SOLID GROUND: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK TWO) (8 page)

“Ah.  Yeah, that sounds like Alex.  She’s one of our networkers.  She helps spread the word to women who might need our services.  She must have seen something in you,” Grace replied.

“I don’t know,” I replied. What could she have seen?  

“Well, I’m glad you called.  You did the right thing.   Now, I have to admit, the fact that we’re dealing with the Mayor of Seattle is going to make this whole operation a little more tricky, but as long as you do what we say, everything should run smoothly.  But, first, we’re going to need to hear every detail of what happened, okay?  I know it’s going to be difficult to go over, but we have to make sure we know all the facts so we don’t miss anything and we know what we’re working with, okay, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, sure…” I replied.  All of their eyes were on me. “Where should I start?” I asked.

“At the beginning…” Riot said, smiling gently at me.  I met his gaze, and the churning ball in my stomach stilled.  I took a deep breath and began.

“I’m Lacey Hope Carrington,” I began.  “My mother changed our name after I was born, because she thought our real last name, Baker, wasn’t good enough.  She decided on ‘Carrington’ because she thought it sounded regal and wealthy, because of the Carrington’s on Dynasty, you know?  Anyway, she grew up dirt poor, and she always wanted more.  She had me when she was seventeen, and she decided right away that I was her ticket out of poverty.  I guess I was a pretty baby, as pretty as babies can be, that is.  I never really thought they were all that spectacular myself.”  I looked around the table, and for the first time in my life, I let the words that have been floating around in my head for years spill out of me.

“But, anyway, well, she became the stage mom and I became the product.  She sold me to whoever would pay her.  It started with commercials, print ads, and then she threw me in the pageant circuit.  Little Miss anything and everything.  Most of the time I won, which only added fuel to her fire.  She was hungry for money.  She was also hungry to feed her coke habit, which I didn’t learn about till much later. One cancels out the other, you know?”  I smirked.  None of this was funny,  but if I didn’t laugh, I’d die from all the pain.  

“So, she worked me harder.  And harder.  Until I grew tired of it as I grew up. I was burnt out. I stopped trying to please her so much, and I started losing.  She became desperate, trying anything to fix the contests, or bribe the judges.  Once, I walked in on her sucking off the entire panel of judges before the Miss Northern California pageant.  I won that night, but after that I refused to enter again. The money dried up, and so did my usefulness to her.”

“That’s fucked up,” Riot said, his gaze glued to the table in front of him as he shook his head.  I drew from the strength in his voice and continued.

“She met Monty in a hotel bar, late at night, after a fundraiser in the ballroom. He wasn’t the mayor yet. She charmed him with tales of her young, beautiful, obedient sixteen year-old daughter, the ‘young’ part appealing to him the most.  He asked to meet me, and then, well, hell…she just flat out sold me to him.  He paid her ten grand for me, and I never saw or heard from her again. She just left me there in a downtown Seattle hotel with him, turning me over like an unwanted dog.”

“Unfuckingbelievable,” Riot whispered, his voice seething with anger.

“Yeah…anyway, Monty made his money back, in spades.  He charged his rich friends fifteen grand to spend a few hours alone with me.  Most of them had weird fetishes that they wouldn’t dare utter to someone in their real life.  I was the fantasy girl that they could ask anything of.  I protested the first few times, but after Monty beat me, well…let’s just say that I learned quickly that going along with whatever his freaky friends wanted was a lot easier than enduring Monty’s wrath.”

“I am so sorry all of that happened to you, Lacey,” Grace said.  Her eyes were shining with tears, and mine were bone dry.  I was re-telling the horrors of my life, and while a perfect stranger was being deeply affected by my words, I felt nothing.  I was dead inside.  It was as if I was talking about someone else.  

“Listen, it was awful, for sure.  But Monty gave me a nice apartment, he bought me clothes, food, paid the bills.  He wasn’t nice, he was a prick, he tortured me.  But most of the guys he sold me to were just middle aged, perverted men.  They never laid a finger on me, not violently, I mean.  Monty was the angry one, the violent one.  And I fucked up.  I got tempted by an offer a man on the street gave me, and I got in his car.  I knew Monty would be pissed, but I honestly thought, in my naive mind, that I could take this man’s money and use it to run away.  Turns out, he was a cop, and all he did was give me a trip to jail.”

Grace shook her head, and anger rose in her eyes.

“That’s when I met your friend, Alex.  When she gave me the card.  But Monty bailed me out and I was back in my apartment with him within hours. That was last night. He beat me. Hard. And he was about to rape me…but…um,” my voice trembled and my hands began shaking as I remembered what I had done.  “I don’t know…I snapped, I guess.  I had never fought back before. But I just couldn’t take one more night enduring his cruelty…and I started fighting back.  Before I knew it, I was standing over him and stabbing him over and over with my broken shoe. I guess I passed out.  Next thing I know, I woke up covered in blood and Monty was dead.  I took a shower, and I called you.  And here I am.”

Riot sat beside me, and the anger pulsed off his body.  His fists clenched and unclenched over and over as I told my story.   It was unnerving, and yet…the fact that he was so obviously angry at all the shit I had endured was comforting in a very deep and satisfying way.

