Chapter Three

Tiny

“What the fuck do you mean she left six fucking days ago?”

Scout’s fury had me taking a step back. While I hadn’t expected the president to be happy about Missy vanishing, I hadn’t expected him to react like this.

“I only just found out myself. I, ah, Monday morning didn’t end well for us. I didn’t check in with her before we left for the run, and when we got back I went straight to Styxx.”

Scout readjusted his bandana while grumbling under his breath several threats I hoped he didn’t intend to try out on me. Before I could ask him why Missy was so important to him, he pulled his phone out and made a call.

“Hey, Keys, I need you to find Missy for me. She packed up and vanished Monday morning―” With a wince Scout pulled the phone away from his ear. “I’m aware that was six fucking days ago. Quit bitching about it and fucking do it already. Also, check if there’s been any action this past week near that fucking commune in Soule that I asked you to look into.” He paused again. “Yeah, that’s right. Missy is Mercedes Soto and that commune is her fucked-up stepfamily. Keep me updated with whatever you find. I told that girl I’d keep her safe, and I don’t fucking break my promises.”

He was glaring at me when he said that last part, but my mind was too busy spinning with what he’d just said to be worried about the fact my president was pissed off at me. As soon as he hung up the phone, I started asking questions.

“Missy came from a fucking commune and you never told us?”

He raised a single brow at me and I got the feeling I’d stepped way over a line I shouldn’t have.

“Don’t forget who you’re fucking talking to, boy. Missy freely came to me wanting to be one of the whores here at the clubhouse. I offered her other work, but she wasn’t comfortable enough in the outside world to take it. I’m not sure what the fuck they did to her in that commune she grew up in, but obviously it included sexual training. Because from the moment she came through our doors, it was the whore room she had her eye on and she’s not once batted an eye at filling her obligations. Pretty sure it’s no fucking commune she came from, but a cult, which is why I’ve had Keys looking into it.”

“Why’d she run in the first place?”

That earned me another glare from my president.

“We find her? You can’t let on that you know any of this shit, you get me? She didn’t want anyone knowing about her past.”

I nodded. “I won’t say a word.”

“And if I tell you why she ran in the first place, you need to cop to whatever the fuck you did that sent her running.”

With a wince, I gave him another nod. “Okay.”

“She came home one day to find her mother on the verge of death. She used her last breaths to tell her daughter to run like hell and never look back. She did. Your turn.”

I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. What could I say?

“I was pretty fucking polluted Sunday, and I ended up taking Missy up to my room for the night. When I woke up cursing, hung over as shit, she panicked and fled. I didn’t try to stop her.” I frowned. “I didn’t think it would send her running. I mean, sure, I figured she’d be pissed with me for a while, but I didn’t think it would send her out the fucking door.”

Scout was shaking his head. “You’re a fucking moron. I tell every single one of those girls not to lose their fucking hearts to any of the men here, but some of them can’t seem to help it. And Missy fell for your dumb ass months ago. Don’t suppose you can remember what happened Sunday night? What you said to her?”

Again, I shook my head. “I remember getting pissed off at the Cowboys fucking her, then when Keg started in on her, I saw red. Took her up to my room and fucked her a few times, but I’ve got no idea what I might have said to her.”

Scout crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his seat. “You’ve got some decisions to make, Tiny. I intend on finding her no matter what you decide. But, what I do when I find her is up to you. Do you want her for your old lady? Because if not, I’m just going to make sure she’s okay, then leave her be.”

That ache I’d had in my chest since Monday flared up again as though someone had just shoved a hot poker in there.

“I never wanted an old lady, Scout. Saw enough of how it is to have a woman full time when I was growing up in foster care. All that fucking drama. No way do I want to have to live like that.”

Scout shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable as he readjusted his bandana. Again.

