Page 56 of Hunter

Phoenix took me home the following day, having refused to leave my side the entire night. We held hands as I sobbed, and even though he thought I was asleep, I could hear him muttering apology after apology to me. He then began pleading for forgiveness from both mom and dad for failing to protect me. It was my boss that had attacked me; it had been building for months now, but I was too stubborn, and too worried about what Phoenix would do if I told him anything. Of course, now I don’t think my boss will have that long to live.

The bar comes into view, looking exactly the same as it always has. Except it’s not. Nothing is the same; I am not the same. Phoenix helps me out of the car while Jake comes running out to meet us. Together, they escort me inside to where Tony is waiting with an expression like thunder. Phoenix eyes him with a severe frown on his face as I lean on him and hobble across to the couch.

“Where the fuck have you been, Lou? I waited up all night for you!” Tony growls just as I sit down with a wince from where my boss cracked my rib. His body had practically crushed mine when he held me down. As soon as I’m safely in place, my brother leaps up, and grabs hold of the scruff of Tony’s shirt, and hauls him against the wall. I can’t even say anything, I’m too broken inside.

“While you and your pathetic friends were drinking in my bar, eye fucking every piece of skank that walked past you, my sister was being attacked! Where the fuck were you, Ortega?! You were supposed to pick her up!”

“I did go and pick her up, she wasn’t there!” he yells back. “I may have been a little late, but I still went!”

Phoenix shouts out a curse before smacking Tony across the face.

“Get the fuck out, Ortega! You don’t deserve to breathe the same air as her,” he snarls before dropping him in a heap on the floor.

“Louisa, you gonna let your brother talk to me like that? What the fuck?” He spits out a mouthful of blood onto the floor, and yet, all I can do is sit silently, staring at a picture of me and my dad. I was still innocent then, and we were happy. “Louisa, fucking answer me!”

“She can’t, you motherfucker, she’s traumatised!” Phoenix yells, his eyes turning red and puffy. It’s still such an unfamiliar look on my terrifying big brother, I can’t help but cry at the sight of him breaking in front of me.

“It’s not your fault,” I whisper to him, but he merely shakes his head, as if the words are too hard to hear. He’s always found it more painful to listen to words that redeem him. He never wanted to be the hero because earning him that title came from such a traumatic experience, he doesn’t know how to handle it. Being the villain, the hardened criminal who everyone is scared of is so much easier. “Phoenix?”

“Her boss raped her last night,” he all but whispers, with his voice breaking on that final word. Both Jake and Tony suddenly move their eyes back onto me, their shock more than evident.

“Lou?” Tony’s softer voice returns, the one that sounds like he knows he fucked up. “No!”

“Get out!” Phoenix yells before physically grabbing hold of him and throwing him out. I can’t watch but it doesn’t sound like Tony puts up much of a fight, nor does he say anything to me.

Soon afterward, Phoenix comes back inside, sits next to me, and pulls me against him. He tells Jake to put a sign up that informs everyone we’ll be closed for at least a week. I know this is him paying his respects to me, but it also means he can take the time he needs to find my boss, my attacker, and destroy him in the only way he knows how.

Chapter 22

Daniel

My week with Lou is…everything. In fact, it makes me want to live with someone, her, permanently. We get up, share a shower, have sex, eat breakfast on the patio outside, go to work, sneak in kisses, and have working lunches together. We aren’t at all subtle either, which means our loved-up honeymoon period earns us a lot of eye-rolling, especially from Theo. Not from our visiting accountant though. Mary is a hard-core romantic going on thirty years or so. After work, I cook my girlfriend dinner and then we make out until ending up in bed again. We are that sickeningly sweet couple still in their relationship’s infancy, but I could care less what anyone else thinks.

The night before Theo’s wedding, I can tell she’s nervous, so of course, I try to push her out of her comfort zone by taking Theo out for a makeshift bachelor’s party while she goes to Izzy’s ‘hen-do’, which consists of Lou and a few people she’s never met before. You can imagine the wide-eyed shock I was gifted with, as well as a panicked rant from my poor girl, which lasted all the way up to Izzy and Theo’s place, where I eventually dropped her off. I listen, take on board her comments, then shrug and grin smugly before getting out and opening the door for her. I’m not gonna repeat what she mumbled under her breath because even I was taken aback. It was nothing a little smack on the ass didn’t sort out though.

“Hey, it’s the groom!” I call out to Theo when he opens the door. “You ready?”

The guy’s still shirtless so I flash my teeth, knowing exactly what he’s just been up to with his bride-to-be. I’m gifted with the middle finger before he moves aside to let us in.

“Give me two minutes,” he says as he grabs his shirt from the back of the couch. “Just enjoying my last round of sex as a single man… Oh, shit, sorry, Lou.”

“No worries, Mr Chase,” she giggles when Izzy appears from around the corner, who unlike him, is looking put together and casual about the whole thing. Lou shyly waves at Izzy who saunters over and pulls Theo away to encourage him to go and get dressed.

“Hey, boys and girls,” Izzy says with a silly grin on her face. “Apologies now, Lou, but apparently my half-sister has tagged along with my niece. Theo’s mum who is also my mum as it turns out, is running late, and it’s still crazy awkward between the two of us. Stella’s just thrown up in the living room and is currently trying to eat it back up, so it’s likely to be a weird version of a bachelorette party.” Izzy shakes her head in exasperation, whereas Lou is now sporting a thoroughly perplexed expression. “But my lovely friend, Will, is coming.”

“Ok,” Lou replies in a drawn-out fashion.

Their crazy retriever, Stella, comes bounding up to us and practically wags her tail right off her ass in excitement. Lou, thankfully, seems quite happy around dogs and drops to the floor to give her hugs. The dog flops onto her back and bares everything to Lou; some guard dog she’d make.

While the dog is entertaining Lou, I sneak off to go and see how Theo is getting on. It will give Izzy and Lou the chance to get better acquainted. They’re friendly enough in the office, but so far, it’s only been small chit-chat between them. I think it would be good for them to talk, seeing as they’ve both been through painful experiences in the past, and they sure could do with some female companionship.

Thankfully, as I mount the stairs, I can hear them both chatting away about the stupid dog who was last seen kicking out her back leg because Lou had found her sensitive spot. Her tongue was hanging out and she was moaning like a real ferocious wolf. I smile to myself, then continue up the staircase, listening out for Theo thudding around upstairs. I’d offered to have him stay at mine, considering it’s the night before their wedding, but he declined, which didn’t surprise me at all. Theo and Izzy are pretty far from traditional, and because of everything that happened in England, they’re not keen to be apart from one another. I kind of envy that about them. Sure, they had a hard start and a seriously long time without one another, but I’ve never met a couple more deserving of what they have now. The guy would walk through fire for her, and I’m pretty sure she’d do the same for him.

“What’s taking so long, Chase?” I ask as I watch him print something off in his home office.

“Just printing off the last of the travel documents before I can wipe it all clean. Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise!” He grins before putting on a jacket. “Good to go now.”

“Cool,” I reply, glancing at my watch because I know we don’t have much time before the rest of the guys will be at the bar, his dad included. I think things are still a little strained between them, but I invited him anyway.

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