Authors: Kristen Ashley
Curious.
Recklessly so.
So I picked up the phone in order to stay my course as a woman, in other words, torture myself and I saw the display said “Tabby Calling”.
I felt my brows draw together and I sat up in bed, flipped open my phone and put it to my ear.
“It’s late, honey. Everything okay?”
I heard a loud, agonized, hitched breath and nothing more and I shot up straight in the bed.
“Tabby?” I called. “Honey, talk to me. What’s going on?”
“My…” another hitched breath that hurt to hear, “my… Ty…” another sob, “Tyra, my boyfriend hit me.”
Her boyfriend?
Tabby had a boyfriend?
Since when?
And he
hit her?
I threw the covers back and swung my legs out of the bed.
“Is… is Dad there?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, turning on the light on my bedside table.
“Do… do… don’t tell him but can you come and get me?”
“Are you injured?” I asked.
“Not really,” she whispered brokenly and I didn’t know if that really meant no or it was code for yes.
“Tab, baby, are you injured?” I pressed gently.
“I’m okay,” she whispered, again brokenly.
Right, I had no choice but to accept that.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m outside his place. He… he… kicked me out. It’s an apartment off Lincoln and I don’t have my car because he picked me up at Natalie’s.”
Oh boy. Tab spent a lot of time at Natalie’s including a lot of
nights.
This wasn’t good.
“Your boyfriend has an apartment?” I asked softly.
“He’s… yeah, he… he’s,” another sob. “Oh Tyra!” she cried, “don’t tell Dad really, really don’t tell Dad! Promise!”
I was rushing to the closet to grab clothes and I answered, “Promise, baby, now talk to me. Who is this guy?”
“He’s… he’s… twenty-three.”
Twenty-three!
She was sixteen!
“I met him… oh, it doesn’t matter. I just need a ride.”
“I’ll be there as fast as I can, Tabby, honey, promise. But I need a number on Lincoln so I can get there.”
She gave me the street number, shared she was sitting outside his door and I shared again I’d be there as fast as I could, she should stay where she was and if he came out, do not go back in no matter what he says, get away from him and call me.
Then, without thinking, my heart hammering, the pressure in my head increasing, my vision beginning to cover in red, I opened my phone, scrolled down and hit go.
It rang three times before I got a sleepy, “Yo.”
“Roscoe?”
“You got me.”
“It’s Tyra,” I told him, pulling up my jeans.
“What?” he asked, sounding shocked, as he would. I had his number because I had all the guys’ numbers but I wasn’t someone he would expect to get a call from unless I needed a ride or someone to mow my lawn. Mowing my lawn was, Tack had decided and it was one of what I was currently considering the few bonuses of being attached to Chaos, part of the recruits’ new duties. Seeing as a woman usually didn’t need her lawn mowed at one in the morning, a call from me at that time would be a surprise.
“I take it you aren’t on this mission with Tack and the boys?” I asked, now snatching a bra from my drawer.
“No.”
“Who else isn’t?” I asked, struggling with the phone between shoulder and ear to put my bra on.
“Recruits. Tug and Shy,” he answered.
“Right. Call them. Get on your bikes and get to…” I gave him the address and finished with, “Now.”
“Is Tack cool?”
“I don’t know. This isn’t about Tack. This is about something else. I need you and the boys at that address as soon as you can get there.” Then I added, “Come in the mood to be menacing and look badass.”
“What?”
“
Just do it!
” I shrieked, flipped my phone shut and snatched a tee out of my drawer.
I slid my phone in my pocket, found some flip-flops on the floor, slid my feet into them and tugged my tee on as I ran to the kitchen. Once there, I flipped on the light and went to my junk drawer. I rooted through it until I found what I was looking for. A can of pepper spray I bought last summer when there was a rash of break-ins in my neighborhood. They caught the guy and I forgot about it.
Until now.
I checked it and the expiration date was the month before.
Damn.
Well, whatever. It was all I had, I needed it, I was going to use it and I’d have Roscoe, Tug and Shy as badass-in-training backup if it backfired on me.
I grabbed my keys, exited my house, locked up and ran to my car.
I forced myself to concentrate while driving but I was shaking. All I could hear was Tabby’s sobbing in my head, her telling me her boyfriend hit her, the knowledge she had a boyfriend at all much less the fact that he was way too old for her. None of this was good news. All of it meant she’d lied to her father (and me) and that was just plain not good. I needed to keep it together, get her sorted and do what I had to do.
I made it to the complex, a double decker, doors to the outside walkways, the complex facing the street. I saw Tabby immediately, sitting on her ass on the bottom floor walkway, knees up, nose bleeding, eye swelling, tears visible.
And that was when I lost what was left of my cool. That said, I may have lost it but that didn’t mean ice water didn’t start running through my veins. It did and instead of losing my mind, I went glacial.
I parked a spot down from where she was and got out as she got off her behind and hurried to me. I moved swiftly, rounding the hood of my car and that was when I got a closer look.
So that was when I hit arctic.
I lifted my hands and settled them on her shoulders, whispering, “In the car honey, lock it. Napkins in my glove box to wipe up. You stay in there, no matter what. I’ll be back in a second to take care of you.”
I heard the pipes of a Harley and I knew Roscoe had taken direction. I didn’t look but Tabby did so I gently cupped her cheeks in my hands and forced her to facing me.
“Car, Tabby, now. Yeah?”
She was staring at me closely, scared, cheeks wet and that blood.
Damn it all to hell.
That blood.
“Did you call Dad?” she whispered.
