Hanna had been forbidden by both Roarke and James, respectively, with interfering with their idiot set-up mission. And now she knew that had been a huge mistake. Roarke was too easily goaded. She had no idea what happened in the hospital room, but based on the news feed, it wasn’t anything that was going to help them.
“Roarke Withers, known president of the Pharaohs biker gang went on the run today after an altercation in the hospital room of his sister Amber Withers, recently identified as the victim in a motorcycle accident early this morning. Roarke reportedly assaulted Isabelle Withers, his youngest sister, who recently came forward with allegations against him. According to hospital staff, he had her in a choke hold, evidently attempting to restrain her and possibly kidnap her. Withers took off when security was called and a warrant has been issued for his arrest under assault charges--”
She clicked the TV off and stared at the dark screen instead, glaring at her own reflection. She didn’t think of herself as a micromanager. She liked to let people do their own thing. She’d excelled at things like that in group work at the police station. But damn was she angry now. Neither her uncle nor Roarke was going to listen to her, too busy staring daggers at each other and measuring their dicks in some kind of perpetual pissing contest.
Now there was no shot of getting the police involved on their side, and Roarke had gone and made it that much more difficult for them to do their work in finding these girls. On top of all of that, Isabelle had no idea where he would have run to. Despite what her irritation was telling her about him, she knew he wasn’t dumb enough to go back to his apartment or to any of his relatives. Even the bar was a dangerous place. So where did a man go when he had nowhere to run? More importantly, where would Roarke think to hide?
Well the answer, of course, was that he wouldn’t hide. He was proud, not so proud that he would get shot over it. But wherever he went it would be to a place that he wouldn’t really consider as a hiding spot. It would be somewhere he felt like he had ownership of, an agency over. Someplace he could control so he could trick himself into thinking he was doing this for his own reasons. So where would that be?
The first place she thought of was the auto shop but she quickly put that out of her mind. It was too obvious, even Roarke would know that. The bar was the second best option, though it didn’t seem much safer. Still, if anyone was going to know where he was, it was the crowd gathered at the bar. At least she’d find allies there, or people she still hoped were her allies.
***
“He’s crawled up into a hidey hole,” Rick said. “Like a fucking bitch ass spider.”
Rick threw back his shot and slammed the small glass down on the counter with more than gusto. It was with anger. Hanna was surprised it didn’t shatter under his force. He and a couple of the guys had gathered in the bar. Amber wasn’t there, and it was one of her replacement girls working the bar.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Hanna asked, trying not to get too overly impatient. Roarke wasn’t here to stop Rick if he tried anything and, strong and capable as Hanna was, she wouldn’t be a match for a man twice her size and several of his drunk friends.
“There’s an old room downstairs, entrance is behind the bar. It was used during prohibition and now it’s just kind of an extra room when we need to sleep someone where they won’t be found,” Rick said. “Like I said, bitch ass hidey hole. Go cuddle with your fucking kicked puppy.”
Hanna walked away, not giving into Rick’s taunting as she walked around the bar and found the trapdoor he mentioned. She walked over to it, giving it a pull. It was locked.
“You got a key?” she asked the bartender who shrugged.
“Locks from the inside, safer that way,” she said over the pop of her gum.
“Then can you get his attention please?” she asked through gritted teeth.
It was painfully clear how few her allies really were when Rick wasn’t there. She tried not to let the nervousness spread and show, however. She wasn’t going to give any of them ammunition or a reason to come after her. She didn’t care if Rick called her a coward and cursed her name or played darts with a picture of her face. She just needed to talk to Roarke, sort this out, and maybe smack him hard across the face for his stupidity while she was at it.
The bartender walked over to the trapdoor and knocked on it hard with her foot three times. There was a pause and she did it again with more gusto. After a few seconds, the lock began to jangle and the door swung open. A wild eyed and angry looking Roarke popped his head out.
“What?” he demanded in a snap of his jaw and tongue.
“Visitor,” she said, pointing to Hanna.
His eyes softened on seeing her, but only just. He let out a sigh and shook his head. He walked away without a word but left the door open behind him, which Hanna took as an invitation to follow him down the stairs and into whatever cave-like tunnel he’d carved out for himself.
