Riley strolled towards him, carrying a tray. “A few more minutes, and then I’ll be off.”
“I’m ok.”
She left again. He hated that she worked such late hours. Ever since they started going out, he tried to come to meet her at night so that they could leave the bar together. Of course, it was nice to know that when he wasn’t around, Ryan was there. Riley was careful that way. He liked that. “So who’s the guy who came around yesterday when it was Riley’s day off?” said Ryan as he came back outside.
“Which guy?”
“Tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking. He asked about Riley, and when we said that she worked here, he disappeared.”
His ears perked. What the hell was that? Was she seeing someone on the side? He didn’t think that she was the sort of woman who two-timed, but he’d been duped once and didn’t have any intention of falling under the same trap again. Jealousy was a hot lance in his heart. “Who was he?”
“How the hell should I know, man? Thought you would.”
He shrugged, trying his best to look indifferent. He wasn’t. Chance was burning to know who this other man was. “Maybe someone she met before or her family member. Why don’t you ask her?”
“Yeah, I will.” Ryan looked uneasy, as if he was sorry that he’d brought up the topic. “Listen, I’ve got a hot date tonight, so I am going off from here. You will drop Riley off, won’t you?”
“Yeah, don’t worry.”
He longed to ask her about this guy, but Chance kept his mouth shut as he rode with her to her apartment. He didn’t want to come across as some jealous dude who couldn’t bear to have another man come near his girlfriend. “So I’ve got plans for the weekend,” he announced as they got off the bike. “Or whenever you can take time off from work.”
She slung her purse on her shoulders and held his hand as they walked up. There was no need for her to ask him to stay the night; he was going to do it anyway. “What plans?”
“A friend of mine has a cabin in the wilderness. It’s miles away from civilization, and I thought we could go there and hang out on the beach.”
“Miles away from civilization? What the hell does he do there?”
“He hunts in the woods that surround that place, but we won’t do that. I’ve got better things on my mind.”
She squeezed his hand as they walked up to her apartment. The building was silent, eerily so. It felt as if they were the only two people in there. “I know exactly what you have in mind.”
“And you love the idea of it.”
She laughed as he cornered her against the door. Bending his head, he kissed her mouth. Her lips were hot and soft. His hands settled on her waist, and he relished the curves that he’d gotten accustomed to seeing. She was one hell of a woman, and he was lucky to have her in his life. Her breath was hot against his mouth as she pressed closer. Her nipples strained against the dress, and he longed to take it off and make wild love to her. The more he had her, the more he wanted her. The desire for her was a thirst that ran through every nerve in his body. He just couldn’t have enough of her.
Finally, he drew away. “This was a preview of our weekend away from work.”
“It seems like an intriguing idea.” She put her hands on his chest, as her gaze met his. Once, she’d stared at him with eyes that were full of suspicion, but now he could see the trust that bloomed there. He liked that. It was nice to know that she felt at ease with him. “I’ll have to talk to Johnny and have him wriggle my schedule around.”
“He works you like a dog.”
“And pays me well for it.”
“Money isn’t everything.”
“Wise words,” she said. “I’m afraid they would have suited you more if you were millionaire, but peasants like us have to work hard for each penny.”
“True, but we can’t be slave to this grind also. Come on, it will be fun. Think about it. You and me, and the lovely, warm sand, crashing waves on the shore, and cool, and fresh breezes. We will just lay on the sand all day and drink beers.”
“I really doubt it.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Are you saying that you wouldn’t make love to me twice a day?”
“Twice a day? That sounds a bit less.” He kissed her once more, as she smiled. The more he thought about it, the more tempted he was with the idea. It would be nice to go away for a while and just be with her and not think about anything else.
“If I agree to this, you’ve got to promise that you will make wild and passionate love to me three times in a day, and I want a massage also.”
“Ok.”
She giggled at his quick acquiesce. “I’ll talk to Johnny. He’s going to grumble.”
“That’s because you are his best waitress, and he hates it when you’re not there.”
“And who told you that?” She sounded pleased to hear it. “He has never said anything like that to me.”
“Of course, he won’t say anything to you.” He stepped back so that she could rummage inside her purse to find the keys to the door. “But I know Johnny. He doesn’t suffer fools. Mind you, he is already looking for someone who can take the main work off his hands, and if you are interested, I could talk to him. He will snap you up.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s an excellent opportunity. You will get paid twice as much as now, and you won’t have to wait on tables.”
“I like my job,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.
