Chapter Nineteen
Mimic
“Beg me.”
“NO!” I shouted.
My arm was pulled behind my back. Dakota wrenched it higher when I defied him.
“Beg me for mercy.”
“I’ll die before I beg you for anything, you sick son of a bitch.”
He wrenched my arm even higher, and I felt the pop of my shoulder as it dislocated from the socket again. An involuntary groan slipped from my chest at the pain. I wouldn’t scream for him.
Not anymore.
Every day, the ‘training’ got worse. My body had experienced things beyond what a body should. Over the past five years, I’d had more broken bones than I could count. I’d had multiple concussions and so many stitches I should look like a handmade quilt.
But there was nothing more he could do to me that would make me scream for him. He got off on my screams. My fears.
Dakota released me, and my arm hung limp at my side. “Asshole,” I muttered as I walked to the wall and slammed my shoulder against it. I’d had to learn to do things for myself. When I turned fifteen, George had given me a room.
An actual room. It was still a cell. I was locked in it anytime I wasn’t training with Dakota. But the only bars were on the windows. That room had been filled with books. Encyclopedias, maps, medical textbooks. Nothing to read for pleasure. Only learning.
And given that I had no television, no internet, I read.
I read every book in that room. I knew how to set my own shoulder. I could stitch my own wounds. I’d learned everything there was to know about New York City.
That’s where I was. The city that never slept.
“Again.”
“Fuck you. I need to rest. You keep popping my fucking shoulder out, eventually it won’t go back in, and I’ll be useless to your precious daddy,” I sneered. “What do you think he’ll do to you if you break his favorite toy?”
There were many times over the years when Dakota had shown up busted and bruised. Those times always coincided with an injury I had received. Only the big ones, though. The broken bones that took weeks to heal.
In those weeks, I wasn’t allowed to train. So Dakota chose emotional and mental manipulation instead of physical abuse. He claimed it would make me stronger mentally. Once he was done with me, no one would ever be able to use my emotions against me.
He was full of shit. He just enjoyed torture. It didn’t matter what kind.
“You’re such a pussy.”
“And you’re a sorry excuse for a man. Always doing Daddy’s bidding. Never having a thought or an idea of your own. All you are is a fucking lackey.”
I could practically see the steam billowing out of Dakota’s ears. I was no longer the scared kid he’d snatched off the street. He’d done his job well. He’d turned me into a man. A man who would one day slice his throat.
I made the mistake of getting lost in my thoughts about how I would one day kill him and didn’t see the hit coming. Dakota moved quickly, and with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head, I was on the ground. I landed on my shoulder and groaned; the pain was so intense I almost passed out.
The only thing stopping me was the sheer will not to give Dakota the satisfaction.
“Maybe one of these days you’ll learn to keep your fucking mouth shut.”
The nightmares were coming almost every night now. Ever since I’d found my sister. They used to be sporadic. But so much shit had been dredged up in my mind. My mother, the years without my sister. Now Indie.
She wasn’t in my room when I got back yesterday, and when I went to find her, her door was locked. I could have easily picked it, but what I’d done was an asshole move.
Dakota had instilled in me that a woman’s pleasure was her own responsibility. Her body was for men to use as they saw fit. But here in the club, it was different.
Before Beck moved back and Sam moved in with Charlie, it was common for the brothers to have sex throughout the clubhouse.
Wherever there was a surface to spread a woman out, you could be sure to find brothers there.
The bathrooms, the pool table, the backyard.
Nothing was off-limits except the kitchen and the bar top.
I’d begun to notice something as I watched the men with the club girls. The girls always came. They always got their release either before or after. Of course, I never asked about it. I didn’t want anyone to know I was still a fucking virgin.
I couldn’t take my clothes off in front of the club. If they saw my back, I wasn’t sure what King would do. It would come out eventually, but not until Dakota was dead.
Then it didn’t matter what happened to me. I knew Rose would be taken care of. Cash loved her. He wouldn’t let anyone punish her for my deceit.
I could have gone to one of the surrounding towns, but no one had ever stirred me enough. Not until Indie.
Just the thought of her lips wrapped around me had me stiffening up. I’d come twice with her. And then left. I’d planned for more when I got back, but I’d needed to talk to Johnny.
I knew King would be pissed when he heard what happened, so I had to make it right.
Johnny stood there and listened. He was a prospect; he’d had no choice.
But the look on his face told me that if I weren’t an officer, once he was patched in, he’d get his revenge.
Who knew, maybe he still would. Brothers often sparred in the ring.
I made my way downstairs, my first stop being the coffeemaker. I peeked into the main room looking for Indie. Not seeing her anywhere, I waited by the coffeemaker, knowing she’d come here first.
As soon as she walked into the kitchen, she noticed me. Her beautiful brown eyes narrowed at me, but her coffee addiction won out. She grabbed a cup and moved closer.
