17.

Livvy

 

The first good sleep I’ve had since Michael took me, I wake up cocooned by Gage. Even in sleep, he uses his body to protect mine.

I stretch even as I try not to wake him. Everything I told him last night was the truth. Each truth he not only earned the right to hear but deserved to.

We need to move. Staying out here any longer than necessary, even hidden inside a lookout, exposes us to greater danger until Houdini is caught. We haven’t had cell service for hours and his battery is almost dead.

He looks so peaceful in sleep. Golden waves fallen to hide his closed eyes. He makes it hard to resist touching him, if only to swipe the hair back and get to feel the silky smooth strands. But as I reach to him, the lookout begins to sway. Gentle at first, like from when a breeze hits it, just before a voice breaks the absolute silence.

My body goes rigid even as it shakes. Shoot—shit—shoot. God, I think I might pee myself. How I have the wherewithal to peek down and not expose my location at the same time, I’ll never know.

Shorter than Houdini, he has less strength and power about him, sporting head-to-toe camo. There’s a rifle slung over his shoulder. The thing pressed to his ear is tinier than Gage’s smartphone and has an obvious signal, judging by the thick, blunt antenna and that he’s talking on it, so it’s stronger than his too—which means it has to be of those sat phones.

If we could get our hands on that sat phone.

Closing my eyes, I breathe in, swallow the mouthful of saliva filling up and threatening to drown me, open my eyes and take a chance.

“Hey,” I call down to him. His body jerks on the rungs. He hadn’t noticed me yet. Though without voicing a goodbye, he shoves the phone into his front pocket.

“Well, this is a surprise,” he says, raising an eyebrow like he thinks he’s some sort of Casanova able to seduce me with a glance. I get the feeling he doesn’t have my best interests in mind.

His smarmy voice coats my skin in a slick fear. “Come out so I can see you,” he orders.

“No. Stop. Please, I just… Can I use your phone?”

Behind me, Gage stirs awake. I feel him pressed to my back though he stays quiet. The squeeze to my hips is my assurance he’s listening to our exchange, ready to pounce if need be. I guess that’s another benefit of living the club life. Most men would speak first, a ‘good morning’ or ‘hey baby’. But not Gage, on alert; taking in his surroundings first.

The stranger smiles, showing all his teeth. “I do something for you, what’ll you do for me?”

What is wrong with this guy? “I’m stranded and you want to coerce sex from me?”

“Tit for tat, little lady. I have the tat you want. Guess what you have that I want?”

He keeps climbing.

“I’m not having sex with you to use your phone. You aren’t going to touch me.” My voice quivers at the end. Dammit. I want to sound strong. Confident. I’m tired of asshole men thinking they can hurt me just because they’re men.

He laughs at me. Laughs. His head turns from the left to right, then his eyes land on me again. One handed, he swings the rifle strap so the butt rests against his ribs and his finger moves to the trigger.

“Who’s going to stop me?”

Gage shoves me out of the way, takes aim and shoots. “I am, fucker.”

It happens just that fast. The man’s eyes go wide for a split second at the sound of the Glock. Wide just before his body slumps and falls to the earth below.

I should be horrified. Gage killed a man. Killed him right before my eyes.

But he was going to hurt me.

And once he saw Gage, that asshole would have tried to kill him first. I have no doubt.

The pool of blood forming under the man doesn’t affect me as much as I think it should. Maybe I’m becoming too hardened. Maybe I’m too tainted to feel empathy any longer.

But this guy might have a family out there somewhere, waiting for him to come home.

Maybe he’s only a gun-toting potential rapist on the weekends. Like the army reserve, but for psychopaths.

“Stop.” Gage’s authority tears my attention away from the body. “He used his gun for intimidation and all but said the actual words that he planned on raping you. It was him or us, and no matter what happens to me, it’ll never be you.”

How does he know what I’m thinking at every turn?

And he’s right.

“I love you, Gage.”

“Always yours, Liv. Love you, too.” He slides his hand around to cup the side of my head and pull me close enough to drop a kiss to my hair. “Grab waters. I got the jerky. Then we gotta jet. No way of knowing if he’s expecting company.”

As directed, I grab up a couple of water bottles, but without pants, so lacking pockets, Gage plucks them from my hand before we make the descent down the ladder to stow in his waistband. Rustling from behind the trees brings our decline to an abrupt halt. Scavengers. Probably wolves. They’ve sniffed him out already.

I see their beady eyes follow our every movement and it’s unnerving to feel stalked. I mean, I never knew Michael was there until he was. But this, I can feel it. And it gives me major willies.

Gage helps me off the ladder so not to end up barefooted in blood. The scavengers begin to inch closer. Definitely wolves. He divests the man of his rifle since he no longer needs it. He searches his pockets until he finds the sat phone and lastly, removes the man’s boots.

“They’ll be huge on you,” Gage says as he slips the first one on my foot. It’s covered in blood spatter. I have to look away, to swallow hard, reminding myself to keep breathing so I don’t end up vomiting all over Gage. “But you won’t be running around the forest barefoot.”

