Motorcycle Man(105)

This meant Roscoe, Tug or Shy had called the boys and I made a note to self that the next time I enlisted Chaos recruits to dish out retribution, I made clear that our operation was flying under radar.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

I asked Tack but it was Boz who answered.

“Enjoying the fuck outta the show. Shit, Cherry, you’re cute, all badass and pissed off and kickin’ squirrel-ball ass.”

It wasn’t a compliment I thought I’d ever get. Still, it wasn’t half bad.

“Go see to Tab,” Tack ordered and I looked from an amused Boz to a very, very unamused Tack as I vaguely heard Squirrel-Balls scrambling, sniffing and breathing heavily behind me.

It was then I felt the scary, badass biker vibe in the room. It was blazing. It was serious. It was terrifying. It was all-encompassing. So much, it was suffocating. And it was not coming from the bikers collectively.

No, it was coming from Tack and Tack alone.

I bit my lip.

I’d never seen it, Tack breathing fire. I thought I had. He had a temper, no doubt about it, and that temper was scary. I might have got a hint of it after the Russians abducted me but by the time he got to me, he’d had time to cool down.

But this.

This was something else.

“Go,” he growled. “See,” he kept growling. “To Tab!” he barked, leaning toward me.

I moved toward the door muttering, “I’ll just go see to Tabby.”

No one spoke.

Unfortunately, my path to escape was covered in bikers with Tack being right inside the door. When I made it to him, I turned to the side, sucked in my gut and tried to squeeze by him but failed.

He caught my upper arm and my eyes flew to his.

“My house. She needs to be home. And when I get there, babe, you better be there.”

Oh boy.

I held his eyes.

Then I nodded.

He let me go.

I went to see to Tab.





Chapter Twenty-Four


Laid Out





“Tabby, honey, please,” I whispered to the girl lying on her side in her bed, her back to me, ignoring me as I sat on the side of her bed, pleading with her.

Suffice it to say, things were not going well.

On the way up to Tack’s we stopped at a fast food drive-thru and I got her a drink, a water and a shed load of napkins. I instructed Tabby to hold the drink on her face and use the water and napkins to clean up as best she could until we got home. She did as instructed but she did it silently and she didn’t once look at me.

I’d not even come to a complete halt outside Tack’s house when her door was open and she was out. By the time I got fully parked, the car turned off and hustled in, she was behind closed doors in the bathroom.

I decided to wait it out because she couldn’t stay in there forever and it was the right decision. She’d come out, blood free but nose swollen with the fast food cup still pressed to her eye.

“I’ll get you some ice,” I offered.

She looked through me and walked to her room.

I went to get her ice.

Her door was closed and locked when I got back. I called, I knocked and doing so woke up Rush.

This was not good but it was unavoidable. Tabby would have a shiner the next morning. He’d eventually find out.

Trying to take the drama out of it, and failing seeing as it was dramatic, I shared what was happening and then watched Rush morph into a mini-me Tack Dragon.

Then he kicked his sister’s door in.

The good news was, Tabby was no longer barricaded away from those who cared about her who could take care of her after the events of that night.

The bad news was, the door would need to be repaired.

The further bad news was, Rush was weeks away from eighteen and already kind of scary.

I decided to file that away to worry about at a later date (if I was around to worry about it) and instead prioritize.

This led us to now. Tabby took the ice and set aside the fast food cup but she also instantly curled with her back facing me, her face resting on the ice, me sitting on the side of her bed begging her to talk to me. Through this, her brother was standing across the room, arms crossed on his chest, looking like he wanted to murder someone.

I decided pleading wasn’t working so I tried another tactic.

“Okay, I’ll admit, maybe I lost my cool and didn’t handle that too well,” I told her.

Finally, a response.

“You think?” she muttered to her pillow.

“Tab, my beautiful girl, he hurt you,” I whispered.

No response.

“I’m worried about you, baby, and not just because you’re going to have a black eye tomorrow,” I said softly.

Still no response.

I kept at it.

“I’m worried because you have a boyfriend. I’m worried because of his age. I’m worried because you didn’t tell me or your Dad about it.”