Page 5 of Carver
She huffed, looking tired and frustrated. “I don’t know. Mom left when I was a kid. Maybe he thinks I’ll leave, too?” She frowned. “I do all the cooking and cleaning. Record when they have a woman willing to do a sex tape.” She shrugged. “Maybe he just doesn’t want to have to find someone else to do all that?”
A low growl rumbled from my chest. “Are the womenwillingor drugged?”
She shrugged again, but this time, she didn’t speak. I rolled my jaw around before standing to my full height and moving around the chair. She silently slid her arms back into place, and I slid the zip ties around her wrists again, hating the blood that immediately coated them. But I tamped down the urge to take care of her.
Still, once she was bound again—and my dick was pressing into my zipper becausefuck, there was something about her being at my mercy that I really fucking liked—I gripped her chin, forcing her blue eyes on mine. “You’re not going back, Jennifer.”
With that, I snatched up the plate and stormed up the stairs, my insides in a fucking turmoil.
4
Carver
Rain pounded on the tin roof above my head, a constant drum beat to roll with the rhythm of the rain coming down, though it wasn’t near loud enough to drown out my thoughts. Jennifer had been in my head all fucking evening after I talked to her in the basement. It’d pissed me off having to leave her down there, but the rest of the guys didn’t trust her. I knew they couldn’t risk her lying to us and hurting Lindsey or Eric, the boy we’d sort of taken in. But my gut told me Jennifer wasn’t lying. That she was a victim, too.
And I knew the moment Blink decided to let her back out into the world, she may very well die if her father found out where she’d been. In our territory. Under our roof. In our fucking basement.
The clubhouse door opened, and I glanced up through the smoke of my blunt to see who was joining me. Blink arched a brow at me before dropping onto the picnic table beside me. I looked away from him, staring back out over the lot where the rain pounded down, creating puddles and little rivers once it hit the ground.
“You barely touched your food, and now you’re getting high alone outside, where it’s cold and wet,” Blink mused.
“Not like you to bother me when I’m in a mood,” I grunted. Blink had always been the quiet one. He never said much, though he was a damn good leader. It was why Grit, Carter, and I had followed him out here. Followed him into being an outlaw. Decided to live on the wrong side of the law.
He usually let us stew in our own shit, let us figure things out on our own. He knew if we needed to talk about it, we’d come to him when we were ready.
He sighed. “You’re right; it’s not. Lindsey sent me to check on you.”
I snorted, my lips twitching with an aborted smile. “The queen gave a command, so you marched.”
He kicked me lightly in the leg with his steel-toed boot. “Don’t be a fucking dick, Carver. What’s going on?”
I sighed before lifting my blunt to my lips, staying quiet for a moment as I tried to figure out how to voice my feelings to Blink. To explain my sudden infatuation with the daughter of our rival. To figure out how to tell him I didn’t think she was on her father’s side.
How was I supposed to tell my president, the man who gave me a place to belong, that I disagreed with his decision to lock Jennifer in the basement? I understood where he was coming from. I understood that he had a pregnant old lady and a sort-of adopted kid to look after. But Jennifer wasn’t the one in the wrong here. She was doing her best and just trying to survive.
“Jennifer…” I let my voice trail off for a moment. “Prez, she doesn’t belong in that basement.”
He hummed, watching me with unreadable eyes, his gaze boring into the side of my face. I put out my blunt before shoving it into my cut. Bracing my arms on my knees, I stared out over the lot again. The rain was coming down harder and faster now, creating a gray haze just past the awning I was sitting under. “She opened up to me down there when I was giving her dinner. She’s a fucking victim, Blink. She’sterrifiedof her father and of every other man in that club.”
He grunted. “Then why did she stay?”
I sighed. “Seems like he keeps her under lock and key. She has to have an escort just to leave the clubhouse premises, remember? Pretty sure it’s not for her safety. It’s to keep her from running.”
He was quiet for a moment. “And you’re telling me she managed to escape, and the first place she came was to enemy territory to check on my wife instead of running for the hills? It’s suspicious, Carver.”
I huffed. “You think I don’t fucking know that?” I snapped. My fingers curled into fists before I forced them to unclench. I flexed them, trying not to let my temper get the best of me. “Look, you always tell us to trust our gut. To follow our instincts. And my fucking instincts tell me she needs me, brother. That she needs my protection. And she needs a safe place to land for a while.”
Blink stared at me for a moment, his eyes unreadable. Finally, he heaved a tired breath, looking out over the lot and breaking our eye contact. I turned with him. The rain was beginning to slow a little now, though it was still dreary and loud as it banged on the tin roof above our heads.
“I’ll make you a deal because I trust you,” Blink eventually said, suddenly breaking the tense air between us. I didn’t look at him—just waited for him to say whatever he planned to say. “She can come out of the basement. She can even stay here. But she stays inyourapartment, and she isyourresponsibility. Understood?”
I nodded once, my muscles easing, some of the tension bleeding out of me. “Understood, Prez,” I said quietly.
It wasn’t a responsibility I would take lightly.
5
Jennifer