Layla
“This place is like a baddie’s dream,” Chantel says to me and Amber as they come through the clubhouse doors and look around at the party that’s raging. I’m still shaken from Alex Ramos being in my house, and I know Sean has him in the back of the building now with Kai. I also have no idea what he’s doing to him back there, but I know he’ll come and get me when he has the answers I’m looking for. Why he killed my parents. It’s all I’ve wanted to know for the last two years. The clubhouse is packed with well-wishers for Flip’s fiftieth. Shelly is running around making sure everyone has drinks, and that the food will be ready on time. There’s a pig-roasting company out back with a full pig on a spit. The local catering service providing all the fixings is a friend of the club. The back wall is lined with salads, fruit and veggies, there will be roasted potatoes, and the cake was made by a local bakery and Shelly had it made with a replica of his bike for the top. The entire air is festive, happy and familial. No one would ever guess there’s a murderer most likely being tortured in the back.
“I’ve got dibs on the one who looks like he should be in theyacht club magazine,” Chantel says, looking at Kai, who just walked into the large room from the back hallway.
I laugh. “That’s Kai.”
She smiles at me. “Well, Kai is welcome to make a home between my thighs.”
Amber tips her head back and laughs. “Go get him, tiger.”
Remi hands Chantel and Amber their drinks as Kai comes up to us, as if he can sense Chantel’s intrigue, eyeing her up the way she’s eyeing him up.
“You wanna come sit with me, gorgeous?” he asks, nodding to the table a few feet from us where a couple of members sit with women I’ve seen around here over the last week. One of them is Trina. She’s clearly moved on to someone else in the club after walking in on me and Sean.
Chantel nods and looks back at me. “Don’t wait up, Mom,” she whispers with a wink.
Amber takes a seat with them, eyeing up the available men.
We sit at the table and I listen to Kai and Chantel flirt for what seems like way too long. Sean has been gone for quite a while, and the entire time I have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. A gnawing. The feeling like something is coming that I don’t want to hear. Because of that I don’t drink. I dance, and I smile because Chantel and Amber are having the time of their lives and the clubhouse is alive. There’s a live band playing outside and people are out on the dance floor. The music filters into the clubhouse itself, so even though there are a couple hundred people here it doesn’t really feel packed. I check my phone and note that it’s been well over an hour since we got here.
I get through another half hour with a very drunk Chantel and Amber. The way Chantel is eye-fucking Kai across the room, I’m pretty sure she’ll be going home with him, or at the very least, going somewhere with him. I make my way over to the bar and try to push from my mind the look in Sean’s eyesas he attacked Ramos. The savage glare that made him seem a million miles away. That, coupled with the fact that I haven’t seen Wolfe or the other big one, Mason, since Sean left leads me to believe that things might not be going completely as planned, wherever they are.
“Staring at the door won’t make him come back any faster, darlin’,” Remi says to me over the music from behind the bar. I smile softly at her for reading my mind.
“You need a drink.” She grins. I blow out a deep breath.
“You’re right. Can I get a double Hellbender?” I ask her. She nods and pulls a glass out, pouring the amber liquid into it with a smile. “Take it from me, hun. I’ve seen a lot here. Have fun, relax, and he’ll be back when he’s done doing whatever it is they do.”
I take the drink from Remi and tip my head back, swallowing the entire double shot in one go. Before I’m even done with it, Remi has gone to make a drink for someone else. I turn and lean against the bar and watch the room. People are happy. They’re dancing, eating, drinking and laughing. But I can’t focus. I need to know what the man who took my mother from me is saying, what his reasons are, if any.
I’ve just convinced myself to go and look for Sean, knowing I might see anything, when I see him push through the door to that mysterious back hallway.
He’s still wearing his cut, but my heart drops into my stomach. I’m frozen in place as he closes the space between us with his confident easy stride, and I realize that his shirt is covered in blood. No one else even looks up as he comes toward me. As if a man covered in blood from beating another man is a normal, everyday occurrence.
I look down at his bloodsoaked shirt then back up to his face as he knocks on the bar. Remi makes her way over and pours him a shot that matches mine from moments ago without him evenasking. I try to find his eyes, to find that softness he’s looked at me with before, but I don’t. These eyes belong to someone else. They’re hard, emotionless, and they’re utterly terrifying.
He takes his drink and swallows it down, placing the glass on the bar, then nods toward the door he came from.
“Come with me, now.” It isn’t a question, it’s an order. I don’t hesitate—I make my way through the crowd to the back of the room, and when we reach the door, he pushes it open. Once it closes behind us it’s much quieter. “Last door on the left at the end of the hall,” he says firmly.
I move slowly. There are various doors down this hall and the lights are low.
Sean wouldn’t hurt me, I know that much. I know he would try to protect me from anything that could hurt me, even Ramos’s words. But in my gut I feel there’s something he isn’t telling me. I don’t just feel it, Iknowit.
“Here,” he says, lightly grabbing my arm and stopping outside a heavy wooden door. There is no sound from inside the room.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask with a shaking voice.
“I just want to prepare you.” He gives my shoulders a light squeeze.
“So prepare me then. I can handle it, Sean,” I say, my eyes flitting to the door, then back to his.
“I never want you to be hurt.” When I don’t speak, he continues. “This”—he nods toward whatever is beyond the door—“is nowhere near the story you think it is, little dove.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means I’m offering you an easy out,” he says firmly. “But make no mistake, the choice is yours, because I promised you I’d always be honest with you and I don’t doubt for a second how strong you are.” He grazes my arms with his thumbs as he speaks. “You can either live with the memories you have or youcan come in here and find out for yourself. If you do, you’ll learn the truth.”
