“Yeah, what’s with that? She knows him. I don’t believe you.” Shorty looks like he’s solved a puzzle and is patting himself on the head. “You won’t be using her…”
“Beef…” she implores again, her blind eyes searching the room as if to find me.
“Sweetheart,” I drawl. “Stinger wants you? He can have you. I don’t do relationships, you know that. This is just business. You hear me? Had you once, that was enough.”
I’m hoping she of all people will understand the undercurrent beneath my words.
Half-turning I’m in time to see Stinger wink. Then he stalks toward me. I’m not in time to dodge the fist that comes toward my jaw.
“I told you not to touch the fuckin’ merchandise,” he snarls as all hell lets loose.
The Jokers’ attention had been on our altercation. They’ve completely missed Thunder creeping up behind Shorty. Three gunshots ring out. Three bodies fall.
Stevie, wrenching from the grasp of the man dying staggers forward and into my arms. I hold her tightly. “You’re safe. I didn’t mean any of it. You’re mine, Stevie. No one else will touch you. You’re fuckin’ mine and I’m never letting you go again. You hear me? No fuckin’ marshals, no one else protects you. Only me. You hear me? I didn’t mean what I said. I was just—”
“I know Beef, I know.” She sobs against my chest. “I know. Please, the smell. I need to get out of here. Take me out Beef, please, take me outside.”
I sweep her up into my arms and carry her. Soulz and Devils part ways to let me through. I know the smells of cordite and blood will be horrendous to her over-developed senses. Outside the house I put her down but keep hold of her. She’s crying, weeping and uncontrollably shaking. Then, not surprisingly, she gags, and when I turn her away from me, she throws up.
Taking off my bandana, I pass it to her so she can wipe her mouth. When she turns to me, her face is white.
My teeth clench. What the fuck have they done to her? I want to know it all, everything, but I’ve seen enough sufferers of PTSD in my time to know if she went through even a fraction of the things running through my head, she needs time and space to talk it through in her own time, not be subjected to a barrage of questions fired at her right now. I have to tamp down my impatience.
“Stinger suggests we get her out of here.” Thunder is by my side, pointing to where we left the SUVs. Then, more quietly into my ear, he adds, “Soulz are dealing with the clean-up. Devils are all returning to partake of their hospitality until we can get transport arranged.”
“Beef. There’re more women…”
“Sweetheart, we know. They’ll be taken care of.” Whatever she’s been through, Stevie’s thinking of others rather than herself. Showing that backbone again I so much admire.
“Stinger’s got a doctor on call if she needs one.”
Stevie hears that too and shakes her head. “I’m fine.”
She might think she is, but her complexion, her trembling, suggests to me she’s not. No woman would be. Right now, I don’t know whether she needs to receive treatment or not, or, if she does, what for.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Stevie doesn’t say a word on the drive back through LA. I take comfort that she’s holding onto me as though I’m a lifeline. I could have found her abused, not wanting to accept the touch from any man, but whatever happened to her since she was stolen from the marshal, doesn’t seem to have affected how she’ll accept support from me.
When we arrive at the clubhouse Thunder steps up, telling me to wait outside while he sees if there’s somewhere I can take her. It’s a good idea. From the noises coming out it’s crammed inside. There’ll be drinking, smoking, fucking, and God knows what else which might set her back.
Within moments he’s back. “There’s a room you can use. Stinger called ahead and prospects have just cleared it.”
I thank him. He leads the way and soon Stevie and I are alone. The room is a typical one. A bed, dresser, and not much else. I’ve carried her in, now I put her down next to the bed, taking her hand and placing it on the covers so she knows what it is and can sit if she wants. The thought runs through my head that being alone with a man and a bed might not be what she needs just now.
I don’t know what the hell to do or say for the best. I wish we were back in Colorado where Jay or Vi could help. Even if there are old ladies here, I wouldn’t know who the best would be.
Knowing she can’t see the anguish or indecision on my face, I use the words she needs. “Stevie, babe. I’ll do whatever you need. If you want me to stay, I will. If you need to be alone, I’ll go. Just tell me, are you hurt? Do you need medical attention? Of any sort?”
