CHAPTER 6
HAMMER
We’ve now been working on Laiken’s house for three full weeks.
Just by looking around, you wouldn’t know how long we’ve been working.
It feels like every project we start leads to more projects.
I knew it would happen; I knew this place was going to be a fucking headache, but it also has good bones, charming details, and will be beyond amazing when it is complete.
Of course, I’ll have to survive the renovation to see it completed.
Right now, I’m not entirely sure if it will happen.
As we’ve worked and opened up walls, tore out old, rotted wood, and demoed rooms where the only solution is to go all the way down to the studs leaving the lathe and plaster to be hauled away, strange things started to happen in the house.
The noises which don’t belong are an everyday occurrence at this point.
Tools are moved and hidden all the time.
Some of them we still haven’t found. Things are being whispered, and cold spots are walked through.
If I believed in such a thing, I would think this fucking house is haunted. But it’s just not possible. There’s no such thing as ghosts, specters if you prefer. Hauntings don’t happen. Spirits are not trapped in this plane and have the ability to interact with us.
I just don’t believe it.
But that doesn’t mean I’m capable of explaining why tools have been moved and lost. I can’t tell you why we’ve all heard things like our names being whispered or, even worse, warnings being screamed. You would think, if hauntings were real, that it would be worse at night, but that’s not the case.
Most of the activity happens around the construction work. If I were a believer—which I’m not—I might think that they don’t want us to work on the house. Which makes no fucking sense. If this house is brought back to its former glory, or better, then its fate is a good one.
If Laiken were to walk away from this place, it would be allowed to go back to the earth. Knowing New Orleans, it wouldn’t take long to be reclaimed either. Hell, the plants are already making a move on the driveway, it would be just a matter of time until this piece of history would be lost.
Personally, I would think that the ghosts wouldn’t be in favor of that happening. Of course, that is if ghosts exist. Which they don’t.
Leo, the newest Prospect from the club and a guy who has worked for Devil’s Construction for a few years, steps into the library where I’m working today.
We’re doing some demo and finding out just how much of the parquet floor needs to be replaced.
There is a little water damage along the outer wall, but the rest of the floor looks good.
The custom built-ins along the longest inside wall can be restored with a minimal amount of work, but the ones on the opposite side need to be ripped out and rebuilt. Thankfully with some being able to stay in place, it’ll make it easier to copy and build.
The windows that take up the outside wall will need to be replaced entirely.
These original windows aren’t exactly rated for the weather and are far too drafty to stick around.
This is the perfect opportunity to put in energy-efficient windows, and the amount of light they’ll let in will be phenomenal.
As I look around the room, I can almost see Laiken snuggled in a comfy oversized chair with a book in her hand and a hot drink in a steaming mug on the table next to her.
It’s a vision I want to come home to. I want to find her just like that all wrapped up and cozy after I’ve had a long day on a job, knowing the entire time she’d be right here to welcome me home.
“You good, Hammer?” Leo’s question pulls my thoughts away from the snuggly as fuck scene in my mind and my head snaps over to meet his gaze.
“Yeah, why do you ask?”
“You looked to be about a million miles away,” there’s a tease in his voice, but it’s tempered by a lot of respect.
He is a Prospect for the club, but he’s also my employee.
When he’s clocked in at the job, I treat him more like my employee than the bottom of the barrel Prospect he is in the eyes of the club.
I need it to be that way or else the guys who work for us at various businesses would never be interested in earning a patch.
But those are also the people who make some of the best brothers because they’re already loyal. To us. To the brotherhood. To the patch. To the business.
Those are the people who are less likely to fuck you over when they find themselves in a dark place.
“Just thinking about my woman,” I don’t even bother to try and hide the truth.
Leo flashes a crooked grin in my direction and gives a nod of understanding.
While it’s not the norm, Leo is already happily married and will become a patched brother when his time as a Prospect is up, with an Old Lady.
They’re that whole high school sweetheart kind of story and I’ve never seen the man look twice at the angels, or any of the hangers on who come by for a party or try to get in a brother’s pants.
“You’ve found a good one,” he tells me. There’s nothing lewd about his words, only honesty, but it still causes my lip to curl.
Over the last few weeks, Leo has been one of the guys who has been at the house working right beside me.
He’s well trained in a lot of areas, and I don’t have to ride his ass to make sure the job is done right.
He’s a damn good worker and I could see him moving up in the company the same way I can imagine him wearing a full patch.
He’ll get there; it’s just a matter of time.
“I have the next load of lumber in the truck. The guys are unloading it right now,” he informs me.
I give a chin lift in acknowledgement knowing the guys will get it sorted out and will keep working.
We’re still in the process of demolition and stripping down everything to the studs where needed.
A few of those studs then need to be replaced.
Until we open the wall, we don’t know what we’ll find, and more than one load of lumber has been needed.
I’m looking forward to getting to the point where we can put the finishing touches on the rooms, but we’re a long way away from that.
I’m giving us about six months to complete everything and that’s mostly because I’m living here, in the construction zone, and I won’t be able to stand it going much longer than that.
I open my mouth to ask Leo a question when an ear-piercing scream rips through the air.
My startled eyes meet Leo’s wide ones, and everything stops for about three seconds.
