Back to You: A Hudson Family Series- Book 1- Synclair and Reece (5 page)

Turning to the broad-shouldered Samoan, I took the keys to the bar out of his hands. He was a big guy, about six four and three hundred pounds and fully tatted down both muscular arms. His tan face and hard features were intimidating to most. Not to me though. He frowned when I snatched the keys, looking at his empty palm, struggling to make sense of what was transpiring.

“You’re done Gus, I’ll have UJ courier you over your final check plus an extra week,” I announced pulling Rachel along with me toward our cars.

“What the hell Syn? Just like that?” Came his angry growl.

Yeesh, what a baby. “Yeah just like that, you’re paid to be here, you weren’t and now you’re done.” I stood by while Rachel got into her white Volvo and then I sauntered over to my red, mustang convertible. I didn’t have a lot of things but this was my one splurge. I loved how fast the 5.0 engine picked up speed and growled as it left others in the dust. I was just about to open the door when Gus’s whining voice hit my ears.

“You’re a bitch.”

“You’re unemployed,” I answered throwing my purse in the back seat.

“You’re a fucking mean bitch.” He screeched. I saw Rachel wince at the insult. I wasn’t bothered I had been called worse.

“Absofuckinglutely,” I yelled shutting the car door and following Rachel out of the lot. I was done.  I was tired. I was following Rachel home and then throwing myself face first into my bed. I stayed right behind her instead of the usual two car lengths. I didn’t see a reason to hide anymore since the little brat already knew. Damn, she was probably going to want to hug again.

I watched her turn into the campus parking lot and park. I was about to pull out of the spot, where I had pulled up next to her when she jogged up to the driver’s side of my Mustang. Sighing, I rolled down the window to her grinning face. Her green eyes sparkled mischievously.

“Forget something?” I asked trying to sound bored. The truth was the kid made me laugh, a lot.

Rachel’s faced softened, and she looked at me with a sad expression on her face. “I know when you were my age some guy screwed you over.” She started.

“You know that how?” I asked, thinking UJ needed to keep his damn mouth shut.

She smiled. “You told me Synclair, when you had your molars out. You were pretty drugged up, but you told me about your mom and the guy with the green dragon eyes who slept with you on a bet.”

I didn’t know what to say. I just sat there, mouth agape. I didn’t share things with people, and definitely not those things. However, I did recall having Rachel drive me home after the oral surgeon had yanked my molars. The other stuff… not so much. Trying to figure out where she was going with all of this, I just shrugged.

“You can trust me Synclair, we’re friends you and I. The guy was a jerk and so not worth your time back then but…” She trailed off suddenly looking uncertain.

“Spit it out Rachel.” I just needed her to get to her point. The kid was sharper than people gave her credit for and a helluva lot more observant.

“Maybe you should try forgiving him or...uh...dating some nice guys.”

“I date plenty Rachel.” I snorted

For the first time since she had strayed into my bar, Rachel looked pissed off at me. “I’m not talking about the guys you FUCK in the backroom or your office.” She accused. “Yeah, I know about the one and dones you have, all meaningless, unemotional, screws that mean nothing to you.” She was breathing heavy when she finished.

Damn, now I felt like crap. I was actually embarrassed. Before I could answer, she grabbed my hand and put something in it. She stared right at me, more serious than I had ever seen her. “You are worth so much more than you know, you are smart, funny and I know you have a big heart. You take care of me, of Uncle Jack and I know you help those women at the shelter. You’re like my big sister and I want to see you treat yourself better than you do, you deserve a happily ever after.” She reached her head inside the car and kissed my cheek and was gone.

I glanced down in my palm and discovered she had put the panties I had failed to put back on this afternoon there. I laid my head back against the headrest. Damn, I groaned, and began the short drive home.

