HANNAH
I wasn’t going to last another night with Carter. Not one more. I got lucky last night and he came home after I’d fallen asleep, drunk and stoned. He passed out in the living room of his apartment, missing the couch on his way down and landing on the floor. The booming thud of his fat body hitting the ground woke me up. I found him face down in the carpet and left him there.
My luck was going to run out, though. Soon. Martin stopped me in the motor pool to ask me more questions about Brandon. Did I know where he’d run off to, when was he coming back. To everything I denied knowing anything.
“You told me to stay away from him, remember?” I slid my key into my car door.
“I know I did. And I know you didn’t.” He looked around at the other members working on their bikes. “Carly’s taking some time off,” he announced, not looking at me.
“Is she okay?” My spine stiffened. I knew they were hanging around each other a lot but I hadn’t known they were that serious.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Maybe I’ll go see her today.” I shielded my eyes from the sun as I looked up at him.
His eyes caught mine and he took a deep breath. “She’s not at her place. She’s at mine.” He nearly growled and I knew that sound. That possessive tone. Brandon had only been gone two days and I already missed that about him. When he hung around the clubhouse, I knew I’d be safe. Even when Eduardo walked me back to my room, I knew one scream from me and Brandon would have barreled into the room, ready to kill.
“Mind if I stop over there, then?” He wanted to keep her away from the clubhouse for a reason, and I hoped that reason had nothing to do with me, or Brandon.
“Do you know where Brandon went off to?” he asked again with more heat and narrowed eyes. He’d never used that tone with me before, and it put my guard up.
“No, Martin. I don’t know where he is, only that he was going out of town for the club. He said he’d be gone a week, maybe two.”
His jaw tightened and for a moment I thought he was about to lay into me, but he shook his head and nodded instead. “Do you know if it was his club or our club he was doing business for?” His tone lowered, the concerned Martin was back.
“I don’t know. I didn't ask questions.” I felt my phone vibrating but I ignored it. Carter was still passed out and Brandon was the only other person who had the number.
He eyed me silently for what felt like several minutes as my phone vibrated again. “You can go see Carly. But if Carter looks for you, you get your ass back here and you don’t bring her with.” Again he hardened his tone.
“What’s going on, Martin? Why are you hiding her away?” I also wanted to ask why he was so willing to throw me to the wolves, but better not to piss him off.
“Things aren’t going as planned. That’s all you need to know. I want her off the compound for a little while I figure this all out. If we go into lockdown, she’ll hightail it here with you.”
“Lockdown?”
He gave a small snort and shook his head. “Sometimes I forget you aren’t really one of us.” With that he walked away. Not really one of them. Brandon had that same look in his eyes when I had to question something he said, or when he grinned over a word I misused.
The fact was, I wasn’t one of them. None of them would protect me if shit really hit the fan. Hell, none of them did anything when Carter refused to let me leave and started using me as his personal whore.
This life. This was Brandon’s life. He said he wanted out of it, to live outside the MC, but could he? From as far as I could tell he’d been a member for over ten years. Nearly his entire adult life. Could he really walk away and just live like normal people? And in two months, when we were working dead end jobs, struggling to pay the rent, would he look at me with resentment because I pulled him away from all of this? The money, the excitement, all given up for me? A girl who had turned into a prostitute not more than three weeks after living on her own in the world?
My mother would be more than ashamed of the situation I lived in. Getting paid for sex, taken as an old lady for a fat, old biker, and trying to keep my head above water to get a grasp on the whole situation.
As I drove through the gates I felt more alone than ever before. Never had I wanted my mother back more fiercely than that moment.
***
Carly opened the door to Martin’s house with a wide smile. “Thank God!” She pulled me into the house and into her arms, hugging me hard. “I was about to go crazy sitting in here by myself.”
I laughed at the irony of her situation. “At least your jail is a whole house.” I wandered down the front hall, looking at all of the posters Martin had hung on the walls. Different makes and models of Harleys were framed and hanging all over the house.
“Does Martin know you're here?” Carly passed by me and showed me to the kitchen, where the smell of coffee caught my attention.
“Yeah. He gave his permission.” I made a face then gestured toward the pot of freshly brewed coffee. “I’ll love you forever if I could steal a cup.”
She laughed and plucked two mugs out of the cabinet above the coffee maker. “Martin is just being overly cautious, I think.”
“I knew he had a thing for you, but I didn't realize you’d become such an item.” I took a seat at the round kitchen table. The kitchen was simple in decor and design. White walls brightened the room that was situated in the back of the house. A small window over the sink overlooked the backyard, and the patio doors a few feet away from the table let in most of the light from outside. The countertops were basic and bare except for the coffee maker and a paper towel rack. An equally bare peninsula separated the kitchen work area from the eating area. As simple as it all was, it came as close to a home than I’d been in since leaving behind the apartment I shared with my mom.
“Hey. Why so glum?” Carly placed the mugs of steaming coffee on the table and sat across from me. “I know you’re in a shit situation, but you don't usually look so down.”
“I was just thinking about my mom.” I waved a hand in the air, and reached for the sugar bowl.
“It must have been so hard for you, taking care of her all those years and going to school and working.”
“Yeah. But it didn’t feel that way. It just felt normal. But after she was gone, when it was all over with, I don’t know—I freaked. Like I didn't know what to do.”
“Is that when you called Lisa?”
I snorted. “Yeah. We’d gone to high school together, but she moved away senior year. Most of the friends I hung out with had gone off to college, or I hadn’t talked to at all since my mom got real sick. That turned out great, didn’t it?” I tried to smile, but I didn't have the energy to force it. Staying up most of the night listening to the silence and praying not to hear the drunken sounds of Carter making his way to the bedroom had drained me of what little energy I had had.