Why the hell wouldn’t she want to move up the hierarchy? She was capable and smart, and he was quite sure that if she as much as hinted, Johnny would leap at the chance to take her as his manager. He was having trouble with the other business that he managed, and he would welcome a chance to hand over the reins to someone he trusted. Could the reason for her refusal be that she still wasn’t interested in staying in Boston?
No. How could she move away and leave him alone?
She wouldn’t do that, not now when they had such a good thing going. After all these weeks together, she still hadn’t told him anything about her past or her family. He didn’t like to push, but he was quickly running out of options.
As they entered the house, he groped for the light switch and pushed it—but nothing happened. It must have gone out. “Love, we’ve got to talk,” he said.
“What?”
Chance put his hand inside his pocket to take out his phone so that he could shed some light on the switch and see what was wrong with it when there was a loud, clattering noise—and then all hell broke loose.
Chapter Nine
Riley had always thought that she would die quickly, that when the end came she wouldn’t really feel anything, but as soon as she heard the loud sound in her apartment, fear coursed through her veins. She shivered. A chair had fallen over as someone rushed towards them.
It wouldn’t be a pleasant death.
“Get out,” she yelled to Chance.
He was near the door and could leave. When he groped for the switch once more, she whirled and turned towards the door, but someone grabbed her hair and pulled her back. She yelled loudly. Shock made her freeze, and she wasted a few precious moments as the attacker pulled her back towards him. She felt his hard body as she collided into him. She’d trained hard for this and learned so much, and perhaps it was that instinct that saved her life. She jabbed her elbow hard in his stomach and heard him gasp for breath, but he was strong.
“What the fuck!” said Chance.
Chance still wasn’t out of the apartment and Riley knew he should leave before he got sucked into this mess that wasn’t his. If he remained, he would die. She just knew it. The terror that overcame her was not only for her safety—but for his. She shouldn’t have gone out with him. If she hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been here tonight. He would be safe. Instead, he was here, groping about in the dark, probably looking for another switch.
His phone came to life, and she saw the brief strip of light illumin
ate his face which was frozen in a horrified look. “Go away,” she said before a hand clamped on her mouth, and the attacker dragged her back towards the bedroom. He’d been in her apartment for some time and appeared to know the layout. If he took her in the bedroom and locked the door, her chances in that cramped, narrow space would substantially reduce. She couldn’t allow him to take her inside.
Riley had spent the last many years not only honing her shooting skills but also learning karate. She didn’t want to go down without a fight. After preparing for this moment for past decade, she couldn’t simply give up. The man was stronger than her, but physical strength was not everything.
She raised her leg and brought her foot down on his foot. He cried out. Using the opportunity, she clamped her teeth on his arm. He screamed. She whirled around, kicked him in the groin, and he doubled over with pain. Something clattered on the floor. She attempted to run but his recovery was faster than she expected. He seized her around the waist with his other hand. She fell on the floor, and her head hit the corner of the overturned chair hard enough to make her see stars. He collapsed on top of her to keep her pinned.
“You fucking bitch,” he gasped.
She couldn’t see a damn thing, but she felt him grope on the floor as he looked for whatever he had dropped. A knife! It had to be that. If he’d a gun, he would’ve shot them the moment they came in. No, he was carrying a knife, and that’s why he grabbed her because he needed her to be close to him. If he found it, she was dead.
She kicked on the floor, desperate to get away before he found his weapon. She raked her fingers over his face, tried to kick him in the groin again, but he refused to budge away from her. Suddenly, he was pulled off her. The sudden loss of weight stumped her for a moment until she realized that Chance had abandoned his quest to find another light switch and was instead struggling with the attacker. She heard them scuffle. Someone cried out.
Praying that it wasn’t Chance, she ran to the door and opened it. Light flooded in from the corridor, and the two men were illuminated. “Help! Help!” she screamed, hoping that someone would come in. “Help.”
Riley ran over to the men and picked up the knife that she saw on the floor. Holding it, she hovered around the men. If she got an opportunity, she would stab the attacker without a moment of hesitation, but Chance and the attacker were so entwined that she was scared of hurting the wrong man. Suddenly, Chance pushed the guy. She swiped at him as he stumbled past her, but the man ran for the door. She gave chase and was followed by Chance, but the attacker clambered down the stairs, and they lost him as they reached the ground floor. He disappeared into the deep night.
“Shit!” she cursed. “Fuck!”
“Who? What?” Chance paused to take deep breaths. “You’re bleeding.”
She touched her forehead with the hand that was holding the knife. Blood stuck to her fingers. “It’s not so bad.”
“God damn it! What the fuck was that?”
She turned to face him. A ghost of a smile played on her lips. “Believe it or not, that was my older brother.”
