by Addison Jane
“Those are some pretty intense scars,” I prodded, placing my hand on the wall and blocking her escape toward the stairs like I could see her eyes contemplating. She wasn’t leaving until I had some fucking answers, and until this shit started to make sense. “Where’d they come from?”
“What’s on my body is none of your business,” she answered, looking up at me with dark narrowed eyes.
I’d struck a nerve.
“You familiar with the term, making it my business,” I fired back, leaning in a little closer. I couldn’t help but be drawn in by her. Usually, when my skin prickled, it was because I was afraid someone was going to touch me, this time though, it was the opposite. I wanted to feel her, wanted to wrap myself around her and refuse to fucking let her go. Because apparently, I was fucking crazy.
“Please don’t do this,” she whispered, her bright but sad eyes pleading with me to let it go—to let her go. But I couldn’t, there was something about this entire situation which was wrong.
“Yet, you’re quite happy for those Riot bastards to touch you and drag you around like a fucking rag doll.”
“What makes you feel like you have the right to judge me? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
There was the spark I was waiting for. Kennedy wasn’t a pushover, she was fiery and tenacious, but for some goddamn reason she was letting these assholes bend and break her, and she refused to fight back.
She shoved her hands toward my chest, but luckily, I caught them before she could touch me. My emotions, in that moment, were all over the fucking place, and if she put her hands on me right now, I wasn’t sure what the hell I might do.
It was something I often couldn’t control, and another reason why I should just leave this whole situation the fuck alone and walk away. Let her leave, let her live her life however she wanted because I can’t trust my body or the memories that are buried in my brain.
I clasped her wrists tightly, but careful of the amount of force I was using. “I can’t have people touching me. It’s better for both of us. I don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered.
She laughed, snatching her hands back. Tears brimmed at the water line of her eyes, and she looked up at me as though I’d crushed her dreams or kicked her dog. She shook her head. “God, you’re all the same. You think you’re gods, think that you should be treated like them, too.”
We were drawing attention now, and with all the noise and thumping of the music circling around us and the close proximity of people, my skin was itching and my heart rate was shooting higher and higher.
“Fuck!” I cursed, grabbing Kennedy’s hand and pulling her toward the stairs. At first, she fought me, her nails digging into my skin but I didn’t fucking care. I hadn’t said my piece yet, and if I allowed her to walk out of here now and back to that crazy motherfucker, Crow, I was going to lose my shit.
I knew she was apprehensive as I led her down the stairs out of the VIP area and around the back of the bar. There was a long corridor there which led to the different offices we had in the building and meeting rooms and such that were often used for private parties. I forced Shake’s office door open and pulled Kennedy inside, letting go of her hand the instant I shut the door behind us.
My body felt like it was on fire.
She pulled herself away from me putting a fair amount of space between the two of us as she backed across the room. The spark in her eyes was gone again, once again replaced with fear, her eyes looking around the room as if searching for some kind of escape.
I took a step away from the door, moving toward her. “Do you think I’m trying to hurt you?”
Her body jerked, and she stood a little straighter. “You should be. We both know what I’m doing here. I walked into this building with the purpose of finding some kind of information that could help me…” her entire body cringed, “… and hurt you.”
“And did you find what you’re looking for?” I asked curiously, unconsciously chasing after her.
“No.”
“Why not?” I pressed.
She hit me with a hard look, her lips pursed, her eyes narrowed, but she seemed to have a little bit of water sitting on her waterline. Tears? “You need something to take back? You want me to lop off a finger or something?”
“Are you always this much of an asshole?”
I scoffed and rolled my shoulders. “It’s my job to be an asshole, pretty girl. It’s my job to make sure the people who try to hurt my family never fucking succeed.”
She walked between the two office chairs, settling herself on the edge of the large desk, her fingers gripping the side. Her body seemed to relax a little now it was just the two of us, her eyes looking around the room, studying it before finally returning back to me.
They were softer. “Why didn’t you tell me at the bar you were part of the MC? You let me think you were just some guy.”
I huffed out a breath and leaned against one of the armchairs close to her, refusing to pull away, but giving both her and I some space to breathe. “What would you have done if I had? Told your almighty leader?”
“No,” she answered like it was never even a thought that had crossed her mind.
That alone told me exactly where her loyalties lay.
They weren’t with Red Riot.
There was another reason she was with them.
“I’m sure you must know this, but you must realize that it’s not a club girl’s job to do a club’s dirty work.”
She swallowed hard, and a shudder ran through her before she managed to find the words she needed. “Where I come from, a whore’s job is anything that I’m told to do that will keep me breathing for another day.”
“I never said whore.”
The soft laughter that came from her mouth surprised me, and she shook her head. “But it’s what you meant.” She looked up at me with a soft smile. “By definition, I’m a whore, the club’s whore specifically I guess.”
