by Erin Osborne
“We need to get her to the clubhouse. I’ve got Wanda making her way there with everythin’ I’ll need to check her over. Thankfully, you guys got the machines in the basement fixed up so I can see if this arm is gonna require surgery,” he informs me. “Can you carry her or do you want the others to grab her?”
“No one else is touchin’ her,” I growl out, every protective instinct in me coming to the forefront.
The rest of the men surrounding us clear the way. Fury is by my side, making sure no one else gets too close as I carry her to the SUV.
“My bike.”
“Got you covered,” Fury says, just before he shuts the door on us.
“Found this on the ground,” Gage tells me, opening the passenger door and laying her wallet on the seat before closing it and heading for his bike.
I keep her in my arms as Doc gets in and backs out of the alley. We’re surrounded by bikes as he heads back to the clubhouse. This is exactly why I love my family. They have my back no matter what. Even when I’m not even sure what this pull is between Ashtyn and myself.
Chapter Five
Ashtyn
I’VE BEEN WAITING all day for this date. For the first time, I’m filled with happiness, nerves, and excitement. This is a decision I made for myself without worrying about what anyone else thought. For most people, this may seem extremely small or trivial in the grand scheme of things. I’m not most people. This is a momentous day.
After spending the morning getting lost in a book, I realize the time. It’s finally time for me to begin getting ready. Going to my room, I look through my meager clothing, trying to decide what I can wear. There’s a pair of jeans with a few holes placed in the upper thighs and knees. They were made this way and are one of my favorite pairs. Choosing a black, fitted shirt, I lay them out on my bed with a matching set of underwear. They’re bright red, darker than my hair, filled with lace and are barely there. No, I’m not expecting for my date to see them. I simply love wearing sexy underwear.
Heading to the bathroom, I take a shower, making sure to shave and wash everything, including my, normally frizzy, hair twice. Once I’m dried off, I rub my favorite lotion all over my skin. It smells of cherry blossoms. I comb through my hair and brush my teeth before putting on some eye shadow, a swipe of mascara, and lip gloss. It’s usually the only make-up I wear. Grabbing my mousse, I rub it through my long hair so it’s not frizzy today. Instead, it will lay in curls down my back.
Pulling up the front of my hair, I pin it back with a clip so I can’t hide from whomever this man is. I want to do better about hiding from people; it’s time for me to join the land of the living. That will be easier to do once my father leaves me alone. Not like I’m holding my breath for it to happen, though. He’s not a man who gives up easily . . . or ever, really. My mom used to say that’s where I get my stubbornness from.
After getting dressed, I grab my wallet and key for the door. My wallet is small enough to will fit in my back pocket while my keys go in my front. Walking down the street toward the diner, it’s the first time there’s a genuine smile on my face since losing my mom and sister. I feel light, freer than I ever have, as if an entirely new person is beginning to emerge.
As I get closer to the alley separating a house from the beginning of the strip of storefronts, I see a man wearing a black coat and gloves. He’s got his head tipped down, so I can’t see his face. My anxiety and fear levels run rampant through me as I realize this has to be one of the men I’ve been hiding from. No one else would be standing the way he is; hate, violence, and a menacing air surround him.
I frantically look around for an escape route. Before I can take off back down the street, or cross to the opposite side, someone grabs my arm roughly and leans down into my body. “We’ve got you now, you little bitch,” he whispers in my ear before beginning to drag me toward the first man.
I want to scream out for help as I see a few people walking along the street. When I open my mouth, a hard, swift punch lands in my stomach, effectively shutting me up. My breath wheezes from me as black spots begin to fill my vision when I’m thrown back against the rough, cement exterior of the building.
“Go get the fucking car,” one of the men grumbles.
“I’m not your fucking puppet. You want the car, go get it your damn self,” the other one replies.
For a minute, the men forget about me. Looking around the alley, I try to find a weapon or a way out of this mess. Panic is filling me, making my heart race. My palms sweat and a cold sweat begin to drip down my body. My breathing is not only hard, but it’s now laboring to take a single breath.
