The Secrets We Keep, page 26
I snort a laugh then clasp my hand over my face. “God, that hasn’t happened in years.”
“It’s cute,” he teases, booping my nose like a loon. “Why the laugh anyway?”
“Well, I’m here and your mom does not like me.”
He turns to face me, becoming serious for a minute. “She doesn’t know you yet. She’ll come to love you, you’ll see.”
Pausing for a moment, his gaze locks with mine before he takes my hand and brings it to his lips. “It’s impossible not to.”
“Let’s get this party started, shall we?” Shae is so loud as she drops onto my lap that I almost wince, but then I laugh as she loops her arms around her brother's neck. “Pretty please come and dance with me, Mey. Teo is being a spoilsport.”
Glancing around, I realize that Mateo isn’t in the room. I mean, this is his home, so if he’s had enough, it’s not like it’s weird that he disappeared. I don’t know him, so I don’t know if him being a little bratty or introverted is out of character.
There is definitely something about him that I can’t quite put my finger on, though. Laughing to myself, I shake my head. My judgment in people obviously isn’t sound. Not if you look at my track record. So maybe I’ll just shut down that little voice.
“Fine, fine,” Meyer concedes and Shae jumps to her feet, clapping her hands. It’s amusing to me that she’s only a few months younger than I am, yet, Meyer treats her like a little kid.
They all do.
“You next, Hunter!” she says, pointing at the blond who is now sitting across the table with Rory. “Then you, Lion Man.”
As they walk away from the table, I look over at the two, then decide to scoot over to the other side with them. “Why Lion Man?” I ask as I drop into the seat next to Rory.
“Because ROAR-y,” Hunter says, making cat-like swipes with his hand with the widest grin I think I’ve seen on him. Rory rolls his eyes while I giggle.
“Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense.”
“It’s stupid, but Mama Marino has called me Little Lion since I came to the house. It just kind of stuck.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid. You seem fiercely loyal, a lionheart of sorts.” He blinks at me, then just shrugs.
“Maybe.”
“Would you like to dance, Angel?” Hunter asks. While I am still a little mad at him, I’m tired of being angry and carrying the weight that comes with it. I also can’t remember the last time I danced with a guy…
“Sure.” I climb to my feet, a little unsteady, but Rory grips my waist from where he’s sitting. I place my hands on his arms before leaning forward and kissing his cheek. “Thank you.”
Before he can respond, Hunter whirls me away toward where everyone is dancing. The music is a mashup of old school songs, stuff from before our time, and newer hits. I have no idea who put the music on or even where it’s playing from, but it’s loud enough to be dance worthy, but not so loud that I can’t hear Hunter speak.
We dance like idiots for a few songs, making faces at each other. I can’t help but cackle loudly when he jumps around and wiggles his ass at me. He’s a total loon, but this is so much fun that I’m glad I decided to stop being mad at him.
Being mad is exhausting.
The music slows and Hunter steps closer to me, looping his arms around my waist, so I clasp my hands behind his neck and sway with him.
“I could do this forever,” he murmurs as he rests his cheek on the side of my face. “Just like this.”
I rest my head on his chest, not saying a word. Because what do I even say to that? Really, I need to talk to him, to Meyer, to all of them at once I guess, and work out exactly what it is they want from me because this not knowing my place thing is enough to drive a girl insane.
Letting out a sigh, I pull back and open my mouth, but as I go to speak, three gunshots crack through the air.
The music cuts out and the room turns into chaos until a voice shouts above the madness.
“STOP!” I look around and find Rory standing on the table.
“Teo, take everyone to the safe room,” Meyer demands as Rory jumps off the table.
“Go with them,” Hunter says to me, but my hands are shaking and I feel frozen. “You will be safe, just go with them. It will be safer for you there. It might be nothing, but if it is something. No one will get through the defenses but, just in case, go with them.”