“I cannot believe I’m the one who has to tell you this shit.” He paused to clear his throat. “Right. Well, listen up because I’m only telling you this shit once. Not every relationship is the same. And not all turn toxic. Just look around you, for fuck’s sake. Bulldog and Rose have been going strong for over two decades. I’ve known them since they were dating and I’ve never once seen those two get into each other. Keys and Donna? They buried their daughter last year, but together they’re dealing with the grief and moving forward. One thing I can guarantee you? You’ll regret not taking this chance when you get older. Trust me on that one. So, Tiny, you’ve got until Keys gets here with whatever information he’s found, to figure out what you’re gonna do. But if you don’t intend on claiming her as your own, you ain’t coming with us. Understand?”

“Yeah, I hear you. I’m gonna go grab a shower and get cleaned up.”

“Sounds good. If you’re coming with us, we’ll be heading out as soon as I know what direction to ride.”

I made my way up to my room on autopilot. Was it worth the risk? I ran through all the current couples in the club, and got stuck thinking about Taz and Flick. Taz had been the biggest man-whore in the club before Flick came and knocked him on his ass. Now they were expecting a baby and Taz seemed happy enough. Actually, I couldn’t recall ever seeing him without a grin lately. Eagle and Mac were both dads now too, and they both seemed pretty content with their new role in life. An image of Missy flashed across my mind. She was so fucking pretty. Did she want kids? A family? Or was she happy being a club whore.

A growl tore up my throat. Of course she wasn’t fucking happy being a whore. Very few women were, and if she was, she wouldn’t have left. I slammed into my room and stripped as I entered the bathroom. Flipping on the taps, all I could see was her in here. Fuck, I’d dragged her in here to wash the smell of the other men off her before I fucked her. I really needed to quit getting so polluted that I couldn’t fucking remember shit the next day. What the hell had I said to her?

Once I was done, I headed back out to get dressed and caught sight of the messed up bed. I’d slept like shit this past week on the road. Funny, when I’d had Missy sleeping wrapped around me, I’d slept like a dead man. As I pulled my cut on over my shoulders, I realized I was being a fucking idiot. My brain might be still arguing the truth, but my stupid, fucking heart had jumped ship long ago.

Mercedes Soto was mine. All mine. And I needed to man the fuck up and be who she needed me to be. The instant I made the decision, accepted the truth, the weight on my chest that had been crushing me for so long, lightened. I knew I had a shit-ton of work ahead of me. We might not even be able to find the woman, and if we did, there was a good chance she wouldn’t want to see me. Especially since I still couldn’t fucking remember exactly what I’d done or said that sent her running.

With purpose, I trotted back down the stairs and headed for Scout’s office. With a tap on the door frame, I strolled in to find Keys there, staring at his laptop with a serious expression.

“I’m done screwing around. Missy is mine and I’m gonna do whatever I have to do to get her back here where she fucking belongs.”

Keys shook his head at me. “About fucking time. Now, get over here. I spoke with Fawn and once I had a rough idea of what time she left worked out, it didn’t take me long to piece together her movements. She caught a bus to Houston. Then with Fawn’s help, and hacking into a few surveillance-video feeds, I’ve tracked her to a strip club on the outskirts of Houston, called Sexy Legs.”

My gut dropped at the thought of how many men were looking at what was mine, that I’d been the bastard that had pushed her to it. “Why there? She couldn’t have just stumbled upon the place and gotten a job.”

“Another of the whores used to work there. Fawn’s heard her talking about it, so it was easy to assume that Missy had overheard the same information.”

The fact that no one was heading to their bikes had me frowning. “Why aren’t we moving out then?”

“Because that’s not the only issue in this fucked-up situation, brother. Her stepfather is on the move. He was spotted with a small group heading toward Bridgewater yesterday, but I haven’t been able to get a bead on him since then.”

“In the six months she’s been here, has he ever shown any sign that he’s been looking for her?”

