Chapter 4
Maggie
The eggs, bacon, and toast fortified me. The shower made me feel nearly human again. There was a brief moment where I considered declining Bridger’s hospitality and just leaving, but I really had no clue where to go. I had no money, which meant no food, transportation, or shelter. I had no friends. I had no family I could call upon, save for one, and no way was I dragging her into this.
So I decided my best course was to stay here and recuperate. Hopefully, along with regaining my strength, I’ll come up with some idea on how to save myself first, and then Belle after.
I was sore as hell when I got out of bed, the effects of whatever shot I was given having faded long away. But I popped the pills Bridger left by the bed without even once considering they could be dangerous, because that’s what happens when you run out of options and you’re too tired to think about self-preservation. I figured if the worst that happened was I overdosed on some bad drug, at least Belle would be safe and well cared for.
As it turned out, the pills dulled the pain again even though they made me a little foggy. The shower also helped loosen my sore and abused muscles, as well as cleaned the dirt and blood from my body. I carefully washed my hair three times with some manly smelling shampoo Bridger had, not feeling guilty at all to be wasteful, and being overly watchful of the scabbed-over cut on the top. It had been days since I’d been clean. I felt I could have scrubbed myself ten times over and still wouldn’t be able to get rid of the complete stench of the Mayhem’s Mission compound.
The shower took a long time, but it took even longer for me to comb the snarls out of my long hair. Not only were there knots galore because it had been so filthy and neglected, but Bridger also didn’t have any conditioner—must be a man thing—and I ended up yanking a good amount out of my head by the time it was all said and done. The good news was the cut appeared to be knitted together enough it didn’t bleed again.
Almost an hour after my breakfast and cleansing, I pull on a pair of workout shorts I found in Bridger’s drawer. They’re huge, and I have to roll the waistband several times so they’ll stay up. I then pull out a black t-shirt with a logo on the back that says “The Wicked Horse.” The words are in neon blue. I pull the cotton tee over my head without putting my filthy, sweat-stained bra back on. This bothers me a bit because I’m quite large chested, but the t-shirt is massive and swallows me up, so I don’t think Bridger will notice my puppies swinging free. Besides, I’m assuming he’s seen them already since I was already wearing one of his shirts.
He’s an interesting man—this Bridger Payne—and I’ve figured out a few things. The furniture in his bedroom is heavy and masculine. The comforter is navy blue with taupe sheets. The drawers of his dresser are filled with only men’s clothing without a scrap of girlie stuff in the bathroom. This tells me he’s single and does not have a woman stay over at his house.
His bedroom and bathroom are immaculate. Everything is picked up and orderly. Even his clothes are folded with almost military precision. This tells me he’s disciplined.
Finally, the night I was brought to his house, I’m pretty sure I heard him having sex with another man. While my mind was cloudy from the medicine, I have what I believe is a solid memory of a male—maybe the doctor, or maybe the man he called his friend Logan—crying out, “Fuck my ass harder, Bridger.” This was accompanied by moans and squeals that, while they sounded girlish, were clearly from a man. Definitely not Bridger because his voice is much deeper, and you can tell by looking at him that he’d never squeal or moan. No, he’d be the type who would curse and grunt if something felt good to him. But I know I heard those words.
Fuck my ass harder, Bridger.
So yes… pretty sure Bridger had sex that night, so that tells me he’s gay, which also explains the lack of anything female in his house. This makes him interesting because he most certainly doesn’t look and act gay, but it really means nothing to me. I don’t care what he is as long as he helps me out like he promised, and I’ve decided to accept his help. While I don’t necessarily trust his words, his actions are speaking to me. He’s gotten me medical attention and fed me. He’s clearly protecting me as Kayla, Kyle, or any other club member hasn’t shown up to drag me back to hell. So I’ve decided that my best course of action is to grudgingly accept his help and hope to God he follows through with his promises to keep me safe.
It’s the best course of action.
It’s my only one at this point.
Gathering my empty plate and glass, I head out of his bedroom and down the hall, which leads me into a living room with an open kitchen just beyond. Bridger sits at a square table set in a nook off to the side, his eyes pinned on me as I walk toward him.
With a nod of his head toward the sink, he says, “Just lay those in there. I’ll get them later.”
