Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1) (29 page)

The first clear thing that made sense was a souvenir. When she was eight, she and her parents had gone to Nepal to meet her father’s family. It was the first of only two trips she’d ever made to her father’s home. Her grandmother, who spoke no more English than Sid spoke Nepali, had given her a pretty incense burner, the kind with a lid. It was shaped like a lotus flower. Through hand signals and facial expressions, she had made it known that it would bring happiness if Sid burned a cone in it every day. Or, that was what Sid had thought she’d tried to tell her. At any rate, she didn’t really like the smell of incense, and she’d already felt inundated by it, because her father burned it when he prayed. Sid had used the lotus flower maybe a half-dozen times in all the years she had it.

But it was pretty, and it was from family she hadn’t had much chance to be better connected to, so she’d always kept it out on display.

It had been on the table Sid had toppled when she’d fallen. It was metal, burnished brass. The top of the burner had an elaborate spire in the center.

As Green lay down on her and she could feel his dick pushing against her, fighting against her dryness to penetrate her, her brain and body came back together. She grabbed the lid and, shouting with incoherent rage, slammed it into his face. Her aim was perfect; it went right into his eye, and he reared back, bellowing in pain and clutching his face.

Sid scooted back and pulled her legs up, then pistoned them both as hard as she could into his chest. Air left him in a huge
woof
, and he fell backward, still trying to yell despite his lack of breath.

She scrambled to her feet.

Fuck! He was lying, writhing, between her and the front door—and her purse and shoes. There was glass all over the floor between her and the back door, and she was barefoot. She was still trapped with this son of a bitch.

Where the fuck was Dinny?

Green had pulled the brass lid out of his eye and was struggling back to his feet. “Oh, I am going to fuck you to DEATH, you stupid chink cunt.” His eye was nothing but an open wound, pouring blood down his face. But he turned to her and smiled.

She ran for her bedroom and closed the door. There was no lock on the door, but in this room, she had her landline phone and her .38.

She got her gun first and turned to go around the bed for her phone when the bedroom door crashed open, and he was on her again, tackling her to the floor. Fuck this stupid, tiny room!

Though she lost her breath when she landed on the floor with him on top of her, and her head went wonky again, she got the gun between them and tried to fire. But she’d forgotten to cock it manually, and the trigger was stiff as hell when it wasn’t.

She was better than this! She knew how to defend herself! Why the hell was she making all these goddamn mistakes?!

When she went to cock the gun, he hit her in the face again and tried to pull it out of her dazed hands, but she held on. While they struggled for it, she brought her knee up and tried to get his goods, but he was too big, and all she caught was thigh. But his eyes took on a whole new kind of crazy.

“I’m gonna hurt you every way I know how to do, cunt.”

One hand still wrapped around the gun and both of her hands, he hit her again. And again. She could feel her grip loosening on the gun and on everything else.

Where was Dinny? Where was Muse? Why was she alone?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Muse pulled into Sid’s driveway and knew right away that something was off. Dinny’s bike wasn’t around. If the shithead had bailed, then Muse was going to rearrange his limbs for him.

He hoped like fuck that was what it was, but Muse had lived outlaw too long not to be cautious. He backed his bike next to Sid’s Thing and pulled his piece out of his saddlebag. His knife was already strapped to his thigh and his switchblade was in his pocket; since the meltdown at the casino, all the Horde were carrying again as a matter of course.

Tucking his Beretta into the back of his jeans, Muse went to the door. It was unlocked—not unusual when she was home. This neighborhood’s idea of crime was a smashed pumpkin on Halloween. He opened the door quietly and stepped in.

And was assailed immediately by signs that Sid was in real trouble. Cliff wasn’t around. The little mosaic table that held knickknacks was on the floor, and the knickknacks were scattered. One of her canvas grocery bags lay in the middle of the floor, a carton of strawberries spilling out. A bottle of wine or something lay near the kitchen doorway.

Sid’s panties, white with little flowers, were wadded on the rug.

They were bloody. Fuck, there was blood everywhere.

And then Muse heard them.

Sid grunting, crying.

And a male voice, rough with anger and exertion, growling, “I’m gonna hurt you every way I know how to do, cunt.”

A grunt and the sound of a fist making impact.

Coming from the bedroom.

It took Muse no more than a couple of seconds to process all of that input, and he pulled his gun and ran.

On the floor next to the bed, a massive man had Sid pinned beneath him. His pants were undone, dropped below his wide ass. There was even more blood in here. They were struggling with something between them, and as Muse arrived at the doorway, the man punched Sid on the side of the head.

They didn’t know he was there, but Muse’s gun was useless. He couldn’t take the risk he’d hit Sid. He shoved it against the small of his back and unsheathed his knife instead.

And then he vaulted forward, landing on the bastard’s back, and sank his hunting blade into that thick neck.

The man reared backward, gagging and clawing at his throat. The movement threw Muse off his back, and he took his blade with him. When the knife left its seat inside the man’s neck, the wound became a geyser, showering Muse and Sid in blood.

And then the room exploded with the sounds of screaming and gunfire, and Muse was sprayed with brain matter as well as blood. The guy fell, so hard the room rattled.

Sid had shot him in the face; it was her .38 they’d been fighting over. Still screaming, she turned her gun on Muse, and he threw his hands up, his knife still in his fist. “Easy! Sid, it’s me!” His ears rang from the blast in this small room, and everything sounded like it was coming through cotton padding.

Her scream cut off, but her expression didn’t change. She seemed frozen, sitting against her bed, her battered face a rictus of terror and fury, her arms locked with the gun pointed at him. She was blood from her head to her feet. Her left eye was swelling shut. Her shirt was torn open, showing her bra bunched up above her tits. The skirt he’d only hours before lifted so he could sink deep into her at Hoosier’s house was badly ripped.

