Chapter 18 Ryder
Ryder
I glance back at Penny, finding her staring at me like I just slapped her. I’ve done some messed up things to her, but I’ve never talked to her like this, and doing so now leaves a bitter taste on my tongue.
“Finally,” Huck calls and walks up to us, grabbing his crotch with his free hand while his other is holding a bottle of beer. “I thought you would never bring her back and share with us.”
“I’m not,” I tell him, holding out my hand to stop him from coming any closer. “She is still mine, and I like to fuck her without a raincoat on my dick. So, no one fucks her until I’m done. I don’t want to be catching any of your diseases.”
Huck throws back his head and laughs. “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”
Oh, I fucking know.
“Fine, I’ll wait,” he says, licking his lips while seeking one last glance at her.
You’ll be waiting for nothing. I won’t let anyone touch her.
“Ryder,” Maddox calls and waves me over to his table where he and three more of our brothers are already sitting.
Bradley, the youngest of my brothers, and also one of the smartest. He does all of our surveillance and tech stuff.
Then there is Trick, our trusted mechanic, and Bear, our gray-haired brother, who looks more like a lumberjack than a biker.
Without looking back, I walk over to them and take a free chair. I know Penny is following me. Not just because I told her to, and I know she’ll listen. I can sense her presence, feel her warmth, smell her sweetness lingering in the air.
Penny sits down next to me, looking as nervous as ever, and she doesn’t even know the worst part yet. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe I should have warned her. Well, shit, it’s too late now.
“You brought your pet, I see,” Maddox says, looking Penny up and down. “What happened to her face?”
I shrug. “The pet didn’t listen, so I had to teach her a lesson. That’s how you train pets, right? Hit them with a rolled-up newspaper?”
“That must have been a heavy-ass newspaper.” Trick chuckles and the rest of the table erupts into laughter while I sit there, forcing a smile on my lips. I don’t want anyone to know how fucking pissed I am right now.
“You rub her nose in piss too?” Bradley jokes, and more laughter ripples through the crowd, only poking the bear. Me being the bear.
Maddox looks over to me, his eyebrow slightly raised.
Fuck. He knows me too well. I have never been able to hide anything from him.
Today, that fact annoys the fuck out of me.
I glance over at Penny and see her shifting nervously.
Then she stops, her body going still, remaining stoically in her chair.
I follow her gaze and unsurprisingly find Tucker walking toward our table.
His eyes instantly zeroing in on the petite woman beside me.
A sinister grin tucks on his lips, and for the first time, I actually hope Maddox is right, and Tucker is fucking us over.
That’s the only way I could get away with destroying him.
“I didn’t know we could bring sex slaves to meetings now,” Tucker says, his attention remaining on Penny.
“Just run the damn numbers, so we can get drunk,” I growl, earning me another glare from Maddox.
“Fine.” Tucker slams a stack of papers on the table and retrieves a calculator from his cut’s inside pocket.
“The run we made on Monday morning brought in 3400, the one that night 8300, take 80% out, divide by 14 brothers, put the rest back in the bank…” he rambles down the numbers for each day while punching them into the calculator and making check marks on the paper.
After he has gone through the entire week, he says, “total, $91, 250, 20% back in the bank leaves 73k even. Divided by 14 means each brother gets $5,214.”
Tucker is still talking when I feel Penny’s soft fingers brush tentatively over my arm. Her touch, so soft it tickles, leaves goosebumps in her wake. I tilt my head toward her, letting her know I’m listening, but I don’t look over. My eyes remain on Tucker.
“May I get something to drink… please,” she says, barely loud enough for people to hear. Her words confirming what I was suspecting. Fucking Tucker, skimming off the top. Thinking he is so smart.
All I want to do is call him out, grab him by the throat, and use his face as a punching bag for the next twenty minutes, but I know I can’t. I need to play this smart, and I definitely need to talk to Maddox before doing anything.
“Bradley, get her a drink,” I order my brother, who looks at me like I’ve just asked him to solve an unsolvable riddle.
“I’m not a server, especially not for some bitch,” he snorts.
Barely holding on to my restraint, I grit out, “Get off your fucking ass and get her a drink before I stomp your teeth out.”
“Jesus, fuck, Ryder,” Bradley yells, but thank fuck, he gets up and walks toward the bar.
