by Addison Jane
Fucking Caleb Corrigan.
His eyes continued to scan the area even as he spoke as if he was searching for something. A subtle smirk on his face told me he was full of fucking shit. “Do you have the authority to be here?”
“Do you?” I challenged, leaning back against the dusty bar.
His eyes moved right to me, lighting me up like a fucking spotlight. His features tightened in agitation. He obviously didn’t like being questioned.
“Uh… I… uh, yes,” the real estate agent finally stammered, interrupting officer fuckhead’s dark glare which was now focused on me. The agent’s hands shook as he dug around the inside of his suit jacket before pulling out some folded papers which I assumed was the listing for this building and his identification. “I w-was just showing these gentlemen around. They… uh… they are looking at purchasing.”
Caleb didn’t even bother to take the papers or check the information which told me one thing—he wasn’t there to make sure we were here legally, he was here for something else.
“Get out.” The hairs on my neck stood on end as Dakota stepped into the room, stomping straight toward the asshole. She stopped right in front of him, her eyes narrowed and her muscles clenched tightly in anger.
Meyah tried to follow, but Shake was quick to intercept her, grabbing her hand and pulling her behind him. Protecting her.
“Dakota…” Shake warned, pulling Meyah behind him at the same time trying to move forward to protect her best friend.
Without thinking, I was already moving forward ready to grab Dakota and get her the hell out of there before her mouth ran away with her.
“You need to get out,” Dakota ordered again, the sharpness in her voice should have had this asshole scared but instead, he smiled.
“How’s your head, Dakota?”
Unconsciously, she reached up to touch the back of her head, the cut that was raw and painful for her, and still gave her headaches.
It took a moment for my brain to process how exactly he would know about it. But once I did, it was like everything around me started to fade. “Fucking bastard,” I cursed loudly. The anger in me raged like a hot fire, and I didn’t even bother to try and cool it down. This motherfucker.
I stomped forward forcing Shake aside and grabbing Dakota’s hand. Then I pulled her back behind me, hoping that someone would catch her because I wasn’t done. As soon as I let her go, I closed my fist and threw my body forward, the momentum and force hitting Caleb with a heavy fucking blow to his left cheek.
“Ripley!” Dakota screamed. “Stop!”
He stumbled backward, his eyes rolling as if he might go out for the count. I launched forward again, fury burning inside me, not caring about anything else but making him fucking pay for what he did to her. I kept throwing punches, not caring that people were grasping at my arms and my body.
Dakota was bright, confident, and lively, but seeing her the other night so goddamn broken—fuck, it just about ruined me. I didn’t think it was possible to see something so fucking beautiful, become so ruined. At least, I didn’t think it was possible to see it happen… again.
I pressed my back against the wall, hoping that they wouldn’t see me.
I should have stayed in bed, I shouldn’t have come downstairs for a glass of water, but I thought that the motorcycle that woke me up from my sleep was Dad.
“Daddy, please!” Mom pleaded. “Huntsman, he bought me plane tickets, he wants me to travel, he knows how badly I need this. I just need to do something for me, then I will come home, I will—”
“Stop it, Josie! This fucking nonsense. This is not about you, this is about our family legacy within the club.” The motorcycle I heard wasn’t Dad’s, it was my granddad’s, and he was furious. “You’re not going anywhere, you are NOT going to disrespect our family and embarrass me. You are an Old Lady, your dedication is to your man, and to raise the future of the club.”
I didn’t know my mom wanted to leave.
It made me sad.
My stomach was all twisty suddenly, hearing her talk about wanting to go away. I knew she wasn’t always happy. She cried a lot. She argued a lot with my dad too. But I never thought she’d want to leave us.
“I’m dying inside,” Mom sobbed. “This is not me, this is not what I want to do with my life. It’s literally killing me. Most mornings I don’t want to get out of bed. I gave you your grandchildren, I gave you your legacy. Now, please… let me go!”
The sound of skin hitting skin resounded through the house. I gasped, then quickly slammed my hand over my mouth, hoping they didn’t hear me as I tried to find my footing and shuffle back toward the staircase. Dad always told us to be respectful to Grandad, to try and avoid him when we could because he liked to use his fists to drive his opinion home.
Another thud had my heart feeling like it had stopped, but it was quickly followed by the sound of my mom’s tears. She was crying, not just crying, she was absolutely breaking down.
“We all make sacrifices for our family, Josie,” my grandad growled in the deep and rough tone that never seemed to change. I could hear him stomping back and forth across the living room floor, his heavy riding boots probably messing up the rug. “And before you think about running, I’m telling you right now, there’s nowhere you could go where I won’t find you.”
I didn’t really understand what Grandad was saying, but I definitely knew he wasn’t saying it nicely. It didn’t matter to me whether Mom wasn’t like all the other moms around. Would I like more hugs sometimes? Of course. Maybe a story at night before bed if I was really greedy. But I loved her.
And Dad told me that love was stronger than anything else on earth. I knew that if I loved her enough, maybe I would fix the part of her that wanted to leave us.
