11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
The rest of the ride to the clubhouse was contemplative. I didn’t know what the hell possessed me to kiss Lyra, but the sensation was overwhelming, and I just did. I couldn’t get the image of total surrender out of my head. And her moans.
Fuck!
I was getting hard just thinking about what she’d sound like with my dick buried deep inside her pussy. There was no doubt that Lyra was the sexiest and most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. When I looked at her, it felt like home. A real home. One that I’d dreamed about when I was a kid, but never had the chance to experience.
“Are you ready for this?” I turned to her, and my eyes roamed her face for some type of reaction.
“Yes,” she answered, taking a deep breath. “I need to know why they are after me.”
I hadn’t planned on letting her in on the interrogation, but I could see by the way she wheedled her way into my truck that even if I tried, she wasn’t going to stay away unless I tied her up.
Fuck, now that image wouldn’t leave me.
“Yeah, I want to see who this fucker is,” she growled, then pushed her door open and slid out of my truck.
I smirked; damn, I liked her sassiness, even if she was going against my better instincts.
She walked ahead of me like she knew where she was going. I shook my head and got out of my truck and leaned against it, watching her ass jiggle and sway as she walked toward the clubhouse, just like she belonged.
There’s a thought.
I followed her like a good little boy, enjoying the view. My brother would rag the hell out of me if he saw me. I caught up to her and grabbed her elbow. I felt like I needed to warn her about some things she may see inside.
“What are you doing?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips. Her eyes narrowed in anger.
“Trying to save you from embarrassment,” I answered.
She scoffed but didn’t move toward the clubhouse anymore. “What is so terrible that I’ll be embarrassed to see?”
“Oh, it’s not terrible, baby. It’s just a good girl like you would be shocked,” I warned, but even I could feel the smirk on my lips. “I just wanted to warn you.”
“Fine. You’ve done your job; now I want to see my friend,” she demanded.
And without hesitation, I was going to obey because I knew she was worried about what was happening to her. All the playfulness was gone. My face returned to the stoic one I knew I would need when I opened that door with her at my side.
“Let’s go.” I grasped her hand, surprised and pleased that she didn’t snatch away from me.
I turned the knob and heard a small exhale of breath from her just before I pushed it open. Things were just as I thought. I headed right to the bar. The new girl Brick was talking with earlier was behind it. I didn’t know her name.
“Hey, you seen Brick?” I asked her, then chuckled when I heard Lyra whisper, ‘Good Lord,’ next to me.
I snickered.
“Saw him talking to Loki earlier. They went to the back,” she answered.
“Thanks,” I nodded, then pulled Lyra out of the main room and down the hall toward the office.
“You didn’t tell me they’d be having sex out in the open,” she whisper-screamed.
“I did warn you, though,” I said, chuckling at the ‘tsk’.
I knocked when we came to a stop at the office door. There was no answer. I knocked again, just in case, but again, no answer.
“Hey,” Brick called out from the way we came. “We have her up in Remy’s room.”
Before I could grasp her hand again, Lyra was down the hall in those damned heels so fast following Brick that I had to lengthen my stride to catch up to her. I didn’t want her walking through the clubhouse without me. It didn’t matter that Brick was right there too.
The one person I needed her to avoid stepped right in my path before I could get to Lyra. She put her hands on my chest.
“Where you going baby?” she purred, running her nail down my jaw, catching my beard.
“Fuck off Ebony,” I growled.
“Ahhh, come on, baby. Don’t be like that. You just seem a little tense is all, and I wanted to offer my lip service tonight,” she said.
I looked over her shoulder just as Lyra shook her head and turned.
“Ebony, I said get the fuck on,” I growled, squeezing her upper arms in my hands. I didn’t want to hurt her, but Ebony was making it look like we were an item. I didn’t want Lyra to think that.
And apparently, she didn’t, which was a relief because when I looked over Ebony’s shoulder, Lyra was stomping back toward us in those heels of hers. I could clearly see the questioning in her perfectly arched eyebrow that asked literally, ‘who the fuck is this’, without Lyra even opening her mouth. When she reached us, she shouldered Ebony, effectively moving her out of the way, and grabbed my wrist.
“Excuse you. We’ve got somewhere we need to be,” she groused, giving Ebony a stare that even I knew not to fuck with, and pulled me behind her.
However, Ebony didn’t get the hint and grab for me. I successfully dodged the touch, but Lyra wasn’t so forgiving. She whirled on Ebony.
