“So it would seem.” He handed me a stack of bills and gave me a smile that put me on edge. “You had a decent night. An even two hundred. I’m not sure how you do it, but it’s impressive.”
I wasn’t sure which he was talking about, my ability to bring in tips or something else.
I left the office feeling a bit grimy, something I hadn’t felt when I entered it, and I chalked it up to Joshua, who’d caused me to feel odd ever since that night at the Tap Room. After saying a quick goodbye to everybody but Jax, I grabbed my coat and purse and headed out the back door.
Winter was upon us and though the ground was brown but bare, the sharp scent of snow was in the air. I’d always loved the first snow, something about the way it blanketed everything and wiped it clean appealed to something in me. It felt a little romantic, a thing I most definitely wasn’t, and yet every year I waited impatiently for that first snowfall, feeling a little like the kid I’d never been allowed to be.
I’d seen glimpses of Preach here and there, as if he’d finally come out of his hiding place, a groundhog anticipating spring, but he hadn’t approached me. I wondered if he remembered what had happened. Both the mugging and the run-in with Cam, because I never knew exactly what he did remember. Now I wondered if he even remembered he had a son and I knew him.
I’d been taking different paths to my car every night, changing up my routine slightly, because after two attacks, I was starting to feel a little too predictable. It had nothing to do with being careful, but predictability was something I couldn’t allow to happen. That night I took the long way, walking the length of the Lane, drawing stares from passersby due to my flapper dress, and cut down a long alley across from Sharkie’s between an abandoned building and a karaoke bar that had never had a name I could remember. At the end of the alley, I spotted a group of people gathered, and I shrugged internally, figuring they’d wandered off looking for a place to piss.
I didn’t think that for long.
I was about halfway down the alley when a figure broke free of the others and started walking in my direction. My eyes narrowed as I tried to place him, the gait familiar. It wasn’t until he drew closer that I breathed a little easier, realizing it was Cam.
“Why aren’t you at the gym?” I asked with a glare once he was close enough to hear me. I still hadn’t forgiven him, choosing instead to ignore him whenever he and I were forced to share the same space, and while I hadn’t attempted to hit him again, mostly for Luke’s sake, it still couldn’t be said that we had reconciled either.
He didn’t answer as he fell into step beside me.
“Luke ask you to meet me?” If he had, I wondered why it had been Cam of all people whom he’d sent. Ahead, the small group he’d been with stood in a loose semicircle as though they were waiting for us.
Again, he didn’t respond, and a faint alarm went off inside me. I attempted to stop but he, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, threw out a hand and latched on to my forearm, continuing down the alley and forcing me to keep moving beside him.
“What the fuck, Cam?” I snarled, attempting to pull my arm free. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Brandon tried to tell him. Told him he needed to stay away from you, put some distance between you. But he wouldn’t fucking listen.” He looked over at me with hostility in his eyes. “He was supposed to lose interest. He always has before. But no. You’re still here. From that very first night, you’ve been nothing but fucking trouble.”
I glared at him and jerked my arm back, but he held fast, pinching it in his grasp. I barely held back the yelp that threatened to escape as bone ground against bone.
“I’ve heard it before. I’m a distraction. I’m trouble. Get a new fucking line, Cam. And let me the fuck go while you’re at it.”
It was as if I hadn’t said a word.
“Brandon had his chance to do things his way. Didn’t work, did it? And since Luke wouldn’t listen, something else has to be done. Should have been done in the first place. We know what we have to do.”
My heart plummeted to my feet, speeding up on the fall down. I forced myself to remain flippant.
“So now we’re going to share our nefarious plans? Good idea. Please. Tell me all about how you’re going to make me swim with the fishes or whatever it is you wannabe mobsters do exactly.”
He jerked me closer midstep, causing me to lose my balance, and the hand holding my arm tightened impossibly.