Nobody had ever protected me from anything in my life.  I didn’t know what that was supposed to feel like.  If this was it, then I liked it.

“Lacey,” Grace said, catching my eye.  “Listen very carefully to me, okay?”

I nodded.

“All that shit you went through, with your Mom, with Monty, with all those men…none of that was your fault.  You didn’t deserve any of that.  Nobody deserves that.  You were a victim.  You had no choice but to go along with it, in order to survive.  Don’t for a second think you did anything wrong.  You mother was supposed to protect you, to keep you safe, to nurture you, and she failed miserably.  But here’s what I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older.  All that shit that happened to both of us, it only made us stronger.  You’ve survived things that people your age can’t even imagine.  You’re a warrior, Lacey.  Remember that.  You’ve gone through hell, and look - you’re here now, you’re safe, you are finally out of that hell.  You’ve won, Lacey.”

The tears were streaming down my face before I could stop them.  I nodded, unable to speak.   Grace’s words penetrated deeply, into my brain, into my heart, and I let them take up residence there.  I wanted to remember them.  I wanted to feel them.  I wanted all of that to be true, as much as everything I had learned about myself wanted to argue against it.  I wanted to believe her.

“Everything’s going to be alright, Lacey,” Riot said, his huge, warm hand softly stroking my back, as he whispered in my ear.  

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

It took all my strength not to storm out of the room.  It was so hard to sit and listen to Lacey’s story and not be overwhelmed with rage.  Rage for everything women had to go through, just because they were perceived as the weaker sex, the more attractive sex, the sex that had to endure the horrors of what a man could dish out. They weren’t weak at all, not in my eyes. 

Nobody deserved to go through that shit, and listening to her story made me want to go and kill everyone who had ever hurt her.

When we first started Solid Ground, I hadn’t realized I would be so effected by the stories I heard.  But each one was worse than the one before, and Lacey’s was absolutely horrific.  She never had a fucking chance.  It just wasn’t fair.

Life wasn’t fair, though.  I had learned that a long time ago.  The hard way.

“This is going to be a very high profile case,” Ryder said.  We were sitting around the table in the war room, filling Lacey in on what would happen next, after she had finally stopped crying.  She was tough, that much was clear.  But she was so obviously overwhelmed with the situation she was in now, that she was having trouble keeping her shit together.

I could relate.  There was something about killing someone for the first time that unraveled you.  Especially if you never expected to be that person.  I shook off my own fucked-up past, and listened as Ryder continued talking.

“Every cop in Oregon and Washington are going to be looking for you.  We’ll keep you hidden here until things die down just a little.  We’ll get you a new name, a new identity, change your appearance as much as possible, and set you up in a new city with a new life.  It’s drastic, but this is a drastic situation.  The main thing we need to focus on right now is keeping you safe.”

“And we can do that,” Grace said, picking up when Ryder paused.  “All you have to do is lay low and do exactly as we say, Lacey, and even though it might take some time, everything will be okay.  In the meantime, you’re safe here.”

“How do you know?” Lacey asked, looking up at me with such worry in her eyes that my heart swelled with protectiveness.

“Because nobody in their right mind would come snooping around here,” I answered.  I wanted to throw my arms around her, and carry her off to the safety of my room and lock her away from the fucked up world she had been living in.  Unfortunately, cavemen weren’t too popular these days, so I restrained myself.

“Okay,” she replied, taking a deep breath and jutting her chin out in that way that had quickly become adorable to me.  “I’ve got no choice but to trust you guys. I can’t tell you enough how grateful I am to each of you.”

God, she was breaking my fucking heart.  

“Trust us, darlin’,” Slade said, winking at her across the table.  “It’s our pleasure, and you really couldn’t be in a safer place.”

If Slade didn’t stop winking at her, I was going to knock his face off.  The last thing this poor woman needed was a little fucker like him sniffing around her.  I made a mental note to set him straight once I got him alone.  The glaring looks I had been giving him all day obviously weren’t getting through.

“So, what now?” Lacey asked, turning her attention away from Slade and looking at Grace.

“Now, you relax.  We’ll take care of everything behind the scenes.  There’s not much for you to do at all, except enjoy the tranquility of the Tillamook woods and start the slow process of recovering. Make yourself at home here. I’ll show you to your room, and you can set your own pace, take it easy.  The clubhouse can get a little rowdy at night, but everyone is friendly, and if you need something, just ask.  The kitchen is stocked, feel free to help yourself.  We all have a big group dinner together every night.  I’ll keep you posted as we go along, okay?  You’ll probably be here a week or two.”

“Oh.  That long.  Okay, thank you,” Lacey replied, looking like a sad, lost kitten that was trying to act tough.  I wished like hell there was something I could do to ease her pain.  She was so fucking beautiful, with such a sweet demeanor, I couldn’t help but feel tender towards her.

My eyes trailed down her body, pausing at the soft swell of her breasts, and I felt my cock begin to twitch in my pants.

No
, I thought.
Stop it
.  My confused cock had nothing to do with this.  I shifted in my seat, and was thankful when Grace stood up and led Lacey away to show her to her room.