by J Bree
I think about heading to the kitchen for food so I don’t have to leave her again any time soon but I can’t. I can’t walk outta here without her right now because the hesitancy in her voice just tore me to fucking shreds.
Instead, I take a half second to clean up the piles of my shit everywhere. There’s guns and knives left out over every surface and my desk is a mess of computer parts and security cameras I’ve been fucking around with. She hasn’t touched any of that shit at all since I’ve been gone but the piles of clothes are gone and my wardrobe is neatly organized like she’s been fixing shit in all her spare time. I know her schedule, I know she hasn’t got any real spare fucking time, she’s done it because she fucking cares about me even though I’ve been fucking nothing but an asshole to her.
I still feel fucking… on edge.
I don’t know what it is, whether Angel is going to walk out of that shower and finally tell me her story or if the building is about to be bombed but the jittery feeling in my gut has never been wrong.
Whatever it is, I need to lock Angel down hard.
The water finally cuts off and I wait about thirty seconds before I try the bathroom door.
It’s locked.
“Angel, what’s going on in there?”
Her voice is soft through the door but I hear her well enough. “Can I… have one of your shirts? I’ve been sleeping in them and… I mean, it’s fine—“
“Open the door, sweetness. Let me get you in bed.”
She shuffles around in the bathroom for a second and then she opens the door, standing there in one of my towels and looking like she’s been beaten within an inch of her life.
All of the air leaves the fucking room.
She fidgets a little and looks like she’s going to fucking cry. “Sorry. I should have grabbed something before I went in there but… I want one that smells like you. Fuck, I’m sorry.”
I swear to fucking God, if she says sorry to me again I’m going to lose my fucking mind.
But first, “I’m going to hunt down whoever the fuck did this to you and I’m going to kill him in the worst fucking way.”
Her lip trembles and a little giggle bursts outta her, one with a hysterical edge to it. “They’re dead. They’re already dead and I’m probably never going to sleep again without hearing them… die.”
Well then.
Maybe the drug dealer ain’t so fucking bad.
Except now we have a whole new set of fucking nightmares to contend with. “Here’s my shirt, sweetness, let’s get you comfortable.”
I tug a clean shirt over her head gently and try not to look at the mess her ribs are in. There’s gotta be some breaks in there, it must be fucking killing her to breathe.
I’m back to wanting to kill the drug dealer, I needed those deaths myself because where the fuck am I gonna put this rage now that’s pumping through my fucking veins?
My phone buzzes as I help her between my sheets, the little gasps coming out of her make me wanna fucking die. There’s a text from King, church is starting and my ass has to be there.
Non-negotiable.
I take a deep breath and I try to force some fucking gentle tones out of myself. “I’ve gotta get to church and deal with some club shit. I’m gonna grab Cole to be on the door to keep an eye out for you, we’ll keep it locked but I trust him. Just lay down and rest until I get back. Then we can… talk about what the hell happened.”
She bites her lip, looking like she’s gonna fucking cry again.
I can’t handle that shit. “Angel, what the hell is wrong? What do you need?”
She swallows and when she speaks her voice is thready. “I need my bag. It’s in my locker back at The Boulevard. I just realized it’s still there and… I really need it.”
My eyes narrow at her. “Why? What’s in there that’s so fucking important?”
She swallows again. “My money.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “Angel, it’ll be fine there overnight. If anything fucking happens to it, I’ll sort it out. Just lay down and rest.”
She wraps her arms around herself and whispers, “There’s almost two hundred thousand in the bag. I need it here, with me.”
She very suddenly has my full fucking attention. She’s a fucking pro at getting it. “What the fuck did you just say? You have two hundred g’s in that busted ass fucking bag?”
She nods.
Well fuck me.
I stare down at her and try to find my fucking brain but… why the fuck does she have all that fucking money on her?
There’s a thump at the door. “Church! King said hurry your ass up!”
I stand up and try to sound calm and not at all threatening when I say, “I’ll get one of the boys to go get it for you now. I’ll be back as soon as I can, Angel, and then we’re talking about it. We’re talking about everything, you hear?”
She nods again, the tears still brimming in her eyes and I duck down to kiss her before I go. It’s barely a kiss thanks to her busted lip but she manages a smile when I straighten up.
Two. Hundred. Fucking. Grand.
Sitting in a shitty bag inside a locker at The Boulevard, fuck me. Fuck me, this girl just keeps throwing me fucking curve balls and I have no fucking clue what to make of it.
I text Cole to get him moving for the money and then when I get outside of my room I find Axe already waiting.
He looks even fucking worse than Angel.
“Man, is she okay?”
I nod and gently clap him on the shoulder. “She’s alive. I’m gonna need to hear exactly what went down but it can wait. Has Keely got a look at you yet?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll live, I’m more fucking worried about her. She’s a fucking good woman, Tomi, you need to hold onto her. She just—she saw what the hell was happening and she just stood the hell up. I’ve seen grown fucking men with less backbone.”
Fuck.
I clap him on the shoulder again and leave him there to watch the door until Cole gets back with the fucking bag.
Two hundred grand.