She rubs at her arms. “They were rough, Beef. They left bruises, but no, I’m not injured. There’s nothing that won’t heal on its own.”
Did they fuck you? That’s what I want to ask. But can’t. Not just yet. For both her sake and mine. If there’s any way I can be, I want to be prepared for the answer.
My eyes tell me I may have got there in time, her clothes are awry from the struggle, but she’s still wearing shorts and a tee. I don’t want to make assumptions and be wrong.
Her hands reach for me. “I want you to stay Beef. Please don’t leave me alone.”
That’s an easy one. “I’ve no problem with that, sweetheart. I’ll never leave you alone. Not again.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re in LA, you know that?” When her head moves side to side, I narrow it down further. “You’re in the clubhouse of the Wretched Soulz. Just til we can work out how we’re going to get home.”
Her eyes widen a little when I name the Wretched Soulz. “Am I in danger from this club?”
“Nah. Wretched Soulz have cut the Jokers loose. That was their prez there, in the house doing the talking. In fact, most of the men there were Soulz. They helped rescue you.”
Her mouth opens and shuts. I realise there’s so much she doesn’t know, and when it’s time, I’ll fill her in on the info she’s missing. For now, I want her thinking about just one thing. “Focus on getting home, Stevie.”
She repeats the word I’ve used. “Home.” Her teeth bite her lip, and a tear rolls down her face. “I’ve no idea where that is now.”
That’s not hard for me to respond to, either. “Home is Pueblo. With me and Max,” I respond without hesitation, but then feel driven to add, “If that’s what you want?”
She had left me. There remains a niggling doubt in my head as to why. A doubt she immediately puts to rest with her next words. “I want nothing more. Beef, I didn’t want to leave you. But Lennox, he said there was a war brewing between MCs, and all because of me. He said you would be in danger unless I went. He told me your dominant club gives you permission to have an MC, and that they were coming for you if you gave me protection. Now we’re here, in their clubhouse. I don’t know what to think.”
“Come here.” I pull her into my arms. She’d left because she thought I was in danger? Her short statement has thrown all my doubts to the wind. “In a way, he was right. But we’ve sorted it out. Wretched Soulz have come out on our side. It’s the Warped Jokers who have lost their charter…”
“The men who took me, they said something about that. They were so angry. I didn’t understand it. Back, back…”
Back there. Where she almost suffered a fate worse than death or had been killed. My eyes close and I need a moment to control myself when I think of what could have been the outcome today. Her head moves, bumping into my jaw, and I wince.
“Are you hurt?”
I laugh softly, realising she hadn’t been able to see what went down. “Stinger, babe. He wanted a distraction and hit me to provide one. He packs quite a punch.”
Her hand rises and now it’s her comforting me. Smoothing away my bruises with her touch.
Putting my hands on her biceps, I turn her so she’s facing away from the bed. “Sit a moment, Stevie.”
Feeling behind her, she does
. Then tilts her face up. “You’re going to ask what happened to me, aren’t you?”
“No. If you want to tell me, you can. If you’d prefer, you can talk to someone else. There’s no pressure, babe. Whenever you’re ready.”
But it seems she’s ready now. She shudders. “It was close. So close. They wanted to get me to LA from Denver fast. One of them, well, he tried, but the others wouldn’t let him. Said it would hold them up too much. But once we arrived here.” She shudders. “I was thrown in with the other women. Those women, Beef. I couldn’t see them, but I knew enough by the tone of their voices let alone what they were saying. They were used, by all the Jokers and by other men and that was what was going to happen to me. They said no one was kept there long. They told me men chose them, then they were taken away and didn’t return.”
“Stevie…”
“Let me finish. They came for me. I heard them talk, they didn’t attempt to be quiet. They knew I couldn’t see, so they taunted me. They were all going to try me out. They were… explicit in what they were going to do. One, two, three… All of them at once. They felt my breasts, groped my ass… But you came and stopped them.”