I round the large kitchen island done in distressed gray wood with black granite tops and place the items in the sink. The kitchen is gorgeous, also immaculately kept except for my now-dirty dish and glass, and reeks of money. My eyes glance back to the large living room I’d walked through. It’s filled with high-end leather furniture, an expensive-looking entertainment unit, and a TV more massive than any I’d ever seen before. While his house isn’t overly large, the appointments are luxurious.
“Let’s talk.” That gravelly voice floats across the kitchen to me, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. It’s so deep and masculine. I’m having a hard time reconciling that I suspect he’s gay.
Turning back toward him, I keep my eyes lowered as I walk across the tile flooring to the table, taking a chair opposite of where he sits.
“Feel better after that shower?” he asks gruffly.
I slowly raise my head to look at him. “Yeah,” I murmur, my throat not feeling nearly as shredded. I think it might have to do with the fact I haven’t used my voice much the past two days. “Thanks.”
He nods and cuts to the chase. “So what’s the deal? Why was Kayla torturing you?”
“Because Zeke wants me.” I tell him the simple truth. I’ve decided to give it to him because seriously… what do I have to lose at this point?
A flash of irritation crosses his face. “Try again. Zeke wants and fucks other women in the club, but Kayla’s not the jealous type. She’s his old lady and at the top of the food chain.”
“Not true,” I mutter, and he blinks at me in surprise. “I’m at the top of the food chain, and Kayla’s one rung below me.”
“Explain,” he says calmly. “Because what I know about Zeke, pussy is pussy to him.”
I wince, because that’s so crude even if it’s utterly accurate. But I’ve been listening to crass men for a very long time, and I’m not easily offended. But the truth is, while I was in the shower, I did a lot of hard thinking about what I should disclose to Bridger. My initial fears of this man and my current situation have been somewhat alleviated. While my base instinct is not to trust him, especially since Kyle is the one who brought me here, I finally decided I had to give a little. I deduced this by reasoning it would have made no sense for Kyle to bring me to a man who would just turn me back over to Zeke. It served no purpose. In fact, it would have angered Zeke if Kyle or anyone had dared remove me from the compound, regardless of what Kayla was doing to me.
So I decided I had absolutely nothing to lose at this point by disclosing the truth as to what had happened to me. The worst-case scenario is I’d end up right back where I was if Bridger didn’t want me here. The best-case scenario is I could stay safe until I had a good game plan.
“That’s true,” I tell Bridger simply. “Zeke doesn’t care what he fucks, but the difference between Kayla and me is that her ovaries are dead and shriveled, and she can’t give him what he really wants.”
“What’s that?” he asks cautiously, but he knows what I’m saying.
“A child,” I provide with a direct stare.
“And you can?” he asks dubiously.
“I already have,” I murmur, my eyes misting up as I think of Belle’s sweet face and her baby fine hair that’s blonde but will turn my color, I’m sure of it. She looks exactly like me when I was a baby and has nothing of Zeke inside of her.
I am also sure of that.
Bridger jolts from my proclamation. “You had his baby?”
“I did, and I have her hidden away from him,” I say with my chin raised high. “And he’s never finding her.”
I also decided to be truthful about this, because again, nothing to lose and Belle is not a secret. If Bridger is really friends with Zeke and intends to give me back to him, he’d already know about Belle.
I can see as comprehension dawns fully within his eyes, which are actually a shade darker right now… almost the color of a copper penny. They are really quite beautiful. He stands from the table and walks over to the refrigerator. Opening it, he pulls out a bottle of water and holds it up to me. I nod and he reaches back in, pulls another bottle out, and comes back to the table. Setting one of the bottles before me, he opens the other and takes a long pull from it. Rather than sit back down at the table, he walks back to the island and takes one of the stools done in dark gray wood and wrought iron.
“Start from the beginning and tell me everything,” he commands. It’s not said in a superior, domineering way, but rather with frank curiosity tinged with worry over my circumstances.
I open the bottle of water he brought me and take a few sips, loving the soothing coolness against my raw throat. After setting it back down, I take a deep breath and tell him my story.