His mouth gaped. If it wasn’t so serious, she might’ve laughed at his incredulous expression. “He? What?”
She didn’t have another option. He was too involved. It was time to tell it all. Yet, she was reluctant to do so. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world to hear it, love.”
She nodded. When this moment came, she thought that she might not be able to react well, but she realized that she was quite in control of her senses. “We have to call the police, I suppose. Come on, let’s go upstairs.”
After they went up, she called the police and explained the situation. Then, she put down the knife on the counter, keeping her gaze away from its serrated edge that gleamed with malevolence. She took out the first aid kit. “Here, let me,” said Chance.
Expertly, he wiped her wound and dabbed it with ointment. “You hit your head on the floor?”
“On the overturned chair, I think.” Everything happened so fast that it was hard to recall every detail. Yes, the man tried to kill her. Yes, she knew him. And yes, she had expected something like this to happen for a long time. Wherever she went, he found her. She was the only reason for his existence, his purpose in life, and no matter what she did he would hound her until he managed to kill her.
“Talk, love.” There was a hard note in his voice, as if he wouldn’t rest until she told him the entire, unvarnished truth.
Riley didn’t want to keep it inside anymore. She owed a lot to Chance. He’d tackled the man rather than running away. If he wasn’t around, she would’ve died. Her brother would have found the knife and plunged it inside her. She lived today because Chance didn’t open that door and leave. Instead, he stayed and fought with her. What more did a man need to do before he heard why he risked his life?
“My brother’s two years older than me. We grew up together in a place that was our house of horror. My father was a construction worker, a mean son of a bitch who took out his tension and relieved his stress by beating the shit out of his wife. My mother was weak. We begged her to leave, but she never wanted to. When my brother was five, my father hit him for the first time.”
“Oh my God!”
“Even God didn’t come to our rescue.” Her voice was dry. “We prayed for him to die or for our mother to grow a backbone but nothing like that happened. She took the beatings, and she watched him beat her son. When I was older, I was also beaten like the rest. Anything could spoil his temper. We walked too fast or too slow. We came in too late for dinner or too early. We talked too loud or too slow. He didn’t need a reason, all he needed was an excuse.”
He put a bandage on her forehand. “How long did it go on?”
“My brother was sixteen when my father beat him to within an inch of his life. He should’ve been taken to the hospital, but my mother…she wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt her husband. Social services would’ve been informed. She didn’t risk that. My brother got better. He got a knife, and one day he killed them.”
He jumped as if she’d burned him. “What?”
“He plunged the knife in my father’s chest while the old bastard was snoring, drunk and exhausted after the beating he’d given me that day. Then, my brother killed my mother while she…lay on the bed, helpless, alone, as much a victim as the perpetrator.”
“What happened then?”
“I saw it all. After the beating I got that day, I’d actually hidden in my parents’ closet because that was the one place my father wouldn’t have looked. When he went on a rampage, he turned the house upside down looking for us, but he never thought that I would be silly enough to hide in his own bedroom. After the beating, I went upstairs and hid there in case he decided that he hadn’t given me enough punishment.”
All the color had drained out of Chance’s face. He looked as if he would collapse. From shock? Or from revulsion? Her father was violent and her brother a killer. Surely, he was regretting the fact that he got involved with her in the first place. But now he knew, and she may as well tell him every damned thing.
“The police came in the morning when I was brave enough to call. I was fourteen, but I was old enough to be a state witness. My brother was sent away. He was underage, so the punishment wasn’t as severe. He was sent away for seven years, because well, he was a victim of mental and physical abuse and the defense made a case that he was rendered temporarily insane.”
“But he escaped the prison?”
“No, he didn’t.” She hopped off the stool and went to the door as she heard the police coming in. “He got out and has been after me since because I was the one who sent him away.”
She could see that he wanted to ask some questions, but the police officers came in and he’d to stop. After they gave their statements and handed over the knife, they were taken to the station so that she could file a complaint. “I already have a restraining order against him,” she told the police. “T
ook it out five years ago when he first attacked me.”
“You didn’t file a complaint?”
“I did. The first time he wore a mask, so I couldn’t tell who he was,” she recounted. “The second time I was attacked while I walked alone from work, and he talked to me, told me to set down my purse. It could have been an ordinary mugging, but I knew that it was him. I spent years with that guy in a house. Of course, I could recognize his voice.” She took deep, calming breaths, aware that Chance was listening to her statement as much as the police. “So I ran. That’s when I got the restraining order, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. He would always find me so I moved away, and I keep moving and moving so that he can’t catch up.”
Twisted Scars (Comanche Sons Motorcycle Club Book 1) Page 7