“Jesus Christ,” I cursed under my breath. Sure, we had a handful of what many called club whores at the Brothers by Blood clubhouse, but they were never beaten into submission. They were never forced into situations where they had to do our dirty work or told to go places where there was the chance they would get hurt. They were treated with respect, they were protected, and they were there on their own time and their own terms. “You didn’t answer me when I asked before. What do you owe him?”
She licked her lips. Her arms moved, winding around her waist as if she was afraid of falling apart right there on the floor. “Five years,” she murmured before forcing a smile. “Just a few months left to go. Then I’m done.”
She’ll never be done.
He’ll never let her leave.
I stepped in, shaking my fucking head, furious that this asshole had convinced her to sell her life away to him for fucking five years. And not just that, no, he’d managed to break her, beat her, and force her to believe she didn’t deserve anything more than what she had or what she was.
She was a whore.
Whore’s do what they’re told.
Because they’re fucking dirty.
They’re fucking worthless.
“You should go,” I told her, fighting the urge to pick her up and carry her out to my bike.
She cleared her throat, nodding without a shred of fucking conviction behind it before she pushed to her feet. I should have stepped back, given her some room, but I didn’t. Suddenly, there were only a couple of inches between us, and at that point, I was already fighting my fucking self-control.
“Fuck!” I cursed before throwing out every goddamn sensibility I had left. I reached out, grabbing her face in my hands and pulling her forward. Our lips crashed together, entangling furiously. My fingers twisted in her hair, and I gently tugged, causing her to gasp and her mouth to open so I could take possession of that too, slipping my tongue inside.
She tasted like fucking sugar or fruit. Probably the result of the cocktail she’d been drinking before the g
lass had ended up all over the floor upstairs.
The moment lasted a long few seconds before I finally managed to pull back, putting just enough space between us for us both to inhale some much-needed air. I cradled her face in my hands, feeling her nuzzling gently into my palm. It felt good and bad at the same time, but I refused to let it end yet. When I finally opened my eyes again, they drifted down, catching sight of her hands as they tugged just softly on each side of my club cut, but nowhere near my body.
“You said you can’t be touched,” she explained softly without me having to question it.
Who the fuck was this woman?
I leaned back, finally letting my hands fall. She reached up, her thumb brushing across her lips and a rosy complexion flushing her cheeks.
“No one is in the club after three in the morning,” I told her, hooking my finger under her chin and lifting her eyes to mine to make sure she knew what I was telling her.
“Why are you—”
“He’s gonna need something. So tell him.”
“Thank you,” she rasped, the relief obvious on her face. She wouldn’t have to go back to the club with nothing. Which hopefully meant one less black eye or bruised rib.
And for me, well, it meant I was going to get what I wanted too.
Her.
KENNEDY
I grabbed Ashley as I rushed past the bar. “Come on, we need to get out of here,” I ordered, leaning in close to her ear. She looked over her shoulder at me, her face scrunched up and her brows pulled together. “I got what we need.”
She was off her seat in a second, the two of us with our arms hooked through each other as we tried to look casual and walk toward the exit.
I looked back once.
I shouldn’t have.
Repo’s silhouette was standing at the exit that lead to the rear of the building. He was tall, sturdy, intimidating as hell, but his strength and confidence I felt strangely addicted to. It made me feel like maybe he had my back, maybe there was someone who cared. Or maybe he was like every other fucking biker out there and merely saw an opportunity to use me.
Maybe I had read him all wrong.
My chest ached, but I continued toward the exit. I needed to get out of there. At that stage, I still wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Repo gave me something, he gave me what I knew was a lie, but did I really care.
Crow needed to be taken down a notch, and maybe this would be the opportunity for that to happen. I can’t say the thought of something far more permanent happening didn’t cross my mind.
What if this was the last night I had to hear his voice, put up with his shit, listen to him think he was fucking king of the world? What if this was the last time I had to come home and crawl into bed wondering whether I was even going to wake up the next morning—occasionally wishing that I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to continue to question my worth, and even though I kept telling myself it was only for a few more months, I wasn’t stupid.
I knew how vindictive Crow was, and whether he was going to let me leave was a whole other question.
But I think I already knew the answer.
We rushed out to the street, the cool air hitting my hot skin and instantly stealing my breath. Ashley and I both turned to the right, knowing there would be a car waiting for us a couple blocks away, ready to take us back to the small dumpy hotel we were staying in, in the south of Phoenix.
The streets were busy, more so than when we entered the club less than an hour ago. We walked five blocks, my feet aching in heels that I hadn’t worn since I was stripping, and blisters the size of a small country were forming on my heels. Five fucking blocks until we found Heathen, one of the guys from the club who you would never find without some kind of food in his hand or within reach. He was a big guy, but it didn’t translate to strength. Heathen didn’t do anything he didn’t have to, and even when he had to, you’d often find him paying someone else to do it for him.
Surprise, surprise, we found him leaning against a building beside a McDonalds, stuffing his face with a burger, a handful of wrappers already littering the ground around him. I wanted to kill him.
“You were meant to park closer, like a couple of blocks away,” I told him as we walked up.
