29. Pain and Betrayal
PAIN AND BETRAYAL
BEAR
I rub my head, feeling the bandage on it and frown.
I wince from the pain—both in my head and my arm.
I feel like I’ve been hit by a freight train.
Memories of talking with Cross and the bastard hitting me with the butt of his gun filter in and I jerk, moaning from the pain as I force my eyes open.
I look around and my gaze immediately stops dead on the men standing across from me.
Carson and his two brothers are here. Hangman, is standing beside Sasa and Cross. Okay, this works, although I want to know where the fuck Blade is. For now, I need to concentrate on what the hell is going on here.
“Seems it’s time for our meeting. Do any of you assholes want to tell me why my own man tried to put me back in the hospital?” I bark.
“Your own man?” Hangman says, and I shift my gaze directly on him.
“I’m the reason Cross is a member of the Saints, so yeah, my man. I may not be acting president any longer, but that doesn’t erase what I was to the club. I’m the reason you fuckers exist here in Cherokee.”
My words seem to suck the air out of the room. They all look at one another, and then back to me.
“You’re nobody to my club,” Hangman counters. “And since I’m the leader of the Saints that would make Cross my man and he did exactly what I would have told him to do.”
Bitterness wells up inside of me. “You’re the fucking president?
Where’s that piece of shit brother of mine?
It’s bad enough he didn’t stay by Livy’s side and help her.
How are you wearing a cut declaring you’re president of the club?
If something happened to me, that chair was always supposed to belong to Blade. ”
The room goes eerily quiet for a minute. “I want to know how an outsider knows details about my fucking club,” Hangman snaps.
Anger keeps building in me, so I let it out. “Damn it! I know I’ve been gone for two years, but I’m not a stranger, motherfucker. You’re the one letting those assholes sitting over there hear club business,” I add, pointing over to the Wells brothers.
Everyone in the room is looking at me like I’m some kind of damn specimen in a lab. “Carson, even Lake’s movements and the way he speaks is different,” Colt says and my gut burns. “I mean, it’s still graveled, but the way he pronounces things have a deeper southern twang injected.”
Carson grunts but doesn’t reply.
“I don’t trust any of you motherfuckers any longer. I want to talk to Livy,” I growl.
“You can forget that, Lake. You’re never going to get around Livy ever again,” Carson responds calmly.
His words infuriate me to the point that I lose it.
I spent too much of my life at the mercy of fucking men who tried to destroy me.
I charge at him with a war cry that would make my Cherokee ancestors proud.
“No one will take me away from her again!” I hit Carson so hard he falls back onto the cement.
I can feel men clawing at my arms and back, trying to pull me off of him.
I keep fighting, landing hit after hit on him. “She’s mine!” I yell.
I fight with everything inside of me, but I’m outnumbered and eventually they get me free. I’m shoved against steel plated wall, face-first. When they pull back, but cuff my hands behind my back, something happens that I wasn’t prepared for.
I see my reflection in the steel. Only that can’t be me. I turned my head to the side. The reflection moves the same way. I bring my hand up to touch my jaw and the same thing happens in the steel mirror.
“Lake?” Cross asks, sounding concerned. I can’t respond.
“This can’t be real,” I whisper. “What’s going on here?”
“What do you mean?” Sasa asks. I turn to look at him, tears falling down my face. “What happened to my face, Sasa?” My legs give out and I sink to the floor.
What have they done to me?