Harmony (The Club Girl Diaries Book 1) (21 page)

“I don’t have a father, you must be mistaken.”

He laughed. “Oh, I’m sure that’s what your mother told you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who are you?”

He walked toward me, his stature showing that he thought very highly of himself. Shoulders back, chin lifted. He held his hand out to me, predicting I would shake it.

I didn’t.

I saw his face turn from amusement to anger, quick smart. “My name is Edward Keaton.”

The name sounded familiar like I should know it from somewhere.

“Owner of Keaton Records. One of the biggest recording firms for musical artists in the United States.”

My eyes widened.
Keaton Records.
Now I knew why his face and name sounded familiar. We had taken a short class on recording artists, agencies, and firms. They taught us about what it took to get to that stage. And what we needed to do if that was the path we decided to take with our music, which was the case for many of the students in my class. They all wanted to be famous, I just wanted to play and since Kit had started playing with me, he had fueled a passion for teaching that I didn’t know I had.

“Ah, so you do know.” He smiled smugly.

“I study music, I’ve heard of you.”

He nodded. “Of course you would study music. It’s in your veins, your bloodline, just like it is mine.” He paced the room, but it was in confidence, not because of nerves. He looked like he was standing in front of a boardroom full of people. “You sing? I heard you before, your voice could use some conditioning, but you could be very good.”

I tried not to take that as an insult. Kit had told me he loved my voice. “Not really, I play guitar. Have since I was little. Traveling with Mom I was around a lot of bands. Fell in love with the guitar.”

He nodded. “I remember your mother very well. She was stunning, independent.” He screwed up his face like the words left a sour taste in his mouth. “It was only by chance I was looking for a new maid and your face popped up. I couldn’t stop looking at you. There was something familiar so I requested your details.”

It didn’t sound like there was a lot of love lost between him and my mom. He didn’t seem heartbroken and she had spent the last twenty-three years of my life keeping the knowledge of this man from me. There was obviously a reason.

“Where exactly did my face pop up?” I frowned.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. You’re here.”

“It does matter. I didn’t ask to be here. I would actually like to go home now.”

I watched as his fists balled up at his sides. The anger that was on his face made me want to crawl into a hole. He was livid.

“I have rights. You are my daughter,” he said, pointing his stupidly well-manicured finger at me.

“I am twenty-three. You can’t hold me here, father or no father,” I growled.

“That’s where you’re wrong, child of mine. I want to get to know my only child and you will be staying here until I see fit.” He adjusted his suit now his temper had receded. “I’ve also been informed that you are spending time with a well-known motorcycle gang. That will also be ending. I will not have any child of mine mixing with the likes of them.”

“Motorcycle…
Club.
They are not a gang,” I gritted out between my locked teeth as I climbed off the bed and stepped closer to him, ready to defend my family.

He laughed softly. “They are criminals.”

“And you’ve kidnaped me! What does that make you?” I yelled.

My face jerked to the side, my body following it with the force of the blow. I steadied myself on the bed, my head spinning and pain shooting through my jaw. Silence filled the large room. After a moment, I managed to gather my wits and pushed myself back up, turning to face him.

“You will
never
speak to me like that again.”

I don’t know what came over me, but I started to laugh. He stared at me like I’d gone crazy. Maybe I had. I was locked in a house, with this man who was claiming to be my father. A very rich man. A man who could possibly tear the club to shreds if he had the right contacts, which I assumed he did. I wasn’t sure how long I had been gone. How many hours had it been? How many days?

But what I did know was that Kit would be looking for me – the whole club would be. I needed to control my emotions, keep myself in check until they found me, but I also refused to be weak and cower under his extreme actions. Edward Keaton was powerful, he was dangerous and as he had just shown, he wasn’t afraid to use force if need be.

“I can’t wait,” I said, my laughter slowly subsiding. “I can’t wait until the club find out who you are. Men like you, you have something to lose, a reputation to uphold. The club doesn’t. They will do what it takes to bring you down. The joys of hanging out with
criminals.
”

He stormed toward me, not even stopping as he wrapped his hand around my throat, lifting my feet off the ground before forcing me back onto the bed. “Learn your place, Harmony. I don’t want to have to warn you again. Learn it, and learn it fast, because next time I won’t be so forgiving for your ridiculous outbursts.”

