Misled (11 page)

A loud sound awakened Meggie
, the next morning, and she blinked. Light streamed through the window and she realized morning had arrived. She wondered where Christopher was. Not that she cared. Nothing he did mattered to her. Two lamps were lit and the lone, unadorned window showed sunny skies. Groggy, Meggie recalled Christopher returning last night, not in the mood to talk to her. He’d hardly spoken and it had taken Meggie a while to fall asleep, wedged between the temptation of Christopher’s sleek back and the brick wall.

She had to figure out what to do now
that she knew the truth. Her father was
dead
.

Tears rushed to her eyes, the pain a sharp blade twisting in her. She’d never hear his voice again, telling her how much he loved and missed her.
Burying her head into the pillow Christopher had slept on, she breathed in his scent, sobbing in grief and misery. Her heart felt battered and bruised, like it had walked into a boxing ring and suffered a TKO. She’d be a complete liar if she insisted all her tears were for her father. Most of them were, but some were for Christopher, too. Why, she didn’t know because he was little more than a stranger to her. Like her father had been if they were telling the truth.

But the man she knew and the man they described…Meggie laughed bitterly. What
did
she know about her father? This club, these men, weren’t as easygoing as he’d always insisted.

Rack had beaten her to a pulp over five dollars. Or the ramifications of her stealing the five dollars in the first place a
nd telling Christopher.

Christopher didn’t need her or want her. If she remained—if he allowed her to stay—she’d be in his way. Her problems were her own
and her biggest one was also her worst nightmare. She couldn’t return to her mother’s house but she had to try to get Dinah away from Thomas even though nothing short of a miracle would accomplish that. Meggie still had to try.

Her sudden resentment surprised her. She’d believed her mother’s words about her father wanting Meggie with him.
Dinah normally didn’t fling careless lies about.

More tears slipped down Meggie’s cheeks and she curled into a ball.
She wished she’d never overheard her mother. If only—

She couldn’t
finish the thought. Too many ‘if onlys’ to count existed in this sorry situation. Meggie breathed in deep, the chill of loneliness shivering through her, another sob escaping her.

“You motherfucker!”

The furious snarl yanked Meggie out of her thoughts and she bolted up, sucking in a breath. Oh, God. She’d forgotten a noise had awakened her.

“Fuck you.”

The words boomed through the closed door.

S
he backed against the headboard, her trembling fingers clutching the bedspread. Gunshots. Shouting. Cursing.

Her heart rate sped up and her pulse soared. Meggie stumbled to the floor,
scrambling under the small space beneath the bed. More rapid gunfire, the
boom, boom, booms
getting closer and closer. Thumps, creaks and crashes resounded and Meggie recognized the sound from when her mother showed a modicum of self-preservation and tried to lock herself in a room with Thomas hot on her heels. Doors were being kicked in.  Vicious curses and threats peppered the air.

Meggie’s body shook
just as the door flew open. She curled her lips inward to stifle her cry and focused on a pair of green and black boots. The black part looked like some sort of animal skin and the upper part—the bright green—had wings and a cross etched into the design.

No words were spoken. No warnings given. Just a rapid succession of gunfire.
Not that she needed either. She’d never forget those boots or the fantastic amount of concentration it took to keep from screaming. If she’d taken a moment longer to get under the bed, she’d be dead.

Endless minutes passed while she waited for the intruders to leave.
Thoughts of Christopher crowded her head. His smirking green eyes. The black hair that added sin to the temptation of him. She wondered if he was alive. No, he
had
to still be alive. She couldn’t bear the thought he was dead, too. Though he could be scary and rude, he’d treated her nice. She closed her eyes, afraid to expel the air in her lungs and afraid to move a muscle. Afraid to let herself consider the very real possibility that Christopher was dead. He was big and frightening and had an incredible disregard for modesty, but he’d saved her and taken care of her and…and aroused her. She couldn’t imagine a man with such overwhelming masculinity as a corpse. Her brain refused to recognize he had to be hurt or grievously injured to allow these men the license to roam so freely through the clubhouse.

The boots made a three hundred sixty degree tu
rn and Meggie held her breath, her heart jack hammering loud enough to give her away. She was going to die, too. In the distance, glass shattered. The boots stepped nearer, so close Meggie could’ve touched them. Some guitar riff broke through the violent noise.

Christopher’s cell phone.
She’d heard it several times when he’d been with her at the hospital.
A moment later, a loud bang almost deafened her. Wood and metal flew and crashed to the floor as the desk was ripped apart. Meggie guessed it was the desk since that’s where the cell phone had been.

The
boots pounded out of the room. Pausing in the hallway, the square toes turned toward her again.

“I plugged Rack,” a voice called.

Whooping and hollering followed that.

“Yeah? Well, I popped Outlaw. Fucker. Told him I’d avenge my father.”

The man grunted. “He shot me, too.”

“I should make sure he’s done. Blow his fucking skull apart.”

“What’s up? Why you still here?”

“Shit ain’t right, Kit. I feel it in my bones. Like I’m being watched or some shit.”

