Chapter 25 Keeley
TWENTY-FIVE
KEELEY
Nic’s eyes are blazing. I’ve never seen him this angry—not even after the clubhouse was shot up, and he was pissed then.
He’s stumbling forward, his gaze locked over his shoulder as the officers shove him down the corridor toward the bar.
What the hell just happened?
Two minutes ago we were in bed, his hands on me, and now we’re both in handcuffs. I hate how aware I am of the fact I’m naked under this t-shirt and surrounded by huge, hulking police officers.
They’re meant to be the good guys, right?
So why do I feel more afraid with them than I ever have with Nic and his club brothers?
The hand on my arm is so tight it feels like he’s trying to break my arm. I stumble alongside him, my bare feet scratching against the carpet.
My stomach is in knots and my throat feels like I swallowed blades, but it’s nothing compared to the fear clawing at my chest when I look at Nic.
His face is swelling above his eye, the skin red and angry. He fought so hard to get to me, to protect me, and they hurt him for it.
That cracks my chest open.
No one has ever fought for me like that before. No one.
His eyes stay locked on mine, even as they shove him hard enough to stumble. “You’re okay, sunshine,” he says.
Right. Yeah. I’m okay.
Except I’m not. I’m fucking terrified. For him. Me. For the people I’ve started to think of as friends.
We’re pulled into the bar, and Nic’s instantly shoved onto his knees. They’re rough with him, pushing and grabbing like he’s nothing. Next to him, Riley and Riot are already face down onto the floor, their hands restrained behind their backs.
Riot’s twisting as much as possible, looking for Ivy, who is standing on the other side of the room arguing with a female officer who is trying to cuff her.
I don’t know where Seren is, but if anything’s happened to that little girl—
I blink back my tears at the chaos. The tables and chairs we sit at every day are shoved back, our little world reduced to nothing in their eyes.
Diesel’s pressed against the wall, already in cuffs. Makenna is next to him, anger vibrating through her. I don’t know what he’s saying to her, but his mouth moves nonstop.
An officer has Dayna on her knees. The way her arms are pulled behind her forces her small bump to jut forward, her t-shirt stretching over the swell.
It’s obscene. Horrifying.
Completely wrong.
“She’s fucking pregnant,” Dash is yelling as he’s forced down onto the floor next to Riot. “You hurt our kid and I’ll fucking kill you.”
Everywhere I look, all I see is violence. Toby—barely a teenager—shoved down like he’s a grown man. Maylie, who had a baby less than a month ago, is wrestled to the ground while an officer snatches her son from her.
Everyone is half-undressed, wearing whatever they fell into bed in, but I’m the only one this exposed.
I can hear Mace, but I can’t see him because the officer holding me backs me against the wall near the door. His hand fists into my shirt, and I know I’m flashing everyone in the room.
“Do you mind?” I bite out, sharp even through my fear. “The whole room doesn’t need a show.”
The officer leans down, teasing my shirt higher. “Better get used to walking around with the goods out, sweetheart. Your buyer likes his girls… accessible.”
Cold slides straight down my spine and it takes everything I have not to sag into the wall.
I know what my brother sold me into, but hearing someone else say it with so much vile venom behind it is dizzying.
This raid is for me. This is Morozov. The noise dials down to a muffled rumble I can’t hear properly.
Everyone is cuffed. No one will be able to stop this man from taking me.
The walls feel too close. My lungs too tight.
My mind jumps to something dark and revolting. Men touching me, forcing themselves inside me, using me even as I beg them to stop.
My pulse kicks behind my ribs and all I can hear are my laboured breaths.
No.
Fuck no.
That can’t be my future. Not when I just started building something good here. Not when I finally feel something close to happiness.
“Keeley!” Nic’s voice barely penetrates through the fear fogging my thoughts.
The officer’s smile is twisted. He’s enjoying this. Getting off on my fear.
Sick bastard.
I can taste bile in my mouth, but I swallow it down, even though my tongue feels thick.
“Fuck… you.” I don’t know how I scrape those words out, but they cut every inch of my throat as they do.
It gives me a moment of satisfaction when his lips tug into a sneer. Then he leans in, tugging my head back so forcefully my neck feels like it’s going to snap. I see stars for a second as the pain fractures through my vision.
“Such a dirty mouth. It’ll look better wrapped around my cock.”
My stomach drops so violently, the room spins. I can smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breath as he steps in, blocking me from everyone.
He drags my head back further while his free hand skims the hem of Nic’s shirt. My skin crawls and everything feels half a beat behind, as if the world is suddenly out of sync.
