by Nina Levine
I put it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Huntsman, Judge here.” My brows shot up in surprise. It had probably been close to ten years since I’d heard from Judge. He worked for the FBI, mostly doing undercover shit. He barely ever stuck his head out of the ground.
“What’s up?”
“I have a favor to ask,” he answered, his tone serious and straightforward. “I’ve got a witness who’s been in protection for close to sixteen years. The offender was meant to be serving life. And low and behold, if I don’t get a call from a friend in the penitentiary to say he’s being released next week.”
My fist clenched at my side.
That shit didn’t just happen.
“She can’t come to you?” I asked, knowing just how serious this could be if this asshole had people inside.
“Man, I’m so deep right now I can barely see the end of my nose. If I pull her here, there’s gonna be questions, ones that I can’t answer, ones that could destroy four years of fucking work.” I could practically see the worry on the old man’s face. Judge and I had known each other for a long time. We’d worked together on more than one occasion before we’d both decided to leave the army, and he joined the force while I went… well, the opposite route.
When I didn’t answer right away, he started to push harder, pulling on whatever fucking strings he could. “She’s got a girl with her, single mom, teenage daughter.”
Goddammit.
Something caught my eye through the glass of the door, and I looked out to see Meyah run past with a gun in her hand, heading out the back. I ripped the door open. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I barked, causing her to freeze and turn slowly toward me. I could hear Judge laughing on the end of the phone, but I ignored the asshole and narrowed my eyes on my daughter.
“Drake bet me a hundred dollars that I couldn’t shoot a penny from a hundred feet.” She held up her gun with a devious glint in her eye. She knew she fucking could. Drake knew she could too. He also knew that if he tried to give her or her old man any money to help with the kid, that they would turn it down.
She thought she was winning.
He thought he was fucking winning.
Jesus Christ.
I shook my head and stepped back into the room, and pulled the door shut. “Fine, I’ll do it.”
I heard him release a slow breath of air. Like he was relieved. I wasn’t sure what this case was to him, but it was obviously one which was important enough for him to ask me—the outlaw—for fucking help.
With Meyah having her own babies, I guess you could say doing this was a bit of Karma. If I wasn’t around and she was in trouble or needed help, I’d like to hope someone would say yes, and that they would do whatever was humanly possible to protect her.
“Good, she’ll be there tomorrow.” Judge laughed.
“Say fucking what now?”
“I heard you needed a new interior designer,” he answered casually. “Well, congrats, you just hired one. I think you’ll like her. Her name is Zoey. Kid’s name is Blair.”
“Fucking fantastic,” I drawled, realizing that I’d just stepped into this one. He had no intention of ever letting me say no. “You’re a conniving bastard.”
“I learn from the best.”
Then the line was dead.
“Motherfucker,” I cursed under my breath.
Guess I better get prepared.
The thought of some fucker trying to hurt her had my hands curling into fists.
They’d obviously tried to break her once. But judging by the way she’d basically told me to go fuck myself in not so many words, I’d say she was a fucking fighter.
So God help them if they try and come back around again.
7
Zoey
“Who are you texting?”
Blair’s body jerked, and she juggled her phone in her hands for a few seconds before finally managing to catch it before it hit the floor. “No one!”
“The high-pitched tone of your voice seems to scream differently,” I teased, leaning my hip into the kitchen counter. “Is this a boy?”
“Mom!”
“What’s his name?”
She pointed her finger at me across the living room, the stern look on her face doing nothing to change the way her cheeks flushed a deep crimson color. “We aren’t having this conversation.”
“Party pooper.” I sighed, crinkling my nose and sticking my tongue out at her like a spoiled child before tucking my towel around me and making for the door.
“Real mature,” Blair called after me, a smile in her voice that I couldn’t help but feel warm my chest. It’d been a long time since I’d seen her this comfortable and this happy. She’d found a group of friends, I had a job she could be proud to tell them all about, and now a boy?
The pieces of our puzzle were falling into place finally.
Things hadn’t been easy for us.
I was put into witness protection before she was born. A teenage girl, alone, scared, and hiding from a world of people who I knew had the money, the resources, and the reason to hunt me down. It meant I couldn’t get a real job because the government refused to give me a new social security number, and the little bit of money they gave us was nowhere near enough to survive.
I managed to get a part-time job at a strip club, waiting tables and working only for tips, but it meant Blair slept out the back in the dressing room the girls used to change in. They all adored her, taking turns watching her between sets.
It wasn’t the life I wanted for her.
And the risks I took to get where we are today could have backfired time and time again.
So seeing the way she was blooming reminded me that the choices I made were right. I couldn’t help but smile as I dropped my towel beside the pool, my heart already beating excitedly at the idea of breaking through the surface and submerging myself beneath. It was a different world down there, the chaos of the world above me seeming like it disappeared the moment I took that deep breath.
The water was my safe place.
