Текст книги "Heaven Sent"
Автор книги: Avelyn Paige
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
“You’re the man from the bar,” I state, hoping to still be wrong.
“Sure am, and you’re a traitorous slut. Twisted Tribe probably planted you that night in hopes to get you into our clubhouse. Guess it only took torching a salon to accomplish that,” he angrily quips. Leaning against the door, his stare bores holes into me, making me feel small and weak against his strength. “Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and fess up now before you make it any worse? It’s easier to kill you now before the other women get attached to you.”
“Twisted who? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I yell in return, gripping my hands tightly to the chair.
“The motherfuckers who murdered our brother, that’s who—,” he yells before the gray-bearded man stops him.
“That’s enough, Hero. There’s no reason to throw unconfirmed accusations at the girl before we even get her name, or fuck, even her story. All right, darlin’, let’s start with the easy stuff. Who are you and where the hell did you come from?”
“You could start by telling me who the hell you are and where I am,” I sarcastically reply while mentally smacking myself for being that rude off the bat.
“I’ll tell you who the hell I am, little girl. I am the president of the Heaven’s Rejects Motorcycle Club, and I go by Raze. The lovely woman who deposited you into this predicament would be my wife, Maj. Any other questions you want to throw at me while trying to stall from answering me?”
“My name is Dani. I’m from the Midwest,” I reply, taking care to give few details. I don’t need to give him or Hero, as he called him, any more information about me. I have no idea if wanted posters have been issued for me yet, and I’m not about to paint a red arrow over my head screaming, “Here I am,” if one of these assholes searches my name.
“Midwest, huh? What brings you out here?” he asks. Shit, what do I say to that? Think, Dani. Think.
“I’m waiting, Dani. Answer me,” he demands.
“I needed a change of scenery. Figured sunny California would be a good place,” I simply state. Keep it to minimal details. You don’t want to lie elaborately in case you forget it later. You can do this, Dani. Keep it simple and maybe you’ll survive.
“You look awfully young to be out here on your own. You can’t be more than twenty or twenty-one.”
“I’m twenty-five. Why the hell does my age matter? You sick fucks like little girls as play things?”
Raze leans into the table and stares me down.
“Let me make myself perfectly clear. I don’t know what kind of fucked up idea you have about an MC and how we treat women, but if you call me or another member of this club a sick fuck or a kiddy fucker one more goddamn time, I will put a bullet between your eyes. Do you understand me, Dani? My club and my men will be respected.”
“Yes, Raze,” I quietly answer.
“So, how’d you end up in that abandoned house next to the salon?" Gray Beard asks as Hero readjusts his position against the wall to a crouch before me.
“I’d answer him very carefully, Dani,” says Hero. “You don’t want to lie to the likes of us. You won’t like the consequences.”
“Back off, Hero,” the man demands, sending Hero back into an angry silence.
I look right at Hero when I answer. I won’t back down or show I am intimidated by him.
“A group of Spanish men kidnapped me from my bed as collateral for something my roommate had done. They locked me into a car’s trunk after they beat me into a blackout, and I escaped the first chance I had. I hid out in the abandoned house. I was trying to wait them out to go back to my apartment to get my things before I walked in on a man setting fire to the salon next to the house. I put out the fire so no one would come searching the neighboring buildings and find me.”
“You don’t buy this crock of bullshit, do you, Raze?” Hero asks, looking up at him. “Sounds a little too convenient for me.”
“Shut the fuck up, Hero, and let the girl talk,” he yells, directed at the man at my feet. “Tell me, darlin’, did you see the guy who set the salon fire? Notice anything about him at all.”
“I told the Mohawk guy that grabbed me with your wife the guy had on a leather jacket with a white skull on the back with orange and green writing. It was too smoky to make out the words, but it was the same one the guys who kidnapped me from Ricca’s had on that night. I waited for him to leave and I used a blanket I had stolen to beat the flames down,” I say, offering up the best explanation I can without incriminating myself further.
The mention of the colors stiffens him just like it had with the man in my old house. “Are you one-hundred-percent sure about that emblem on his jacket? If I showed it to you again, would you recognize it?” Nodding my head yes, he pulls out his phone from the back pocket of his jeans, flicking his finger across the screen. Once he stops, he shoves the phone into my face. “That it?” he asks as my eyes adjust to the bright screen an inch from my face.
