I never dreamed I would be one of those women who wound up abducted. I was so careful about everything on the way here, or so I thought. The job was supposed to be a simple sting operation where I posed as a prostitute. If I got the cops the information they wanted, they promised they’d drop my charges. Promised. The word meant so little at this moment. Expunging my record wasn’t the only vow the police department failed to uphold. Nor did it seem to hold much value for the other promise that was broken. Multiple officers repeated the same thing over and over, “We’ll protect you. We’ll be right there. Don’t worry.”
But they weren’t there when I was taken. They not only failed to protect me, but they also didn’t even save their own lives. I wasn’t safe. She wasn’t safe. We both were going to die if we didn’t get out of here soon.
The shitty part about this whole thing was, I could have protected us all if only society accepted us as equals. I should have shifted the moment I smelled him, but his scent confused me. For a very fleeting instant, I thought he might be my savior. Instead, the man who I’d given my trust to so freely without a second guess would likely be my executioner.
I didn’t fear death for me, I welcomed it, but I wouldn’t accept it for her. She was helpless right now, and unfortunately, I was the only one who could save her. There was only one thing I was certain of, if I didn’t get out of here soon, she would die. I had to save her. She was my everything. Without her, I was nothing.
281
Loco
“Two fucking weeks, Tyson. Fourteen days that little shit hasn’t shown his face around here.” I flipped the straw from my glass between my fingers and crunched a few pieces of ice between my teeth. “Knew he was a ‘too good to be true type of situation.’” I eyed our chapter’s president, Tyson, as we communicated silently through our thoughts, and a crack of thunder broke the silence.
“According to Jackson, he didn’t answer his phone either. You scared the poor bastard. Maybe you should learn to restrain your beast around the prospects until they’re patched in, Loco.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth as his upper lip curled. “This one’s on you. Just in case that isn’t clear enough for you, it means you can take your brooding ass over to his place to strip our denim and letters from him.”
“Esa choca del coño,” I cussed in Spanish, while heat rose to my face, and the temper I had inherited from my father surfaced. Typically, the only times I spoke or thought in Spanish were when I was overwhelmed or pissed. As of late, though, everything seemed to set me off. I tried my damnedest to be nothing like that son of a bitch piece of shit. Fucker was on the run from the law and forced us on a cross-country “family” trip. Of course, I couldn’t comprehend what was going on right in front of me. The reason Mom was so upset every time I touched something in the store was too much for my tiny mind to process at the time. With each item my thin fingertips pointed out that I wanted to get, she’d shake her head from side to side, and more sadness and disappointment filled her eyes.
Eventually, the owner got tired of us squatting in his store without buying anything and said he would call the cops if we didn’t leave. I didn’t like my dad before that day, but ever since then, I’ve fucking hated him. He literally left us without a pot to piss in, the guy wouldn’t even let me use the restroom before he kicked us to the curb. I was ten, not even old enough to fully understand the situation. The thing about life was, it did not give any consideration for age or the strength within. Whatever was going to happen, did happen, regardless if you were ill-prepared or not.
“He was a bitch,” Tyson thought in a disapproving tone.
“The fuck?” I loudly spat out, cocking my head to the side, and my eyes shift to Tyson. His eyebrows playfully raised a couple of times as he tapped the pad of his pointer finger against his temple. Nothing was confidential around a bunch of assholes who you happened to call brothers, not when the lot of you had a telepathic connection. We all heard each other’s thoughts the majority of the time, whether we wanted to or not—all of us except Jackson, that was.
“The fuck what?” Jackson looked up from the pool table and stared at me from the other end of our clubhouse. I had no clue if he was missing that part of his brain or what happened to him, but the only time he heard us was after we shifted. As long as we were on two legs and not four, the fucker was as deaf as they came. Out of all of our brothers, I gave him the most shit, there was no competition in the slightest. Fucker was as strong as an ox, which made him a damn good enforcer for our chapter of the Dark Leopards MC. However, to my knowledge, he was the only shifter to walk this earth who only communicated with us verbally while in human form, and it bugged the shit out of me. The rest
