Chapter 16
Cook
With Maddie’s head on my shoulder, I held her against my chest as I walked down the sidewalk toward Celt and Roni’s Whispering Meadows apartment. Maddie was lighter than I remembered, perhaps deflated from how many orgasms I’d drawn out of her. But that made my chest expand with pride.
I curled her tighter into my chest. Her head lolled to the side, fucking limp like she was unconscious. Nah, she was just tired. It had been a long day.
Just thinking about my early wake-up call from the coyotes before dawn had me yawning too.
Before I could knock, the apartment door swung open. Celt stood in the doorway, dragging his gaze down at Maddie in my arms. I shifted her weight, not able to enter unless the big bastard moved.
Roni, standing behind him, called, “Let them in, Charlie.”
Celt stepped back, and I slipped in past him, asking, “The fuck is Charlie?”
My best friend looked away and shit. Was that...
“You blushing, mofo?” I asked.
“Fuck off.” He walked over to the kitchen island and sat on a barstool.
Roni came to stand at his side, beaming. “Sorry. Just what I like to call my ol’ man.” She rested a hand on his thigh and stared up at him like she’d just been fucked too.
I cleared my throat. “Nothin’ like a bunch of horny water goats standing around in awkward silence.”
Celt glared at me.
Roni laughed, flipping a lock of her blond hair over one shoulder. “You can put her in the bedroom.”
I followed her to the open door and then laid Maddie down. Her dress barely covered her from when I’d tried to dress her at Serenity. I pulled the hem down to cover her naked nether parts, but I managed to rip the dress when I lowered her to the bed.
Over it, I tore the thing from her body and threw the blankets over her.
Maddie buried her face in the pillow, letting out a soft moan, and my cock twitched again. After hearing her moan all night, the smallest throaty noise from her might send me into a frenzy.
Control had been my middle name all night. I’d worked hard to make sure she would open up good for me and that she’d know it was me fucking her and taking away the past. When she’d finally been ready, I had fucked her like crazy, slamming her onto my cock again and again.
And damn, I didn’t think I had that kind of kink inside me, but with her tied down like that and at my mercy. That had been the best fucking orgasm of my pathetic life.
She had finally screamed out in ecstasy so many times while I toyed with her body, and it had been music to my ears. I wanted to crawl over her now again and bring her back to life with my dick.
Sick fuck was probably the only good description for me right now.
Celt probably had tons of questions, though, so I dragged my heels out of the bedroom and shut the door.
He was waiting for me, arms crossed over his chest. “What happened to her?”
Roni touched his shoulder. “Leave Cook be.”
I crossed my arms and met his questioning gaze. What Maddie and I did tonight was only our business. And Sloan had been right. I knew Maddie better now. I learned to look in her eyes when I fucked her. That she needed to see my face. And I had discovered how to make her scream with pleasure.
“I know what fucked-to-exhaustion looks like, Roni-girl.” Celt kissed his girl’s forehead.
She raised her hand to cover a wistful smile.
He turned to me. “How was Serenity?”
I sucked my teeth. “Can no one keep their damn mouths shut?”
“Not in the Ridge,” said Celt. “You know that.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, wanting nothing more than to shower and curl up behind Maddie in that bed.
“Tell me, Cook,” Celt said. “After everything she’s been through, did you figure shit out?”
Heat clawed at my skin. “I’m working on it.”
The same way I was working on Maddie seeing Melanie and making sure my mom didn’t go crazy. Keeping my business on the fucking DL. However, tonight had been a great start at erasing the shit stain my dad left on my sixteenth birthday.
“Any news on the guns?” I walked toward the fridge and grabbed myself a beer, needing to calm my tits.
“No.” Celt inclined his head to Roni like he didn’t want her involved. Roni already knew, like every other woman connected to a patched member of the MC. “Apparently, nothing interesting has been found.”
I nearly snorted. Interesting was one way to describe it. “The boys’ll keep an eye out. When you returning to the Ridge?” I looked around the cramped and cluttered apartment and downed half my beer in one go.
Most of the apartment was in boxes, everything else was messy. I wouldn’t have normally noticed, but Maddie had cleaned up my house and kept it clean. I probably should warn Celt and Roni that when Maddie woke, she might start cleaning.
“We’re working on it,” said Roni.
Celt cleared his throat. “I’ve talked to Hammer about building a house. His crew completed the recovery house, and they should finish Bou and Wilde’s place in the next couple of weeks. Then he’ll be on our house.”
Roni smiled, knocking her hip into Celt, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, holding her close.
“You guys found land?” I asked, then took another long swig and looked at the backwash remaining. I needed another.
