2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Griffin's Beach Colt
F ollowing behind Lex in Karmen's SUV, Colt can't get the phone call Lex got two nights before out of his mind. In fact, he hadn't been able to sleep after they crawled into bed. He asked her what it was, but she said she couldn't tell him. He hates she's determined to handle things on her own, but he has to admire her dedication to keeping her word. It was always assumed he was exempt from the secret thing because he's her husband.
He'd done everything in his power to get her to cave and tell him what was going on. He'd used his mouth, his hands, and his cock, but she'd refused to spill. Not that he really expected it to work, but it was fun nonetheless. He smiles remembering how she covered her face with a pillow when he did that thing she likes with his tongue to keep from waking the kids and his family. The only person likely to be mortified would be Lex, but he knows he doesn't need to have any type of discussion about what he does to his wife with his teenage sister, Klaire, who slept on the other side of the wall.
Lex parks her Mustang in front of the house, and Colt hates how conflicted he feels. For his wife, he wants to go back to Summerville, but as he looks at the house Jennings bought them out of guilt, he can't help but think about how his family started here. They were going to grow up in the same hometown as their parents, and he does miss the place. His family. But he'll do anything he needs to for his wife.
"Did you hear about the dead women they've found recently?" Lex asks as he steps out of the vehicle. "I just heard it on the news. All just outside of the city limits."
"What?"
Her blonde curls bounce as her head nods. "Yeah, they've been mutilated and left unrecognizable. Some without heads. Plus, no teeth or hands have been found. This crazy person doesn't want his victims identified, which makes him even worse than anything we've ever done. I doubt any of these women have done a fraction of the shit our men have killed others for."
"Jesus, that is scary. Although, if they find out who the dude is, I kind of hope I cross paths with him. It's been a while since I've done something terrible for the better of mankind without a personal stake in it," he says and wraps his arm around her shoulders. "What are we doing here now? Our stuff has been boxed up and loaded on a truck headed this way thanks to Bodie and Jolie."
Bodie Hall was like a surrogate kid who came to stay with them when they first moved to Summerville to escape his ex-girlfriend in Black Valley. He'd had a heart transplant and was finally back up on his feet, ready to ride again. But when he went to his ex's house, he found her with another man. Luckily, he met Jolie by a stroke of fate, saving her life multiple times before finally getting together.
"I just want to see how bad the house looks inside. Mostly, I need to understand how much cleaning is needed. And how many rodents have found their way inside. I hope none because I fucking hate mice."
He chuckles and kisses her temple. "I know you do, baby."
"Please don't be upset with me," she says, surprising him, and she turns to look at him. "I want to tell you. I do. And I will once I can."
"It's not you, right? There's no life-changing test results or secret doctor’s appointments I didn't know you saw that came back, right?"
Smiling, she shakes her head. "No, it's not me. I'd never keep that from you."
"And it's not the kids?"
"Another thing I'd never keep from you."
"Then I will wait until you can tell me. Just know I'm here. Always."
The thought of being able to help work out some of the tension that reappeared once she woke up makes him hard in his jeans. She has to take off and go and do something she can't tell him, but he knows how to give her what she needs in any length of time.
Lex looks at the door suspiciously, and she opens it without the key. All desire to get her naked disappears, and Colt pulls her behind him as he draws his gun from the holster under his leather.
"I thought someone was supposed to be checking on the house," she whispers as they step inside.
"Ky was supposed to. Guess he hasn't been," he whispers back.
Ky Short, his best friend, promised to swing by and check on the house while they were away until he figured out what to do with it. He either hasn't been checking or has literally driven by to make sure it looked untouched. Either way, someone has definitely been inside their home.
The entryway and kitchen are empty, and while it looks like someone has been there, it's not destroyed or trashed. They walk into the living room to find it empty, too, and head down the hallway to look in Noah's room. Empty. Calla's room is next, and it's also empty. The guest room across from the master has a thick layer of dust on the floor that looks undisturbed. It must also be empty. Their bedroom, however, is far from empty.
Two teenagers lay in the floor, asleep in sleeping bags. A girl who looks around sixteen or seventeen with dark brown hair lies in a purple bag while a boy who looks around thirteen with lighter brown hair sleeps next to her in a blue one.
"Who the fuck are you?" Colt shouts, waking both of them up. They cling to each other, the girl using herself as a shield and pushing the boy behind her as much as she can. "What are you doing in my fucking house?"
Lex's hand gripping him and tugging him backwards pulls him from his anger, and he lowers his gun. She moves to kneel in front of them, her hands showing she's not threatening them with anything. "Hey, relax. We're not going to hurt you."
"We thought the house was abandoned," the girl says, her voice deceptively strong. "We haven't seen anyone come here in over a month."
"You've been here for a month?" Lex looks back at Colt. "Why don't we start with introductions? I'm Lex, and this is my husband, Colt. We own the house."
