Commanded

by Stacey Kennedy

  He drew in a long breath, shoving away his guilt and his thoughts. Ash came first. He shoved his phone back in his pocket and entered Ashlyn’s hospital room. Tension rippled through him as he saw Ashlyn crying, but it eased just as quickly when he noticed she wasn’t alone. Chloe had her arms wrapped around Ashlyn, holding his sister in a warm embrace.

  And that’s when Sawyer knew the real reason keeping him away from Club Sin: That special woman right there is more important than anything at the club.

  Upon entering Ashlyn’s room, Chloe had gently ordered Sawyer and Ashlyn’s parents out to grab something to eat, and then she’d sat down in the chair next to the bed and reintroduced herself to Ash. She had just finished asking, “How are you feeling?” when Ashlyn started crying, sobs filled with anger, shock, and despair.

  Chloe leaned forward and enveloped the girl in a hug, ignoring the awkwardness of feeling a stranger break apart in her arms—she had no intention of letting Ashlyn go. “You’re going to be okay,” Chloe whispered. “I’m going to catch Travis. He’ll pay for this. I promise.”

  “I keep feeling like I need to wake up.” Ashlyn squeezed her arms around Chloe’s neck. “I can’t believe this has happened.”

  Chloe thought what bothered most women who’d dealt with abuse was that they hadn’t left the relationship sooner. And Chloe figured Ashlyn would need therapy to overcome those thoughts—she’d need some way of coming to understand that the abuse had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Travis.

  Many minutes later, Ashlyn drew back and wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bawl all over you.”

  “No apologies necessary.” Chloe took Ashlyn’s hands and smiled. “I’m a friend of Sawyer’s, which makes us friends, too. Which means crying all over me is what I’m here for.”

  Ashlyn returned the smile faintly, yet only one corner of her mouth could move—the other side of her face was too swollen. Even through the bruises, it was evident that Ashlyn was a pretty girl with soft, feminine features. The slender-figured young woman was someone Chloe could see going to an Adam Levine concert.

  “There’s my girl,” came a man’s voice from the doorway.

  Chloe glanced over her shoulder and spotted Sawyer. A sweet softness shone in his eyes as he came into the room. He settled next to Ashlyn on the bed. “Are you up for a few questions?”

  Ashlyn wiped the tears off her cheeks. “Guess it’s a must, huh?”

  “Someone from the force will come by to take your statement.” Sawyer reached for her hand, placing both of his around hers. “But you don’t have to do that until you’re ready. These questions are mine.”

  Ashlyn nodded. “Okay.”

  “I need you to be honest”—Sawyer’s voice was low, soothing, and reassuring—“and tell me what happened.”

  Ashlyn’s head dropped and a single tear fell onto the yellow blanket over her lap. “I broke up with him.”

  “Was there an argument?” Sawyer asked.

  “Not really.” Ashlyn glanced up at her brother. “Travis has been weird, not himself at all. He’s doing drugs and it makes him different.”

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “Cocaine.”

  Sawyer’s eyes widened. “Please tell me you aren’t involved.”

  “I’m not.” Ashlyn shook her head. “I mean, some of my friends have tried it and stuff, but I’ve never done coke.”

  Sawyer regarded her, hard.

  Chloe intervened, knowing that it wouldn’t get them anywhere if Sawyer went all big brother on Ashlyn. “Okay, yes, cocaine is bad news,” she put in, “but let’s move—”

  Sawyer ignored her attempt to change the subject. “What drugs have you done?” Sawyer demanded of his sister.

  Chloe rolled her eyes. The big brother would be annoying.

  Ashlyn sank against the pillow behind her, folding her arms. Her open eye scowled at Sawyer. “I’ve smoked some weed before. But not a lot or anything, just a few times at a party. A puff or two.”

  Sawyer frowned. “Ashlyn—”

  “Oh, please, what’s a little pot?” Chloe retorted. “I mean, seriously, who hasn’t tried a joint at some point in their life?”

  “I haven’t,” Sawyer growled.

  “Well, that’s because you’re Mr. Goody Two-shoes.” Chloe smiled at him. “I doubt you’ve done anything wrong in your life. Like, ever.”