“Building on the spot my old house burned,” said Celt. “It was Pops’s dream to get out of the big city and that’s where he landed, so I’m not keen on givin’ it up.”
“Your sister is a fucking bad ass,” I said.
“Don’t have to tell me.” Celt walked over to the fridge and grabbed two beers. He handed one to Roni.
The two of them looked like they were going to bed, both dressed in sweatpants. Long gone were the days of us going for late-night rides or finding somewhere to party with cheap drugs.
Look at us growing the fuck up. It was terrible.
“You’ll be starting at the recovery house?” I asked Roni.
She sipped her beer, swallowed, and let out a sigh. “Yeah.” She didn’t sound so certain. “I’ll be the head nurse for Doc and Doctor Richardson. They’ve already been talking to me about some of their patients.”
Maddie.
I picked up my beer and finished it off. So much for patient confidentiality or shit like that. Doc and apparently Doctor Richardson didn’t adhere to those rules.
Loyalty was the only thing that mattered in the club. That I got for Doc, but Ava Richardson just left her practice in LA. Shouldn’t she be a little more careful?
“What did they say?” I asked, grabbing a second beer from the fridge. The high from Serenity was wearing off, and the reality of Maddie’s situation, as well as the kids’ at the recovery house, sucked.
I didn’t want to think about it sober.
Roni ducked her head. “Things that shouldn’t be... true. That no one should have to experience. I wish someone could tell me they’re not true.”
I couldn’t. I only took another long chug.
Roni’s body trembled. Celt put down his beer bottle and then grabbed his woman, wrapping her up in his arms. She snuggled into him, her face fitting into the crook in his neck. I looked away and drained my beer, considering a third. I didn’t feel any closer to being drunk.
With a deep breath, Roni mumbled, “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s some dark shit,” I said. It was the only thing I could say to explain what Maddie and others had been through. Nothing was fair. Even those of us in the MC, who lived on the wrong side of the law, didn’t treat people like the fucking Gambinos. Some MCs called it a code, but mostly, human trafficking was a line no one needed to cross.
“What about Maddie?” asked Roni. “How is she doing?”
“She’s strong.” I had a lot more ways to describe Maddie, but I didn’t think they would understand or want to hear. “She’ll get through this, but we’ve got another problem with the goddamn Mafia.”
“Because of the guns?” asked Roni.
Celt shot me a look. He didn’t chase her out of the room, so it wasn’t my problem if she got the lowdown.
I gave a slow nod. “The guns and kids... and Maddie. The rescue and Sas putting a bullet in Amaranta Gambino’s skull has Enzo on our collective ass. Probably on orders from the Don.”
Roni buried her face in Celt’s shoulder for a minute, then gathered herself and rejoined the conversation.
“The feds were on our asses for a while about the trafficking from the reservation. I think Melanie got them off, but they had the Diablo cut on video.” I said, thinking back to what Angel and Melanie said about the video. “Those kids seemed like Signora’s cash cow.”
All color drained from Roni’s face. “I’ll see all that as a nurse at the recovery house.” Her voice sounded like she was a million miles away.
Celt pulled her close again and she curled into him.
I exchanged glances with him—whole lotta “how’d we all end up in the same ring of shit?” passing between us.
Lifting my beer to my lips, I couldn’t help but think how the Yuma triangle might be worse than the fucking Bermuda triangle. At least people only disappeared into some parallel dimension there.
Celt rubbed his girl’s shoulders. “Roni will eventually have to testify in court about all this shit.”
I cocked a brow at the man. “Why?”
Roni fisted his T-shirt, but he kept spilling the tea. “Working with the kids will give her some info, but she was one of the Don’s victims too.”
The beer bottle dropped slowly from my lips as I took in that information. She was trafficked? I thought it had mostly been kids from the rez. Maddie had been an exception, but the rest had been indigenous.
I let that lie. Their biz, not mine. I had enough problems of my own and needed to focus on the MC’s play in all this shit.
“Signora has bigger connections within the Mafia, and the Don is still alive,” I said. “Though I don’t know how the fuck Tommy Gambino is pulling strings from his prison cell.”
Roni tensed in Celt’s arms, and Celt shushed her.
“Do you want to go?” he asked.
I held my tongue for a hot second until she shook her head.
“They’ve got connections to the big players. Now that we’ve taken the bitch out of the game, who the fuck knows if someone else will step into their shoes.”
More kids. More Maddie.
“We can’t let them,” said Roni.
“Wilde’s got eyes on that mill, so they’re done for now,” Celt said, as much to ease Roni as to inform me. “Given that the feds were involved, if we see anything, we can tip them off anonymously. Let the big dogs do their job for once and leave us out of the fucking mix.”
