Chapter Seven – Star
Poking my head out of the door, I glanced this way and that, trying to figure out if anyone was around. The place sounded quiet, compared to the raucous laughter I’d heard downstairs late into last night, but that didn’t mean that everyone was gone.
It had been nearly a week since I had arrived at the Dark Dogs compound, and I was still trying to wrap my head around exactly what it meant for me to be living here. Jaxon came to see me every day, bringing food, driving me out to pick up my stuff from the motel – I had to hang on to him on the back of his bike, hands gripping to his strong waist, trying not to think about what a mess my hair must have become beneath that helmet.
Jaxon had told me to stay in my room as much as possible, not to go out and get under the feet of any of the other guys who worked here – not that I had much intention of doing that, not at first, anyway. I was terrified of them, worried about what might happen if I put myself in their line of sight. These were criminals, after all, and I had no idea how they might treat me if they found out who my father was. Maybe they would blame me for some of the tougher restraints he’d brought on in Atwood, all to benefit his criminal supporters...
But, by now, I was getting bored. And if there was one thing I didn’t do well with, it was boredom. I felt as though I was losing my mind a little, unable to navigate everything that was going on inside my head. I needed to get a better idea of what was going on here, what everyone did in this place. If I was going to be living here, then it was the least I could do, wasn’t it?
I slipped out of the room and padded towards the stairs that led back down to the shop – the corridor at the bottom branched off in two directions, one, to the outside, where I’d met Jaxon, and the other, somewhere I had never seen before. Was that where they all hung out? I was pretty sure I’d heard them all down there earlier, and I wanted to see exactly what was so exciting about that place. There had been at least a dozen of them last night, judging by all the overlapping voices, the sound of bottles clinking, the smell of cigarette smoke drifting up the stairs, and I couldn’t help but wonder just how many of these guys there were in total. How many of them were there, spread out around the city? How many of them were out there...?
I snuck down the stairs as quietly as I could, having kicked my shoes off so I didn’t draw too much attention to myself. The only other person I had actually met of the Dark Dogs was Chuck, and I got the feeling he wasn’t too happy about having me around. He might have covered for me in front of those guys, but there was a heap of difference between that and actually liking me, right?
I pushed open the door to the left of the corridor and stepped into what looked like a small club room – a pool table sat in the center, a few scattered posters of scantily-clad women on motorcycles peeling from the walls, and a stack of empty beer bottles on one of the counters. An ashtray was overflowing in the corner, and I tutted and went over to empty it out. I’d never liked the smell of smoke – it always reminded me of my father in his study, chatting up some new potential investor in his campaign, the smell of cigars drifting down the hallway while he kept me out of the picture.
”What the fuck are you doing here?”
I spun around, nearly jumping out of my skin when I heard a sharp voice remonstrating with me. I drew myself up to my full height – not exactly impressive, but still – and narrowed my eyes at the man who was speaking to me.
”I just came down to see what all the noise last night was about,” I shot back at Chuck. He didn’t look impressed at my presence, but I refused to let it get to me. He had said it was alright for me to stay, I figured, so why was he acting like it was such a shock to see me here?
”Go back to your room,” he growled at me, taking a step forward and narrowing his eyes in my direction. ”You don’t want anyone to see you here...”
”I’ve been locked up in there for days,” I protested, returning the empty ashtray to the counter. ”I’m bored, I need to-”
”Boredom isn’t an emergency,” he shot back at me. He was obviously pissed, but I’d always had this bad habit of responding to someone being mad at me with a sharp tone myself. My mom had done everything she could to try and coax it out of me, when I had snapped back a few times too many at the lecherous old men who came to my father’s fundraisers, but I had never been able to bite my tongue and play nice.
”I’m just cleaning this place up,” I replied, gesturing around. ”It’s a mess. You should be thanking me for-”
”Thanking you?” he exclaimed, a bark of laughter emerging from his lips. ”You’ve got to be kidding me, right?”
He looked as though he was ready to swing on me by the time Jaxon appeared in the doorway behind us.
”What’s going on here?” he demanded, stepping between us, like he could sense how bad the situation had gotten.
”Your girl’s on the loose,” Chuck told him, gesturing in my direction. I felt my cheeks flush, hearing him call me that. Jaxon’s girl. Not that I was, not that I was anyone’s girl, but if I had to be someone’s, I would have liked it to be him...
”I’ll deal with it,” Jaxon told him, not taking his eyes off of me. ”Don’t worry about it.”
Chuck shot one last glare in my direction, and then stalked off once more, leaving me alone with Jaxon. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared up at him.
”What are you doing down here?” he demanded, shaking his head. ”You should – you need to get back to your room. You can’t wander around down here.”
”Why not?” I protested. ”It wasn’t like I was doing anything. I wasn’t going out anywhere someone could have seen me-”
”Because Chuck isn’t exactly excited about having you here in the first place,” he replied, shaking his head. ”And if you can at least keep out of his line of sight, you’ve got a better chance of him letting you stay.”
”What, he calls the shots around here?” I demanded.
