“You can’t be here, Elijah. You have to go,” she said, looking beyond me, her eyes darting up and down the street.
“I’m going to find him, Michelle. Liam and I have unfinished business. I’m asking you to leave it to us and not get involved.”
“I am involved! How can I not be? You hate him because of what he did to you because of what happened with us.”
“You know what I’m asking. Don’t interfere. If shit goes down and you’re around, just leave and don’t look back.”
She shook her head. “Please, don’t do this. He’s my brother.”
“I’m not doing anything, and he’s never been your brother. He’s been your captor, maybe even your pimp,” I snarled, immediately regretting the words.
She looked as if she had been slapped. I waited for her to tell me I was wrong. When she didn’t, I felt as if I had been kicked in the gut.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You’re wrong,” she said, not looking me in the eye.
I thought about her son, wondering if he was a product of one the Liam hookups, and I knew that was what was happening. I knew the life and I knew Liam. He wouldn’t hesitate to secure an alliance by giving her away.
She stepped out the front door, pushing her hand against my chest, making me back up a step. “You have to go. I can’t have him find you here. He can’t know you’re in town. I’m asking you to leave. Do it for me. If you ever felt anything for me, go home. Go back to wherever it is you’ve been.”
I looked into her eyes and saw that same fear. I was about sick of seeing those beautiful, warm brown eyes constantly marred by fear. I wanted to bring back her smile.
“Michelle, you know I have to do this.”
She pulled the door shut behind her. “You can’t bring this to my doorstep. Please, Elijah.”
“Does he know I’m back?” I asked her.
She shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t tell him. I don’t want him to know. He can never find out about yesterday. You don’t know him anymore. He is far more dangerous than before. Nothing is worth what he will do if he finds out.”
“The sooner he knows, the quicker all this shit gets handled. I’m not leaving LA without seeing him,” I growled.
“Get over it!” she shouted.
That was different. I liked seeing the fiery side of her.
“It’s not that easy,” I told her, keeping my cool.
“Please, go,” she whispered, tears in her eyes.
“I’m going to go, but I’m not leaving the city. I’m not leaving until I get what I want. I won’t drag you into this, and I will do everything I can to keep anything from happening to you. Why don’t you leave? Get out of here,” I said.
“I can’t. You know that.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “No, I don’t. I left. You can leave. Maybe you like it here with your brother controlling your every move. I thought you hated all this. You always said you wanted to get away.”
Her eyes looked like they would shoot fire. “Leave. Don’t come back here. What we had—that’s over. Don’t you dare drag me into your juvenile battle with Liam. That’s between you and him. You don’t need to worry about me. You’ve been gone a long time. If you actually cared about me escaping, you would have taken me with you. You would have come back for me. You didn’t, so you don’t get to stand there and pretend you’re better than me.”
She spun around on her heel, walked into the house, and slammed the door. I stared at the door, tempted to kick it in, throw her over my shoulder, and take her out of there for good. I couldn’t.
I wasn’t going to risk her getting caught in the crossfire. I stomped down the dirt path and climbed onto my bike, pissed I hadn’t gotten to do what I had set out to do.
11
Michelle
I felt as if I were on a speeding train heading straight for a bridge that had been blown out. Being completely out of control and unable to stop what was happening was making me crazy.
“Baby,” I called out softly, going into Joey’s room to wake him up for school, “time to wake up.”
He groaned, rolled over, and rubbed his eyes.
“I’ll go get you some cereal. Get up,” I said when he closed his eyes.
I poured his cereal, knowing he would be out in a few minutes. The initial wakeup was a battle, but once he woke up it would be fine. He loved school and I planned on taking advantage of that as long as I could.
When he sat down at the table, I smiled. I couldn’t help but think about Elijah and the crazy mission he was on. He had a death wish. I didn’t want to see him hurt. Sleeping with him again had been a mistake. I should have left well enough alone. I had given him the idea there was a chance for us. I would never forgive myself if he got killed because he thought he and I could be together.
“Ready?” I asked, coming into the living room, purse in hand, ready to take Joey to school.
The neighborhood was far too dangerous for him to walk. Liam insisted no one would be dumb enough to mess with his nephew, but his rules didn’t apply to kids. Kids were mean.
Joey grabbed his backpack and headed out the door. He was too grown up for my liking. I didn’t want him to grow up too fast, not like I had, or Elijah and Liam. Elijah had no idea how dangerous and powerful Liam was now, and it was all because he had grown up too fast. He had become the man of the family when our father went to prison. It had been a lot of pressure on Liam’s shoulders, and the men my father had put in charge of showing Liam the ropes had made him what he was today. It had been that first taste of power that had gotten him addicted to being the man people were afraid of.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Joey asked.
I looked in the rearview mirror and smiled. “Nothing, baby.”
“You were breathing hard.”
I laughed. “You are too smart for your own good. I’m fine. I was just thinking about what I need to get done today,” I said.