*****************************************

After a night of no sleep, I pulled up in front of the women’s shelter I volunteered at. I didn’t consider myself a giver by no means. But I knew that when my mother ran from one of my many “daddies,” she ran here. It was the one place I knew I could go when things got bad. As I walked through the door, I saw the kids huddling on the cots. They were probably new.

I knew how it felt to be scared, to not know where you were going to sleep or eat next. I shook off the memory. I was just paying back my debt. This place had helped me when I had nothing. When my mom’s boyfriends would beat the crap out of her and she had nowhere to go, this shelter always took us in. I didn’t blame these women, I had been one. It’s easy to say “Just leave the guy”, but most people didn’t know the cycle of abuse, how it breaks you down and makes you doubt everything.

I had seen women come through here and when confronted with the task of starting over, just couldn’t do it. It always made me sad when they went back to those assholes. But I always let them know they could come back here anytime, and I always hoped that next time they’d find the strength to break away for good.

It had happened for one woman I had worked with. Her name was Constance. Her parents had literally sold her to her husband when she was 14. She didn’t read, she didn’t write. Her husband was some scumbag drug dealer from Columbia. I had never seen the guy but I am sure he was one of many dealers moving product here in Vegas. When Constance had called the shelter, she was too terrified to come in. I don’t even know how she got the number, it didn’t matter, though. I had picked her up on the seedy side of Fremont Street with her two-year-old boy. I couldn’t believe how messed up her face was. Her brown eyes were practically swollen shut and her tan skin was peppered with bruises. She was holding her son Felix’s hand with one hand and her side with the other. Her ribs would turn out to be merely bruised, but that was no consolation when I looked at the imprint of a shoe on them from where the bastard had kicked her. So I had done the ultimate no-no. I took a personal interest in her.

Against, everything I was supposed to do, I made arrangements for her to start over in a small town in New Mexico. I got her a tutor to teach her how to read and write and I put $10,000 in a bank account under the false name I got for her. Passports and identification documents were about another ten grand and when I was done she was set up to start her new life.

It was the one of the few occasions that my street connections came in handy. The only condition was I could never contact her again or vice versa, the burner phones I had used to talk to her were destroyed as soon as I was certain she was okay.

Unfortunately, this little adventure left me just shy of $20,000 in my savings. I didn’t have a purpose for the money anyways. Other than saving it to someday buy the bar from UJ when he retired. The bar made a great profit and since I lived in the apartment above it, I had little to no expenses.  I remembered how happy she was when I showed her their new home in New Mexico. She had hugged me and cried while she kept saying things in Spanish.

Waving to everyone as I made my way to the desk.  I sighed. Throwing my purse in the drawer, I attempted to clear my head. Every other Saturday I sat behind this desk. I answered calls, I directed abused, scared women how to get restraining orders, I counseled them on programs that we had. It was never enough, though, we could only do so much, and usually it just didn’t cut it. I knew it, and I knew they knew it too and that just sucked.

Wondering when I had become such a damn bleeding heart, I missed the door opening to the shelter. Unless you knew the code, you had to be buzzed in. Mainly because we didn’t want angry spouses coming in and dragging out their wives and kids. In fact, you couldn’t find us unless you were told the address.

The footsteps were what I noticed first. They were heavy and quick. Shit, I glanced up to see three men in expensive black suits and ties walking toward the desk. Pushing the button under the desk, I hoped the alarm gave the other volunteers time to get everyone locked in the rooms.  The guy in the middle had a groomed beard but hard black eyes. His suit stretched across well-defined arms. Okay, so suit guy worked out. He was good-looking but not my type. He was either a Fed or a freaking thug, both were not appealing.  When he smiled, I knew he looked familiar. Shit, Constance’s son Felix had the same dimpled grin. However on him, the white teeth and full lips looked predatory, not adorable. This was bad, this was really bad. I pressed the silent alarm that would alert metro and hoped they got here before it got ugly.