My solace.
It was the place I went to escape an abusive father.
The place I felt like he couldn’t touch me.
Like nothing could touch me.
I sucked in a sharp breath as I launched myself from the edge and into the water, my hands pushing through the liquid to make way for my body. I needed every part of a second I could get, so breaking the water was important. The rest came naturally—the way my lungs conserved air, how I turned my head to catch a breath.
Time melted away the moment I got into the water. I could swim for hours without realizing but my body wasn’t quite what it used to be. My lungs began to burn, the work out they were getting was pushing them to a limit they hadn’t reached for years. One more lap and I knew the finish line was only a few seconds away. So I pushed a little harder, a little further, trying to fight my body’s natural urge to fight for breath.
Swimming was often mind over matter.
Convincing yourself that you weren’t going to die if you just held on for those few extra seconds.
It was mental, just as much as it was physical.
My fingers brushed the concrete wall, and I pushed through the top of the water, gasping and wiping the droplets from my face.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite piece of ass.” My heart stopped, and I felt the blood in my veins freeze. That voice. “It looks like it’s just gotten that much better with age.”
Paul Mathison.
“Always a pleasure.”
I fought the natural urge to cringe away as he caressed my jaw, his fingers trailing down to my chin, which he pinched tightly, forcing my gaze to meet his. There was something there, carefully disguised in his fake smile.
A veiled threat.
A silent language that I spoke fluently.
Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll shut it for you.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t good at following orders.
“I’d say the pleasure was all mine,” I goaded, a smirk curling at the corner of my mouth. “But we both know that’d be a lie.”
This was where I got my thrills, seeing that sudden fear in their eyes. It was almost intoxicating, a way for me to take back a little ounce of the strength and dignity they had just robbed me of.
Men were so easily pleased. So eager to climb into bed to satisfy their sick little fetish. But when the ecstasy faded and the realization set in, they’re suddenly acutely aware of just how easily I could fucking ruin them and everything they had worked so hard for.
His hand slipped from my face, a low, raspy chuckle filling the air before he swung. I stumbled, catching the bedpost and gripping it hard as I fought to stay on my feet. The pain radiated through my cheek, instantly making my face throb. If I had been a cartoon, stars would be swirling comically around my head.
Blinking through the pain, I looked back over my shoulder. He adjusted his cufflinks, his chin held high like he hadn’t just broken the law. A law he should know well since my good friend Paul Mathison here had been a DEA agent for ten years.
That was the common clientele around here.
High profile.
Wealthier than most people could ever imagine.
And always lacking a moral compass.
“You need to learn to watch that mouth, Angie,” he scolded, pulling his tie into place and sweeping back the few stray gray hairs that were disobediently sticking up. “I’ve treated you with nothing but respect. That’s a lesson you’d do well to learn.”
Biting my lip between my teeth, I managed to hold back the sharp argument tickling the tip of my tongue.
Respect? Was he fucking joking?
I didn’t even bother to look up when I heard the door handle turn and the door creak open, the sounds of the party going on downstairs floating through the open doorway. Bracing my hands on the bed frame, I let my head hang, tears prickling my eyes and sliding down my cheeks. The hardened exterior I’d been developing since I was just a little kid had taken a hit recently, and there was a crack in my shield.
I knew why.
I just hadn’t figure out how to deal with it yet.
I shoved away from the wall, but not quickly enough to avoid his grasp. Fingers twisted into my hair, a sharp jolt of pain shooting down my spine as he yanked me from the water. I kicked and fought, the rough edge of the concrete scraping at my bare legs as I was dragged onto the slick tile edging.
“Angie, so good to see you,” Paul crowed, dragging me a few feet from the edge of the pool before he finally let go and took a step back. Water dripped down into my eyes, and I furiously wiped it away, trying to clear my vision while also fighting the throbbing pain in my legs as I struggled to get to my feet.
This couldn’t be happening.
It just couldn’t.
It was impossible.
“Nothing to say? How about I start then?” he offered, his lip curling up on one side. Paul Mathison had always had the kind of face that could scare little children, but it had changed. It had weathered and not well. “You put me in prison!”
The force of his anger had me stumbling back. I caught myself on the railing, wrapping my fingers around the metal to hold me up while I screamed at myself to run.
Run.
Get the hell out of there.
Go!
But the past had a tight grasp on my throat, and I felt like I was suffocating. He was never meant to find me. He was meant to be in prison. He was one of the reasons I’d spent so many years hiding. So many years fighting to survive. All because they convinced me to tattle. To give him up. To put him away for all the pain he’d caused.
I went through hell to make sure he was locked up forever.
So how the hell was he standing in front of me right now?
“Fucking whore,” he roared, launching forward and grabbing my face, pressing me back against the bars. “Legs open and mouth closed, that was all you had to do. Be a good little girl and play along.”
