by Khloe Wren
A growl tore up my throat. Of course she wasn’t fucking happy being a whore. Very few women were, and if she was, she wouldn’t have left. I slammed into my room and stripped as I entered the bathroom. Flipping on the taps, all I could see was her in here. Fuck, I’d dragged her in here to wash the smell of the other men off her before I fucked her. I really needed to quit getting so polluted that I couldn’t fucking remember shit the next day. What the hell had I said to her?
Once I was done, I headed back out to get dressed and caught sight of the messed up bed. I’d slept like shit this past week on the road. Funny, when I’d had Missy sleeping wrapped around me, I’d slept like a dead man. As I pulled my cut on over my shoulders, I realized I was being a fucking idiot. My brain might be still arguing the truth, but my stupid, fucking heart had jumped ship long ago.
Mercedes Soto was mine. All mine. And I needed to man the fuck up and be who she needed me to be. The instant I made the decision, accepted the truth, the weight on my chest that had been crushing me for so long, lightened. I knew I had a shit-ton of work ahead of me. We might not even be able to find the woman, and if we did, there was a good chance she wouldn’t want to see me. Especially since I still couldn’t fucking remember exactly what I’d done or said that sent her running.
With purpose, I trotted back down the stairs and headed for Scout’s office. With a tap on the door frame, I strolled in to find Keys there, staring at his laptop with a serious expression.
“I’m done screwing around. Missy is mine and I’m gonna do whatever I have to do to get her back here where she fucking belongs.”
Keys shook his head at me. “About fucking time. Now, get over here. I spoke with Fawn and once I had a rough idea of what time she left worked out, it didn’t take me long to piece together her movements. She caught a bus to Houston. Then with Fawn’s help, and hacking into a few surveillance-video feeds, I’ve tracked her to a strip club on the outskirts of Houston, called Sexy Legs.”
My gut dropped at the thought of how many men were looking at what was mine, that I’d been the bastard that had pushed her to it. “Why there? She couldn’t have just stumbled upon the place and gotten a job.”
“Another of the whores used to work there. Fawn’s heard her talking about it, so it’s easy to assume that Missy had overheard the same information.”
The fact that no one was heading to their bikes had me frowning. “Why aren’t we moving out then?”
“Because that’s not the only issue in this fucked-up situation, brother. Her stepfather is on the move. He was spotted with a small group heading toward Bridgewater yesterday, but I haven’t been able to get a bead on him since then.”
“In the six months she’s been here, has he ever shown any sign that he’s been looking for her?”
Keys glanced at Scout, who nodded, before he turned back to me. “They’ve put out some feelers for her. Her stepfather is claiming she’s his runaway daughter that he wants to bring back home. He spins a good story, but then most of these guys do. It’s how they draw so many people in to their fucked-up communes in the first place.”
“Has he been seen here in town?”
“No fucking way. If he’d dared step one foot in our town we would have dealt with the fucker in a heartbeat.”
The sense of urgency I felt increased the more I thought about what could happen.
“So, why are we still sitting here and not already on our way to Houston?”
“I was just setting up things for after, while we waited for you to make the right decision and get your ass back down here.”
I started for the door. “Well, I’m here, now let’s go. Who’s coming with us?”
Not that I cared. I’d go alone if I had to. And if Missy’s stepfather had gotten hold of her, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do to the bastard, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
Missy
At the end of each day for the past four days, after I’d finished work and finally got to slip into the crappy, lumpy bed in the small room above Sexy Legs to try to sleep, I would question my decision of leaving Bridgewater and the Charon MC. Maybe I should’ve just gone straight to Scout, rather than leaving, and asked about working somewhere else. He’d offered me other jobs when I’d first come to the club. Surely one of those options would have still been available.
But instead, I’d run like a coward, letting a man run me off with a few careless words. Tiny had been hung over as hell. Maybe he hadn’t even meant what he’d said to me. That, or he hadn’t meant what he’d said the night before. What he’d said while he was drunk. Although, in my experience, drunk people were more likely to tell you the truth than sober ones.
At least I wasn’t on the streets. I’d overheard a couple of the other girls at the clubhouse talking about working shifts at Sexy Legs, so when I saw the neon sign from the bus, I headed in that direction. Considering I was used to not only taking off my clothes, but fucking for food and a roof over my head, stripping didn’t seem like such a bad gig. And at the mention of my previous employment, the owner hadn’t hesitated to hire me.
But it wasn’t time for me to head upstairs yet tonight. I still had work to do. And as I did another twirl around the pole, I realized I didn’t get the buzz doing anything in this place like I’d gotten when I strutted around the Charon MC clubhouse. And when I slid to the floor to crawl around the front of the stage so the men, and women, there, could tuck money into my thong, their touches made my skin crawl. Maybe it was the nastiness and cruelty mixed with the lust in so many of their gazes. The Charons had never been like that. If they wanted me, they took me, but they were never nasty about it. No, the men here reminded me more of those back in the commune. Of the teachers who trained me, and the boys in the class who would watch as we girls were put through sexual test after test. A shudder ran through me and I performed a body roll to hide it from those watching me.
