Authors: Miss Merikan
“I will be back as soon as I can, but this
needs to be done. Things have gone too far. I had no idea what you were cooking
up in that brain of yours. Killing yourself to bring back your brother’s soul
in our baby? Do you hear yourself?” Hunter shook his head and turned on the TV
so she wouldn’t be bored. “I’m not letting you die, whether you like it or not.
And another thing you won’t like is that I am going to get your dad. He needs
to know about this, and we will somehow find a way out together. I’m sure he’ll
understand that the circumstances are critical.”
Only then did Asty really launch herself
toward him, shaking her head violently. It was clear she hated that last idea.
Hunter kissed her forehead and got up. “I
can’t risk losing you, baby.”
She whined and tried to hook her leg around
his, but he moved away. His phone beeped with an incoming message as he
approached the door. Ignoring her stifled moans, he read it with a low sigh. It
was Priest asking him to pop into the club.
“See? Looks like me and your dad are on the
same wavelength. He wants to see me. I’ll be back in no time.” Hunter took a
deep breath, staring at his boots. “I really hate to do this. I hope you’ll
forgive me one day.”
Asty screamed out, struggling against the
cuffs like a fish thrown out of water, and he figured that the quicker he went,
the smaller the chance that she hurt herself.
He left the hotel room with a heavy heart,
ready to meet his fate.
Hunter arrived at the clubhouse through a
gate Prince opened for him. He had no idea why Priest would call him over at
this time of night, but it was only convenient. Maybe Ray finally went through
with some horrible assassination idea and had been caught? That would only
serve him right. And it would have made sense for Hunter to be called, as his
cousin. Judging by the bikes in front of the club, only Priest and Tooth were
present, so it had to be something serious.
He stopped the van in front of the main
entrance and rushed inside. “Priest?” he called out, but he immediately went
across the lounge as he noticed light coming from the office down the corridor.
His heart was drumming in his chest as he moved through the empty room, his
feet like pieces of lead. If all went well, Priest could be his future
father-in-law—if Asty had only accepted his proposal. There hadn’t been many
moments more crushing in his life than the time when she had turned him down.
But her having some psychotic episode where she believed she could bring her
dead brother’s soul to life if she killed herself was a much more pressing
issue than Hunter’s bruised pride. Just thinking about losing her forever had
him breathless. Whatever was really happening, he could deal with that. He
promised to stand by her, and he wouldn’t go back on his word. His palms were
sweaty and his face hot, but this was bigger than his issues. Asty needed help,
and he needed an ally in finding it for her.
Priest sat in the beat-up leather chair
behind the desk. He looked up at Hunter and invited him inside, but the moment
Hunter crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut behind him. Tooth leaned
against it with a grim face, his hair a mess, as if he had just left his bed.
“Is this about Ray?” Hunter asked, looking
between the two of them. “Because I’ve got something much more pressing that I
need to talk about.”
Priest slowly rose from the chair and
walked around the desk to face Hunter. His face seemed calm, but there was a
tension to his jaw and the crow’s feet around his eyes. “What exactly do you
want to tell us about? Maybe you should kneel for your confession?” he asked,
and in the exact same moment, a powerful kick in the back of Hunter’s knees
brought him down.
He hissed when his knees hit the floor but
looked up at the two men. Something was going terribly wrong here. “I came to
say …” Hunter had to take a deep breath. Getting into a fight was one thing.
Telling your girlfriend’s dad that you got her pregnant—quite another. “I’m the
father of Asty’s baby. Our baby.”
Tooth growled and rubbed his face. “Oh,
shit ...”
Priest grabbed the front of Hunter’s jacket
and punched him so hard, his brain seemed to have rattled inside his skull
before he lost his balance and fell, pushed to the floor.
“Motherfucker. Who told you that you can
sleep with my baby? No one even knows you here,” hissed Priest, descending on
Hunter with a strength he didn’t expect from a man his age.
Hunter covered his head, trapped between a
visceral need to fight back and the logical thinking that if he hurt Priest,
his president and Asty’s dad, he’d be even more screwed. He and Ray were here
under observation in the first place.