He stopped mid-bite and raised his eyebrow before chomping half the burger into his mouth and scoffing, forcing pieces of bun and meat and other shit to fly out everywhere. “It’s nuh gon hur ya tew lose a fu pouns,” he mumbled around the mouthful of food. Unfortunately, I heard exactly what he said.
Ah, the irony in that sentence.
Luckily, I was well practiced in keeping my mouth shut. “We need to go, I have some information for Crow, and I think he’s going to want it pretty urgently.”
Heathen finished chewing, letting out a large belch before pushing off the wall—which looked like it took him every ounce of energy he had within him—and waddling to the car. “Your information better be fucking good, Kennedy,” he growled, looking over the roof at me. “If it’s shit, and you made me miss out on the next hour of dollar cheeseburgers, then you and I are gonna have words.”
The threat sounded like a joke, something you would tease your friend about, but these guys when they made threats, were very serious.
Any potential reason they could find to put you in your place, they would find it. They were vindictive. They were petty. And they loved to make someone feel inferior.
Let’s hope I was right about this one.
7Crow grabbed my face and pushed me backward, slamming my body against the hard brick wall. He moved in closer like a predator. “God fucking help you if you’re wrong about this, Kennedy,” he growled, his hot breath hitting me right in the face. It reeked of stale cigarettes and alcohol, which made sense given that was all he’d done since we arrived in Phoenix three days ago.
He constantly had a drink and a smoke in his hand. He was constantly on fucking edge like he was expecting this club to come after them, like he almost wished they would.
The thing about Crow, though, is he didn’t have patience. He was all-in all the time. He wanted something, he wanted it now. He hated something, it needed to be gone before he blinked. Crow walked into this club’s property expecting them to come at him, angry and pissed off that he dare challenge them.
But they didn’t.
They’re sitting up at the VIP area in Empire and they are drinking and dancing and having fun. They don’t give a flying fuck about what these assholes are doing down here in the slums.
“I’m not wrong,” I said, trying to look him in the eye calmly even as he squeezed my face, pressing the inside of my cheeks against my teeth. I could feel them cutting in, it hurt like hell.
“And why did he offer you this information?” Crow questioned, narrowing his eyes. “Because you have such a sparkling personality?” The cackle which came from him after that sounded like some kind of bird. The boys behind him all joined in, finding complete hilarity in the idea I could have some kind of personality.
While I wanted to punch him in the face, or argue, or simply just turn and leave, I couldn’t. It wasn’t worth it. I needed him to believe that I worked for the information, and that the member who gave it to me did it because he felt comfortable with me, like we were friends, chatting, talking about whatever came to mind.
But that would never work for Crow.
So, I lied.
“I did what needed to be done,” I told him, the words coming out screwed with the way he was pinching my face.
His eyes lit up, and he finally let me go and stepped back. “Say that again.”
I rubbed at my sore cheeks with my hand. I could feel blood sitting in my mouth from where they had cut in. “I did what needed to be done,” I repeated, keeping my voice low and singular toned.
“In other words, you did what you do best,” he taunted, reaching out and grabbing the front of my dress and tugging so hard that one of the straps which went over my shoulder snapped, the threads unable to hold any m
ore pressure. It fell down, exposing my breast for the entire club to see.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t before.
But this time, he was trying to make a point.
And his point was about to make me sick.
“You suck his dick or you let him stick it in you?” Crow asked, leaning in with a smug smile. His eyes scanned my face, and he burst out laughing. “Who am I kidding, you’re so cock hungry, of course, you let him fuck you.”
He reached out, slapping me across the face. It was playful for him, but it still fucking forced me to turn my head. It stung and made my eyes water. I gritted my teeth. “I got what you needed.”
He reached out again, but this time, instead of slapping me, he stroked my hair softly, his rough and dirty hand coming around to cup my face. Repo had done the same just a couple of hours ago. But this was different, the way he held me in his hand made me feel like I was the world and he was cradling me gently, looking after me so I would never be damaged.
With Crow, I was the world, and all he could think about was how to control me, how to crush me, and how to destroy every part of me so no one else would want me.
“If this goes wrong…” he growled, leaning in a little closer, “… you’re going to hurt, and you’re going to hurt real bad. Because bitch, I’m not going down because of your dumbass.”
I nodded, holding my head high, trying to hold my breath.
Could I trust Repo?
He gave me information to help me, but that information could mean that Crow was about to walk in and destroy their business.
My stomach was twisting. Part of me knew it didn’t feel right, but another part of me somehow trusted Repo. A man I’d barely met. A man who shouldn’t give a shit about me, but had touched me with care, with respect, and that was already far more than Red Riot had ever given me.
I needed to follow my instincts.
And these ones were leading right back to Repo.
REPO
Myth and I sat at the top of the building looking over the edge. It was getting close to four in the morning and after explaining to the boys about Kennedy, here we were, sitting, waiting to see if these dumb motherfuckers would take the bait.
