Chapter Six
Hadley
T hump. Thump. Thump.
My heart races inside my chest. I don’t think it’s stopped in the past several hours. I’m having trouble coping with reality.
Junior’s dead.
Dead.
My childhood friend and lover.
A cold, hollow ache settles in my bones. The same boy who cheated on me over and over again. The same boy who struck me and made vile insinuations about my future with Roaring River MCs. I was nothing more than a toy to be used and tossed away.
He’s dead, though.
All his promises were empty, even the horrible ones, because he’s no longer here to fulfill them. Tears leak from my eyes. The new Junior who couldn’t keep his dick out of Juicy’s twat wasn’t the guy I knew. That guy was a loser and an asshole. The one I remember from my childhood was adoring and loving and sweet. That’s the boy I’m grieving over.
Well, as much as one’s allowed to grieve in the arms of the man who killed him. My mind whirls as I wonder how I got myself stuck in this position. The massive man with the big X on his face has me in a death grip on this sofa, his soft snores lulling me into a false sense of security.
I’m not safe with him.
I’m safe with no one.
Dad could save me…
Having to ask Dad for anything makes my blood curdle. If it were up to me, I’d never speak to him again. I don’t need his help. I just need out. Away from these people. Away from this life.
Will Magna come after me?
I shudder at that thought.
“Cold?” Koyn’s gritty, sleepy voice makes me stiffen.
“No.”
“Liar.” He practically lies on top of me, forcing his body heat on me. “Now go to sleep.” His breathy words against my ear through my wet hair makes me shiver again.
Okay, so maybe I am cold.
And tired.
And exhausted.
And devastated.
Maybe he does feel like a giant blanket.
Despite my best efforts to remain awake so I can sneak away when he falls into a deep sleep, I drift off. The villains in my nightmares aren’t the ones at this clubhouse. They’re the villains I already know.
I wake, whimpering. The room is dark now and I wonder when he turned out the light. Koyn’s masculine scent invades my nostrils.
“Shh,” he murmurs, half asleep. “You’re okay.”
My heart lurches in my chest. It reminds me of a time I’d crawl into my dad’s bed and he’d keep all the monsters away. I felt safe back then. I haven’t felt safe in a long time. The fact that the same sense of security comes in the arms of Koyn has me reeling.
Why?
Why him?
I’d overheard him and the other guy talking about a girl named Blaire. Apparently I look like her. Maybe he won’t hurt me and will let me go.
But where would I go?
Home?
I shudder at that thought. When Mom OD’d last year, it changed Dad. It changed both of us. While he worried about his social standing and Mom’s death reflecting badly on us, I could barely breathe. She was the buffer. Calmed him before he became a storm. Now that she’s gone, I got swept up in Dad’s furious winds. His social standing woes were the beginning, but it evolved into so much more.
And when I couldn’t take any more of it—any more of him—I ran.
I was always going to run to Junior, I just thought it would be different. After college or something. Down an aisle in a chapel. Toward a future written specifically for us. Turns out, all I’ve been doing is running. This way and that. Mostly away. No future. Just reminders of the past when I dreamed of impossible things.
Now I don’t know where to run.
A helpless sob claws its way up my throat. The heavy sounds of his sleeping grow quiet and the room becomes thick with awareness. I can practically feel his eyes on me in the dark. With surprising gentleness, he strokes his fingers through my hair.
“A girl like you belongs at home with her parents,” he says, his voice gritty from sleep.
“My mom is dead.” My words clip out bitterly.
“I’m sorry.” The gruffness in his tone reverberates to my heart. I can tell he means it, which is stupid since we just met and under awful circumstances. “Your dad?”
“We’re not speaking,” I snap, unable to withhold a shiver.
He wraps his arm around my middle and buries his nose in my hair. I should be stunned by the way he inhales me in such a familiar, possessive way. Rather than my heart rate spiking with fear, I relax in his hold. His scent is a mixture of some expensive, familiar cologne and cigarette smoke with a hint of hard liquor. It makes me want to twist around and cuddle against his chest.
