by Megan Crane
Kaylee pushed her long brown hair back from her face, her cheeks looking flushed.
“He’s only sort of here because of me,” she said. She blew out a breath, and then the words poured out of her. She didn’t sound indignant any longer. She sounded scared. “He’s with my mother. And she’s here, too. And that’s the problem.”
Her mother. Lara flashed back to that night in her apartment and the way Chaser had told her about the years he’d searched for Kaylee, his voice rough and low like if it hadn’t been so dark in her bedroom he wouldn’t have told her a thing. As if the darkness had made it more palatable, somehow. A wound nothing could heal, not even time. If Destiny really was back, Lara liked this whole situation even less than she had two minutes ago.
“My understanding is that your mother had a few problems,” Lara said as diplomatically as she could. “But your father told me that you and he both know how lucky you are to be living with him now.”
“But that’s all his story!” Kaylee cried out. “No one understands that Mom was scared. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t mean to get hooked on that stuff. And once she was, it wasn’t like anyone helped her. Certainly not my dad. That’s what he does. You fall in love with him, and he leaves you the minute something better comes along, and if you’re broken in any way, forget it. He’ll be the first to throw you out. Like trash.”
Her voice rose during that flood, taking on a different cadence than her usual speech. It set off a kind of alarm inside of Lara. It occurred to her that she’d heard this sort of thing before, in one form or another. It sounded like every list of excuses every addict she’d ever known had trotted out. And god knew she knew addicts. There were two things to do in the dusty desert town where she’d grown up. One was the club. The other was meth.
“Did your mother tell you all that, Kaylee?” she asked gently. “I’m sure that from her perspective, that’s true. But the story I heard was that your dad spent years trying to find you, and when he did, he brought you home. And kept you.”
The girl’s eyes filled up then, though the tears didn’t spill over.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “I don’t know why she came back here, but she did. And she’s…” She shook her head, pressing her lips together as she did. “She’s my mother.”
“I understand,” Lara said. She saw the look Kaylee shot at her and let out a small, hollow sort of laugh. “I do. My mother abandoned my brother and me when we were kids and left us with my uncle who…was not a nice man.” She shrugged. “She has a nice, tidy little life now, and even some nice, tidy little stepkids to go along with it. I think maybe she feels guilty for what she did, but if she does, it’s buried way down deep. It’s a lot easier to stay away.” But she could see the way Kaylee was hanging on her words even as she picked at the nail of one thumb, and she remembered the commitment she’d made in the shower earlier. To get her head out of the sand. To tell the truth. “Maybe it’s not easier. But it hurts a lot less.”
“It was easier when she was just…out there somewhere,” Kaylee whispered. “It was better when I could imagine her the way I wanted. Because now she’s here and she brought her boyfriend with her and he’s kind of gross.” She shrugged, her eyes puffy and troubled. “But none of that matters. It’s my dad. He finds people. He’s going to find my mother’s boyfriend and when he does, he’ll find her, too. And he’ll kill her.”
Lara wasn’t sure she breathed. She only held Kaylee’s stark, unwavering gaze and did her best not to react. Not to recoil or talk over her, but to listen.
God, it was so hard to listen.
“He promised he would,” the girl continued in the same heartbreakingly matter-of-fact way. “And that’s what he does. He keeps his promises.”
Lara knew better than to get in the middle of this. It was none of her business on every possible level—but here she was, her butt cheeks going numb from crouching there on the edge of a bathtub, so far across every conceivable line of decency and professionalism and her own personal boundaries that there was no point even bothering to measure the distance. Chaser would do what he would do. If there was a member of the Black Dogs wandering around Lagrange that made it DKMC business, no matter if it was related to a personal situation—something the Black Dog brother should know himself and accept. That was the life. This was Devil’s Keepers territory. There was nothing Lara could do to stop biker justice.
She knew better than to try.
But she reached out and pulled the teenager’s hands into hers and gripped her tight. She held Kaylee’s gaze. And then she opened her mouth and threw herself straight into the fire, as if she knew nothing at all.
“No,” she said, as if she was making a vow she’d defend with her life. “Your father is not going to kill your mother. I know he said he would. But I won’t let him.”
Chapter 12
Chaser wasn’t psyched when Pony called to tell him there was a situation back at his house. He upgraded that reaction to fucking pissed when he found out what it was. And he didn’t really have words to describe the storm of temper in him when he and Uptown hauled ass back to his house—leaving Greeley, Butler, and Tick out there kicking over nests of losers in search of a Black Dog cut where there shouldn’t have been any Black Dogs for a hundred miles—to find Lara standing out at the end of his driveway in the middle of the night where anyone could see her, arms crossed and that snotty teacher look on her face.
“Are you insane?” he threw at her when he got off his bike. He stalked toward her, watching the way she braced herself at his approach and jerked up that belligerent chin of hers, the little pain in his ass. If she was as intimidated by him bearing down on her as she should have been, that was all she showed of it. “What part of stay in the house did you think meant you should hang out in the street, begging to take a bullet or make yourself bait for a goddamned trap?”