“Gentleman.” I addressed them never taking my eyes of the guy in the middle. The bald guy on the left snorted at my greeting and the guy on the right with the fat, pudgy face and beady eyes unbuttoned his expensive suit at the waist revealing a shoulder holster and gun. So it was going to be like that was it? I had my own gun. A Glock nine, but it was locked in the cabinet with my purse. Fuck.

“Synclair Patrick.” Shit, he knew my name. I smiled sweetly rising from the chair.

“I guess you have me at a disadvantage, I don’t know your name.” I kept my voice level. I needed to buy time till Metro got here, I needed to keep them talking and away from the women and children, who I knew were cowering behind the locked doors.

“Luis Reynaldo Pedrocho Escobar.” He grasped my hand and kissed my knuckles. I pulled my hand back slowly trying to avoid gagging. “These are my associates, Raul,” he said pointing to the guy on his left “and Pablo,” gesturing to beady eyes on his right.

Associates? More like thugs, I almost snorted. Okay now was not the time to act off the cuff, I had to keep my temper in check.

“Mr. Escobar, I take it you and your men are lost, I’m certain I can give you directions back to the strip.” I offered, knowing full well he was precisely where he wanted to be.

He raised one arrogant eyebrow at me and smirked. Again with the smile, I felt like I was being sized up for dinner.

“Actually Synclair Patrick it’s you I wished to talk to.” He stepped closer, and I instinctively took a step backward.

I chuckled. Okay, it was a forced chuckle, but it was all I had at the moment. I needed to get control of the situation. I needed to keep him busy.

“You have information that I require, and in exchange, I will give you something you want,” He replied smoothly. He reached out and ran hard fingers down my arm. Forcing myself not to reach out and break his fingers I did the next best thing.

I brought my palm up and slapped his smug face. I realized my mistake as quickly as my hand connected with his face. So much for keeping my temper in check. His goons flanked me, each grasping one of my arms. Stepping on the foot of the thug on my right, I elbowed the goon on the left and then brought that same hand into a fist and right into his nose. Shoving one then the other away from me, I grabbed the bat from behind my desk. It always paid to have a bat stashed someplace.

I watched Luis’s face go from sheer anger to grudging amusement. Not certain what that meant for me, other than I was going to get my ass kicked as quickly as his goons recovered. I raised the bat and backed up a step and got in a swinging stance.

Luis grinned. With a wave of his palm, he stopped his two thugs from coming at me. Great, he was freaking amused, I thought sardonically, now I was cornered by an insane, amused thug.

“You are feisty Synclair Patrick.” I detested the way he said my full name, it made my skin crawl.

Rubbing the cheek I had just smacked he smirked.

“If by feisty you mean I don’t like to be touched by thugs in expensive suits, then yeah, I’m a feisty girl,” I responded back.

That took the grin off his face. “I want my wife.”

Not dropping my bat I gave him my most innocent expression. “Your wife? Where did you lose her? I hear Bellagio has a lost and found, did you try there?” I knew I was pissing him off, but I just couldn’t help it. All I could see was Constance’s swollen eyes and that damn shoe print on her ribs. This guy was used to getting what he wanted, and he wasn’t used to people, specifically women, talking back to him.

“My wife is confused, I just need to talk with her and then she and my boy will come home with me,” He announced walking right into my personal space. His goons stayed by the door.

Okay, I was done playing cat and mouse. I heard the distant sirens and knew Metro was only minutes away. He must have heard it too because he seized my arms so fast and hard that I dropped the bat.

“I want my wife, now!” He demanded.

“No one gets everything they want Luis, my suggestion would be to move on and find a new one, maybe one that is less confused about being beaten by a bully of a man who stomps his feet like a child.” I hissed back at him, my Irish temper getting the best of me.

The grip on my arm was crushing, so much so I could feel the circulation getting cut off. “My wife never deserved the life I gave her,” He growled.

“Well, there is where you and I agree asshole,” I told him, knowing we were speaking about two extremely different viewpoints.

