by Jess Bryant
“Us.” Skylar spoke up and was promptly hauled into her boyfriend’s lap, as if she were immediately in danger.
“No.” Colt growled.
Remy smiled softly when Skylar rolled her eyes at him but cuddled into Colt, “Nobody’s going to hurt her.” He turned to see Cash with the same stricken look as his twin, “Or Jemma and the baby.”
“Because we’re gonna stay home and protect them tonight.” Cash turned to look at his twin. “He’s right. We can’t take the girls to the barn. They don’t belong there. And we can’t leave them alone. Not while this psycho is runnin’ around trying to hurt us.”
Colt frowned but nodded in agreement, “Fine. I don’t like it but I’ll go along with it on one condition. When you guys get the bastard, you call me because I owe him a hello from the business end of a baseball bat.”
Remy breathed a sigh of relief as they all agreed on a plan for tonight. He would go and he would fight in order to lure the guy out. The rest of the family would be there to watch out for him and to watch for their traitor while his fight served as a distraction.
But he wouldn’t have any distractions. The twins and the girls would be home, safe. That was all he cared about. He would do his part for the family tonight. He would tap into all of the dark, dangerous emotions that made him a Bomar in order to become a good man and he wondered if it was that kind of sick, twisted backwards ass logic that made him a Bomar to begin with.
Family was everything to some people. They loved each other unconditionally. They would do anything to protect each other, take care of each other. They would put themselves in harm’s way just to save someone they loved. She knew love like that existed. She’d seen it. She’d just never experienced it.
Rachel Grant’s family was a complete and utter train wreck of dysfunction.
Her dad had gotten himself locked up for killing a man in a bar fight when she was a kid. After that it had mostly just been her and her mom and a few random guys that stopped in but never stayed long. When she’d lost her mom to the cancer she’d thought she was all alone. Then Craig had come home and she’d wished that she was all alone.
Her half-brother was eleven years older than her and had spent most of his adult life in and out of lock up. He was a violent criminal. He’d inherited every bit of their father’s mean streak and then mixed in paranoia, arrogance and sociopathic tendencies. He took pleasure in terrorizing her. He loved that she was scared of him. He got off on the power, being the one in charge, and his day wasn’t complete until he’d forced her to tremble with fear.
Well, Rachel had to physically cover her mouth with her hands to contain a manic laugh, he’d certainly accomplished his goal today.
She sat huddled in a ball trying to stay as small and as quiet as possible. She’d learned how to hide a long time ago. Invisibility was her best friend when it came to Craig. If he couldn’t see her, he couldn’t hurt her. If he forgot she existed for just a little while, that was even better.
And that was the only explanation for what had happened tonight. He’d forgotten that he didn’t live alone. Forgotten that he didn’t own the trailer, that her mother had left it to her and she had only agreed to let him stay there under duress. Either he’d forgotten or he’d been too worried about looking like a big shot to his buddies to call out for his little sister.
He’d come into the trailer house while she was in the back room, her bedroom, and he hadn’t thought to check and see if she was around. He’d set up camp with his friends, all guys whose voices she’d never heard before she realized about halfway through the conversation. She’d known better than to come out and interrupt them but it wasn’t like she’d intended to eavesdrop. It was a small trailer and even if it wasn’t, the walls were thin. A strong wind would blow the thing apart and every spring when tornado season hit she feared for her life.
Fear was a part of her everyday life. Scared was her default reaction, her standard emotion. Had been for as long as she could remember.
When her father had been around, she’d seen her fair share of violence. Never knowing if the fists he threw would connect with a wall or with a person, with her mother or brother or her. Then there had been the cancer, the fear that she wouldn’t be able to survive on her own after her mother died. The worry about child protective services and money and food and keeping the electricity and water turned on. And then Craig had slithered out of whatever dark hole he’d been living in at the news of her mother’s death and taught her what true fear was.
He’d moved in, claimed everything that was hers as his and his threats alone would have been enough to destroy her last shreds of hope for a better life but of course he hadn’t come home alone. No, she also had to deal with his never-ending string of terrible, disgusting friends that pawed at her like she was a toy for them to play with and tried to force their way into her room and into her more times than she could count.
She’d survived a lot in her twenty-one years, more than any girl should ever have to. Loss and pain, hunger and fear, she’d fought her way through all of it. Her survival instincts were good, well-honed from years of use, but even they were sputtering in the face of what she’d just overheard.
Fearing for her life had become a real thing in the past half hour. Not some exaggeration of her terrified mind. Not some distant worry. It wasn’t even one of Craig’s not quite joking threats this time. Her death was all but guaranteed if anyone found out what she now knew.
She could barely function some days as it was. She stuttered whenever she was fearful or nervous. She jumped at the slightest noise. She was hardly able to hold down a job and really, if Skylar Holland hadn’t taken pity on her when she went into her salon asking about sweeping up the floor for extra money she wasn’t sure she’d have a job at all.
Skylar had saved her life in a lot of ways. She was learning how to be around other people, around men, and not have panic attack meltdowns thanks to Skylar. But right now, in this moment, all of her hard work and progress disappeared.