The blood rushes from my head and I feel faint when I realise just how close it had come. “Stevie…” I croak.
“You were in time.” Her voice sounds stronger. “I held onto the thought that I’d be saved, and you came.”
“Stevie.” I drop to my knees, my arms going around her, no longer wanting to give her space. “From this moment on I swear to you, I’ll always come. I’d walk through hell to be with you.” Yeah. I knocked on the door once and they didn’t let me in, and now I know why. I’m her guardian devil. That’s my role, my place and that’s what I’ll be until the day I die.
We stay like that, rocking gently in each other’s arms. Just taking comfort from each other, both of us lost in the thought we might never have seen each other again.
“No more marshals, Stevie,” I tell her at last repeating the words from before.
“I’m still going to testify.” Her jaw looks set.
I know her too well to ask her to do anything but. “I know that. And you will. We’ll figure out a way.”
There’s a knock at the door, it makes her jump. I glance across, then back to her. “You okay? I can tell whoever it is to get lost.”
Her shoulders straighten a fraction. “I’m alright.”
I open it surprised to see the Wretched Soulz LA prez standing there.
“How is she?” he mouths.
“She’s fine,” a voice calls out from behind me.
At his confused look, I tap my ear. “Excellent hearing.”
“Could be awkward.” He grins. Then, seeming surer of his welcome, steps inside.
“Hi, Stevie, I’m…”
“Stinger. I recognise your voice. Apparently, you hit my man.” I’m amused at how cross she sounds on my behalf.
His grin widens. “Good memory too. Yeah, that’s me, and I’d say I was sorry about that, but it saved you from a bullet. I’m the prez here.” His smile slips away. “You doing okay, darlin’? Those fuckers hurt you?”
“They would have,” I tell him grimly, “if we’d been minutes later.”
He inhales sharply, then lets it out on a sigh. The implications hitting home. He raises his chin. “I’m sure Beef here’s told you, but you’ve nothing to worry about from the Wretched Soulz. Just wanted to tell you that in person.”
“Thank you.”
Stinger looks at me uneasily. He can’t read if she’s really okay or not, and to be honest, neither can I. She looks so unusually uncertain. His glance goes from me, to her, then back. Finally he suggests, “You want to come down and get something to eat?”
I look back at Stevie, at her hands twisting in her lap. Then turn back to Stinger. “We’ll be down later.”
A look of commiseration crosses his face, a recognition that in the last day or so Stevie’s gone through hell. We might have been in time to stop the worst happening, but in her nightmares? I’d place good money she’ll dream we didn’t get there in time.
After the door closes behind him, Stevie calls me over to her side.
“What do you want, sweetheart?”
“For you to hold me, Beef. Just, hold me.”
Lying down on the bed, I manoeuvre her up against my side, pulling her into me. Tears of relief prick at the back of my eyes. Having her back with me has brought me to my knees. She’s my one. The woman I’ve been searching for all my life. Knowing how close I came to losing her…
“It’s alright, Beef. I’m here.” Her hand smooths over my head and then caresses my cheek. “I’m alright. I’m not going anywhere.” Rolling over, her arm drapes across my chest. “Is Max okay?”
“He’s doing fine. His leg’s about healed now. He’ll be over the moon to see you again.”
“I hated leaving him, but I didn’t know where I was going, and I couldn’t look after him. I knew you’d take care of him for me.”
I assure her I have. I tell her some of his antics, how he’s twisted Pyro around his paw and manages to scrounge scraps from him at the table. How he and Bitch are keeping a good distance from each other, and how tolerant he is of Theo pulling his ears—not that we encourage that of course. As I bring her up to date with news from the compound, slowly her eyes start to droop and close. Her arm, still draped over me, becomes heavy and drops away. It makes me realise she can’t have got much, if any, sleep in the past twenty-four hours.
As there’d been times I never thought I’d have her close to me again, I’m content simply to hold her.
A gentle rap on the door which she doesn’t hear. I slide out from under her and go to answer it, stepping into the hall and pulling it closed behind me.
