39. Riley
The way Chloestays quiet as she follows me up to my room tells me more than anything else how freaked she is. I can’t blame her. She’s got to be confused, and even before West Point took her, she knew better than to trust men like these.
The minute we’re alone in my room, she turns and wraps her arms around me, burying her face against my neck.
“I can’t believe you came for me,” she whispers, squeezing me tightly.
I hug her back just as hard, and we stay like that for a long moment. Finally, she pulls back a little, swiping at the wet streaks of mascara on her cheeks with the backs of her hands.
“Whose house is this?” she asks, glancing around at the room.
She keeps her voice low, as if she’s afraid of them overhearing, and I bite my lower lip. She’s not going to like the answer, not after a lifetime of having me drill into her head that we keep our heads down and stay out of gang business at all costs.
But ripping off the band-aid is always better than dragging it out.
“It belongs to the Reapers,” I tell her.
Chloe instantly stiffens, her gaze darting toward the closed bedroom door.
“The Reapers?” she repeats, her eyes as big as saucers. “Why have you been staying with them? Oh god, did Dad—”
“No,” I interrupt before she can panic any more than she already is. “No, it wasn’t like that. Dad didn’t sell me out. I went to them and asked them for help. They’re the ones who got you out, Chloe. They found out about the deal between Capside and West Point, and they orchestrated that whole rescue mission.”
Her jaw drops open, a little squeak falling from her lips.
“It really is okay,” I tell her, rubbing my hands up and down her arms briskly. “Going to the Reapers was the only way I could think of to get you back. I made a deal with them.”
“What… why…” She pauses and takes a deep breath, then tries again. “Why would they make a deal with you? What did you have to give them?”
“Just money,” I tell her, hoping it will quell her worries about anything else the Reapers might’ve demanded of me. “I offered them payment in exchange for their help.”
A bit of a stretch, but still not a lie. My sister still looks like she doesn’t believe me, though.
“No one helps someone for no reason,” she says skeptically, making me grin even though I sort of wish she’d just drop it.
But I raised her, so she knows how shit works… and she’s not wrong.
“Not for no reason,” I agree. “The Reapers are West Point’s enemies. It’s why I came to them. The two gangs are at war, and getting you out of there fucked up the drop McKenna sent you on. That’s good for the Reapers because it’s bad for West Point, so it was a win all around.”
She nods, chewing on her lip as she processes that information. Then she swallows. “Well, I’m glad the drop got fucked up for West Point. They’re awful. Austin is awful.”
“Did they… make you dance a lot? At that club?” I murmur.
That’s not even the question I really want to ask, and still, a part of me wonders if I can handle hearing her answer. I need to, though.
More importantly, I can tell Chloe needs it. She needs to get it out so it doesn’t fester.
“Yeah,” she says with a sniffle.
Haltingly, she starts to tell me about her time with West Point. How they used her. Groped her and demeaned her. Made her dance in their club and berated her if she didn’t perform to their bullshit standards.
At some point, making sure none of the guys are hovering in the hallway, I lead her out of the bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom, gently cleaning her up as she talks. I clean myself up a little too, because we both end up crying by the time she finally gets through telling me everything.
Thank fuck none of those bastards actually raped her, but her time with West Point was still horrible. They treated her like an object, a pawn. And the drug drop we pulled her out of wasn’t the only dangerous situation they put her in.
I can’t stand knowing how close she was to danger, and how far I was from being able to help her. Not a single member of West Point saw her as anything other than expendable, those motherfuckers, and even though I’m literally washing their blood off our skin, I want to make them pay all over again.
“Come on, let’s get you dressed in something better,” I tell her softly once we’re back in the bedroom, meaning something that doesn’t smell like gun smoke and death
“Is this new?” she asks when I hand her one of the shirts Dante bought me.
I nod, deciding not to tell her that she’s trading one gang-bought outfit for another.
I’d rather have her in Reaper clothes than in anything from West Point.
The confused mash of emotions I’ve felt toward the Reapers pales in comparison to how much I hate West Point for what they did to my sister.
Chloe slips into the clothes I hand her, smoothing down her dyed blonde hair as she glances around the room and then back to me. “I can’t believe you’ve been stuck here. That you put yourself through all this for me.”
“It wasn’t the same as what you went through with West Point,” I say, wanting to reassure her. “I hated them when I first came here. They scared the shit out of me. They’re Reapers, right? None of them trusted me when I showed up begging for their help, but things changed a bit over time. I sort of got to know them.”
“What are they like?”
“Complicated. Dangerous. But they’re also… more than that. They’re nothing like I expected, honestly.” I clear my throat, steeling myself as I speak the words I’ve been avoiding ever since we left the warehouse burning in our wake. “We’re going to have to get out of Halston, Chloe.”
Her face drops, worry and uncertainty crossing her features. “Are you sure?”
Fuck, I wish I wasn’t. And not because I’m so attached to my old job or any of the people I knew at Club M. Not even because our dad, our last living relative, is here.
The reason I don’t want to leave is because of the three men in his house.
“Yeah,” I say with a reassuring smile, careful to keep my thoughts off my face. “We’ll wait a couple of days until the dust settles, but we definitely need to relocate somewhere safer.”
While I’m grateful for the protection Maddoc is offering by insisting that we stick around for a few days, I know that the only true safety to be found will be away from this city. Away from West Point and Frank and Capside and all of it.
Chloe twists a lock of hair between her fingers. “Where will we go?”
I’ve got no idea, but I keep smiling and fake it. “Anywhere you want. We’ll look into good schools for you, then we’ll just pick one in a new state and start over there.”
“But what about your job?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll find another one. Stripping isn’t exactly the kind of career that’s hard to break into, wherever we end up.”
“And… Dad?” Chloe asks hesitantly.
“Fuck Frank,” I say fiercely, hoping like hell she won’t try to defend him in any way. But her shoulders relax, and I realize that whatever softness she still had toward him dried up and died when he sold her.
Good.
“We’ve got nothing to keep us here in Halston, Chloe,” I say, gentling my voice. “And it will be fun, right? We can go anywhere. Maybe head down south for some better weather?”
“Yeah, maybe,” she says, her eyes lighting up a little. “Maybe I could even pick a school by a beach somewhere?”
Neither of us have ever even been to a beach, but why not? We really will be starting over from scratch—including me figuring out how to pay for her to go to college now that I’ve handed over every cent I saved toward it—but to keep seeing that light in her eyes, I’ll make it happen. Whatever it takes.
I drag in a deep breath, and the movement makes the wound at my side twinge with pain.
Shit. I really do need to get it looked at.
I toe off the heavy boots Dante gave me to wear for the mission tonight, then cross to the bed and pull back the covers before glancing at Chloe.
“You’ve been through a lot tonight,” I tell her. “Get some rest while I go let Logan stitch up this scratch, okay? We can figure out everything else in the morning.”
“Yeah. All right.”
Exhaustion is written clearly across her pale face, and she doesn’t push back against my suggestion, crawling up onto the bed and curling up beneath the blankets. She even lets me tuck her in, something I haven’t done in years.
“Sleep tight,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
As I pad over to the door and turn the light off, her eyelids are already falling shut.