Chapter 2
Callie
I woke up on a scratchy comforter, and as soon as I opened my eyes, I squinted at the bright lamp in front of my face. Where the hell was I? It looked like a hotel room, but I couldn’t remember going to a hotel. The last thing I could recall was walking through the house party on Mallory’s heels, trying not to bring any attention to myself.
I lay there quietly, trying to catch my bearings, when I realized I wasn’t alone in the room. I could hear two men’s voices, one deep and the other raspy.
“You f*cked up the meet, man. Slider’s gonna cut off your balls,” the raspy one joked.
“Shut the f*ck up. Jose was gonna cause problems and you know it. Had nothin’ to do with the girl,” the deep voice replied, sounding frustrated.
“Yeah, but it wouldn’t have been a f*ckin’ gun fight if you woulda kept your head.”
“I kept my head. Someone starts f*ckin’ shooting at me, I shoot back. It’s f*ckin’ common sense. Jose’s low level, no one’s gonna miss him or his men.”
Then, another voice joined the discussion.
“Dude, it’s gonna look like you took Jose out over a piece of ass,” he said quietly.
“Then you’ll have to explain matters, won’t you?” the deep voice warned.
“Not sure what I’ll be explaining. You took them out and then grabbed the bitch and left. Looks pretty cut and dry to me…”
“Brother or not, I’ll f*ckin’ drop you where you stand.”
“Fine.”
I tried not to panic as someone grabbed a hold of my foot at the edge of the bed and shook it.
“Grease, man, it looks like your girl is waking up,” Raspy Voice said to someone else in the room.
I lay there silently, begging to be anywhere but in that f*cking hotel room waiting to see what would happen. My head was starting to throb with the beat of my racing heart, and when someone spoke from right behind me, my whole body jerked.
“Get your f*ckin’ hand off her foot,” the deep voice growled. “Don’t f*ckin’ touch her.”
The tone of his voice was enough to clear all the cobwebs from my brain. Before he even finished speaking, I had pulled my legs up and pushed with my heels until I was sitting, curled into a ball against the headboard of the bed. As soon as I was as small as I could make myself, I jerked my head up to see what I was dealing with.
There were four men in the room—really big men—and when I saw them I whimpered a little in the back of my throat. Three of the men were wearing matching black leather vests, tattoos covered their arms and they all had beards. They looked like they belonged in a Hell’s Angels documentary, and I swallowed hard, knowing they belonged to some motorcycle club. Motorcycle Clubs were full of criminals, weren’t they?
God, if I had just stayed home like I was supposed to, I wouldn’t have had to deal with any of the mess I had created for myself. My eyes raced around the room, taking all of them in, and I was surprised when I saw the fourth man. He wasn’t wearing a vest, and his clothes seemed similar to the ones I saw every day at school. The only thing setting him apart from my peers was the Mohawk on his head and the tattoo that wrapped around his left hand. He didn’t seem scary until I looked at his face. He was scowling at me and his eyes were empty.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing there, but I knew it was bad. They looked scary. None of them were smiling, and for the life of me, I couldn’t think of one good reason that I would be in a hotel room with four men. My clothes were still intact—I even had my shoes on—but I was afraid they had been waiting for me to wake up.
I eyed the door, but there was no way I could get off the bed and through it before one of them caught me. They were sitting and standing throughout the room, and one of the guys in a vest seemed to be standing guard in front of the door. Why would he be guarding the door? Oh God, I was in so much trouble.
The second I was about to panic—crying and screaming for them to let me go—the man closest to me sat down on the edge of the bed. He was extremely good looking, and probably not that much older than I was, though he had a full beard covering the lower half of his face. When he reached out to lay his hand on my knee, I squeaked in fear and pulled my legs closer to my body. God, I didn’t want him to touch me.
“Hey, not gonna hurt you,” he told me quietly. “You passed the f*ck out and we had no idea where to take you. Now that you’re awake, you can call someone to come and get ya.”
His voice, so different from the tone he’d used earlier, calmed me down enough that I was able to look up into his eyes. As soon as I saw them, I remembered the night in a rush of clarity. He’d saved me. He’d taken me out of that house with the disgusting guy that was trying to pull me upstairs. Before the thought was even finished in my mind, I’d launched myself across the bed and into his lap sideways, wrapping my arms tight around his neck.
