by Erin Trejo
“Why? Just tell me why?” She asks through clenched teeth as she stares Shadow in the eyes. He shoves himself up, an amused look in his eyes before he steps into her space.
“I think you know why. Traitor,” he hisses before backhanding her across the face. That’s all I need to move.
Chapter 22
Layla
He stands there as blood trickles down my lip but Acen shocks me the most when his fist collides with Shadow’s jaw. His head snaps back before he smirks.
“Don’t you ever put your hands on her again!” He roars.
“Do you know who she is, Acen?”
“She’s mine! That’s all there is to know!” I can feel his anger rolling off him but it’s his words that shock me. The authority that they hold.
“Is she? Seems she’s been a little of everyone’s,” Shadow tells him. Ace starts to step forward when I insert myself in between them.
“Why Shadow? Who ordered it? Was it Rico? Ben?” I ask needing to know. He chuckles and takes a step back.
“So many Thursdays, huh, Layla?” My stomach tumbles but I won’t let him win.
“Who was it?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me, Shadow. Who?” He muses over my request for a second. The guys all stand around stunned.
“When you tell them, I’ll tell you.”
“Tell us what?” Fox steps closer. My heart beats rapidly in my chest to the point that it nearly hurts.
“Do it, Layla. Tell them what you were sent to do,” Shadow pushes. If I thought I could snap his neck right now I’d do it in a heartbeat.
“What the hell is going on?” Ace roars. I swallow hard, turn to face them and take a deep breath.
“I was sent to you.”
“What?”
“I was sent to infiltrate your crew,” I say softly but keep my head held high. Cato curses, Fox stares but Brody? He questions.
“That doesn’t make sense. You never tried to get in with us.” I nod.
“I know. I didn’t want to either. I didn’t want any of this shit!” I roar throwing my arms wide to make my point. “I wanted nothing to do with you. I just wanted to save her.”
“And you failed,” Shadow chimes in as the weight of the world slowly falls on my shoulders. It’s weighing heavily on me now.
“And I failed.” The words come out helpless, much like I feel right now.
“Who wanted you in with us?” Ace asks.
“Who was it?” I ask once more my attention on Shadow. He chuckles and brings his beer to his lips.
“Lala?” Ace snaps behind me but I keep my eyes on Shadow.
“Who Shadow?” I scream louder.
“Your father,” he finally says. I can hear clapping off to the side of the house. It slowly comes closer until there’s a man in a suit standing next to Shadow.
“It’s been a long time, Layla,” the man says. My mind works overtime trying to place him. I’ve never seen him. I would remember him and I don’t.
“Who are you?” I ask assessing the man. He’s tall, very well dressed. A tailored suit with the top buttons on his shirt undone. He looks nothing like any of the men that come around. Nothing like the guys either. He doesn’t fit in.
“In due time, you will understand.”
“No! I want to know now. I’m done playing games!” I yell loudly. The man moves, wrapping his hand around my throat and squeezing. Clearly whoever this is doesn’t like to be challenged. His eyes burn into me but the closer he leans into my space, the more I see the resemblance. It’s scary and a little shocking but it’s there. He must be able to see it in my eyes. His lips curl into a smile slowly.
“Piecing it together now.”
“Dad,” I whisper. Chaos erupts around us. Shadow’s men move in, holding the guys back. Acen is beating the shit out of anyone he can, trying to get to me but it doesn’t matter. All I can see is the man in front of me. His hand slowly eases from my neck as he stands adjusting his suit jacket.
“Things haven’t been going as planned, I see.” I can’t look away from him. I don’t know that I want to. “Walk with me, Layla.” I don’t know why I follow him, call me curious I suppose but my feet move. Acen roars behind me but my gaze is locked on the man that I’ve never met. Yet, I can see myself reflected in his eyes.
“You’re staring.”
“You’re really my dad?” I ask needing to hear him say it. He chuckles.
“I am. I assumed your mother never told you about me. It was probably for the best anyhow.”
“What? Where have you been? Why weren’t you around? I have so many questions,” I ramble. He stops walking and turns to look down at me, crossing his arms over his chest.
“None of them matter, Layla. I can’t give you the answers you want. I left because I wanted to. I didn’t come back for the very same reason,” he says surely of himself. Then it hits me.
“You didn’t want me.” His eyes darken before he licks his lips.
“A daughter was never in the cards for me.”
“Just answer me.”
“No.” Shock shouldn’t feel like this. I shouldn’t be surprised but I am. Is this why my mom never told me about him? Was she protecting me the whole time from a man that didn’t want me?
“Then, why are you here now?” When I look up, I see it all over his face. “You know what they did to me.”
“Yes. I do. I ordered it.”
“You what?” I scream, balling my fists at my sides. Anger explodes inside of me as I swing but he effectively cuts off any attempts. Grabbing my wrists in his, he drags me closer to his body. His warm breath fans over my skin as I cringe.
“You should learn to control that temper. Your Thursday’s have been complaining about bruises.” Bile rises in my throat just as he tosses me to the ground. I bend over on hands and knees heaving. He knows about that? Why? How?
“So many questions. We will meet again, Layla. Very soon and I will answer all of them for you.”
