Chapter 6 Keeley
SIX
KEELEY
I barely sleep that night, and when I wake the next morning I feel wrung out. Too many nightmares when I close my eyes. Too many things I don’t want to think about.
Now, I also have Nic’s words replaying on a loop that I can’t stop. Something changed yesterday. Before, he was bossy, but out of a sense of duty. When he spoke to me in the bar, there was something in his eyes I haven’t seen yet.
Not anger. Not control.
Weight.
Like he suddenly realised the stakes were higher than he thought. That’s… well, it’s fucking unsettling.
I won’t be able to stop what happens next time.
What does he think is coming? And why did he look at me like he’s already preparing to stand in front of whatever it is?
And why does that make me feel safer than it should?
I keep circling back to the question I can’t solve: why my brother put me in that cage.
I can’t come up with a single reason for it. Why did he need me contained? Was it punishment? Control? Was he involved in something dangerous? Was he trying to scare me? Was it something darker? Or did he finally just lose his fucking mind?
Daniel’s always been reckless. Always done stupid, selfish things, but this? He’s never pulled anything like this before.
What were you up to, Daniel?
A soft knock sounds at the door, and I freeze. I hold my breath and stay quiet, hoping whoever is on the other side will get bored and go away.
There’s a second knock, then his voice drifts through the wood. “Keeley?”
It’s Nic.
Shit the bed. Of course it is.
My traitorous heart stutters. It shouldn’t, and I refuse to examine why it does every time he opens his damn mouth. Not even touching that.
I sit up slowly, not by design, but because my hip still aches like a bitch. A gift from Daniel.
Thanks for the family trauma and chronic hip misalignment. Appreciate it, bro.
I bite my lip to stop the groan from slipping out. If Nic hears me whimpering like a broken animal, he’ll definitely break into the room.
A knock sounds again.
If it was anyone else on the other side of that door, I’d stay silent, but even in the short time I’ve been here, I already know Nic won’t give up. He’ll either knock until I answer or he’ll come through that door by force—especially if he thinks I’ve run.
Until our little chat last night, I might have continued planning my great escape. Now, I’m too fucking scared to do anything.
“Just give me a second,” I call out before he puts his shoulder through the frame.
I catch my reflection in the mirror opposite the bed. Fuck a duck. I look—awful. My face is a mess of bruising and my hair is wild. I try to finger comb it as I hobble to the door and slide the lock back.
When I crack it open an inch, Nic’s leaning against the frame, his broad shoulders stretching the leather over his back.
I shouldn’t, but I notice the little things. The fullness of his lips, the hard line of his jaw, and how dark his eyes are up close. There’s a small scar under his eyebrow and his stubble is moving into a beard. I like that more than I have any right to.
He’s… gorgeous.
Of course he is. Look at him. All broody and filling out his jeans like he’s never had to worry about squeezing his glutes a day in his life.
It pisses me off.
He doesn’t get to be this attractive. Not while I’m stuck here in clothes that aren’t mine, looking like a bedraggled cat.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly self-conscious. Good looking bastard.
“Mornin’.” Even his voice is unfairly hot. It’s a low, gravely rasp that seems to hit just right to set off an aggressive flutter in my belly.
I’m ignoring that response, or trying to. My body has other ideas because it gets stronger when his eyes roam over me, like he’s counting the seconds between my breaths.
I’m pretty sure the number will be high because I haven’t taken one since I opened the door.
When I don’t say or do anything, he dips his head close, and my heart stops. I can feel his heat, smell his aftershave, and I have to force myself not to lean into him.
“You okay?” He asks it quietly, but I hear the worry threading through the words, and that sends the flutters crazy again.
“Yeah,” I lie, fairly certain my face and neck are on fire. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? Life’s perfect.”
It’s then I notice the other man behind him. He’s not one of Nic’s guys. There’s no vest, no ink on his arms or neck, and he doesn’t have that unchecked confidence of a biker. This guy is too clean, too polished. He definitely irons his socks and posts thirst traps at the gym.
I get the impression this isn’t his first time walking into a room full of men who could break him in half. But he still measures how far the blast radius is if any one of them blows.
Smart man.
I cut a look back to Nic. “Friend of yours?”
“Spencer,” Nic says. “The club doc.”
Of course they have their own doctor on speed dial. It shouldn’t surprise me that the club runs like a small, violent corporation. Bleeding is probably an everyday occurrence around here. Nic definitely has shares in medical supplies.
“I don’t need a doctor,” I say automatically, even though I’m shifting my weight between my legs to keep pressure off my hip.
