CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CLOVER
After several calls to Blaze proved useless, I tried Cash instead. He picked up right away. In a rush, I told him that I’d been attacked, and I needed him to come get me. He didn’t ask questions or hesitate. Five minutes later, he was outside the restroom, ready to escort me from the building.
As we were leaving the building, sirens sounded in the distance. Someone must have found the dead man in the restroom. The police were on their way. We didn’t hang around. We hurried to Cash’s SUV and got the hell out of there.
While Cash drove, I repeatedly called Daire over and over until he answered. Without wasting a lot of time, I told him to get out of the building and go home right now. He didn’t question me. Taking my word for it, he said that he would see us soon.
The drive home wasn’t all that long, although it felt like it took forever. I nervously fidgeted the entire way, my mouth dry, my heart racing.
“Calm down, Clover. Take deep breaths. Everything will be all right.” Cash did his best to reassure me. At a red light, he reached over and stroked my cheek. “I’m so fucking proud of you. You have no idea how amazing you are.”
I sure didn’t feel amazing. I felt fucking terrified. My mind was a mess as I tried to process the surreal experience. It all felt like a really horrible dream.
“They know about us. They want us dead. What are we going to do?” I began to ramble on, convinced that the person running the dark web content at Paradise was going to have us killed. We never should’ve gone there. This was too much.
“Hey, chill out. You need to keep your head. This is no time to fall apart. We’re not going to let anything happen to you, Sunshine. We won’t take our eyes off you until this is all over.”
Cash’s continued reassurance did nothing to make me feel better. We must have been careless. We’d done something to screw up, and now they were coming for us.
When we arrived at the house, Cash pulled a gun from under his seat, telling me to stay behind him while he went ahead and checked things out. That definitely didn’t help me feel better. Neither Blaze nor Daire seemed to be home yet. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
I followed Cash as he did a sweep of the house. First the exterior before venturing inside. Everything seemed fine. Still, I couldn’t shake the bad feeling that settled in the pit of my stomach. These people knew that we were students. They had to know our names. Most likely, that meant they also knew where we lived.
Once Cash had checked the entire house from top to bottom and felt confident that it was clear, I went to the kitchen and promptly poured myself a stiff drink. I knew that it wasn’t the right way to handle this. Right then, I didn’t care.
When I chugged down my first drink and poured another, Cash eyed me uncertainly. His lips pressed together, and he shook his head, like he wanted to say something, but decided against it.
A few minutes later, the front door opened, and Daire strolled inside. “What’s going on? Clover was in a panic.”
“Someone tried to kill her in the bathroom at school,” Cash explained.
“Someone tried to kill me too.” Blaze’s voice preceded him as he rushed into the house moments behind Daire.
Blaze and I took turns recounting our personal incidents to the others and to each other. Hearing that he’d been chased at gunpoint scared the shit out of me. If Gage hadn’t shown up when he did, Blaze might not have made it home.
It quickly became clear that the only reason the other two had been spared such an encounter was because they were in class. These guys were looking for all of us. There was no denying how serious this was.
“They must have had their own hidden cameras back there,” Daire mused, pouring a drink of his own. “We should have known.”
“It’s not like we could wear masks or anything,” Blaze pointed out. “That would have been suspicious. Even fetish wear masks would have had to be removed when we showed our I.D. at the door. It was inevitable that they would get footage of us, either from the back or from the front entry. We should have come up with a contingency plan.”
I chugged back my second drink and reached for the bottle. That’s when Blaze swiped it away.
“What the hell?” I protested.
“You need to stay sober,” Blaze admonished. “Drinking yourself stupid will not keep you alive. You’re cut off.”
His tone was hard and firm. I stared at him, aghast.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “You can’t cut me off, Blaze. I’m an adult. I don’t need your permission to have a few.”
Blaze’s expression darkened. “You do now. Do you really want to fight me on this, Clover? You won’t win.”
He didn’t get forceful with me all that much lately. Since everything had gone down with Brady harming the two of us, Blaze had been a lot more chill. The monster within him lurked in his amber brown eyes now, reminding me that it still existed.
I’d had an incredibly screwed up twenty-four hours. I wasn’t in the mood to take crap from anyone, not even the Angels.
“Yeah, maybe I do want to fight you, Blaze. I was forced to kill a man to save my own ass today. The question is, do you want to mess with me right now? Because I think you’ll be surprised how that turns out for you.”
I stepped right up to him, holding his steady gaze. There had been a time when the Angels scared me. When I would do anything to avoid conflict with them. Those days were over.
Blaze grabbed me by both arms, jerking me hard against him. “I won’t watch you drink yourself to death because you can’t handle this shit. Go ahead and try me. I would love a reason to remind you who you belong to.”
While Daire watched with intrigue, Cash wasn’t having it. He pulled us apart, shoving in between us.
“You both need to calm the hell down. You both could have died today. Taking it out on each other isn’t going to help anything. We have bigger problems, like not getting killed.” Cash’s shout rang through the house. “Blaze, settle the fuck down and let Clover make her own decisions. Clover, stop antagonizing Blaze. This isn’t the time.”
“Agreed. We need to be prepared. They’ll come again.” Daire spoke up, drawing our gazes to him. He stood near the island, drinking far more rum than I’d had. Yet nobody talked about his drinking or his drug use.
Shooting Blaze a fiery glare, I snatched the bottle from where he’d placed it on the counter and took a rebellious drink. I understood that he only wanted to protect me. However, the Angels had dragged me into one horrible situation after another. If I wanted a goddamn drink, I would have one.
Blaze stormed away, going into the living room, where he sat heavily on the couch and pulled out a joint. He sat there smoking, ignoring the rest of us. I suddenly felt like crying. The adrenaline had subsided and reality was crashing in hard.
While Cash and Daire busied themselves gathering guns and other weapons while locking down the house, I went upstairs to shower and change. I still had traces of blood in my hair.
Tensions were high. No doubt Blaze was feeling the crash of his encounter as well. I didn’t want to fight with him. It made me ill to think of how close we’d both come to death today. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to lose any of them.
A hot shower did nothing to make me feel better. I watched remnants of blood slide away down the drain as I vigorously scrubbed my hair and body. Tremors racked me until I dissolved into tears. I’d been holding so much inside for so long. Today had been the tipping point.
My tears ran down my face, joining the water as it rushed down the drain. My chest heaved with sobs. So much for being a badass.
Through the shower curtain, I saw motion as the bathroom door opened. Daire entered, closing the door behind him.
“Angel?” He leaned on the counter, facing the shower. “Are you okay?”
Dammit. He must have heard me crying.
I sucked in a shuddery breath. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
Crap. Turning off the water, I opened the curtain to find Daire waiting with a towel. As I stepped out, he wrapped it around me. Then he folded me into his warm embrace.
Resting his chin against my wet hair, he sighed. “I’m sorry we dragged you into all this. Sometimes I wish we’d left you alone. But I can’t let you go now, Clover. It’s too late for that. You’re mine, and I won’t give you up.”
His words filled me with anguish. Sometimes I felt the same way. Life would be simpler without the Angels. It would also be emptier.
“I’m sorry I slapped you,” I said, sniffling softly.
“Don’t be. I deserved it. Feel free to throw another one if it makes you feel better.” There was a smile in his voice.
I pulled back to look at him, falling into his eyes. “I’m scared, Daire.”
“I know.” He hugged me tighter. “Whoever the fuck JD is, he won’t win this fight. We’ll find him, and we’ll kill him.”
He meant every word. I knew that. So badly I wanted to believe him… but I didn’t.