Roni dropped open her jaw. “But what about—”
Something shattered in the bedroom, and I immediately reached for my gun in the small of my back. Celt pushed Roni behind him. The door to where Maddie slept was closed, but what the hell was that?
I rushed forward.
Maddie
“Damn,” I muttered to myself.
This was what I got for waking up somewhere strange with no lights on and no idea where shit was. Now the lamp was a heap of porcelain shards on the floor. I rolled off the other side of the bed, my body like jelly. I needed to find another light so I could clean up my mess.
Before I could make it over to find the light switch, the door burst open. The doorknob hit the wall, and I jumped. A scream escaped my lips as I threw my hands over my head and crouched at the foot of the bed, preparing to be kicked. Only Signora came into a room like that when she had been angry and needed someone to take it out on.
“Maddie,” said Cook, and I peeked through my fingers.
He was here. I was safe.
Behind him stood his friend Celt, older than he’d been in the photos, yet still the same. Also, I thought I recognized him from the mill when all hell had broken loose, and I’d found Cook.
And there was... a girl. Blond. Her eyes were glassy. Why? Had she been crying? Had something happened to her?
Celt had the same hardened determination as Cook, and the scowl etched into Celt’s face scared me. I had only seen it in pictures when he was a teenager. Adulthood made it more severe.
I put my hands over my head again.
“Maddie, drop your hands,” ordered Daddy, and I did. He slipped his gun behind himself again. Clearly, nothing was a threat.
Celt was Cook’s best friend. Of course, I was safe.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just knocked into something.”
Cook’s thick frame slid in front of Celt. “You’re naked, Maddie. Cover yourself with a blanket.”
I grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders. “I just knocked something over. I’m sorry. Let me clean it up.”
When the light flicked on, I moved to collect the pieces.
“No,” said Cook, and I halted. “The pieces are sharp. You’ll hurt yourself. You need a dustpan.”
“I’ll clean it up,” said the woman. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie.”
“Thanks, Roni,” Cook said.
When I woke up without him, I panicked. But his voice outside the room had made me stop and listen. The names they were tossing back and forth sent terror coursing through my veins.
The Gambinos. All of them.
Roni returned with a dustpan and small broom. “Okay. I’m just going to sweep up over here, Maddie. Nothing to worry about.”
Her voice was nice enough, unlike that doctor at the place Cook saved me for the second time. However, I didn’t move, not when Celt’s hard stare held me down.
“Maddie, nizhóní, come into the living room.” Cook strolled out of the bedroom, and I scampered after him, sliding past Celt to get out.
When I reached Cook, I whispered, “Was that lamp special?”
“Not that I know of,” he answered. “Why?”
I waited for Celt to disappear into the bedroom with the girl—Roni—then asked, “Why was he so angry with me then?”
“He’s not, baby girl.”
The corners of my mouth curved a little. I liked the sound of that.
“But the way he looked at me... at my arms and legs.”
Daddy looked me in the eyes and pushed my hair behind my ears. “He’s concerned. That’s all. Now be good, okay?”
“Okay.”
Sweeping and clattering sounds reached me as Roni brushed the shards from the floor, and I tucked my chin into the soft blanket. Roni and Celt murmured in low voices.
Cook grabbed a beer from the fridge, flicked off the top, and took a long drink. His throat bobbed as he came back toward the couch. We didn’t kiss enough or cuddle at the club, and all I wanted now was for him to hold me.
Roni walked out of the bedroom, but she didn’t carry the shards, dustpan, or the small broom. She stopped in the doorway, watching me openly, though sad curiosity glistened in her eyes.
I twitched. Besides Signora, and more recently Bou and Belle, I hadn’t spent a lot of time around women, and I certainly couldn’t read them.
“Can I get you something to eat or drink, Maddie?” asked Roni.
I looked at Cook, but he echoed her question by raising his eyebrows.
He was allowing me to answer for myself. Giving me the choice. “No, thank you. I can clean that up.”
“It’s already been taken care of.” Celt walked out of the bedroom, carrying out the shards in the dustpan.
“Sorry,” I said again, dipping my head. I should’ve been paying attention. I shouldn’t have been trying to eavesdrop. I was an idiot.
“Don’t be, sweetie,” said Roni with a kind smile. “It was an accident. Do you want to sit in the living room?” She sank onto a chair, and when Celt came back after throwing out the broken lamp, he handed Roni her beer too.
He took the facing chair, more than filling it.