“You’re a fucking bitch who’s going to ruin him. You’re going to ruin us. There’s too much money involved for that to happen. We’ve worked too damn hard for someone like you to come along and fuck it all up. I am this close to being free of this shit. We all are. This fucking close. A few more fights and we can walk. You. Will. Not. Fuck. This. Up. For. Us.”
“So that’s what this is about? Can’t hack it? Afraid you’re going to get stuck being a towel boy?” I scoffed. “Pussy.”
I didn’t see his fist coming until it connected painfully with my jaw. I thought I heard a crack, blood filled my mouth, and suddenly I was filled with rage. I leaped at him, drawing back and punching and clawing anything I could. He tried to fight back but I was everywhere, a crazed banshee with a coppery taste on her tongue and fury in her soul. I was a Fury. One of the Greek Erinyes, intent on destruction, it pounded like blood in my veins. Even when hands gripped my arms from behind and jerked me backward, I continued to thrash, kicking out, desperate to connect with anything, stomach, shin, it didn’t matter so long as it was felt.
“You bitch!” Cam shouted, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the pavement before advancing on me. Using the grip of the person behind me, I pulled my lower half up and threw my legs out, hitting him squarely in the chest. He staggered back slightly and the hands gripping me tightened, wrenching my arms up. I stilled instantly, not daring to press my luck despite how loudly the beast inside me roared for vengeance, for me to not be a victim again.
Taking advantage of the situation, Cam stalked forward and slammed his fist into my stomach, making me double over as much as I could in the position I was in. I groaned loudly, the pain so intense I thought for sure I’d be sick from it. I almost wanted to, so long as I was able to direct it into Cam’s face.
Again and again his fists rained down on me until I was sagging and the fire inside me, still burning bright with animosity, started to flicker. Somewhere in it, the hands holding me dropped away and I barely had the sense to bring one of my arms up to protect my head, the other striking out blindly, barely making contact. I was slammed up against the brick wall, the back of my head colliding painfully with it and I slid to the ground.
I was vaguely aware that the group had gathered around me. Though a few moments later, that became all too clear as multiple feet connected with my hips, my ribs, my back, and I curled into a ball, remembering the little girl who’d once done the same. It was her who instructed me to stop fighting back and wrap both arms around my head, to tuck my knees as close to my chest as I could get them and make myself as small a target as possible. It was her who stood by weeping for the woman she’d grow up to be, the one who never really escaped, just found new faces to dish out the same old punishment. It was her who called for ghosts who weren’t there as my head swam with agony.
It lasted forever. I know it did. I know because time stopped and the only thing that was real was sharp distress that clawed at me like the Fury I’d been only moments before. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, but I buried my face in my thighs and bit my flesh, extracting another ounce of pain, willing pain, to counteract the unwilling miseries being thrust upon me like the greatness that was thrust upon others.
Then it stopped so fast I was sure I was imagining it. Something must have spooked them, because one minute they were there and suffering was all I knew and the next, there was a loud crack that split open the air an
d they were gone.
I turned my head slightly to see Preach standing over me. The metal pipe in his hand—really, where did he get a pipe?—clattered to the ground with a clang.
He bent down, slowly, and brushed the hair back from my face. I grimaced and he nodded like he agreed.
“Wasn’t fast enough,” he muttered. “The Lord’s been delayed lately.”
I coughed and it hurt too intensely to be normal.
“My phone,” I managed to croak out. “Preach, is my purse...?”
“It’s right here, little girl,” he said, producing it magically, though I knew, even muddled as I felt, that he’d only retrieved it from somewhere out of my line of sight.
“Luke. Call Luke.”
Preach looked at me with eyes clearer than I had ever seen, and for a minute, one slightly insane minute, I believed that maybe the Lord had sent him.
“You sure that’s who you want, little girl?”
I nodded, though something inside of me screamed when I did.