“A girl needs her daddy,” he says softly, his words tickling my hair.
“Not this girl.”
“And look at all the trouble you got yourself into.”
“Could have gotten myself out too.”
He makes a derisive snorting sound. “My daughter thought she was a badass too…” I can hear the smile in his voice and then he tenses all over. “It’s ingrained in a father to protect his daughter.”
Not my father.
He let me down when I needed him most of all.
“I’ll just run away,” I warn. “Wherever you take me, I won’t stay.” That’s great, Hadley, inform the bad guy of your plan.
His fingers twist around my hair and he tugs, the sting of the hairs pulling from my scalp making my eyes water. “You won’t run away from me.”
“I will.”
“Until I pass you back to your father, you’re my responsibility. And you’re really just a dumb kid if you think I’m going to let you out of my sight for a second.”
“Were you this controlling with your daughter?” I demand, eager to hit him where I can tell it hurts.
He releases my hair and smooths it down. “Worse.”
A sick feeling washes over me.
Did he hurt her?
What kind of asshole’s arms did I land myself into?
“We ride out early tomorrow. Sleep,” he orders, his arm tightening around my middle.
I stay up the rest of the night, staring into the darkness, wondering what the hell I do next.
The men—bikers from what I now know are the Royal Bastards MC—gather outside of some guy named Animal’s clubhouse. It’s nicer than the Roaring River MCs shithole, but it doesn’t take much to outdo that place.
I glower at everyone, my eyes flicking to the open truck door. Koyn stands in front of the truck, talking lowly to the guy I’ve determined is his brother. Their similarities are uncanny. The huge difference is Koyn bears a huge, scarred “X” on his face. I could sneak over there, climb in the truck, and haul ass out of there before anyone knew what hit them.
Then what?
Outrun an entire club of pissed off bikers?
And I still don’t know where I’d go.
I never thought much past Junior.
“Putnam, hmm?” a deep, dark, and sultry voice practically purrs. “To get involved with a shit like him or his son, you’d have to be quite the girl yourself.”
I snap my head to meet the green-eyed gaze of the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. His dark hair is styled in a just-fucked kind of way—for all I know, he probably was just fucked based on his smirk. He quirks his lips up and a dragon tattoo on his neck seems to ripple and move as though it’s alive on his skin. I become fixated on the intricate green and black ink that covers most of his neck. The dragon’s mouth is open, all razor- sharp teeth, and rather than fire, smoke billows out, covering his exposed flesh to his jaw, stopping abruptly. From the jawline down, he’s a total typical biker with leather and black and swagger. His face is straight out of a magazine or a freaking cologne ad.
“You shouldn’t stare, jailbait,” he says, his smile widening to reveal a perfect set of white teeth.
Bikers aren’t this hot.
Hell no.
They stink and belch and are hairy.
“Still not done,” the man says, his perfect brow arching up. “Stare all you want, little one, but Prez is going to lose his shit in three, two, one—”
“Dragon,” Koyn growls. “I need your hog.”
The purring, seductive dragon man whines, making him less biker and total runway diva. “What? Why?”
“I need to think. You can ride bitch with Copper.”
Dragon’s smile becomes predatory. “With jailbait here? Want me to sit her in my lap and keep her safe?”
Koyn’s jaw ticks and before he can respond, another goddamn beautiful biker steps over to us. Tall, massive, his golden blond hair glistening like the sun.
“Dragon,” the guy warns. “Prez’ll drag your ass behind your own bike by your hair if you keep that shit up.”
“Don’t give him any ideas, Filter,” Dragon complains to the golden god of a man.
Filter smirks. “It’s my job to give him ideas.”
Koyn holds out his hand and Dragon tosses his keys to him with a grumble.
“Hadley’s with me,” Koyn tells them, surprising the hell out of his guys based on the widening of their eyes.
“You’re gonna put this young bitch on the back of my bike and haul her around like she’s your old lady?” Dragon asks, bursting into a fit of laughter.