Everyone is already leaving the room, just Shae is trailing behind, waiting for me. She looks as afraid as I feel and my brain kicks up the memory of what she told me happened to her. That’s enough to get my ass moving since she has far more reason to be afraid than I do, and if she can manage, so the hell can I.
“Be careful,” I say to the three of them. Each of them nod and I head over to Shae. Once we’re walking, I glance back, seeing just their backs as they go to deal with whatever is going on. A little voice in my head chimes in that I might not see them again and it hits me.
I want to see them again. I want to be theirs, whatever that means.
Despite the shock that filters through me as more gunshots crack through the air and Shae starts to run, dragging me along behind her. I need them to survive.
The house shakes and Shae lets out a scream. Gunfire sounds closer and she freezes.
“Come on, Shae,” I urge her, trying not to panic. I have no idea where the panic room is. I can’t see anyone else now and I’m a little worried that, despite hauling ass, we’re going in circles.
The house is big, but it can’t be this big.
Or am I really just so lost because of the adrenaline in my system?
My hands tremble as I grasp Shae’s shoulders and shake her, but it’s like she can’t see or hear me.
Shit.
What the fuck do I do?
I glance around the hall, wishing I knew this place better, and drag Shae through the closest door to us. It’s just a small guest bedroom, so definitely not as safe as a panic room, but it’s got to be better than being out in the hall.
“Shae,” I murmur softly as she slides down the wall, clutching her head, eyes scrunched closed.
She chants the words, “Not again” over and over.
“Shae, please.”
Silence echoes around us and it’s somehow louder than when there was gunfire.
She scratches at her arms, hard enough to draw blood, and panic fills me. I don’t know what to do.
I look frantically around the room, spotting the dresser. Moving as quickly but quietly as I can, I tear through the drawers and finally find some towels. She’s stopped clawing at herself now, but she’s back to pulling at her hair.
Grabbing the towels, I move back over to her, trying to clean up the blood on her arms, then try to pull her hands from her hair, but it’s no use.
It’s almost like she’s lost inside her head and the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
Voices call out down the hall, but with the door shut, I can’t hear what they’re saying. Uncertain, I debate risking opening the door to see who is out there. Hunter said no one would make it inside the walls, let alone the house.
But what if he was wrong?
The voices grow louder but I still can’t make out what they’re saying, though I can hear doors opening and closing.
My heart picks up its pace. What if they’re not on our side?
Shit, shit, shit.
“Shae,” I whisper-shout, but nothing. I open the door next to where she slid down, revealing a small closet. It takes all my strength but I manage to get her to move into the closet.
The handle on the main door to the room twists and I slam the closet door shut, holding my breath as I turn to face the door.
“And who is this?” The bald man standing in the entrance to the room smiles at me, his yellow and blackening teeth on display enough that my stomach twists.
Fake it till you make it, Quinn.
Jutting out my jaw and straightening my shoulders, I lock my gaze with his. “No one you want to mess with.”
His grin somehow widens. “Oh, breaking you will be fun.” He reaches behind him and my breath catches as I suddenly find myself staring down the barrel of a gun. I freeze, unable to look away from the weapon in my face.
He steps toward me, reaching out with his free hand, palming my boob over the thin fabric of my dress, and I want to scream, to cry, but the gun holds me captive.
Yet again, I’m at the mercy of a man and helpless.
Rage strikes through me and I want to knock his hand away from me, gun be damned, but I can’t make myself move.
Humiliation and shame run through me as his hand runs lower, pulling my skirt up to cup me. “Oh, yeah. You’ll be fun to break.”
Gunshots sound in the distance again, seeming to distract him enough to stop touching me. Like he forgot the reason he was here in the first place.
“Out,” he says, motioning with his head to the door, keeping the gun firmly on me. “Now.”
My knees shake as I try to follow his demand, focusing on not glancing at the closet in the hope that he doesn’t find Shae.
