Page 132 of Tormented
“How old are you?” I ask.
Grace looks warily across at me, and then answers. “Five.”
“He touched you? Hurt you?”
Her lips quiver before she whispers, “Yes.”
I reach out and scoop the kid up as she falls apart, crying for her mommy. Abbey watches with a fist to her mouth and tears in her eyes. Just makes me hug that kid harder looking at the living proof of what she’ll likely become.
Wow. My devil lifts a brow as I struggle to contain my anger. Even I wouldn’t have stooped that low. We went easy on him . . . .
Nothing would have been enough of a death for a sick fuck like that. Nothing.
“We’ll take her back to the clubhouse until we figure this out.” I nod down to my pocket. “Ring King and give him a heads up.”
Abbey steps forward to retrieve my phone, blowing a wayward strand of hair out of her face with her bottom lip stuck out. I watch with nothing short of wonder as she carefully strokes Grace’s back, and then thumbs through to King’s number.
She handled this whole evening with an eerily calm finesse. As broken and scarred as this spitfire is by her past, she hasn’t let it destroy who she is today. She just doesn’t realize it.
She handles her demons better than I do.
Hey now, play nice . . . .
No.
I’m sick of this, of being conflicted, torn in two directions, and loving every second of where each road takes me. I thirst for the kill, to spill blood and make the scum of this earth suffer, but at the same time I can’t get enough of tender moments like these.
Grace mumbles, drifting back to sleep, curling in tighter as I run a finger over her shoulder. She’s so tiny—at least compared to a monster like me—and yet she has the power to bring a man as corrupted and selfish as me to my knees.
I’d do anything for a soul as pure as hers.
To save her innocence.
To keep her untouched.
Anything.
“He didn’t answer,” Abbey says. “I left a message in case he didn’t get to it in time.”
“He won’t answer if he’s in a meetin’ with someone, which is pretty darn likely given what’s coming up.”
“It’s half an hour to get home.”
I hold Abbey’s concerned gaze and nod. “And we can’t get her anywhere with one bike and three of us. But we can’t stay here.”
She paces the sidewalk, rubbing a hand over her stomach as she moves. “I’ve got an idea.” She jerks her head, indicating I should get off the bike.
Hoisting Grace higher into my arms, I rise and step aside, curious. Abbey rubs both palms down her legs before taking hold of the bars and heaving the machine upright. I’ll give her credit, it’s no lightweight, yet she manages to wrangle it like a pro. Using her boot, she kicks the stand up and starts wheeling it down the road before coming to a stop and looking over her shoulder. “You coming?”
“Where we off to, Abbey-girl?”
“Away from here. We need to move in case somebody saw us and called the cops. You never know—people can be suspicious, especially in a quiet place like this.” She gets the Harley rolling again with a grunt as I catch up and walk alongside. “I figure if we get a few blocks away we can call someone who’ll answer for help.”
I frown, adjusting Grace as she wriggles in her sleep. “I don’t need help.”
Too proud to ask . . . as always . . . .
Abbey comes to a stop again, somehow managing to keep the bike balanced with a thigh pressed into the seat and one hand on the bars. She brings my phone out of her pocket with the other and waves it in my direction as she speaks. “You want to make the call, or should I? Because as far as I can see, we’re not going anywhere fast in our current state.”