“It’s your call,” he muttered. “Can’t say it’s the right one.” But he did as I asked and he called. I didn’t hear their conversation, I slipped away to a place where the pain couldn’t touch me, where the Cams and the Jaxes of the world didn’t exist. Maybe where I didn’t exist either. When I was jerked back to the present, it was Luke lifting me up off the ground and I was curling into him before I even fully realized what was happening.
I tipped my head back and it swam but I needed to see him, needed to tell him. He glanced down at me, war, death, destruction, three of the four horsemen raging in his gaze, and I shuddered at the sight of it.
“Was it Johnson?” he ground out, and I clutched at his shirt with one hand, the one that wasn’t throbbing, feeling his heart pound furiously against my palm.
“No,” I murmured, afraid to raise my voice, afraid to hear how it sounded after everything that had happened. “No. It was Cam.”
Luke’s hands flexed as they dug farther into bruised and aching skin. I didn’t bother telling him that it hurt. I didn’t ask him to ease his grip. I wanted this pain. I wanted to focus on it and drive away all the others. I closed my eyes, feeling his lips brush against my forehead, his arms shaking slightly underneath me.
“I’ll kill him.”
I had just enough energy before I slipped away to answer him.
“I’ll help.”
Chapter Nineteen
I woke the next morning to lights that were too bright and the burning scent of cleaning products that assaulted my sinuses, making them sting. My head felt fuzzy, and as I came to, I heard a beeping sound from somewhere close by. Funny how not long before I had wished this existence for Johnson. I never figured I’d know it so soon myself.
I opened my eyes slowly, sensing a presence to my left. There, tucked in the corner, a nasty-looking cut splitting his eyebrow, chin to his chest as he sat slumped in a hard chair, was Brandon. Not who I expected to see.
“Brandon?” I croaked out and instantly he was awake and by my side.
“Need something to drink?” he asked, though his tone suggested that he’d rather I didn’t. “You sound like shit.”
I shook my head, grimacing when dark spots appeared before my eyes. “No. Where’s Luke?”
He glanced away quickly and grabbed a big thermal cup with the words St. Mercy etched into the side, almost as if he wanted something to do with his hands. “He’s...well, Theo will be back soon. He’ll explain it.”
I frowned and grabbed his wrist when he got closer, noting the way his right eye was almost swollen shut.
“Why don’t you tell me?” I rasped.
Instead of immediately answering, he handed me the cup, forcing me to release the hold I had on him in order to take it.
“What happened to your face?” I asked after taking a small sip that made my throat ache.
“Basically the same thing that happened to yours. Ended up on the wrong side of an angry dude’s fists.” He gave me a pointed look. “And before you ask again, I ain’t saying anything more than that. Theo will explain when he gets here. That’s his job. This was mine.”
I nodded, though I was unsatisfied with that answer. For once, I just didn’t have it in me to argue further.
It was uncomfortable, the time we spent waiting for Theo. Brandon and I weren’t anything remotely close to being friends, and being in a hospital room didn’t change that fact. He continued to refuse to tell me where Luke was, eventually outright ignoring me whenever I tried to ask until we both fell silent, the beeping heart monitor the only sound between us.
When Theo finally arrived, Brandon excused himself quickly, barely making eye contact with Theo as he passed him. Once Theo and I were alone, he dragged the chair over next to my bed and sat, taking one of my IV’d hands in his.
My head felt cloudy and thick, too heavy for my body, and while I had to struggle around a mouth full of cotton, a side effect of the shot a heavy, stern-looking nurse had given me just before Theo came in the room, I forced myself to ask the only question that mattered.
“Luke?”
Theo sighed and it was a tired sound, dripping with defeat.
“Figured you’d ask first thing. There’s some bad news, darlin’, and I was the unlucky bastard chosen to break it to you.”
I just raised my eyebrows, shocked that even that simple gesture could hurt so badly.
“Things aren’t looking so hot for our boy right now. Cam is on the next floor. ICU,” he clarified upon seeing my frown. “He was admitted just a few hours after you. Police got called in. It was apparently a slow E.R. night and Luke was in here with you. Didn’t take much for them to make the connection.”
