Page 94 of Healing Souls

Harley’s hand has a slight shake to it as she grips my mine with all her strength when we walk into the main room and find all the ranking officers sitting at the tables.

I have no idea what she did. I have a feeling it has to do with last night and what she said when she came into my room. I didn’t think anything of it, but maybe she did something she shouldn't have.

Sugar’s eyes soften when they land on Harley, and he says, “Hi, darlin’. Come take a seat. We’ve gotta talk.”

Harley hesitantly sits next to Sugar while I sit on her other side, and Ry and Cade stand behind us. Looking around, I now notice how tense most everyone is, and I notice the split lip and forming bruise on Noah’s cheek.

My eyes widen, “Noah, what happened?”

My question draws Harley’s eyes towards him, and she gasps before turning a hard look on her dad, Rage. “What the fuck?” she seethes.

“Okay, hang on a second,” Noah says, putting a hand up.

He goes on to explain what happened last night. He gives us every detail up until they got home.

“I explained everything to them. They obviously were not happy. I took a few hits because it was well deserved. Harley, there are certain rules and things we follow, and I should have done things differently. Would I do them differently, though? No. But Rage knows that. You can’t be mad at him for any of this,” Noah says as he waves his hand in front of his face.

Harley pinches her lips together but gives a small nod.

Rage sighs and sits forward, looking at Harley. “I want to protect you from this life.”

Harley goes to speak, but Rage continues. I rest my hand on her thigh and give a light squeeze, hoping to reassure her.

“But it’s taking me time to wrap my head around that I can’t because you have already been in it. You have already experienced more than a lot of people have. You have been on your own in many ways for probably most of your life.”

He sighs and blinks a few times.

“I can’t take all that away no matter how much I want to. I also can’t keep asking you to trust us when I know deep down that you never will unless we lay it all out there for you. You have shown what you really want. Especially after last night. So we are going to tell you everything. But I swear to fucking God, Harley, if you go behind my back, if you do stupid things, if you fucking test me one more time, I will lock you away here and you will never fucking leave, and I can make it happen.”

He takes a deep breath, calming himself.

“Argue with me, spar with me, yell at me, talk to anyone else here and ignore me, I don’t care. But you will not go behind my back. Is that clear? We are a team. We are a family, and we cannot protect each other if we don’t trust each other with everything. Got it?”

Harley stares him down, something warring in that complex mind of hers before she straightens her back and says, “Got it. But there is one thing I have to say.”

“What?” Rage asks, his brow creasing.

“I don’t think I can forgive you yet. I don’t know if I ever will—my mind is a mess when it comes to everything. But I think I can work on trusting you more.” She glances back at Ry, Cade, and I. “Because these three are showing me what love and trust is like.”

Rage says nothing; his eyes are blank. You don’t see the devastation that we all know is there hearing those words from her. I hope that someday we can show her that her dad is an amazing fucking man and he would give her the world. But for now, this is progress.

Rage stiffly nods and then looks at Nerds. “Go ahead.”

Nerds starts at the beginning. All the way back when Harley first showed up at school. We all took a liking to her, started looking into her. We were all worried when Harley didn’t show back up around Thanksgiving, so Noah, Sugar, and Rage went to Tammy’s.

Harley’s eyes flash with fury at the mention of that weekend, and she grabs my hand that still rests on her thigh. She takes a few deep breaths and keeps listening.

Nerds continues to talk about the phone call we overheard on the mic we were able to put in the house. He talks about the bank account that we found in Rage’s name and the ones we found later in Sugar and Axe’s names.

Then he tells her. “Tammy is running a sex trafficking ring. We are still doing everything we can to find all the information on it. What we know so far is that Richard and Tammy are at least finding the girls and sending them off to the warehouses where they are prepared and trained before being sold.”

He sighs, “There is a ball that we have just discovered and started looking into called Black Night. It seems to be some kind of auction system, and that is where they send most of the girls they find.”

Harley’s face has remained blank almost the entire time Nerds talked. But now, her walls are cracking. I can’t blame her. This isn’t something you process easily. Especially being in that home for three years.

She could have easily been one of those girls. Which then brings up the next big question, why wasn’t she?

All of a sudden, Harley gasps and shoves her chair back, knocking it straight into Cade. He tries to grab her arm, but she is faster, running straight for the backdoor and sprinting outside. Everyone follows after her, with Ryker yelling her name.

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