“You stay the hell away from me!” I yell from my place on the ground. He chuckles and walks toward a car that slowly rounds the corner, coming to stop next to us. I watch his feet as he climbs in and the car pulls off. Slowly I drop to the ground and curl into a ball.
“Lala?” I hear Ace calling for me but I just want this all to go away. I want this to be a bad dream. Deep inside I know things are only going to get worse.
“Lala?” It’s Fox’s voice now. Hands reach for me, pulling me off the ground but I’m numb. So very numb. Nothing is okay. Nothing is ever going to be okay.
Chapter 23
Acen
I pace the living room wondering what the hell is going on but I don’t get an answer from her. Layla sits on the couch, a bottle of liquor in her hand and a glazed look in her eyes.
“What else did he say?” I growl as I look down at her. She raises her eyes to mine and smirks.
“Suck it off, Ace.” Clarissa giggles, Fox snorts out a laugh, Cato shakes his head and Brody storms off out the door. I shake my head tired of talking to that girl tonight. She has us all in knots and what Shadow said makes it even worse. I want to be mad at her, rip her apart for thinking she could walk in here and come between us but that isn’t what she did. I know that’s what she said but she wanted no part of us at the beginning.
“You didn’t do it,” I tell her.
“Do what?” She asks exasperated.
“Didn’t try to infiltrate our crew. Why?” The sadness in her eyes tells me there’s another story aside from the one she’s about to give me. She slowly stands, bottle clutched tightly in her hand as she moves toward me.
“I didn’t want to.”
“Simple as that,” I mumble.
“Simple as that,” she repeats.
“You’re lying. Tell the truth, Lala. For once in your life tell the damn truth!” I roar. She isn’t fazed by my outburst. She giggles and takes a step back bringing her bottle back to her lips before clim
bing to her feet.
“The names on the list?”
“Are we sharing all of our secrets now, Ace? Is that really what you want?” She asks keeping her eyes narrowed. Running my hand through my hair, I’m not so sure anymore. I’m not sure that I can handle what she has to say to me. But at the same time, I need to know.
“Yes.” She nods her head.
“Get Brody back in here because I will only do this once.” Her eyes are distant and she looks sick to her stomach. Fox moves to get Brody but I can’t stop staring at her. Her eyes stay locked with mine the entire time and I don’t know if I like it or hate it. I know I’m pushing her, forcing her to share something that she doesn’t want to, but I need to know.
“What the hell is happening?” Brody asks when he comes back in. Layla keeps her eyes on mine.
“I never knew my dad. He left us when I was a baby. My mom remarried.”
“Rico?” Cato asks. She nods but never looks away from me. She’s letting me see her. Letting me see her pain, her hurt. Everything.
“Rico is a bastard. He plays by his own rules or maybe he plays by my dad’s rules, I don’t really know anymore. When I was fourteen weird men would come into my room. My mom didn’t care, she was getting something out of it, I didn’t know what at the time. I would get tossed a hundred dollars to keep my mouth shut and the guys would leave.”
“Son of a bitch!” I roar at the same time as Brody. Fox clenches his hands at his sides as Clarissa sobs on the couch into Cato’s arms. No one makes a move to go near her though knowing she needs her space to do this.
“Ben showed up when I was fifteen. He was an abusive piece of shit. I found out I was pregnant…when he came back I tried to get him to take me with him,” she says as tears begin to fall down her cheeks. It’s taking all my strength to not go to her, pull her into my arms but she needs to do this herself.
“What happened?” I urge her to continue even though seeing the look in her eyes is ripping my chest apart. Layla reaches up and wipes her eyes before she continues.
“She was a girl. I had a little girl,” she whispers. Clarissa moves now, standing and going to her. Wrapping her in her arms, she holds her.
“This is bullshit!” Fox roars storming around the room.
“I still don’t get it,” Brody adds. Layla pushes out of Clarissa’s arms and spins to face him.
“You don’t get it? Let me make it clear. I was raped since I was fourteen! I was used so my mom could keep her house and drugs in her veins! I was a pawn! I always have been. When I had Laney, I thought I could get away. I couldn’t. I was stuck. There was always another plan for me I just didn’t know it at the time. Rico uprooted us, sent us here. My mom grew up around here so she didn’t care because the same fucking rules applied here too. I did what I had to do.”
“Where is your daughter?” I ask, watching as the tears pool in her eyes. She turns to look at me, so many emotions colliding inside of her. It pulls at me, rips at every fiber of my being.
“She’s dead.”
“What the hell?” Cato moves toward her, grabbing her shoulders. “What do you mean? How?”
“Rico took her. He took her away from me when he sent us here. I was supposed to feed him intel on you guys and when I didn’t…I got the pictures of her lifeless body on my phone,” she says when the tears choke her. She breaks down now. Her knees give out and she falls to the floor in a heap of tears. The guys and I all share a look but what the hell do we do? We’re the reason her little girl is dead.
“The list?”
“All the guys that have ever touched me. I killed one. I was going to kill them all. Every single one of them!” She screams as she wipes at her eyes. Fury, rage, anger. It replaces the tears in her eyes. She slowly dries her face on her shirt before standing to her feet.
