Page 27 of Ride Long
Chapter 9
Sloane
When I neededChaser’s reassurance, he was nowhere to befound.
But that was the life we’d signed up for when we decided to come back to Fortitude. Scratch that. It was my idea. I’d forced him to come along for the ride, and now I was in the shit. Bigtime.
I’d come in here with my bravado and big lady balls and couldn’t let go of my feminist ideals long enough to grasp the bigger picture. Instead of saving one life along the way, I might save themall.
When Harley turned up with a sticky plaster across his nose and two black eye sockets, it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped. There was murder in his eyes, and it was aimed atme.
Chaser said he would keep watch over me, but I hadn’t seen him in days and days. Going to bed on my own was agonizing. Not fighting by his side was hollow. It was strange how much he’d come to mean to me in such a short amount of time…and how starkly I felt it when he wasn’there.
Chaser didn’t give me courage, only I could do that, but the thought of us being together at the end of all this,free…that was something to be courageousfor.
“Your father wants you to have dinner withhim.”
I glanced up at Gasket and scowled. The leather sofa in the common room was sticking to the backs of my thighs it was so freaking hot. I’d forgotten how sweltering California could be when it turned up the heat. It was always on, but someone had gone out and turned up the dial…or broke the hell out of thethermostat.
“Someone really needs to work on the air conditioning in this hole,” I said, trying to ignore the part where Gasket said the words father and dinner in the same sentence. I knew I was going to get a talking-to over my various indiscretions over the past week and a half. Thinly veiled threats were Marini’s way of showing his love, afterall.
“He’s not going to do anything to you.” Gasket sat beside me, the sofa dipping under hisweight.
“I was just trying to helpher.”
“You made it worse for her, you know,” Gasket said. “And for you,too.”
“You’re saying I should’ve let him hit her?” My mouth fellopen.
“Harley would’ve got his eventually, but not like this,” the bikerreplied.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded. “Wereyou—”
Annoyingly, we were interrupted before the insults began tofly.
“Betty.” It was an order, a bark from a little bitch of a dog designed to get myattention.
“Don’t call me Betty.” I snarled as Rick appeared like a creeper, rubbing salt into one of my many open, festeringwounds.
“Go with him, girl,” Gasket said. “It’ll be worse if youdon’t.”
It was hard for me to remember this place wasn’t a democracy. All those years of freedom had gone to my head and made mesoft.
I followed Rick in sullen silence. Whatever happened in that room, I was going to hold my own. I had to tell myself I was more valuable to Fortitude alive than dead. Even if it came down to selling me off again, that was better than dying. While I drew breath, I had a chance ofescape.
I’d gotten out of worse situations.With Chaser’s help, a little voice inside me taunted.You never got out of anything yourself. Even when you ran away, Daddy always knew where youwere.
Rick opened the door to Marini’s rooms and eyed me like I was the bitch from hell.He had noidea.
He was styling himself as a mob boss, but there was one problem with that. Bikers weren’t so refined. They didn’t have the airs and graces to play with the big boys. Marini was a pretender…but try telling him that without getting murdered forit.
When Rick opened the door, I said a little prayer and stepped inside, hoping Marini had left his pretty mother-of-pearl revolver on the coffee table where I’d last seen it…unloaded.
But I was greeted with exactly what Gasket had said my father had wanted me for.Dinner.
The table was set, and two meals were waiting. Steak, vegetables, and roast potato. How…homely.
Marini was waiting, already seated at the table, a bored expression on his face. Leaning back in his chair, he waved me into the room, exasperated at my obvious reluctance to be in hispresence.
