Page 23 of GOAT

I slipped out of the room, following him out of the hall. He put his finger to his earpiece. “Digg, Babe,” he said, calling for Arlo and Ace respectively, “we need the van. Target acquired.”

“Got it,” Arlo responded before it went silent again. The racket that’d been surrounding us was slowly dying down, but my gut told me it wasn’t over. Not yet.

“Be alert,” I told Jax. “Something’s not right.”

He nodded. “Yeah—I’ve got the same feeling,” he rumbled.

Just then, men rushed out of the first hall. I ducked back into the hall we’d just left and set Abbie on the cold, cement floor. She made a small, frightened noise, her glistening eyes staring up at me in terror. I pressed my finger to her lips. “Silence,” I whispered. I grabbed my pistol from my belt and handed it to her. “If it’s not me, Agony, or one of my brothers, shoot. Understand me?”

She nodded. I slung my assault back around, joining Jax in the fray of bullets and shouts, our backs to the wall closest to the hall Abbie was hunkered down in. Konrad and Shaw rushed up a hall, some of Anatoly’s men at their backs. It was fucking mayhem. Bodies were dropping. My fucking ears were ringing. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins. Where the hell were all these guards coming from?

“Get her and go!” Konrad barked at me. “Now!”

I didn’t question him. I just slung my rifle back around to my back. Jax covered me as I turned into the hall, grabbing Abbie from the floor. She clutched the pistol, her eyes wide and fearful, but without a word, my brave woman wrapped her arms and legs around me, clinging to me as I rushed for the stairs, Jax at my back. When we got upstairs, Arlo had the van backed up, Ace waiting inside with the doors open.

“Get her to the clubhouse!” Shaw barked in my ear. “Bender and I have got this.”

“Understood,” Ace responded as I jumped into the van, Jax hot on my heels. Ace and Jax slammed the doors shut, and my knees slammed into the floor as Arlo rocketed away from the building, my body curling around Abbie’s to protect her from the fall.

“Here,” Ace said, handing me a blanket. Abbie wasn’t letting go of me—that much was clear—so I wrapped it around her the best I could before clutching her to me, burying my face in her greasy, dirty hair.

“It’s over, little devil,” I rasped, my voice hoarse. “I’ve got you.”

And as if those words opened the gate to her emotions, she wailed, sobbing and falling apart in my arms in a mixture of relief and sadness for everything she’d gone through.

All I could do was hide my face in her hair as I bit back my own tears—my own agony.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Abbie

By the time we got to the clubhouse, Cameron had managed to untangle my limbs from around him long enough for him to slip his shirt over my head. I’d stopped crying, and now I was just… tired. And sore. And I hurt everywhere, especially between my legs and my ass. I could feel the dried blood on my thighs, and I knew Cameron had seen it. The agony that had been in his gaze when he laid his eyes on me—the pain he felt for me—would forever be imprinted into my mind.

I would never forget it. A man who was as manipulative and uncaring as Cameron hurting for me like that…

It just broke my already fragile heart even more. And after all the hell I’d endured, after watching them slit that poor girl’s throat because she had fucking endometriosis and wasn’t fertile enough for the ones with breeding kinks, I hadn’t thought my heart could break more than it already had.

But Cameron had managed it with one look. One devastating, tormented look.

“Easy,” Cameron murmured as Jax pushed open the back doors and got out. “I need to get you inside and cleaned up,” he said softly.

I nodded, clinging to him, my nail beds sore and aching as I pressed my fingertips into the back of his sticky neck, my blood on his skin from where I’d gripped him and reopened my raw fingers. I’d been tied down most of the time while I’d been in that awful place, but when he’d wanted to “test out the merchandise”, he’d untied me.

He’d wanted me to fight. And fuck, I had. Through all the tearing. All the horror. All the pain. I’d fucking fought.

Ace bounded out of the back after us and slung open the clubhouse doors. A girl, who I assumed was Blu, burst into tears at the sight of Cameron carrying me in. Blakely, Jax’s wife, stood from her seat, drawing Blu into her arms and turning her away from us. The boy, who I assumed was Grey, stared at me in wide-eyed horror. But there was an understanding there, too. Like he knew what I’d gone through.

Like he knew just what hell I’d endured. That just broke my already broken heart even more. He was so young. He didn’t deserve whatever he’d gone through.

“I need to get you in the shower,” Cameron told me, his words soft, his tone gentle. I barely swayed as he climbed the stairs and made his way down the hall to a door, which he opened. The moment we stepped inside, his scent wrapped around me, calming me in a way nothing else could ever hope to.

“Don’t know if I can stand,” I told him honestly, my throat hoarse, making my voice come out in a low rasp.

“I’ve got you,” he assured me. He settled me on the bathroom counter before easing his shirt over my head, dropping it to the floor. He ran his eyes over me, taking in the bruises on my skin—bruises in the shape of fingertips, hands… fists.

Just because he’d wanted me to fight didn’t mean he hadn’t fought back even harder. He’d wanted me to hurt. He’d wanted me to pay for whatever Cameron and his brothers had done to his uncle.

“They marked you with my lucky number,” Cameron rasped, staring at the aching, burning wound on my shoulder.

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