“Excuse me.” Her voice was laced with anger.
I grabbed her cup from her hand and poured her coffee, holding it out to her.
She took a deep breath and stared at it before finally looking at me and saying, “You’re an ass.”
“I know.” I nodded, fully agreeing with her. I set the coffee on the counter and grabbed her hand, pulling her closer. “I’m sorry. I expected you to be in my bed when I got back. I’d planned on making you come over and over,” I whispered.
Her gasp was so soft, I wasn’t sure I’d heard it. But the way her hand squeezed mine told me everything I needed to know.
“Apology accepted.” She pulled her hand away and grabbed her coffee, taking it out to the main room and sitting at a table with Haizley and Aspen.
“Fucked up already, grasshopper?”
I turned and found Romeo sporting a huge grin. There was a reason he was called Romeo, and I knew if there was anyone who could answer my questions, it would be him.
But I wouldn’t fucking ask.
Instead of answering, I grunted and moved into the main room. I had to get to the hospital and see Sam. I stopped at the table where the women were sitting together and asked, “Indie, would you like to come with me to the hospital to see Sam?”
She looked up and glared at me. “No, thank you. I’ll wait until she comes home.” She turned back to Haizley, effectively shutting me down. I had my work cut out for me with Indie. She may have said she accepted my apology, but clearly, she’d lied.
By the time I’d made it to the hospital, I was angry. The more I thought about Indie and the way she’d said, “Apology accepted,” the more I realized I’d missed the fucking sass in her tone.
I stepped into Sam’s room and froze. There she sat, the woman I saw as a mother, on her bed, with a baby on either side of her and her tits completely uncovered with a baby attached to each one.
“What the fuck?” I quickly covered my eyes and turned around.
Sam laughed behind me and said, “It’s called breastfeeding, Mimic. If I were really your mother, you would have done this too.”
“No, don’t. Don’t even say shit like that. Jack will fucking kill me when he finds out I saw your tits.”
“Then don’t tell him.”
Just then, the door opened, and Jack strolled in with two coffees. He looked at Sam, and then his eyes locked on mine.
“Tell me you did not see my wife’s tits,” he growled.
I opened my mouth to speak, and nothing came out.
“He didn’t see anything, Jack, calm down.” Sam might think she saved my ass, but the way Jack was looking at me told me he saw the fear in my eyes.
“Turn around and you’re dead.”
I nodded. Nothing short of Tank picking me up and flipping me around could get me to look at what I just saw for a second time.
I wanted to suggest I could come back later, but there were no words in my fucking brain. My head had short-circuited the moment I saw Sam topless. The upside was, it felt exactly like I’d expected it to feel if I were to see my actual mother topless.
After a few minutes, Sam finally called out, “I’m done. It’s safe to turn around.”
I stood still until Jack grunted, “You can turn the fuck around now.”
Even still, I did so slowly, hoping Sam wasn’t playing a trick on me that would get me killed.
“Who do you want?”
“What?” I asked, not quite understanding the question.
“Rosie or Josie? You held Josie yesterday, so maybe Rosie today?” she suggested.
I hadn’t planned on holding either of them. They were too fucking small.
“Uh,” I stuttered, until Jack placed a baby in my arms. I quickly sat in the chair, praying I wouldn’t drop the tiny little girl.
“That’s Rosie.”
“How do you tell them apart?” I asked, looking at the little girl who looked exactly like the baby I held yesterday.
“Their bracelets have their names on them. Eventually, they’ll get too small and have to be removed though, so we’ll have to find another way.”
“I saw Johnny sporting a black eye this morning,” Jack said.
I grunted, not wanting to give him an answer to the question I knew he was asking.
“Did something happen, Mimic?” Sam asked, and I looked up at her.
“Difference of opinion.”
“What difference of opinion could be so wrong you had to hit him?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. I knew once I told her, she would be upset with me. “We worked it out.” It was all I could give her.
“Mimic,” she warned.
Jack chuckled and added, “I’m guessing Johnny was of the opinion that Indie was available, and Mimic disagreed.”
Sam gasped, and I glared at Jack. Jack always had to stick his nose where it didn’t fucking belong. Now Sam would be mad, and not at Jack like it should be. I didn’t want her mad at me.
“Now we agree.” I shrugged.
Jack threw his head back and laughed, startling the baby in my arms. I bounced her the way I’d seen Blade do with Silas, and she settled back down.
Rosie looked up at me with wide eyes. I stared at the miracle in my arms, and visions of Indie flashed in my mind.
Her belly swollen. In a hospital bed, holding our child.
Breastfeeding as I looked over her shoulder.
Things I would never see. Experiences she would never get if she were mine. For the first time since he’d done it, I wanted to kill George Stone for taking something away from me I never knew I wanted.