I step out of the room and movement to the right catches my eye. Hunter stands there, a finger to his lips, so I stare forward again. “Keep moving!” the man shouts from behind me, pressing the gun in between my shoulder blades. I jump, squeaking at the hard pressure on my back and take another step as he pushes forward.
He clears the doorway and the gun disappears from my back.
“Stupid move, asshole,” Hunter says and I turn around, finding him standing with a gun pressed against the guy’s temple. “Betraying us was fucking idiotic.”
The guy opens his mouth to speak, but seems to think twice when he spots the three other bodies in the hall that are currently lying in pools of blood.
Meyer and Rory round the top of the hall at that moment, Rory spattered in blood, Meyer with his sleeves rolled up, both disheveled yet entirely unfazed.
“Are you okay, Kitten?” Meyer asks when he reaches me, and I nod automatically.
Oh, yeah. I’m all rainbows and sunshine.
“He hurt you?” Rory asks, glancing at me before turning his stare on the guy who had me at gunpoint.
I open my mouth to speak but shame slices through me and words escape me. So instead, I nod and look at the ground.
“Motherfucker had a gun pressed into her back when I found them,” Hunter spits, drawing my attention back to them, and Rory's face turns stormy.
“Did he touch you?” Rory asks me, not taking his eyes from me. I stay still but he must see the humiliation on my face because he clenches his fists. “Oh, he’s mine.”
“Shae,” I utter to Meyer, trying to change the focus of this whole situation. His brow furrows like he doesn’t understand what I’m saying. “She’s… she’s not in a great way. She’s in the closet.”
“You got this?” Hunter asks Rory, who nods. “I’ll get Shae.”
Meyer nods, relief that I don’t quite understand flitting across his face. “Thank you.”
Rory takes the guy and leads him down the hall in the opposite direction they came from as Hunter enters the room I just left, leaving me standing with Meyer.
“Come on, Kitten. Let’s go get the others.” He tucks my hair behind my ear before roaming his eyes over me, as if to make sure I’m really okay. “Then, I’ll explain all of this.”
“Okay,” I say quietly, the adrenaline seeping from my system, leaving me exhausted and confused. None of this makes sense to me, but then, I don’t understand this world yet.
Though, I get the feeling I’m soon going to know more than I ever wanted. I guess I should’ve been careful what I wished for.
Once we let everyone out of the panic room, Meyer ended up dealing with all of his family, calming his mom, and sending them all home. He kept me stuck to his side the entire time, keeping a hand on me, grounding me, and somehow, despite everything, I still felt safe.
He finished dealing with everyone about an hour ago and we’ve been in his office since. He’s been on the phone doing a whole lot of shouting while I’ve been sitting on the floor near the fireplace that he lit for me, staring at the flames.
I should be a mess right now. Terrified. Wanting to run. Freaking out.
But somehow, I’m not.
The problem is, I can’t work out if I’m just numb and that all of that is still to come, or if I’m just… okay.
I can’t imagine being okay, I just stared down the barrel of a gun. Hell, I can’t even remember what the guy that put the gun in my face looked like, but I can very clearly see it pointing at me. Feel it digging in between my shoulder blades. And yet… I’m calm.
Color me shocked.
Shae hasn’t been far from my mind the entire time we’ve been down here. I know Hunter said he’d get her, but I don’t know how he would’ve pulled her from the mental state that she was in. She told me some of her shadows, a trauma bonding of sorts, but she obviously barely scratched the surface when we were talking because that reaction… I still don’t know how to process that either.
Meyer quiets, drawing my attention from the flames to look up at him where he’s leaning against the sill of the window. He’s rubbing his temples and looks like the weight of the world is sitting on his shoulders right now. He hasn’t explained anything yet, but he’s been a little busy and I don’t know that I’m in a place to really properly take in anything he might tell me.
“What’s running through your mind, Kitten?”
I tilt my head as he watches me. He pushes to stand, as if he’s going to come toward me, but is interrupted by a knock at the door.