I put this man in prison—him and a handful of others. I’d testified at his trial and watched them drag him away kicking and screaming.
Sixteen years, and he was here.
At my home.
With me in his sights.
“How did you find me?” I murmured, my body aching and my heart thundering in my chest.
He shifted on his feet, a sick grin curling at the corner of his mouth as he dug his fingers harder into my jaw. “You forget I used to be in law enforcement?” he taunted.
That tone—the voice sending me right back to when I was a scared little girl. I shuffled back, my leg screaming in pain, letting me know that running was not going to be an option.
“Do you know what it’s like in prison when they find out that you worked for the law? Do you know how they treat police officers, Angie?”
“Probably how you deserved to be treated,” I snapped, tears streaking down my cheeks.
“You ran your mouth.”
“You raped me!”
A gut-wrenching scream let loose, and suddenly Paul Mathison was sent sprawling across the concrete, leaving my wide-eyed teenage daughter standing in front of me.
Her Little League softball bat in mid-swing, and the both of us with our mouths hung open, breathing heavy.
“Blair, get out of here,” I screamed, catching Paul getting to his feet out of the corner of my eye, but my stubborn child shook her head and stumbled forward, placing her body in front of mine, her bat pulled back, ready to take another swing. “Blair!”
“I called Drake on your phone,” Blair announced, her eyes focused on Paul and his narrowed glare.
He was trying to decipher her. Figure out who she was. And for a moment in time, I thought my heart might stop when I realized that he just might guess right.
“Drake is a big bad biker! Him and the club will be here soon,” my baby girl announced confidently.
And as if summoned by her voice, the rumbling chorus of motorcycles filled the air.
My favorite part?
The way Paul’s eyes widened when he realized I was no longer that little girl with no one to protect her.
My second favorite part?
Watching him fucking run away.
8
Zoey
I knew the sound of his heavy boots before I even saw them. There was something so different about the way he walked.
With control.
With strength.
His nothing fucks with me presence filled the room well before he did.
His eyes searched the room as he stepped inside, and the second they fell on me, it felt like I was breaking through the surface of the water. I could breathe.
“The fuck happened?” he demanded, storming toward me. When he hooked his finger under my chin, lifting my teary gaze, he asked, “You good?”
“Yeah,” I croaked, the lie instantly followed by my daughter’s objections.
“She’s not okay,” Blair exploded from across the tiny club medical room. “The whole side of her leg is torn up from where he dragged her from the pool by her hair.”
“Blair!”
“Call Mouse,” Huntsman ordered in the direction of the silently stern-faced guy to his left. “Tell her it’s urgent.” He held out his hand to me, and I held his gaze for a long few seconds, my lips pursed in defiance.
“Woman,” he growled. The harsh growl sent a shudder through me. What surprised me was how he softened it a second later. “Zoey. Show me.”
“It’s fine.”
“I can see where you’d mistake that as a request,” he threw back, his brow raised. “It wasn’t.”
My first instinct was to tell him to take his ‘request’ and shove it somewhere there is no sunlight, but my body was giving in. My hand was twitching with a mind of its own, wanting to feel him support me.
It’d been a long time since I had ever not had to hold myself up—broken or not. Or to keep me from falling in
to the flames that seemed to be constantly burning around me. My eyes caught Blair’s across the table, my heart sinking to see the tears silently slipping down her cheeks. I had to do this for her. Put my secrets and ghosts from my past to the side.
Placing my hand in Huntsman’s, I tried to keep that instant rush to myself. But I knew between the way I was shaking and unable to catch my breath that he could see right through me. He pulled me to my feet, tugging me gently toward him.
It was like having a protective shield wrapped around me, and the need to lean in closer and wrap myself in his warmth was an almost impossible magnetism I didn’t want to fight.
The towel I had tied at my hip was instantly tugged loose, his intense deep blue pools holding me captured as the material fell to the floor. His gaze shifted, his eyes dropping to my lips, my neck, my chest. My heart shot up into my throat the lower he traveled.
“Turn.”
Pulling my lip in between my teeth, I slowly shifted, shuffling to the left and revealing what I knew was a hot fucking mess. The throbbing was painful and deep, making it feel as though my entire limb was pulsating. After years of swimming, I was intimately aware of just the kind of damage pools could do. The edges were often either rough concrete or tile, or with a lot of indoor pools, they were surrounded by grates, which caught the overflow from the movement of the water.
I’d been on the receiving end of both on the odd occasion and being dragged over them like hot coals was not my idea of fun.
Huntsman dropped to his haunches, his tattooed hand reaching for my hip.
I hadn’t looked yet, but I really didn’t need to after seeing my blood leaving a trail like some psychotic Hansel and Gretel along the pathway between the pool and my car as Drake forced us into the backseat and broke several speed limits just to get us away from the house and the asshole who was possibly still lurking around, to a place he considered safe—the Exiled Eight clubhouse.
