Chapter 13
Leslee
“Go ahead inside, angel,” Dad addresses me even though his eyes are glued to Joe’s face.
“Leslee?” Mom calls as she steps out of the clubhouse, stopping in her tracks to give Joe a look that matches the one on Dad’s face.
Threading my fingers through Joe’s, I spread my legs shoulder width apart, showing them that I’m determined to stand by my Ol’ Man’s side to hash this out.
“No. This is…” I start but am quickly interrupted.
“Babe, head inside with your mom,” Joe murmurs, lifting his hand up to his mouth to place a kiss on each of my fingers.
“Dad, Mom, let’s go inside and talk,” I offer a perfectly logical option.
“Xander.” Dad calmly says my brother’s name, then looking beyond me, he nods. I let out a scream seconds later when my little brother picks me up and carries me to where Mom is standing, holding the door to the clubhouse wide open.
“This is ridiculous!” I bellow, pissed at all of them as I try to grab onto the doorframe. “Dad, don’t you lay a hand on Joe…”
I stop screaming when Mom closes the door behind her, blocking us off from the front yard.
“Mom, you have to stop this! Dad will listen to you,” I demand, taking a step toward her.
“You’re right,” she replies, crossing her arms over her chest after she turns the deadbolt. “We’ve already discussed it.”
“I’m Joe’s Ol’ Lady now,” I tell her, fisting my hands and determined to get back outside.
“Then sit your ass down and act like it. You want to be treated like an adult? Let your Ol’ Man take his lumps for you, he crossed a line and he knows it.” Mom’s voice is as hard and determined as I’ve ever heard it.
“He would not have touched me without my permission, or let me be blunt,” I reply. Worried about Joe, I try to keep my voice level the more upset I get. “He would not have touched me if I hadn’t of sat on his lap and taken matters into my own hands.”
“No one needs any details, Le-Lee,” my brother crows from behind me. “Especially not me!”
“Fuck off!” I growl, turning my glare on him and the large audience beyond him comes into focus. “Joe saved my life! He does not deserve to be treated like this.”
“Does he deserve you?” my Aunt Charlie asks nonchalantly, entering the room with a bowl of popcorn.
“Yes!” I snap back, exasperated.
“Then let him prove it to your dad.” Through the roaring in my ears, I can barely make out Bree’s softly spoken words.
Looking around the room, I notice that none of my friends are present. It’s filled with my parents’ friends or those a decade or so older than me. Basically, everyone that Joe grew up around.
My eyes finally meet Bree’s just as her comment slowly worms its way into my heart. I know how these men are, but that doesn’t mean that Joe deserves a beat down for giving into what I have always wanted.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the testosterone poisoning taking place in the yard bothers her as much as it does me. Looking down at my mom I revel in the inches I have on her.
“So much for always having my back,” I say before spinning on my heel and striding past everyone. I’m suddenly desperate to leave the spectators behind before my tears of frustration overwhelm me.
Heading down the hallway with the plan to head out the backdoor, I’m thwarted when Flint opens the door to Jasper’s office and blocks my path.
“We’d like a word with you,” he says, waving me inside. My jaw drops since I’ve never been in this office before. I look around it in awe until I sink into the chair that Jasper indicates.
“Once they’re finished,” Jasper says, briefly looking at a monitor that’s sitting off to his right. “I’ll approve Hyde’s request to take you as his Ol’ Lady—if that’s what you want?”
“Of course I do!” I instantly reply, then grimace at the tone of voice I used with him.
Flint clicks his tongue once, reminding me that my attitude might fly with my parents—on rare occasions—but not here.
“A few years back, Ruth referred to you as an ‘old soul’. Since I considered your mother to be one when she was your age, I never viewed you in any other light,” Jasper says, leveling me with the look he usually reserves for his children. “Now, we’re going to have to put that to the test.”
After delivering that, rather incomplete thought, he sits back in his chair. I have no idea what he’s trying to get at, or wants me to say, so I look at Flint, wondering if he’ll give me a hint.
“Put what to the test?” I ask after a moment of waiting for either of them to continue.
“We need you to keep your eyes and ears open,” Jasper finally continues. “Vector didn’t tell anyone you were being shipped out there. Neither did Flint, your parents, nor I. That leaves Parks telling someone where he was heading, and whoever it was, they decided to talk to the Navaja.”
“When he flies, doesn’t he have to tell someone where he’s going?” I ask him, figuring that the cartel hacked some system.
“Yes. And the flight plan that he filed had him arriving a couple hundred miles past where you did land. And their minions were waiting for you,” Flint answers my question this time. “We’re just asking that you pay attention to anyone with extra money, or who’s nosing around. If something seems off to you, let Hyde know and we’ll look into it.”
“I thought everything was alright now? That it was safe for me to come back?”
“We have an understanding with the Navaja, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t looking to expand into new territories. They promised us your safety in exchange for the bag you found. By the time the meeting took place, Trinity had already fessed up to lying about you so they didn’t really care about anything other than recovering as much as they could.”