Then my body uncoils, and I sprint out of the library and head right toward the solarium where I know my woman has been working on a painting while also reading bits and pieces of Blanche’s diary because she can’t stay away even though it breaks her heart.
Even though I’m moving fast and not going far, it feels like it is not nearly enough.
I burst through the door of the solarium with Leo right at my back.
Taking in the sight in front of me, I’m shocked.
The canvas Laiken has been working on for days has crashed sideways to the floor and paint is splattered all over the ground.
In the center of the carnage is my woman.
She has huddled in on herself with her knees to her chest and her eyes screwed closed. The way she’s rocking forward and back as if she’s trying to soothe herself breaks something in me.
I skid to my knees next to her and almost roar out my distress when she flinches away from me when I touch her. Her eyes snap open and all I can see is something feral there when she meets my gaze. The moment she recognizes it’s me, she melts into me.
When her fingers dig into my shirt and twist, the action fucking kills me. I want to make that fear disappear completely.
“What’s going on?” I murmur the words against the shell of her ear, and she shivers in my arms.
“She was here,” she breathes out while shivering in my arms.
The grip she has on me tightens just as Leo crouches down close, but not too close. His eyes are filled with concern as he looks at my woman. Even though I know he doesn’t mean anything, and I have no reason to be jealous, my emotions are all over the place.
“Is she okay? How can I help?” Leo’s questions are innocent, but they set me the fuck off.
I growl at him. The way his eyes widen as he raises his hands in surrender and shuffles back a few steps tells me he can feel just how on edge I am.
“I don’t know,” I grunt at him, “but I need you to clear everyone out. Job’s done for the day,” I bite out the words, hating the way my woman is trembling in my arms.
Over the last few weeks while living with her, I’ve gotten to know her really well.
She’s a strong fucking woman and doesn’t let much get to her.
The whole thing with Blanche got under her skin, but it wasn’t just about Blanche.
It was about the lack of options women had and the lack of resources beyond marriage and kids.
The expectations on the shoulders of women were heavy and there weren’t nearly enough choices when it came to education which means employment was practically nonexistent.
To have the one path Blanche had made more difficult by a man’s choices has had Laiken looking around the mansion like she might set a match to it at any moment.
I can’t say that I blame her exactly.
Leo murmurs, “I’ll take care of it and get out of your hair. Let me know if you need anything and I’ll pop it over.” He glances around the room before looking at me again. “Maybe it’s time to spend the night somewhere else.”
“No,” Laiken growls fiercely, “I’m not letting her win.”
The look Leo gives her is skeptical as hell, not that I can blame him. All I can do is sigh. My woman is stubborn as fuck. She hasn’t wanted to give an inch on this house and the more of Blanche’s journal she’s read, the worse it has become.
I run my hands up and down my woman’s back, trying not to get distracted by how fucking good it feels to have her tits pressed against my chest right now. My dick is not as discerning as I am. Nuance means nothing to him and he’s hard as a fucking steel pipe.
“I won’t let Desiree and her Voodoo win,” Laiken grunts and burrows deeper into my chest.
I suck in a sharp breath with her words.
It’s not the first time she’s mentioned Voodoo, but this feels like it holds weight in a new way.
This is New Orleans. Creole and Voodoo go hand in hand and are part of the history of this city.
People who believe and practice Voodoo aren’t to be fucked with.
The thought of someone who lived here, who changed the course of the lives of those who lived here over a hundred years ago, practicing Voodoo has my stomach clenching.
“Blanche got pregnant, and Desiree cursed her. I don’t believe in that kind of thing, but Blanche did.
She wrote about how she felt like the walls were closing in on her and about how she was always being watched.
Desiree became bolder in her actions and behavior.
Phillip did nothing about it,” she grits out the words through her teeth, the disdain she feels for the man clear to hear.
“Depending on who you talk to, curses are serious business. I’ve lived in this city long enough to learn that much,” I admit, not that I really believe either.
“Desiree cursed the Landry line where all the men born of women who married into the family would find the same fate as Phillip and Blanche. They would never find happiness, only betrayal and the continued cycle,” her words are monotone and send a shiver down my spine.
Without thinking twice about it, I stand up with my woman in my arms. Her limbs wrap around me as she clings to me, unwilling to let go.
I don’t like why she’s feeling this way, but I won’t deny that I want to pound my fucking chest because she’s letting me in and trusting me to be there for her, to be what she needs.
It’s enough; more than enough really.
“What are you doing?” Her lips flutter against my neck with every word she whispers and my cock throbs in response.
“I’m taking you to our room and I’m going to do what I should have done the first night we met,” I growl.
She jerks in my arms and pulls her head away enough to look up into my eyes. The way her eyebrows pull together asks the question without needing to say a word.
“I’m going to push our air mattresses together, strip you down so I can taste every inch of you, and then I’m going to claim you as my woman.” I move closer to her until our noses touch. “Because you are mine, my little Mischief-maker. You are mine,” I growl.
Laiken blinks at me a few times, her grey eyes wide with surprise and something else, something darker and hungrier. Then she tucks her head back against my shoulder and lets her body relax completely, giving herself over to me.
It says everything I need to know.
She’s mine.
After all these weeks of dancing around the truth, of getting to know each other, of living side by side, I’m claiming her and there will be no going back.