Chapter 30
CHAPTER
THIRTY
KING
I’ve been in the hospital for forty-eight hours, and I’m about to break my fucking self out of here. I can’t sit here and do nothing. I don’t care if I almost died. I have to get my woman back before something happens to her. Atomic isn’t getting her out of there fast enough.
The door to the room opens, and I expect to see Atomic or Clink so I can demand they get her out of there today. I have never been this impatient in my entire life. Every second that passes is one more second they could hurt her.
Except my demands don’t come, because it’s not either of them who walks through the door. It’s Poison. She’s wearing some shorts that are too short and a top that ends just below her tits.
I start to ask her what the fuck she’s doing here, but she speaks first. “I can’t believe this happened. Oh my god, I’m here to help.”
“Please don’t,” I say.
She rushes to my side, and then I feel her hand touch mine. She bends slightly, her lips brushing my cheek before they shift to my ear. “I’m here to make you happy, baby. Since she can’t be bothered to visit you.”
I wrap my fingers around the back of her head, grip her hair, and pull her head to the side, getting her off me. I don’t want her body touching me. Releasing her, I watch as she stumbles to the side, then falls to the floor.
“What the fuck?” she cries.
“Bitch, I’m not sure what the fuck you don’t understand. You are not my woman.”
“Yeah,” she snaps. “I don’t see her here.” She grins. “Maybe she’s a little tied up?”
“What the fuck do you know?” I demand.
There is a moment of silence, one where she stares at me from her place on the floor. I have my phone in my grip on the other side of me, but I can’t take my eyes off hers. I need to know what the fuck she’s talking about.
“I know more than I would ever tell you,” she purrs as she pushes herself to stand.
She licks her lips, her eyes searching mine for a moment, then she takes half of a step forward before she speaks again.
“I know she’s not here. She’s where she belongs, and soon, she’ll be married.
I know she’s not coming back. So you might as well enjoy what I’m offering, King. ”
“You need to tell me what the fuck you know and who the fuck you are, like right goddamn now.”
She hums, spinning around in a circle, then she faces me again. I don’t know what the fuck she’s doing or why, but I watch her and wait for whatever the hell is going to happen next. It’s not like I can get up and do anything about her being here or make her talk.
“I don’t need to tell you anything, but I will because I want you all for myself, and if I tell you what you want to know, I expect you to make me your old lady.”
“Why?” I demand. “You want to be my old lady even though I fucking hate you right now?”
She leans forward, grabbing her tits and squeezing. “You may hate me right now. You can even hate fuck me, I don’t care. But I’ll be an old lady, and that’s all I give a shit about.”
She’s batshit crazy, as far as I can tell. “Fine. You’re an old lady. Tell me about Shawn, about the Nomad Kings. How the fuck do you fit in?”
Instead of answering me, we’re interrupted, but I don’t mind because it’s Atomic who walks through the door. He stops as soon as he lays eyes on the whore standing in front of me. Then he frowns.
“Atomic, good to see you. This bitch knows who has Shawn, what they plan on doing to her, and why. Although I don’t have the why figured out or how she’s involved. But since I can’t get it out of her, I think you’ll be able to.”
There is silence. Poison looks like she’s about to shit herself, and that’s fucking fantastic for me.
Completely goddamn fantastic. I keep waiting for Poison to say something, to do something, but she stands completely still as she watches and waits for something to happen.
Then she narrows her gaze on me and turns to Atomic.
“Baby,” she breathes. “Remember how good I am to you.”
She’s completely changed her tone and her focus. It’s no longer on me but instead on Atomic. She’s such a loyal woman. Why wouldn’t I dream of making her my old lady? I chuckle to myself but then groan because it hurts.
“Yeah, I remember how you’re a whore. That’s what I remember. So you want to tell me what you know?”
“Or?” she asks.
“Or we kill you,” another voice announces casually.
Shifting my gaze behind Atomic, I watch Strings waltz through the door.
He leans against the jamb, his eyes on Poison.
Then he clears his throat and pushes off the door, moving toward us.
Before anyone can say anything else, he lifts his hand, grips the back of her hair, and tugs her neck so hard that I think I hear something snap.
“You’re going to tell us everything we want to know,” he hisses.
“And if I don’t? You know, I have the Nomads’ protection,” she says, her voice sounding strained.
I laugh. It hurts, but I let it out because the fact that she thinks she has any protection at all right now is goddamn laughable.