Koyn grabs Dragon by the front of his shirt and drags him until they’re face-to-face. Dragon’s hand is already around a knife at his belt, but he makes no moves to stab his prez.
“I’ll never have an old lady,” Koyn rumbles. “Stop fucking with me.”
Dragon relents. “I know, Prez. Sorry, man.”
Koyn releases the grip on his shirt and then clutches Dragon’s shoulder in a brotherly way that has me confused as hell. Two seconds ago, I was sure someone would get slashed to death. Now they’re looking at each other like they’re best fucking friends.
“Get her a helmet,” Koyn barks out to Filter. “A jacket too.”
A cacophony of rumbles vibrates me to my bones as I stand beside Koyn on the nice, new Harley he pretty much stole from Dragon. I’m supposed to be looking for escape options, not noticing how domineering he looks straddling the big, noisy piece of metal. His thighs strain against the blood-stained denim, showcasing the solid muscle beneath. Everything about Koyn is huge and hardened. To some outside girl, he’d be terrifying.
Especially to some girl whose boyfriend he killed.
But I’m no outside girl.
I’m embedded so deeply in the MC world, I will never get out. Outside of the protection of the lawless, I’ll be thrust back into society. Been there, done that. Not doing it again.
So, rather than be terrified of Koyn, I pull on my helmet and straddle the bike behind him. It’s a smaller bike, meant for a guy like Dragon, so I feel as though I’m perched on a tiny piece of leather real estate. I’m forced to lean in, pressing my tits against this man, and spreading my legs for him just so I don’t slip off the back and become sexy-ass roadkill.
He grips my wrist, pulling my body closer, and then molds my arm to his body. I mimic the action with my other arm until I’m hugging him like a koala on a tree. His body radiates warmth that soothes the shivering parts deep inside me. I hate admitting it, but he does provide a sense of comfort for some insane reason I don’t want to mentally examine right now.
The crux of the matter is…I have daddy issues.
And Koyn is one hundred percent a daddy.
He takes off, kicking up gravel in his wake, and speeds down the driveway. The roar of the bikes behind us makes me relax. So often, I’d lose myself to daydreams on the back of Junior’s bike. He’d ride me around everywhere, taking me to eat and to see cool shit. Sometimes we’d even fuck on his bike. All those moments are gone. I’ll never get them back. Tears burn at my eyes and I close them. I don’t want to see the Arkansas trees—all brilliant with orange and brown and red and yellow leaves—whizzing by. I don’t want to appreciate their beauty.
It seems unfair that I’m having to hold on to my boyfriend’s killer.
Hold on to him or die.
Like I’m forced to choose him over myself.
I don’t get fucked-up Magna vibes off Koyn. I’m fairly sure he’s not going to drag me all the way back to his clubhouse just to torture me or kill me or fuck me. He would’ve done any of those already if it were on his villain agenda.
But something lurks within him.
A calmness that is felt before a catastrophe. Dark. Sinister. Foreboding. It seems to vibrate through him. As if it is magnetic energy making all the hairs on my arms stand on end. I can feel it through every molecule in my body. Buzzing. Humming. Warning.
Dad was that way.
A series of calms and storms. Whipping and thrashing. A constant back and forth like on a boat in choppy waters until I was damn near seasick from it all.
Dad’s storms weren’t ones I could ride like a wave until I hit the shore.
He tried to drown me.
It makes me wonder what sort of storm Koyn is. A powerful hurricane like my father? A tornado like Magna? Or something more cataclysmic. Something earth changing. A violent volcano, rumbling the very foundation I stand on.
His palm covers my thigh and he squeezes it in a reassuring way. The simple, brief gesture has my heart tightening in my chest. I don’t like the way he can silence my fears with a touch.
A healthy dose of fear has been what’s kept me alive this long.
I don’t need someone silencing my inner warning sirens, because who the hell knows what sort of trouble would sneak up on me then.
I’ve had enough trouble for one lifetime.
I need to always be ready for it.