When I realize they’re still arguing like a bunch of overgrown babies, I place my hands on the building behind me, getting ready to push off the building. Taking a chance, I attempt to push off the building when one of the men shoves into the other man, slamming me back against the wall. My entire body is lifted off my feet as my back scrapes against the wall. I can feel my nails breaking off as I try to find a way to keep myself upright.
Turning to face me, both men begin to beat on me. I guess they didn’t like me trying to escape from them while they were occupied. Everything fades to the background as I try to bring my arms up in order to protect myself from their hits. They still manage to land several punches and kicks before a scream erupts from me. There’s no way I can hold it in when a vicious punch lands on my ribs.
After slamming my head against the wall for the third time, I believe, my arm is grabbed roughly once more. I think I hear someone trying to stop these men from taking me, but there’s a ringing in my ears and my vision is blurred. Another wrench of my arm and I feel it break. Suddenly, there aren’t any arms holding me back. I collapse against the hard, cement covered alleyway, doing further damage to my body as the lights go out for me.
I’m not sure how much time has passed as I begin to wake up. My eyes flutter open only to immediately slam shut again as a moan escapes my dry, cracked lips. Every single inch of my body is killing me. It feels as if I’ve been hit by a Mack truck several times over. There’s a pulling against my head both in the front and back. Something feels heavy as I try to move my arm. I don’t have the energy to open my eyes, so I can figure out what’s going on right now. Not with the pain filling my body to point I want let the dark, pain free, blank existence take me back under.
“Ashtyn,” a deep, calming voice reaches my ears. “Tiny, are you awake?”
“Y-Yes,” I mutter, my throat feeling as if I’ve gargled with glass and rock for an entire day.
“Take a sip of this water,” the man urges me gently. “Can you open your eyes for me?”
“No. Light hurts,” I let him know, my voice still weak and my throat filled with pain.
There’s movement before silence once again fills the room. I try to open my eyes again. This time there is barely any light filling the room. My head still pounds as I pry open my eyes. They don’t even open all the way. I feel lost before memories of the beating begin to fill my head. Even though I can remember being beaten, most of the details are fuzzy and not exactly in detail. I’m missing something big about what’s happened to me. My heart begins racing, my breathing becomes labored once again as I fear I’m in the hands of the men who want to take me back to my father.
“Ashtyn, it’s Tech. Remember me?” the same deep voice rumbles softly in my ear as I turn toward him.
He looks haggard as he sits in a chair next to me. His hair is standing on end as if he’s raked his fingers through it constantly. Instead of the brown eyes I remember from our one night together, Tech’s eyes are black and filled with rage. There is no quick smile on his face as he looks at me with a closed mouth in a firm line. There are several other men in the room with us. Each man seems bigger than the next one as they stand or sit around the room. If I were in a better position, I’d appreciate the sexiness filling the room around me.
I’m lying in a huge bed with warm blankets covering most of my body. My
arms are out from the feel of the cooler air over them. Looking around the room from the slits that are now my eyes, I need to figure out where I am. Across from the bed, I see a large area filled with computer screens all showing different areas of a building. A few chairs fill the area along with a small refrigerator sitting under one end of the desk.
“I remember. The bar,” I answer him finally.
“That’s right, Tiny. You’re at the clubhouse of the Wild Kings motorcycle club in my bed. I’m a member of them, remember?” he questions me further.
“Yeah,” comes my reply.
“We’re gonna let you rest for now. Doc gave me some antibiotics for you along with some pain meds. Let me know if you need them,” he tells me, leaning over and placing a soft kiss against my temple. “When you’re more alert, we’re gonna have to have some answers from you about what happened. For now, concentrate on gettin’ better.”
“What happened to me? I don’t remember a lot of details,” I question him.
“We’ll go over everythin’ when you’re a little stronger, darlin’,” another man speaks up. “Do you need another pain pill.”
“No, thank you. I want to be alert sooner than later so I can get on my way,” I reply before a growling sound fills the room.