If she didn’t think of a plan, and fast, Rachel feared she’d never be able to get back on her feet, never crawl out from her hiding place and that Craig would eventually find her here, catatonic and defenseless and easy prey for him to follow through on his threats to take her out. And he would take her out, she had no doubt about that. He would just as soon kill her as risk her telling someone what she had accidentally overheard.
She’d frozen when he came through the door. She’d hunkered down, preparing for the worst, but the worst she’d been imagining was nowhere near as bad as what had actually happened. Because she could have prepared herself if they were drunk or high and wanted to force their way into her room to hurt her. She’d learned to defend herself from those kinds of attacks by now. But she never could have prepared herself to learn that her brother was a traitor.
An idiot? Yes. An asshole? Of course. A murderous psychopath? Sure. But a traitor? And to his own friends? To his crew? The men that he had always chosen above her, above himself, above everyone? Until tonight, Rachel would’ve said that was impossible, but now she knew just how stupid her brother really was.
He’d turned on the Bomars. The Bomars! Men that were renowned for their love of violence and using their fists to solve problems. Men whose idea of a vacation home was their cell over at the local jail. Men that wouldn’t blink an eye when it came to destroying the person responsible for threatening and hurting their own family members. Because family was everything to them.
She knew that the Bomars were criminals. Dangerous, violent thugs that would just as soon beat a person up as talk to them. And they scared her, scared the living hell out of her. But she also knew that no matter what she had heard from Craig and from other people in town, that they weren’t all bad.
Skylar was dating one of them. Colt, one of the twins. Well, one of several sets of twins really but in Rachel’s mind there was only one set that mattered. Colt and Cash weren’t mixed up in the Bomar crime ring
if you listened to rumors and she’d certainly never seen them hanging out in the trailer park with her brother like she had some of the others.
Colt had been coming into the salon for as long as she’d worked there and she’d noticed the way he watched Skylar from the start. It had scared her. The intensity of the way he looked at Skylar, talked to her, had worried Rachel. Any man that had ever looked at her like that had meant nothing but harm.
When she’d told Skylar about her worries, her boss had only smiled though. She’d taken Rachel under her wing and explained that sometimes people, like things, weren’t what they seemed. She’d asked Rachel to look past the big, tattooed Bomar boy’s exterior and though she’d been doubtful there was much more to the intimidating man she’d kept an eye on him.
She’d watched his every move for months, waiting for him to slip up, to get angry and lash out, to take instead of giving, but instead she’d seen exactly what Skylar had wanted her to see. Colt wasn’t like the men she knew. He was gentle with Skylar, always tempering his strength to her softness, cradling her close, hugging and kissing her. And the touches, the kisses, they were freely given, not taken, because she’d seen the dreamy, lovesick way Skylar looked at him too.
Colt was a good man, despite his last name. He was still brutally intimidating, rough around the edges and dangerous as hell, but he wasn’t a threat to Skylar. Or to her. It had taken her a lot longer to realize that than it probably should have but it was true.
After she’d let herself believe that every man, Bomar or not, might not be out to hurt the women in their lives, it had been easier to see that Colt wasn’t some sort of anomaly. Skylar’s best friend, Jemma, was engaged to Colt’s twin, Cash, and those two were downright adorable together. Always finishing each other’s sentences, always touching, and Cash doted on his fiancé as if she was his sole reason for breathing.
And it wasn’t just the twins…
Her heart thumped too hard in her chest and she blew out the breath she’d been holding. There was one other Bomar boy that she’d been around recently. He’d been good to her, kind to her, and if she was honest with herself he didn’t scare her at all, at least not physically.
The way her pulse raced whenever he walked into a room scared her. The way her knees went weak when he smiled at her was terrifying. The way just thinking about him right now made her want to leap up and run to him, throw herself into his arms, bury her face against his broad chest and beg him to protect her, made her fear for her sanity.
Because she couldn’t run to him.
He was one of them. He might not be involved in the family business but he was still a Bomar. He might be nice to her but that would stop as soon as he found out the truth. She was related to the traitor responsible for threatening his family and if she told him he might turn her over to his cousins to interrogate and do God only knew what else to.
Even knowing that it was stupid, that it was unfair, that putting him in the middle of her mess would only cause trouble and probably make him hate her, she still wanted to go to him.
Because as silly and stupid as it might be, she was half in love with him and had been from the day she met him.
He’d been so gentle with her that first day on the street when she’d been terrified someone was hiding in Skylar’s busted-up salon waiting to attack her. He’d seemed to understand her irrational fears immediately and instead of telling her that he was safe, that he wouldn’t hurt her, he had shown her. He had spoken softly, made no sudden movements and hadn’t tried to touch her at all. He had been patient as he coaxed her into responding to his questions and somewhere between looking up into the most intense set of navy blue eyes she’d ever seen and the feel of his hand in hers as he bandaged her cut, she’d fallen unequivocally and irreversibly in love with him.
He had earned her trust that day. He was the first man to ever do that. And she thought he had feelings for her too. She had no idea why or how that was possible but she knew that it was.
