Get on the bike,” I growled. I couldn’t look at her, didn’t help her off the ground. I waited until I felt her weight settle in behind me and her arms wrapped around my waist before pulling away and turning back toward the clubhouse.
It was a short ride, and the entire time all I could do was ask myself what I had done to make her run off like that. The first chance she got, she left. They had to be waiting for her, knowing she would sneak off. Of course, why wouldn’t she? I was lower than dirt, wasn’t I? No woman like her would want to be with me out of their own free will. I had to trap them, lock them up. They knew her better than I did. I actually thought for a minute, after the way we kissed that morning, that she wanted to be with me. How stupid could I be?
When we pulled up in front of the building, I called the other guys. “I got her,” I said, panting into the phone to Axel. “Have everybody come back.”
I felt Erica trembling behind me, but I didn’t feel a bit sorry. I wondered if I should even be in the same room as her. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself—not that I would hurt her deliberately, but I might end up saying things I shouldn’t say.
She got off the bike without my asking this time and followed me into the clubhouse. The first pair of eyes I looked for belonged to Onyx. He was standing there, watching a game of Monopoly.
“What the fuck goes on around here when I’m gone?” Every other sound in the building ceased. All eyes were on me, then on Erica. I assumed she cowered behind me.
“What’s happening?” Onyx looked at me, then at Erica. “What are you flipping out about?”
I looked at Erica just long enough to give her a command. “My room.” Then I motioned for Onyx to follow me into the office. The door was hardly closed before I flipped out.
“She sneaked out! How did you let her? Was she fucking invisible or something?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know, she said she was going to the bathroom. What was I supposed to do? Follow her?”
“Yes!” I knew how ridiculous I was acting, but it didn’t matter. I was furious with her, and I had to get rid of some of it before I talked to her.
“Come on. How was I supposed to know? I didn’t even know she left. Really.” He looked upset, and I knew it wasn’t his fault. She was smart, she could have tricked him.
“Damn it. They almost got her.”
“What?” His tan skin went pale. He wasn’t easily so shaken up, and something about it warmed my heart a little. He really cared, if only because I cared. It meant a lot. “Where were they?”
“A couple blocks away. In a van. They were gonna pull her in.”
“What was she doing? Where did she think she was gonna go?”
“I have no idea,” I snapped. “Anywhere but here, I guess.” I faced the window. I didn’t want him to see me like this. She would rather have put herself in danger than stay in the clubhouse for my sake. It spoke volumes.
“Don’t take it personally,” Onyx said. His voice softened a little. He was the only person I would let see what I was going through. We’d been through enough together than I knew I could trust him not to hold it over my head. “I guess she thought she was doing the right thing.”
“Yeah. Glad I got there just in time.” I punched my thigh once, twice, beyond frustration.
“What are you gonna do?”
“I have to go talk to her,” I said, walking out. “She needs to know how fucking serious this is. I can’t let her sneak out again.”
I was still mad beyond words, but I could think straight. I needed to be able to when I spoke to Erica, or else I might make her cry. I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it if she cried. When I walked past the game room, I felt the eyes on me. They all wondered what I would do to her. Like I could do anything. I didn’t look at them, but went straight upstairs.
She was waiting for me, sitting on the bed with her hands clasped. Everything I felt went out the window when I saw the look on her face.
I went to the window and looked out. From my bedroom, I could see the river. A barge was going by, and I told myself I would say something when it passed a certain point. Part of me wished I was on that barge. Away from here. I had already fought people away from Erica twice in less than a day. I was exhausted.
“What were you thinking?” I asked. I was still facing out the window, and my voice came out in a whisper. I wasn’t angry anymore. I was too tired to be angry.
“They tricked me,” she said.
“How? How the hell could they do that?” I looked back at her, and she was shaking her head. Her eyes were on the floor. She looked even smaller than she actually was, like a little girl who knew she was in deep trouble.
“I went on Facebook. Just to see what was happening in the world, you know? I was going crazy, just hanging out listening to the guys playing Monopoly. Anyway…I don’t know how it happened, but my mom logged on and told me my dad was hurt. In the hospital. She told me I had to come right away.”
I frowned, which she must have taken as me not believing her. “I swear,” she whispered. “I’ll show you the messages. I was so scared.”
“How did you sneak out?”
“There was a fight over the game, so I waited until Onyx was distracted. You guys take board games very seriously around here.”
“We take everything seriously,” I said. I knew she wanted me to smile, but there was no way.
“Anyway, I was in such a hurry to get to the hospital. She…whoever it was…made it sound so serious, like I had to get there right away.” She started to cry. Shit, I couldn’t handle that.
“Don’t cry.” It was pointless. She was gonna cry if she wanted to cry. I looked out the window again and wished she would stop. I wanted to comfort her, but I still needed her to listen and take things seriously.
“But they tricked me! How did they know who I was? How did they know my mom? They must have hacked her account unless—oh, my God! Unless they’re at her house!”
“Okay, calm down.” I turned back to her, thinking. “Would it make you feel better if you called your mom to make sure she’s okay?”
She nodded hard. I handed her my phone. “Here. Call her.”
“What should I say?” She bit her lip, looking at the phone.
“Just tell her your phone’s broken or something, and you’re calling her from your friend’s phone. If you want, I can send one of the guys to keep an eye on the house.”
Erica looked up at me with huge, teary eyes. “You would do that?”
I nodded and went downstairs to set up a watch for her parents’ house. Brett was watching me closely, and walked over to me before I went back upst
airs. “She okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, she’s okay.” I patted her on the arm and went back up.
Erica was just getting off the phone. “She’s fine. So is my dad. No hospital.”
“That’s good news.” She didn’t look too happy, though.
“So somebody hacked into Mom’s account and tricked me into coming out. That’s what happened.” She looked at me, and I saw her chin start quivering. Oh, no. She was gonna cry again.
I sat down next to her. I couldn’t be mad anymore. She was right, someone had lured her out. “If I still had a family, I would have gone out, too,” I admitted.
“You don’t have a family anymore?”