“Fuck!”
“Take a breath, man,” Tigger said. “Your woman looked pretty shaken when she left our place. I doubt she’s running straight toward the man who abused her. Besides, she may have walked and that buys us time. No one picked her up, and she didn’t leave in a cab.”
“She’ll be there.”
“How do you know?”
Logan looked him dead on. “She plans to kill him.”
* * * *
The gunfire sounded like an explosion. Sassy pulled the trigger and shot the gun, missing Damsel on purpose, but insisting on gaining his attention, forcing him to turn away from Victory in the process.
He rushed her, and she took aim again. “Stop right there or I’ll put the next one in your chest.”
Damsel must’ve believed her. He didn’t take another step.
Immediately, her spasms gave her away. Damsel looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Sassy jerked, cursing the muscle contractions that made him a believer, realizing he’d only become more arrogant and confident of all the ways he could overpower her. “I’ve spent months preparing for this day, Damsel. Don’t be a fool. I will kill you.”
He snickered. “Sure you will, lover.” He took another step, and at the same time, his men rushed inside the kitchen, a brotherhood strong enough to support him all the way to the bitter end.
Taught to keep her eye on the target, Sassy cocked the gun and clutched the grip. “Tell them to walk away.”
“Stay where you are,” he told them, averting his gaze away from them and back to her. “I’m fifty years old, babycakes. If I go out, you’ll kill me in front of witnesses. I’m not afraid to die when I know the punishment you’ll receive will be far worse than any coffin my cold ass will be buried in. Are you willing to spend the rest of your life in jail?”
“I want you to tell them what you did to me,” she said, glancing at Gaylord when he took a few steps. “One more move, and he’s a dead man. He doesn’t believe me because he still sees the same girl he abused for more than a decade, but trust me. I’ve been trained to kill, dying to take this shot, and I will put a bullet in his sorry head. You get me?”
Damsel snarled. “You’re still the spoiled little bitch your momma raised you to be, ain’t ‘cha?”
“And you’re still a woman abuser looking for unsuspecting women to destroy, aren’t you?”
“Your momma was a pretty thing,” he said, a touch of longing in his voice. “Then she fell in love with the bottle and pills.”
“You made her into what she became!”
“The hell I did!” His fury evident, he balled his fists and barred his teeth. “She chose to abuse her body. I didn’t pour that poison down her throat.”
“You didn’t have to. She watched what you did to her little girl and went crazy. You made her think I somehow deserved it, asked for your abuse.”
“Is this true, Damsel?” Gaylord asked, contempt in his voice.
“Fuck no.”
“The hell it isn’t!” she screamed.
Logan entered from the side door with his a pistol drawn. “Sassy, you don’t want to do this.”
Sassy wrestled with numerous emotions then. She didn’t want Logan to see her like this, to hear the words she’d practiced and rehearsed, planned to say to Damsel in his final hours. At the same time, she wondered why Logan had a gun, why his weapon was pointed in her direction.
“Leave, Logan. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Yes, it does, Sassy. Drop the gun, baby.” His voice was like syrup, sweet and sugary, dripping with goodness.
Tigger entered the kitchen and stood beside Logan. “Oh damn. She’s got a forty-five, man.”
“No shit,” Gaylord said, frowning.
“Sassy, honey, listen to me—”
“Leave, Logan.”
“Sassy, let me help you,” Logan said. With his left limb extended and the gun propped on his forearm, he looked like a cop entering a dangerous drug bust rather than a biker facing off with an opposing threat. “Put the gun down now, sweetheart.”
“Logan,” Damsel said out of the corner of his mouth, “seems you’ve been taking my leftovers after all.”
Gaylord snarled. “What the hell are you talking about, Damsel? Are you saying she’s telling the truth?”
“She was nothing but a whore’s daughter. She would’ve turned out just like her momma.”
“I was a little girl! I was eight the first time you abused me!”
He shrugged. “You came on to me, hon.”
“What?” Gaylord asked, true disgust in his voice. “You’re saying this is true?”
“Her momma wanted me to teach her how to act like a woman. She didn’t want to worry about her running around with men later in life. We discussed it. She approved.”
“You’re a liar, Damsel,” Sassy said, noticing Victory sported a speckle of blood on her forehead when she sat upright behind him.
“Don’t move,” Logan told Victory before addressing Sassy once more. “This isn’t the way you want to have your revenge, baby. You’ll sit in prison, and he’ll be out here laughing.”
“He’s right,” Damsel agreed, apparently ready to say whatever necessary to save his own hide.
“And you’re sick. I left here and became educated, vowed to make something out of my life, but every single day, I woke up in fear. I wanted to understand what I could’ve possibly done to make you hate me so much that you nearly killed me on numerous occasions.
“In the end, I came to terms with what you did. I wasn’t even sure if I could face you and tell you this but now here I am—an educated woman who understands you, pities you, and even wants you to find help like I did. I do hate you, but I also realize why an abused boy grew into an abuser himself. You were mistreated, too,” she said, watching as his face washed free of any color.
“You shut your mouth, girl, or I’ll close that trap for you. I remember how much you liked to suck on lollipops. I always gave you those for practice. Remember?”
“Unfortunately, I recall every sick thing you ever did to me, Damsel.” She pointed the gun directly at him. “And you will, too, but you’ll never be able to use this again.”
She lowered the weapon.
“Sassy, I can’t let you do this,” Logan said, rushing her. “Drop the weapon now!”
As Logan lunged toward her, satisfaction washed over her. Even as Logan took the loaded gun from her trembling hands, Sassy reveled in celebration. Her every breath was filled with triumph. She’d had the pleasure of watching Damsel as he dove for the floor, shoving his hands in front of his penis and taking a fetal position as he tried his best to protect his precious penis.
