Hal was still stewing over the fact that Prosper had caught him watching the mob boss’s daughter.

Fuck you, Prosper Worthington, and your bullshit meddling ways.

Hal pulled a bud of good Sinsemilla out of a baggie, crushed it between his fingers and rolled a big, fat joint. Hal knew from experience that the premium weed would mellow him just enough to take the edge off his temper and quell the driving need for blood-let. With effort, he had held his shit together after that little lecture he had had to endure from his pain in the ass president.

Downright embarrassing and none of the man’s goddamn business that’s what that was.

Boss over-steps himself every damn chance he gets.

Ward fucking Cleaver in a black leather vest.

Hal took a deep hit of the pot while his eyes automatically scanned the clubhouse for yet another quick safety check. Lots of shit-eating grins shining through an ocean of booze and black leather. Lots of brothers just glad to be together and happy to have the chance to party it up Saints style. Good to see. 

But Hal knew shit could go south fast, even in a club as tight as this one, and he didn’t intend on staying too much longer. Hal didn’t like crowds. It was too hard to keep track of shit and threw his need for hyper-vigilance into a tailspin. Even the smallest crowd tended to make Hal uncomfortable, and right now the clubhouse was blowing out at the seams. When a quick movement on the other side of the room caught Hal’s attention, he blinked a couple of times to clear his eye sight. Then he snubbed out the rest of the joint—fast.

Damn good weed, Hal thought as he shook off the weird vision of Valentina Abruzzi being lifted over some big fucker’s shoulder and set down again in the middle of the jam-packed floor.

Hallucinations were the only explanation for that particularly messed up illusion. A woman like her would never be in caught dead in a place like this. Besides Gianni would tear the MC a new one if he thought his daughter was partying with the club. Hal didn’t blame Abruzzi on that score either.

Bad place for a good woman.

But that didn’t stop Hal from craning his neck, trying to get another look at the impossible.

But of course, he didn’t see Valentina’s face in the crowd, because she sure as hell wasn’t there. His mind had been playing tricks on him—probably born of that desperate desire that burned in him to see her again.

Damn, if Prosper hadn’t been right a-fucking-gain.

Valentina Abruzzi was taking up too much space up in Hal’s thoughts.

Feeling that, he reached out to the first hang-around who passed by, shoved a beer in her hand and said, “You look like the kind of girl who likes to be choked.” 

 

 

A few minutes later, he and the woman were in one of the rooms reserved for visiting brothers. Hal liked the solitude, peace, and quiet of the lake house; even though full-patched members were entitled to a permanent room at the compound, he only took advantage of that when he needed to take a shower after working on his bike or to satisfy his baser needs.

“Your voice is going to be cut off once I start pulling on the strap, so I’m gonna give you something to hold on to. If you drop it, that means you’re losing too much oxygen, and I’m gonna release my hold and stop.”

Hal recited the usual as he began to drape the rawhide belt expertly around the top of the woman’s naked shoulders and up her skinny throat. Then he pushed the small baton into her hand and asked one more time. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

“Oh yeah, I can’t wait. I love kink. The whole asphyxiation thing makes me as wet as a damn tsunami. Besides, Barbie told me you rock at breath-play. She said it was sooo hot. She said what you did to her was like, uh… it was like”—The girl who had introduced herself as Daisy, you know like in fresh as, paused to snap her gum before she continued on in that boner-killing squeal— “experiencing the best high and the strongest climax evverrr and having ‘em happen at exactly the same time. Barbie said her clit still tingles when she thinks about it.”

Jesus.

Barbie said.

Hal looked a little closer at Daisy. She was younger than he had originally thought, but there was that same glittering hardness in her eyes that he had come to expect from the club whores. Tight lines that screamed life’s disappointments had begun to form around her mouth and the corners of her eyes. When he looked down at her hands, he saw that they were chipped with old polish and bitten down into waning moons.

Looking at her made Hal a little sad.

What made it worse was that Hal had no idea who this Barbie chick that Daisy kept talking about was.  He stood there with his hands holding the end of the rawhide and wished that she would just shut up.

“You don’t remember Barbie?” Daisy’s eyes went wide and then they narrowed nastily. “Oh, she’s gonna really hate hearing that one.”

Hal searched his memory. Really, he didn’t put a lot of effort into noticing the club whores that he’d had. But now he was determined to try and picture this Barbie chick, because he didn’t like the thought of this Daisy chick telling the bitch that he didn’t remember her.

It just wasn’t cool to make someone feel like shit or like they didn’t matter.

Life was hard enough.

“She got a tramp stamp of some lighthouse or nautical shit?” Hal asked trying hard to recall the bitches he had fucked in the last month or so. 

“Noooo, that’s her sister, Bambi. Wow! You did her, too?” Daisy looked as satisfied as a cat with a belly full of cream. She licked her lips when she added nastily, “Can’t wait to see the smug slut’s face when I tell her that one!”

Hal felt all desire drain from his dick as he watched Daisy’s smile twist with malicious spite.

But men will be men, Hal snorted to himself as the adage popped into his mind. Because despite his basic disgust of the bitch, when she leaned into him and rubbed her half-dollar sized, very hard nipples against his chest and cupped his balls expertly through the soft leather of his pants, Hal felt his dick twitch.

Maybe if he stuffed a rag in her mouth or put a bag over her head, he might be able to do her long enough to release the tight coil of tension that twisted low in his belly.

But pulling that piece of rawhide against Daisy’s throat was off the table.

It was definitely off the table, because Hal was pretty sure that once he started choking the life out of this whole lot of nasty, he wouldn’t want to stop. The bitch was just that mean.