  Ashlyn laughed and then grasped her side, groaning. “Ow. Don’t be funny. That hurts.”

  Sawyer glared at Chloe. “Let’s not get started on the list of illegal things you’ve done, Chloe.”

  Chloe winked at Ashlyn, who smiled again. Unlike a few minutes earlier, this time the smile reached her eyes.

  Sawyer turned his frown from Chloe to Ashlyn. When he spotted her smile, his tension eased a bit. Good, Chloe thought. He’d evidently understood that Chloe had been intending to lighten the mood. He turned to Ashlyn, his expression more relaxed. “As you were saying, you think Travis is doing drugs, and…”

  Ashlyn shrugged against her pillow, her long dark hair covering her hospital gown. “It started a couple months ago, when he began partying more and, well, harder. He becomes angry when he does that stuff.”

  Sawyer gave a grim nod. “Drugs can do that to people.”

  By the darkness in his features, Chloe suspected that Sawyer didn’t think it was only drugs that made Travis an asshole—he clearly thought his sister’s ex-boyfriend simply was an asshole.

  Chloe asked, “Did you break up with him because of his drug use?”

  “Yeah, I hated the partying. And I’d heard rumors he’d been cheating on me.” Ashlyn’s voice cracked. “I’d only seen him a few times in the last month. He hadn’t been answering my calls, so I left a message telling him not to call me again.”

  She paused, inhaling a deep breath. “When it happened…I was asleep when something woke me up. He was there, and he lost it.” Her swollen bottom lip quivered. Chloe noted how Ashlyn couldn’t look at Sawyer. “He kept me in the bedroom a while before taking me to the kitchen. I tried to fight him off….” Tears rushed over her cheeks.

  “Don’t do that to yourself, Ash,” Sawyer said softly, drawing his sister’s attention. That only made her cry harder. “You’re tiny in comparison to Travis. What could you have done?”

  Ash’s voice trembled. “He was so strong….”

  Chloe leaned forward and rested her hand on Ash’s arm, wanting to somehow help her. “Travis is a trained fighter, don’t forget that. Even Sawyer would’ve had trouble fighting him.” She slid her glance to Sawyer, whose intense eyes told her that no, he would have no trouble royally kicking Travis’s ass. Looking at that body, Chloe didn’t doubt he could. But she gestured toward Ash, hoping he caught the hint.

  He nodded and turned to his sister. “Travis is trained to hurt people. That training makes him stronger.”

  “I felt so”—more tears spilled down Ash’s face—“helpless to stop him.”

  Ashlyn’s expression became haunted, and a sick feeling rolled through Chloe as she understood what Ashlyn was unable to say. “Your brother needs to know everything,” Chloe said very gently, “no matter how hard it is to talk about it.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Chloe saw Sawyer stiffen, but she stayed focused on Ashlyn.

  Ashlyn hung her head for a long moment before she murmured, “Before he took me into the kitchen to beat me…he raped me.”

  There was a long, heavy silence.

  Chloe glanced over at Sawyer as he rose from his chair, his expression closed off. “Please excuse me for a moment.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Ashlyn’s forehead. “I’ll be back soon.” Without looking at either Chloe or his sister, he left the room.

  “He’s going to lose his shit, isn’t he?” Ashlyn asked, eyes wide and worried.

  Chloe took Ashlyn’s hand. “He loves you,” she said, giving the other woman a soft, reassuring smile, “and you’ve been hurt in a
very bad way. Of course he’s going to lose his shit.”

  Chapter 6

  After Sawyer’s parents returned to Ashlyn’s hospital room with full bellies, Chloe left them and found Sawyer sitting outside the hospital on the bench by the main entrance. Arms resting on his bent legs, he bowed his head. It saddened Chloe to see a man as strong and powerful as Sawyer with such a haunted aura.

  Sawyer didn’t look at her as she approached him, nor did he say a word when she sat down next to him. Torn between wanting to talk to help him and knowing it might be best to stay silent, she angled her head back, gazing up at the stars.

  A soft cough caught her attention, and she lowered her chin, catching sight of a couple walking past them toward the hospital entrance. Their faces were drawn, a telling sign that whomever they were visiting tonight was not doing well.