“You ain’t bearin’ weight on your left side.” Nic says it as if I’ve somehow missed the fact I’m limping around.
“It’s just a bruise,” I say quickly. “It’ll heal.”
Nic leans in closer, his arm still pressed to the frame. My eyes track the movement involuntarily, narrowing in on the way it pushes his pectorals against the fabric of his shirt.
When in the hell does he find time to build those muscles?
“You could barely stand on it last night,” Nic accuses.
“It’s not that bad,” I lie. Every step feels like there are glass fragments in the joint.
“Keeley.” Nic’s thumb and finger pinch the bridge of his nose. “Just let him look.”
His tone holds a warning to stop arguing. I don’t. Obviously.
“Is he even qualified? No offence,” I add to Spencer, “but you don’t look old enough and you’re not dressed like a doctor.”
“None taken,” Spencer says mildly, as if that’s not the worst thing he’s ever heard from a patient. If he deals with Nic and his men, it’s probably not.
Nic exhales long and hard through his nose, his eyes locked on mine.
“Fine,” I mutter. Mostly because I know I won’t win this and also because if he breaks the door down, I don’t know if I’ll get another one.
I step back to let them in and Nic’s gaze slides from the rumpled bed covers back to me. Something flickers across his face that I can’t read. Probably something brooding and definitely lethal.
Undoubtedly something I should ignore alongside that annoying fluttering.
I hobble over to the bed despite my efforts to walk like I have a functioning skeleton.
When I sink onto the edge of the mattress, I’m happy to get weight off the joint. Okay, maybe I was a little quick when I said I was fine.
Nic’s staring at me like he’s willing my stubbornness to sit down next to me.
Great. That’s all I need. Mr Tall, Dark and Grumpy glowering at me.
I clasp my hands together, not sure what to do with them. After a moment, I slip them under my thighs instead. That feels wrong, so I fold them in my lap.
Nope. That feels weird too.
I settle on fidgeting with the drawstring of my borrowed jogging pants.
Nic says nothing, but I know he tagged every single one of those movements and probably catalogued them somewhere in his brain cache, labelled ‘Keeley’s inability to sit still’.
He sees everything. Too much sometimes.
“Is it your leg?” Spencer asks as he opens his medical bag, pulling out supplies. I peer into it, hoping he’s got some really strong painkillers buried in there. These guys are criminals. Surely they have the good drugs.
“My hip,” I admit reluctantly. No point lying. They just watched me limp across the room in real time.
“You know how you hurt it?”
“I don’t remember.”
I’ve tried to remember, but most of what happened before I woke up in the clubhouse is hazy. Some things have come back, but there are still massive time gaps. What’s even worse is some of my memories are so fuzzy I don’t know if they’re real or I imagined them.
Nic drifts closer, as if he’s reading my distress. I’m not sure he’s even aware of the fact, but my chest feels looser with him nearby.
“She was drugged,” Nic supplies.
I don’t flinch, but it’s a close call.
Just another thing I haven’t dealt with yet on this trauma roadtrip. My therapy bill is going to be astronomical.
Spencer smiles. I’m sure it’s meant to be reassuring, but it feels like pity. I hate it. I don’t want to be pitied. I’m still here. I survived. And when I get my hands on Daniel, he’s going to wish he hadn’t put me in that fucking cage.
The blood pressure cuff tightens around my arm and I wince at how hard it squeezes. Unsurprisingly, when the machine beeps a few seconds later, he remarks that it’s a little high.
No shit. “I can’t think of a single reason my blood pressure might be through the roof,” I say, deadpan.
I don’t dare look at Nic, but I’m sure his stance screams he’s hanging onto his restraint by a thread. Or he’s brooding.
He does that a little too well.
Nothing about Nic makes sense to me. He snaps orders at me like I’m an irritation he can’t wait to be rid of, but then he brings the doctor to fix my bruised hip.
Men like him don’t care about women like me.
Don’t overthink it. Just let him brood in the corner.
Except he’s not in the corner. He’s two feet away from me, watching every move Spencer makes like an overbearing foreman.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Spencer assures me, breaking through my thoughts. “White coat syndrome’s a thing, you know?”
“You’re in joggers,” I say before I can stop myself.
Spencer smiles. “Can I see your hip?”
I freeze. For Spencer to look at it, I have to pull down my pants. That’s bad enough in front of the doctor, who I’m still not convinced is one, but Nic as well?
As if Spencer can read my mind, he says, “Don’t worry, I’ll preserve your modesty.”