“It’s complicated!” He yelped when Priest
grabbed his neck with his thick fingers.
“No, it’s not.” Priest leaned over him as
his thumbs pressed against Hunter’s Adam’s apple so hard it felt like Priest
was close to breaking something inside Hunter’s throat. His red-tinged face was
in stark contrast to the grey hair, and as Hunter’s vision became slightly
blurred, Priest’s twisted face looked like the image of the Devil himself.
“She’d never go behind my back like this without someone coercing her into it.”
When Hunter started choking, his instincts
kicked in. He grabbed one of Priest’s wrists, working on pulling it away, and
put his hand on Priest’s face in an attempt to distract him. “It’s nothing like
that!” he managed to squeeze out.
“Shut up,” hissed Priest and delivered a
quick punch, slapping Hunter’s head against the floor, but at least it was
possible to breathe again, even though it felt like the punch had just cracked
his skull. “You thought you can just avoid responsibility like that? Under my
nose? Well, tough fucking luck.”
Hunter looked up for help from Tooth, but
with the man standing there with his arms folded and a murderous facial
expression, he wouldn’t be getting any. “I wanted to come out about it sooner,”
he said with a taste of blood in his mouth.
Priest gave an unpleasant laugh. “Sure you
did. What a fucking relief. Only my daughter wouldn’t ever be interested in a
biker, so what did you do? Get her drunk?” he muttered and punctuated the
sentence with yet another punch to Hunter’s jaw. The pain radiated all over his
teeth so intensely that Hunter couldn’t keep from yelping in pain this time.
“We met before she knew I was a biker.”
Hunter was gasping for air that brought no relief from the pain. He stopped
himself from saying that she had invited him for an anonymous fuck. He didn’t
need to antagonize Priest any more than he’d already had. “And I want to own up
to everything. I want her, I want the baby.”
Priest pulled him up by the collar,
gritting his teeth so hard it jarred in Hunter’s ears. “And who told you, you
can have them? After you got her pregnant while hiding your face? I know all
about that, you sick fucker!”
“Please, sir. You need to hear me out.
There are more important things I need to talk to you about.” Though not much
now felt more important than the throbbing pain in his jaw. “Maybe we can get
her here? I did not force her into anything!”
A low growl left Priest’s throat. “I’m
gonna cut off your balls.”
Hunter stilled and felt blood drain from
his face. It was all getting too real for his liking. He had a vague concept of
Priest getting aggressive toward him once he found out, but he never thought
things would escalate this fast. Hunter was sure they’d talk it out man-to-man
and shake hands by the end of it.
He turned around in an abrupt move to
surprise Priest and Tooth and elbowed Priest in the face on the way. Opening
the door with two of them in the office was out of the question. It would take
too much time and would give them a chance to grab him. He crawled far enough
to get out of Priest’s grip and kicked him for good measure. Just as Tooth
blocked the door with a snarl, Hunter jumped on the desk, covered his head, and
flung himself through the dark-tinted window between the office and lounge,
hoping that his leather jacket would absorb as much potential cuts as possible.
Tooth’s roar echoed in Hunter’s ears as the
glass gave in, parting in the way of Hunter’s weight. Instead of smoothly
sliding through the air as he expected, Hunter dropped like a dead weight just
behind the wall that he crossed. Thick shards broke into even smaller pieces,
and as he tried to prop himself up and run, his palms screamed in warning.
Dazed by the impact, he rushed forward, trying to shake off the haze, but out
of nowhere, a wooden chair flung itself at him and broke as it hit his side.
Hunter was now like a hunted animal,
fixated on survival. He’d have to help Asty on his own.
He fell to the floor. He got up again,
wiping blood that drizzled into his eyes from his forehead, only to cut his
nose with a shard stuck in his hand. He could try to climb the gate if he only
got to it fast enough. Or he could take the route to the empty area, run to the
building that was being built on the site. But then he’d be stuck and they
would get reinforcements. They’d find him.
Gate then.
