“I have plenty of young pretty things on their way in. One of them will have to do. My current personal favorite is yours for the evening, she’s blonde,” he offers.
My body trembles. Everything shakes from the inside out. The man grunts, but I don’t think he is satisfied with the answer that my father has given him. My father’s eyes flick over to mine. He opens his mouth to say something when I hear the back door open.
Swinging my head around. My breath escapes my lungs at the sight in front of me. There are five girls, and they are all my age or younger, all wearing matching black tube dresses with cheap flip-flop sandals.
My father’s words suddenly replay in my head. “I have plenty of young pretty things on their way in. One of them will have to do. My current personal favorite is yours for the evening, she’s blonde.” What the hell is going on here?
“Go to bed, Leighton,” my father grunts. “Now.”
I turn away from him, my heart beating quickly, my stomach turning. Rushing past the girls, I pause when I see her. She looks like me, so much like me that we could be mistaken as sisters.
Her light blonde hair is straight and long. She’s slim, her legs are long and she’s the same height as me. Her eyes are even close to the same shade of blue. But when my gaze clashes with hers, my heart stops in my chest completely.
Her eyes are haunted. Her lips are slightly cracked and she has dark circles beneath her eyes. She looks like she’s sick. Like she hasn’t slept in days. Her eyes roll back in her head and they flutter. She’s on drugs.
Looking back over my shoulder, my father no longer realizes I’m still in the room. His eyes are glued to her, to the girl who looks exactly like me. He has a predatory gleam in his gaze, and I watch as he licks his lips at the same time, he adjusts his crotch. My stomach lurches. Suddenly that birthday cake from earlier is threatening to reemerge.
Spinning around, I run upstairs, scrambling until I get to my bedroom door. Slipping inside, I pant as I look around the room. I have no lock on my door, my father doesn’t allow them. I’m on the third floor, so I can’t climb out my window.
I’m stuck.
Tears fill my eyes. They fall too fast for me to wipe away, so I don’t bother trying. Walking backward, I only stop when I’ve reached the far corner of my room. Sinking down to my ass, I sit in that corner and watch my bedroom door for the rest of the evening. Waiting for that man to open it.
The next morning, I slink downstairs to breakfast, hoping to be alone, but my father is there, sitting in his usual seat. Wishing that I could run back upstairs, his cold gaze finds mine immediately.
“Sit,” he demands. Sinking down in the chair across from his, I hold my breath waiting for him to speak. “You saw nothing last night, Leighton.”
“Father,” I whisper.
He shakes his head with one quick jerk. “You saw nothing. If you choose to believe that you saw something, you will be punished.”
The way he says punished, I know that my fate will be one that I cannot even fathom. Gulping, I nod my head.
“I saw nothing,” I whisper.
“Good girl, now eat some fruit. It’s good for you. No toast though. You’re fifteen now, it’s time you lose that baby fat.”
That day was the beginning of the end of my childhood. That moment thrust me into adulthood. An ugly, seedy, filthy adulthood that I wished never existed. One that I wished I could change.
But how?
I didn’t know.
MOUNTAIN
TWENTY YEARS OLD
I’ve been watching him for a while. Watching the way he beats on the new bitch he has in his bed. I shouldn’t give a fuck what he does with his time, he’s no longer my keeper, hasn’t been since I started with the Beasts. There’s something about letting him roam around freely, his filth damaging every person who crosses his path that I want to end..
“You gonna do something about that, hermano?” Silver asks.
Jerking my chin, I open my cut to show him the gun in my shoulder holster. “Yeah, I think I will.”
Standing, I throw my leg over my bike and make my way toward the front door of my childhood home. My father took off when I was four. My mother left the week before I did, never coming back, opting for a man with a fat wallet instead of taking care of her kids.
My brother kept the house. It’s paid off and my mother didn’t give a fuck. He’s trashed it of course.
Without knocking, I kick the front door open. The woman screams. She can’t run, he has her by a fist of hair, her eye bruising and swelling as I flick my gaze between them.
“Wondered when you’d show here again,” he simply states. “Want an ass beating after this filthy whore?”
I shake my head once. “Not today, Waker. Do think it’s about time you had one though.”
He snorts, pushing his bitch to the ground. She cries out, but stays in her place, like an animal, like the animal he’s taught her to be. Chuckling, I take my gun from my holster and hold it to his face.
“You wouldn’t, I’m your flesh and blood,” he shouts.
“You ain’t shit,” Silver barks next to me.
I chuckle. “Agreed. You ain’t shit, Waker. Never were, never will be.”
“Help me, please,” the girl whispers.
Flicking my gaze to hers, my heart stops in my chest. She’s beautiful. She has long dark hair, big green eyes, and even with a bruising and swelling eye, she’s just breathtaking. How my brother could beat on her, I’ll never know.
“You aren’t worth it,” I grind out, glancing back to Waker.
He laughs. “All it takes is one little doe-eyed look and you’re sold, huh? Interesting. You can have her. Got everything I wanted from that skank anyway.”
“Get out of town,” I grind out.
“Or?”
Silver takes a step forward. “Or the Savage Beast MC will make sure you leave and you never come back. You ain’t our blood, we have no fucking problem taking care of you.”
Waker actually gulps and he takes a step back, his gaze flicking from Silver to me, then back to Silver. “This place is a shithole anyway.”
Bending down, I scoop the pretty thing up in my arms and with Silver at my back, I carry her to my bike. She climbs on behind me, wrapping her arms around me before I rev the engine and take off, finally leaving my past where it belongs, in my past.
“What’s your name?”
She climbs off of the back of my bike after I pull into the clubhouse parking lot. Turning my head, I look over at her, my gaze flicking down the length of her body and goddamn, my cock twitches beneath my jeans at the sight of her. She’s stacked.
“Gabriella,” she breathes. “Thank you for helping me.”
“What’re you doin’ with Waker anyway?” I ask.
Her lips curve into a small smile. “I like bad boys. I just didn’t realize he was going to be bad to me.” She takes a step toward me, lifting her hand, she touches my chest. “You aren’t bad like him, are you?”
“Oh, I’m bad,” I grunt. “I just don’t beat bitches for fun.”
She licks her lips. “What do you do for fun then?”