by Addison Jane
Please be okay.
Please be okay.
Please be okay.
The steady thump of a pulse brought tears to my eyes. They burned like acid, but I didn’t care. I let them fall, grabbing my friend’s face in my hand and gently slapping her cheek. “Dakota, wake up,” I whispered. “Please wake up,” I pleaded through tears.
“Meyah, we need to go,” Levi ordered sternly.
A hand rested on my shoulder. “Baby girl, let me get her. We’ll get you girls out of here, and I promise I’ll make sure she’s okay.” Skins squeezed my arm, gently pulling me back and moving me toward Levi who wrapped his arm around me.
“You don’t know who you’re fucking with,” Asshole One spat, pinching his nose now and holding his head back. Not exactly the threatening pose of a henchman. I wanted to punch him again, I wanted to kick him in the fucking balls, so he could never reproduce and ruin a child’s life by being their father, but Levi kept hold of me not allowing me to escape.
“If I don’t get you out of here, Ham will have my ass. So play nice, Meyah,” he murmured under his breath.
My chest filled with air. “He’s here?”
Skins scooped Dakota up off the ground and cradled her against his body. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Asshole Two laughed. “You’ll never get out through the club. The minute I ring through there will be fifty guards coming down on your ass.”
Skins looked at Levi and then moved his gaze to me. “Meyah, close your eyes.”
I didn’t question, I just did.
“Hey, now!”
“No. Don—”
Bang.
Bang.
The thud of two bodies hit the hard, wooden floors with a deafening crack that I knew for a fact could only come from a skull. I gagged and turned my face into Levi’s shoulder. “Meyah, we gotta go. Now.”
“We can’t risk going out the back, we’re gonna have to go through the front door,” Skins argued, but I was finding it hard to breathe at that moment. My body was frozen, I couldn’t move let alone run. “Meyah, Ham is waiting back at the hotel. We can get you to him, you just need to help us outta here, baby girl.”
Ham was close by.
My man. My home. My safety net.
I took a deep breath, my body still shaking but more determined now just to get to him. “We can act like she’s had too much to drink,” I rambled, grabbing Levi’s black T-shirt and rubbing as much blood off my arms as possible before trying to straighten my hair. “Come on, we need to go before someone comes and finds these guys.”
We made a run toward the loud thumping music. Levi held my hand, keeping me steady on these heels Dakota had convinced me made my legs look a million miles long.
“Just look straight ahead, and smile,” Levi ordered.
I tried to do just that, but every time I looked around, I thought I saw someone speaking into their phone, or eying us suspiciously. Paranoia had a firm grip on my heart, and it was squeezing, making it hard to breathe.
I just needed to get to Ham.
He would make everything okay.
He was my safe place.
We managed to make it to the street, but just as we walked past the doorman, I heard him speaking into a headpiece. “I see them… yes, sir.”
Levi must have heard them too because there was no more acting calm.
We ran.
The streets were busy. People were everywhere, and we were fighting against the crowd. Levi with his hand on my back, pushing my body forward while Skins was fighting a battle of his own. And even though Dakota was tiny, she wasn’t exactly easy to carry while trying to haul ass down a busy street.
“Meyah!”
I could hear my name being called from behind me, but I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t risk being trapped.
“This place!” Levi practically picked me up off my feet, shouldering the swinging door and holding it while Skins dove through with Dakota. The receptionist lady screamed, and several people stepped away.
I waved. “Sorry. My friend got a little too drunk,” I tried to play it off as Levi shoved me in the direction of the elevator, reaching out and pressing the button over and over again like that was going to make it come any damn faster. The moment we got inside, and they slipped closed with a ding, Levi hit the fourth-floor button and I sunk to the floor. That’s when the tears began to roll down my face.
Skins was heaving, trying to catch his breath.
“Give her to me, man,” Levi offered, walking over and taking my tiny best friend into his arms while Skins sunk to the elevator floor beside me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
I turned my head, wiping my tears on his shirt, trying to stop myself from wanting to be sick all over the place.
“You’re okay,” Skins tried to soothe me as he took long steady breaths in and out. His heart was pounding in his chest, and I could feel it against my arm.
The elevator stopped, and the door dinged open, the both of us fighting exhaustion to get to our feet and following Levi down the hall. He stopped and kicked against the room 405 door then stepped to the side, nodding at the doorway.
The hotel room door opened, and I didn’t even need to wait for him to come into focus before I threw my body forward. He caught me, his arms going around my waist and lifting me off the floor before backing back into the room.
I couldn’t stop the sobs at that stage. I felt like I’d done pretty damn well until then to keep some sort of sanity, even after being attacked by Asshole One and Two. Then having to look away while Levi killed Asshole One and Two. Then realizing I didn’t fucking care they were dead because I’d imagined how many girls they had done that too, and damn-well succeeded. It made me feel physically ill just to think about it.
“It’s okay, fury fists,” Ham soothed, burying his face in my neck and my hair, nuzzling me like a cat would when it wanted to leave its smell on something, so everyone knew they owned it. “You scared the fucking shit out of me.”
I heard his voice shake. That was something I wasn’t used to from him. There’d only been one other time, and it was after the run-in with the sheriff.