“I left home about ten years ago.” I start from the beginning as he instructed me. “Nice family, upper middle class. But I was a rebellious kid and thought I knew more than my parents did. Set off at eighteen to see the world and never looked back.”
“Where did you go?” he asks.
“Everywhere and nowhere,” I reply. “My parents are from Cheyenne, and I’d lived in Wyoming my entire life. Headed west but never made it past Idaho. My grand adventures got sidetracked because I fell in with the wrong crowd. Worked odd jobs, partied, did drugs. Became a complete failure in life… at least that’s how my parents saw it.”
“How did you meet Zeke?” he prods. Apparently, he doesn’t need the details of my vagabond years.
“I drifted back this way, hoping to find some steady work in the area. Met Zeke in a biker bar. He got me drunk and fucked me. The rest is history.”
“How long ago was that?” he asks.
I shrug. “About three years ago. He moved me out to the Mission compound, which was great by me. I didn’t have a job, hardly any money, and was one step away from living on the streets.”
“You became a club whore?” Bridger asks, his voice tight with tension.
“No,” I tell him with brutal honesty. “I became Zeke’s whore. No one was allowed to touch me.”
“And how did Kayla respond to that?”
Another shrug. “Like you said, she’s not a jealous woman. She knows and accepts Zeke fucks around. We avoided each other and just sort of existed in that same space together. Of course, she lived with Zeke out of the compound, so I didn’t really see her unless there was a party she came to. Zeke visited me at the compound when he wanted.”
Bridger’s lips flatten out in a look of distaste, and it makes me feel dirty. I mean… I am dirty. I let myself become a kept whore, but for some odd reason, I don’t want Bridger to view me that way. He’s the first man to show me a measure of kindness in well over a decade, and that alone makes me respect him somewhat.
“You became pregnant?” he asks, keeping the story flowing.
“Condom broke,” I tell him in a voice roughened with emotion. “It was the moment my life changed for both the better and the worst.”
“Boy or girl and how old?” he asks, cutting even quicker to the chase.
“Girl,” I tell him. “Her name’s Belle, and she just turned two a few months ago.”
“Where is she?”
“That I will never tell you,” I say fiercely. This is where I draw the line and keep the most important truth to myself. “She’s safe and far away from Zeke.”
“You ran with her?” he guesses.
“Yeah,” I say bitterly. “I ran just after she turned two. I got her to safety. After that, I ran in the opposite direction of Belle, knowing he’d eventually find me.”
“And when was that?”
“About a week ago,” I murmur. “Found me in Nebraska and dragged me back. Kept me locked up at the compound and tried to force me to tell him where Belle was.”
Bridger utters a low curse. “What did he do to you?”
“Beat me,” I say in a matter-of-fact tone. “Thought he could beat the information out of me, but that fucker underestimated my resolve. I’ll die before I give Belle up to him.”
Bridger nods, and I see a healthy dose of respect in his gaze. He takes another sip of water. After he swallows, he says in a gentle voice, “I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a moment, but Zeke’s her father. Doesn’t he have a right to see her?”
Rage fills every fiber of my being that he would even dare to suggest such a thing. But still, I keep my voice as level as possible. “How well do you know Zeke?”
“Not well at all,” he admits. “Been around him a handful of times.”
“Well, that should have been plenty for you to get he’s a mean son of a bitch. Runs that club as if he’s Hitler and uses that same mentality on everyone around him, even his baby daughter. He’s rotten to the core, and that sick bastard has no fondness or love for Belle. She’s his property, and that’s all he cares about.”
I’m not sure what it is about that last statement, but Bridger’s entire body goes tight and his eyes flame with something akin to hatred. His voice doesn’t rise, but there’s no hiding the thunder of repressed anger. “Why exactly did you run? You stayed there for a few years after she was born.”
Shame overwhelms me because he’s forcing me very close to considering the question I’ve asked myself over and over again in the past few months. It’s not the same exact question he just asked, but it’s close enough.
Why didn’t I run sooner?
“You have to understand,” I whisper in response to what he just asked. “I didn’t think Belle was in any real danger at first. I mean… most of the time, Zeke ignored us both. Sometimes, he’d yell at me to keep her quiet if she was crying, but we were usually left alone. I cared for her, stayed in my room for the most part, and we sort of flew under the radar.”
