Chapter 11
Holding Out for a Hero
I close my locker and head out of the changerooms, bumping straight into a solid chest in a black shirt. His familiar scent floats all around me. I look up to find a smiling Asher, because of course I’m running into him again. The man is lurking around every damn corner I turn.
“I was just coming to get you,” he says, steadying me with his muscular arms. His fingers are warm on my shoulders.
The contact sends a strange thrill running through me.
I like his hands on me, something in the way he touches me makes me feel safe.
Not just safe though, but seen. And that’s so nice after years of feeling invisible.
“Oh, why?” I ask, smiling back at him. It’s one of those stupid smiles all the girls around here have for him, I just know it, but I can’t help it either.
“I’m your chauffeur, remember?” He pretends to tip his hat.
I giggle, unable to help it. “Cute, but I’m catching the bus.” I go to brush past him, knowing I need to get away from him as soon as possible. My pulse is now racing.
He grabs my arm, stopping me from going any further, and I turn back to him. “Not at this time of the night, you’re not.” He pulls me in closer. “Especially with that pocketful of cash you made tonight. Knew you would be popular.”
“Asher…” I complain. “I don’t want you driving me around.” Truth is, I need to spend as little time with him as possible or I will be just like all the other girls around here. A lovesick fool.
“My friends call me Ash.” He wraps his arm around my shoulders, way too comfortable in my company already.
“And I have decided you’re my friend.” He walks with his arm around my shoulders.
“You can whine all you like in the car about your love affair with the bus, but I’m driving you.
It’s after one am, and these streets aren’t made for pretty ladies to be wandering around alone at this time. ”
I huff out a breath but decide he’s probably right, and I have had more than enough drama for one night thanks to Cruz.
He takes me through the back into the parking lot, the cold air of night hitting me like I just walked into a freezer.
I shiver and run my hands over my bare arms, trying to warm up.
Like the gentleman he is, he shrugs out of his suit jacket and places it over my shoulders, his hands lingering on me longer than they should.
I stare up at him, getting lost in his pretty eyes. He’s so damn gorgeous. “You’re a little too sweet, Asher. Has anyone ever told you that?” I drop my eyes away from his, knowing I’m getting into dangerous territory. “Didn’t you just say friends?”
“I have been told on occasion. So how was it, your first shift? Are you ready to quit or do I win the bet?” His grin widens all the way to his dimples.
My eyes narrow in on him. “You better be joking about the bet part, Asher Stryker,” I warn.
“It’s Ash,” he reminds me as he opens the passenger door for me.
“Ash,” I growl out his nickname, telling him I’m still serious about the bet part.
His eyes dance with mischief. “As much as I would have loved to prove Cruz wrong, I wouldn’t really do that to you.”
I meet his eyes for just a split second; he’s being real with me. “Good. It was kind of fun. I mean, not the Cruz losing his shit and beating up that guy, but the rest was.”
“Cruz just gets a little crazy sometimes,” he says like it’s no big deal. When we both know it is.
“It was more than crazy. He’s out of control, Ash. Can you talk to him? I don’t want to lose this job because he’s acting like an overcontrolling ass.”
“I’ll try, but he’s like a dog with a bone when he makes his mind up about something.”
“What does that even mean?” I huff.
He sighs. “I’ll talk to him. But don’t stress, you’re not going to lose this job.
I know talent when I see it, and you just became my best girl.
” The way he looks at me, I feel like I just became his only girl.
How he can light me up with just one charming smile and slight graze of the arm? It’s disarming and dangerous.
I suck in a breath, trying not to let myself fall under his spell. This is dangerous, Daisy, get in the car. Now. But I don’t, I keep gazing up at him, my butterflies taking flight throughout my stomach.
Out of nowhere, a dark shape whizzes by my face and slams into Asher’s head. He flies back onto the unforgiving asphalt, knocked out cold, blood flying from the side of his face.
A scream of pure terror rips from my lips, but before it can fully form, a hand clamps firmly over my mouth and pulls me back into a hard chest. “You should have taken the money when you had the chance,” he barks, his breath laced with the stale stench of way too much scotch. He kicks at Asher’s unconscious body.
He remains motionless, and I scream again, my voice swallowed by the coarse hand clamping tightly over it. Oh my God, Asher, he’s hurt really badly.
“Some bodyguard,” the man mutters.