He looked scared, terrified in fact. And right there was her long awaited retribution.
In that moment, Sassy knew what she’d wanted from the start. When she returned to East Tennessee, she hadn’t been quite sure. Now, everything made sense.
She wanted Damsel to fear her. She needed him to know that she survived him. And she wanted to make certain that the Angels’ club full of men—many of them with their own little daughters at home—realized they had harbored a monster.
In her hometown, her neighbors had looked the other way when she’d been a child in need. They’d locked and shut their doors, cranking up their television sets and stereos while she’d screamed and cried into the night.
The same wouldn’t apply here, not in this community, and not among these men. These guys had daughters and wives of their own. They’d heard a confession. They couldn’t help but acknowledge the truth.
An abuser lived among them. Their world wasn’t what it was yesterday or even the day before. Their leader was destructive. He’d turned on the stepdaughter who’d depended upon him. If he’d turn on her, he would eventually betray one of them, or worse, one of the very children they as parents, were supposed to protect.
Chapter Ten
Logan had been frightened. When he’d first realized Sassy had left the clubhouse without telling him, he’d known where she’d gone and feared what he’d find. Rightfully, he’d thought the worst. Fortunately, he arrived there in time to turn the tables.
Giving his statement to an officer he knew, Logan was relieved when the fellow didn’t press Sassy for too much information. He owed one of his superiors a favor. Without a doubt, Mark or maybe someone above him issued an order—Sassy wouldn’t be questioned in front of the MC.
The last thing they needed in East Tennessee was another twenty-something-year-old woman turning up dead.
“So what do you know about Addison Amos?” a detective asked Logan as he returned to his bike.
Throwing his leg over his seat and feeling a great sense of satisfaction when Sassy took a position behind him, Logan liked the fact that she locked her arms around his waist immediately. “Not much.”
“Is that the woman they were talking about at the service station?” Sassy asked.
Logan squeezed her wrist. As soon as they arrived back at the club, he planned to lay down the law. Sassy needed to learn what she could and couldn’t say in front of other bikers, particularly those from the Devil’s Angels. Of course their discussion could wait. He had another urgent matter—fucking her like crazy until
he
made
her
scream out in pleasure.
“What service station?” the detective asked, playing the investigation to the hilt. The inquiry was for Tigger’s benefit, in order to allow Logan the opportunity to establish trust in front of one of his fellow Heroes and Rogues brothers.
About that time, Victory walked out of the club and strode toward the police car where Damsel awaited a cop escort. “That woman,” Sassy replied, pointing.
Logan glanced over his shoulder. Maybe he’d been wrong about her. When it mattered most, she covered her tracks well.
“This should be interesting,” Tigger said, nodding toward the police car. He eased his bike next to Logan’s and explained. “Victory used to work with kids.”
“How do you know?” Logan asked.
“Remember Denise?”
“Your old lady?” Logan teased.
“She wasn’t my old lady.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Logan said. “She would’ve been.”
“Maybe,” he grumbled. “I just couldn’t picture myself playing daddy to her seven kids since they all needed a fill-in.” A beat later, he returned to the topic at hand. “Anyhow, I talked to her the other night, and she asked me if I’d seen Victory around. Evidently Denise liked her.”
“She doesn’t like anyone with boobs and a….”
“You can say the word around me,” Sassy assured him.
“I know I can,” Logan said. “But there’s a time and place for every word or phrase. I’ll wait until I can appropriately use—”
“You’re dead to me!” Victory screamed in the distance, averting everyone’s attention away from their current conversations. “Do you hear me, Damsel?” She pounded her fists against the car window. “I won’t stand by someone who kills. I’ll never support a man who has abused and raped women and children!” She punched the window, doubled over and screamed out in pain. “I hope you rot in hell! Do you hear me! I hope you burn for what you did to Addison…for what you did to your own stepdaughter!”
“Well, it looks like we don’t have to stick around to see if there are any other questions to be answered about Addison’s disappearance,” Tigger pointed out.
Logan patted Sassy’s leg. “You ready to ride?”
“Waiting on you,” she said, pressing her face against his leather jacket.
A recognizable and quite loud vroom-vroom made Logan jerk. He watched as Devon rolled into a parking spot right in front of the Devil’s Angels clubhouse.
“What’s he doing here?” Tigger asked.
“I can only guess,” Logan replied, observing the way Devon approached the police car. The Heroes and Rogues club president walked quickly and with determination. When he swung his arm behind his back, Logan caught a glimpse of a weapon.
“He’s got a gun!” Logan shouted, forcing all the law enforcement to draw on Devon.
“What the fuck, man?” Tigger screamed, jumping off his bike.
Logan left his motorcycle in a rush, too, slowing his pace when Devon turned to face him. Gripping a forty-five, he said, “Don’t get in my way, man.”
“Don’t do this, Devon. Let him stand trial for what he’s done,” Logan said.
“He’s right, Devon,” Tigger added. “You’ll spend your life in prison.”
“He killed her, man. He killed the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
That was bullshit. Devon liked her, but loved? Nah. Not from Logan’s point of view. Devon still moistened his stick wherever he could shake it.
“He’ll pay for his crimes, Devon,” Logan assured him, wondering if he sounded like the man’s friend or a true cop.
“He’ll walk! Damsel Road always walks,” Devon insisted.
“Think about what you’re doing here. His old lady already called him out. She fingered him for murder. Don’t do this.”
Damsel turned his head and stared at Devon. A big smirk was plastered on Damsel’s face and he further taunted Devon by extending his forefinger and thumb, pretending he held a gun. Then, he winked, which was probably the final straw.