And when Hal stopped to think about it—stupid was okay and ugly he could deal with— but he didn’t want his junk anywhere near mean.

Decision made.

Hal had just finished pushing a pouting, protesting, and very disappointed Daisy out of the room when he stopped dead in his tracks. He cocked his ear to the blood-curdling shriek that sounded out from the yard. Then Hal grabbed his .22 off the bedside stand and ran out the door because those were the screams of the dying.

 

 

It had been like a scene right out of a horror movie—the woman’s form partially hidden from view as she stood alone in the dark shadows. Then suddenly, as if conjured up by voodoo magic, the moon forced its light through the trees and cast her in an eerie glow. To Hal’s horrified surprise it was Valentina who stood there transfixed, pale, and screaming.

She screamed.

And screamed.

And screamed.

If Hal had ever harbored any doubt about the innate goodness (albeit sometimes deeply buried under testosterone bullshit) of his Crownsmount brothers, those doubts were put to rest when he saw the protective shield the Saints had formed around Valentina.

Most of the guys in Prosper’s home chapter had served in the armed forces at one time or another, and even if they didn’t immediately recognize the screaming woman as Gianni Abruzzi’s daughter, they knew trauma-induced hysteria when they saw it. There was not a man there that was not touched by her fear; they just didn’t know what the hell to do.

“Let me by.” Hal broke through the line. Then he turned to Gunner, “Get everyone the fuck away from her. I got this.”

“You sure, brother? Woman is going through some crazy hell—about as worse as it gets. Maybe we need to call an ambulance or some shit,” Gunner said.

“I said I got this, you gonna make me say it again, brother?” Hal didn’t have time for Gunner’s overly cautious bullshit.

Gunner put his hands up in surrender, then turned to the men and put the word out. Just as fast as it had formed, the line disappeared.

Hal slowly approached Valentina, whose screams had been reduced to pathetic whimpers simply because her vocal chords could no longer stand the strain. 

Jesus.

The terror in her eyes was damn heartbreaking. Valentina was a shaking, quivering mass of fear wrapped up tight and trapped in torment.

Hal knew all about that, all about free-falling into a nightmare—into a world of horror that was as real to you as the world you had just left behind. No one knew better than he did what it felt like to be safely fixed in the present one moment, and then in the next  transported into your worst nightmare.

Dolly’s words came rushing back to him—Remember that awful earthquake that hit the Caribbean a while back?  It devastated the area and all those school children died. The buildings all crumbled like paper. It was almost four days before Gianni got word that Valentina was alive only to find that she had been caught under that rubble all that time. She was disoriented and severely dehydrated by the time they got her out. Trapped in the dark, she was alone all that time with all those poor dead and dying children around her.

Hal knew that even though Valentina was right there in front of him, physically standing only a few feet away, in her mind she was back there— trapped under third world devastation.

He felt helpless as he saw her chest heave with the effort of trying to get oxygen into panic-closed airways. Her eyes were two black marbles sunken into a face that was rigid, white, and beaded with sweat. Hal moved towards Valentina, his every action slow, deliberate, and executed with one mission in mind—to rescue her from the torment of her imprisoned mind.

 

 

There was a part of Valentina that knew she wasn’t back in Haiti. The part of her brain that had worked so hard to quell the demons of fear, whispered reassurances that she was safe and sound—that she was not buried in the dusty, dirty fragments of a broken city. Valentina felt her inner struggle and tried hard to hold on to her more saner self. But the fear was too strong, and she just couldn’t seem to find her way back. She was filled with despair and grappling with the terror of isolation.

Just when she thought she was never going to be able to break through the thick haze of fear, the sound of a faint but persistent voice reached her. 

“Valentina, breathe. BREATHE. There’s plenty of air baby and you’ve got to breathe!” There was someone here with her in the darkness. Someone had come to save her.  Valentina swallowed down the next scream so that she could hear that voice again. The powerful force of his tenor came through, only this time, it was louder and even more commanding. The rumble of his voice cut through the darkness and beckoned her forth. The hand that grabbed hold of hers was strong, warm and solid. She squeezed it hard, afraid it might let go.

“That’s right, Valentina, hold on to me, baby. I got you and there is no fucking way that I’m going to leave you. Listen, sweetheart, you’re gonna have to take in some steady air, or you’re gonna pass out. Can you do that for me? Can you try, Valentina?”

I’m not gonna leave you. You are not alone and I am not going to let go.

More than anything, Valentina wanted to believe that. More than anything she wanted to please that voice; follow that command.

She managed a small, fractured breath.

“That’s good. That’s real good.” Then she felt the hand that held hers move it against his hard, muscled body. “Feel my chest rise and fall? Now you do it. You inhale and exhale when I do.”

Valentina gulped a full breath of air in then let it out in a rush.

“That’s it, you’re doing great, but slower this time.” The voice persisted. “There’s plenty of air. You've got plenty of air. I’m going to stay right here with you. Valentina, I just need you to relax and follow my voice. You just keep your hand on my chest and breathe when I do, baby, and I’ll do the rest. I’ll bring you home.”

Valentina followed his steady voice and soft commands. It took a while, but as she listened to the low rumble of the strong, guiding voice, Valentina felt her chest loosen, and her lungs expand with air. The voice never wavered as it reached out to her through the darkness with a comforting, hypnotic rhythm.  

With slow, deliberate breaths, Valentina eventually emerged from the depths of terror, pain, and certain death, to find herself protected, comforted, and very much alive in the arms of Hallelujah Thomas.