“I’m sorry about this, man,” Pony said from his position behind her, his arms crossed over his chest like he was forcibly keeping his hands to himself. He looked irritated and apologetic at once, and the dark gaze he leveled at Lara was not exactly friendly. “There was no way to keep her inside without tackling her to the ground and I didn’t think you’d appreciate it if I went that way.”
Chaser couldn’t blame him for that, much as he’d like to. Pony was right. If the prospect had tackled Lara to the ground—if he’d put his hands on her at all—Chaser would have kicked his ass, no question. This way, he was wholly focused on whether or not—and how—to kick hers.
“You made the right call,” he gritted out. Then he took his time glaring at Lara, trying to get himself back under control while he did it.
She, of course, merely returned that glare, haughty and defiant, as if she could do it all night long.
Uptown only sat on his bike with the engine off and his elbows propped up on the handlebars, watching the situation unfold. Chaser opted not to try to figure out what the hell expression that was on his face. It looked a little too much like a satisfied smirk, which he could admit he probably had coming, since he’d given his brother a truckload or two of shit when Uptown had hooked up with his woman.
Turnaround might be fair play, but it fucking sucked.
“You can all keep talking to each other or you can talk to me, the person who actually has something to say, which is why I’m standing out here in the first place,” Lara said loftily. Of course she did. Of course she had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Chaser didn’t know why he was surprised. “I’m not an idiot. If I didn’t follow your orders, you can assume it’s because I have a reason.”
“I don’t care what reason you think you have,” he told her with a quiet menace that was known to terrify grown men, turning them into whiny little bitches who practically peed themselves at the sight of him. “You can get your ass back in the house or I’ll put it there myself. And I have no qualms whatsoever about locking you in a closet.”
She didn’t fall a
part. She trembled a little, and he felt like a dick, but he needed Lara safe. He’d stopped asking himself why. It was simply how things were. Even if he had to scare her into obeying him, if it would keep her safe, he’d do it.
He realized, standing there looking at her, that he’d do anything. Anything at all for this tiny, scrappy female. And more, he was okay with that.
“I know where you can find the man you’re looking for,” Lara said very distinctly.
For a moment Chaser thought he couldn’t possibly have heard her right. It was too crazy. It was impossible. Uptown came to attention on his bike, the smirk disappearing from his face. Pony got very, very still behind her. And Chaser felt a sickening tension wind through him, making every muscle in his body clench tight.
“What did you just say to me?” he asked, and he didn’t sound like himself. He thought he barely sounded human.
“I know where he is,” Lara said calmly—but he could see the way her pulse beat in her neck, too fast and too wild.
He knew she was more freaked out than she was letting on. More scared. And maybe that was the reason he tamped down his own temper when any other time he would have let it fly and not cared where it landed or who it hurt. He could do a lot of bad shit without blinking. He often enjoyed it, in fact. But he wasn’t going to hurt Lara. He wasn’t going to scare her—too badly, anyway. Not when he could avoid it.
She was still talking. “I can take you to him. But you have to let me come with you, because I also know what else you’re going to find there.”
Chaser wasn’t sure he could speak. He couldn’t put the pieces together in his head, because each and every one of them was sharp and jagged and slicing at him. He wanted to put his hands on her but he was very much afraid that it would be a bad idea. That he’d end up doing something he couldn’t take back, that was how crazy she made him feel.
For the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure he could control himself.
And the fact that this woman could make him feel like the kind of monster his father had been made him want to break things. But he didn’t, because that would be proving that he was, in fact, no better than Harry Frey after all. After all this time. After everything Chaser had done to make sure that could never, ever happen—
Calm down, asshole, he snapped at himself then. His father hadn’t stood around worried about the monster that lived inside of him. Harry Frey hadn’t spent a single second worrying about losing his shit. He’d laughed merrily while he’d beaten them all down, because he really was that monster and the smiling pharmacist was the mask.
One thing Chaser was sure of was that he didn’t wear any mask. Another was that he was nothing like his goddamned father.
“Are you the reason a Black Dog fuck is in my town, Lara?” he asked softly, his blood hot and hard as it surged in him, looking for trouble. But he held himself in check. “Is this a setup? Your uncle trying to play with the big boys and bringing some friends along when he gets an invite?”
Lara’s chin shot up higher and her eyes flashed. “No. Of course not.”
“I can imagine the kind of welcoming present that douchebag and his buddies might have waiting for us,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “What gave you second thoughts on letting me walk blindly into the party? Are you that obsessed with my cock?”
“I’m less fond of it by the second,” Lara shot back at him.
And Chaser wasn’t going to hurt this woman. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t fucking pissed at her. And if she’d betrayed him? Well. There were a lot of ways to make a person pay off a debt without hurting them. Too badly, anyway. And he’d always been creative.
But whatever happened, whatever she’d done, he wasn’t letting her go. Maybe because she couldn’t possibly know how safe she really was with him, or how scared she should have been, and yet there she was, perfectly happy to get up in his face when anyone else would have cowered. Cried. Cried out for Jesus and prayed for deliverance. The usual.