Instant tears well in my eyes. My poor Asher was just trying to get me home safely, and now blood is trickling from his face. I shriek through my tears, trying to make some noise that might wake him up. Or alert someone else to us being in trouble.
The man’s breath dusts over my ear. “He can’t save you now, Princess.”
Sickness churns in my stomach, and I go all clammy. The man I gave my first lap dance to—it’s his voice I hear. “Let me go,” I whimper, trying to buck out of his grip on me.
He pulls me in closer to him, so close I can feel how hard he is. A shiver runs down my spine, and sickness fills me. “Not until you give me what I came here for tonight.” He drags me to the back of the car and swings open the door.
I sink my teeth into his hand, trying anything I can to make him release me while he’s distracted. I’m not getting in there with him. No way in hell he’s getting what he wants from me. I bite so damn hard I taste the metallic tang of his blood; it’s disgusting and makes me gag.
He releases his hand from my mouth, grabbing me around the throat instead. “You little bitch,” he roars in my ear as he slams me into the car, the force knocking the air from my lungs and jarring my whole right side.
Pain radiates through me, and tears stream down my face, but I don’t give up.
I can’t give up. Asher needs help. He could be bleeding to death right now, all because of me.
I bring my elbow back into his gut as hard as I can, trying to twist out of his hold.
I fight with everything I have, scratching at him and kicking.
For his age, he’s surprisingly strong, and I know I’m no match for him, but I have to try.
His grip around my throat tightens as he forces me inside the back seat of Asher’s car. I shriek, but it comes out hoarse and with no power. My front is squished into the car’s back seat, his full weight clamping around me from behind so I can’t move.
I try to breathe, but my face is forced so far into the seat he’s almost smothering me. I’m dizzy from the way his fingers are crushing my airway. I twist and turn in his grip, trying to gasp for air.
My head spins as I try to focus and find something in the car to use as a weapon.
My hand searching, I flail around on the carpeted floor well for anything I can use to fight him off with.
I reach up under the passenger-side seat, hoping to God he has something stashed here.
Asher’s a thug, surely he has a weapon stashed in his car.
I nearly squeal when I land on a handle and keep feeling down till I get to solid metal with a sharp edge, a blade. Thank the Lord.
From behind, I feel as he shoves my skirt up and reefs my panties down my legs, cool air chilling my bare skin. “I’m going to really fuck you up, girlie, make sure that prick boyfriend of yours knows this was his fault.” He chuckles sinisterly.
I grip the handle of the blade tighter, knowing I have one chance at this.
It’s the last thing I want to do, but I have no choice.
I close my eyes up tight and swing my arm backwards as hard as I can.
The blade cuts through his shirt and sinks deep into his back.
So deep it makes me want to puke at the noise it makes.
A gasp of pain escapes him, and I feel his weight, once pressing my body firmly into the seat, suddenly recoil.
I scramble out from under him, quickly tugging my dress down and my panties up, my body trembling all over as I find blood on my fingers.
He stumbles back, his eyes wild and crazy. “What did you do?” His hand shakes as he looks down at the blood dripping from it.
My head spins, and I grab hold of the car to stop from going over. So much blood. Fuck, I don’t feel well. Asher’s blurry figure moves, holding his head as he glances at me. “Asher,” I cry, knowing what’s about to happen. There is too much blood. My vision goes blurry, and I’m falling.
A gunshot goes off, then another one. I clamber onto the solid ground below. Then nothing.
Strong arms cradle me, holding me close, warm and comforting like a blanket. “Ash,” I whisper, blinking a few times to get my eyes to focus properly. “Cruz?” His dark blue eyes draw me out of the fog and back into reality. Where did he come from?
“Are you okay, little darlin’?” he says, his voice hoarse, his eyes filled with concern.
“I think so.” And then I remember what just happened, and my heart races in panic all over again. “Asher got hit,” I splutter.
“I’m right here.” His voice comes from behind me, sounding groggy and out of it, but it’s definitely him. Thank God.
I glance over my shoulder to find him propped up against the brick wall of the club, out back in the parking lot, an ice pack resting on the side of his face. Sloane fusses over him with a wet cloth as she wipes away blood. The sight of his bruised face makes me shiver because it looks so terrible.
