She tried to sit up but the cuffs caught her. Instead she fell heavily to the side—facing me, thank f**k—and I started taking pics of her tits and that sweet pu**y I could just see peeking out between her legs.
Her eyes met mine, full of sudden, horrific comprehension. This has to happen, I reminded myself.
Em screamed in wordless rage. Then she raised her legs and kicked the wall, the force of her anger driving the bed a good six inches across the floor. A mirror mounted over the dresser fell to the floor with the crash of shattering glass.
“You cocksucking bastard!” she shrieked.
I took one last shot, then turned off my camera. That should do it.
“Consider this a lesson why you shouldn’t trust strangers you meet on the Internet,” I told her, offering a nasty smile. “I’m gonna go get something to clean up the glass. Be a good girl while I’m gone—unless you want another lesson? I can do worse than pictures, you know.”
I opened the door and stepped out quietly. She screamed at me again, the sound tearing through me as I jogged down the stairs.
Skid looked up from the couch and cocked a brow.
“Do I wanna know?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Naw, just took your advice,” I replied. “I hurt her bad. Should be enough to do the trick.”
“Right thing to do, brother.”
I shrugged.
“Guess so. Fuckin’ sucks.”
“Yeah, that’s why I don’t usually follow my own advice,” Skid muttered. “Glad you did it, though. Frees her up to find someone else. Get her out of this game.”
“Every once in a while, I wonder what life would be like outside the club,” I admitted, rubbing a hand through my hair. “You know, if we didn’t have all this shit to deal with? If we could just live like normal people.”
“Never gonna happen, so might as well forget it,” Skid replied. “Hell, you’d be bored off your ass. Can you imagine holding down a regular job? Fuck, what would you even do? I know you’re f**kin’ great at hunting people down, taking them out—”
“Don’t say shit like that, bro.”
Skid laughed.
“My bad. You’re f**kin’ great at whatever it is you do for Burke,” he said. “Probably fetching coffee, delivering flowers. Shit like that. But a regular job? You’d be f**ked, man. It is what it is.”
“Sometimes I hate this.”
“Yeah, me, too. But you know what? Sometimes it f**kin’ kicks ass, so let’s focus on getting through the next day or two. Then we’ll head back home and get you laid. She’s not the only pu**y in the world.”
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
Skid snorted.
“Fuckin’ pussy.”
“I said don’t talk about her like that.”
“I was talkin’ about you, ass**le. Biggest damned pu**y in the house.”
This time I decided tackling him was worth the effort.
EM
I refused to speak when Hunter finally returned, focusing my gaze exactly two inches above his right shoulder. After a few minutes of one-sided conversation, he gave a frustrated sigh and walked me over to Sophie’s room.
She’d been cuffed to a bed just like me, and even in sleep she looked as rough as I felt. Shit. I hoped to hell Skid hadn’t decided to teach her the same kind of “lesson” Liam gave me.
“You okay?” I asked, sitting down on the side of the bed. She opened her eyes slowly, face twisting.
“I need the bathroom,” she whispered.
I looked over at Liam—no, Hunter. I needed to remember that. Liam was the imaginary nice guy. Hunter was the giant douche who’d taken dirty pictures of me.
“Can she go to the f**king bathroom?” I asked, not bothering to hide my hatred.
“Yeah,” he replied, his face blank. He walked toward us and I scooted out of the way, glaring at him while he unlocked Sophie’s cuffed arm. “C’mon. Both of you.”
I grabbed Sophie’s hand and pulled her across the hallway and into the bathroom.
“I can’t believe how stupid I was,” I told her, feeling sick. “I actually invited him to come and meet me. I made it so easy. Idiot.”
Sophie used the toilet and then washed up, cupping her hands to get a drink. She seemed so quiet, so subdued. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t more pissed. Hell, she should be pissed—at me. I got her into this shit.
“Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to us?” she asked. “Skid scares the crap out of me.”
“Did he hurt you?” I demanded, feeling my blood pressure rise.
“No.”
“That’s good,” I muttered. “This is a pretty f**ked-up situation. Toke—he’s the one who cut me at the party—he’s gone off his rocker. This shooting thing makes no sense to me at all, but if it really happened, we’re screwed. Nobody knows where Toke is, not even Deke, and he’s Toke’s president. They’ve all been looking for him since the party. Cutting me was not okay, and Dad wants to make sure he pays for it.”
“Shit,” she said, eyes wide. “So your dad couldn’t give them this Toke guy, even if he wanted to?”
“I don’t think so,” I said slowly, wishing I could fix things—for her, if not for me. Hell, Sophie was a mother. What would her little boy do without her? “I mean, he’s really protective of me. When Toke hurt me like that, Dad lost it. If Dad could find him, he’d be found already. We’re pretty f**ked here, Sophie.”