Page 10 of Ride Long
Chapter 4
Sloane
Wakingup without Chaser glaring at me was an odd experience. It didn’t feelright.
Light was pouring through the slats in the venetian blinds, casting long fingers over the end of my bed. I rolled over and rubbed my eyes, groaning when my entire body throbbed. It wasn’t the good kind,either.
Last night had been a strange experience. The Fortitude compound was just as I’d remembered from growing up here, but it was different. Seven years was a long time. Most criminal organizations didn’t last that long, but this place wasn’t like most. Fortitude MC was thirty years strong, and it was mostly because of myfather.
Last night, Rick, the fresh meat, had delivered me to my old room. Strangely, everything was just as I’d left it the night I’d run away, almost like Dad believed I would come back someday. The double bed was still against the wall, the desk and stereo were still in the opposite corner, and the closet was still full of my old clothes and boots. Even the same black shag-pile rug was on thefloor.
Talk about a blast from thepast.
As for my father, I didn’t believe a single word he said. I wasn’t safehere.
Keep your eye on the prize,Sloane.
Dragging myself out of bed, I found my bag on the floor. Someone had tossed it in here somewhere between rolling up unannounced and hashing it out with dear olddaddy.
I took out my clothes and set them on the desk, leaving my broken laptop beside them. College had become a distant memory, and my Poli Sci book had probably disintegrated at the bottom of that lake in Texas by now. What did I even want to be anyway? There wasn’t a course on taking over criminalorganizations.
My hair was greasy as fuck, and I smelled funky. I needed to scrub myself until I was raw to get Bailey’s stench off my skin. Dead Pube Face Bailey. The world would not misshim.
I shuffled into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. The private bathroom I felt like a princess for having. None of my friends at school had their own, and they’d never seen it. I could never have friends over. For obvious reasons, but try to tell a little girlthat.
Turning on the light, I stripped out of the travel-stained clothes I’d slept in, and my thoughts went to Chaser when I saw the blood on my jeans. Where was he? I knew he could more than look after himself, but he wasn’t invincible. He’d been sopale…
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and hesitated. Lifting my hand, I ran my fingertips across my cheekbones where Blue Eyes had left a pretty pattern across my face—black and purple color-changing bruises—with his knuckles. Looking down at my naked body, I was surprised to see I was covered in them. Splotches were littered across my skin in various stages of healing. It hadn’t felt like it, but I’d been tossed about so much in the past two weeks it was a fucking miracle I hadn’t broken something. Now I had a moment to slow down and be alone with my thoughts, I was finally realizing just to whatextent.
I’d been shot at, flung from a car, been beaten up, betrayed by Chaser’s past…and survived everything that had happened on the train to the point of finally admitting I’d fallen in love. And he had, too. He hadn’t called it love, but he’d admitted his feelings. He wanted to run away with me. He wanted to disappear with me and forgeteverything.
Maybe I should’ve taken him up on thatoffer.
Turning on the shower, I ducked under the hot water and scrubbed my skin raw. Emptying the little bottles of body wash and shampoo I’d stolen from one of the many motels across America’s ass cheek, I eventually stepped out a lot cleaner than I had felt indays.
A woman was sitting on the end of my bed when I emerged from the bathroom. I yelped, suddenly glad I’d dressed in there and not wandered out in thenude.
“I’m Sam,” she said, her voice not much louder than a hushedwhisper.
She reminded me of Yvette in a way. She was tiny, blonde, and pretty…even with the bruise on the side of herface.
“You’re Sloane,” she added when I didn’t acknowledgeher.
I nodded, noting the fact she hadn’t called me Betty.Good. Taking out a comb from my bag, I brushed out the tangles in my wetlocks.
“What happened to your face?” I asked, leaning against thedesk.
She lowered her gaze and shrugged. “Ifell.”
I snorted. I bet she fell right into a biker’sfist.
“What happened to yours, then?” she firedback.
“A man hit me in the face.” I deadpanned. “He got what was coming tohim.”
Sam’s blue eyes widened. I intimidated her that much was clear. I wondered what stories had been going around about me. I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything good, which meant I had a lot of work todo.
“How old are you?” I asked, looking her over. She was so delicate it was hard totell.
