by V. Theia
Because Rider was formidable.
He'd achieved something no one else had. He had freed her from the MC shackles.
Even now he watched her.
She'd been scared putting her hand into his, yet he’d been the lesser of two evils, letting him pull her into the fresh air, place her on his bike.
Until the foreboding wave hit her that she might have walked right from the fat and triple jumped into the fire.
Every reaction she was having to him was visceral.
He was speaking low to a tall guy, their heads bent together, voices hushed.
The guy shrugged, rubbed his thick dark beard. Rider called him Preacher.
He was dressed all in black as all of the men were, a good color for a nighttime raid.
At last, she broke the silence, stood too fast and felt the floor shift under her, her belly growling loudly.
"Listen...Rider. Thank you for getting us out of there, truly, thank you, but we should leave before..." before Hades found me.
Her empty belly tightened.
Where would she go, how would she get there? her mind fired off a barrage of logical questions, stripped of possessions, she had nothing and could go nowhere.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Despair.
"I should go. Angela needs taking care of somehow..." Perhaps it was the stark reality of the situation finally sinking in, her terror was over, or her body had reached its limits, but the next thing Zara was aware of the floor rushed up to meet her, she was acutely aware of Rider cursing, his form seemingly appearing out of her nowhere as her vision checked out into a blur.
What was happening to her… she blinked into darkness and knew no more.
******
There was no grace as Rider lunged forward to stop Zara's head cracking against the floor. One minute she was stood, the next she went down like a tower block under a control explosion, her voice tapering off until it was a harsh inhale.
He jumped the coffee table, caught a palm roughly under her nape, unable to grab onto her body it landed in an awkward misshapen heap, but he stopped her head from bouncing.
"Fuckin' hell! Preach, move all that crap from the couch, why the fuck are groupies leaving their shit here. And where's the Butcher at?"
He had her up into his arms, she weighed next to fucking nothing, five strides he laid her on the couch.
His road captain Preacher, a tall serious man, Despite the awesome mental image of him, his body full of ink and incredible muscle, his bearded face was grim as a funeral as he stepped forward, arms full of coats, shirts, and pairs of panties, he whistled over the beat of the sound system, Rider saw him slash a finger to his throat and within seconds the music came to a silence.
It dropped the club into a hush and then voices raised. "Get them all the fuck out of my club. Now!" Rider issued, his gaze never moving from the unconscious woman.
Hangaround's and groupies began to move fast, smart people.
All that was left were his boys, those he trusted.
His own heart was in overdrive with worry as he searched out her pulse and found it steadily pumping away. Thank christ. She was alive.
Zara.
It was fucking Zara.
What in the good fuck was she doing at the Rebel's club? Of all the scenarios, he'd played through, talked through until his teeth hurt, he'd weighed in casualties, it was a war, it was expected, he would have been fine taking out whatever groupies of theirs had been hanging around, chaos and noise caused mistakes and Rider hadn't been willing to set any fucker free tonight.
But last on his list of eventualities, top being Hades dead as a fucking corpse bloodied at his boots, was seeing Zara there.
He'd thought of this girl over the years, too many fucking times to count, hadn't she told him she was going to a big fancy lawyer school far from here? What happened, baby?
Looking down at her, his brows folding in on themselves, he saw fatigue merging with her bruises, not just fresh marks either, and when her tank top rode halfway up her belly he saw purple and yellow bruises there, as well.
Fucking hell…his brain was already joining the dots…he knew what kind of man Hades was and Zara despite her appearance now was a beautiful girl.
His gut joined the parade of logic by tightening.
She'd been kept there.
Had to be.
She was too beaten up to be a Rebel's groupie.
That motherfucker was shipping in girls from across the border as fast as Rider could stop him.
It still didn't explain what the fuck Zara was doing there. She wasn't the usual tits and ass piece that got off on hanging around dangerous men.
No, she was class. He’d sullied her for one night, show her the filth and the dirt of what great sex could be, wanted more, honestly, he’d craved her for a long fucking time afterward, thought about her more than he should have, but he’d recognized class when he saw it, she’d been destined for better things that a dirty biker could give her.
Staring down at her, hearing the footsteps of their medical man, Butcher would be carrying his familiar black bag. The man had no medical training that counted, he’d done many first aid courses, saved countless lives, he knew how to patch up a wound like no one else.
But for Zara, his hand shook as he scraped her hair back gently to better see her pale face, he prayed to god she didn’t need an actual doctor, hospital even, if he were any way decent he would have taken her and the crying kid there already, but then it would have brought too many questions that broke his and his club’s alibi’s clean open.
“What we got here, Prez? She looks sick as a dead dog. Mighty pretty though. She got any injuries I should know about?”
Rider’s jaw tightened, reluctant to move, but he did it anyway.
“Not sure, we took ‘em both from the Rebels compound, she’s in a bad way, might be in shock, she just collapsed, didn’t show signs of internal bleeding.”
