So, yeah. I was very concerned for Olivia’s safety. Well, that was about to be fixed. I was taking her to Grim Road to stay with me. I’d prove she could trust me and I’d work on trusting her.
Piston pulled a blindfold and a hood from the console and handed them to me. I carefully placed the blindfold over Liv’s eyes and the hood over her head to prevent her from seeing where we were going. The back windows were darkly tinted, so no one could catch a good glimpse of us in the back seat. Piston took back streets and made several direction changes as he took us to the club house.
Piston’s phone rang. Venus picked it up and answered.
“Da.” There was a silence before Venus disconnected the phone. “Byte says all clear. We go back to clubhouse.”
We were always careful about returning home, but Piston and Byte were assuming we were actively being followed. He even left the road at one point and went through the wetlands and back trails before Byte gave him the all clear. When we got to the clubhouse, it was by way of the back of the property.
* * *
Olivia
The second I was able to ditch the hood and blindfold and climb out of the vehicle, I spotted Apple. She ran full force, shoving her way through the big men scattered around us, and threw herself at me.
“Liv! I was so worried! Thank God you ran into Bear and Ringo!” Apple hugged me fiercely, not letting me go even when someone tried to pull her off me.
“I’m OK, Apple.” I patted her back a couple of times before gently pushing her away. When I did, one of the men kept her moving away from me. “It’s OK.” I sounded like I was consoling someone while on the way to the execution chamber. Because I knew absolutely it was not OK.
“Come on,” Bear said, taking my hand. “You can spend time with her once this is cleared up.”
I could see Apple arguing with Leather. He was steadily leading her back to the club house, not forcing her or being overly aggressive, simply moving her away calmly as he spoke to her. I didn’t know Apple that well, but she’d seen the end of an argument I’d had with my father and Mr. Black. Apple had marched toward us and grabbed my hand, telling the pair to fuck off while she took me to a local diner and offered me a place to stay. That was the first time we met.
The next time I’d met Apple, it had been with a black eye and a busted lip. While the first encounter had been an accident, the second one hadn’t. And I’d suffered through it in silence.
Bear took me to a small house a short distance away from the clubhouse. We walked, my hand firmly in his. We could almost have been a couple out for a stroll under the moonlight. Except for the elephant hanging over us.
He ushered me inside. I wouldn’t say it was dirty or anything, but it was definitely a man cave. It was messy with beer cans and pizza boxes on more than a few surfaces. But the couch and chairs were free of clutter. There were no dishes in the sink or dirty clothes laying around on the hardwood flooring, and the place smelled clean.
“Fuckin’ prospects,” Bear muttered. He pulled out his phone, selected a contact and put the phone to his ear. Whoever he called answered almost immediately. “You tell that little punk, Redwood, to get his fuckin’ punk-ass friends over here and clean up my place. If it ain’t exactly how I left it in thirty minutes, Imma kill every single one of them motherfuckers. And if there is even one thing out of place in my bedroom, it won’t matter if they get my place clean.” He stabbed at the phone’s screen, disconnecting the call. “Motherfuckers,” Bear muttered under his breath.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, then turned his attention to me. “Same rules apply here. No shut doors except those leading outside. House has an alarm that goes straight to Crush and Byte, so we’ll have you back before you reach the perimeter.”
“I understand.” I refused to meet his gaze. Bear already knew my tells. He knew when I was lying.
There was silence. I wrapped my arms around my body as I stood there, unsure what to do next. Bear shuffled around the room, picking up beer cans and bottles despite sending for the people who’d apparently made the mess. He didn’t say anything until there was a knock at the door.
“Thank Christ,” he muttered, then stomped to the door and yanked it open. Three younger men stood outside. All of them looked ready to piss themselves.
“Sorry, Bear,” one of them said. “We were comin’ back to clean up but thought we had more time. You said you’d be back in the morning.”
“So the first lesson you better have learned is not to put shit off. When you have a job to do, you fuckin’ do it.”
“And we never went nowhere except in here and the bathroom,” one of the others said as he picked up a nearby box and started moving through the room. “And no whores, Bear. We was just watchin’ the game. I swear.” The guy didn’t much more than look at Bear. He was picking up everything out of place and tossing it into a big-ass contractor trash bag.
“How could you guys have eaten so much pizza during the fuckin’ game anyway?”
The third guy had a cocky smirk as he leaned against the door. “We’re growin’ boys, Bear. Got all kinds of…” He paused and turned his gaze to me, his smile widening to a lascivious grin. “Voracious appetites.”
Bear lunged for the younger, smaller man and grabbed him by the throat in what looked like a crushing grip. The guy went for something at his hip. Bear was all up in his face, so I was certain there was no way he knew what was happening.
“Bear! Knife!” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them. I even lunged to grab the guy’s hand as he came out with the knife.
There was a scuffle as one of the men was pulling at the guy with the knife, the other trying to pry Bear’s hand loose.
“Drop it, Redwood!”
“He’s gonna strangle him to death, French!” This was the guy trying to pull Bear off the guy they called Redwood.