He tightened his grip on my throat, squeezing the last little bit of air from my lungs and causing my head to feel heavy like a brick. He held me like that until I slowly started to see black spots clouding my vision. At first they were small, but they grew as they joined with others. It was kind of a mesmerizing thing to watch as you felt the life slowly slipping from your body, your brain not getting enough oxygen and starting to close down. It was only then he released and my lungs strained as I gasped for air. I coughed and spluttered, rolling onto my side in the soft blankets of the bed and lifting my chin, attempting to open my airway again.

Oh yes, he was a pro. He knew how far he could push to make the pain feel,
oh so real,
and then when to pull back. It made me sick to think that this man’s blood could be running through my veins. That he was a part of who I was. I guess it was that same old argument, nurture versus nature.

Edward stepped back and I forced myself to stand, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing me lying down and scared. My legs wobbled, but I gripped one of the large posts of the bed to steady myself. I caught a silent smirk pass over his face before his glare once again returned.

“Dinner will be in a few hours. I will have some things brought up for you to wear.” With that, he turned sharply and left.

My body sagged, sliding down the post of the bed and landing with a light thump on the floor. My mind couldn’t compute what was going on.

Why the hell did he want me here? To force his awesome parenting skills on me? To make us into one big happy family?

I scoffed.

I looked around the room, once seeing it as beautiful, gorgeous even. Now I did see that dark, damp cell. It was just disguised with frilly curtains and floral patterns.

The Athens’ clubhouse was quiet. It was eerie, especially considering the fact that there were twice as many Brothers packed into the space. But no one had time for talking. We’d lost a Brother today.

Caleb was a prospect, but a Brother none the less. He’d saved my ass – whether purposeful or not, by barging into that room. I would be forever in his debt. And I would make sure he got the send off that he deserved.

Optimus said he had a family, but that they couldn’t care less whether he was dead or alive. He’d made friends with one of the club kids at school and had come around a few times for family gatherings. The second he hit eighteen he was here pleading his case to prospect. Caleb was clumsy, and not the brightest spark, but he had a heart of gold. It surprised me that the club girls were probably hit the hardest by his loss.

“We weren’t allowed to sleep with him. It gave us time to develop a friendship that we possibly didn’t have with the fully patched members,” Chelsea explained from her perch on Optimus’ lap. “He was sweet, funny too. Harm loved him, they were always giving each other hell.”

I nodded. Optimus gripped his girl a little tighter as she sniffled. His body had been left with Doc, he had connections at the morgue and would get done what needed to be done, without the police or anyone else asking questions that we would refuse to answer.

“Even after he shot her, Harmony was still protective of him,” I agreed.

Chelsea chuckled. “Yeah, but she was planning her payback. I think it involved something like an ice cold bucket of water while he was sleeping though, as opposed to a bullet through his chest.”

I shuddered.
A bullet that was meant for me.

“Any ideas about what happens now?” Wreck asked as he plonked himself into the seat beside me.

I shook my head. “Mix and Wrench are on it, they’re trying to find a different angle. Hopefully, they’ll hit something soon.”

“Your girl is hardheaded and strong, Kit. She’ll hold on,” Optimus assured me. Chelsea following with a very serious nod.

“I’m gonna head to Harm’s room. Get some rest. Let me know if something comes up.” I knew rest wouldn’t be easy, but I also know that since I got the news yesterday, I hadn’t slept a wink. I needed it if I was going to find my woman and bring her home.

“Yeah, Brother.”

Harmony’s room was basically untouched. No one had been in there since she had left the previous day. The bed was unmade and her guitar and school books were left lying in the mess of blankets. A little over twenty-four hours she’d been gone, but I hadn’t seen her for almost a week. I missed her like hell. It had been a rough ride for the both of us. Me trying to convince her she could trust me, her fighting it the whole way.

Stubborn ass.

Now I’d let her down again.
Three strikes and you’re out?
Isn’t that how it went?

Even if she refused to see me after all of this, I would still fight for her. I’d prove one day that I was good enough, and that she was safe. If I made it in time.

I stripped off and curled under her covers, her smell attacking my senses and alerting my body. It didn’t matter who you were, or how long you’d known someone, the reality was that when you found that person who was your perfect fit, nothing else mattered. Not time, not age, not even occupation or the color of their hair. You took that shit, threw it out the window and held onto that person like your life depended on it. Because it possibly would.