Cook walked over to the couch, and I was the only one left standing. All eyes burrowed into me. Fire licked my skin, and I gathered the blanket tighter around myself. I didn’t want to look at them.
Why are we here?I wondered and asked, “Why didn’t we go to Vivi’s?”
“Come here,” said Cook, patting the cushion beside him.
Sitting, I pressed my thighs together, lingering on the edge of the seat and rolling up onto the balls of my feet so I could run at any point.
Celt and Cook sat close to each other, talking about something I didn’t know and wasn’t about me. Even with my shoulders pointed away from Roni, I felt how her eyes burrow into my back. I was supposed to speak to her—it was rude not to—but I only wanted to be near Cook. I wanted him to tell me it was going to be okay. To look at me and only talk to me and tell me we could go home.
“Are you sure you aren’t hungry?” asked Roni to my back. “Or thirsty? I can get you something. Maybe some clothes?”
Cook rested his hand on my knee, and I calmed under his touch. I shook my head at Roni’s questions. My stomach was in knots being around people I didn’t know and in a foreign place.
I wanted to go home.
“Are you sure you don’t want some clothes?” pushed Roni. “You must be cold.”
I didn’t care if Cook’s best friend saw me naked, as long as Cook didn’t care. The two of them talked, and I tried to listen.
Eventually, Roni got up and walked off.
Celt and Cook both watched her leave the living room, and then Cook swung his gaze back to me, like he had just noticed I was there.
After half a moment, Roni returned, carrying a stack of clothes. She put them on the coffee table. “If you want them. No pressure though.” Her smile was dazzling, and it gave me jitters.
Everyone was staring at me now, but I didn’t move away from Cook. She could offer all she wanted, but I didn’t need her clothes. Hiding myself didn’t matter, and I didn’t want to dress up how she thought I should.
Like Doctor Richardson had tried to coerce me into doing the normal things, she did the same. Despite how friendly her voice sounded, I wouldn’t play the games they wanted. Unless...
“Daddy?” I whispered for his ears only, needing him to tell me what to do.
Cook looked down at my chest, the blanket wrapped tightly around me like he ordered, and then he squeezed my bare knee. “Put on the clothes, Maddie.”
I wouldn’t resist him. Standing, I dropped the blanket in place.
Immediately, Celt looked away, and Roni raised her eyebrows as she backed away.
Cook grabbed the blanket and stood, holding it like a screen between me and the others in the room. “I meant it would be appropriate to take the clothes and go into the other room to dress.”
The way he looked at me, it seemed like he was disappointed. Tears burned my eyes, and I clamped my jaw shut. I wouldn’t argue with him, ever, but he didn’t care until Roni did.
He looked backward. “Sorry.”
I dressed behind the blanket, not wanting to leave Daddy’s side. I didn’t want him to apologize for me either, but it seemed too late for that.
The scrub bottoms were loose enough around the waist, but they hit me three inches above the ankles. When I unfolded the sweatshirt, there was material for days. It had to belong to Celt. I peeked at Cook, who nodded his approval.
As I tugged it over my head, I heard Roni’s voice again, whispering, “She didn’t care she was naked.”
“She was wearing a blanket,” offered up Cook, and Celt scoffed.
“That’s not the same thing,” said Roni. “I think it’s a trauma response.”
Did she think the blanket created a soundproof barrier?
Roni continued, but I only caught part of it. “...of what the Gambinos did to her. She should talk to—”
I batted down the blanket. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’ll try to do better next time.”
That shut them up. Hopefully for good.
Until it didn’t. “I understand you’re doing all you can, Cook,” Roni said in a normal tone now, “but what happened to her—what you just saw and what she’s definitely not telling you—is gonna continue.”
She made me sound like I was defective.
“I’m not a delicate flower.” I stared her down, and she finally relented.
After everything that had happened to me, people would expect me to be shattered pieces of glass put back together to create a human. But I was strong like steel. I wouldn’t falter again. I hadn’t in front of Cook.
Cook folded the blanket and draped it on the arm of the couch before sitting. He shifted over, making room for me. “Truly, Roni, she’s better free from hospitals. It was just a really long day.”
I shot him a grateful smile, but instead of sitting beside him, I knelt at his feet. My knees dug into the rug, and I stared down. The silence stretched out as I waited for Cook to do something.
“Um,” said Roni in a low voice at the same time Celt barked, “Cook.”
He raised his hand as if to silence them and said to me, “Maddie, sit beside me on the couch.”
Seated, my knee touched his, and he pressed his hand down on me again. The pressure was good. Grounding.
At length, Celt broke the silence. “Did you and Angel make the schedule yet for the extra border patrols?”
“He’s still getting his list of prospects together,” explained Cook.