Once the second boot is tied, we back away from the direction of the scavengers. “Have at it,” Gage offers, gesturing them toward the body with a wave of his hand. Though we don’t wait around to watch the carnage.

Far enough away, we pause for Gage to get a lock on our geographic coordinates, then he pulls up the map so we know where we’re headed. Phone to ear, he places a call next. “It’s Gage,” he says into the receiver. Several head nods, as if whomever he’s talking to can see him. Then there’s a “Shit.”

Well, that doesn’t sound real promising. What now?

“Making plans, then?” he asks. “We’ll call for a pickup when we hit civilization. Oh, and we’ll need a cleanup.” Pause then, “Yeah, I’ll text you the coordinates. Wait ’till we’re with you before you call someone in.”

And that’s it.

When he grabs my hand to continue walking, at least I feel like we have a real direction now and aren’t just wandering around waiting for Houdini to find us. It gets darker in the thick of trees before it gets lighter and I know we’re getting close to something. Wearing the boots has helped our speed, makes it easier for me to get around.

Since we left the lookout, something has been weighing on my mind pretty heavily. When finally I can’t take it any longer, I tug on Gage’s hand to get him to slow.

“Whatcha need, baby?” he asks.

“You asked for a cleanup.” It’s a statement more than a question.

“I did,” he replies. Gage uses his boot to kick a broken tree branch that’s fallen to the ground out of our path so I don’t trip on it.

“We have his phone. Can’t they—that is, what if he’s reported missing? Won’t they check his phone records? Can’t they trace the call you made back to us?”

“Mm…” he says, but keeps us walking. “They could. But you know I carry a burner phone, right?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“All the brothers do. We each have at least one brother’s burner phone number memorized. I memorized Boss’s. Once they pick us up, he’ll discard that phone for a new one. Then I’ll have to memorize that number or someone else’s.”

“That seems like a lot of work.”

“Yeah, it is. But you know we take care of our own. Sometimes that means being on the wrong side of the law. This provides us a little peace of mind.”

Well, I can’t argue with that logic. I should know better than to question him by now. He takes care of me. He always takes care of me, I mean, when I don’t do stupid thing to sabotage his care. Prison would definitely get in the way of his ability to do so.

I lean in to kiss his cheek, and let the subject go.

Hours must pass, or at least it feels like hours before we see the first break in the trees and a road. A road. Not made of dirt, but an actual paved two-lane road.

“Hallelujah,” I whisper and watch as Gage turns his face toward me wearing an endearing half-smile. Here we are, running from Houdini, we took the life of a potential rapist—and yet he’s still able to smile. He’s still able to get my heart beating.

When I have the chance to catch my breath, it’ll all probably come crashing down on me. The kidnapping, abuse, torture. But I vow, vow to get help this time, even if I don’t feel like I need it.

The tug on my hand pulls me to the left. Apparently, that’s the direction we’re supposed to take. Oh, and the sun feels so good after spending all that time in the cold shade. Bathing, basking in the rays. Soaking in the UV rays.

Once again he pulls the sat phone and dials. He gives the coordinates, then hangs up. “We keep walking, they’ll meet us. Leaving now.”

I could be manic, as giddy as I feel at the thought of the brothers coming to our rescue.

And I begin to laugh. Gage pins me with a ‘what?’ look.

“I want to go home. When this is done, I want to go home, Gage.”

“Okay. We’ll go home.”

“No, you don’t understand, not to Smithfield, but home. With you and Raif, Elise, Boss, Trish and Maryanne. I want to go back to our family.”

Despite walking down the center of the road in the middle of nowhere, Gage stops us to turn me in his arms and kiss the shit out of me. Though he wraps one arm high and one low, both pushing on the lash marks still marring my back. I wince but hold in the verbal reaction because I don’t want him to stop kissing me.

Well, as long as I’m in the sharing mood, when we begin moving again, holding his hand, swinging our arms and growing somewhat nervous for no real reason, I put it out there for him. “Babe?”

He smiles his response.

“You wouldn’t want to marry me, would you?”

We’re never finding civilization at this point. Not when he stops midstride to turn to me again. “Did you just ask me to marry you?”

“Yes?”

“Fucking hell, Liv. I’ve wanted to marry you my whole life.”

“So to be clear, that’s a yes?”

“For fuck’s sake, woman. Yes, it’s a yes!”

I slowly let out the breath I’d had no reason to hold. “Good. That’s good. I don’t want to wait. Do you…want to wait?”

“Baby, if a pastor popped out of the woods, I’d marry you right now just the three of us in attendance.”

My heart feels lighter, freer.

Gradually, our steps eat away at the pavement until we come up on a crossroads. There’s a white van heading our way. Gage sighs and gives another one of his gorgeous Gage smiles. “Finally,” he says, which I guess means they’re with us.

It rolls to a complete stop and the side door slides open.

Raif, my brother, spills out and immediately begins stalking over to us. He ignores Gage completely, which isn’t an action I’m used to. He used to ignore me.