Hearing her sniffle had my throat burning. It made me sad, and a little angry that Grandad wouldn’t just cuddle her and say he was sorry.
“You say we all make sacrifices…” She cried softly, her voice cracking. “Well, don’t be surprised if one day those sacrifices include my life. Because right now, those plane tickets were the only light I could see.”
“Ripley!” I heard Dakota scream again as my vision seemed to come back from the darkness, and light and colors seemed to filter back in.
Had I blacked out?
I could still hear screaming.
It wasn’t just Dakota.
Maybe Meyah too.
My brother yelling?
The rage had consumed me.
I wouldn’t let another woman I cared about be torn down and destroyed. My grandfather had done that to my mom. He’d forced her to marry my dad. He’d forced her to have children so he could live on with them. He was selfish, he was underhanded, and he was cruel.
If he’d let her have her way, if he’d let her just step back for a moment, maybe she would have been different. Things may not have been perfect, but if she weren’t backed into a corner, perhaps she wouldn’t have felt like she had to…
My whole body felt exhausted, but I continued to fight even as hands clawed at me trying to pull me away.
Caleb was weak, just like my grandfather. They used women to get what they wanted. Because my grandfather wasn’t important enough to leave his own legacy in the club, he forced it on his daughter to marry the future president so he could have a name for himself.
It was why Caleb had come after Dakota when he pulled that shit at the bar. Thinking that he could intimidate a woman as opposed to standing face to face with a man. I didn’t have time for men who couldn’t fucking be men. It was pathetic. And I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
Looking down at the bastard in question, he finally came back into focus as the darkness around me began to melt away. I’d done damage, his lip was bleeding, and his cheek was bright red, not to mention the few blows I’d managed to throw into his stomach. But I couldn’t fight anymore, I could feel the other officers pulling me back, one using his baton against my head and arms as they st
ruggled to pull me off their idiot leader. I finally let go, and they dragged me backward across the old wooden floors slamming my back against the nearest wall with a hard thud.
Caleb was on his feet instantly—a little wobbly—but heading toward me with his fists clenched tightly. The little scared man that was laying under me a moment ago was gone. Now, he was going to try and save face, and I knew exactly how.
He reared back.
“I don’t think so,” Drake growled, grabbing Caleb’s wrist before he could drive his knuckles through my face. Caleb looked over his shoulder at my older brother. “You lay a finger on him, and I swear I will make your life a living hell. At least, what’s left of it.”
Caleb yanked his arm from Drake’s grasp and stumbled backward. Two other officers rushed in wrenching my hands behind my back and encasing my wrists in a pair of metal handcuffs. Something I wasn’t completely foreign to, but that I swore a long time ago I’d never let happen again.
They dragged me to my feet shoving me toward the front doors.
Just before I stepped out into the sunlight, a small body ran directly into me, knocking some of the air from my lungs. Her arms curled around my waist as I blinked through the sunlight, her face finally coming into focus. She was looking up at me, tears streaking her cheeks. “Why did you have to be so stupid?” she snapped, pounding her fist on my chest.
I gritted my teeth, annoyed that I couldn’t touch her with my hands clasped behind me. “Because he hurt you. So, I hurt him. An eye for a fucking eye.”
Because no one touches something that belongs to me.
I couldn’t say it. Everyone would think I was crazy. Maybe I fucking was.
But as far as I was concerned, that’s exactly what she was.
Fucking, mine.
And no matter what the price was for protecting her—I’d pay it.
DAKOTA
“I need to speak with Caleb Corrigan,” I growled, pressing my palms against the large desk in front of me and leaning forward. The office lady, a little gray-haired woman who looked like she’d seen ten decades too many, looked up at me in confusion as if I was speaking some other language. “Caleb Corrigan. Now.”
I didn’t like to be rude to the old lady, my parents had raised me better than that. They had raised me to respect my elders. But they also raised me to stand up for what I believed in, no matter the fuck what.
She shook her head, slowly back and forth. “I’m sorry, I ca—”
“It’s okay, Meredith. She can come through.”
The sound of Caleb’s voice instantly had my blood pumping a little faster in anger, my heart feeling like it was struggling to keep up and that it could stop any moment.
“Are you coming, Dakota?” he asked when I hadn’t moved from the spot I was standing. I knew this was a bad idea. And I knew if I didn’t hurry up and do something, that there may be no coming back from this. Rip was sitting in a dirty cell out the back somewhere, and he was only there because I couldn’t keep my damn mouth shut.
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
He nodded and turned away, stomping off through a sea of busy desks and a symphony of voices. The police station was so busy that no one took notice of me, the young girl who was about to step into a room alone with a police officer who had some kind of vengeance out on me.
No witnesses.
No record of me being there apart from old Meredith out the front.
Because that was a good idea, right?
He held open the door to a small office. It looked similar to what I would assume an interrogation room would look, a table, a couple chairs, but minus the glass window. It was old, musty, and had one tiny barred window at the top of one of the walls.
I took a seat in one of the hard chairs, and Caleb happily sat down opposite, clearly unable to keep the smirk off his face despite the way Ripley had attempted to rearrange it. There was a cut in the corner of his mouth and his cheekbone on the opposite site was enlarged and red.