Keys glanced at Scout, who nodded, before he turned back to me. “They’ve put out some feelers for her. Her stepfather is claiming she’s his runaway daughter that he wants to bring back home. He spins a good story, but then most of these guys do. It’s how they draw so many people in to their fucked-up communes in the first place.”

“Has he been seen here in town?”

“No fucking way. If he’d dared step one foot in our town we would have dealt with the fucker in a heartbeat.”

The sense of urgency I felt increased the more I thought about what could happen.

“So, why are we still sitting here and not already on our way to Houston?”

“I was just setting up things for after, while we waited for you to make the right decision and get your ass back down here.”

I started for the door. “Well, I’m here, now let’s go. Who’s coming with us?”

Not that I cared. I’d go alone if I had to. And if Missy’s stepfather had gotten hold of her, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do to the bastard, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

* * *

Missy

At the end of each day for the past four days, after I’d finished work and finally got to slip into the crappy, lumpy bed in the small room above Sexy Legs to try to sleep, I would question my decision of leaving Bridgewater and the Charon MC. Maybe I should’ve just gone straight to Scout, rather than leaving, and asked about working somewhere else. He’d offered me other jobs when I’d first come to the club. Surely one of those options would have still been available.

But instead, I’d run like a coward, letting a man run me off with a few careless words. Tiny had been hung over as hell. Maybe he hadn’t even meant what he’d said to me. That, or he hadn’t meant what he’d said the night before. What he’d said while he was drunk. Although, in my experience, drunk people were more likely to tell you the truth than sober ones.

At least I wasn’t on the streets. I’d overheard a couple of the other girls at the clubhouse talking about working shifts at Sexy Legs, so when I saw the neon sign from the bus, I headed in that direction. Considering I was used to not only taking off my clothes, but fucking for food and a roof over my head, stripping didn’t seem like such a bad gig. And at the mention of my previous employment, the owner hadn’t hesitated to hire me.

But it wasn’t time for me to head upstairs yet tonight. I still had work to do. And as I did another twirl around the pole, I realized I didn’t get the buzz doing anything in this place like I’d gotten when I strutted around the Charon MC clubhouse. And when I slid to the floor to crawl around the front of the stage so the men, and women there, could tuck money into my thong, their touches made my skin crawl. Maybe it was the nastiness and cruelty mixed with the lust in so many of their gazes. The Charons had never been like that. If they wanted me, they took me, but they were never nasty about it. No, the men here reminded me more of those back in the commune. Of the teachers who trained me, and the boys in the class who would watch as we girls were put through sexual test after test. A shudder ran through me and I performed a body roll to hide it from those watching me.

When the last notes of the song I’d been dancing to finished, I went to move off stage, but as I did a final twirl I saw him. No, it wasn’t just him, but them. He’d brought several of his friends with him. My throat dried up and my feet wouldn’t move. I hadn’t seen or heard anything from him in so long. How had he found me?

When the next girl came out cussing at me to get my ass off stage, I spun and bolted down the stairs, pulling the bills free from my thong as I strode down the hallway to the little room we all used to change. I was due to perform again in an hour, but I didn’t want to risk it with my stepfamily out there. Had they seen me yet? Maybe I could sneak out the back and run. But to where? Would Scout take me back after I left without telling anyone? Considering I hadn’t heard from any of them all week, I had to wonder if they’d even noticed I’d gone. Maybe I could slip back in and act like I’d never left.

Decision made, I grabbed my stuff and headed up to my room. Unsure how cold it was outside, I quickly changed into a pair of jeans, sneakers and threw on a t-shirt and jacket before shoving everything else back in my bag. I scribbled a quick note to my boss and left half of the money I’d collected tonight with it. That was a lot more than his normal cut, so hopefully he wouldn’t be too mad. There were plenty of other girls here to take the stage in my place, so I was fairly certain he wouldn’t notice my absence until after closing.