“Christopher musta gave up the ghost and he’s stalking you.”

Boots started back in the room and Meggie pressed her nose to the floor, nausea roiling
in her belly. The floor tilted and she swore if she wasn’t already on the ground, she would’ve fainted at having her speculations confirmed about Christopher. She choked back a sob, praying they were wrong. But they sounded too confident and sure of themselves for her to have any hope.

“Yo’, Snake!”

“Whatcha got, Relay?” The call halted his advancing stride and he backed out of the room.

Snake
. He was the one who’d bragged about avenging his father by killing Christopher. If she wasn’t so alone and vulnerable, she’d reveal herself and spit in
Snake’s
face.

“Bags of powder
, that’s what. We got ‘em next door, in the midst of preparing shipment just like we were told.”

If I don’t know motherfuckers, I end up with a real fuckin’ knife in my back
. The memory of Christopher’s statement thumped through Meggie’s head. Someone had set him up. But who?

“What about this place? Torch it?”

“No, Welsh,” Snake responded. “Let’s go next door and lift the sugar. Get it out of here. We’ll return later to search this place. I’m sure there’s more here. Ain’t found the fuckin’ bricks yet neither. We’ll torch this shithole after I get what the fuck I want. Besides, Outlaw…”

The words faded into the air as they departed, leaving nothing in their wake but eerie silence. A minute later, a door slammed shut in the distance and Meggie jumped
, her entire body shaking, jerking, adjusting to the fact that the immediate danger had walked away. She knew she had to man up,
move.
She had to find Christopher. She had to escape.

A vision of
Thomas rose in her head. Compared to this, he
was
a teddy bear. Meggie squeezed her eyes shut, drew in deep breaths, counted sheep.

Her pulse
banging in her throat, she crawled from under the bed. She grabbed the edge, swallowing at the mangled desk and destroyed phone. Bullet holes decorated the walls and the door hung off the hinges.

A
t the door, she glanced both ways down the hallway. The creepy quietness sent chills through her. She could do this. She couldn’t stay in there forever. Her father wouldn’t stand down and neither would she.

She glanced to her left again, which
led to the main room and Christopher’s office. That way also led to light. Forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, she tipped down the hallway, covering her nose against the acrid smells in the air. Sulfur. Fear. Death.

When she reached the main room, with the long bar, the pool tables, the dartboard, and the huge television, she
tripped. She put her hands out to break her fall and landed on something soft. Part of a face reached her line of vision. The other half consisted of...nothing.

Meggie scrambled back, choking back a
scream, too horrified to make a sound. Though she didn’t know the man’s name, she recognized him.  She slid forward, on her knees, the floor wet and sticky beneath her, coated with blood and…and…Oh God! She shook her head wildly as if that would make it all go away. It didn’t. She raised her blood covered hands, dizziness swaying her.

She
cleared of the body, knocking over a small table. The loud crash reverberated around her and she longed for the safety of her mother’s arms. But neither of them had been safe since her mother married
him
. When they were, usually Meggie made them safe. Her mother had given up, forcing Meggie to flee and find safety. Instead, it looked like she’d walked into a death trap. Into the bowels of hell.

She wasn’t equipped to be a runaway, to survive a gun battle. She’d grown up getting wha
tever she wanted. While they hadn’t been wealthy, they had been comfortable. What her mother couldn’t buy her, her father picked up the slack. But, then, her mom had remarried when Meggie turned thirteen and everything changed. Her father no longer visited on a regular basis. Her mother no longer smiled.

Slowly, Meggie got to her feet, queasy and disoriented.
A door opened and the bright sunlight flooding the room mocked the blood and gore surrounding her. She squinted, her hand flying to her mouth, the glare preventing her from seeing who’d walked in. She dodged into a corner, praying the shimmer an equal handicap for the other person. She crab-walked—ran—toward the office hoping to find Christopher there. Alive. Not dead. At the thought, she lost her balance, landing hard on her butt. She spun around, relieved no one had joined her and backed into the office, closing the door behind her. The lock was blown off but for the most part the door remained intact. She leaned her head against the cool wood, offering a prayer of thanks.

A moan behind her startled her and she twisted
. The gore that greeted her sent the bile in her empty stomach hurtling out.

Heat consumed
Outlaw, so fucking hot he must be at the first gate of hell. He waited for that hoof footed motherfucker to appear because, certainly, the devil would want to personally greet a fucker like him. But nothing. Just fucking heat and pain and a massive amount of fucking fury.

His shoulder
and leg burned like fuck. The scent of blood, piss, and shit filled his nostrils. Red and gray spattered a wall. He swallowed when Megan Foy crawled into his line of vision and shut the door behind her. Someone groaned and she turned. Horror filled her features before she leaned over and vomited.

He wanted to close his eyes but seeing her reminded him he had to live
long enough to get her to safety. If she hadn’t been here, perhaps, he’d close his fucking eyes and pray he never woke the fuck up. But the little hellcat needed him. Not since he’d killed Boss did he regret the choices he’d made in his life as much as he did now. Fuck, yeah, he’d had twinges of regret over the years, but not like this. She wasn’t quite healed from her beating and her cold, and he had her dealing with this. He wondered if she knew today was the one year anniversary of Boss’s death.