“What the fuck is your problem?” she asked her, one hand on her hip.
“You laying claim to my man,” Ebony answered, her stance mirroring Lyra’s.
I was vaguely aware of the hush that had settled over the room, but I didn’t give a fuck. This shit was sexy, and I let the altercation between the two women play out. I wanted to see how Lyra would handle herself in the viper’s pit, so to speak. If she was going to be mine, she would have to be able to take care of herself and assert her authority. But I was getting ahead of myself. Lyra didn’t know that she belonged to me. At least not yet. My gaze flipped from one woman to the other.
“Does he know that? Because if he was yours, there’s no way I’d be able to grab him, and he’d follow where I lead,” Lyra said, smirking.
She held up our hands, now entwined with one another, for Ebony to see.
Ebony’s face transformed. What was snarky and condescending, like I was a prize she’d won, turned into fury. Ebony’s eyes narrowed on our clasped hands, then back to Lyra’s face.
I knew what was coming, and I wanted to stop it, but this was Lyra’s fight. She needed to be the one to put Ebony in her place. I’ll reiterate that later. I let go of Lyra’s hand just before Ebony tried to take a swing and slap her.
Lyra grabbed ahold of Ebony’s wrist mid-air.
“If you ever disrespect me or so much as part your fucking lips to Dragon, I will break your goddamn hand,” Lyra growled directly into Ebony’s face.
The fact no one else heard the threat but Ebony, me, and Brick, who’d doubled back to see what was keeping us, was fucking sexy as hell. If we didn’t need to see about her friend, I’d take Lyra up to my room and fuck the shit out of her.
Brick cocked his eyebrow at me, and I smiled like a goddamn Cheshire Cat and let Lyra pull me by my leash—I mean arm, after she let go of a wailing Ebony. Her wrist was more than likely going to be bruised, and she’d have to at least get it looked at. The stupid smile on my face widened as a few wolf whistles and laughter met my ears, as well as a frustrated huff from Ebony as we disappeared up the stairs.
Ebony was going to be a problem.
Brick knocked, and Remy’s gruff voice reached us.
“It’s open.”
I’d not heard my brother’s voice filled with such grief before. I chanced a glance at Lyra next to me, and she heard the same as I did. I could see her bite back the tears. She pushed me to the side and entered the room. I looked at Remy, intending to apologize, but he waved it off.
“I’m going to check on Saria,” Brick said, his brows lowered in concern.
He turned on his heels. I stared at his back as he walked to the other end of the hallway to the room he kept at the clubhouse with his head bowed and hands in his front pockets. He seemed stressed and definitely not himself.
“You coming in?” Remy asked. He was at the door. Blood still marred his clothes. His face looked tired and weary.
I cocked my head, motioning for him to come out into the hallway for a moment to talk. Remy looked back at the woman on his bed, then turned away and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
“What’s up?” I asked him, looking him over to see if, somehow, I could ascertain what he was thinking. “You alright?”
That was one thing about my brother. You never knew what he was thinking if he didn’t want you to know. This one time, at least, he seemed to be obliging me.
“I’m worried about DeArie. I don’t think she’s going to make it.”
“Why not?” I questioned. “Doc say something?”
My thoughts automatically went to Lyra. I could tell these women were good friends of hers. She’d be devastated if something happened to DeArie. My stomach felt like it was in knots while I waited for my brother to speak.
Remy shook his head. “No, I just have a bad feeling. Right in the middle of my fucking chest.”
I heard Remy talk about his feelings before on the rare occasion when he spoke about when he was in the military. He’d often said that right before he went on a dangerous mission or they took heavy fire with casualties, he’d get this feeling.
“You, yourself, said that she had a good chance of surviving due to the bullet going all the way through.” I needed to get Remy’s mind off the doom and gloom. “Tell me what Doc said.”
Remy sighed before he answered me. “That she’d be out for a few hours to a few days but would recover. It would take some time, but she’d recover.”
He huffed out another breath.
“That’s right. She would recover,” I repeated. “And you should be there to help her through it.”
Before we could say anything else about it, Brick’s door opened, and Saria strolled out, walked right past us, and went into the room where I’d left Lyra to visit with her friend, and closed the door.
“You two ready to find out who this fucker is?” Brick asked, but he wasn’t paying us any attention. He was staring at the closed door where Saria disappeared.
“You alright?” I asked with a smirk.
