“Sorry,” she whispered. She swallowed hard. “That hurts.”
I put my finger back to the same spot and felt a little lump. “Turn your head.”
She did and I noticed a small bruise.
When our eyes met again, I curled my lip. “Who?”
“Daxton,” she said.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “You’re Daxton’s old lady?”
“No,” she said. Her hands jumped, pulling at the rope. “No. I’m not anyone’s old lady. No. I hate Daxton. He was… it was a mistake.”
“He hurt you. What did he do and why?”
Fuck, Trent, what does this have to do with Night Soul trying to kill Duke?
“It’s Daxton,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve met him.”
“I asked you a question.”
“He grabbed my face, okay? I had bags packed to get out of the clubhouse. I wanted out of it all. I never meant to get as close as I did. I had helped them out with some stuff.”
“Killing people?”
“I’ve never killed anyone, Trent. I swear on my life.”
The way she said my name and the way she begged made my dick throb. I felt myself thickening, pressing against my jeans. Yet I still stood there, even though it was becoming obvious that my other monster wanted its own attention.
“If you tried to leave how did you end up at that gambling thing?”
“Rocco and Gunner made me,” I said. “Gunner pulled me into the room. Their main room I guess. They have everyone on the wall.”
“What do you mean?”
“All your pictures.”
“So that’s how you knew me,” I said. “When I grabbed you, you didn’t go all that crazy. You looked at me like you had seen me before.”
Harlee nodded. “They had the pictures in order of everyone.”
Her bottom lip started to quiver. She blinked fast like she was about to start crying. I couldn’t give in and give a damn though. If she needed to cry, then cry. If she needed to piss herself, then she could piss herself.
“So they told you to poison Duke,” I said. “They gave you the poison. Said to pour it into his drink.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Then what?”
“Then go back to them. I don’t know from there…” She turned her head. “I never wanted this. I’m not a killer. I don’t want to get hurt.”
“Look at me, darling,” I said.
Harlee did and I saw how glossy her eyes were. “I don’t want to die, Trent.”
I wasn’t going to tell her she wasn’t going to die because that was a lie. I had to keep the fear and get everything out of her. Because if I didn’t, the other guys would. They’d do it by any means necessary with death as a bonus at the end of it all.
A tear fell from Harlee’s eye and ran down her cheek.
I thought about wiping the tear away but I held back.
Instead, I reached down and put my hand to hers. She wrestled with the rope and turned her hand to grab at mine.
“Are you really a monster?” she whispered.
Stop tempting me, darling, or you’ll meet the monster.
Before I could respond to Harlee’s question, the door to my room exploded open.
I turned and saw a gun.
**
“You motherfucker,” Duke growled as he swung his gun at me.
Whatever he had been drinking worked to my benefit and against his own. He missed me by a mile and stumbled to the left. I quickly shoved him into the corner of the wall where he hit with a hard thud. I lifted my foot and kicked, slamming his hand to the wall making it so he dropped the gun. I kicked the gun out of the way and then grabbed Duke by the shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Duke swung with the back of his hand and got me in the jaw. He turned and swung a left fist and it was nothing short of getting hit with a brick to my cheek. I felt my neck crack as it turned and I instantly tasted blood.
Duke was in war mode and wanted to kill his enemy. I watched the way he looked at Harlee and he had her pegged as the enemy. Again, I totally understood it. She had been sent to kill him and she had come within a minute of actually doing so.
As Duke jumped over my bed, I tried to grab for him but missed him. Harlee let out a wild scream, kicking and pulling at the rope around her wrists. Not that she would stand a chance against Duke to begin with but having her tied up and unable to try and defend herself made it all that much worse.
I saw Duke bring his fist back.
My eyes went wide.
The guy could blackout all he wanted. He could get angry. He could want to fight. But if he thought for a second he was going to hit a woman, fuck him.
I raced around the bed and hooked my right arm to his arm and twisted, taking him down. He crashed to the nightstand, knocking a lamp over. It shattered. The nightstand fell over, a drawer opening, leaving a spilled mess of bullets and condoms.
All part of the life, my friends. All part of the life.
I took a swing at Duke’s face with my left hand but had a bad angle. He growled and grabbed my shirt.
“She tried to kill me!” he yelled.