“He was a sick bastard,” Freak snarls, lifting a hand to brush a strand of hair off my face. His gentle action is totally at odds with the words he’d just said.
It’s then that I notice his grazed knuckles. Lifting his hand to my mouth, I make sure to kiss each of his injuries. A wave of gratitude floods through me. “Thank you for searching for me, for finding me, for making sure Piero can never hurt me again.”
“Don’t need any fuckin’ thanks,” he snarls. “Babe, I’d never have stopped looking for you. But I might steal your idea, make sure you have trackers on you, in your purse, your shoes. I’ll get them sewn into your fuckin’ clothes.” I’m staring at him, and see moisture form in the corners of his eyes. I swallow hard, filled with emotion at the unexpected sight. “I don’t know what I’dhave done if I couldn’t find you, or if I’d have gotten there too late. As it was, it wasn’t in time…”
“You got there before he killed me.” Suddenly, I frown. “But you didn’t tell me how.” I’d just accepted it was a miracle at the time.
He proceeds to tell me how the woman at the bakery had seen what went down, and how Pippa and Genie had picked it up from their routine monitoring of the police’s waveband.
He draws in a sharp breath and shudders, as if trying to control himself as he finishes up with, “Thank fuck they were on the ball. We were able to make a good guess as to where he’d taken you.” He pauses, and this time swallows an audible sob. “If we’d been wrong…”
“You weren’t.” Risking turning my ankle on its side, I swallow the pain and place both my hands on his cheeks. “You found me. Nothing else matters.”
His phone rings, interrupting the moment. He pulls away, takes his phone out, then, pushing himself up, sits on the side of the bed, his free hand reaching back to hold one of mine as though he doesn’t want to lose contact with me.
“Prez…Yeah?” His fingers squeeze mine. “They did?… And Tyrant’s got her?… That’s fuckin’ good news, Prez…Yeah, we can all relax now. Thanks for letting me know.” He ends the call.
His face suggests he’s received good news, but the way he reclaims his hand and cradles his head with his palms suggests the opposite.
Expecting to be told “club business”, I tentatively ask, “What was that, Freak?”
Now there’s no doubting the tears in his eyes as he turns to fully face me. “It’s my fault, Trix. This…” he waves his hand toward my body. “All your injuries, your suffering, that your fuckin’ ex was able to find you, it’s all down to me.”
Completely confused, ignoring the pain, I sit up, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
His voice drops to a whisper. “Alongi was only able to find out where you were because I didn’t do what Prez asked of me.”
I’m not understanding this at all. “You had nothing to do with him finding me.”
Again, he shudders. “Trix, I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I let Toni go. Should have ended her permanently. Didn’t realise she must have put two and two together and saw the way the wind was blowing, even before I claimed you. A woman scorned?” He snorts. “Yeah, that was her. If she couldn’t have me, she certainly didn’t want you to. Or maybe she just didn’t like the way Ace adored you. I don’t fuckin’ know how, but somehow, she got in touch with Alongi?—”
“Stop!” I bark, then regret my sharpness as a wave of pain goes through my head. I ignore it. He’s blaming the wrong person, and from that phone call, it sounded like retribution was going to happen. I had to prevent it. “It wasn’t Toni who betrayed me.”
“Trix…” His voice has gentled. “I know you like to believe the best in people, but?—”
“I fucking know how Piero found me, and it wasn’t through her.” Fighting the pain, I put all the strength I have into the words. “Freak.” I shake his arm as hard as I can, which isn’t very impressive, but it gets his attention at least. “I know how Piero found me. That night, at the MDMC compound, when I was…”
“Raped. You were fuckin’ raped.”
I ignore his harsh words, not needing the reminder. “Those assholes took a photo of me. They put it on the internet. Piero had a facial recognition program set up to look for pictures of me. He questioned them. They said they didn’t know who I was, but dropped in that the Kings had attacked that night. Piero did the addition and staked a man outside our compound.Then, they watched for me and followed. It was the fuckin’ photo those assholes took of me that led to him discovering my whereabouts.” I focus my blazing eyes on him. “It had nothing to do with Toni.”
“What?” His pinched brow shows that he’s having difficulty processing my words.
“Toni didn’t do anything. Whatever you’ve put in motion has got to stop now.” I see I still have to convince him. “Most men carry a pretty picture of their wife in their wallet. Piero showed me the photo he carried of me. He brandished it like a trophy. It showed me, sprawled out, on the pool table after I’d been raped.”
He stares without blinking. I can almost see the wheels in his head turning his thought process a full one-eighty. Then he bursts into action, picking up the phone he’d so recently put down. “Bullseye? Get back to Tyrant. Toni didn’t betray us… How do I know? Alongi found out from a picture the fuckin’ MDMC assholes took of Trixie. She’s innocent, at least of this.” He listens for a moment, his face going red as if he’s being given an earful. Then finally, rather gingerly for him, he says, “Thanks, Prez.”
“Who’s Tyrant?”
He breathes in deep. “Pippa had given her a new phone so we could track her. She ended up in Turmoil, in the territory of the Nebraska Kings. They caught up with her and took her to their clubhouse.” He draws in another breath, then lets it out on a shuddering sigh. “Tyrant, their Prez, agreed to end her. For us.”
My eyes go wide. “You get yourself off your fucking ass, Freak. Go down and see Bullseye now. You make fucking sure this Tyrant isn’t going to hurt her.” I’m spitting with rage. No, I don’t like Toni, but she doesn’t deserve death, and certainly not for something she didn’t do. I prod Freak again. “Go, make this right.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
FREAK
Ihadn’t realised Trixie could be so fierce. In other circumstances, it would have been a turn-on. Combined with the relief that my letting Toni go had had nothing to do with her abduction was the concern that if the message didn’t get across in time, I’d have sentenced a woman to something she didn’t deserve. Misguided as Toni was, she seemed genuinely to be getting on with her life and fulfilling the conditions I’d given her for her freedom. Spying Ace playing pool, I veer over just long enough to ask him to go back and keep Trixie company.