After dropping him off, I headed straight back home. I expected to have some time to myself and planned on using that old laptop Liam had given me to do some online searching for places to live. Liam would never look at the computer, but I had been deleting my search history just in case.
When I walked into the house, I heard a noise in the kitchen. I immediately reached for the bat we kept behind the door and walked quietly into the kitchen, ready to knock the intruder upside the head.
“Liam!” I shouted in surprise upon seeing him rummaging through the fridge.
He pulled his head out of the refrigerator. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of jeans and no socks or shoes. The violent tattoos across his chest looked more menacing than I remembered. Everything about him seemed more dangerous.
“What the fuck are you doing with that?” he growled, looking at the bat in my hand.
“I thought you were an intruder.”
“No one is intruding! Put that thing down. Seriously, if I was an intruder, you’d already be dead. You swing first and ask questions later,” he lectured in an oddly brotherly way.
I propped the bat in the corner. “Why are you up? You’re never up this early.”
He took a bite of a banana, looking at me in a way that made me very uncomfortable. “I had to get up.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Got a phone call from one of my guys.”
I nodded, shrugging it off. I needed to get started on the housework. I turned to walk away, but his next words stopped me.
“Someone called to tell me our old friend is back in town. Can you believe that?”
“Our old friend?” I asked, feeling as if the ground was rolling under me. I knew what he was going to say, and it terrified me.
“Elijah Harrison. Apparently, he’s been spotted around town the past few days. Has he tried to see you?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t know he was back.”
Hopefully he couldn’t see I was lying. I tried to clear my mind. While I knew he couldn’t read it, I wa
s paranoid. The conversation with Elijah had been replaying in my mind since he had walked away yesterday. I had wanted so badly to tell him that we’d had a son and introduce him to Joey. It was a moment I had been waiting for since I’d first found out I was pregnant. In my daydreams back then, Elijah would come back, and I would tell him I was having his baby. He would whisk me away on the back of his bike to some kind of sweet happily ever after. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that was nothing more than a silly, childish fantasy.
I hadn’t told him yesterday because I knew it would be a mistake. Elijah was not the kind of guy who would walk away after hearing that kind of news. He would insist on being in Joey’s life, and Liam would never accept that. Elijah would never accept Nick being my husband or raising Joey as his son. Shit would get ugly.
“If he comes around, I want to know. You better stay the fuck away from him. I don’t want you talking to him.”
“I-I won’t,” I stammered.
He took another bite of the banana, giving me a strange look. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. That was a dangerous sign. It meant he was plotting something.
“Nick wants to marry you. He wants to marry you now. You’re not getting any younger. It’s time you had a husband.”
I looked away. “We agreed to get to know each other first. He’s okay with that.”
Liam threw the banana peel in the sink. “Bullshit. He knows you. You know him. Cut the crap. Marry his ass and get this over with. Stop trying to play games. It isn’t like you’re some innocent young girl.”
“Liam, I’m not ready to marry anyone. Nick is nice enough, but I don’t want to marry him,” I protested.
“I don’t care what you want! Nick is the best you’re going to do. No one wants a girl with a kid.”
He was getting angrier by the second. I knew this side of Liam. My stomach felt as if it were in knots. I had to defuse the situation before he exploded. I had been on the other side of his rage in the past. During one of his more violent moments, he had put me in the hospital. He rarely was physically violent with me, but it did happen.
“I’ll think about it. We’re going to be going out again. That will give us some time to work things out,” I said softly. “I’m going to try, Liam. Really, I am.”
He shook his head. “No. That’s not good enough. I want you to marry him.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll talk to Nick,” I promised. I was willing to say anything to get him to calm down.
There was an evil smile on his face. “Once Elijah finds out, he’s going to run away, tail between his legs, just like he did the first time. The little bitch isn’t going to come back around after that. If he does, I’ll make sure to take care of the problem once and for all.”
I bit back the cry that threatened to escape my lips. “Liam,” I protested, “please. Let it go. You don’t have to do anything. I’m not going to see him. I doubt he wants anything to do with me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. I’m the man around here,” he growled.
“I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you it’s okay. I’ll do what you said. I’ll talk to Nick. We’ll work something out,” I told him, hoping to placate him.
“You’re going to marry Nick.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He sneered, his eyes narrowing into slits. “You’re fucking with me.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”
Before I could guess what he was going to do, he reached out and backhanded me hard across the face, causing me to bite my cheek. My hand immediately went to my cheek as if that would make it feel better. Tears poured down my face as I cradled it in my hand, the pain nearly unbearable.
“Don’t fuck with me, Chelle. When I tell you to get married, you do it. I’m not screwing around here. If I find out that piece of shit has been sniffing around you again, I’ll kill him. Don’t test me!”
I nodded my head, still holding my face.
He pushed past me, nearly spinning me around with the force. I listened to him stomp down the hallway, go into his room, and a minute later, slam the front door on his way out. I heard his bike start up in the garage. I didn’t move from my spot in the kitchen until the sound of the bike faded.