My heart knew where home was. The second he had a hold of me, it was like nothing else around us mattered. I hadn’t been attacked. I hadn’t watched my best friend be beaten and sedated. I hadn’t stood there while Levi murdered two people in order to save us.
In his arms, I was safe from that. That shit didn’t matter because he would protect me.
“Wanna tell me what the hell you were doing in that place?” a deep voice snapped from behind me.
Ham growled low in his throat as he slowly placed my feet on the ground. “Leave it alone, Romeo.”
“Leave it alone? Do you realize how close your Old Lady just came to being on Isiah’s latest menu?” Romeo proclaimed his voice at a tone and level I hadn’t heard from him before. I clutched onto Ham a little tighter realizing he wasn’t wearing his club cut.
Wait! Why the hell were they here in Las Vegas?
I pulled back, looking up at Ham, my eyes blurred and watery. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Saving your ass apparently,” Romeo interjected before Ham could even open his mouth.
I spun around. “I get it, okay. You can’t trust guys in a nightclub. We made a mistake.”
The dark laughter that dripped like acid from his lips actually scared me. He braced his hands on the small hotel dining table in front of him, looking at me as if I was nothing but an annoyance—a fly that was buzzing around his head that he’d like to swat.
It gave me the chills.
Romeo and I had gotten close, even up until recently when he’d been the only one who stuck up for me, who helped me to see Ham.
Now, suddenly I was a piece of shit?
“Do you have any idea what goes on in that place?” Romeo snarled. “Do you realize how close you just came to being someone’s slave for the rest of your fucking life? How close you came t
o being tortured, and drugged, and rap—”
“That’s enough,” Ham spat, pulling my back against his chest. “How the fuck was she meant to know? It’s not as if he has a sign outside that screams ‘I steal women.’”
“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” I demanded, turning in Ham’s arms to face him and searching his eyes. They were full of worry, and honestly, what looked like fear. “What are you guys doing here? How did you know we were in there?”
He brushed his fingers through my hair, twisting them in the strands so he could pull my face forward and place a kiss on my forehead.
Romeo had moved off into the corner, and Levi and Skins were both sitting on one of the beds in the room, Dakota was still completely knocked out between them. Skins was brushing his hand across her hair in a comforting gesture, while Levi sat back against the wall staring straight ahead. He looked completely exhausted, his body drained.
I knew Levi wasn’t new to this. He’d almost died trying to protect the women when Skylar’s brother came to try and take Emma. But it never made taking someone’s life any easier.
Levi was still young, he wasn’t immune to these things. He hadn’t created that hard shell that most of the men had developed over time. Ham had been a part of the club for years, and he still struggled sometimes, even though he probably wouldn’t admit it.
I took a deep breath, pulling back from Ham and trying to be a little braver than I thought I was. Fake it till you make it.
I was an Old Lady now. I’d seen the women in the club do this a million times when things got stressful, and when the men would come home from places and missions that I didn’t even try to imagine. They comforted their men, and then they checked on the other boys. The ones who maybe didn’t have anyone to stand beside them, yet. The younger ones who needed to know there was someone there after they had been through hell, and after they had done and seen things which would scare even the hardest assholes.
I squeezed Ham’s hand and stepped around him, walking over to the bed and taking a seat on the edge where Levi was lounging. With the movement of the bed, his head shot up, and when he saw me sitting there, he sat a little straighter. “Hey, Meyah.”
“You all right?” I asked seriously.
His brow pulled together in confusion for a moment. “Was about to ask you the same thing,” he replied with a grin, his body relaxing a little. “But yeah, I’m doing all right. Your uncle told me a while back that sometimes you just need to take time to breathe.”
My instant reaction was to smile. I could hear those words in my head, something that Uncle Leo had said to me many times while I was growing up. When he helped me to ride my bike without training wheels. When he put together the shelves in my bedroom.
“He’s pretty smart, huh?”
Levi nodded. “Yeah, he is. Thanks for checking on me, though.”
“Come on, Meyah.” Ham was suddenly at my side again. “We need to talk about this.”
I put my hand in his and let him pull me to my feet, even though they were still shaky. We walked over to the table where Romeo was still brooding and glaring at everything and anything that moved.
I sighed as I took a seat. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know.”
He looked up at me from beneath his heavy set brow. “You know how fucking scared I was when I saw you in that club. How many times I’ve seen that asshole go… Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo, and pluck a girl off their barstool, and in thirty minutes she’s never fucking seen again.”
Ham grabbed my hand under the table, squeezing it tightly.
“I’m sorry.”
I was strong enough to admit when I was wrong. We didn’t know the area, we should have stayed with Ripley and the boys. We should have known better than to just wander off on our own in a city like this. It was a stupid thing to do.
Romeo got up from his chair and came around the table. He pressed his hand to the back of my head and leaned down, pressing his lips to my forehead. “I don’t want to lose you. Unfortunately for me, you’ve become kind of important,” he whispered before walking over to the mini bar and searching through for something alcoholic.
My heart slowly began to find its regular beat. Romeo was angry but only because of the situation. Because this hard-ass man had actual emotions and cared if I got hurt.