His touch is wrong against my thigh and the edges of my vision narrow as the air leaves my lungs in a rush.
“Maybe it’ll shut you up if I ram it down your throat.” He lets go of my hair to grab my chin. His fingers must be leaving bruises. “Would you like that? Me fucking your mouth while your little biker bitch watches?”
He brushes too high, almost between my legs, and I blink, clearing the blurriness from my vision.
Everything fades into the background as his fingers stroke closer to my core. I clamp my thighs together, useless, but it’s the only defence I have with my hands cuffed behind my back.
“Maybe I’ll fuck you bloody before anyone else gets a chance to ruin that pretty cunt.”
“Is that the only way you can touch a woman?” My voice wobbles as my lungs drag in air that doesn’t feel like it goes anywhere. “You impotent piece of shit.”
His eyes flash and he leans in as if—
“What’s going on, Bird?”
A new voice demands sharply. I take a breath, then another as Bird inches back from me. I lock my knees so I don’t fold like wet tissue and look at the man who just stopped something awful from happening in a room full of police.
He’s maybe forty with dark hair, hard eyes, and even though he’s clean shaven, he has this wildness about him that Bird tries to copy, but fails.
“You weren’t on the operations list, McKay.”
I sag back against the wall behind me, my shoulders aching when Bird steps toward McKay.
Automatically, I look for Nic and a brutal spike tears through me. He’s fighting against four officers, doing everything he can to get to me. But they have him pinned to the floor, bodies pressed against him, containing him. Four of them.
“Sunshine.” He chokes it out, even though he can’t see me, and my heart fractures.
I wish I could go to him. Hold him. Let him hold me.
“I’m okay,” I rasp, because Nic needs to hear it even if it’s not entirely true.
There’s nothing he can do right now, and I don’t want him to keep fighting. Not when he’s already taken hits for me.
Not when there are kids in this room who could get hurt.
McKay swallows the space Bird was just in, purposefully putting himself between me and him.
“Good thing I came along anyway,” McKay says.
“Do you know how much paperwork this shit show of yours is going to cause, DI Bird? You got a pregnant detainee on her knees, a new mother snatched from her kid and—” He glances at me, taking me in with a sharp, assessing look before his attention shifts back to Bird “—a female standing in cuffs and no underwear in a room full of male officers.”
“Fuck off, McKay,” Bird snarls.
My shoulders loosen just a little as McKay glances over his shoulder at the two officers I didn’t notice with him.
“DS Given—grab a blanket, please? And for fuck’s sake, someone give that baby back to its mother before it blows its lungs out.”
Theo’s screaming only stops when Maylie’s uncuffed by another officer and finally gets her hands back on him. Her body folds around her son like her legs aren’t attached, the sound that rips out of her cutting through me like a knife.
I can see Mace now. He’s on his knees at the side of the bar, facing the wall. He’s twisting over his shoulder to check on his kid and old lady and the relief on his face when he sees they’re okay and together…
Oh, heads are going to roll for this.
The officer—DS Given—shoots me a weak smile as she returns and drapes the blanket around my shoulders. Instantly, I feel less exposed, even if I’m still cuffed and half-naked under it.
“I got a warrant,” Bird snaps.
“Yeah?” McKay tilts his head. “So go execute it. I’ll wait here.”
Bird’s entire posture shifts. He needs me somewhere he can take me out of the building. McKay just put the brakes on that plan.
“You’re a prick,” Bird growls out, but walks off, leaving me with McKay and Given.
The tension doesn’t bleed out of me completely, but some of the adrenaline drains. McKay looks at me before he turns to Given. “Uncuff him—” He gestures toward Nic, “—before he hurts someone, and get those women off the fucking floor.”
“Got it, Sir.”
McKay spins a finger in the air. I hesitate, just for a second. Long enough for him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says.
I turn and he lifts the blanket. The cuffs slip off and the moment I’m free, I pull the blanket further around me. My shoulders scream in protest, but I ignore the pain, using the material like a shield.
McKay dips his head as if he’s going to ask me something, but Nic is already pushing around him, one cuff still dangling from his wrist. His face is puffy where he was hit, but he’s not bleeding or worse.
Thank fuck.
My throat constricts as he scrubs a hand over his face, pausing for barely a beat before his arms fold around me. I sink into his chest, clinging to him desperately. He’s only in his boxers, but his skin is hot and clammy under my cheek.
He fought for me. So hard he’s sweaty.
“Sunshine? Talk to me? You good? Did he fuckin’ touch you? Are you hurt?” The questions tumble out, one after the other, his face buried in my hair.