“She gonna be alright?” Thunder asks, quietly.
“Sleeping. She needs it.”
“Drummer wants a word.”
I look back at the closed door undecided. If I leave her and she should wake, or have a nightmare…
“I can sit with her,” Thunder offers. “She knows me.”
“Call me the moment she wakes.”
He agrees.
Drummer and Wraith are sitting at a table in the bar, bottles of beer in front of them. At my approach, Drummer waves to a prospect who brings over another for me.
To pre-empt the question, I formulate the answer before it’s asked. Wiggling my hand in a ‘who knows’ gesture. “On the outside she’s fine. Inside? Hell, I haven’t even asked about the marshal being killed, or if that was in front of her. She’s got a lot to work through.”
“We found her, Beef. Just concentrate on that and that you’ll be there for her.”
“You claiming her officially, Brother?”
“Yeah, VP, I am.”
“So she’s under the Devils’ protection until she testifies. Stinger,” Drummer tilts his bottle in the direction of the table where the LA prez is sitting, “reckons the Warped Jokers are getting depleted—probably with the Soulz help—and those on the inside won’t last long without protection. After the trial, it should be safe for her to resume her old identity.”
I nod. That’s something we need to talk about. I don’t even know her real name. Something I need to find out is whether she’d want to resume her old life. Does she think my commitment to her is only until the court case is over? But I’ve got a few weeks before all this is over, and hopefully during that time I’ll make her see her life is with me.
“You want to get that nomad patch off your back, Beef?”
I tilt my head and raise my eyebrow.
“Come on home to Tucson? Girls would love to meet Stevie.”
Why isn’t my heart jumping for joy? Why even the slightest hesitation? “I don’t know, Prez. You gave me a job, and I haven’t done it.”
“Think we can give you a pass on why. You got dragged into your woman’s problems before you even arrived.” Wraith makes excuses on my behalf.
“Thi
ng is,” I twist the bottle in my hands until I can pick at the label, “you’re right about Demon needing a VP. Thunder could step up, but he doesn’t want to, so, as you’ve seen for yourself, he’s a great guy to have at your back, but isn’t doing the role properly.”
“I’ll ask the other chapters. Maybe someone is ready to move on,” Drummer says, firmly.
“Already got that in hand, Prez.” Or I would have, had I not been so focused on Stevie.
“Thought you’d jump at the chance to come home. Oh, if you didn’t know, Sally’s taken the kids and gone back to her family. Tash is keeping in contact with her, and she seems to be alright. She’s even started dating. A regular guy, not one chosen by her folks.” Wraith laughs. “Think some of you rubbed off on her. She sent them packing when they tried to set her up.”
“Good to hear. I was hoping she’d find she was stronger than she thought when she didn’t have me to lean on. But that wouldn’t be keeping me away, Sally knows where I stand now. It’s just, you asked me to do something, Drummer, and I don’t like feeling I’m leaving Colorado high and dry.”
Drummer’s expression is unreadable. I can’t tell if he’s pleased or annoyed I’m not leaping at the chance to return to the fold. Then he barks a laugh. “Loyal to a fuckin’ fault, ain’t ya, Beef?”
Chapter Forty
The thought of what Stevie had gone through and the horrors I’m sure are running through her head keeps my cock flaccid, even though I hold her close in my arms all night. I’m so fucking scared of saying the wrong thing and upsetting her. All I want to do is have my face close to hers so when I inhale all I can smell is her.
Exhausted, she sleeps, while I stay awake, hundreds of thoughts going through my mind. Does she need counselling? Would it be safe for her to see someone? That would mean letting someone else in on her secrets, and I’m not sure that’s for the best. Reading between the lines, the Wretched Soulz are making a game of picking the Jokers off both on the inside and out, but there may still be some around. Until Mad Bull’s no longer breathing and pulling the strings, they’ll still be trying to stop her from taking the witness box. She’ll still have to stay in hiding.
Satan's Devils MC Colorado Boxset 1 Books 1 - 3 Page 104