It opens and Rory’s head appears through the gap. Once he sees we’re in here, he steps in, Hunter following moments later.
“It’s handled,” Rory says to Meyer, who nods, pinching the bridge of his nose again.
“What did you learn?”
Rory glances at me before answering Meyer’s question. “He came to us loyal but turned a few weeks ago. Something to do with his brother that I’m not quite sure I’d normally believe, but I made sure it was truth.”
He pauses and I turn my gaze back to the fire. I’m not sure I want to know exactly how he ensured he got the truth, but also, I can’t help but question why knowing he must have gone to extremes doesn’t bother me like it should.
I don’t like violence but… right now, I want him to have done all he could to find out what happened. More because of Shae than what happened to me. This is a place she should’ve been safe. Even if she made snide remarks about it being her cage, I could tell that she didn’t hate it. Or at least, she didn’t dislike the idea of being trapped here where no one could reach her as much as I did.
But these people took that from her, even if just for a moment.
It can’t have been more than twenty minutes between the first gunshots and Hunter finding us, but it felt like hours. For Shae… I can’t even imagine.
I tune back into their conversation, having missed a good chunk while lost in my thoughts.
“—there were three others. One got away, but he won’t be lost for long. The others were already dead when I found them. Lucky assholes.”
Meyer nods. “I’ve been on the phone the entire time you’ve been gone. Dario swears he didn’t know a goddamn thing, but I don’t trust that asshole. His people wouldn’t act without him.”
“They might,” Rory grumbled. “There’s been a lot of whispers going on over there. Cole has been keeping me updated, the loyalties are shifting and Dario isn’t winning the votes the way he once did. Cole had no idea tonight was happening, which makes me think this was Giovanni.”
Meyers brow rises, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes. “Dario’s little brother is making a power play?”
“Rumor has it he has some powerful friends outside the club that want to see him sitting upon the metaphorical throne.”
None of this makes any sense to me, but I stay quiet. Meyer said he would explain everything and I trust him to not lie to me. I mean, why would he at this point? I’m here, listening to all of this. They know I’m not going to the police, they know I’m not running—not that I could even if I wanted to—so I keep my mouth shut, my focus half on them as I try to warm up from the fire beside me.
“Fucking hell,” Meyer hisses. “What a mess.” He pauses for a moment before turning to Hunter. “How is Shae?”
“She’s not great,” Hunter says, frowning. “She still hasn’t come back to herself, none of the usual tips or tricks are working. I don’t know what triggered her exactly, but all things considered, it could have been anything. Your mom is with her now, but I think she’s going to need to go back.”
“Back?” I ask quietly, interrupting.
I turn myself so the fire is behind me, facing the three of them.
“How much has Shae told you?” Hunter asks me as he drops onto the chair by Meyer’s desk.
“Not much,” I admit. “Enough that I know she was taken, that it was bad, and she has that darkness inside of her, but not enough that I was prepared for tonight.”
Hunter glances at Meyer, then Rory, who takes the other empty seat, before looking back at me. “Shae was taken while she was traveling, her attempt at finding herself while getting to see the world. She had a guard with her, but Shae used to despise her protection detail, didn’t see the point. So she slipped them one night and ended up being taken by traffickers.”
He pauses, like he’s waiting to see if I have anything to say, but I keep quiet, waiting to hear the rest.
“She was fed drugs until she couldn’t fight back anymore, until she’d beg for more and did whatever they wanted just to get a hit. Be that for escape or just for the drug, I don’t know. By the time we found her… well, it took us too long.”
“Is that when you found Yen?” I ask, curious at the similarities in the story.
Hunter nods. “It was. We got nearly fifty girls out that night, a few guys too, but it was barely a dent in the operation.”
I nod, my heart hurting for Shae and Yen—despite my current feelings toward her, I’m not a heartless bitch—and what they must have experienced.