When I get to the chapel I’m the last Callaghan there, but it’s only my blood and, fuck, Thorn waiting for me to arrive. Speck’s sitting with Rue looking like death warmed up but he’s alive so I’ll count it as a fucking win.
King is looking fucking thunderous but he jerks his head at the door, signalling me to shut it as I walk in. “What do you need to tell us?”
Thorn runs a hand down his face and grunts like he’s in pain. “I’m not here in an official capacity.”
King shrugs, he’d obviously guessed as much but Thorn looks like he’s getting ready to fall on his own sword and this week has been a fucking clusterfuck so I don’t blame him.
“Look… I still can’t tell you jack fucking shit about Posey and the rest of her family. But I can tell you that getting them involved… fuck, it was a bad move. They’re looking into shit.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve just had half the fucking Chaos Demons roll into our town so my guess is they’re already looking into our shit,” Hawk snaps, and Rue frowns. This’ll be killing him, he can’t take people questioning Posey. It gets him all twitchy and trigger happy.
Thorn shakes his head. “I don’t share custody with that cunt Grimm. I’m not telling you who I do share her with but lemme just say that they’ve killed a lot of people to keep Grimm away from her. They take out any threats that show up on her doorstep. And this… wasn’t a good fucking idea.”
Rue manages to keep his cool but fuck knows how. “We didn’t involve them. Poe called her sister, not us. Fuck, how exactly are we calling some bitch we don’t know?”
Thorn’s lip curls but I cut in because I don’t want to sit around here fucking gossiping when I could be with Angel. “What’s done is done. Is there any new intel or are you just here to fucking run your mouth about what went down?”
Thorn glares at me and then slides a folder over to King. “Yeah, I have a whole list of fucking sins against the
club and against you, Tomi, thanks to that stripper that was taken.”
I fucking knew it.
I fucking knew she’d be poison and yet hearing that from him makes me wanna fucking scream.
I ignore the stabbing feeling in my chest.
King starts flipping through the papers and groans. “Fuck me, Tomi. You need to go wipe the security cams and all the records with her on them. Any association the club has had with her needs to be destroyed, and it needs to be fucking now.”
Rue scowls at them both and Speck looks like he’s going to pass the hell out but I lock my shit down tight. “Easy, it’ll be done in under an hour. Is she a fucking Serpent? Or a Demon?”
He pegs me with a glare. “Neither. She’s a fucking kid. A runaway from a shitty home situation. We’ve had an underage runaway taking her clothes off and shaking her titties in our fucking club.”
Fuck.
My stomach drops to the floor and, fuck me, I think I might be the one to pass out. “She showed ID to the girls at the club.”
Thorn scoffs. “It was fake. She only turned eighteen last week. She’s barely older than Poe and she’s been sleeping on the streets, stripping to feed herself, and saving her tips to try to have enough money to put a roof over her head someday. I got a phone call from Poe’s sister about her… personally. She picked up the phone and called me. That never fucking happens and it’s bad fucking news for the club that she did. I don’t care what the hell it takes, the club needs to fix this.”
It just gets worse and worse the more he talks.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Angel
It hurts to breathe.
It hurts to lie there doing nothing, it hurts to sit up and drink some water that Tomi left behind for me, it hurts when Cole arrives back with my bag and I have to get up to grab it from him. I try to avoid his eye but Axe is sitting there outside the door on watch looking like he’s had the shit beaten out of him too.
He gives me a nod and doesn’t move, his gun in his hand like he’s waiting for another Demon to show up so he can have a do-over.
I feel so fucking guilty but I’m clean, I’m safe, and I’m in Tomi’s bed again.
I manage to relax for about a minute before my phone rings. I frown down at The Boulevard’s number on the screen before picking it up.
It’s Diamond, the smugness fucking radiating down the line. “I just unlocked your locker for Cole, I hope that’s everything of yours because you’re fired.”
I swallow. “I was quitting anyway so no skin off my nose. Thanks for the courtesy call.”
She scoffs at me. “You better pray you don’t run into Tomi.”
My breath catches in my throat and I sit up in his bed as my eyes land on the door. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Her laughter is like shards of glass down the line. “An underage whore shaking her titties in his club? Sucking him off in full view of the security cameras? Shit, he’s ready to kill you with his bare hands. Cops catch wind of that with how bad they’re gunning for the MC? You’d better stay the fuck away from the club and the rest of the MC-owned businesses if you wanna make it out of this alive because they’re out for blood.”
I hang up before she can say another thing to me, panic climbing up my throat.
I think my heart is fucking breaking in my chest and this, this feeling is the reason I didn’t want to let anyone too close because I haven’t felt pain like this since Paul.
The good news is the beating I just took must have knocked some sense into me because I definitely don’t want to die anymore. I think dying at Tomi’s hands… fuck, my soul would never find rest that way. I’d always be tortured knowing he was the one to do it.
I need to leave.
Every inch of my body hurts but I get off of the bed and rummage around in my bag until I find my phone and I dial Poe’s number.
“Hey! I was just about to come fight Cole until he let me in to see you!”