When the last notes of the song I’d been dancing to finished, I went to move off stage, but as I did a final twirl I saw him. No, it wasn’t just him, but them. He’d brought several of his friends with him. My throat dried up and my feet wouldn’t move. I hadn’t seen or heard anything from him in so long. How had he found me?
When the next girl came out cussing at me to get my ass off stage, I spun and bolted down the stairs, pulling the bills free from my thong as I strode down the hallway to the little room we all used to change. I was due to perform again in an hour, but I didn’t want to risk it with my stepfamily out there. Had they seen me yet? Maybe I could sneak out the back and run. But to where? Would Scout take me back after I left without telling anyone? Considering I hadn’t heard from any of them all week, I had to wonder if they’d even noticed I’d gone. Maybe I could slip back in and act like I’d never left.
Decision made, I grabbed my stuff and headed up to my room. Unsure how cold it was outside, I quickly changed into a pair of jeans, sneakers and threw on a t-shirt and jacket before shoving everything else back in my bag. I scribbled a quick note to my boss and left half of the money I’d collected tonight with it. That was a lot more than his normal cut, so hopefully he wouldn’t be too mad. There were plenty of other girls here to take the stage in my place, so I was fairly certain he wouldn’t even notice my absence until after closing.
With my bag over my shoulder, I slipped down the stairs and out the rear door. Keeping to the shadows, I made my way to the side of the building. Sexy Legs was on the outskirts of town, and there was a truck stop not far down the road. Hopefully I could hitch a ride without too much trouble and be far from here before my stepfather realized I’d slipped past him.
“Hello, Mercedes. Where do you think you’re going?”
The breath caught in my lungs as I suddenly found myself surrounded by men from the commune. Front and center, naturally, was my stepfather.
“What do you want?”
“I wanted to bring you home so you could take the place you were trained to take, but I’m not sure you deserve th
at now. Not with how you killed your mother, then ran away to use your training to be a stripper.”
Fury spiked my blood and banished my fear. I lunged for him, wanting to scratch his eyes out for his lies, but strong hands held me back.
“You killed her, not me. You and your friends beat and used her until she was too broken to be used anymore, then you left her there for me to find!”
I pulled and twisted, trying to get free of the men who held me, but they were stronger and so much bigger than me. How could they stand so stoic against his lies? Hell, these were probably the ones who’d used my mother until she was a whisper away from death, then left her to die.
“Such a wild imagination you have, Mercedes. Take her out behind that shed, boys. We don’t need strangers interfering in our family business now, do we?”
As they moved, I did everything I could to dig my heels into the gravel parking lot to slow them down. I turned my head toward the road and opened my mouth to scream. But before any sound came out, a hand clamped over my mouth.
“Don’t you think you’ve pissed him off enough already, girl?”
Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to allow them to fall. I was going to be raped and beaten, most likely until I stopped breathing, behind that shed. And they wanted me to go quietly? Like hell. I might have only been out of that commune for six months, but it had been long enough for me to learn that the way they treated women, and how they forced them to behave was wrong. We weren’t meant to be slaves to the men around us our whole lives. Hell, even as a club whore for the Charon MC I had more freedom than what I’d had in that commune.
My gaze bounced around the parking lot. I had to find a way to escape, to get someone’s attention before they got me out of sight. Suddenly I could hear the faint sound of several Harleys. They were getting louder as they got closer and the sound made my heart sing, I seriously doubted the bikes were the Charons, but I didn’t care. If they were cut from the same cloth, they’d never leave a woman in trouble.
“Hurry up!”
The two men holding my arms tightened their grips to a painful level and two more men came and grabbed my legs. Screaming, I thrashed against their hold but it got me nowhere, and now I had nothing touching the ground I had no way of slowing them down as they carried me out of the dimly lit lot and behind an old shed at the rear of the yard. The bikes were loud now, as if they were maybe pulling into the lot. I tried to twist around to see them but couldn’t catch more than a glimpse of big black and silver machines before I was taken out of sight.
“Pin her up against the wall. Gonna have to make this a quick lesson, then we’ll take her home to finish off.”
True to my stepfather’s instructions, my feet were dropped and the two holding my arms, thrust me up against the rough metal. The breath rushed from my lungs, but I didn’t take my gaze from my stepfather. Fury and desperation had banished all my fear, numbing my body against what I knew was coming.
“I’m not yours, not anymore. You have no right to touch me and when the Charon MC finds out what you’ve done, you’ll all be dead. You have heard of the club haven’t you?”
With a growl, he stepped forward and viciously backhanded me across my face, hard enough to have me seeing stars.
“You whored yourself out to an entire motorcycle club? That’s how you’ve stayed hidden so long.” He scoffed, and taking a fist full of my shirt, gave it a hard yank and ripped the front out of it, leaving my bra exposed. “They’ll probably thank me for taking you off their hands. Considering you’re not at their clubhouse anymore, I’m guessing they got sick of you and tossed you aside.” He pulled a knife from his belt and sliced the center of my bra open. “Now for some fun, my little whore.”
