There’s only one way for me to go and that’s to run back down the hallway and barricade myself in one of the rooms or go out a window. Distracted by my own thoughts I’m not prepared when he grabs me, pressing the ember of his cigarette into my arm using the hand tattooed with a lion’s head wearing a crown. I cry out, kicking with all I have, but I’m powerless against his strength.
The Lion as I now call him carries me kicking and screaming to the master bedroom. He drops me on the bed, and I attempt to scramble away from him, doing a backwards crab crawl across the mattress, but he’s too fast.
Slap. I’m backhanded, his tattooed hand connecting with my mouth, splitting my lip in two with one of his rings. “You filthy little cunt. I know all about you. Been keeping an eye on you and my useless son-in-law. First you fucked with my money, had my top seller killed, and now you’ve tried to ruin my daughter’s marriage. Nobody fucks with what’s mine and gets away with it.”
“I—”
Thwack. He punches me. “Shut up. I didn’t say you speak.” A sharp pain like I’ve never experienced before shoots through my skull and my vision blurs.
Stars dance in my eyes. I know this time there’s no one to save me. I never should’ve come back, but I couldn’t stay away from James. I don’t regret loving him. I only wish we could’ve had more time. I disappear inside my mind, getting swept away in my memories of him.
We may be a thousand miles apart for all I know, but he’ll live in my heart these last minutes or seconds that I have left.
“Look at me,” the hateful man screams in my face.
I refuse him, earning me a punch to the gut. Oof. All the air goes whooshing out of me. A tear rolls down my cheek as I struggle to escape back inside my mind to thoughts of my biker. Our forbidden love. Everything we never said.
“I said look at me when I’m talking to you.” His rough hands wrap around my throat. This time I don’t deny him. My eyes bulge as I struggle to breathe. I scratch with all I have, clawing at his arms, grabbing at his shirt.
“I’m going to fuck every hole you have until your body gives out.” He lets go of my throat, and I try to roll away from him. I get on my right side when he starts tugging on my yoga pants, yanking them halfway down my legs. I try to fight, but I can scarcely catch my breath. “Stop moving.” The evil bastard attempts to pin me to the mattress. His fingers tear at my panties, nails digging into my skin.
“I forgot my... what the fuck are you doing?” Ruthie screeches. “Get off her.” She flies toward us, and I pray that she can stop him.
“Get the fuck out and mind your own God damn business.”
“I. Oh. My. God. Alexa, sweetie,” she cries, and he backhands her like he did me earlier. Her head whips to the side. “Have you lost your mind?” She screams.
“Do I need to tell you to get the fuck out again,” he roars, towering over her with his fist raised. I should run, but I’m unable to look away. I concentrate on getting my pants back up over my hips. “This is club business and nothing to do with you.”
“But she’s just...”
“I said mind your own business.” He moves to hit her again and she cowers away from him, backing out of the room slowly.
“Ruthie, please. Help me,” I cry out hoarsely, but she’s gone. Lion charges toward me. “No. Please. No,” I whimper as he grabs me up by the hair and slaps me so hard, I black out momentarily.
“Get away from her,” Ruthie says from the doorway of the bedroom aiming a handgun at my tormentor.
“This doesn’t concern you, girl.”
“I said get away from her.”
“Or what? You aren’t going to shoot me.” With his attention off me, I try to run past him. His arm hooks around my waist before I’ve taken two steps.
“Let her go and we’ll never speak of this again.”
“I don’t take orders from you. I fucking give them.” He pokes around in his pocket, producing a knife for his effort. Pressing the blade to my throat he walks me toward her. “I’m leaving and taking this little bitch with me. We have unfinished business. A score to settle. This is club business.”
We’re standing directly in front of her now and Ruthie presses the barrel of her gun between his eyes. Oh God. If she doesn’t kill him, he’ll kill us both. The blade cuts into my skin. I whimper feeling the trickle of blood rolling down my neck.
Chapter Fifteen
Stick a fork in me and call me roadkill. Lion sent me up north to deliver a whore he traded off to The Stable. It’s a ranch in Canada where they shoot porno flicks. I don’t know why he needed me to personally escort her there, but I suspect he didn’t want me poking around in his affairs.
Rolling down my street I see Lion’s motorcycle out front of my house. Ruthie’s car is running in the driveway, but no lights are on inside the house other than the occasional flicker from the Tv projecting on the walls and reflecting on the window. It’s not unusual for my father-in-law to visit with Ruthie, but I have a bad inkling in my gut. I park, shut my bike off, and head for the door.
I don’t know what gives me pause, but I open the door quietly. Slipping inside I listen and wait.
“Do-don’t make me choose,” I overhear Ruthie. The tremble in her voice sends me running. My pulse drums in my ears and races up and down my throat. I stop short in the hall behind my wife. In a standoff with her father she presses the