“She’s fucking infuriating and demanding,” he groused. “But I think I’m in love.”
Brick got this dopey smile on his face, then wiggled his eyebrows. More like damn in lust. I clapped Brick on the back.
“Join the fucking club,” I muttered.
We walked downstairs and followed Brick out to the back of the clubhouse. Remy opened the door; we descended the stairs, and I closed the door behind us.
Two prospects were on guard duty. I cocked my head, dismissing them so we could talk to this guy. I waited until I heard the door close behind them before I opened my mouth.
“So, he’s not dead,” I deadpanned.
“Nah. Doc said the bullet grazed him. Knocked his ass out from the impact, though,” Brick answered, picking up the smelling salt and running it under the man’s nose.
He jerked awake and tried to sit up on the cot, but he was strapped down.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I told him, pulling up one of the chairs that the prospects had vacated. “You’re gonna lay right there until you tell us what we want to know.”
The man’s eyes narrowed in anger and flashed with hatred, then he growled at us in a language none of us understood.
“What the fuck did he say?” I asked, looking from Brick to Remy to see if they recognized the language because I didn’t. But the two of them shook their heads.
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, then pulled my knife. I gripped it tightly in my hand, turning the blade downward, and forced it through the top of his thigh. He yelled, jerking at his straps. He wasn’t getting out of those unless he was fucking Superman.
“Speak English, answer our questions, and I won’t kill you,” I said through gritted teeth and pulled my Feather Bowie from his thigh.
It was a good deal. I would take it if I was in his shoes.
“Gámisé se , fuck you!” the guy said, then spit on my boot.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled, then sliced my knife across his cheek. The blade running across his paper-thin flesh so easily was so satisfying to watch and feel as my blade pierced his skin. I closed my eyes to the man’s screams. It was like a sweet melody that I wanted to hear again, so I swiped down on his face a second time, making sure my cut went a little deeper in the same spot. Blood poured down his face.
“You wanna try that again?” I asked, but just as I was about to ask him another question, my cell dinged, telling me I had a text. I had been waiting for an update from Wires. I hoped this was him. I turned to my brother and Brick. “Untie him and chain him to the wall. No need for him to bleed all over everything.”
I turned away from them and retrieved my phone from the inside of my cut. Sure enough, it was Wires. I quickly read through his texts along with the pictures. Then I read through the texts again to the backdrop of flesh pounding on flesh.
I marched to the man hanging on the wall, thrusting the phone in his face so he could see the picture.
“Who the fuck is this?”
His mouth thinned.
I gripped my knife and pushed it up against his throat hard enough to draw blood.
“Do you want to die today?”
Still nothing. I turned to Brick.
“Go get Lyra.”
Brick hesitated. I could see his steps falter out of the corner of my eye.
“Are you sure you want to subject her to this?” Brick asked, concern etched on his face at my request.
I understood the look. Bringing our ole ladies into this shit was a slippery slope, to say the least. We put them in danger, but the thing was, our girls were already in danger.
“They’re already involved,” I told him.
Brick nodded, then left. Remy pushed off the wall where he’d been watching. He was well-versed in getting people to talk. I didn’t know the extent of what he did for the military, but this was one thing I knew he was excellent at.
“You want me to take over?” Remy’s raspy voice echoed in my ear.
I nodded. “Be my guest,” I invited my brother, then turned to the prisoner. “You fucked up now. Should’ve talked when you had the chance.”
I backed up to the same wall Remy was leaning against. I watched as he unchained one of the man’s wrists from the wall. The man released a breath, but it was short-lived. He screamed, and a crunch rang out through the room.
“Every question you don’t answer, I break a finger,” Remy groused. “Do you understand?”
There was silence, then another crack and more screaming.
“That was a question dumbass,” I snorted.
“Who do you work for?” Remy asked.
“That’s the second question,” I interjected.
The guy was doubled over in pain. His lips were in a thin line, but I didn’t know if it was from the pain or his refusal to talk.
“You took too long,” Remy said and broke another finger.
This guy’s pain tolerance was off the charts, or he was just fucking stupid.
I believed he was just fucking stupid. I shoved the picture in his face again.
“Who is this?” I asked a second time. I felt he was the guy who orchestrated all of this, but I needed a name.
“I don’t know,” he answered in English, but he was fucking lying because I flipped through the pictures Wires sent me and shoved a new picture under his nose.
“Isn’t that you? You and your now dead,” I paused, looking at the dead guy in the picture, “brother with the guy in the suit?”