“Yes, that’s it,” I respond. My answer must please him because he returns the phone to his pocket.
“You’ve been useful to me so far so I’ll let you stay,” he says while shushing Hero’s snort in response. “But there are a few ground rules you are going to need to follow. You go nowhere alone in this clubhouse or outside. Slider, who you met, will be your personal shadow from the time you leave your room until you return. My wife insists that you’ll be working at her salon so he’ll be driving you back and forth. If a man with a cut like mine—” he indicates the leather vest on his torso “—tells you to do something, you take care of it. Now, you don’t have to fuck them if you don’t want to, but if they want you to clean their shit up, hop to it. You can only be in the main room of the clubhouse or the kitchen outside of your room. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, I understand that I am a prisoner here until you deem me fit enough to fuck or kill. Either way, I’d rather be dead than under any man in this clubhouse. I’m no one’s whore and never will be.”
“If it weren’t for my wife’s protection, you’d be dead and buried already. You are confined to your room for the time being. Hero, have Slider get her a plate of food and lock her back into her room. Let’s see if our kitten here knows how to behave before we let her out of her cage.” Raze quickly exits the door as I start to stand to leave myself. Just as I reach the threshold, Hero’s hand wraps around my arm, jerking me back into the room. His face is mere inches from my mine.
“Don’t think for a single moment that I’m not watching you. If you are a traitor, we’ll know long before you know we do. Don’t let that night at the bar cloud your opinion of me. I’m not a good man, and yes, I wanted to fuck you that night, but the only thing of mine that will ever touch you again is my hand snapping your neck if you’re a spy for Twisted Tribe.”
I have no words to answer his threats. I have no idea who that other club is. I am just as pissed off about being kidnapped as they are for whatever was done to their club. I’m far from innocent, but I have nothing to do with their accusations. I just have to bide my time and behave as they expect me to until I can be allowed to roam free. Why do I feel so fucked already?
Jesus, I don’t want to interrogate this traitorous bitch. She has invaded every dream I’ve had since that night in the club and my dick throbs to touch her tight body again, but my mind will never grant him his wish. I’ve convinced myself that she is solely responsible for everything that Twisted Tribe has done to our club as my way of making sense out of this shit situation. It pisses me off to no end that Raze requested I help him try to shake the woman down. I want to kill her for what those fuckers did to our club and fuck her all at the same time. She messes with my mind more than she should be allowed to do, and I still don’t know her fucking name. I’ve fucked my way through every single club mama in the last three days in an attempt to get her out of my brain, but my dick remains soft until her face emerges into my vision. I know it’s not her body I’m using, but the only way I can cum is imagining that I am pounding into her luscious body, and that the voice screaming my name is hers, not one of the club girls. I am seriously fucked in the brain when it comes to her. I dragged my feet, following Raze into the room to talk to her because deep down, I hoped it was some doppelganger or some shit and not her, but I knew it was my dark angel. This woman was sent from hell to torture me; I’m sure of it. As soon as I turn around to face her, recognition flashes across her face. That’s right, sweetheart. I’m the man who wanted to fuck you senseless in the bar’s bathroom that night. I can smell her arousal filling the room as I watch her. Raze even knows something doesn’t appear right between us. Her sweet and scared voice breaks the silence in the room.
“You’re the man from the bar,” she says with a wavering voice.
I know Raze wants us to play nice with her, but I’m frustrated that I want her so badly. I need to break the spell she holds over me and the only way I know how do to that is to be an angry prick to her.
“Sure am, and you’re a traitorous slut. Twisted Tribe probably planted you that night in hopes to get you into our clubhouse. Guess it only took torching a salon to accomplish that.” That’s right, baby. You may look sinfully delicious, but I know what you are. “Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and fess up now before you make it any worse for yourself? It’s easier to kill you now before the other women get attached to you.”
“Twisted who? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she yells at me. She’s playing the dumb bitch card. Let’s see if I can shake her up a bit more.
“The motherfuckers who murdered our brother, that’s who—,” I scream at her before Raze cautions me to stop. He’s furious with me for disobeying his direct orders about not showing her our hand so soon, but I can’t help it. She needs to know what she’s fucking dealing with.