”He’s the boss,” Jaxon shot back. ”And he’s the one who decides what happens around here. You should remember that.”
I knew he was right. I knew I should just go along with the rules that were being laid down in front of me. But, fuck, I had never been good at that. I had never been good at just playing along with everything I was told.
”And so he gets to speak to me like that?” I demanded.
”He gets to speak to you however he wants,” Jaxon replied, his voice firm. ”That’s how it works. I know you’re probably used to having everything the way you want it, with your family and all, but-”
”Oh, you think that’s how it worked?” I replied, snorting at the thought of it. ”Yeah, no. I never got to decide how things were going to go. I always had to just play along with whatever they wanted from me. Whether I thought it was a good idea or not.”
”Really?” he replied, frowning, sounding surprised.
”Of course,” I sighed. ”You think my dad was going to risk letting me do anything I wanted? What if I brought shame to his name? Or affected all the donors he was relying on to keep his campaign ticking over?”
He cocked an eyebrow.
”I figured he was doing it with family money,” he muttered. ”I didn’t realize that...”
He trailed off. I pressed my lips together.
”Yeah, that’s how it’s always worked,” I murmured, dropping my gaze down. I hated admitting it. Hated admitting that I had allowed them to dictate exactly how my life was going to go for so long, and that I had been so willing to go along with it until I’d heard the news that they were going to sell me off to that Lombardi guy.
”I didn’t know,” he replied.
”You think that this wedding was the first thing?” I pointed out. ”They’ve always used me any way they could. My brothers, they get to do whatever they want – they both went to university, and my father helped them set up a business together, doing tech consultation or something. But he needed me close. Keeping me around so he could make himself look good, make it look as though he was this adoring family man. People like that. People respond to it.”
I was surprised at the vitriol in the words I spoke – I hadn’t realized how much of it had been backed up inside of me till that moment, how much of it I had done my best to ignore all this time. I couldn’t believe how much I had allowed my family to get away with, how much I had just let them use my entire life. Now I was out, now I could look at it from a new direction, I felt as though I was able to see how twisted it was. The double standards they had applied to me versus my brothers, knowing that keeping me locked up and hidden away would serve them well in the long run, when they could sell my body and soul to the highest bidder.
”I just can’t stand being in that room all day,” I admitted. ”It feels like...it feels like I’m trapped again.”
”Hey,” he murmured to me, his hand coming to my cheek, guiding my gaze back towards him. ”That’s not true, all right? It’s not the same as it was before. Not by a long shot.”
My breath hitched in my throat as I stared up at him. His touch, God, his touch, it felt as though it was lighting up every inch of my body at once, even though I should be holding back, even though I should have known better. His eyes were blazing with sincerity as he looked down at me.
”You’re safe here,” he told me. ”And you’re free. If you want to walk out that door, you can do it, any time you like. You hear me? You don’t have to stay. Nobody’s making you.”
”I know,” I breathed. But the truth was, I didn’t want to leave, I didn’t want to go. The thought of being out on the streets, all on my own again, it scared the hell out of me – but, beyond that, the thought of being away from him felt downright impossible. I couldn’t lose this. I didn’t know exactly what I was feeling, but when he touched me, when he looked at me the way he did, it was as though every fiber of my being was lighting up in response to the sensation.
”You sure?” he asked. We were standing just a few inches apart, his hand on my cheek, his thumb resting just an inch or so from my lips. It would have been so easy, so damn easy, to just lean in and kiss him, but I knew that would have been crazy...
Or, at least, that’s the last thought that crossed my mind before our lips crashed together.
The electricity that coursed between us as soon as his mouth met mine, it was...it was everything. My whole body was alight with need, my whole system spinning helplessly out of control as I reached up to grab his face. I had never been kissed like this in my life, not by a man, not when I could feel the stubble grazing against my cheek, a reminder of just how close we were – my lips parted and he slipped his tongue between them, deepening our embrace, a low growl escaping from someplace deep inside of him, as though this was what he had been waiting for all along...
And then, all at once, he pulled back. I gasped, my mouth moving back to his almost on instinct for another embrace, but he stepped away from me, his hands dropping back down to his sides. I could feel every inch of me screaming for more, screaming for his touch, screaming for everything he could give me – but, judging by the look on his face, I knew he wasn’t willing to give it to me.
”You need to go back to your room,” he told me, nodding towards the stairs.
”Jaxon, I-”
”You need to go back to your room,” he repeated himself firmly, his voice dropping slightly as though he was making damn sure I knew what he was talking about. I gritted my teeth. I didn’t know what else I was meant to do or say right now, but my body was tingling with the electricity of his touch, and he couldn’t expect me to just switch that off, could he? He couldn’t expect me to just pretend I hadn’t felt it.
He turned and walked away from me, and, breathing hard, I watched him as he went. I wanted to call after him, but the word caught in my throat, and I knew, right now, it was better for me to just let him go than it was to try and force him to come back.
I didn’t know what the hell had just happened – but I knew that I wanted more.
And that I would do anything in my power to get it.