“He’s okay, Daisy,” Cruz tries to assure me, but he doesn’t look okay, and all I can see when I look at him is that thing swinging at his face and the deafening crunch as it took him to the ground. It must have been a plank of solid wood or a baseball bat, something hard.
Next to him is my attacker. Very dead, with two bullet holes in him, one in his head, the other in his chest. There is so much blood.
My head spins again, and my stomach lurches.
“Oh, God,” I mutter quickly, looking away, but it’s too late.
I scramble out of Cruz’s hold on me and empty the contents of my stomach in a rush.
Cruz captures my hair, holding it back for me. “You’re okay,” he whispers in my ear as he strokes my back gently. “You’re safe, he can’t hurt you again,” he tries to assure me.
I stare at the gravel below me, vomiting until I’m dry heaving.
I suck in breaths, trying to get the spinning and nausea under control.
It’s the blood I can’t handle and the sickening feeling of when I sank that knife into his back.
I will never forget how horrific that felt.
My body heaves again, but this time nothing comes out. I don’t have anything left.
Cruz pulls me back to him, his arms wrapping around me in a warm embrace. The combination of leather and cigarettes I never knew could feel like coming home. But with his muscular arms wrapped around me, I feel at home for the first time in so long.
“Cruz, I’m all disgusting,” I murmur, mortified he’s so close to me right now, but he just pulls me in closer and strokes my hair until I snuggle in. His kindness makes tears scroll down my face. “I thought he was going to…”
He cuts me off. “It’s okay, he didn’t.”
But he was going to. If I didn’t find that knife in Asher’s car, he would have, and there would have been nothing I could have done about it.
“You need to see a doctor, make sure you don’t have a concussion,” I overhear Sloane comment from behind us. I think she’s talking to Asher.
“It’s just a bump on the head. I need to drive Daisy home,” Asher slurs, and I know it’s more than that. He was out cold. He could be really hurt.
I look his way, doing my best to look only at him. “You should listen to your sister. That was a hard hit.”
He gets shakily to his feet, and Sloane catches him, pressing him into the wall. “I’m fine, princess.”
“Get in the car, Ash, I’ll drive you both home,” Cruz calls to him.
“He might have a concussion, Cruz,” Sloane snips back, looking like she’s ready to fight him on this.
“I’ll watch him. If he shows any signs, I’ll call the doc.”
She huffs out a heavy sigh. “Take them home to my place, but I’m calling Ricky now to meet you there.”
Cruz moves me, helping me get into the front passenger side of the car. My body shivers, so cold even with Asher’s jacket on. I stare out the front windshield. If Asher and I hadn’t been flirting with each other and had just gotten in the damn car in the first place, this never would have happened.
Cruz looks me over, his forehead creasing. “Fuck,” he growls. But I don’t know why. He takes off his jacket and places it over my legs, tucking it in around me. “You got a blanket or some shit? She’s going into shock,” he calls back to Sloane.
“In my office, Onyx,” she calls to him. I didn’t even know he was here.
Shock, what’s he talking about? My teeth chatter, and I clutch Cruz’s leather jacket like it’s a lifeline. It’s warm and smells of him, but even that won’t stop the violent way my body trembles suddenly.
I make out Sloane and Cruz helping Asher get in the back of the car, by the way he moans in protest. He reaches his hand into the front to me. “Hold my hand, please, Daisy,” he asks, his voice all soft and sleepy.
I do, wanting to comfort him. I feel so terrible he got hurt because of me. His hand is warm, and the way he squeezes mine back is so comforting. I grip him tightly, needing him as much as he needs me.
“I’m so sorry, princess. I should have protected you.”
“He hit you,” I whisper back, knowing there is nothing he could have done.
The next thing I know, a soft, warm, woollen blanket is thrown over my lap, and Cruz tucks it all around me. I close my eyes and try to tune out the weird feeling coming over me.
“Daisy, we need to keep Ash awake, okay. Can you help me?” comes Cruz’s voice from beside me.
I nod, not able to do much more.
The engine roars to life, and the car moves forward, but I don’t open my eyes.
I snuggle into the blanket and do my best to block out every awful thing that just happened.
I have Asher and Cruz, and they are taking me away from that hell to safety.
“Ash, why did you have a knife under your back seat?” I ask, remembering I’m supposed to be keeping him awake, and that question is all I can think about right now.
“For emergencies,” he responds, his voice sounding a little lighter, more like him. “Good thing too.”