Someone grabbed at his collar and pulled
him back so hard he choked.
“You are going nowhere,” growled Tooth,
pulling one of Hunter’s hands back.
“If you only talk to Asty, she would tell
you I didn’t coerce her into anything!” He managed to pull one of his hands
away, but Tooth instantly grabbed the other and after a short struggle, cuffed
Hunter’s wrists. He was trapped now. They could do anything to him, without a
single witness.
“Of course, you did. That’s why she’s
scared to tell me who the father is,” hissed Priest, pulling Hunter across the
lounge. Between him and Tooth, they were dragging Hunter over the floor.
“She was scared because you try to police
who she dates,” Hunter spat, wriggling in their hold.
His captors stalled on their way, and
Hunter heard Tooth harrumph, “That’s kinda true.”
Priest exploded with anger. “This is such
bullshit! I just recently suggested someone, and it’s her who wasn’t
interested. But she’s clearly not thinking straight and needs some guidance.
All the guys who gravitate to her are deadbeat fuckers, who are gonna hurt her
eventually!”
“I would never,” Hunter said and dug his
heels into the floor uselessly when they continued pulling him into the
corridor leading to the members only area. “I’ve been here four months. I
always answer my phone, I do whatever shit needs to be done, I’ve been on club
runs. I’m fucking dependable!” It was hard to think with all the different
kinds of pain attacking his body, but he tried as hard as he could.
Priest snorted as they stopped at a door
that wasn’t labeled in any way. “I’ll show you dependable,” he said, just when
Tooth pulled out a key and opened the door into a narrow staircase leading into
the cellar, which Hunter thought this building didn’t have. The scent of wet
ground and mold hit his nostrils, prompting him to again try to flee, but it
was futile. Each movement hurt.
A vague idea about what that cellar held
made cold sweat trail down Hunter’s back. “Sir, please. If we can just get her
here. That’s why I came. You don’t even know what she’s dealing with right
now.”
Priest stopped and his grip on Hunter
became harder. “What she’s dealing with is single fucking motherhood. At
twenty, you stupid fuck.”
Tooth sighed as they stopped at a landing.
“Maybe just have Prince drive her here from home.”
Hunter’s jaw trembled, and that sent
painful vibrations all the way down to his toes. If Priest didn’t hate him yet,
he would now. “She’s not home,” he uttered.
Priest pushed away Tooth and pressed Hunter
against the wall, forcing the glass on his hands even deeper into flesh. “What?
Where is she?” he hissed, eyes wide. “What did you do to her?”
“She’s safe! We—we went to a hotel for her
birthday, and … things got out of hand.” Hunter swallowed, growing nauseated
from the pain. “That’s why I came. She’s … I wanted to talk to you first, sir.
I was worried she’d do something stupid, so …” Oh fuck, he didn’t want to get
punched again. “The keys to her cuffs are in my pocket,” he whispered.
Priest pulled away, and if it weren’t for
Tooth, Hunter would most likely slide down the stairs. “You cuffed my
daughter?”
“Priest, let’s just get this ov—” started
Tooth, but Priest had already flung his fist into Hunter’s stomach, making it
clench and send bile up Hunter’s throat.
He spat some of the bitter liquid, and some
of it landed on Priest’s shoes.
“Take him down to the chair,” Priest said,
heaving as he pulled out the keys to the cuffs and to the hotel room from
Hunter’s pocket. A part of Hunter was glad the name of the hotel was on there
and he wouldn’t have to speak right now, because he would struggle. “And get
him ready. I’ll have Prince get Asty, and I’ll be right down.”
Tooth sighed and pulled Hunter down the
stairs, clearly trying to keep away from the shards in Hunter’s clothes and
flesh. “Just try and calm down and see what she says,” he muttered.
Priest shook his head and rushed upstairs,
slamming the door shut. For a second, they drowned in complete darkness and Tooth
swore, but then he hit the light switch, and when the innards of the room
downstairs emerged, Hunter screamed and tried to crawl back up the stairs, but
with Tooth’s steel grip, it was no use.