With those few sentences, Jasper tells me more about club business than I have ever heard in my life. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask why they’re sharing so much with me, but I don’t. They don’t seem to think my part in this is over.
I don’t know what exactly is going on, but Joe’s my Old Man now—I’ll discuss it with him.
“Is Trinity still alive?” I pause, trying to figure out how to ask a question they probably don’t want to answer.
“Yes, but we don’t have a clear answer about her connection to them,” Jasper says, while his eyes study me, cataloging my reaction to his words.
Without hesitation, I tilt my head to the side and blurt out my thoughts on the topic, “I love Molly. I really do, but isn’t there a modern-day version of Siberia that we can send Trinity to?”
“I think Siberia is still the ‘Siberian’ option. And, no,” Jasper replies with a smirk.
I can’t keep in the grunt that escapes me, but as Jasper’s eyes have floated back to the monitor I can’t see, I understand that our meeting is about over.
“Tabby should be arriving any moment and the front door will be unlocked,” Jasper tells me as Flint circles around the desk to look at screen. “So you don’t have to bother sneaking out of the back.”
Taking that as the dismissal it is, I stand up and reach for the door, eager to get back to Joe.
“And take it easy on your mom,” Flint calls out. “She’s always had your back.”
The words I so carelessly flung at my mom hit me hard. I nod once, not turning around as I race to get back to Joe.
Hyde
My brothers and I used to sit around, laughing and bullshitting about made-up scenarios regarding what would happen to any poor idiot who dared to ask Gunner’s daughter out; let alone sticking their hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. In short, I have no doubt about what’s about to happen.
Watching Xander carry his sister off, I can’t help but smile. I was almost right when I said he’d be taller than me the next time I saw him. Granted, I’ve still got an inch or so on him, but I’m sure he’ll be taller than me by the time he’s his sister’s age.
I turn from seeing the door close behind my Ol’ Lady and her family, to catch Gunner’s fist connecting with my cheek bone.
“How do you like sucker punches?” he growls at me.
The fact that I’m still on my feet tells me that he didn’t put his full force behind the blow. Rounding on him, I put my arms up, knowing how screwed I’ll be when he stops pulling punches.
“I love her,” I tell him, instantly realizing it’s the wrong thing to say.
With a feint to my left, his opposite fist connects with my head.
“You.”
Bam.
“Don’t.”
A slap across my jaw when I see stars.
“Know.”
His fist lands directly on my lips, narrowly missing my nose but inflecting damage nonetheless.
“What it means to love that girl,” he roars.
Shaking my head, I try to figure out how there are suddenly so many men surrounding us. There couldn’t have been more than a handful when this started a moment ago. Blinking my eyes repeatedly brings the world into clearer focus, along with the knowledge that Gunner has not softened with age.
At this point, Gunner shoves my shoulder and I fall on my ass.
“I do,” I say, stopping to spit out a mouthful of blood. “I’ll protect her.”
“I protect her. I always have!”
I shift as he kicks his leg out. My ass absorbs the blow, but he’s far from done with me. His next kick connects with my stomach, knocking the wind, and whatever was left of my breakfast, out of me.
Gunner lifts me by my belt and tosses me further away. I land face down in the dirt, unfortunately inhaling that instead of the oxygen I desperately need.
“Enough, goddammit!” Anvil separates himself from the rest of the guys who are watching. “You do any more damage, and you’ll lose your daughter, Gunner.”
Gunner never turns to look at him, he just walks over to where I’m trying to balance on all fours and swings his meaty fist down at my head one more time.
*
“Joey?”
I snap awake at the pain I hear in Leslee’s voice, but my body screams out even louder.
“Lie still, Tabby’s here and she’s just going to check you out.”
Opening my eyes, I can’t see very well and it takes me a second to realize that my right eye is only partially cracked open, which is more than my left eye is capable of. There’s a wet rag over the other side of my face, uncomfortably dripping down my neck.
“I love you,” I announce to the blurry figure hovering above me.
“That’s very nice, Hyde,” Tabby replies, holding my eyelid open and peering into it. “But Leslee’s on your other side.”
“Everything hurts,” I respond.
“And it’s going to for a good couple of weeks,” Tabby replies, catching my head when I try to turn in Leslee’s direction. “Keep still. I need to check your ribs.”
“They’re intact,” I tell her. Having had them broken when I was younger, I knew that I wouldn’t be breathing this easily otherwise.
Breathing through my mouth, that is. My nose was definitely broken and my sternum is in rough shape.
“Hmm,” Tabby lets out a low hum. “Gunner had planned to break a few of those. Lucky for you he got distracted.”
Leslee starts swearing a blue streak again.
“Well, let’s get you inside and we’ll take shifts watching you tonight. You definitely have a concussion,” Tabby informs me.
“We are not staying here,” Leslee snarls out.
“They can come to our house.” Bree’s voice rings out above me. “The spare room is set up and I stocked up on ice. We can all take shifts checking on him.”
“Is that okay, baby?” I ask, squeezing—what I hope is Leslee’s hand.
“Yes,” she replies after a moment. “Thank you, Bree.”