“Hey. It’s gonna be okay.” Carly laid a hand over mine and her voice softened.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“We’ll figure something out. There’s shit brewing in the club and I think once it’s all over with you’ll be free of Carter.”
I looked up at her with a new sense of hope. Something I’d told myself to forget. “What do you mean? Is that why Martin doesn’t want you on the grounds?”
“I think so. He doesn’t tell me much, mostly because I don’t want to know, but Carter’s been pissing off a bunch of members because of this deal with the cartel. He’s making decisions completely on his own, holding secret meetings, sending small crews on odd jobs.”
“Like that Eduardo guy?”
“Something with him, yeah. One of the Riders didn't make it back from one of their jobs, and Martin thinks Carter knows what happened.”
“But I thought Martin didn’t like the Riders like the rest of the Soldiers.”
“Martin doesn’t care about the Riders as long as they stay in their territory. He doesn’t like Nathan, their president, though. Says he reminds him of Carter.”
“Do you think both clubs are making their own plays for the cartel?” My palms started to sweat at the idea that Brandon could be in trouble. He said he’d be gone for almost two weeks, where else could he have gone. If he went down to Mexico to meet with Eduardo behind the Soldiers’ back, he could be walking into a trap, or worse.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged as she sipped her coffee. “So, you and Brandon?” She eyed me carefully, like she was judging my reaction to his name. “Martin says you two are pretty close.”
“Martin spends too much time gossiping,” I muttered, and sipped at my coffee.
“Brandon is pretty hot, I can’t blame you. Besides, these clubs, they aren't family to you.”
“They are to you?”
“Martin has become family to me. Carter took care of me when my brother died; they were his family, so I try.” Her eyes saddened at the mention of her brother. I patted her hand, I knew that pain. “But we aren’t talking about me. Now, about Brandon—”
“Brandon is the bossiest, most possessive guy I’ve ever met.” I tried to put heat into my words, to cover up how much those personality traits turned me on, but she laughed, seeing right through me.
“It has its bonuses.” She waggled her eyebrows, which made me laugh hard enough to nearly spit out my coffee. “He reminds me of Martin. The way he watches you when he’s in the clubhouse. Even when you don’t know it, his eyes are on you. Martin does that, too. I think he’s talking with his guys and I’ll turn around and he’s staring right at me. And he won’t let anyone so much as smile at me without running to my side. At first I found it barbaric the way he shoved his way into any conversation I was having, but then I got it. He was protecting me.”
“Well, that explains why he’s never tried anything with me. He’s probably the only member who hasn’t…well…” I felt the heat creep up my face. “Except his constant ogling. Always wanting to see my breasts.”
I looked at her through lowered lashes, expecting to see an angry glare. She let loose another laugh and patted my hand. “Honey, that man has a huge tit fetish. The fact that he’s only asked to look and never touched is what matters.”
I finished my coffee in silence, unsure of what to say next. My thoughts continued to trail to Brandon, wondering where he was, what he was up to, and if I should just hightail it out of town. If Carly was right and there was shit brewing in the club, Carter may be distracted enough not to try to find me. It could be my out.
“You have that look.” Carly picked up my cup and took to the sink. “The one you get when you try concocting some getaway scheme.” This woman had gotten to know me a lot over the last few months. It would be hard to leave her. And Martin.
“If what you're saying is true, if there’s an uproar, or whatever within the club—”
“You think Carter will forget about you because he’ll be busy with the club crap.” She nodded. “That might be true, unless he thinks Brandon has anything to do with it all, then he’s going to be even more determined to find you. He’ll think you ran off with Brandon.”
“But if Carter’s not president anymore—”
“Unless he’s dead, Carter won’t forget an insult. And you running off with Brandon would be an insult.”
My shoulders sagged at her words. He would come after us. If Brandon was with me, he’d come looking for Brandon. Or he’d go after Brandon’s mom. I couldn’t let that happen. “Then I go before Brandon gets back. Keep Brandon out of it. If Carter sees him when he gets back he’ll know he’s not with me, and he’ll just let it drop.” She shook her head, but I kept working it through out loud. “There’s a cabin my mom used to take me to every summer. Bard, Mr. Jonathan Bard owned it. He let us stay there for a few weeks each summer. Not too far away, up in the hills. Near Springville. He’d let me stay there for a while, I bet.”
“What about Brandon? If he comes back and you're gone—”
“Brandon is a grown man. He’ll understand. I have to get away from Carter, and Brandon shouldn’t have to give up his whole life just for me. I can’t have other people getting hurt because of me either.” With a new determination I pushed away from the table. My phone vibrated again, but I ignored it. I didn’t want to hear from him, I couldn’t. It was better to keep my distance. To do what needed to be done without worrying about him.
“He’s going to find you.” She followed me to the front door. “Brandon will find you and he’s going to be pissed.”
“No, he won’t. Because you aren't going to tell anyone what I said. Besides. I didn't say I was leaving. I just said it was a possibility.” I tried to play it off, but she only sighed and pulled me into a hug.
“Martin will kick my ass if he finds out I didn't stop you.”
“You tried. Real hard.” I smiled at her.
“Wait here.” She ran back into the house. Drawers opened and closed, then she was jogging back to me. She pulled my hand out and slapped a wad of bills into it. I tried to shove back to her but she held tight. “No, take this. You aren’t going to get far at all without cash, and Carter won't let you near any of his. You’ll pay me back.” She pulled me into another hug.
Sure I would. I’d pay her back for everything, so long as I lived long enough to do it.