Chapter 4
Lauren
If I were alone, I’d throw my cell phone against the wall when I look down and see it void of call and text notifications.
I sent a text to Alan Moore, my FBI handler, three days ago. When he didn’t respond, I sent an SOS text.
I’m not in danger, despite my skin feeling like it’s getting sticky around all the sweetness here at the Cerberus clubhouse. He’s supposed to get back to me immediately after an SOS call. What if I was really in trouble?
The FBI would replace you in a second.
I know that may be partially true, but the FBI doesn’t have many agents like me.
I do things, work cases, most men are too afraid to touch.
I welcome the depravity, the punishment, the real threat that I may enter a house and never see daylight again.
It makes me feel alive.
I feel like I’m dwindling here, and although he’s not saying it directly, Diego “Kincaid” Anderson, president of the Cerberus MC, thinks it’s time for me to move on.
“Still haven’t heard from him?” Diego asks.
I shake my head and shrug. “It’s New year’s Eve. He’s probably letting loose a little for the holiday.”
“I can put in a call,” he offers.
Translation—the sooner you’re gone, the better.
He’s too mannered, too polite to tell me that I make people feel uneasy, that he, along with everyone else, can’t truly understand why I am the way I am.
I guess I should be grateful he hasn’t offered to help me other than giving me a place to crash for a few days.
I’d be out the door faster than anyone could blink if he mentions Dr. Alverez, the psychologist the club uses regularly when one of the members drags home some stray victim they couldn’t cut loose on a job, or when one of the members themselves struggle with something they saw or had to do in the field.
I understand the idea of it, but the whole healthy mind, body, and spirit bullshit makes me want to roll my eyes.
Feeding the demons is the only way to control them. Fighting them keeps the power exchange tipped in their favor.
Talking about it with an overpriced doctor and cleansing your mind of it may work for them, but I’ve got no damn interest in all that woo-woo shit.
“He’ll get back to me soon,” I assure Diego. “If I don’t hear from him tomorrow, I’ll head to the office.”
“I’m not trying to rush you out, but—”
There’s always a but, and statistically, it means everything said before that one three letter word is complete shit.
“We’re thinking of expanding.”
“More guys?” I ask, choosing to focus on that part of the conversation rather than the half lie he’s just told.
The man has been overly generous to me. So much so that I’m suspicious of him.
It’s the reason I keep looking for the bad in all these people and hating when I come up empty.
I don’t get bad vibes from any of them, and that’s suspicious as fuck.
Everyone gives off at least a little menace because, as humans, we’re all capable of evil shit when pushed to our limits.
“Maybe.”
“But you can’t offer up a room that isn’t empty,” I explain for him.
He gives me a soft smile. “We have an empty room at my house, and Misty and Shadow have space as well.”
“That’s very kind of you, but not necessary.”
I give him the smile he expects before walking away.
Unwanted.
Unwelcome.
Familiar feelings for me.
I should be working, not getting the boot from Kincaid. I should be chained up to a wall, looking for a way to save the women chained up beside me, not sipping on beer, wishing I was as brave as my sister.
“Not long before the ball drops,” Emmalyn, Kincaid’s wife, says as I approach the long table with every finger food one can imagine.
“Not long,” I agree, my smile a little more forced after speaking to her husband.
Feeling unwanted and practically being told I am, are two very different things.
I embrace the minimal hurt it brings, knowing I’ll need it to fall asleep.
I contemplate causing problems as I look around the room.
Emmalyn doesn’t take long to busy herself with something other than being forced into niceties with me, but I imagine it’s a skill long mastered, considering she’s the very first woman to come to the clubhouse and be kept for the long haul.
Once a domestic abuse victim herself, rescued by Kincaid, she’s now the mother hen around here with children and grandchildren of her own.
I’m still deciding on what type of trouble I want to stir up when the front door opens.
Rather than another gaggle of women hoping to wake up in a Cerberus member’s bed, a ghost enters, one just as tall if not slightly more haggard than the one I met years ago.
My breath catches, my heart pounding a mile a minute in my chest as his eyes dart around the room.
“Angel,” I whisper, but no one notices.
They’re all too shocked at the sight of him to pay any attention to me. Good thing because the sight of him leaves me more than a little vulnerable, and that’s not something I want anyone to witness. Vulnerabilities are always used as weapons later on.
I look around the room, knowing I’m not the only one seeing him, but unable to understand how he’s standing in the room.
Grinch looks down at his woman, confusion marking his brow.
“Baby? Who is that?” he asks as he looks toward Angel, his woman growing more and more terrified by the second.
Angel has always been intimidating. His size, the constant snarl of his lips, would make anyone with an ounce of common sense back away.
I’ve never been known to have such sense, and I pushed this man, tested him, played games with his head before stepping over his dead body without a backward glance in El Salvador years ago.
“He’s… that’s… when I was kidnapped. He was the leader.” I expect the words to come from Cara, although her recollection of the details isn’t very accurate. Thumper led the crew in El Salvador.
Grinch’s woman Grace is the one who spoke.
It was another case Angel was on. Had to be.
He was working a job in El Salvador, a mercenary looking for a certain woman so he could get paid.
He didn’t go out of his way to hurt the women.
That’s not what he was hired to do. He had a single focus until I crossed his path.
Somehow the hired gun felt the need to intercede, to step in and shield me from my job.
The memories still annoy me, but deep down there’s… relief.
He didn’t die, despite the lack of effort I put in to making sure he was okay.
The amount of blood pooled around him after he’d been shot twice in the chest meant death. At least I thought it did.
Legend and Grinch both position themselves in front of Grace, a wall of muscle shielding her from even seeing her captor.
I do my best to hide a smile, grateful no one is looking my way. I wouldn’t be able to explain how my black soul is feeding off the chaos unfolding.
Thumper inches closer, the same look of confusion on his face that I must be wearing. He was there in El Salvador, but he was taken by the men that shot Angel. I have no doubt, had he been left behind, that he would’ve attempted to save the man.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Thumper snaps before wrapping his arms around Angel in a bear hug.
Angel stands stock-still, his eyes still roaming around the room, assessing any threats as he endures the embrace.
It’s Kincaid’s turn to step forward, the man tasked with regaining control of his clubhouse. The man doesn’t look impressed with Angel being in such proximity to the ones he loves, but instead of asking him to leave, he turns and arrows toward the huge conference room at the back of the clubhouse.
Like the trained soldiers they are, every Cerberus member moves in that direction, circling Angel and forcing him to join them.
Muffled sobs come from Grace. Faith, Legend’s woman, has taken his place and comforts Grace with light pats on the back and whispered words I’m unable to hear.
Cara, the only other person in the room that recognizes Angel, looks around for answers she will never find.
I wait until the conference room door slams closed before making my way to it.
I knock, only for Dominic, Kincaid’s older brother, to open it.
“This is club business,” Kincaid snaps from the front of the room.
A split second later, the door is closed right in my face.