Solomon banged on the heavy door, and the grunted response from the other side had him pushing it open. Solomon threw me an amused look. “Hey Pres, your VP brought you a present.” I was going to put my fist through his face next time I got the opportunity, just for being such a jackass. Still, I straightened my shoulders and pushed the girl into the room gently.
She froze in the doorway, the first sign of hesitancy I’d seen in her yet. So far, she’s taken the whole thing in her stride with sass or stupidity, I wasn’t sure which, but standing in front of the Pres was enough to make her quiver beneath my hand. Maybe she wasn’t so stupid after all.
Judas was a scary man. After he’d had his eye plucked out, it had healed roughly and now he wore an eyepatch like a fucking pirate. Combined with the five o’clock shadow and his shaved head, the guy looked like a demon. The irony was real.
Amusingly enough, Judas looked just as stunned. I didn’t smile though. I liked my intestines where they were. Judas broke from his shock first, his stormy eye finding me and pinning me to the spot.
“What the hell is this? Get this bitch out of my office and back to wherever you picked her up from, Cain. We talked about this, no more strays.”
He said that like I picked up women in desperate circumstances every day of the fucking week. I don’t. Sometimes I offer the street kids a place to crash and get on their feet, but they work fucking hard for the Club. And never the girls. This was no place for a woman who wasn’t an old lady or someone who wants to be passed around. But I made an exception for this woman. She needed us. I could feel it in my bones.
Apparently being called a bitch would knock the shock straight out of a person because Serendipity was no longer frozen. She was rigid with indignation. This was going to go south real quick. I put my hand around her forearm, shaking my head to deter her from whatever tirade she was about to launch to verbally shred our President. It wouldn’t endear him any more to the idea of her staying. “You don’t even want to hear me out?” I say softly, not keeping any of the disappointment from my voice. I loved Judas like a brother. Hell, he was my brother. More than that even. We were bound by something greater than blood or love or any other such existential bullshit.
Judas sighed, dropping his pen and standing up. As he did so, I saw his whole body go rigid. He must have missed the rounded bulge of her stomach. I didn’t blame him though, her face was pretty damn distracting. His one good eye shot to me, and there was a world of feeling in it for a moment before he shut it down. Yeah, bro. I’d been there. There had been a reason I couldn’t say no despite the ‘no more strays’ mandate.
“Speak.”
I rolled my eyes at his command, like I was a dog or something, but I let it slide. “Some piece–” Serendipity glared in my direction, “Uh, a customer from a few months ago brought her in. Real sweet kid. I told you about her and the blond guy who felt a little like someone from our past. Do you remember?” Judas nodded. “This customer, Hope, said that Serendipity needed our help.”
The Pres switched his gaze to Serendipity. “So you decided to get in a car with a stranger who dragged you to a biker bar?” He raised his eyebrows. “Can’t protect against stupid, Cain. Gotta have some self-preservation instincts to start with. Take her to a women’s shelter somewhere.”
Solomon’s gaze was bouncing between the three of us like he was watching a trainwreck, which he probably was. Serendipity growled. “I trust Hope’s judgement and somehow she knows the giant has a good heart. She wouldn’t have sent me with him otherwise. I trust that he doesn’t hang around with the kind of person who rapes women and kills children.” She lifted her chin, daring him to prove her wrong.
Judas’ body was so rigid I worried he was going to snap. I edged a little closer to the girl, and noticed Solomon doing the same. Judas’ jaw flexed as he got himself under control.
“Tell me.”
She frowned, her nose screwing up in a way that was fucking adorable. “Tell you what?”
Judas crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a look that had made grown men piss themselves.
“Everything.”
2
Judas
I was holding myself so tight, I could feel my muscles twitch. My gaze kept drifting to this woman’s midsection like it was magnetized. I gritted my teeth, willing them back up to her face, but her eyes were just as bad. They were like the Mediterranean Sea during a storm, and I was pretty sure I was drowning.
“I met a man,” she said softly, her backbone rigid. I didn’t need to know any more about this fucker. I already wanted to pound his face into a pulp. “He was beautiful. Like inhumanly beautiful. I don’t normally…” She trailed off, a soft rose color lighting up her cheekbones. “I don’t get close to people, but with him, I couldn’t help myself. We had one night, and it fucking sucked. He was pretty but selfish.” She looked over at Solomon. “You know the type, right?”
Cain laughed at the subtle burn, and Solomon opened his mouth to defend himself, but I waved a hand at him, stopping him before he could speak. I could see the laughter dancing in her eyes. “Anyway, the next morning he seemed disgusted with what he’d done. He called me all sorts of vile things. He punched me in the face, knocking me out, and when I woke up, I was in a place of darkness.”
My eyebrows drew down at her odd phrasing. She was holding something back, but I let it go. “He kept me there for months, though he never came back. But his friend did.” She swallowed hard and the first sign of true terror crossed her face and I wanted to fucking trash my office. I wanted to growl and howl and fucking kill any person who had ever hurt her. I fucking hated her for it. Instead, I waved for her to continue impatiently. “I was dying. I was covered in wounds, cuts and bites where I’d been tortured.”
Cain let go of the same emotion that I was holding so tightly to my chest. He turned and put his fist through the drywall. Solomon was beside him almost instantly, but I didn’t fail to notice that he placed his body between the woman and Cain. We both knew the big man would slit his own throat before he hurt her, but something about her put even the most easygoing of us on alert.
“Continue,” I grunted, and annoyance flared in her eyes. Good. It was better than that dead expression.
“Anyway, Hope found me, rescued me. She dropped me off with… someone else. But when I began to show, I realized that that fucker had knocked me up. Despite the condoms. Despite the fact I’d been starved and beaten for months. When this other person realized I was pregnant, we decided it wasn’t safe for me to be there anymore.”
I growled. “What kind of spineless bastard kicks out a pregnant woman on the run?”
Her shoulders straightened and she looked me right in the eye. “One that wants what’s best for his kids.”
So it was a guy. I didn’t like the fire in her expression when she thought about this other savior. I was going to fucking beat him until he couldn’t lift a hand to touch her, kids or not. I clamped down on the thought.
I didn’t give a damn who she fucked. I had no interest whatsoever in this woman. Not sexually or emotionally. She was Cain’s fucking problem.