Butcher, a huge lanky man in his thirties, efficient with precise movements, crouched by the sofa using his stethoscope to listen to Zara’s heart. Rider waited for any result, silent and deadly stood close by, his eyes trained on the woman as another man put hands all over her checking vitals.
He couldn’t help it, his lip peeled back with a snarl.
Butcher turned a curious glance but didn’t question it, instead went back to checking Zara over.
The kid, who Rider hadn’t taken a bit of notice of was hiccupping so bad with her sobs.
Jesus Christ. This was fucked up.
“Does someone wanna shut her up for fuck's sake so Butcher can work.” He growled.
All his boys stood statue still, unwilling to volunteer.
His inhale was fast, he didn’t want to leave Zara’s side, but the kid’s caterwauling was grating on his last nerve, as if he didn’t have enough to worry about with cops who could turn up at any second to see him with a hysterical kid who was more than likely kidnapped and a beaten unconscious female who was also likely to be have been taken by the Rebels.
“Hey kid. Listen…you’re called Angela, aren’t you? I’m Rider.“ He didn’t move, but he switched his focus a few yards away, she was a tiny thing, swamped in a hoodie far too big for her, eyes terrified and wide leaking tears by the second. “You gotta stop the noise, get me? Zara is going to be fine, she’s just tired.“
The young girl’s eyes filled more, tears pouring down her dirt face leaving dirt track marks, she seemed to shudder, those same eyes wildly searching the common room before hitting on. He turned his head to see Lawless in the doorway. Before Rider could say anything, the kid had taken off at a dead run almost plowing down his enforcer, her slim arms banded tightly around his waist.
“Holy fuck!”
“What in the world…”
“Kid done lost her mind.”
Rider agreed with all those who chimed in. His eyes narrowed. Of all the men to choose for protection, the kid had turned to Lawless.
�
��Law got himself a fan!” snickered one.
“She looks like a little woolly limpet.” laughed another.
Meanwhile Lawless had gone deathly still inside his ankle length leather duster, his arms automatically coming up and out to hold them away from the girl.
“Fucking HELL! What’s happening right now? Get it off me, Prez! Someone get it off me fucking now, it’s watering all over me!” His voice strangled.
Lawless wasn’t known or hired for his social graces if anything the tall shaved head outlaw was one of those dangerous men your mama warned you about.
And as strange as it was seeing a little kid wrapped around his enforcer, the deadliest man to draw breath within the borders of Colorado, Rider admitted it had got the kid to shut up. Not a peep out of her now, though he saw her body was still shaking.
“Are you all fucking deaf? Come and get her off me!” arms waving in the air waist height giving no contact to the girl whatsoever apart from her death cling, he glared hard and Rider shrugged.
“She’s not so different to a cat, Law. She’s quiet. Keep her that way.”
Rider dismissed his brother by giving him his back, turned towards Zara again right as Butcher was pulling down her shirt, he caught the swell of her breasts before they were covered again.
His brain slid straight to his cock.
Jesus. This was Zara.
“Well?” His voice was less than steady.
“Looks to be exhaustion to me, far as I can tell. She’s painfully skinny, you can see her fucking hip bones poking out, so you gotta weigh in malnourished. The wounds are superficial; the eye probably looks worse than it is. She might need some antibiotics; I can get those. You wanna tell me what happened tonight, Prez? We didn’t order two girls and I forgot, did we?”
His joke went unanswered as Rider scrubbed a hand through his hair.
All his plans were crashing down around his boots, weeks of thought and planning to destroy those cocksuckers for good, all because he had the unnatural urge to take care of that girl. Her pain called out to him, made him feel like shit to know she had suffered at the hands of someone like Hades and his animal crew.
That shithead was going to die so much slower.
His chest was tight.
His gut was tighter.
He wanted to hurt someone badly for every bruise on her body.
And while he stood in his own inner fucking turmoil statue tall in the middle of his common room with most of his outlaw brothers looking on, sending their unsure, confused, wary gazes from him to Zara, all he could think about was; he’d thrown this fucking girl away without a second thought a handful of years ago.
For a while afterward, he’d regretted what he’d done, wished he’d gone about it differently, hell, maybe they could have been fuck buddies if she ever passed through town while she was bettering her brain and future.
He'd thought about her too often, even just recently with his latest hook up. A boring fuck so forgettable he couldn’t even remember if he came.
No one measured up.
Sure, he’d had good climaxes, fast and hard, dirty wet climaxes, but none had felt the same as that night.
And over the years he’d self-condemned getting rid of her, tossing her away like she hadn’t meant something.
Funny shit was, for those few hours together she’d meant a lot to Rider. But the club had come first, as always, and he’d had too much to do at that time to worry about making a relationship with a sweet girl who was better than him.
And now, here was that sweet girl, back in his life through a means he wished she’d never endured. No woman should ever feel the brute force of a man through his fists.
Fucking asshole was a coward beating a woman.
All his old contained feelings released, his monster thoughts dark and unfettered.
He wanted to hurt someone badly for hurting his sweet girl.
His sweet girl.
She wasn’t his, he told himself, even as his body flooded with a proprietary sense of ownership.