Raze asks her the basics—what her name is and where she’s from—to break the ice. I know he’s trying to downplay my rage and insistence on being an asshole toward her to get her to talk, but this little hellcat has a mouth on her. She questions Raze at every turn, challenging him. She’s enraging him just as much as I am, and that turns me the fuck on. My dick throbs with each sarcasm-laced word that spills from her mouth. I like a feisty streak in my woman, but unfortunately for me and my dick, it’s currently in a traitor’s tight little body.
“My name is Dani. I’m from the Midwest.”
Ah, I finally have a name for her. Dani, I say in my head. Fuck, her voice calling out my name as I pound into her sends chills down my body. Her original origin does surprise me. Well, I guess it would if I believed that’s really where she’s from. Her exotic coloring and dark eyes and hair don’t scream small-town USA Midwestern girl to me, but hell, I could be wrong. She does a have a slight accent to her voice that could be construed as being a bit southern, but we live in California. No one is who they say they are out here. Raze finally asks the question I’ve been dying to ask her. I listen intently to her response, hoping to detect a lie. I slide from the wall and crouch down in front of her, studying her eyes. She shakes at my nearness, but this way I can watch to see if her eyes give away her lies.
“How’d you end up in that abandoned house next to the salon?” Raze asks her. Come on, baby, give me the answer I want. Tell him you’re a spy for Twisted Tribe. Reveal all your secrets now.
“I’d answer him very carefully, Dani,” I tell her. “You don’t want to lie to the likes of us. You won’t like the consequences.” Raze warns me off again from my questioning. He has no clue how much he’s pissing me off every time he does that. This Midwestern girl might just be more inclined to answer someone who isn’t trying to bait her with sweet honey. She stares intensely at me as she answers him.
“A group of Spanish men kidnapped me from my bed as collateral for something my roommate had done. They locked me into a car’s trunk after they beat me into a blackout, and I escaped the first chance I had. I hid out in the abandoned house. I was trying to wait them out to go back to my apartment to get my things before I walked in on a man setting fire to the salon next to the house. I put out the fire so no one would come searching the neighboring buildings and find me.”
You’re fucking kidding me, right? Does she honestly think we’re that stupid to fall for that? “You don’t buy this crock of bullshit, do you, Raze? I ask. “Sounds a little too convenient for me.”
Raze waves me off a third time, which incites further rage. If he’d just let me handle this my way, we’d have our answer and she’d be as worthless as an old whore’s worn out cunt. We could wrap this up a lot quicker if he wasn’t playing story time with the bitch. She goes on and on about Voodoo finding her at the house next to the burned salon and that she was trying to help him, but it isn’t until she describes Twisted Tribe’s cut that my attention is drawn to her again.
She describes it basically, but it’s enough of a description to verify what we could pull from the back camera on the salon before the smoke covered the lens. Her eyes show me that she thinks she’s telling the truth, but it’s just too easy of an explanation to make me believe her.
Sure, she may be innocent, but until I can prove it otherwise, I’ll be watching her every step. Raze lays down the rules we discussed as a club with her. She’s a prisoner within the walls of the clubhouse, which makes it easier for us to keep an eye on her. After Slider dropped her off in our nicest interrogation room, I pulled him aside and assigned him to spy duty. He’s quiet enough that she won’t notice him hanging around if we let her go any farther than the salon. It pisses me off Maj threw her protection net around her because it limits my ability to get information out of her. Slider’s good with the ladies so he may be able to charm her out of the information and her panties for good measure.
Jesus, my hands clench at the thought of Slider touching her panties. This woman is going to be the death of me, and she hasn’t a single clue. Raze steps out of the room after giving her the rundown of the rules, but I’m not through with her yet. I grab her tightly around the arm and jerk her back to face me. She’s going to know that I am dead serious in the threats I delivered.
“Don’t think for a single moment that I’m not watching you. If you are a traitor, we’ll know long before you know we do. Don’t let that night at the bar cloud your opinion of me. I’m not a good man, and yes, I wanted to fuck you that night, but the only thing of mine that will ever touch you again is my hand snapping your neck if you’re a spy for Twisted Tribe.”