Maybe, he moaned—though he didn’t remember uttering a sound—because
her gaze flew to his face. Christopher gritted his teeth at her ghost-white features and eyes wide with fear.

So he
really wasn’t dead. Just shot. And pissed. Heads were going to fucking roll.

“Help.”

That
wasn’t him. That croak was Rack’s. He wanted to be happy the man had survived, but he didn’t know if he should be. Outlaw had his suspicions and many of those motherfuckers pointed straight the fuck at
Rack.
Divided loyalties and high emotions left the Death Dwellers in fucking chaos. Motherfuckers jockeying for power and offices.  They were imploding, destroying themselves from the inside out. Rack might like to draw motherfuckers as a form of special fucking torture, but it would be his fucking ass halved and quartered if Outlaw discovered his duplicity.

“Someone’s out there,” Megan whispered, shaking. “I-I was looking for you.
H-he said he…he p-popped y-you. I-I th-thought y-y-ou n-needed m-me, n-needed h-h-help. And there’s a m-man with half a face!” she sobbed. “I f-fell on him. A-and th-then someone came back in.”

Tears s
lid down her cheeks and she stared at him. For comfort. For protection. To make sure he still lived. She visibly trembled. Jesus. Fuck. She needed him and she’d risked her life to find him.

Outlaw
tried to rise and cursed at the pain careening through his body. Oh, yeah. He’d been popped in his thigh, too. Fuckers. Dizziness blurred his vision and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Slower than he appreciated, he rose to his feet and swayed. On her knees, she rested on her feet, breathing heavy. Fuck, she was bloody. She’d been shot, too?

“Y
-you’re bl-bleeding,” she said, rising to her feet and rushing to him. Her hands explored his body in a frantic rush.

N
o. Not shot. She was too agile, showing no signs of pain. He worked out some of her babbling, the fact that she’d fallen on a man with half his head blasted off the most disturbing for her, in a day filled with fucking disturbances. Her frantic distress arrowed to his gut.

She finished with another
, “You’re bleeding, Christopher,” in a stronger tone.

Outlaw
clenched his jaw, the sound of his name on her lips spiking his resolve. “I’m shot, so, yeah, I’m bleedin’.”

“I
am, too,” Rack said with a moan.

“I h
-heard th-them t-talking,” she sniffled in a low voice, pausing in her exploration to lean on his chest and wrap her arm around his waist.

“Yeah?” Outlaw
responded, listening for sounds, zoning in on her beautiful face to keep himself upright. He told himself he was acting in the role of a big brother and would never lay hand nor tongue nor cock on any place on her body that might lead to fucking.

“A
-and o-one of them c-came back,” she continued, a little hysterically. She pulled away to look at him, his blood covering her cheek. The quietness made it hard to believe another shooter wandered beyond the door. Whether they’d returned or not wasn’t the point. Protecting her was. “You heard them talk?”

She nodded. “Th
-there were three m-men. One named K-kit. Another named Sn-snake. And I didn’t know the name of the other one. Sn-snake is the one who sh-shot you.”

No fucking shit.

She kept her face turned to him. Any place else she looked, she would’ve seen brain matter and blood from the three other men in the room. Her thin voice and trembling lips told him how scared shitless she was. And, yet, she wasn’t screaming like a maniac or crumpling to the floor in a dead faint.

Strong
under fire. Boss’s genes. And, that motherfucking Snake’s, too.

Outlaw
crept forward, gripping the side of his desk and reaching for his nine at the same time. His nostrils flared at the carnage. He was getting light-headed and the wounds that had been burning like hellfire were growing numb. His eyes slid closed but the sound of her voice popped them back open. He swayed.

“Th-they said th-they were taking the sugar
s-so th-they would c-come back l-later to search the place b-before t-torching it.”

They were stealing his shit, were they? 
He neared the door just as it began to push open. Painfully slow. Megan gasped and Outlaw thrust her behind him to make sure she stood out of the line of fire. Sweat beaded his brow. The door banged open, guns blazing. Outlaw stood to the side and shoved his nine in the asswipe’s temple. “Smile, motherfucker. You’re on candid fuckin’ camera.”

Pity
it was Kit he was about to blow the fuck away and not Snake. “Hands up.” Without another prompt, asswipe raised his hands. “Walk. And if you a prayin’ fuckin’ man, you better pray we don’t fuckin’ run into any of your brothers.
You’re
my shield, motherfucker. They shoot at me, you fucked first.”

His brown
ponytail swung with his nod.

“Rack?”
he called, wondering if the last round of gunfire had killed him.

“Yo’?

He was alive. “Get your piece and come with me, if you can, brother. Megan, stay put.” He started walking out the door, backing the doomed fuckhead out.

“Pl
-please d-don’t make me stay in here with all these d-dead p-people!”

Outlaw
ignored her, in another zone altogether.

The killing zone. He had some blood to spill.