“Thank you. Thank you,” I told him over and over again, pressing my forehead into his neck. I didn’t realize that he hadn’t touched me until his hands gripped my upper arms and pushed me away from him.
“The f*ck are you doing?” he asked me, his eyebrows furrowed.
“You took me out of there. Oh my God, thank you,” I told him again, straining against his hold.
“Babe, I’m not sure if whatever you were on just hasn’t worn off yet, or if you’re f*ckin’ na?ve as hell, but you can’t sit on my f*ckin’ lap,” he mumbled as he pushed me onto the bed.
My face blushed beet red as I realized what I had done. The man wasn’t a policeman or a fireman. He wasn’t a family member. Shit, he wasn’t even like the guys I knew from school. He was big, strong, and completely rough around the edges. I’d been so thankful to be out of the house, I hadn’t grasped the actual situation I was in. I was surrounded by men that I didn’t know from Adam, and they were all staring at me as if I’d just sprouted horns.
“I’m, uh, sorry,” I whispered, worried about what would happen next.
“No need to be sorry. Just need to get you home. You got someone you can call?” he asked as he walked toward the dresser with a cell phone sitting on top of it. He tossed it to the bed, and I reached out quickly to grab it. I needed to get home, but my stubborn pride wouldn’t allow me to call my parents. I wasn’t sure what to do, but he was treating me like an adult, and for some reason I didn’t want to look like a kid in front of him.
I should have been scared as hell, but I wasn’t. I was just … worried. I wasn’t sure what would happen next, but the guy didn’t set off any alarm bells. He’d protected me, and that’s what I felt—protected. I was pretty concerned with how things would play out, though. I couldn’t just sit there on the bed indefinitely, looking at the phone, while the men in the room watched me in silence. The man in the corner made my skin crawl a little, and though my protector seemed to be in charge, I knew with the slightest provocation that the man in the corner would make his play.
“Um, I don’t have anyone to come get me tonight,” I told The Protector, “But I’ll call my Gram. She can come get me in the morning. She can’t drive at night,” I hurried to explain before running my tongue between my braces and my lips. My mouth was dry from whatever I’d drunk at the party, and my lips were starting to stick to the little metal brackets in my mouth.
“Yeah. Call her. But tell her I’ll bring you home,” he grumbled, staring at my lips.
“But—,” I started, but he cut me off.
“No. You’re not staying the night in my goddamn motel room. Not gonna happen. Call your f*ckin’ grandmother, or a friend, or your f*ckin’ priest, but you’re not staying here.”
His voice was so sharp that I felt my breath catch in my throat. I mean, I knew I was a nuisance, and I could tell that they didn’t know what to do with me, but he didn’t have to be so mean about it.
I flipped open the phone and dialed the number from memory as The Protector went to stand against the wall, his eyes never leaving me. After only half a ring, she answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Gram. What are you doing up this late?” I put my hand to my forehead in embarrassment as one of the guys chuckled quietly at my attempt of small talk.
“Callie? What’s going on? Where are you? This isn’t your number.”
“Yeah, I lost my phone.” I looked up to see The Protector swinging my purse from side to side across the room. Okay, I guess I didn’t lose my phone. “Well, I mean, I couldn’t find my purse.”
“Your purse? Why aren’t you at home?” she asked, and I could hear her leaning forward in her creaky recliner.
“It’s a long story, Gram. I’m on my way—I have a friend bringing me to your house. If Mom calls can you tell her I’m there and I’m asleep?” I asked, crossing my fingers. Asking Gram to cover for me was hit or miss, I wasn’t sure if she would help me out.
After a minute of silence, she answered slowly, “Yeah, I’ll tell them. But if you’re not here in an hour, I’m calling your dad.”
I’m not sure what she heard in my voice, but she knew I needed her to help me out, and for once she wasn’t going to give me shit and leave me hanging ‘for my own good’.
“Thanks, Gram. I’ll see you soon. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Get your ass home,” she told me and then disconnected.
When I looked up at the room, eight eyes were watching me closely, and it looked like the man who’d saved me had gone pale. I looked around the room, trying to figure out what the problem was, when the man by the door barked out a sharp laugh.
“Holy f*ck, Romeo. You decide to play f*ckin’ knight in shining armor, and the bitch you bring home is jailbait.”