Lara, meanwhile, just scowled at him. In irritation. “It’s not an ambush, you asshole. Not like that. It’s your ex.”
Chaser only stared at her, those words making even less sense than the rest.
“Kaylee’s mother,” Lara continued fiercely. “Your daughter is practically sick with terror because she somehow has this idea in her head that the minute you lay eyes on her mother you’re going to execute her.”
He tilted his head slightly. Very slightly to one side while the rage in him hit the red zone. “You mean the junkie whore who kidnapped her when she was a baby?”
“I mean her mother,” Lara snapped back at him like she’d never seen a red zone in her life and wouldn’t much care if she had. “My mother sucks on an epic scale but I still wouldn’t like it if someone killed her. I especially wouldn’t like it if the person doing the killing was someone I loved.”
There were too many things whirling around in Chaser’s head then, all tinged with that same red-hot fury. He scowled up at his house as the main part hit home. Kaylee knew that Destiny was here. She must have known for a while. It explained all her recent bullshit, in fact—but she hadn’t told him. He’d been rousting meth heads out of their depressing trailers tonight, way out in the swamp, looking for an enemy in all the places a random biker in the wrong territory might hide.
He’d had no idea that it was Destiny’s loser boyfriend he was looking for, not just some Black Dog on a kamikaze mission into Devils territory.
That was why Kaylee had seemed so off earlier, he realized then. She’d known.
He started for the house, because he had a couple of words for the daughter who should know better than to keep this kind of serious shit from him, but he hadn’t taken two steps before Lara flung herself in front of him. With her whole body, slight as it was. It should have been funny. She was such a tiny little thing, with no hope of stopping him if he didn’t feel like stopping, though that didn’t seem to occur to her. She had to tilt her head way back to try to get in his face from all the way down there, and then she made up for that when she slapped her hands on his chest.
Well. His lower chest. Really more his upper abs.
“Get your hands off me and get out of my way,” he growled at her. But she’d gotten what she wanted, hadn’t she? He’d stopped.
“No.”
“I’m not fucking around, Lara.”
“Neither am I.” She pushed against him as if she could shove him back. Of course she couldn’t, but she had to know that. It was the fact she’d even tried something so obviously pointless that penetrated the red haze in his head. “Kaylee is scared and confused. Her mother has had who knows how much time with her and she’s filled her head with a whole lot of excuses for what she did all those years ago. Which of course she wants to believe, because who wants to accept that their mother abandoned them? You storming in there and ripping Kaylee’s head off only confirms everything her mother told her.”
“Destiny is a lying sack of shit,” he snarled.
“I believe you,” Lara said, her voice intense and her gaze glued to his. “But it doesn’t matter what I believe. It matters what Kaylee believes.”
“She’ll believe what I tell her to believe.”
“No, she won’t,” Lara said, and her voice caught a little. Her brow wrinkled as she looked up at him, her hands still on him like she thought she could hold him at bay. Or as if she would try. “Baby, she won’t. She’s sixteen. She’s all but grown. And that woman is in her head, telling her stories, making sure that you come out as the bad guy in every single one of them.”
And he didn’t know if it was the reason in what she said that penetrated, or if it was the fact she called him “baby,” which he shouldn’t like at all, especially in front of his brothers. But he stopped pushing that slight little bit against her hands and saw a cautious sort of relief wash over her when she felt him do it. When she felt him give.
“She’s confused because she loves you,” Lara said in that
same scratchy way, as if all of this was getting to her. Making her emotional, when it had nothing to do with her. That hit him a little too hard in the gut. “But her mother has her thinking you’re some kind of monster. You don’t need to play right into that.”
And there were so many things happening here. There was the reality of Destiny and her asshole Black Dog boyfriend polluting his town and his kid’s life, for god knows how long, while he’d had no clue. There was the fact that somehow, Kaylee had trusted Lara with this information when she hadn’t trusted him. And there was what Lara had done with the news, which was march right out and take him on, defending his own kid and him in the same breath, like she thought they were all some kind of team.
He didn’t know how it had happened. It wasn’t anything he’d ever thought he wanted. But he felt a kind of ferocious pride well up in him then, making his heart hit at him and his throat feel tight. And only the fact that his brothers were standing right there kept him from handling that feeling the best way he knew how, because it didn’t require any talking, unless the talking was to make it all that much dirtier. And better.
But that could wait.
“What I need,” he told her tersely, but a whole lot more calmly, “is for you to tell me where that degenerate bitch is. Now.”
“I’ll tell you.” Lara dropped her hands from his belly but kept watching him intently. “But you have to take me with you. Because, Chaser, I really, really, really want you to be able to come back here, look your daughter in the eye, and tell her you absolutely did not hurt her mother. And I want to be able to promise her that you are telling her the truth.”
And the funny thing was, even though he would have locked her up five minutes ago without a qualm, everything was different now. Lara was looking out for him and his kid—which was why that swipe at his honesty was forgivable. And his chest was so tight he would have thought he was halfway to a heart attack if he didn’t know better.