“Where is he?” My voice sounded horrible.
“Police station,” Theo’s lips all but disappeared in a thin line. “They may keep him overnight. Hard to say. Lot depends on the fuck upstairs.”
I frowned, though I felt the same way about Cam, especially now, I still didn’t expect Theo to write him off like that. Especially not for me.
As if sensing my train of thought, Theo gave a one-armed shrug. “He was just a trainer. I can find another. Especially one that doesn’t give my prized fighter another reason to do time.”
My frown deepened, wanting to ask the question, but almost afraid to. It must have been written on my face because Theo answered it.
“Look, darlin’. I don’t mind you. You’re an okay enough girl, but you’re ultimately a distraction. But Luke’s in it with you, and when he’s in something, he’s all in. I know better than to mess with anything that belongs to Luke Turner. I just wish Cam had known the same. Now we might be in a fix.” His frown was as deep as mine and just as genuine.
“Self-defense,” I told him quietly. “I’ll tell the police.”
The thought terrified me. Avoiding the police had become second nature, a thing of critical importance. I didn’t know if a missing persons report had ever been filed on me and if it was, who filed it, my ma or da. They couldn’t make me go back, not now, not this many years later, but they could divulge my whereabouts. The last thing I wanted was for either of them to show up, to have to see them. I would have risked all that for Luke though. I would have risked anything for him.
“Darlin’, Cam’s in ICU. They don’t even know if he’ll make it. Self-defense won’t fly in this situation. They got our boy on assault with intent. D.A. could even go for manslaughter if he dies. It’s unlikely, but people can be pretty fragile.”
“But I was attacked,” I protested feebly.
Theo shrugged.
“I know it. You know it. Hell, even they know it. But the minute Luke went back for him, went barging into his house, it wasn’t self-defense. It was assault. He went too far.”
I gave him a pointed look.
“Fact, darlin’. Not opinion. In my opinion, the fuck should be in the morgue. There’s two rules we live by down at the gym. Don’t fuck with my money and don’t fuck with anything that belongs to Luke Turner. Otherwise? You forfeit.”
The same heavyset, stern-looking nurse walked in, pushing a cart with a computer sitting on the top of it. Theo scooted his chair back politely and she gave him a disgusted look. Even though he didn’t appear to notice it, I wanted to smack it off her face.
“This your birth date?” she asked, after pulling the cart up to my bedside and turning the computer screen so I could see it. I glared at her but nodded. She didn’t respond as she pulled out a syringe and unplugged my IV, inserting the syringe and pushing the liquid inside into my veins. Without a word, she plugged my IV back up, disposed of the syringe and pushed the cart back out of the room. Once the door clicked shut, Theo pulled his chair back over.
“Should we get a lawyer?” I whispered. Whatever drugs she had just given me wanted to pull me under and I kinda wanted to go.
“Depends on what happens upstairs and what the D.A. decides. Until then, the less people involved the better.”
“Will they drop it?”
“Maybe.” He didn’t look like he believed it. “If that fuck pulls through and doesn’t press charges, they could. Not much of a case then.”
“He better live.”
Theo laughed darkly. “Darlin’? If I were him, I wouldn’t want to.”
No. Maybe not. Maybe living and facing Luke again was risky. But not living and Luke going away wasn’t an option either.
* * *
Theo stayed while I slept the sleep of the dead, and when I woke up he was there to greet me. I was glad to see him, glad there was a familiar face next to me, but he wasn’t Luke, and that was who I really wanted. The need for him, to see and touch him, was a choking, hot ball that I couldn’t swallow around. But he was locked away a mile down the road, so close and yet so achingly far, and we were in purgatory. Our fates rode on Cam, who remained stubbornly unconscious in ICU, and that alone made me want to hobble up there and add a couple more bruises to him myself.
Wild Ones (The Lane) Page 17