Men like him, strong, brave, worldly men, shouldn’t be attracted to fragile, breakable, damaged girls but she’d seen the way he looked at her. Nobody had ever looked at her like he did. Not just with desire, there had been plenty of men that looked at her with that, enough to scare her and turn her off the entire gender, but none of them had also looked at her with understanding and unexpected softness like he did.
He hadn’t pushed her. Hadn’t even mentioned their mutual attraction. He’d simply been a friend to her the past few weeks, a good friend. And if she put aside the flutter in her belly at just the thought of him, and focused on what was important right now and in this moment, she knew that wanting to go to him was about more than her attraction to him.
She wanted him, sure, but she needed him for the safety he could provide.
Craig would never mess with her if she had someone to protect her. Someone strong. Someone intimidating. Someone that scared him. And there was only one man she knew that could accomplish all of those things but not scare her to death at the same time.
Her survival instincts kicked in and she rose to her feet. She could do this. She would do this. She had to. It was the only way. The little voice in the back of her head told her it was crazy, a gigantic risk, but it was one she had to take.
He would help her… wouldn’t he?
First things first, she had to get out of here. She quickly grabbed her purse and started searching it for things she would need. She didn’t have a car but she shoved the keys to the trailer inside and then thought about money. She didn’t have much but every penny she’d managed to save was hidden behind the vent in the bottom of her closet. She had to take it with her, wasn’t sure when or if it would be safe to come back here. She was already reaching into the closet when the door to her bedroom crashed open behind her.
Rachel screamed. Her head jerked around and she caught a glimpse of her brother standing in the doorway. She stumbled backwards, trying to put more space between them. She tripped over the shoes on the floor and fell with a panicked squeak, trying to catch herself and pulling half of her clothes and hangers down with her as she fell on her ass.
Craig chuckled, “Guess it’s a good thing they didn’t name ya Grace.”
“I-I-I…” Her stutter choked the words off in her throat and her tongue wouldn’t work.
Her brother only stared down at her looking half-amused and half-suspicious, “I don’t have time to decode you, Ray-Ray. Just need to ask you a couple questions and yes or no answers will suffice, k?”
She’d started to pull herself up to her feet, thinking being sprawled on the floor that she would be easier to kill but his words stopped her in her tracks. She hated when he called her Ray-Ray, making fun of her stutter, but it wasn’t the dreadful nickname that kept her on her ass, it was the fact that he was asking questions at all, talking to her instead of simply pulling out the gun she knew he kept tucked into the back of his jeans and shooting her point blank.
She nodded, deciding to play along since she couldn’t run or hide.
“Good girl.” Craig leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest, “Tell me, did you hear me talking to my friends a little while ago?”
She shook her head quickly, maybe a little too quickly because he narrowed his eyes at her.
“Don’t lie to me Ray-Ray.”
“I-I-I’m n-n-not.” She stuttered over the words, certain he would pick up on her unease and call her out again but of course he didn’t. She always stuttered when she spoke to Craig because he scared the living hell out of her. He didn’t know that she didn’t stutter with people she trusted. “I w-w-was listening to m-m-music.”
She pointed to the headphones on her nightstand to back up the lie. Craig glanced at the small earbuds next to her crappy old phone and then glanced back at her. He still looked suspicious but the tension in his shoulders was easing, no doubt because he remembered what he’d told her years ago. She was supposed to put on headphones if he ever showe
d up with any of the boys from the crew. It wasn’t safe for her to know what they got up to, in case the cops ever came around asking questions. She’d still been a kid back then and she’d nodded naively and done just that. She almost wished she really had put on the headphones the second she heard him come home earlier but she hadn’t.
“You weren’t eavesdroppin’ on me and the boys?”
She shook her head.
“Ray-Ray?”
“N-n-no.”
“Good.” He shoved back to his full height, “That’s real good because I don’t wanna have to hurt ya Ray-Ray. I don’t like hurtin’ ya. But I will and ya know I will.”
She nodded even as she cringed backwards to get further away from him. His cold, calculating gaze held hers for a long moment but she saw the pleasure begin to carve its way onto his face. He’d gotten what he wanted and gotten to scare her in the process so of course he was enjoying himself.
“If you did hear, you best keep it to yourself sis.” A cruel sneer twisted his lips, “Word gets out about me and my new friends and I’m gonna know exactly who snitched. You don’t wanna end up in the dirt next to that whore momma of yours do ya?”
Rachel bit off another whimper, “I-I-I didn’t hear n-n-n-nothing”
“We’re done here. Just remember what I said.” Craig checked the expensive watch on his wrist, the one she knew he’d stolen because he could never have afforded it, “I got plans tonight. Big fight night stuff. Bomar shit. You keep yourself outta the way cuz I’ll be bringin’ me back some sweet piece of ass.”
With that, Craig turned and sauntered from the room and Rachel was finally able to breathe again. She wasn’t dead. Yet. But the threat had been issued. She needed protection and Craig, her stupid, rat, traitor brother had been the one to give her all the information she needed.