This was new for him, he wasn’t really sure after years of keeping to himself and keeping the emotional shit to the back.
“I love you, too,” I murmured, enjoying the way his body froze, and Ham chuckled under his breath.
“I didn’t say that,” he growled, refusing to turn around and look at me.
“You didn’t need to.”
Bang…
Bang…
I sat up straight in the bed as the hotel room door flew open, slamming back against the wall. Four or five men rushed into the room like fucking trained operatives, but even with the haze of sleep affecting my brain I recognized them instantly.
Ham didn’t even have time to get out of his chair. I saw him reach for his gun, but just as his fingers brushed over it, the barrel of an assault rifle was pointed directly at his temple.
“Don’t fucking move, asshole,” Texas demanded, causing Ham to freeze, his eyes the only thing moving, searching for me.
I knew what he was thinking… how could he get to me?
Romeo leaped up so fast that he flipped the small breakfast table over, the drink he was pouring crashing to the floor and spraying everywhere.
I should have been scared.
I wasn’t.
I was fucking pissed off.
“Hey now,” Romeo called, his hands in the air but his eyes narrowed on the last man who stepped through the door.
My fucking father, of course.
“What the fuck is going on here? I called you. I told you we’d be in tow—”
Huntsman leveled his gun at Romeo, a dark look in his eyes. “Shut the fuck up.”
Skins and Levi had gone out to get food. It was just Romeo, Ham, and us girls—Dakota was still sleeping off the drugs and hadn’t even moved a fucking muscle with all the noise.
Huntsman nodded to me. “Ripley, get her. Diddit, get Dakota.”
Ripley moved toward me, tucking his gun into the back of his jeans and before I could tell him where the hell to go, Ham was out of his chair and heading toward me. “Don’t you fucking—” He flew forward onto his knees as Texas hammered him in the back of his head with the butt of the rifle.
“Ham,” I screamed, leaping up from the bed as Ripley grabbed me around the waist and began hauling me toward the door.
Ham was relentless, fighting hard but struggling to get to his feet, his eyes focused on me as Ripley forced me toward my father. He was almost at his feet, only to have Texas rear his foot back and drive it into Ham’s ribs and send him sprawling onto his side, clutching his stomach.
“Stop,” Romeo roared, his voice followed by a sharp crack and smash as he was thrown against the wall, the picture that was hanging there, now in broken pieces on the hotel room floor.
I had to stop this. I had to make them listen. Or Ham and Romeo were going to be killed before Huntsman even bothered to hear what I had to say. He was on destroy mode. I could see it in his face.
I dug my feet into the ground, stopping Ripley for just a brief second, enough time for me to twist my body and reach for his gun. It slipped free into my hand, and I stumbled back, instantly feeling its weight pull me down. It was heavier and bigger than I was used to, but it didn’t fucking matter to me.
The room seemed to freeze. No one was fucking listening. Everyone was on this mission to seek and destroy, to try and protect me without getting their facts straight first.
All eyes moved to me as I took the gun and walked straight toward Huntsman.
If he was surprised by my move, he didn’t show it, but I was sure as hell about to get some kind of reaction out of him. I wasn’t sure quite what yet, but I didn’t care, as long as the
people I cared about were safe.
I stopped a few feet from him, far enough, so I wasn’t right in his space, but close enough so he knew I was fucking serious. Then I lifted the gun, it was heavy, and I was going to have to make this point fast before my arm fell off with holding its weight. I pointed it high, right at his chest. He didn’t flinch, his body not moving a single muscle, but I could see the way his eyes changed.
This was a betrayal. This was the ultimate kick in the guts.
“Tell Texas to stand down,” I ordered, fighting to keep my hand from shaking. I didn’t want him to see any weakness. Part of me wondered if this should have been a harder decision.
Huntsman was my father. He was my blood. My DNA. He was the reason I existed, and up until now, while he was kind of shut down and cut off, refusing to let me in, I still had respect for him. And with the way he’d come in here, thinking he was protecting me, or saving me, or whatever it was that they thought was going on, it proved there was a part of him which genuinely cared about keeping me safe.
I respected him. I cared about him. I was glad I’d found him. But he wasn’t home.
“Tex,” Huntsman finally growled, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Hunt—” Texas tried to argue, but Huntsman was quick to shut him down.
“Stand down,” he ordered sharply.
I didn’t take my eyes off my father, but I saw the movement out of the corner of my eye, and Texas soon appeared just to Huntsman’s side. “There something you want to tell me, Meyah?” He tried to hide it, but the hurt was there.
At this point, he would be second-guessing whether I was really his daughter. He would be wondering whether someone put me up to this. Whether I was a rat, and he was probably even considering what he would do about that if it were true.
“Yes, there is. But you’re gonna tell your boys to wait outside, and we’re gonna sit and talk about it like adults,” I declared. Not missing the way his hands scrunched into fists, like the idea of sitting and talking right now was the last thing on his list when all he felt like doing was killing someone. “I know you’re wondering whether I betrayed you. The answer is… no, I didn’t. And as your daughter, I’m asking you to stop and listen to what I have to say.” That was all I could ask for.