“Then they aren’t loyal, or they’d be here by now,” said Celt. “Wilde should cut them loose.”
“They have families in LA,” said Cook in a calm, fatherly tone. Warmth spread through me. “The Ridge isn’t built for families. That’ll take time.”
Celt frowned. “Our guys need to be on duty, pronto.”
“I’ve got it covered,” said Cook. “The guns are probably only a start to the things they wanna run across our border.”
Guns? My heartbeat quickened, and my stomach twisted. Though nothing was in my stomach, I was going to be sick. Why was Cook involved in all this danger?
He saved me. Wasn’t that enough?
Was he trying to save others? I didn’t know what was happening, but he shouldn’t tangle with that kind of shit. It was too dangerous. If I lost Cook...
I couldn’t lose my daddy after I had just found him. I needed him.
“We need a better schedule and more people on the line,” said Celt.
“Trust me, man. We got this.” Cook pushed off the couch. “I gotta piss.”
I lurched to my feet, following him toward the bathroom. I couldn’t be parted from him. But he closed the door, and I dragged myself over to some of the nearby half-shut boxes.
More stuff, sloppily packed.
“What are you doing?” asked Celt, his voice pelting into my back.
I jumped but didn’t stop. I took the shirt out and refolded the fabric, so it didn’t have so many wrinkles.
“Let her be, Celt,” said Roni in a soft tone.
There was so much shit strewn all over the apartment. A maze of boxes. Tripping hazards. Old beer bottles. How could they live in such a mess?
I put the bottles in the recycling, and then I took out a towel and wiped down the counter. There were ringlets from the bottles and old stains from food. I scraped at the stains with my thumbnail.
“Maddie, stop,” cooed a voice.
What even was this shit caked to the counter? I was going to get it off one way or another.
A hand grabbed my wrist and whipped me around. I came face to face with Cook. Immediately, the tendency to clean left me, and I dropped the cloth. I wanted to serve him. However he wanted.
He grabbed the cloth and threw it at the sink. “Come here.”
Cook led me away from the kitchen counter by my wrist. He sat me back down on the couch.
“Sit all the way back,” he ordered.
I slid my ass all the way to the back and slouched into the cushions. Only then did Cook sit beside me. But when he wasn’t in my line of sight, the mess called out to me again. The boxes and the stains on the counter and where their beer bottles left condensation ringlets on the coffee table.
They really should’ve used coasters.
The box was that overflowing with clothes needed to be refolded and then fit into the box correctly, like a puzzle. I needed to complete the puzzle.
Cook slid his hand across my knee, and the bouncing stopped. For a second, I relaxed, but then I glimpsed the mess in the other bedroom.
Roni and Celt’s room. More clothes were on the floor, and the bed wasn’t made. I needed to fix that.
Cook wrapped his arm around my shoulders, bringing me close to him. His heartbeat was even, but his hands were clammy, covered in the dew from the beer. His breath reeked of it too. His shirt was wrinkled. I would need to iron it.
He pushed my chin up and his hardened gaze softened, like he could see deep into my soul. When he released me, he said to the others. “Maddie’s tired. Can we still crash in the extra room?”
“Yeah,” said Celt, and Roni got to her feet quickly.
“I’ll put some extra clothes and towels in there,” said Roni, walking into the bathroom.
If the towels were folded anything like the shirts in the boxes, I was going to have to refold. Maybe iron them too.
Cook jumped off the couch and brought me to my feet. With his arm still around my shoulders, he led me to the bedroom where I woke earlier. My body still buzzed from our time at Serenity, but a new buzzing was blowing through my system. Cook closed the door behind us and then sat me on the bed.
“You’re trembling, Maddie,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“There’s just a big mess out there.” Then I saw how the sheets and blankets were tucked into the bed in their room. It was a mess. Dangerous. Almost as dangerous as it was running guns across the border and whatever the motorcycle club was getting involved in. Why?
Cook bent in front of me. “That’s not it. Tell me what’s happening.”
I curled my legs to my chest, balancing on the edge of the bed. “Can we go home?”
“It’s the middle of the night,” said Cook.
“I want to go home.” I rocked back and forth on the bed as tears threatened to flow over my eyelids.
“We’re not going home.” Cook’s voice was low and stern.
It struck me in the face, and I forced myself to be still on the bed. We were staying here and Cook and Celt were going to talk about their dangerous business. They would talk about the Mafia. About all the men who came to Signora’s and used me. They were dangerous—why did Cook have to be involved in that?
“Maddie.” He grabbed my chin. “Look into my eyes.”
Forgetting everything but Daddy, I did.