“I won’t let them hurt me anymore. They have taken everything from me and now I find out my dad had something to do with it. I will kill him too.”
Chapter 24
Layla
The guys had to go to school. They couldn’t risk it with being on probation but me? I don’t give a shit anymore. I couldn’t go back there and face them. I ran that night after I told them. I ran until I could no longer run. Nothing makes sense to me. I don’t know why my dad is doing this. My mom is so high out of her mind, she couldn’t form any coherent sentences. I gave up. Now I sit with a joint hanging between my lips and watch the sunset ahead of me. I often wonder what’s out there in the world. If there is something more than just this.
“What are you thinking about?” His voice sends a chill down my spine.
“Life. What’s the point of it? Is there something more out there? Or is this it”
“You’ve been outside these walls, Lala. Was it better?”
“You’ve never been outside of GV?” I ask looking up at Ace. He shakes his head as he moves to sit next to me.
“Just the next city over where we went to the fair. That’s as far as I’ve been.”
“Do you love it here?” I ask finding that I want to know more. I want to know what keeps him here. He pulls his sleeve up and I look at all the tattoos on his arms. They are colorful and some I’d even say are beautiful. And right there, dead center is the GV that I’ve seen tattooed on the back of his neck too.
“This is all I’ve known. I was born into this. It was passed down to me and the guys, like a birthright. We didn’t grow up understanding the outside world. We knew drugs, we knew guns, we knew violence. This is just who we are,” he says softly when I reach over and run my fingers along the tattoos that decorate his skin.
“Do you think you could ever give it up?”
“That’s a hard question for me to answer. I’d like to think I could but honestly, I don’t know. I wouldn’t know who I was without this world.” His other hand comes over to rest on top of mine. The heat that I feel, the sizzle, the connection is overwhelming. And to a point I hate it. I hate that I feel it and want it, crave it.
“I don’t know how I play into this world, Acen. I didn’t think I did.”
“But you do in more ways than we know. You play into this world now because we want you to but there’s something more.”
“You what?” I ask when his words shock me. He looks over at me, our eyes locking.
“We want you here, Lala. We want you with us. You’ve become something that grounds us.” I shake my head, jerking my hand from his and standing.
“You don’t get to do that! You don’t get to hear my sad little sob stories and say that shit to me, Ace!” I bend down and grab my bottle off the ground before turning and walking away. I know he’s following me, I can hear him.
“You think you can just walk away? You’re delusional!”
“I’m delusional? You’re the one trying to keep me in your little crew like what? The little whore that will spread her legs?” I scream loudly. His eyes darken before he moves. Knocking the bottle from my hands, he wraps his hand around my throat. His dark eyes seem to become darker by the second as he leans into my face.
“The only one that you will be spreading your legs for from now on is me.” He hisses each word as if that means anything to me.
“Not according to my dad.”
“I don’t give a shit about your dad. I will put a bullet in his head right after Shadow’s if they mess with you again.” His teeth are clenched, his jaw ticking as I watch him under the street light. He looks deadly and that thought alone makes me wet. There’s something wild about Ace that I want. That I need.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you do it?” He levels me with his gaze before the words fall from his lips.
“Because. You. Are. Mine.” His lips crash into mine, his tongue slipping past my lips. Each kiss with Ace seems more intense. The air gets trapped in my lungs. His hand moves around, grasping the back of my hair and tugging. I moan into his mouth as he devours my lips.
“We’re going home,”
he whispers against my lips.
“I won’t go back there. She let this happen to me,” I tell him.
“What part of you are mine didn’t you get? You’re going home with me.” Something settles in my chest when he says those words. His home isn’t mine. Nowhere is.
Ace grabs my hand and leads me away from the water and back up the hill. When we get to the top I find the rest of the guys standing there waiting on us. They all look at me and it makes me smile that they were worried. They were worried about me. Brody moves first, pulling me from Ace’s grip and into his arms.
“We will figure this all out. You’re safe with us, Lala.” His words cause a sob to clog my throat. One by one they each pull me into their arms giving me something I didn’t even know I needed. They give me a piece of themselves but also a piece of me.
“Let’s go,” Ace finally says grabbing my hand in his. We all start walking when he stops and looks down at me. “The floor thing?”
“I just can’t sleep in a bed knowing what I have to do on it,” I say sounding ashamed.
“Had to do. You’re done, Lala. Never again is anyone touching you but me.”
“That doesn’t mean I can just jump into your bed, Acen.”
“I know and I’d sleep anywhere you wanted me to,” he adds. My heart swells as I swallow back the tears that threaten to fall once more. I don’t like crying, never have but these four are slowly dragging it out of me. Ace’s arm wraps around me, pulling me closer into his side where I gladly go. In all this mess, I feel safe in his arms. I know I shouldn’t, I can’t stop what I feel when he holds me the way he is right now. It’s everything.
Chapter 25
Acen
“Can you just stop?”
“No, asshole! I can’t just stop!” She yells back at me. I don’t know if I missed this side of Layla or not. The smartass side that doesn’t know when to shut up.
“You aren’t going, Layla!”