“Touchy, touchy.” Tucker grins.
Bradley returns a moment later, slamming a glass with some fruity looking liquid in front of Penny and a bottle in front of me. “I brought you a beer too. Maybe that will lighten up your fucking mood.”
Doubt it. But I still take the beer and down half of it. I really need to calm the fuck down before I do something really stupid. Something that I can’t take back.
Everyone at the table breaks out in conversation.
Bradley talks about the chick he banged behind his gym yesterday, and Trick swears he fucked the same chick last week.
Maddox talks to Tucker about upgrades he wants to do to his bike, and Bear chimes in about those upgrades only adding unwanted weight.
Maddox occasionally glances my way with a look that says, we’re going to talk about this later, and Penny is sitting next to me stiff as a board, nursing her half-empty drink.
“Soooo,” Bradley says loudly, grabbing the attention of the whole table.
“Remember how I told you guys about this new drug coming in? The one that’s tasteless and dissolves in liquid.
” He smirks, looking straight at me. I freeze.
He fucking wouldn’t. I almost throw the bottle of beer across the room.
“Calm down, fucker.” He laughs. “I didn’t put it in your drink.” His gaze swings over to Penny. “I put it in hers.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I growl, standing up so quickly the chair I was sitting on crashes to the floor behind me.
Bradley rolls his eyes… he rolls his fucking eyes. I’m livid. My mind goes blank, and the next thing I know, I’m across the table with my hands around Bradley’s throat.
“Ryder!” Maddox yells, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. I feel more hands on me, trying to pull me away, but my fingers are wrapped so tightly around my brother’s throat they can’t get me to move.
Bradley’s face turns a reddish-blueish color, and his eyes are bulging out when Maddox’s voice finally gets to me, “Ryder, cut it the fuck out. Just get that chick out of here.”
At the reminder of Penny being here, the fog around my mind slowly lifts, and I release Bradley with a shove. He slumps back into his chair, and I take a step back, taking in the scene in front of me.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
All eyes are on me, glaring at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind, probably because I have. I look down to my right and find Penny still in her chair, her big blue eyes glazed over, the spiked drink still in her hand. I take it from her and slam the glass on the table.
Then, I grab her arm and pull her up to her feet. I don’t know if the drug is already working or if her legs are buckling because I scare her. Either way, she needs my help to walk. I half carry her through the bar, her shorter legs unable to keep up with my long strides.
I head for the front door before remembering that I took the bike to get here.
There is no fucking way she’ll be able to hold on.
I really don’t want to stay here, but right now it’s my best option.
Dragging her through the back of the bar, I take her to my room, the same room I took her to that first night.
Once inside, I lock the door behind us and guide her to the bed. As soon as I let go of her, she flops down like a rag doll. Fuck.
For a moment, I just stand there, looming over her.
Her body looks exhausted, and I don’t think she can move much, but her eyes are still open, and they’re fixed on mine.
Even through the haze of drugs in her system, her gaze holds an ocean of emotion, and I feel like I’m drowning in their depths.
I don’t understand half of them. One, however, stands out…
fear. I scare her. She is scared of me, and she has every right to be.
Still, there is a part of me that wants to wipe that fear away.
The irony is not lost on me. All this time, I wanted to break her. I wanted her to hate me and fear me. Now that she does, all I want to do is keep her safe.
I undress her limp body. Her breath hitches when I get to her underwear, and her hand comes up as if she is trying to push me away. She is so weak; she wouldn’t be able to fend off a bug right now.
Unclipping the bra, I pull it off her body, and a whimper passes her lips.
When I look back up to meet her gaze, I find her on the brink of tears.
I leave her panties on and take off my boots.
At the last minute, I decide to keep my own clothes on, knowing I won’t be able to keep my dick to myself if I don’t.
I crawl onto the bed, pulling the thin blanket over us, and lie down next to her.
Her body trembles when I wrap my arms around her and pull her to my chest. She is stiff at first, but when I do nothing besides hold her, she relaxes a little.
With the door and two walls between us, the bar’s loud music is nothing more than faint background noise.
But there are other rooms around us, rooms my brothers use to bang club whores.
Sounds from somewhere down the hall keep getting louder.
When someone slams the door a few rooms down, Penny shakes and sobs uncontrollably. Fucking Christ.