Thrash (23 page)

I squeeze my index finger around the
trigger of my .38 and focus on finding the right shot, but I’m too
late. Junior’s body hits the floor, and it’s only then that I
realize that Trigger’s put his gun away and charged at him. He’s on
top of Junior and delivering blow after blow to the kid’s face. I
put my gun in the holster and run into the small room. I move to
help Princess, but Trigger jumps off Junior and scampers over to
her and cuts off her bindings to free her from the
chair.

“
They’re in here!” I shout
loudly and send Bear to get the rest of the guys. Ian moves over to
Junior and stares down at him. I don’t move out of respect for this
moment. Near my feet, Trigger’s got Princess as she’s slumped into
his lap. Tears have pooled in his eyes and fall down his face.
There’s only a few of them before they’re gone and he stands with
her in his arms.

“
I got you, baby,” he says
to her in a voice so fucking soft that I wouldn’t have known it’s
him if I hadn’t seen his lips moving.

“
My brother,” she screams
and starts to fight against his hold on her. Even after everything
he’s done to her and she gives a shit about him? Jesus, that’s
love.

He says, “He’s alive,” and holds
Princess tightly to his chest. Though the tears have dried, the
pain that shows in his features cuts me deep. Slowly, he walks out
of the small room with his girl in his arms. His lower lip quivers
just once before he rights himself. I turn and watch them leave.
For a guy who doesn’t show much emotion, if any, he’s letting the
club see him in a very vulnerable place. When he passes Grady, he
stares him in the eyes and lets his lip shake one more time, then
he keeps going. Jim places a hand on Trigger’s back and gives it a
pat as he walks out. Jim fights to keep his expression neutral, but
the daggers he’s shooting Grady are obvious as fuck. Jim’s the club
president and all, but he’s a father first, and he’s never let his
men forget that. The sorrow that shows on his face at seeing his
only blood child carry the girl he’s begun to consider a daughter
to safety is palatable.

In the corner, Ian has finally moved.
He’s bent down placed his boot over Junior’s neck. He’s got that
gold gun in his hand and is waving it in front of Junior’s face. I
signal at Bear and Fish, who rush over and pull Ian off of him then
grab a hold of Junior. He kicks and fights like hell, but Fish
leans in and pops him across the face, which knocks him out. I grab
Ian, who still stands motionless in that fucked up place as he
stares down at his half brother.

“
It’s okay,” I say quietly
to him and give his arm a shake. With a pale face and wide eyes, he
looks at me and shakes his head.

“
He beat her,” he says in
astonishment. I nod sadly. We all knew this shit was going to be
tough for him. These may be his siblings, but he barely knows them.
His entire life’s been fucked up since he was a kid because his mom
hooked up with Mancuso. I wait until Bear and Fish get Junior’s
limp body out of the room and close to the side door we came in
before I let go of Ian’s arm.

“
You need a minute?” I ask
him. He nods and turns away from me. More than any of us guys, this
is personal for Ian. Even more personal than it is for Trigger and
Jim. Trigger told me once that Ian remembers Ruby being pregnant
with the twins, and he remembers them being born. And as fucked as
it is, he remembers the day Mancuso took them away, which is the
same day he got that scar that runs from his ear to the corner of
his eye. I wait in the middle room with my back to Ian to give him
some privacy.

Screaming, he kicks and hits at the
walls in the room. I can hear the chair cracking and a frustrated
grunt. I peek back just a second to make sure he’s okay, and when I
do I find him on the ground with his head in his hands. He’s taking
deep breath after deep breath, willing himself to calm down.
Another minute passes and he stands. I look back at the side door
as he approaches. He clasps a hand over my shoulder and strides out
in front of me.

I rush to catch up to the guys and
slide into the back seat of Ruby’s Suburban. Trigger’s in the
middle with Princess curled up in his lap. He’s whispering sweet
things to her as I slide in. Her eyes are all fucked up, and she
can’t see much of anything. “It’s just me, Princess,” I say and
shut the door as quietly as I can.

Ian sits on Trigger’s other side and
says, “It’s Ian. You’re safe.”

Jim’s already in the driver’s seat. He
looks back in the mirror and winces at the sight before him. She’s
seriously fucked up, that’s for sure. It’ll be a fucking miracle if
she doesn’t have any internal bleeding.

“
You’re okay, kid,” Jim
says and clears his throat. He may be a dick of epic proportions at
times, but there’s no doubt that he loves his family. Jim’s
expression changes in the mirror, and he smiles just slightly with
his eyes cast down. I look at Trigger and Princess to try to figure
out what he’s seeing. Trigger’s got his pinky wrapped around
Princess’s, and damn if it doesn’t feel good to see
that.

“
It’s just a scratch,”
Princess mumbles. I can’t help but laugh, because if I don’t I
might cry like a fucking bitch.

“
Shit, you got balls,
babe,” I say. Trigger turns to glare at me, and I just smile at
him. As fucked in the head as he is, I think he’s going to be okay.
He’s got the one thing I want that I don’t have—he’s tied to
someone now. He can bullshit about it and say whatever he wants.
Princess has balls all right, and now she’s got Trigger’s, too. For
the first time in hours, I breathe a sigh of relief. Pulling my
phone out of my pocket, I pull up NIC in my contacts and start
typing on the touch screen.

TKNG CARE OF CLUB SHIT. NEED 2 C
U.

She doesn’t respond, but I don’t give
up hope. I hold the phone in my hand and keep checking it for a
message I might have missed. But no message, no phone
call—absolutely nothing—comes in. I force myself to ignore the
panic that creeps in and stare out the window as we pull down the
long driveway to Jim and Ruby’s house, where Doctor James’s white
Lexus sits parked by the garage.