With my bag over my shoulder, I slipped down the stairs and out the rear door. Keeping to the shadows, I made my way to the side of the building. Sexy Legs was on the outskirts of town, and there was a truck stop not far down the road. Hopefully I could hitch a ride without too much trouble and be far from here before my stepfather realized I’d slipped past him.

“Hello, Mercedes. Where do you think you’re going?”

The breath caught in my lungs as I suddenly found myself surrounded by men from the commune. Front and center, naturally, was my stepfather.

“What do you want?”

“I wanted to bring you home so you could take the place you were trained to take, but I’m not sure you deserve that now. Not with how you killed your mother, then ran away to use your training to be a stripper.”

Fury spiked my blood and banished my fear. I lunged for him, wanting to scratch his eyes out for his lies, but strong hands held me back.

“You killed her, not me. You and your friends beat and used her until she was too broken to be used anymore, then you left her there for me to find!”

I pulled and twisted, trying to get free of the men who held me, but they were stronger and so much bigger than me. How could they stand so stoic against his lies? Hell, these were probably the ones who’d used my mother until she was a whisper away from death, then left her to die.

“Such a wild imagination you have, Mercedes. Take her out behind that shed, boys. We don’t need strangers interfering in our family business now, do we?”

As they moved, I did everything I could to dig my heels into the gravel parking lot to slow them down. I turned my head toward the road and opened my mouth to scream. But before any sound came out, a hand clamped over my mouth.

“Don’t you think you’ve pissed him off enough already, love?”

Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to allow them to fall. I was going to be raped and beaten, most likely until I stopped breathing, behind that shed. And they wanted me to go quietly? Like hell. I might have only been out of that commune for six months, but it had been long enough for me to learn that the way they treated women, and how they forced them to behave was wrong. We weren’t meant to be slaves to the men around us our whole lives. Hell, even as a club whore for the Charon MC I had more freedom than what I’d had in that commune.

My gaze bounced around the parking lot. I had to find a way to escape, to get someone’s attention before they got me out of sight. Suddenly I could hear the faint sound of several Harleys. They were getting louder as they got closer and the sound made my heart sing, I seriously doubted the bikes were the Charons, but I didn’t care. If they were cut from the same cloth, they’d never leave a woman in trouble.

“Hurry up!”

The two men holding my arms tightened their grips to a painful level and two more men came and grabbed my legs. Screaming, I thrashed against their hold but it got me nowhere, and now I had nothing touching the ground I had no way of slowing them down as they carried me out of the dimly lit lot and behind an old shed at the rear of the yard. The bikes were loud now, as if they were maybe pulling into the lot. I tried to twist around to see them but couldn’t catch more than a glimpse of big black and silver machines before I was taken out of sight.

“Pin her up against the wall. Gonna have to make this a quick lesson, then we’ll take her home to finish off.”

True to my stepfather’s instructions, my feet were dropped and the two holding my arms, thrust me up against the rough metal. The breath rushed from my lungs, but I didn’t take my gaze from my stepfather. Fury and desperation had banished all my fear, numbing my body against what I knew was coming.

“I’m not yours, not anymore. You have no right to touch me and when the Charon MC finds out what you’ve done, you’ll all be dead. You have heard of the club haven’t you?”

With a growl, he stepped forward and viciously backhanded me across my face, hard enough to have me seeing stars.

“You whored yourself out to an entire motorcycle club? That’s how you’ve stayed hidden so long.” He scoffed, and taking a fist full of my shirt, gave it a hard yank and ripped the front out of the top, leaving my bra exposed. “They’ll probably thank me for taking you off their hands. Considering you’re not at their clubhouse anymore, I’m guessing they got sick of you and tossed you aside.” He pulled a knife from his belt and sliced the center of my bra open. “Now for some fun, my little whore.”

When he slipped the blade under the top of my jeans, slicing through the denim, I let out the loudest scream I could. The bikes had been shut off for a few minutes now, and I prayed that at least one of them would hear me and come investigate.

Whoever they were, they were my only hope.