“You’re gonna pay for killing my brother,” he growled, his face turning red, causing the blood to trickle more profusely from the cut on his face.
I threw my head back in laughter.
“We’ll see. Unless my brother,” I thumbed over to Remy, “inflicts so much pain on you that you die a slow and painful death. He’s a master at torture techniques.”
But before Remy could do his work again, the door opened, and Brick walked in with a very pissed Lyra, who pushed past Brick and stomped straight to the man hanging on the wall by one hand.
No one had time to do anything to stop her. I lunged forward, but it was like things were moving in slow motion as Lyra cocked her hand back, fist balled, and slammed it into the jaw that wasn’t bleeding.
“You son of a bitch!” she screamed and reached back and hit him again.
She’d broken her hand the second time she hit him if her wince meant anything. I was finally able to grab her around her waist and pull her away from the guy.
“As hot as that was,” I snarled. “Don’t you ever fucking do that again. He could’ve hurt you.”
My heart was pounding in my chest because I couldn’t get to her, and she could’ve been hurt. I didn’t like it.
“I can take care of myself,” she countered, holding her hand tight to her chest.
“It’s fucking broke, ain’t it?” I tilted my head toward the hand she was holding.
“Probably, but this motherfucker almost killed my friend,” she argued.
“I know, but you can’t do that. Do you know he’s within an inch of losing his life because he caused you pain?”
Lyra jolted. The anger leached from her face, replaced by confusion.
She opened her mouth to question me, but I held the photo of the man who’d been seen everywhere she had been, in front of her.
“Who is this?”
Before she could even say it, I knew she’d recognized him. It was in her eyes. A surprising warmth that had me fucking jealous as hell. I’d never cared about who women fucked before. Didn’t care who they saw on their own time as long as when I called, she was willing. I’d never felt this before, and I didn’t know what to do with it or what to say, so I just waited until she could answer me.
“I met him at the Voodoo Bar today. We danced.” Her eyes flicked to mine. She likely recognized the fucking hatred I had for the guy I’d never had for anyone before. “He tried to help me with those guys that tried to kidnap me today.”
“So, you don’t recognize the guy on the wall?” I asked her, wondering why she hadn’t said she knew him.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Should I?”
She took a look over her shoulder at the guy one last time. I could see her trying to work it out, so I helped her. I swiped the phone’s screen so she could see the other picture.
“What about now?”
She gasped at the picture of three men walking into an alley right after she, Saria, and DeArie did. It was our mystery man in the expensive suit and the two brothers. I swiped to a few pictures that showed the guy in the suit following her, then the three men talking. One at the airport when they landed. One outside of the hotel they were staying in, and the last one was right after she was almost snatched.
“He said he was going to get help. I’d forgotten all about it. So, you’re telling me he’s the one who orchestrated all of this?” I watched as everything crashed down on her. Tears welled in her eyes. “He’s been following me the whole time? But why?”
“That’s what we will find out,” I promised. “Brick, take her back so Doc can look at her hand.”
Lyra was shaking her head. “No, I want to know why me.”
She shrugged out of my attempt to usher her towards Brick and stomped to the guy who’d been watching us.
“Lyra, that’s not a good idea,” I growled, grabbing her elbow. She jerked away from me.
“Tell me!” she yelled. “Why me?”
“You belong to him,” the guy muttered, the accent almost too thick for him to understand.
“Wait, to who?” I showed him the picture again.
“Him?”
“Who is he?” she asked. “Why do I belong to him?”
There was desperation in Lyra’s voice. I wanted answers too. I wanted them for her, so she’d have some peace.
“Because you were bought.” His voice was labored due to pain, more than likely. “The Boss gave her to him when Elias was killed when he tried to retrieve her in Oakland.”
“Oh my God,” I heard Lyra whisper behind me. When I faced her, her eyes were wide, and her hands covered her mouth.
“What is it?” I asked, concerned that something was wrong.
She grabbed my arm and pulled me to the opposite side of the room.
“I think I know why this is happening,” she told me.
I looked over my shoulder at my brother and Brick, then nodded. Although this man cooperated, we now knew that the Greeks had come into our territory, stole our guns, and somehow, Lyra was a part of all of this. We still hadn’t talked to Vinny, but that time was definitely coming. We had to know what the fuck the Greeks were doing here. It sounded to me like they were trying to start a war, and if they wanted one, they would get one.