“I did not, Tab, get in the car.”
“What… what are you gonna do?”
“Get in the car.”
“Tyra –”
“
Car, baby,
now,
” I ordered as I heard another Harley approach the complex and felt a presence. I looked up and saw it was Shy.
Shy was christened Shy because Shy was not shy by any stretch of the imagination. Gregarious, flirtatious and friendly, he was too young for me, I had a hot guy (maybe) but that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate the fact that he was mammoth, off-the-scales hot as in
hot.
Tall, dark, lanky, messy haired, beardless, long-legged, broad-shouldered, great ass, beautiful. He, like Roscoe, was not a new recruit. In fact, he’d been around longer than Roscoe and Tack had told me they were shortly going to take him fully into the fold and do whatever they did before they gave a boy his cut.
“What the fuck?” his low, deep voice sounded and his startling green eyes narrowed on Tabby’s face.
I let Tabby go and informed him, “We’ve got a situation.”
His angry eyes cut to me and he asked, “No shit?”
Hmm.
Maybe not a badass-in-training. Maybe just a badass.
Seriously, he was even more hot pissed.
“Did you call Tack?” he asked.
“No!” Tabby cried as Roscoe came jogging up to us and Shy’s eyes sliced back to her.
“Fuck me,” Roscoe muttered, getting a look at Tabby.
“We’re handling this ourselves,” I told Shy and he looked back at me.
“You’re handling what?” Tabby asked.
“This,” I answered, looking back at her.
“What?” she asked louder, she was losing it and probably part of her losing it was the sound of another Harley approaching.
So I dipped my face to hers and said softly but firmly, “A man does not take a hand to a woman. A man does not get involved with a girl. And a man
definitely
does not take a hand to a girl he should never have been involved with.
That
is what we’re handling.”
“Tyra –” she started.
I cut her off. “Get in the car.”
“Tyra!” she cried.
“
Honey, please, get… in…
the car.
”
She held my eyes and I held hers right back.
“I didn’t want a big deal made of this,” she whispered.
“
Too late and, incidentally, it wasn’t
you
making this a big deal.”
“No,” she was still whispering, looking like she’d been betrayed by her best friend, “it was you.”
Shot straight to the heart.
“Tab, honey, it was him,” I informed her.
“It was you,” she whispered then dropped her head, looked at her feet and walked to the car.
Okay, well, that didn’t go great.
Whatever.
I’d deal with Tabby later. Time to get this done.
I looked at the boys which now included Tug.
“We knock on the door, you take my back, I’m lead,” I gave them the plan.
“You are fuckin’ not,” Shy replied, immediately screwing with my plan.
“I am,” I returned.
“You aren’t, Tyra,” Roscoe put in. “Take Tabby home. Get her cleaned up.”
“I am,” I repeated to Roscoe this time.
“That’s whacked,” Tug interjected.
“It isn’t,” I snapped, my eyes going to him. “You boys need to keep your noses clean. Two of you are about to get your cuts and a stay in lockup for assault and battery might delay that.”
“Babe, that doesn’t make your plan any less whacked. The motherfucker hit a sixteen year old,” Shy reminded me. “He’s not gonna hit you. You’re Tack’s woman. We stood back and allowed that, he’d lose his fuckin’ mind.”
I wasn’t so sure about that at that present juncture but I didn’t share.
Shy wasn’t done.
“Not to mention, you’re just a woman. This is man’s work.”
Wrong, wrong,
wrong
thing to say.
I therefore leaned into him but jerked my arm straight back behind me, pointing to my car. “Yes,” I hissed, “and that’s my girl. So, lesson, boys, he hit my girl and he took advantage of her when she was too young to get it. So this is
woman’s work
and I’m fucking
lead
. This goes south, you step in. But it won’t go south, trust me.”
“You got a black belt or somethin’?” Tug asked curiously.
“No,” I answered then yanked the pepper spray out of my pocket and showed it to him, “I’ve got a surprise.”
Tug grinned. Roscoe’s eyebrows shot up but he still looked unimpressed. Shy looked to the ceiling created by the upper walkway.
I decided we’d delayed enough and pushed through them in order to stomp to apartment number five. I felt them close in behind me as I lifted my hand and knocked, loud.
“Fuck off!” came a shout from inside.
Rude.
Not a surprise but also fucking with my plan.
“Open this door!” I shouted back.
“Go fuck yourself,” was returned.
“Open this door!” I repeated. “I’m not going to ask again.”
“Kiss my ass!”
“Right, then!” I yelled then stepped back and swung my arm toward the door while ordering, “Bust it in.”
“Babe, a charge of breaking and entering will also get us a stay in lockup,” Shy rationally pointed out.
I’d had a bad evening, a worse night and not much sleep. Tabby was pissed at me, bleeding and she’d just found out her boyfriend was a jerk. It was the wee hours of morning.
I was in no mood for rational.
I was in the mood to kick some ass.
So I shrieked, “
Bust it in!
”
“Jesus, fuckin’ hell, all right, all right,” Roscoe muttered, positioned, lifted a motorcycle-boot clad foot and slammed it into the door.
It popped right open.
I shoved through the boys again and stormed right in.
I saw my mistake immediately when I saw the baseball bat swinging in the direction of my head. Luckily, I was presently Arctic Tyra and I had a mission I was not going to allow to be foiled so I had the presence of mind to duck. The bat whiffed over me, I heard Shy’s growled, angry, “
Fuck,
” but ignored it and I came up, armed with pepper spray.