My heart was beating fast as I turned on the cold water, soaking a dish towel before pressing it to my cheek. When I pulled it away, there was a small amount of blood. I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, relieved to find only a small cut on my cheek, nothing serious. I could cover it with makeup.
I had known Elijah’s return would be bad for me. I had begged him to stay away. If Liam found him, he would kill him and possibly me. I sobbed into the wet towel. I hated to imagine what he would do. My heart hurt thinking about a world without Elijah.
I gave myself a few minutes to cry it out before drying my eyes and applying some makeup to try to hide the cut. My cheek was going to be swollen. I couldn’t hide that. I’d tell Joey I ran into the door.
“Pull it together,” I whispered.
With a deep breath, I began my daily chores, cleaning up the house and starting the laundry. I wanted to make sure the house was clean when Liam got home. I didn’t want to give him a reason to get mad at me again.
The sound of a motorcycle in the distance had my heart pounding. I stood, stock-still, trying to determine how many bikes there were. I braced myself for Liam’s return, hoping he had calmed down. I listened, not moving as the sound faded into the distance. I let out the breath I had been holding.
“It wasn’t him.”
I wasn’t sure which him I was referring to. As dangerous as I knew it was, I was hoping to see Elijah. I wanted him to hold me and tell me everything would be okay. But it would never be okay until I found a way out of LA.
12
Elijah
I had done a little more investigating yesterday and uncovered more dirt on Liam. I was surprised by how deep he had gotten into the game. He made his father look like a cupcake, and his dad was a bad, bad man. I understood the fear I saw in Michelle’s eyes.
It wasn’t hard to find people who knew Liam. Some guys hated him, others were terrified of him. I made sure everyone saw me and I told them exactly who I was. As expected, word got back to him. Rumor on the street was Liam knew I was in town and was not happy about it. Good. The first part of my mission was working. I wanted him pissed. I wanted him offended I had the nerve to come back, but mostly I wanted him looking over his shoulder, wondering if I was going to take my revenge.
He had put out the word he was looking for me. It was meant to scare me off. The big bad Liam, head of the Kings of Chaos biker gang, wanted me to run away because he was looking for me. In the old days, that would have worked. I would have left and let him get away with terrorizing women and beating up guys for no good reason. Too bad for him that it wasn’t the old days. I was going to be the one terrorizing him.
I downshifted, taking the corner nice and slow, reminding myself I couldn’t go flying in there like a bat out of hell. For my plan to work, I had to remain in control. I was going to make it easy for him to find me. Step one was to throw him off his game by showing up and meeting him on his turf. I rode up to the park where he liked to hang out. It wasn’t a park for kids anymore. Liam and the other riffraff in the city had turned it into a drug den. It disgusted me. I’d been casually following him there every day, watched him blatantly sell drugs to people from all walks of life, young and old, without a care in the world.
I spotted Liam sitting on a picnic table with two other men. I had known he wouldn’t be alone. A guy like him had way too many enemies to go anywhere by himself. I parked my bike and made my way to the table, walking slowly and methodically. I was behind them, and it didn’t look like they had seen me yet. I stared at the emblems on the backs of their cuts, my lip curled with disgust. I hated everything that stupid patch stood for.
One of the guys turned to look at me and I immediately recognized him. He was Nic
k Foster. Nick hated me. He’d always been jealous because, back then, Michelle had been into me. He had always had a thing for Michelle, and my girl never gave him the time of day. A malevolent smile spread across my face. This was going to be so much better than I had hoped for.
Nick nudge Liam, pointing as he turned back around. I walked around the table and stood in front of them. The three of them stared at me as I stared at them through my dark sunglasses.
Liam sneered. “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
His sneer was supposed to intimidate me. It wasn’t working. Nothing he did could make me change my mind about what I had come back to do. I was going to love every second of my revenge.
I looked into Liam’s evil eyes. Michelle had been right about her brother. He was crazy. There was no saving him.
“Why is he here?” Nick growled.
Liam looked at Nick, then me. “Why are you here, Elijah?”
“I missed my old friends,” I said, pushing my sunglasses up and making eye contact with each of them.
“I thought we explained how we felt that night we gave you that little good-bye party,” Liam said with a smirk.
I shrugged a shoulder. “I guess I was hoping we could talk about that night.”
“Nothing to talk about. You’re a bitch and you got what you deserved.”
“I don’t know about that, Liam. Three guys on one? Who’s the bitch?”
“I know you didn’t call him a bitch,” Nick growled.
I turned my dead stare on him. “But I did.”
“Do you feel better now, Elijah? Do you feel like a man because you got to call me a bitch?”
I looked back at Liam. “I think we have a lot more to talk about besides who the bitch is. Don’t you?”
Liam chuckled. “Really? Like what? Do you want to get something off your chest? Is this one of those five-step things?”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. I had forgotten how ignorant Liam was.
Men in Charge: A Contemporary Romance Box Set Page 28