Even threatening her, her nipples pebble against the feel of my body pressed tightly against her. I bet she’s soaking wet right now. Fuck, Hero. Stop thinking about her like that. She’s not meant for you! I scream in my head, trying to convince myself to back away. Shoving her at Slider, I walk away from her. I need to find one of the girls and try to fuck her from my memory again, even though I know it won’t work for shit.
“Hero!” bellows Raze. “Get your ass into Church, now!” Ah shit, he really is pissed at me. Slamming the door behind me, Raze doesn’t wait to start in on my actions.
“What the fuck, Hero?! I thought we agreed to play stupid with her. You basically just laid out the fact that we think she’s a fucking spy for the double Ts.”
Running my hand over my head and down my neck, I think about what I want to say to him. He has to know I’ve met her before, but he’s going to DEFCON 1 when he realizes he’s seen her before, too.
“I couldn’t help it, Raze. Her faked innocence rubbed me the wrong way,” I truthfully respond.
“I’ve gotta ask. The way you were staring her down from the first second you saw her and the way you reacted to her in her room…do you know her? Hell, have you fucked her as a one-night stand? Because as soon as you saw each other, the shit went weird in the room.”
He isn’t going to like what I’m about to tell him. I hope he’s ready for the big reveal. “Remember that night at Red’s a few weeks back when Maj got shit-faced and you had to take her home? Our little dark-haired spy was the girl with the lanky blonde. After you dragged your old lady’s ass out of there, Ratchet and I had a little dance floor play time with them both. I just about had her seduced when the blonde blew chunks all over her and she disappeared. Red told me before we left that the blonde works for him and is Enrico’s new bitch. As soon as he dropped the name, we booked it out of there in case he rolled into the bar looking for his woman.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me, right? Red knew about the blonde being tied to Twisted Tribe, and he fucking hired her? We need to talk to him about this shit. Send Tyson down there to get more information about her and the roommate. If she worked there, I bet Dani did, too. Maybe our reluctant prisoner will be useful after all.
It takes nearly two weeks for my house arrest in my room to be lifted. I feel like such an outsider here as I, honestly, rightly should. My first night exploring the main room and kitchen were met with stares from everyone and silence. I refused to let them get me down. Every day, I walked out into the dining and lounge areas like I owned the place. I’d park my ass right in the middle of them at the table or on the couch. Of course, they all came up with excuses to leave or went silent, but I wanted to prove to Raze and Hero that I wanted to make the best of my confinement. It takes nearly another week before one of the girls talks to me. Bubbles fits her nickname. Her bright blonde hair and blue eyes with her clearly fake boobs made me feel like I was talking to a Barbie doll, but it was a conversation at least. She looks like the club kidnapped her right out of a high school teen beach party. She can’t be more than nineteen or twenty years old. Soon after, the other girls begin to warm up to me, and I feel like I’ve finally found some companions in this hell hole.
I learned the rules as I went. Stay out of the way and out of club business. The men are our superiors and we are glorified fuck-dolls and maids. Granted, the fuck-doll status didn’t land on me, even though I’m sure on more than one occasion they wanted to ask me but thanks to Maj’s protection, I was exempt from that task. Not that I would have minded after staring at these tattooed, hard-bodied men, but opening up that can of worms would only lead to more trouble. I need to stick to my plan: behave and escape.
I’ll admit, every single time the news came on, my heart stopped. These guys aren’t exactly CNN or local news kind of guys, so the TVs never stayed on those channels long enough, but I had a deep seated fear that my face would be plastered on the scene alerting them to my past predicament back in Ohio. The longer I was exposed to this caliber of people, the more likely I would be hauled away in cuffs. I coached myself every morning in the mirror to just keep on biding my time and to keep my nose clean. The sooner they trusted me, the sooner I could easily escape.
Hero was true to his word and watched my every move out in the public rooms. There were times even at night that I could smell his cologne wafting underneath my door before his footsteps faded down the hallway. I was such a fool to think that he’d realize the error of his ways and treat me like he did in that club. Even if he wasn’t the guy I dreamed up, the memory of that night served its purpose when I needed a release. It wasn’t until the second time I masturbated in the shower that I realized that there might be cameras in the room. While I’m sure whoever was on the other end of the video feed would enjoy the show, I’m not exactly an exhibitionist when it comes to sex. Hell, I wouldn’t even rank myself a three on the scale of one to ten on extreme sex exploits. The closest I came to being kinky was letting Sam Shelton finger me on the school bus in ninth grade. It was awkward and painful since he thought fingering a pussy meant stabbing it randomly. That’s the day I learned unless you tell a man what you want, they’ll never please you in the bedroom.