She was mine first.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Stay.” - Rider Marinos
“Jesus, Rider. What the fuck are they even doing here? Are we taking in stray Rebel bitches now? They belong there, or somewhere else just not under our roof.” The VP yanked out his chair and plonked his unkempt self-down. It was a wonder there was no plume of dust around him, the man was allergic to laundry detergent. Hawk’s voice was always calm, like a Tsunami before it hit when everything got real eerie still. The guy had no beef to get angry to enjoy his violence. The quieter Hawk got the more destruction he would exact.
"I know her." Was all he replied as an explanation for his out of character behavior. No fucking wonder they were all looking at their president like he'd sucked one too many times on the weed bong.
He and his crew were in the church, door closed behind them so no one outside of their inner circle, namely prospects, would hear their conversation, prospects weren't privy to much outlaw business until they patched in, all were sat around the long rectangle table, apart from Lawless, who was taking care of the kid, against his will and loud-ass protest when Rider ordered him to get her out of there, he'd swore the air blue enough to give a nun the vapours, but did as was asked of him and took the clinging kid off to grab some food from the kitchen.
His uncle had called his old lady to take the drive down from the mountain, his men were not equipped to play baby-fucking-sitters, and while he hated calling Helen out this late, she was a woman in her early fifties and liked her soaps and sleep in that order, he needed more than his men could provide.
“What? who? the Rebel bitch?" One of his sergeant's questions.
Rider pinned him with a stare cold enough to curdle milk. He had to remember these were his brothers and deserved answers. Answers he didn't fucking have.
Don’t fuckin’ call her a bitch, ever.
"I knew her a long time ago. Why she was there, you know about as much as I fuckin' do." The stratagem had been simple; the Raging Rebel's building went up in smoke no matter who the fuck was left inside.
He got that his brothers were now confused to hell why he'd brought two of theirs back.
She is not theirs.
He sat back in his president's chair at the head of the long wide dark oak table. The same table that had been here since day one when Homer 'Hammer' Kontos started the club as a rebellion to society, if he couldn't fit in, then he decided to make his own community. Forty-nine years later the club was finally staggering back to its feet after too many years of flagging in the dirt. Rider was always grateful to the old man, now long since dead, because of him he had a purpose, he belonged. Outside on the brick wall was a plaque that read;
CLUBHOUSE OF THE RENEGADE SOULS MOTORCYCLE CLUB.
Founded on October 1, 1967, by
Homer 'Hammer' Kontos and Other.
And as the club passed down from one President to the next when their time came, they each looked at it and knew he was part of a rich history of outlaws.
Rider had never taken it for granted. He loved every shitty inch of his club. It was his, and he wouldn't allow this tiny blip in their scheme to fucking mess with it.
Noise levels grew. He used the gavel at his right hand to grab the boy's' attention.
Each set of eyes turned to him.
"The woman. She's called Zara. I knew her a few years ago, for one fuckin' night, emphasis on the latter."
He didn't embellish on what he'd done to her the day after. It was useless info and he was already pissing in the wind not knowing what the fuck was going on.
And he felt oddly exposed.
He'd never even told Hawk how he'd felt about Zara.
"Far as her being at the Rebels joint, and the kid…looks like Hades' sick deal with keeping and selling woman." His jaw went like cement.
The clenched teeth jaw-tick showing how fucking pissed off he was.
Worse than that, he was angry. If he'd need
ed a fresh reason to kill that rattlesnake this was it.
As it was, he'd kill Hades for free anytime anywhere any given day.
If it wasn't tonight, then it would be soon. He'd make sure of it.
Rider met Hawk's gaze. Darkness shone through the pale color. It said everything Hawk wasn't; Are you fucking crazy, Rider? what the fuck are you doing, get rid of them both before they bring trouble to our doorstep.
Hawk would be right, he knew that. Anyone else he'd be knocking their fucking head off for even thinking to bring people in, even if it was a rescue. Club came first. The safety and wellbeing of the club came first, no exceptions.
Only, Rider was making a giant exception.
Butcher had deemed her fine, just riddled with injuries and exhaustion. Rider had grunted his reply, picking her up into his arms, all his men had watched their president stride out of the common room carrying the woman, taking her down to his private room. He'd stayed with her only a few minutes before calling an emergency meeting.
That was an hour ago.
"What about that kid? We can't have her here if the sheriff comes sniffing around."
He told them what he'd overheard Zara say, about not going back. His brothers agreed they must have been part of Hades' fresh batch of women. Only some of Zara's injuries were old, she was covered in pink scars.
He couldn't get past that first glimpse of her then and now.
Such a contrast.
What the fuck had happened to her?
"She appears to have taken a shine to Lawless. The kid is obviously crazy." Snickers traveled.
"Jed said Helen knows someone who knows someone in social services, she'll get on that soon as she gets here."
Rider agreed, she couldn't stay.
He should hand Zara over as well.
He ground his teeth. Not gonna do that.
Not until he had answers.
So many fucking why's.