The girl swallows, and she narrows her eyes before finally answering. "I'm Hailey Lawerence. This is my brother, Lucas."
"How old are you?" Colt asks, putting the gun in its place.
"How old are you?" Hailey snaps back.
Lucas tugs on her shirt. "Be nice, Hailey. They can still call the cops. I'm fourteen, and Hailey's seventeen."
Lex looks amused. "Where do your parents think you are?"
"They don't care where we are. They prefer it when we're gone," he says.
The greasy hair tells Colt Lucas hasn't washed it in a few days, and considering they shut the water off to the house, he's probably limited where he can go to clean himself fully. He learned at a young age that girls tend to prefer guys who shower daily, and he feels a little pity for the boy.
"Who are your parents?" Colt asks, trying to figure out what kind of parents would prefer their kids didn't come home. If Noah or Calla wound up out all night without telling them, he'd have a fucking search party out looking for them.
"We'll go," Hailey says. "We'll clean up everything. Just don't all the cops."
Standing, Lex and Colt exchange a look. "What do you want to do? I have to take off soon," she says.
"I gotta take you guys home," he says.
"No, please," Lucas says, standing and pressing his palms together, begging. "Don't make us go home."
"Look, we're not your kids, and you're definitely not our parents," Hailey says, climbing to her feet and cocking out a hip. "We'll get out of your hair, and you'll never see us again."
Amused, Lex lifts an eyebrow and glances back to Colt. "She's got sass."
"She's made of sass," Lucas mutters, earning him a slap to his arm.
"Come on now. You're going to tell me where you live, and I'm bringing you home," Colt says. "And if it's not the right house, we’ll drive around until we find it. Or the police station. Whichever we find first."
He's bluffing, but they don't know that. The last place Colt would ever voluntarily step foot into is the Griffin's Beach Police Department.
"You can't make us—"
Her sentence falls when she realizes who she's talking to. His leather makes her eyes widen, and Lex snickers and says, "I'll take a quick look around before I take off."
"We didn't steal anything, I swear!" Lucas says, his voice shaking.
Her hand gently reaches out to touch his shoulder, but Hailey pushes it away. "I'm not worried about that, sweetheart. I need to know what we need to clean before we can unpack our stuff when it arrives."
"Come on, kids," Colt says, forcing them out the door. "I'll be here after you're done doing whatever you're doing, babe. Send me a list of what you think I can do to your satisfaction, and I'll work on it while I wait for the truck to come."
She kisses him, and he walks outside, making sure the kids get in the car before driving to the address Lucas gives him. Based on the look on Hailey's face when Colt glances over to the passenger seat, it's not a fake address. She is not happy at all about it, either.
When he pulls into the driveway, the kids jump out, and he steps out, too. He takes in the sight of the decrepit house that has gray wood he believes was once painted white. Most of the windows are broken and boarded up, and the front lawn is more weeds and dirt than anything resembling grass. It looks more abandoned than his house was.
"No, it looks like a drug house," Colt mutters to himself.
"You don't need to walk us to the door," Hailey says, turning to stop him. "We can take it from here."
"You realize you're not exactly on the list of trustworthy people at the moment, right? I’m walking you to the door to make sure this is where you actually live."
"You don't have to," Lucas says, and the pleading tone has Colt looking into his deep brown eyes. Something in the terror on Lucas's face sets something off in Colt. A fatherly instinct, perhaps. Something isn't right here. "We're sorry we broke into your house. We just needed some place to sleep."
Shaking his head, Colt walks up to the door with them. "Yes, I do need to do this."
If nothing else, I need to see what you were running away and hiding from.
The door swings open to reveal a man with a larger beer gut than Creeper used to have. A stained white tank top covers his torso so tightly that Colt notices he barely has a belly button with the enlarged belly. He wears boxers instead of pants, and based on the smell, he desperately needs to wash them. And himself.
"What the fuck did you assholes do to get your asses brought here by a fucking biker?" the man shouts at the them.
"Harold, calm down," Hailey says from behind Colt, and he can't quite decipher if she sounds angry or annoyed. Her general demeanor is a bit off-putting.
Harold glares at her, and Colt counts his teeth. He's missing more than he has in his mouth, and the hideous yellowish-brown color tells the story that the few remaining won't be around too much longer. His breath could peel the paint off Colt's bike, and as he looks inside to the living room, he nearly gasps.
The house makes any biker's apartment in the clubhouse look spotless. Empty vodka and bourbon bottles, all plastic not glass, litter the floor along with mounds of old food and trash. Maggots and ants inch among the piles of rotting food, and some of the takeout containers actually move. The woman he assumes to be their mother lies passed out on the couch with the rubber tie wrapped around her upper arm still intact and a small collection of used needles on the ground. A heroin user.
Jesus Christ. No wonder they wanted to stay somewhere else. Squatting is better than this shithole.
"Answer me when I ask you a question, boy!" Harold shouts, grabbing Lucas by his shirt and lifting him up before slamming him against the open door before Colt can react to stop him. "What the fuck did you do?"