My voice is all sorts of fucked up. “Poe, I’m in danger. I need to leave right now, can you just like… make sure Tomi doesn’t make it back to his room for the next five minutes?”
She gasps a little. “What danger? I’ll call my sister, hell or my brother again. What’s happened?”
“It’s—no, it’s fine. I just need to get a hotel for the night. Tomi’s… the club isn’t going to be happy with me. They know… they know I lied about… something and—Poe, I have to get out of this place before they kill me.”
She starts moving, the sounds of her shuffling around loud down the other end of the line. “Okay, we need to talk about this like now but I’ll distract him if you promise not to disappear. Where are you going?”
I swallow. “I’ll get a room for the night, in the next town over. I’ll call you once I’m there and we can talk about it. Please just do this, Poe. Please.”
I sound fucking desperate even to my own ears and she agrees, thank God. My ribs are screaming when I have to bend to pull some tights up my legs and the weight of my bag across my shoulders is like torture, pure fucking torture.
Thank fuck for the side door, thank fuck my truck is parked up close and no one even notices me creep over to it.
I get the Chevy started and out of the parking lot in no time at all, the weird noise gone completely thanks to Poe and I make it out of the suburbs and onto the highway before the tears start but they come in so fucking strong that I have to pull over, the sobs wracking my body like someone fucking died.
Oh.
Right.
The future I thought I might actually get to have just died.
The future I never let myself even hope for until Tomi stomped into my life and rearranged shit. All I ever wanted before was a quiet life, one where I lived alone and had friends but never let anyone close to me. I wanted a roof over my head that no one could take from me, a job, a boring life but now that just feels fucking… empty.
He’s fucking ruined it.
I drive for hours until I’m calm enough to stop at a hotel. I find one that looks safe and clean, very aware of the exact amount of money I’m now carrying and I can’t afford to sleep in my car right now.
I need some help.
I get set up there before I call Poe and tell her the whole story. I mean, not everything, but I tell her why I ran and then I swallow my pride and I ask for some goddamn help.
“Do you know anything about laundering money and offshore accounts?”
She hums down the line. “You met Lips right? Aves can do that shit easier than breathing, lemme get ahold of her. What are you gonna do with the money? If you need someplace to go I’ll call Lips back to get you.”
I clear my throat to shift some of the emotions choking me. “No, it’s—I’ve found a house in Coldstone. It’s a foreclosure on a good street, it’s where I want to live. I think… I think as long as the MC doesn’t know I live there, it’ll be okay.”
Poe grumbles under her breath. “The MC are fucking outlaws, they’re not gonna be fucking worried about you stripping a little younger than the law. I mean… they probably care but not like you’re thinking.”
Oh, the sunshine beam of a girl is back. I have to remind myself that she’s not as innocent as she seems. “I need to think about myself right now, Poe. I need to cover my own ass so I don’t get myself killed. I want to live in Coldstone because… I mean, it’s the first place that’s felt like home. The house isn’t anywhere near the usual Unseen haunts, I should be… safe there.”
She mumbles unhappily at me but promises to call her sister for me. I promise to call her in the morning, feigning being tired to get off of the line.
Instead, I crawl into the shower and cry some more.
I cry until there’s nothing left inside me left to cry out. I’m exhausted when I finally climb back out, my ribs screaming and my face is pulsing in pain. I just wanna take some drugs and pass the fuck out.
My phone pings.
Open the door and hand the cash to
the man there. I’ll sort everything out for you, Angel.
Right. The Wolf of Mounts Bay has my phone number.
I try not to panic but I stash all of my clothes and other belongings into some trash bags and then I just take a couple of hundred dollar bills out to use… until the money is laundered.
When I open the door the man standing there waiting patiently is freaking huge and definitely part of the MC.
I stumble over my words.“The Wolf sent you?”
He grins and tucks his hip against the door but it’s not in a threatening way. More… flirty. Oh lord, why does this always happen to me?
“Yeah, she did. We were in town anyway, for club shit. The name’s Roxas. And what’s yours, gorgeous?”
I frown at him. “The Wolf didn’t tell you?”
He huffs out a chuckle. “Yeah, she sure did Angel. I’m just trying to make conversation. If you’re not into it I’ll just take the goods and head off. Are you safe here? If there’s something else you need, tell me and it’s done. The Wolf was crystal fucking clear about how important your safety is to her and I like that kid enough to play along.”
My heart sort of spasms in my chest.
She really does love her sister.
“I’m perfectly safe. Here’s the… uh, bag.”
He grins and gives me a little salute on the way out, jogging down the stairs to where his motorcycle is waiting. There’s another guy there as well, even freaking bigger, but he keeps his head down and I duck back into the hotel room before he can see me, just in case.
I’m too tired to feel… anything about not having my money anymore, so I fall into the bed and pass out.
The bank card arrives by a courier the next morning, right to my hotel door.
It has my real name on it and when I take it to an ATM I find all of my money just sitting there, waiting for me to use it. Laundered and fucking available.
Holy.
Shit.
I read the note that came with it three times, my hands shaking just a little.
I’ve put an offer in on the house you want on your behalf, requesting an immediate settlement. Call me if you need anything else.
