Page 13 of Daddy's Desire

All the girls froze for a moment and then freaked out, running around in circles, some of them tearing up. The new girl panicked.

One of them said something to calm everyone down. The new girl relaxed and nodded, and he wondered what that was about. Darian had come back in and sat watching it unfold like the rest of them.

They watched them head down the hallway. They stopped at the doorway to the back steps. Larkin pointed, and the girl took off.

“Fuck,” Darian said and headed toward the girls.

Ronin and the others followed, and Darian stopped them when they were halfway down the steps. They froze with wide eyes and grabbed each other’s hands.

“Where is your friend going, Baby?” Darian asked.

The girls looked at each other and then nudged Larkin.

Larkin cleared her throat. “Um, well, she had to leave.”

“By going out the back door?” Gage asked.

“Oh, well, she was in a hurry,” Sienna said.

Kane growled. “Baby, you’re already in enough trouble. Ifyou keep lying, I won’t go easy on you.”

Sienna’s chin rose. “We’ll just have to see about that.”

A few of the girls looked horrified by Sienna’s attitude, and a few giggled.

Darian turned to him. “Hey, Ronin, could you go find the girl for us? I doubt she went far. It’s dark out, and the back garden doesn’t have a lot of light.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said and headed for the back door.

Within a few minutes, he knew where she was. She wasn’t very good at hiding or being quiet, but then it was dark, with barely enough light from the moon and the few lightsaround the garden.

It felt like someone punched him when he came around a tall bush to see the girl huddled on the ground with her arms holding her legs to her chest. He suspected she was trying to look as small as she could. What hurt him the most were the sounds of crying. She was trying to muffle the noise, but he could tell it was a desperate sound and it broke his heart.

Ronin walked to her. He hated that he’d probably frighten her, but he wasn’t going to stand back and listen any longer without giving her comfort. He crouched in front of her, trying to look as small as possible, but he was six feet four inches tall and two hundred thirty pounds, so it was a bit hard.

“Hey, Honey,” he murmured.

Her head jerked up, and she screamed as she tried to crawl away from him. He grabbed onto her arm.

“Easy, I’m not going to hurt you. I swear. I’m here to help you,” Ronin said.

She kept crying and started shaking her head. “Just let me go. I’ll leave, I promise.”

He shook his head. “No, Honey. I can’t let you do that. I’m guessing you’re at the end of your rope and exhausted. Let ushelp you.”

“I don’t think you can,” she said and stopped fighting to get away from him.

“Have you and the girls come up with anything that will help your situation?”

She shook her head and sniffed. “No.”

He sat down next to her and leaned against the tree. Ronin kept his hand on her forearm and moved his thumb back and forth, trying to soothe her.

“Why don’t you tell me the problem?” he asked.

The tears started to run down her cheeks again. “I can’t.”

“Honey, listen to me. Your friends have very good men who will do anything to protect them. Now that they have befriended you, those men will help you in any way possible, including me.”

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