My skin is crawling where Bird touched me and my stomach is in knots, but Nic’s trembling, anger and fear tangling together.
Right now, what nearly happened doesn’t matter. Nic’s wired, and I don’t want him to lose his shit, not while danger is still within the clubhouse walls.
I run my fingers over his back, trying to soothe him.
“I’m okay,” I say quickly, even though I’m shaking. I can’t stop it, no matter how much I try.
He pulls back to scan my face, his eyes sharp and narrowed, like he knows I’m not telling the whole truth. But he lets it go for now, because we’re still not safe yet. His gaze slides around the room, checking his family—our family—is okay.
“The kids okay?” he calls out, and Mace meets his gaze with a look that says more than any words could.
Seren’s back in Riot’s arms, Ivy pressed against them both. The man looks like he’s about to show why he has that name.
“Fuckin’ terrified,” he snaps. “But they’re fine.”
Nic’s head jerks toward McKay and I watch the man slip on his president’s mask. “You want to tell me why your officers are in my fuckin’ clubhouse?”
McKay glances over his shoulder, but the other officers are occupied removing the cuffs from Diesel and Dash.
“I didn’t know this was going down, Nic.
Believe me, if I did, they wouldn’t have got as far as the station car park.
I don’t even know how that lazy bastard got this set up so fucking fast. Armed response like this?
It shouldn’t have been possible. This kind of op takes time.
There are channels, procedures, processes.
The fucking risk assessments alone are—whatever, the point is, he did it in less than twelve-hours. ”
Nic’s eyes flash. “I don’t give a shit about what’s possible. He pulled my woman out of my room half-naked and fuckin’ paraded her through my clubhouse in handcuffs.”
“I know.”
“I got a pregnant old lady on her knees, and a mother shoved onto the floor while they took her screaming newborn off her.”
“I know,” McKay repeats with more force this time. “This shit didn’t come from me or anyone above me, Nic.” He drops his voice low. “I’m not stupid. I respect your club. You know I’d never pull this shit.”
“Then make him leave.”
McKay scrubs a hand down his face. “He’s got a warrant.”
“I don’t give a fuck what he’s got.”
“If there’s nothing to find, I’ll have him out of here in the next thirty minutes.” McKay narrows his eyes just a fraction. “There is nothing to find, right?”
Nic doesn’t answer that, just holds me tighter.
I stare at the police patch on McKay’s vest. I had no idea Nic and the Sons had that much power.
“It was Morozov,” I say quietly.
McKay glances at Nic. “Who the fuck’s Morozov?”
“A problem I’m dealin’ with,” Nic snaps. “Get your men out of my club.”
“Just remember, I didn’t do this.”
McKay walks off, barking orders at his officers. Nic tightens his hold on me, breathing into my hair.
“Bird—he was here to collect me for Morozov.”
Nic’s arms twitch around me. “Yeah, I figured. He ain’t gettin’ you.” He pulls back just enough to look at me. “You sure you’re okay?”
I stare up at him. This man who fought for me, who got hurt for me. I don’t want him to carry any more on his shoulders, not when he’s already holding up everyone, including me.
And it’s not like anything happened. Not really.
The disgust I feel disagrees but Bird’s fingers got close. That’s all. He didn’t get that far. Even if my skin is still crawling and I want to scrub every inch of me he touched, he didn’t take anything that would break me.
I’m okay.
I’m…
I’m okay.
I’m scared and pissed, but I’m not hurt. Yeah, so I nearly got violated in a room full of people, but I’m still here. Still breathing.
And so is Nic.
So I make a decision in the moment. Telling Nic what Bird tried while he was unable to protect me won’t change or fix anything.
And I won’t hand him one more reason to bleed for me today.
“I’m fine, Nic.” I press my palms flat against his chest.
The blanket slips off my shoulder, and he instantly pulls it back up. “Sunshine… fuck.”
My fingers brush gently under the swelling on his face. “You’re the one who’s hurt.”
The bands around my ribcage feel too tight. I hate how rough they were with him. How they dragged him around like he’s nothing and no one.
He doesn’t deserve it. I roll to my toes and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. When I pull back, his eyes are soft, but I still see the anger jagged around the edges. “I’m fine,” I repeat.
He exhales like it’s the first time he’s done that since the raid started. His forehead presses to mine and he just takes a second to recalibrate.
“Stay close to me, yeah?”
“You think I’m leaving your side after this?”
I’m not. And not because I’m scared, but because I might be his to protect, but he’s mine too.