Hero, on the other hand, I suspect never has to be directed in the bedroom. Every time I hear moans and screams coming from his room down the hall, it kills me a little bit on the inside. I know he and I aren’t meant to be, but it still hurts to see him drag one club whore after another into his room on a consistent basis. It takes me days to look those girls in the eyes after hearing one of their sessions with him. Either he was that good, or the girls were pornstar-grade fakers. They’re my only semi-functional friends in my personal version of hell, so I can’t lose them.
Raze pulled me aside about a week ago after dinner to tell me that I would be venturing outside the clubhouse to start my new job at Maj’s salon. The work to rebuild the charred parts of the building was finally finished and Maj was ready to re-open. It took me two days to convince Maj that I wasn’t cut out for being a hair stylist before she set me to work being their cleaning staff. Sure, sweeping up discarded hair on the floor and cleaning the bathrooms isn’t a luxurious job, but it’s better than staying in the clubhouse. The conversations with them aren’t exactly mind-blowingly insightful, but I listen intently just for the noise.
I went to bed early last night with a headache. I thought I would have to skip work today but when I woke up this morning, it was gone. I jump into my morning routine, getting cleaned up and out the door for breakfast with the girls. Slider meets me as usual by the breakfast nook with coffee in hand, ready to escort me to work. I noticed Maj spends most of her time away from the clubhouse after her fight with Raze about bringing me here. It worries be that my benefactor and protector isn’t here with me, but at least Slider seems to care about me.
“Ready to go, sweet cheeks?” Slider teases while thrusting the steaming cup of caramel-flavored coffee into my hands. “We better get you off to work before Maj hacks my balls off. She warned me the last time we were late that she was going to take possession of them the next time.” The visual of Maj’s hacking off his balls and keeping them in a jar on her desk at the salon brings a smile to my face. That crazy bitch would actually do it, too, which is why it’s so funny.
Purposefully walking out the door at a turtle’s pace, Slider literally shoves me out the door and into the waiting SUV. He throws the car into gear and peels out of the dirt driveway onto the curvy mountain road. I just smile and laugh at him while the time ticks closer to us being late yet again.
“It’s not fucking funny, Dani. It’s not your balls on the line!” he yells as we fly through a yellow light on Mountain Avenue. He drifts the SUV around the corner and barely squeezes into the parking space in front of the salon a few minutes later. “Tada!” he yells. “Three minutes to spare. Score! I get to keep my balls.” He laughs as I hop out of the passenger side of the SUV with him. I don’t have the heart to tell him that his clock is five minutes slow, thus making us nearly ten minutes late. We burst through the door and Maj smacks him upside the head.
“You’re late, Slider. When I tell you I want her here promptly at nine thirty in the morning, I mean nine thirty. Not nine thirty-eight,” she says while poking a fine-toothed comb into his chest. “If you want to make it in this club as a prospect, I’d suggest getting my ward here on time. Now scoot on back to the office, I need you to take a look at the computer. It’s doing weird shit again.”
Smiling at him, he flips me off as he shuffles back to the office. Slider told me he sucks at anything with computers, so he has to sneak Ratchet in the back to fix it. If she only knew half the shit of what he did back there. I caught him watching porn and jerking off when I went back to grab more cleaning supplies from the storage closet. That was something I will never erase from my memory. Trust me, I’ve tried.
The shop is busy today, so of course I have plenty of work to do. Maj keeps insisting that she’s going to teach me how to cut hair, but she’s delusional. Giving a suspected spy scissors isn’t exactly the brightest idea, even if I am innocent of their alleged crimes. An hour before close, the office phone rings and Slider rushes out.
“Maj, I need to run back to the clubhouse. Shit’s going down and he needs the manpower to curtail whatever the hell is going on. Can you watch Dani for me?” he quickly asks, pleading she’ll agree.
