Page 5 of Ride Long
“Harley.”
He froze, his griploosening.
“Let her go,” the voice commanded. “That’s not the way to treat mydaughter.”
Harley’s lip curled, and his eyes burned with unmasked loathing. Leaning close, he delivered a threat directly into my ear. “Daddy won’t always be around to save you,Betty.”
Letting me go, he strode off down the hallway toward the common room, leaving me against the wall. I was hyperaware my father was standing a handful of steps away. It was the closest he’d been in sevenyears.
I didn’t want to look him in the eye, but I had to. There was no avoidingit.
I turned my head slowly, my heart pounding in my chest. How one man could cause such fear in an otherwise smartass body like mine was chilling. I knew what he was capable of. I knew what he’d tried to do to me. I knew what he’d done to my mother. Now I had to cozy up to him so I could stab him in the back. It would hurt—oh, fuck, would it hurt—but the look on his face when he realized I’d taken everything from him would be worth the salt in thewound.
In the last seven years, he’d aged considerably, but it was his eyes I noticed first. His Italian heritage shone through in their chestnut coloring, but they couldn’t be any colder. His short, scrappy beard was strewn with gray, and his severe short back and sides haircut gave his hard angular face a menacing look. Broad shoulders, a hard chest, and a towering stature completed the picture. A picture was worth a thousand words and all of them saiddon’t trustme.
Anthony Marini was a big man. Bigger than Chaser. Bigger than Pube Face Bailey. But not as big asHarley.
“You’ve got your mother’s looks,” he said, picking up a strand of my hair and rubbing it between his forefinger and thumb. The baritone of his voice was gravelly as though he’d smoked a thousand cigarettes a day and his throat wasraw.
“You’re acting like you never saw me before,” I snapped, pulling away. I wondered if that was why he’d wanted to sell me off. Because I looked like her. The woman he gotkilled.
“You’vechanged.”
“I’m not the same girl I was seven years ago,” I said, implying I would fight with deadly force if I had to. “Far fromit.”
He nodded toward the door behind him. It was a silent command, and one I wanted to follow for once. Things needed to be said. Things that no one else had any right tooverhear.
Dad—I wasn’t even sure I should call him that—held out his hand, gesturing for me to step into the room beyond like he was some kind of reformed gentleman. I wasn’t on the road with Chaser anymore. If he were the one standing there, I would give him lip, but he wasn’t. Where washe?
The entire Fortitude compound was like a miniature city. Everyone had a room, though none were like my father’s—he was king here, so he took what he was owed, which was a private sitting room with posh leather sofas, a sleek bar fridge, massive flat-screen television. A private bathroom and bedroom completed the presidential suite, all fitted out with the latest modcons.
My gaze flickered around the room and settled on the automatic rifle mounted on the wall and the handgun and a long-barreled revolver on the glass-top coffee table. The grip on the revolver was inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
Dad closed the door behind him and crossed the room. Sitting in the armchair, he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He was waiting for me to take aseat.
I lingered behind the sofa, my eyes on the guns in front of him. Did the air have a tang of copper to it, or was it my imagination? I could smell tobacco, spice and…gunpowder. Taking in the room, I was aware of him watching me as I saw the patched hole in the wall behind my head. I promptly stepped to theside.
Dad raised his eyebrows and resigned himself to the fact I wasn’t sitting anytimesoon.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked, his voice familiar yet oddly strange to myears.
“Who?”
“Chaser. Did he take care ofyou?”
“Yes.” I narrowed my eyes, not liking what he wasimplying.
“Did he touchyou?”
“No.”
Dad watched me closely, taking stock of my answer. Chaser had touched me deep and hard with his cock, but Dad couldn’t know that. He would cut Chaser open top to tail if he knew, and I’d be right back on the club’s list of items to sell…if I wasn’t back on italready.
“He was stabbed,” I went on. “Butcher—”
“Will sew him up,” Dadinterrupted.
“He did his job. He should berewarded.”