She found, however, it wasn’t so bad down there. She imagined some kind of strange medieval dungeon like the Cask of Amontillado but was instead treated with a rather normal looking basement room, except for the trapdoor entrance. The walls were painted cement, the floor plain gray cement. There was a bed shoved into the corner, several boxes and file cabinets. It looked, if nothing else, like a messy storage room.
“It was much cooler during prohibition,” he said. “I promise.”
“What the fuck happened?”
“You know. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“I’d like to get your version of it.”
“My version of it is that I was a moron.”
He paced around in front of her, his hands flying just a bit. She could tell he’d been down here for hours to himself. He’d been waiting to give this rant to someone and she was fairly certain that he’d been waiting for her. She sat on one of the stacks of empty milk crates that was used to carry new boxes of beer up to the fridge and crossed her arms.
“She bought it too, that’s the worst part. She was falling into the trap. It was working. I swear to God Hanna, it was working. We had her,” he said yelling at the nothingness in the space in front of him. He looked ready to strangle an invisible, unfortunate man in front of him.
“But?”
“But she’s like the fucking poster child for evolution or something,” he said. “Or like a jedi. She saw it coming and adapted. Totally turned herself inside out and made me out to be some kind of monster or something. And you know the worst part? I think I actually saw her smile while it was all going down. She liked what she was doing to me, to our family.”
That’s when he dropped onto the bed, pacing worn out. He dropped his face into his hands and let out a muffled groan that was very nearly a yell by the end. She didn’t know what to say. She figured she was within her rights to offer him a hug, a comforting squeeze of the shoulder. After all, they had slept together, it’s not like they were strangers or had some sterile friendship that required ten feet minimum distance at all times.
But she was also afraid of where that could lead. She wanted to tell him. She truly wanted to tell him what she was, who she was. Every day she felt less and less like Laura, but she wanted him to know that name, know where she came from. But she couldn’t trust him. He was the father of the child growing inside her and she was terrified of him knowing her in any real way.
“I think I always knew, too,” he said. “When she was a kid she used to play pranks. I’m thinking it’s just normal kid shit but one day she actually drowned Amber’s hamster. We blamed it on something else so Amber wouldn’t hate her the rest of her teenage years but she fucking killed an animal. I thought it was just an accident you know? Shit happens. But she didn’t cry over it like you’d think a kid would. I knew that the first sign of a psychopath is animal cruelty or whatever, but I just liked seeing so much light in her. I wanted so bad for her to be the one that redeemed us, got us all out of this craphole. She was the best of us.”
Hanna listened and watched. She couldn’t tell, in the dim light, if Roarke was crying, if his eyes were watering or she heard a crack in his voice. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to be crying or stoic, which she’d be able to handle more. She understood his pain. He built up an idea of his sister, an idea she likely cultivated in his head. He wanted so much for her to be one thing, that he couldn’t understand the possibility of it being wrong. Of everything he put his hope in over the years of being wrong.
“I hated my old man, you know,” he said. “You notice I never talk about that fucker?”
“I didn’t want to ask.”
“Well, he was beyond an asshole. He was irresponsible, he was a drinker, he only ever cared about himself and would bawl his eyes out about how bad of a father he was when he got just that drunk,” he said. “Then one day he was shot by the Caracals and I was the man of the house.”
“My dad was a drug addict,” she said without meaning to. She needed him to know something, wanted him to understand something true about her. “So was my mom. I was the product of one too many blacked out fucks. Didn’t stay with them long. State took me. I haven’t seen them since. I don’t even know if they’re alive.”
“Folks suck, plain and simple,” Roarke said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
His face had relaxed, the tension seeped out of the balloon and now he was still. She wanted to tell him still, wanted him to know the full truth. She was sure of that now. But she was alone with him, trapped in the dark in a building full of people who did not like her. She was attracted to Roarke. She had feelings for Roarke. But she could not trust him. There was something so oxymoronic about that, but it made everything that much more tantalizing in the end. It’s not that she wanted something she couldn’t have or wanted something bad for her. It’s that she understood how layered a person could be, how you could hate them and love them at once. How you could want to hurt them and heal them.
When her eyes moved back up, Roarke was staring at her with new intensity and she knew she was powerless to stop herself when she crossed the room, straddled his lap, and kissed him.