“Of course, now shoo. Don’t be late!” she screams as he runs out the door. “Men!” she exclaims. “Whether they’re bikers or metros, they’re always dramatic over the littlest things. You’d think my husband called to tell him Slider’s baby is about to pop out any second the way they go running around after him. The little shit can’t be on time bringing you to work, but he’ll be five minutes early when my husband calls.” She lets out a hearty laugh that echoes off the salon walls. She’s just about to finish up her second to last client for the night when the office phone rings again. I’m usually not permitted to answer the phones, but Maj sends me back to get it before it drives her crazy.
“Blazing Beauty Salon,” I answer.
“What the fuck are you doing answering the phones, Dani?” Hero yells into the receiver. “You know that’s one of the rules for being permitted to work at the salon.” Oh joy, my best friend is calling. Why me?
“Yes, Hero. I am well aware of the rules, but Maj is busy and I’m the only one here since Slider left. Is there something I can help you with, or did you call just to be a dick?”
“Feisty as ever, I see. You need to cancel her last appointment and get out of the salon. I’m sending someone right now to get you. We’re locking down the clubhouse. I know you have no clue what that means but tell Maj. She’ll know what to do,” he barks into the receiver. Before I can even reply, he abruptly hangs up on me. He’s such an asshole. He couldn’t even be bothered to say thanks for relaying the message.
Walking back out the workstations, Maj is just about to start cutting her client’s hair. “Who was it, Dani?” she asks as she snips a piece a hair from the woman’s bangs.
“It was Hero. He said we needed to close up shop. Something about lockdown or some shit.” As soon as lockdown exits my lips, panic flourishes in Maj’s eyes. Ripping the cloth draped around her client’s neck, she informs the lady that there’s been a family emergency and she needs to cut their appointment short. As she shoves the woman out the door, she yells that her next cut is on the house for the inconvenience. Turning back to the door, she locks it and pulls down the blinds.
“I need you to go to the back door and make sure it’s locked. Turn off all the lights and close the blinds. We need to make sure that it looks like no one’s here until one of the guys gets here. Do you understand me, Dani?”
Nodding my head, I bolt for the back and throw the dead bolt on the door. Flicking the lights as I move back toward the office, I catch Maj pulling a gun out of the safe and tucking it into the waistband of her jeans. Grabbing ahold of me, she drags me back up front to the shop and watches the street from a slit in the blinds. My heart races with every minute we wait for our pick up. A bike rumbles down the street and screeches into a spot in front of the shop. Banging comes from the door as Maj cautiously opens it. Voodoo stands on the other side and shock registers on his face when he sees me standing behind Maj.
“Fuck. I thought it was just you, Maj. I don’t have room on the bike for her,” he says pointing at me. “Dani, you’re going to have to stay behind until I can send someone else to come get you.”
Maj looks bewildered at me and tries to stop Voodoo from pulling her out of the building. “We’ve got to go now, Maj. I’ll send someone after her. You’re our priority. Bad shit’s about to go down and we need you secure. I promise I’ll send someone back. Please, just get on the bike,” he pleads with her. Looking back at me, she steps toward Voodoo and issues more orders.
“Someone comes back for Dani, V. I won’t leave her a sitting duck because my husband is a fucking idiot.”
Voodoo motions for her to get on the bike before returning his attention to me. “Dani, you stay inside with the doors locked. Do not step one fucking foot outside until you see one of us coming back to get you. Do you understand me?” he yells as he turns to run back to the waiting bike with Maj seated on the back.
“Yes, Voodoo. I’ll stay inside,” I swear to him. He runs away from the door and I hastily slide the deadbolt back into place. Time slows to a screeching halt the minute they pull away from the salon. My eyes are glued to the traffic outside, begging for the rumble of a motorcycle getting close. Fifteen minutes pass without a sign of rescue. Just as I decide that this may be my chance to leave, a silver Harley Davidson pulls up with a helmeted rider. He stalks up to the door and just as I’m about to open it for my rescuer, I realize that his cut isn’t in Heaven’s Rejects colors. Fuck! It’s Twisted Tribe. Sliding down to the floor, I crawl toward the back door as the doorknob begins to jiggle.
I quickly crawl behind a stack of boxes in the back room when he kicks the front door in. Loud bangs come from the front as its sounds like the man is throwing around anything he can get his hands on. Each bang makes me jump in fear. If he finds me, he’ll take me back to their clubhouse. Glass breaks as the scrape of a chair moves across the floor. His phone begins to ring just as he gets to the office door.