“We’ll talk about that later on. For now, get some rest. I’m not goin’ anywhere. If you need me, I’ll be right here,” Tech states, his voice deeper than I’ve ever heard him.
He sounds pissed about something. I’m not sure if I’m the reason for his anger, but I do know I don’t ever want to be on his bad side. From the looks of the large men in the room, I don’t want to be on the wrong side of any of these men. They’re even scarier than my father’s henchmen. That’s saying something since not a single person ever remains near them for very long. At least they didn’t when I was around my father and them.
Sighing, I snuggle down in the bed as the blankets are pulled up against my chin. Tech’s scent envelops me as the darkness consumes me once more. Nightmares don’t plague me for once as the blackness keeps them away.
Chapter Six
Tech
ASHTYN IS NOWHERE close to being okay. Her recovery is going to take a while and she’s not going anywhere while she gets better. If I have my way, she won’t be leaving here for a long time. Not until after we figure out what’s going on with her and who’s behind her attack. For now, I’ll remain in my room with her, so she feels safe and not so alone.
My phone alerts me to a message. Fury picks it up and hands it to me.
Siren: How’s the date going?
Me: Didn’t make it there. Saw a woman bein’ attacked. It’s Ashtyn.
Siren: Your Ashtyn?
Me: Yeah.
My phone begins ringing. Siren’s name pops up on my screen.
“Is she okay?” she asks before I have a chance to say a word.
“I don’t know. She’s pretty out of it right now,” I let her know.
“I need to tell you something,” she says, her tone softer than usual. “You were supposed to meet Ashtyn at the coffee shop. Her profile was super secret. No picture or anything. It was just sheer luck I ran her email and put two and two together.”
“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me right now?” I shout in the room, quickly turning to make sure I didn’t wake her up.
“Yeah. I thought it would be a great surprise for you,” she informs me. “That’s one of the only reasons I set the date up. If it hadn’t been her, I wouldn’t have made you go through with the date. I’m a bitch, but I’m not that cruel.”
“Okay. Well, now I don’t feel too bad,” I say, knowing I’m not going to have to make any explanations to anyone else.
“Let me know how things go,” Siren says before hanging up the phone.
“Siren?” Fury questions.
“Yeah. I was supposed to meet Ashtyn for coffee today. Not some random bitch,” I fill him in on what Siren just told me.
“That’s crazy as fuck,” he replies, flipping open her wallet without looking inside.
Fury needs something to do with his hands when he’s trying to figure something out in his head. It’s a habit of his he’s had since I’ve known him. Crash picks on him mercilessly about it.
“What are you thinkin’?” I question him, walking over closer so we’re near the computers and not right next to my girl.
My girl? Where the fuck did that thought come from?
“I think you need to run her name. Yeah, I know you don’t want to because you feel as if you’ll be invadin’ her privacy. Don’t you think we should have some warnin’ in case this is somethin’ bigger than either one of us realize. We can warn the club and do what we gotta do until she can fill in the blanks,” he states, making sense while I think of getting a jump on this shit.
“Stay in here with me in case she wakes up again. You know how I get,” I tell him, knowing there are times I get lost in my work and don’t realize shit’s going on around me.
“You know I got your back. I’ll hang out here and let you do your thing. If you find somethin’ you need to let the guys know, I’ll run it out to them,” he lets me know, taking a seat close to the bed with his phone in hand.
Turning my attention to the screen, I pull out Ashtyn’s license from her wallet. Pulling up my programs on the dark web, I begin to work my magic. The first thing that pops up is a picture of a younger Ashtyn with a second little girl, a beautiful woman standing behind her with a man who looks as if he’d rather be anywhere else on Earth than with those three females. Looking through more pictures, the woman and other little girl stop showing up in pictures about the time Ashtyn was ten or so. I’m just basing that on the dates stamped into them and her birthday.