“You took what I love Synclair, I will take what you love too.” He pushed me backward against the wall letting go of my arms at the same time.

“I didn’t take her Luis,” I yelled. “She ran, screaming from you to me.” I should have shut up, but I was so pissed I could spit nails. Where the hell was Metro? They had a code to the building, a freaking code that was going to have to be changed since someone sold it to Luis, it was the only way he could have gotten in here.

He laughed, and it was so deep and evil sounding, I actually got goosebumps.  Luis and his goons walked to the door, at the last moment he turned. He smiled, and it chilled me to the bone. “Give my regards to your uncle.”

Before I could even pull myself off the wall, he was through the door. Panicked I grabbed the key to the cabinet and unlocked the drawer, grabbed my purse and got out my phone. I was dialing UJ when Metro’s finest came through the door. After the fact, I thought bitterly as I placed the phone to my ear, cops were constantly arriving after the fact.

As Metro deputies filled the office, I hung up and called UJ again. Again, it went to voicemail. I hastily snatched the loudspeaker microphone and announced the all clear, to the volunteers so they could unlock all the doors and begin the task of soothing the women and children. I was about to call UJ again when an officer, not much older than me, with familiar brown eyes, approached me.

“You okay Syn?” Josh had the same eyes as his father, Officer Donny. Only, he had become a detective instead of staying on the street vice like his Dad. Josh had turned into a nice guy, had a nice family, and was constantly looking out for me.

I offered him a tight smile. “You know me, I’m always fine.” I lied. I was freaking out, I had a shelter full of upset women, and an office full of cops and UJ was not answering his damn phone.

“Really? I think those bruises on your arms say otherwise. I think we should have you checked out.” Josh looked so much like his dad. I knew that ordinarily a detective wouldn’t respond to a silent alarm call. I glanced down at my arms. My simple green t-shirt and jeans ensemble probably looked pretty messy because of the blood running down my arms. I guess I hadn’t even noticed Luis’s nails cutting into my arms when he grabbed me. Damn.

“Kind of below your pay grade, isn’t it detective? I mean silent alarms are generally for the street cops.”

His honest face cracked into a smirk and he reminded me of a youthful version of his father, Donny. “Yeah, well the call came in and I was in the car and I recognized the address. Dad would kill me if I didn’t check it out.” I grinned back as he pulled out a cleansing wipe and handed it to me.

As I started to wash up the blood, I looked up at him. “I need a favor Josh, that guy that was here was the ex of one of the women I placed, he’s pissed, he’s a dealer and I can’t reach Uncle Jack.” I finished wiping off the blood from my now throbbing arms and looked at him soberly.

He nodded that he understood and promptly started barking orders into his radio. I didn’t have many friends, and over the years I still wasn’t certain we were more than acquaintances, but like his father, Josh didn’t disappoint me and in my life that was rare.

Twenty minutes later I had just finished changing the entry code on the door and was about to pick up my phone to call UJ again when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and when I saw the expression on Josh’s face, I practically fainted.

“What?” I questioned, struggling to keep the panic out of my tone.

“It’s Jack, they found him, and he’s on his way to the emergency room.” His voice was filled with concern. Shaking off his hand I clutched my bag and keys. Without a word, he seized my keys from my shaking hands.

I narrowed my eyes on him. I needed to go, I needed to get to UJ, and I wasn’t in the mood for more questions.

“Before you deck a police detective and start a whole new series of complications, know that you are not driving yourself. I am driving you and officer Metcalf will follow in your car. You may not give a crap about your life Syn, but my dad does and you’ve always been like that annoying step sister I never even knew I wanted.” Smirking he threw my keys to another officer and grasped my elbow.

I didn’t even want to try to decipher what he was expressing. I didn’t even fight him. I just let him lead me to his unmarked blue police car and didn’t even blink when he buckled my seatbelt. UJ was injured, hurt because of me, but how bad? How bad?