My guess was that it hurt to smile. But Caleb was dead inside, so I guess that assumption was void.
“What do I have to do to get you to let Ripley go?”
His smile dropped if only for a brief second. That hadn’t been the question he thought I was going to ask, but he was pleased nonetheless. “You want me to let Ripley go after he assaulted me? After he came at me and tried to kil—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t be a drama queen.”
His mask dropped for a brief second, and his fingers that were casually clasped on the table twitched. Caleb didn’t like to be questioned or insulted. I’d learned that the first night we came head to head. Just another bit of proof where he thought he was too good to have people not blindly follow.
He clicked his tongue and leaned back in the chair. “Dakota, Dakota… you’re not doing a very good job of begging.”
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t beg.”
Caleb leaned forward, his eyes dancing in amusement. “Now’s a good time to start because if you want your precious little boyfriend out of the cells, I’m gonna have to pull some strings, and it’s going to be hard work to get him out without a charge.”
At this stage, my body was shaking in a mixture of anger and fear, but I was trying to disguise it so Caleb wouldn’t realize that I was weak. The instant he saw me and anything other than some quick-witted spitfire, he was going to eat me alive.
“Just tell me what you want,” I demanded.
His grin grew wider and wider like some kind of fucking cartoon villain. He leaned back in his hard metal chair and hooked his hands behind his head like he was at the beach on fucking holiday, not in some dark, dingy room about to try and destroy me. “I want you to be my person on the inside.”
My mouth fell open and before I could even form the words, I was shaking my head.
He held up a finger, attempting to shush me. “Now, now, Dakota… I want you to think about this carefully,” he tried to calm me, his voice almost becoming soft and warm. This was the voice he used on people when he wanted something and intimidation didn’t work. This was his ‘I’m your friend, and I’m trying to help you’ voice.
“Think about this?” I asked in awe, still unable to close my mouth despite the imminent threat. “You want me to be a fucking snitch. No, you want me to be your fucking snitch.”
He chuckled softly, the warm friendly voice melting away again.
I swear to God, this asshole had some kind of mental disorder of his own. There were times you felt like you were literally in the room with the Devil—the way he smirked and sneered and laughed at your destruction. And other times, it was like he’d suddenly become your best friend, and he was there for you, where he’d want to support you and help you through.
“You cou—”
“No,” I argued, slamming my palm on the table. “That’s a hell no. That’s a fuck no. That’s an I-hope-you-go-to-hell-and-Satan-shoves-pineapples-up-your-ass-for-eternity fucking no.”
With each word, his face grew a little redder, and he sat a little straighter. He wasn’t so sure of himself now. He was letting himself become agitated, and I was getting the best of him. At least, I thought I was. “I didn’t want to do this to you, Dakota,” he murmured, shaking his head. He lifted his body just slightly and reached into his back pocket. My fingernails dug through my jeans, stabbing my legs so I would concentrate more on that pain than whatever it was that he was going to do or say to me because I’d practically covered all my…
He slid a picture across the table.
A picture of my brother.
Holding my niece.
His arm wrapped around his girlfriend, Amelia.
They were all smiling brightly.
Like they had no idea that this photo was one day going to be used to hurt them.
And me? To torture me. To try to make me do something I never imagined I would ever do.
Tears slipped down my cheeks, and even though I tried to look up and into Caleb’s eye
s with strength, I couldn’t stop my voice from cracking and sniffling. “What do you want?”
This time, the question was different. I wasn’t asking what he wanted from me in order to get Ripley out of this. I was asking what information that he wanted—what he needed for me to do this and get it fucking over with.
“I’ll give you Ripley,” Caleb bargained, pushing his hair back from his forehead before clasping his hands together on the table, obviously feeling like he was once again in control. “I’ll make all this shit go away. I’ll lose the report that says he attacked me, and he won’t be put away for a felony assault on an officer.”
I cringed.
I knew the punishments for these kinds of crimes.
A misdemeanor assault on an officer was looking at less than a year—something I knew Ripley would do in a second if he knew what Caleb was trying to use against me.
But if Caleb tried to push this as a felony, he was looking at ten years plus.
I wouldn’t let that happen.
“And in exchange?”
“This is the fun part, the part where you may have to get a little creative,” Caleb explained excitedly, practically bouncing in his seat. “I want the Brothers by Blood MC the hell out of my city. Whether that means I drive them out, or I put their asses in prison, I don’t care. I give you Ripley, you give me probable cause.”
I frowned. “And what if there’s nothing to find? Those boys know their shit. They are squeaky clean.”
Caleb snorted and rolled his eyes. “Do you understand the meaning of being creative? If you can’t find something, create something. Make something up. Fake something. Stash something. You’re a beautiful girl, Dakota.” He leaned across the desk, his hand reaching out to me. Just as his fingers skimmed my jaw, I shoved both my hands straight into his chest while at the same time flying to my feet.
He managed to catch his balance before his chair toppled backward with the force, the amused look on his face quickly transforming like a hurricane ready to tear me to shreds.