  Chloe shivered. She hated hospitals and avoided them at all cost, not enjoying the reminder of mortality. But tonight wasn’t about her, so she shoved those less-than-pleasing thoughts away as the couple vanished through the glass doors.

  After the doors whooshed shut, Sawyer finally said, “I want to kill him.”

  Chloe heard the battle between his desires and his morals in the coldness and hardness of his voice. “I’m starting to think that Travis deserves that fate.”

  Sawyer turned to her, the streetlamp above them highlighting one side of his face, leaving the other side in shadow. “Which would be fine if I wasn’t a cop and bound to uphold the law.”

  Chloe nudged his arm, giving a small smile to lighten the mood. “Well then, it’s good that you have someone working with you who, uh…”

  “Skirts the law?” he offered.

  “I don’t skirt the law,” she defended. “I stay perfectly within its parameters.”

  One brow arched at her.

  She laughed. “Okay, fine, I push against its limits. Is that better?”

  “It’s at least closer to the truth,” he said, very matter-of-factly. “Besides, pushing up against limits is something I can respect.” He drew in a long breath, seemingly controlling the rage within him. “Is Ashlyn all right?”

  “Yeah, she’s resting now,” Chloe replied. “Before she fell asleep, she said that a nurse had told her they did a rape kit, so I guess that’s good to have on file. But she also said not to say anything to your parents. She doesn’t want them to know.”

  “Not surprising,” Sawyer grumbled. “My mother would baby her, and I know Ash wouldn’t want that.” His mood altered, and the heavy darkness returned to the gorgeous man beside her. “How in the hell do you do this job?”

  Confused by his question, she said, “The same way you do this type of job.”

  “What you and I do is very different.” His haunted eyes met hers. “I don’t know the finer details of what happens behind a case. I also don’t know how the criminal affects the people he or she victimized. I get a list of charges against a person. Then I go and apprehend them, along with a team of men at my back. I don’t do this alone. You do.”

  She swallowed the emotion oddly shooting through her at his concern. “I do this job because it helps people. Sometimes that’s a wife who’s got a cheating husband, or a woman who’s being seduced by a man who plans to drain her bank account.”

  His eyes softened. “How do you stay so…pure?”

  “Pure?” She snorted. “You think I’m pure?”

  “I know you are.” His intense eyes searched hers for a long moment. “You have this light about you that’s unusual. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. So tell me, how do you not allow all this shit to taint you?”

  She stared at him. Sawyer was such a contradiction—intense, yet sometimes gentle, too. “I don’t know how it doesn’t bother me. It just doesn’t.” She paused, considering his question more deeply. “Or I guess maybe it’s that I won’t let it.”

  Emotion passed over his face. “I hope you’ve been told, by somebody other than me, how amazing you are.”

  She blinked at the unexpected statement. He’d been bold in his physical attraction to her, yet this caring side was appealing. She’d never had a man take so much notice of what was inside her and liked what he saw there.

  For the first time since she’d met Sawyer, she didn’t fight this thing between them; she inhaled the warmth of it and let his affection spiral around her. Under his watchful regard, questions began swirling in her mind.

  Why am I refusing him? Clearly on a physical level, they were attuned to each other.

  Does it really matter how long Josh and I have been broken up when the relationship actually ended a long time ago, just as Sawyer said?

  Why do I care how others perceive me when Sawyer seems to think the world of me?

  Things were different with Sawyer and amazing in a way she had thought possible only in fairy tales. Why was she stopping things in their tracks instead of letting them happen and seeing how they turned out?

  She let honesty spill from her lips. “I think it’s time to tell you the reason I broke up with Josh. With you, I—”

  The ringing of her phone startled a gasp from her throat. Sawyer’s harsh curse followed.

  Her hands trembled as she reached into her pocket, taking out her phone. She glanced at the screen. “It’s Shane.” She clicked on and said into the phone, “I’m taking it you have good news.”

  “Both good and bad,” Shane replied. “What do you want to hear first?”

  “The bad.” That meant things could only get better.

  “The credit cards led nowhere.”