"Harold, stop it!" Hailey screams as she tries to reach around Colt who blocks her way.
Colt grabs Harold's wrist, squeezing it until he releases Lucas, and when he does, Colt swings him around to slam him against the wall with enough force to break a man-shaped hole in the sheetrock. "Don't you ever fucking put your hands on him again."
"That's my kid—"
"Step kid, asshole," Hailey says. "You're his stepdad."
"You both still belong to me since your daddy went and got himself killed in a car wreck. At least he wasn't like your mother who offered herself like a fucking little bitch."
Hailey kicks Harold's shin, but Colt only tightens his grip on the man's arms as he tries to reach for Hailey. "You stupid bitch. I wish you'd go and play in traffic."
"I wish you'd find your way into a pile of drugs like Lucas's mom," Hailey spits back. "Then you'd be remotely bearable."
The dynamic of the family makes the situation even worse. Hailey's an orphan, and Harold is an abusive, alcoholic stepdad to Lucas after their father died. Poor kids.
"Well, too bad you don't get what you wish for. But I'm still responsible for the both of you until you turn eighteen, and you have no idea what kind of punishment I have in store for you both," Harold says, his breath making Colt's eyes water.
Tossing him to the ground to get away from the stench, Colt says, "Not anymore."
"Excuse me?" he asks, climbing to his feet and getting in Colt's face.
He grabs Harold by the throat and tosses him back down before waving both kids outside. "They're not staying here. CPS should have been called a hell of a long time ago. Both of you, get back in the car. You're coming home with me."
"You can't just take them!" Harold shouts, struggling back up to his feet.
Taking out his phone, Colt takes picture after picture of the house, the unconscious woman on the couch, and Harold. "Here's what's gonna happen, Harold. I'm going to talk to our lawyer and get guardianship papers sent over to you. You and that woman are going to sign them, and you're never going to see these kids again. I'm going to be their guardian now."
"Like hell you are!"
"If you don't sign those papers, the pictures of everything I just took are getting sent right to the police station. Plus, you're clearly abusing the kids. I'll get my ass thrown in jail with you just to give you a taste of your own fucking medicine, so don't fucking tempt me."
Harold squares his shoulders, but he staggers on his feet. "You think I'm going to just let some trashy biker take my kids?"
"They're not your kids, and this is not a life for anyone, especially kids. This explains how I found them in my empty house where they've been staying for a month. You had no idea where they were or how long they've been gone, so don't even attempt to act like a concerned parent now. You're relieved of your duties, effective immediately."
Lunging forward, Harold misses Colt who barely sidesteps the large but drunk man, and he falls to the dirt outside the house. "You can't do this!"
"I didn't even need to touch you to get your face buried in dirt. Think about what I can do when I actually apply myself. You'll never be able to fight against me, and if you try, not only will I have both you and that chick in there arrested for neglect and child endangerment, I'll make sure you have a rough fucking life. Do not fuck with me, asshole."
"What the fuck do you want two bratty teenagers for anyway?"
"As a father, you're lucky I don't break your goddamned neck, among other things. Go near those kids again, and I promise you that you will take a permanent nap. And it will be the most painful torture I can come up with, which believe me, you can't even imagine what I can do. Now, stay the fuck down there until we leave, or I'll break as many bones as I want until you can barely crawl your pathetic, fat ass inside."
Turning to the SUV, Colt takes his time, hoping the man decides to play the game of fuck around and find out by getting to his feet to give him a reason to break both kneecaps. Instead, he seems to have a moment of semi-intelligence and stays down while Colt climbs in. Both kids sit in their rightful seats, and he lets out a deep breath. He should have talked to Lex before making this decision, but he couldn't leave them here.
"Will Lex be mad?" Hailey asks.
He pulls away from the house to head back to his own. "Lex is a mom. She'll understand when I explain."
"Famous last words of a man," she says and looks out the window.
"Thanks, Colt," Lucas says, his voice shaking.
Looking in the rearview mirror, he locks eyes with Lucas who looks a hell of a lot younger than he did minutes ago. He nods and says, "There will be ground rules for the house. Just because you're not our biological kids doesn't mean you get to act like you have no parental guidance. Lex and I will talk to you together to go over everything."
"Oh, fun," Hailey says.
He knows immediately she will be a challenge. "We're not exactly strict, but we have two kids of our own. Structure will be had."
"Who knew bikers had structured homes?" she mutters.
"Juvie would be better than that house," Lucas says. "I'll do whatever you say, Colt."
The fact Hailey willingly got into the car, even with her attitude, tells him she'd rather be anywhere than that fucking house, too. If Colt thought his sister's attitude was bad, he suspects he hasn't seen anything yet with this teenage hormone bomb with a chip the size of Texas on her shoulder. Though, having seen only the smallest fraction of what she’s lived through in such a short time, he can’t blame her. He just hopes Lex doesn't want to murder him for this.