But now, he reaches me and picks me up in his large arms, crushing me as he swings me back and forth. My legs dangle uselessly and my back screams from the pressure. For a hug from my brother, I’ll ignore the black and gold pops behind my closed eyes.

I mean, we’re in the midst of a mark-your-calendar occasion. I’d swear in a court of law this man, who never even cried when our father died, has tears in his eyes. “Jesus, Liv. Don’t you ever leave us again.”

“I… won’t,” I choke out, then cough.

“You’re crushing her.” Gage rips me from my brother’s arms.

Don’t you ever leave us again.

He’d said it.

I’d heard it.

If anyone had asked me ten minutes ago if my brother cared for me, I’d have answered with a resounding no. Then I would have quietly followed it with one word: indifference.

My brother always treated me with indifference. Our relationship eked along as a series of technicalities.

When he stood up for me as kids, it happened because Gage cared, and technically, I was Raif’s sister, so he needed to protect precedence laid down by the club.

It was never about me personally.

When Gage proclaimed his love for me, and Raif blew a gasket, that one happened because Gage never sought his permission to date me.

Rules of the club. Inside those walls, men owned all, even the women. Which meant, again technically, being Raif’s half-sister, he owned me.

It had never been about love or loyalty.

Or so I thought.

Now, though, I see that maybe I’ve been wrong. About all of it. He tried to tell me—oh, god, Gage tried to tell me so many times that they’re a new Lords. That they’re a club of men who love their women. Women matter. I was just too stubborn to listen.

“Her back.” Insinuating himself between us, Gage pulls me from my brother’s arms as he reminds him of my injuries.

Suddenly, and for no explicable reason as I’ve been strong all this time, my eyes begin to fill with tears and my feet falter, legs going weak.

“Come on, baby,” Gage whispers in my ear, holding me until I feel strong enough to walk. “It’s almost over.”

I bite my lip and nod as I let him lead me by the hand the twenty steps back to the van.

Hero drives. Blue sits in the passenger seat.

“Hey, guys,” I say casually with a small wave.

God, I feel stupid, like I owe them all a huge apology. But how do I apologize for having a mental breakdown?

Sorry I went crazy and you had to follow me? Whatever. I shake the thought away as Gage hefts himself inside the back of the van first. He sets the rifle on the floor, then holds his arms out to me as my brother helps me inside next. I’m positioned on Gage’s lap, so my shoulder touches his chest, and I can rest my head against his shoulder. Keeping the pressure off my back. Always so thoughtful. How did I ever think I could forget this man? Raif steps up inside and rolls the door shut.

Hero pulls a three point u-ie and we speed off down the road back the way they came.

Twenty minutes pass before we turn down the dirt drive of, well, it looks like a small prison. A square, cement building set back on the forested property past the gate attached to a chain-link fence. Coiled barbed wire lines the whole perimeter.

“Where are we?” I ask while craning my neck to get a better look out the window.

Hero pulls us up to the gate. I see two cameras reposition themselves—one at the van, one at Hero.

“Where are we?” I demand to know with a little more force.

As we park, a man emerges from a cement side building I can only see from this side of the fence. The man looks military in head-to-toe camo. He’s wearing an olive drab vest with puffy pockets filled with God only knows what. A buzz-cut head of gray hair. Boots almost exactly like the boots I’m sporting. And guns. Guns with an s. Strapped in a holster to his leg, slung around his body by a strap.

“Where are we?” I whisper for the third time, straight up panicked.

Even though just about all Lords carry, this guy looks like the commander of one of those doomsday out-there militias. Guns in the hands of crazies, never good. I’ve had a lifetime fill of guns in the hands of crazies.

Blue and Hero hop out, followed by Raif, who offers me his hand to help me down. Gage brings up the rear. His hands to my shoulders, he positions me to face the militia man, because it’s obvious we’re supposed to meet him. Smoothly, Gage moves his arms from my shoulders to wrap around me protectively.

“John,” Raif starts. “This is my sister, Liv. And her man, my best friend, Chaos.”

John nods at me. Not to me, but at me. It sounds weird, but there’s a difference. To would mean to welcome me. At, at basically acknowledges my corporeal body standing before him, that I’m not some imaginary friend.

“You a brother?” the man asks Gage.

“Yes, sir.”

“She cook?” he bizarrely asks Gage next.

Gage holds me a bit tighter. “Yeah.”

“Well, she’s pretty enough, but you might want to upgrade. Narrow hips. Might not be able to push out very many babies.”

My mouth drops open, though he continues right on through. “She expires, you can get yourself another. Not like bitches are hard to come by.”

I gasp. Who wouldn’t in my place?

“You can head into the kitchen, got one of you in there cooking,” he tells me.

I catch my breath, hoping to control my temper. Where did they find this guy? But I grew up in a misogynistic club, so I bite my tongue and pull away from Gage to head inside the house.

John grabs my arm. “You’re a guest in my house. Women know their place. Not like that bitch who thinks she’s a doctor. Like any woman is smart enough to be a doctor.”

I turn to Gage and mouth, get me out of here.

Jaw clenched and with gritted teeth, he nods once.