“What happened?” he prods.
As Belle grew, started to walk, and became insanely curious about the world around her, I had a harder time keeping her in the solitary confinement of our room at the compound. I’d carefully take her outside when I knew Zeke was out and about to let her play in the fresh air. We were pretty much ignored, which was good.
Until the time when Belle wasn’t ignored.
“There was a stray dog that hung around the compound that had puppies,” I tell him with my eyes once again lowered to the table and my voice sounding oddly detached. “Belle liked to play with them. It was the highlight of her day to be able to go outside to be around them. One day, Zeke came out into the yard area where Belle was playing. He was drunk, which always made him meaner. I tried to pick up Belle and get her inside before he noticed us, but she’s two years old and she did what most toddlers would do. She pitched a fit and started crying, wanting to stay with the puppies.”
Bile starts to rise in my throat so it chokes my words down. I take another sip of water and hesitantly slide my gaze over to Bridger’s. His face appears impassive, but his eyes are simmering with anger. Yet his voice is surprisingly encouraging when he says, “Go on.”
I give a slight cough to clear my throat and press forward. “Her cries got Zeke’s attention, and he came our way. She was struggling to get out of my hold to get to the puppies… you know… in full-blown tantrum mode. Zeke yelled at her to ‘shut the fuck up’. That just made her scream louder. So he reached down, grabbed one of the puppies by the scruff, and held it up for her to see. I’ll never forget the way he taunted his daughter. He shook the puppy and told her, ‘I’ll give you something to cry about,’ and then he punted the puppy like a football. Poor thing didn’t stand a chance against those heavy biker boots. He was dead before he hit the ground.”
My body shudders as I say those last words, my mind immediately turning to Belle’s reaction. “She went limp in my arms, her mouth hanging open as her tear-filled eyes watched the limp puppy lying on the ground several feet away. I’ll never forget the tiny little moan that slid past those precious baby lips, then her mouth clamped shut and she didn’t utter another sound. Not for five days.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Bridger grits out as he pushes off the stool. I involuntarily shrink backward, thinking his anger for the situation is aimed at me.
Because let’s face it… it’s my fault Belle was in that environment. I should have run the minute I found out I was pregnant. I knew Zeke, and I knew he wasn’t father material. I knew… something like that would happen one day.
“I’m a terrible mother,” I say as he advances on me. I admit my failure to him, having no clue what he’s going to do to me, but by the murderous expression on his face, I know it’s going to hurt.
Bridger stalks right to me but rather than raising his hand to strike me, or pulling me from my chair to throw me out of the safety of his house, he drops to his knees by my chair and puts a large hand around the back of my neck, forcing me to turn to look at him. “You are not a terrible mother. You took your child and ran. You protected her.”
“Not at first,” I argue, my mind refusing to believe his words.
“You did what you had to do, and you did what was right when it truly mattered.”
I don’t respond, but I don’t drop my gaze from his either. I study him critically to see if he’s just blowing smoke up my ass or if he truly believes those words. He stares right back at me, and I can see from deep within those orbs the color of molten cognac that he knows a little something of what I’ve been through. In that moment, I realize I was right to trust him with this information.
With a soft squeeze to my neck, Bridger releases me and stands up, but he doesn’t move away. Looking down at me, he asks gravely, “You don’t have to tell me details, but are you sure Belle’s safe where she’s at?”
I give a tentative nod. “I think so.”
“Well, at least that gives us some time to decide what the best thing to do is,” Bridger says almost absently as he turns from me and reaches for his bottle of water. “For right now, I imagine the only person looking for you is Kayla, but when Zeke returns, he’s going to put all his resources into finding you again.”
I nod, because I know that’s true. “Then I should probably leave.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says gruffly. “You’re going to stay here and recover. It will be the last thing Zeke would ever think… that you’d stay in this area.”
His words warm me… fill me with a small measure of hope, but I have to remember the reality of the situation. “Bridger… if he finds out you’re helping me, he’ll…”
I can’t even say it.
“I know,” he says resolutely. “But fuck if I’m going to let him get his hands on you or Belle.”
And by the tone in his voice and the blazing determination in his eyes, I know he’s making me a promise he intends to keep.