Now I had found my other half, seeing a future without her just looked like a black haze – ultimately not worth the effort to fight through the darkness.

At some point during the night, I must have drifted off. A strange ringing woke me, the sun streaming through the open curtains making it hard for me to open my eyes. The ringing stopped. I checked my phone, but I had no messages or missed calls.

You’re fucking dreaming.
Then it started again. I climbed up and attempted to follow the noise around the room, holding my ear to different things. When I found Harmony’s school bag tucked under the bed, I remembered that Rifle had said he’d found it in the car and had one of Optimus’ boys throw it in her room.

The ringing stopped, but I pulled the bag out, searching through the contents until I found her cell phone. Checking the missed calls I found five from her mother. I sighed, this wasn’t really a conversation I was awake enough to have, but I guess nothing could make me feel as useless as I do right now, even a reaming from her mother.

I pushed the call button and sat down on the bed, scrubbing my face and attempting to wake myself up.

“Harmony? Oh my goodness, thank God. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for two days.” Helen sounded frantic. I knew they had a good relationship, but I didn’t know she’d be this panicked.

“Hey Helen, it’s Kit,” I grumbled.

“Oh, Kit. Sorry. I’ve just been calling and calling and was starting to get worried.”

Yeah, probably for good reason too. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Kit…What’s going on…”

“Look, I’m not really sure how to explain this to you –”

I heard her gasp. “Oh God, he did it. He found her.”

“Excuse me?” I said, completely stunned. Harmony had told me she wouldn’t be discussing what was going on with her mother. Apparently she could be a little over-bearing.
You don’t say.

“I rang Harmony last week because I had a strange phone call. I didn’t have time to explain to her what it was about…Well…I could have, but I chose not to. Thinking it wasn’t that serious.”

I tugged on my jeans and threw my cut over my naked chest, storming from the room in search of Mix.

“Tell me? I need to know anything that could help us right now,” I demanded. My mind in full-blown attack mode. Mother or not.

“Is she in trouble?”

“I need to know who that phone call was from, Helen,” I said, neither confirming nor denying anything.

I heard her sniffle, but she took it in her stride and continued. Like mother like daughter.

“Edward Keaton. He owns one of the most high profile recording companies in the states. He’s Harmony’s father.” I found Mix dead to the world on one of the couches by the bar. I booted the couch hard and he sat bolt upright, the barrel of a gun pointed straight at my head.

I didn’t flinch, I held my hand over the speaker of the phone. “Edward Keaton. Find me everything you’ve got,” I said sharply, not even waiting for an answer before turning in search of Optimus.

“What did he want?” I asked.

“He wanted to know why I hadn’t told him he had a child,” she said quietly. “He’s not a nice guy, Kit.”

“How
not nice
are we talking here, Helen?”

“We only went on two dates,” her voice had turned dark. “On the second we were out with some of his friends, he spoke badly about a client I was representing. I stood up and told him he was wrong. I got three things from that relationship, a black eye, a split lip and Harmony.”

“What did he say to you when he called?” I banged on Optimus’ door.

“What you’d expect. Demanded why I hadn’t told him about her. That he wanted to meet her. When I told him no, he got angry and told me he had his own ways.” She sighed. “I should have known he was serious.”

Optimus opened his door in his boxers, scratching his head and squinting. When he saw me, he eyed the phone in my hand curiously.

“Let me handle it. I’ll call you when I can.”

“Okay,” she said softly. “Please don’t let her get hurt.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to make sure she’s okay.”

I watched as Optimus pulled on his jeans, and boots.

“What’s going on?” Chelsea said, sitting up on the bed and wrapping the white sheet around her body.

Optimus walked over and kissed her forehead. “I gotta talk to Kit, baby. I’ll be back soon.”

She nodded and watched him leave.

“Coffee, I feel I might need it for this conversation,” he said as soon as the door was shut.

I explained the situation as we walked to the kitchen.

“So her daddy has a heavy hand? Sounds about right with the people he’s associating himself with,” Optimus mused.

My leg bounced under the table. I needed Mix to hurry up, I was ready to get my girl back. As if he’d heard his name he appeared in the doorway with a smile on his face.

“We got him.”