When he slipped the blade under the top of my jeans, slicing through the denim, I let out the loudest scream I could. The bikes had been shut off for a few minutes now, and I prayed that at least one of them would hear me and come investigate.
Whoever they were, they were my only hope.
Chapter 4
Tiny
We rolled into the strip club’s parking lot just as a group of men were walking toward the rear of the lot. They looked like they were struggling with something, but in the dark I couldn’t see what it was. At least, not until our headlights flashed over the group. They had Missy. Fuck. Were we too late?
Scout was in the lead and he held up his fist, like he knew I wanted to ride over there and plow into the bastards with my bike. Then he pointed to the side where there was plenty of space for us to all park our rides together. The second I had my bike parked, the engine was off and I had my helmet on my seat as I strode toward my girl.
“Tiny, wait!”
I turned to face Scout, pointing the direction they’d gone. “They’ve got her. Right this very second they’re hurting my woman. Why the fuck should I wait?”
“Ten fucking seconds, Tiny. Do not kill them. We got plans for them and we need them to be breathing. Understand?”
“No guarantees, prez. I’ll try, but to keep her safe, I’ll do anything. And I’m not feeling real rational right now.”
“Fine, go get your girl. No fucking guns though. We don’t have any contacts with the cops this far out of Bridgewater and I’d prefer avoid that headache if we can.”
I gave him a chin lift just as a high pitched scream ripped through the air. Oh, hell no. I spun on my heel and sprinted across the gravel toward the sound. I could hear my brothers’ feet pounding the ground behind me and knew they’d have my back, even if I decided to slaughter every one of these fuckers who’d dared to touch what was mine.
Despite the fact I knew what they’d be doing, the sight that greeted me when I got behind that fucking shed had my stomach churning and my vision going red for a few moments.
“Get the fuck away from my woman.”
A few of the men standing around began to back away, and I saw from the corner of my eye that a couple of my brothers headed after them. The ones holding Missy stood proud, like they had every right to be doing what they were. The one standing in front of her glanced over his shoulder to me but didn’t turn his body. Fucker pulled his arm back and landed a blow against her stomach that left her wheezing for breath as he laughed.
“She ain’t yours. She ain’t nothing but a useless whore we’re about to put to good use.”
The man was a fucking idiot, and might as well have waved a red flag in my face. Keys rested his palm on my shoulder as he spoke near my ear.
“That’s her stepfather. Leave. Him. Alive. Trust me, what we have coming his way is gonna be so much worse than you killing him now.”
I didn’t bother answering him, just shrugged off his hand and strode forward. When I was only a step away, the fucker moved to the side to reveal the knife he now had pressed against her throat. Fear had her eyes wide open and she was clearly trying to push herself away from the blade that was already drawing blood as it cut into her skin, but the shed was stopping her from going anywhere.
Her shirt had been torn away beneath her jacket and the top of jeans had been sliced open far enough to reveal most of her bare mound. Had I been too late? Had they already raped her? Fury, mixed with agony and rage, blew up inside me and I moved before I realized what I was doing. In seconds, I had one hand wrapped around his wrist and the other in his hair, before I yanked him back from Missy as I crushed his wrist between my thumb and fingers. With a screech, he dropped the blade and started whimpering. Fuck that.
Releasing his most-likely broken wrist, I pulled back and landed a blow to his ribs that would have at least cracked a few of the fuckers.
“How’s it feel on the other side of things, asshole?”
When he just whimpered and tears tracked down his face I snarled in disgust.
“You’re not worth the effort it would take to kill you. No idea what my brother has planned for you, but I bet it’s gonna be fun to watch.”
With that, I brought his face down as I brought my kne
e up, and with a crunch that shattered his nose, he fell lifeless to the ground. Leaving him where he landed, I turned back to the trio still against the shed.
“I’m not feeling real charitable at the moment boys, I’d suggest you let my woman go and fuck off.”
As though they were waiting for instruction, they dropped their hands from Missy and dashed away. I knew Scout and Keys would handle them, or maybe Arrow and Keg. I really didn’t give a fuck as I rushed forward to catch Missy as she tumbled toward the ground now that no one was holding her up. She was still struggling to breathe from being manhandled with such force, and her face was red and swollen on one side.
“Ah, fuck, babe. I am so fucking sorry. Never again. I promise. This’ll never fucking happen again.”
She seemed even smaller than normal when I lifted her against me. With a groan, she curled one arm around her stomach while the other reached for my neck. Unable to reach high enough, she took a fistful of my cut and buried her face against my chest. Her whole body was shuddering, and I hoped like fuck she was crying and not convulsing for some reason.
A couple years back, the club had kitted out a cage as a sort of makeshift ambulance. It had come in handy a number of times already and when the vehicle pulled into the lot, I strode over toward it, more than ready to let Donna, Keys’ old lady who was a trained nurse, do her thing with my girl. The back doors opened and Bulldog jumped out and winced when he caught sight of me.
“Hop in, Tiny. We’ve got another cage coming for the trash and I’ll ride your bike home.”
More than happy to have the club’s VP ride my bike, after I got Missy settled on the gurney, I pulled my keys out and tossed them over.
“Thanks, brother.”