Captivate Me (13 page)

I move fast, grabbing both ends of the chair to keep them steady on the ground. Explosives of any type will tear a person up. No way am I letting my brothers or president go out like that.

“You fucking bitch!” Rhys roars in Flash’s face.

The side of her lip tips up as I look over at Buzz next to me. His jaw tightens, so I know he saw it, too.

I turn back to Flash. Her clothes are so tattered and dirty there is no telling what she had on when she started this. It’s barely there, exposing many cuts and bruises. She had to have been tortured.

“You think you’re gonna kill my brothers, you fuckin’ whore!” Rhys screams, spittle flying.

“Die.”

“Bitch, the only one who’s dying here is you,” Rhys growls before turning to Pops. “What the fuck?”

Pops turns his head and evaluates Flash, something working behind his eyes.

“You’re pissed Dagger kicked you out and is with Mearna.” He pauses, rubbing his hand over his face. “You’re either working with Ransom to take us out, or you set all of this up yourself. I’m going with the first.”

“Bitch ain’t smart enough for the second,” Rhys puts in, and he’s right. I remember when Flash was around the club before. She would fuck anything that would take her. She had a mouth and thought she was queen of the castle, having some of the guys wrapped around her pussy. We knew better, but she was Dagger’s ol’ lady. We don’t screw with that shit. That’s their business.

“Fuck you,” she chokes out.

“No, fuck you,” Rhys says flatly.

“Clubs … all … I … had … until … that bitch … came,” she wheezes through the words. “Fuck … you … all.”

“She’s workin’ with him,” Pops announces. “Let’s blow this place.”

“You … gonna … kill … me?” she croaks. “He’ll … get … you all. And … those … bitches.”

“Move, Rhys,” Pops orders.

Rhys releases Flash’s head, and it falls down instantly. Then a gun fires, and blood splatters down on me.

“Fuck,” I grunt out and move back from the chair.

“It’ll wash,” Rhys comments.

“Figure out a way to get this place to blow when we’re out of it,” Pops orders then leaves the room, his gun clenched in his hand.

I don’t fucking like seeing him this much on the edge.

“Thoughts?” Breaker asks.

“Get the rope and tie her evenly to the chair. Then tie it to the legs, punch a hole in the wall, and run it out through the hole. Tie it to the van, pull, boom,” Rhys says as if this is a normal occurrence. Who am I shitting? It is.

After securing the rope, Cruz backs out the van, and the place explodes in front of us.

The beer cools me, but it doesn’t stop my brain from running through all the information over and over again. Ransom is a slippery fucker, and we need to find him and get this sorted.

“Hey.” Bella comes up to my side at the table in the clubhouse.

Music plays in the background, but nothing crazy. There are too many kids here now. While most are downstairs, we try to tone our shit down for them. Well, I should say all of the guys have women now, so they are all more toned down.

“Hey.” I take another pull of my beer then set the glass on the table with a clank. “What’s goin’ on?”

Bella shrugs. “Nothing much. Just kinda crazy how many people are here.”

I want to laugh but give a small smile, instead. “Yeah, there are a lot.” I look around the room, noting all the brothers and their ol’ ladies moving around the place.

Ravage built a bunk area just in case these things happen for everyone to fit. For some shitty reason, they happen way too often lately. I’ve gotta admit that I’m glad I’m now a member and not a prospect.

“Yeah.” She twists her hands. “I don’t know many of them.”

“Give it a few days; you’ll be like old family.”

She chuckles. “Right.”

“It’s true. You’ll be surprised.”

The door to the clubhouse slams beside us, and out of habit, I look up to see who it is. The room gains a silent hush as
she
strides into Ravage with Derek, our prospect, on her heels.
A little pixie of a woman with long, chestnut hair and an hourglass figure, she pulls her sunglasses from her eyes apprehensively, her hand shaking. Her eyes show a bit of fear in them, as they should.

It is a total contrast to the last time she made her appearance on Ravage ground. No, that time, she came to give GT shit for supposedly killing her father, which he didn’t do, and then she demanded money. Not the best way to get in with the brothers, and the circumstances at the time were the only way she lived through it.

“Shaina?” Angel says from somewhere in the room.

My eyes stay on the beautiful woman. I should say “locked on” her because she captivates me. Different isn’t even the word I would use for how she appears now. Before, she was pissed and throwing her attitude around. Now … not so much.

“Hey,” Shaina says as Angel engulfs her in her arms. Tentatively, she puts her arms around Angel, giving that back to her. Serious shit went down with Angel and Shaina while they were held captive by a crazy man. Angel got it bad, but word has it, Shaina got it worse. So much worse.

After that happened, she snuck out and disappeared to her mother’s cabin, and I hadn’t heard anything about her since. Looks like she’s back.

Angel pulls away. “How are you?”

Shaina’s eyes dart around the room then connect with mine. Some type of energy passes through the glance, the same as the last time I saw her, but she breaks it quickly, turning to Angel as my heart picks up speed.

“Ma called. She said I needed to come and stay here.” She shakes her head like she’s trying to get thoughts to escape her head.

Angel engulfs her in another hug and whispers something in her ear. Shaina’s body sags, and curiosity hits, making me want to know what she said.

I turn to Derek as he says, “That’s what she says. Need to confirm it.”

Pops steps up with his arm around Ma. He looks down at his wife then up. “Yeah, she’s good,” he states, confirming that Shaina is in fact supposed to be here at the club.