“How?” Atomic asks. “How do you have any protection from them?”
A second goddamn bombshell is dropped right here in the middle of the fucking hospital.
“I’m Prez’s daughter. The second one. The one he doesn’t give a fuck about.”
“Well, shit the bed and call me sir,” Atomic announces.
I laugh again, moaning with the pain. Fucking hell. What a time for Atomic to be funny. I’m trying to get the fuck out of here, and he’s over here making jokes about shitting beds. I can’t with him.
No more words are spoken. Strings and Atomic take the bitch out of the hospital, and then I’m left alone. I stare at the ceiling, wondering what kind of fuckery this is, and at the same time, how I got into this shit and how that cunt infiltrated our club.
SHAWN
Day three.
I think.
I’ve been given a loaf of shitty bread and water to drink. What I haven’t been given is a bathroom break. I’ve already pissed in the corner of my cage twice. Which is completely disgusting, but I didn’t have a choice.
There is silence, so much silence, and all I want to do is cry about the whole thing. Except I have no more tears left to cry. There’s nothing left inside of me, and I realize now that this is what he wants from me. He wants to break me, so I’ll do whatever he demands of me.
This isn’t about me being his daughter.
This isn’t about me at all.
This is about control and the Dark Horse MC.
He has some kind of vendetta against them, or maybe he just wants to be a dick to them because he’s an asshole. Maybe he wants to take them over or something. I have no idea how their stuff works, but this all seems super extreme.
I can’t pretend I know anything about either of them, but I know an asshole when I see one. I’ve been around enough of those in my life, and my father is indeed one of them. I refuse to give him what he wants, though.
It’s no longer even about Elvis and the way I feel about him. It’s more about refusing to let this asshole control me. He seriously thinks he can kidnap me and I’m going to do whatever he wants me to.
And maybe I would have a few months ago. But I just had the best day of my life, the day he took me. He’s ruined what I’ve been dreaming of since I was a little girl. This means everything to me, my bakery.
I’ve worked my entire life for what I had for only one full day, and my fucking father just took me away, selfishly, for whatever reason he wanted to take me.
Elvis didn’t do that.
No, not even when he vanished for a week. Before he did, he made sure I was taken care of. He paid my rent on the bakery for months ahead of time. He gave me the idea for the farmers’ market.
My thoughts are jumbled and seem chaotic, but I don’t try to control them. There’s no point. It’s not like I’m saying them aloud or that I have anyone to talk to anyway. I just have my thoughts and nothing else.
“I will not betray him,” I whisper to myself. “Not now. Not ever.”
The door swings open. I watch as my father waltzes into the room, two men close behind him. They stare at me, three sets of eyes on me and only me. I ignore them. At least I try to, but it doesn’t work.
I end up flicking my gaze between them as they move closer. I can’t look anywhere else. I am focused on them, and I wish I weren’t. I want to look away. I want to pretend they aren’t here. But I can’t. Mainly because I’m terrified of what’s to come and what they mean.
“I gave her some time to come to her senses. I’m not sure it worked. Did it work, Shawn?” he asks.
Jutting my chin upward, I don’t say a single word. “Three days with bread and water, locked in a cage, in the dark, with no human contact didn’t break her,” he states on a laugh. “She is my daughter.”
The other two men laugh as if this is just the most hilarious statement on the earth. I say nothing.
“These two men are here to decide which one is going to take you and keep you. You’re agreeing to marriage, right?”
I almost tell him to fuck himself but then decide against it. Part of me realizes I don’t know how he would respond to that since I don’t know anything about him, even though he shares my DNA.
But maybe if I agree to the marriage, he’ll free me from this cage, and then I can try to escape this whole place before this marriage takes place. It’s a plan I’ve been debating for the past twenty-four hours.
If I play along, maybe I’ll get just enough freedom to get the fuck out of here.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
If they don’t kill me first.
I want my life back.
I want my man back.
And I want my fucking bakery back.
“Yes,” I hiss.
He gives me a wink, then turns to the men. “Which one of you wants to be my son-in-law?”
God, the thought of all of this makes me want to puke. I don’t, mainly because I don’t really have much in my stomach to puke even if I wanted to, but it makes me want to. But I stay silent, staring at these men and their hungry gazes, and wish for just enough space so I can run.
And I will run—as fast and as far as I possibly can.