Chapter 18

I stare at my phone, worried as all get
out because he hasn’t responded in the last two days. I guess it’s
payback for the bullshit I’ve been pulling the past few weeks—I
just didn’t know what else to do.

U OK? I text to Duke, and, like an
idiot, I wait with the phone in my hands, for a response that won’t
come.

It’s the sixth message I’ve sent. I
just want to know that he’s safe and he’s fine. I’m halfway to not
even caring what he’s doing. At least if he’s on a pussy bender, I
can be pissed at him and end this. But he’d be safe and I’d know he
was safe, and I wouldn’t be freaking the hell out over his safety.
We talked a few days ago for all of two minutes. He said he was
taking care of some bad shit and would be out of town for a few
days, but I needed to talk to him. Karma is one mean bitch, and I
have this coming to me.

After the night he crawled into my bed
and made love to me—because there’s no mistaking that’s what it
was—and I’d realized we hadn’t used a condom, I began thinking back
to the other times we’d had sex. I could only remember us using a
condom twice, and now I’m not even sure about that first time. I
had every intention of getting Plan B at the pharmacy, but the
fifty dollar price tag was too much for my bank account to take,
and after I’d flipped out on Duke, I couldn’t bring myself to ask
him for the money.

I’ve always tried to be diligent about
my birth control pills, but usually rely on condoms just in case
because my schedule is so hectic that I never seem to be able to
take the pill at the same time every day. Lost Girls fuck up all
the time. It’s the nature of the lifestyle—you get fucked up and
then fuck. We should probably get some kind of group rate at
Planned Parenthood or something.

I call his cell, but he doesn’t answer.
It goes to his voice mail on the first ring, so his phone is off,
and the mailbox is full. Shoving the useless goddamn device back in
my purse, I look out the windshield of my car and blow out a heavy
breath. Starting the car up, I pull out of the parking lot of the
restaurant I met Darren and drive home at a snail’s pace. Dinner
ran later than I wanted it to. He had little information on my dad
and spent way too long talking about how we were in high school. I
tried to gently guide him back on topic, but it was hard. As much
as I want to believe the club is taking care of my dad, I can’t be
sure. When I mentioned his parole being denied, Duke didn’t say
shit about it. It was like he didn’t care. So, I figured it
wouldn’t hurt to hear what Darren had to say—well, it could
hurt—but helping my dad is worth the risk. Or it was.

Because now that it’s been a week since
I’ve seen Duke and every good intention I had for the last week
completely fell apart, I’ve slipped into a hole that I don’t think
I can get out of. Aside from waiting for Duke to let me know he’s
okay, I’ve been waiting on my period that’s two weeks late. And
like a fool, I’ve yet to give up hope that either are going to show
up sometime soon. But because I’m a pessimist, I picked up a test
at the store after work last night. I’ve just been too scared to
take it yet.

Pulling up to the house, I push all of
my fears aside. Right there in front of the garage is Duke’s bike.
He hasn’t been home this early in weeks, so this is unexpected.
Good, but unexpected. Despite the potential major life-changing
problem I’m avoiding, things have been really good between us. It’s
probably that really good that’s led me to where I am now. We’ve
been reckless a number of times, and the times I try to be on top
of things, Duke only half complies. One time he even took the
condom off halfway through, but my mind had been so jumbled by that
time, and he felt so good and so bare, and him wanting to be that
close to me made me a fucking idiot. And I didn’t make him
stop.

I put the car in park and cut it off.
Without thinking about it, my hand finds its way to my stomach and
I let my head fall against the back of the seat. I can’t feel
anything but my flat stomach. Not that I expect to feel something.
Shit. My brain is so totally messed up over this crap that I barely
know if I’m coming or going anymore.

Feeling like a moron, I crawl out of my
car and walk up to the house. The front door is unlocked, which is
abnormal. After that night, weeks ago, when Duke surprised me in
the middle of the night by coming in and making love to me, he had
Jeremy make him a copy of the house key. Inside, the house is dead
silent and pitch black. I hold tight to my keys just in case
something’s wrong, and I close the door as quietly behind me as I
can. Slowly, I walk past the living room and the kitchen and down
the hallway to my bedroom. The door is closed, which makes sense if
Duke’s home. And he is. His bike is outside. My imagination is just
running wild.

Opening the door to the room, I find
yet another darkened space. A hulking figure sits at the foot of
the bed, hunched over and perfectly still. My nerves calm at the
sight. I can’t make him out in the darkness, not really anyway, but
I can sense that it’s him. And who else would be in the house,
anyway? I flip on the light and still at the sight.

Wearing his black boots and a pair of
blue jeans with a black tee shirt, and his blond hair is falling in
his face, Duke looks up. His elbows rest on his knees. When his
eyes meet mine, they’re pained and red with irritation from being
touched too much. He’s covered in motor oil and a thin sheen of
sweat, but that’s not what makes my heart lurch.

Streaks of blood are smeared over his
cheeks and up and down his arms, on his shirt and his jeans, and
even in his hair.

All worries about being pregnant fly
out of my head, and I drop my purse to the floor and rush over to
him.

“
It’s not my blood,” he
says and reaches out for me. I slam into him and crawl into his lap
as his arms wrap around my torso, smearing the blood onto my
clothes and skin. I run my fingers through his hair, tip his head
back so he can look at me, and study his face.

“
Tell me you’re okay,” I
demand on a whisper.

“
I’m not hurt,” he says. I
let my eyes fall closed for a moment then lean in and rest my
forehead against his.