Derek nods then strolls out of the room while all eyes continue to watch.

“Breaker?” I hear and turn to Bella.

“What?”

“I’ve said your name, like, three times. Where did you go?”

I blink and clear the fog, clear the memories that want to bombard me, which I won’t allow. “Nowhere. I’m here.”

Bella’s focus drifts to Shaina then back to me. “Who is she?”

“Shaina, Diamond’s daughter.”

Her eyes squint then open wide. “Oh, Angel told me about her.” Bella leans in close. “Is she okay?”

“I have no clue.” But my gut tells me no way in hell.

“Something tells me you’re gonna find out, though.” Bella isn’t wrong.

I watch the little pixie dash off from the room and start down the hallway, like being in the room with this many people is too much for her to handle, which means she isn’t any better than before. Damn, that’s such a change from the spitfire she once was. Those fuckers screwed her royally, and time hasn’t seemed to heal old wounds.

Something ticks inside of me, telling me I need to go, like a magnetic pull. And, like always, I listen to it and move.

The clubhouse noise level goes back to normal. Hopefully, everyone has gotten over the shock of seeing Shaina. At least, those who saw her. GT won’t be happy when he finds out.

Shaina darts into the bathroom, and I wait against the wall outside of it. I have so many questions for her, and as the seconds tick away, I try to keep myself in check and not let the anger of some of them take over.

After fifteen minutes, I’m impatient. Not a single woman has come by to use the bathroom so I can ask if Shaina is okay. Fuck it.

I open the door and see nothing. I look under the stalls, nothing. Where the fuck did she go?

One by one, I push the stall doors open, checking them. No way she got past me. It’s just not possible.

I push on the last door, and it sticks. Looking through the slats, I see Shaina sitting on the toilet with wide eyes and tears running down her face.

I should go. I should get the hell out here. I should not get involved with this. I shouldn’t. It got me nowhere last time.

She has her demons … and I have mine. I feel it in my bones that, if I stay, this will change my life forever. And if I go, it will do the same. The shock and fear slice through me, though, and I can’t stop myself.

“Shaina, open up. Let me help you.” Fuck, what am I saying? Here’s to cracking open a new can of worms.

“What do you want, Breaker?”

Hearing my name on her lips feels like sunshine shimmering down on me, warm and bright. I missed that word coming from her.

“Let’s talk.”

She gives out a harrumph. “Yeah, talk and talk and talk until I’m blue in the face and can’t breathe. Talking doesn’t help, Breaker. Didn’t help then; it doesn’t help now.”

While I know this is true, I reach in my pocket, pull out my knife, flip it open, stick it in the lock, and then turn it slowly to disengage the lock.

Shaina leaps from the toilet, crossing her arms over her body. “What are you doing?” Her words are rushed and frantic as she bats the wetness away from her face.

I place my knife back in my pocket and hold my hands up in surrender. I don’t want to hurt her. I never want to hurt her ever. “Relax. You’re safe here.”

She makes some noise in the back of her throat, the same one I remember she makes when she is frustrated. “You think I don’t know how much they hate me? How much they should hate me? I was a bitch, a horrible one. I said shit to GT that I haven’t ever apologized for. I led Casey or Angel, or whatever you call her now, to suffer along with me. I deserve to be dead, Breaker, so nothing you say can
help
. No one can
help
me.”

“Babe, not here to fix ya. You know I can’t do that shit.”

She rests her shoulder against the stall. “You know, I never thanked you, either.”

The words are like a punch to the gut, but I don’t show it. “Nothing to thank me for.”

She chokes a bit. “Right.”

While I never expected a thank you, her leaving without a good-bye really clawed at me.

I step back from the stall. “Come out of there.”

Shaina bats at her face again, getting rid of the new wetness, but she comes out.

“Now what?” she asks like I have some grand answer.

Like always, I go with the first thing that pops in my head. “Let’s go to my room and talk.”

She sucks in a breath, and a beat passes … then another … then another. Finally, she nods.

It isn’t as if Shaina has never been in my room before. She has. She and I know far too well the time we spent together in that space.

Shaina screams in her sleep so hard I wake up from the couch in my room and roll over to look at her. She thrashes in my bed, twisting into the sheet, pulling it tighter and tighter. She’s having another nightmare, and they are getting worse.

Shit.

I spring up and move to the bed.

Her screams of “
Stop”
and “
Don’t
” echo through my head, putting me back in a place I don’t want to be. I don’t what her there, either. I want to erase it from her head, even if I can’t erase my memories from mine.

“Shaina,” I say quiet yet firm placing my hand on her arm.

She proceeds to fight me off, which I expect since it has happened the last few nights.

I hold tight and give her a squeeze, not letting her go. Not with enough pressure that will cause a mark, but enough to hopefully engage her thoughts.

It takes several minutes of me releasing her arm then squeezing before her eyes begin to flutter open and the sleep begins to dissipate. Then she jack-knifes from the bed, her eyes darting frantically around the space, and I move back a few steps, letting her realize where she is.

“You’re safe, Shaina,” I tell her, calming her frantic gaze.

She chokes out a sob then sucks in deep. “Safe. I don’t even know what that means anymore.”

A pang in my chest hits hard, and I can’t stop the protective mode my body goes into. She’s so small and fragile and beautiful.