Changing tactics, I begin pulling up news articles about her. The first one I see is a missing person ad for Ash. It says she’s been missing for a year now and is considered a danger to herself. I print it out so I can let her know about it and ask her questions. Switching to another article, I see her dad is none other than Senator Jackson fucking Banks. He’s been doing his best to get rid of MCs. Not that anything has worked; hasn’t stopped him from trying, though.
I must make a noise or something because before I know it, Fury is at my side. When he sees what I’m looking at, he lets out a low whistle. Yeah, this is going to end up in a huge clusterfuck because we’ve been up against this fucker before. We never had a reason to look in depth into him before now. That’s about to change. We know some of his secrets, but we didn’t look into his family because we don’t go after a man’s family. That’s not our style and never has been.
“I need to get Siren in on this shit,” I let Fury know. “She can help me dig into this shit faster than me alone.”
“Do what you gotta do,” he states. “I’ll let the boys know in case we get any visits. You good for a few minutes?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna walk away for a minute while I call Siren.”
Pulling out my phone as Fury leaves my room, I explain the situation when she answers. I can already hear her typing away in the background since I’m on speaker with her. She’s pissed as fuck we didn’t find this out about Ashtyn earlier. It would change the way I feel about her in the least, but I would have dug into her background before now. Ashtyn isn’t fucking missing; she’s on the damn run.
Siren begins digging deep into the senator while I know I’ll be looking more into Ashtyn. Together, we’ll put as many pieces together as possible while Ash recuperates. The less information we need from her, the better I believe. Hopefully, she doesn’t get too pissed at me for this. I’m not trying to be a prick or dig into her life. The only thing I want to do is protect her. Protect the club.
After Siren reassures me about digging into the good senator, she hangs up. There is abuse or something in Ashtyn’s background. As I told Siren about what I walked in on. Again, she was even more pissed than before. This is straight in the wheelhouse of the Deviant Angels MC, so she’s going to be a
ll over it. I’ve worked with her enough to understand she won’t stop until we have all the information necessary to take this fucker out. It’s what she does.
My phone begins ringing almost a half hour after I hang up with Siren. It’s her.
“What’s up?” I question her, answering it before Ashtyn wakes up.
“Found some shit I think you may want to know about before I send it over. The good senator isn’t the person he portrays himself to be. I’ve got some massive debts in his name with the wrong kind of people. Pretty sure I know the reason he wants his daughter back so bad, too. You’re not gonna like it,” she informs me. “I’m emailing it to you now. There’s a lot of shit in there. I’ll keep digging.”
“How pissed am I gonna be?” I ask her, needing to know before I look at it.
“You’re gonna be extremely pissed off,” she responds, making me not want to open this information right yet.
“Open it while she’s still asleep, so you can process. She doesn’t need to see your ass all worked up and ready for a showdown,” Siren orders me, knowing how I work with bad shit.
Getting the alert of her email, I open it up and quickly scan the documents she’s sent me, including transcripts of Banks’ phone records. There’s a number she circled in red he’s in constant contact with, including, just a little while ago when she was attacked. Motherfucker!
Going through more things, I see exactly what Siren is talking about. I want to toss everything in this fucking room. I’m seeing red and my vision has tunneled to the words now floating in front of my eyes. I’ve been pissed off many times, what I’m feeling now is nothing compared to those times. I’m murderous as I take in the details laid out in a fucking contract. This is not gonna fucking happen, and I don’t give a shit what I have to do in order to stop it.
Turning around, I see Ashtyn curled up in my bed. I want nothing more than to climb in with her. So, I shut off my monitors, remove my cut, shirt, and pants before locking the door and shooting a message to Fury. Carefully, I slide in beside her. Ashtyn stirs slightly, curling up into my body as I get settled in. For the first time in my life, I feel peace with a woman in bed next to me. There is no need to fuck her so I can send her on her way or feeling as if my skin is crawling because someone else is in bed with me. Those are my usual responses for being in bed with someone when we’re not having sex. With Ashtyn, it’s different. Instead of wanting to run as far away as I can get, peace washes over me. I feel like I’m the best man on the planet because in her eyes, it seems like I can do no wrong. I’ve never experienced that with anyone.