  “Well, that sucks.” Chloe watched Sawyer’s frown deepen. “What’s the good news?”

  “Luckily for you, I dug deeper, and I’ve got a hit on his debit card.”

  Chloe nibbled her lip, cringing. This was good news for them, yes. But given Sawyer’s lecture a minute ago about skirting the law, she wondered how he would feel about Shane’s involvement, considering that Shane had gone a step further into illegally hacking Travis’s accounts. “Okay. Where?”

  “The Cowboy Saloon about a half hour ago.”

  “I owe you big-time, Shane. Thank you.”

  “I’ll bill Porter. You owe me nothing. He’s the one who pays me the big bucks.”

  The connection ended.

  Chloe snorted a laugh. Shane wasn’t cheap, but Chloe thought he was worth every penny. Sometimes fighting bad people meant you had to play the same game they did. She rose from the bench, tucking her phone into her pocket. “Shane’s got a hit on Travis’s debit card. We should go in case he’s still there.”

  Sawyer stood up, brows knitted. “Wasn’t Shane tracking Travis’s credit card?”

  “Hmm, how strange.” Chloe tapped her lip, pretending to think hard about it. “I have no idea how Shane obtained his debit card information.” As Sawyer opened his mouth to speak, Chloe stuck up her hand. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

  He stared at her hard for a few long seconds, then shook his head. “You’re right, I don’t want to know. Let’s go.”

  —

  Country music blasted through the Cowboy Saloon. Men and women were dressed in attire better suited to Nashville, and peanut shells littered the floor. Determined and focused, Sawyer strode ahead of Chloe, examining every face around him as the two of them made their way through the crowded tables where patrons were eating. Then Sawyer headed to the dance floor, glancing at the four-man band that played a classic country song. The group of intoxicated, scantily clad women putting on a show with their suggestive dancing didn’t impress him. And by the time he reached the dark oak bar, he wanted to leave.

  This might be a hot spot for some, but the place didn’t suit him. Beer and wings were more his style. He shoved his annoyance away and did what he came here to do: find the fucker who beat up his sister.

  At the bar, he pulled out a wooden stool for Chloe. She smiled and took her seat. As he sat next to her, he asked, “Do you see him?” He’d aske
d Chloe to look for Travis before they entered the bar. Sawyer didn’t want Travis to see him first and run.

  Chloe spun around on her stool, leaned her arms against the bar, and glanced out to the seating area. Sawyer stayed focused on her beautiful face. The way she drew her bottom lip in between her teeth was sexy. He noticed she did that move every time she concentrated. He thought it might be the death of him, as it made him want desperately to kiss those lips.

  She gave the bar a good sweep and finally grumbled, “Negative.”

  Frustration rose in Sawyer; unless Travis was in the bathroom, they’d lost him. Sawyer couldn’t accept that their only lead had likely fizzled out.

  “Can I get y’all something?” asked the bartender.

  Sawyer took a mental note of the barkeep—mid-twenties, five foot ten, thin build, blue eyes, short black hair. A habit from the job, he supposed. Reminding himself that the bartender wasn’t Travis or even a suspect, he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and grabbed the picture of Travis stashed there from the APB that had gone out. “Was this man in your bar tonight?”

  The bartender leaned over the bar, frowning at the picture. “Who’s asking?”

  Sawyer reached in his other pocket and pulled out his badge. He slammed his badge down on the bar, then pointed at the photo again. “Was this man in your bar tonight?”

  “Yeah, about an hour ago.” The bartender folded his arms, eyeing first Sawyer and then Chloe. “Came in for a beer and left.”

  Abrasive response. Closed-off body language. Sawyer’s instincts flared, and Chloe must’ve picked up on the barkeep’s evasiveness, too, since she asked, “Do you know Travis personally?”

  Angry blue eyes flicked to Chloe. “What if I do?”

  Sawyer cut in before Chloe could reply. “Look at her like that again and we’ll have a different kind of problem.” When the bartender glanced Sawyer’s way, he added, “Answer her question and we won’t.”

  The barkeep glared for only a second before he started wiping his bar with a white cloth. “Travis and I train at the same gym.”