“It’s me, hon. It’s me.”

She blinked, and the gun dropped an inch, then two. He eased his hands down. “It’s okay, hon. It’s over.”

Her arms relaxed onto her thighs, but she kept her grip on the .38. “Where…were you?”

At that question, Muse’s heart just collapsed. “I’m so sorry.” He crawled to her and eased the gun out of her hands. “I’m so sorry. Fuck, hon, I’m so sorry.”

When he tried to touch her, she recoiled. Then she threw herself to the side and vomited.

Muse turned and sat, giving her a few inches of space. With a moment to spare now for making sense of events, rage filled him. So much rage he felt drunk with it. His heart roared in his ears.

He took in the scene. Her bedroom was drenched in blood. The three-hundred-pound body of her attacker, one eye a gory mess, a hole below the other, his dick still half-hard, took up most of the floor space. And Sid had been covered in blood
before
Muse had severed his carotid.

He turned to her and took her hand, holding on when she pulled back. “You’re hurt. Tell me how he hurt you.”

Staring at the body, she only shook her head.

And then he heard sirens.

Fuck. The gunshot.

The gun at his back wasn’t registered. He had to find a place to hide it.

He stood and bent down, holding out his hands. “You gotta get out of this room, hon. Can you walk? Or will you let me carry you?”

She turned her head creakily and looked up at him. Without responding in words, she struggled to push herself up, ignoring his offered hands. She stood and then walked, her steps jerky and uncertain, around the body and out the door. Muse followed her to the living room, and she sat on the little chair near the turret.

“I’ll be right back, hon. I’m just going into the other room.”

She didn’t acknowledge him. Muse turned and ran down the hall to her small spare room, which she used for storage. He maneuvered around stacks of boxes, trying to touch as little as possible with his bloody hands and clothes, and found a place to hide his gun. Then he came out, closed the door, and called Hoosier.

“Yeah,” the President answered.

“Hooj. It’s Muse. I need you. And Bibi, too. Sid was attacked. Neighbor must’ve called it in. Sirens are just about on us.”

“I hear ‘em. This Castillos, you think? Or her own trouble?”

“Don’t know.” He fucking hated that he didn’t know. He’d never gotten a name for the guy who was after her. Club business had kept their intel guys busy, and Sid’s problem had been ignored. All he’d ever gotten was ‘Gr…’ and he didn’t even know if that was the start of a first name or a last name.

He wasn’t sure which would have been worse—if the body in her bedroom was the guy he’d known was after her, or if it was a Castillo. Either way, Muse knew this was his fucking fault. He’d let her down.

The sirens were right out front now. “Gotta go, Prez. Sid needs Bibi. She won’t let me touch her.”

“Fuck. She’s right here. We’re on it. Keep me in the loop, if you can.”

If he could. If he wasn’t in lockup.

And where the fuck was Cliff?

As he went back out to the living room, the deputies pounded on the front door, shouting “SHERIFF! OPEN IMMEDIATELY OR WE WILL ENTER FORCIBLY!”

Moving like a robot, Sid stood and took a step toward the door. At that moment, Muse turned to look out the back door and see if they were coming in the back, too. And he saw Cliff on the kitchen floor.

“Oh, God!” He lunged toward his dog.

Covered in blood, Sid opened the door. And let chaos in.

Shouting, guns drawn, coming in the back and the front, law converged on them. Muse was tackled to the floor before he could get to Cliff, and his arms were brutally yanked behind his back while a service-issue shoe held his head down.

~oOo~

When Bibi came through the ER doors, Muse, who’d been staring in that direction for hours, stood and went right to her.

“How is she, Mama? What did he do to her?”

Bibi hooked her arm around his and walked him back to his brothers. They’d all shown up at the hospital.

“She’s gonna be okay. Most of the blood was his. She has a concussion, and that scar on her cheek broke back open, so that’s stitched again. Her face is damn swollen, but that’s the worst of it.” She gave Muse a significant look. “He didn’t…finish what he started, honey. She didn’t go through that.”

“Thank Christ.”

She patted his arm. “They’re finishin’ up some stuff, and then they’re gonna release her. I want you to come to our house. We got plenty of room, and you can’t take her back to that house.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. It was still a crime scene. Thankfully, Sid had talked enough to the deputies to get him out of cuffs. She hadn’t given them a lot of details, but what she’d told them was enough that they hadn’t been arrested.

And he knew that the name of the man who’d come at her was Kevin Green. Who’d hurt her once already, and who’d threatened her repeatedly—more than Muse had been aware. He’d had weeks to figure out who this guy was and end the threat, and he hadn’t been able to get it done. He’d let her down.

But all she’d’ve had to fucking do was fucking tell him his motherfucking name.

Rage and guilt were turning his gut into lye.

“Will she talk to me, you think?”

Bibi nodded. “She ain’t mad at you, honey. She’s just…nervy. They’re givin’ her some pills to ease her some, but you gotta give her time. What she just went through…I don’t think you can understand.”

“You said he didn’t—”

She turned him, creating a space of privacy between them and his brothers. “Rape ain’t just penetration, Muse. In some ways that’s the least of it. The pain and humiliation and powerlessness—that’s the worst of it. And she got all that in spades. So you give her some goddamn time, you hear?”

Realizing that Bibi must have been through something similar to be able to speak in that way, Muse nodded.

She smiled and pulled him down to kiss his cheek. “Good boy. How’s Cliffie?”

“Deme’s with him at the vet. He’s gonna be okay.” He’d been heavily drugged. Apparently, Green had been an animal lover, so he had let Cliff live. Also apparently, he’d been casing Sid for a while. He’d come prepared.

And he’d had help. Dinny, who’d let himself get too far behind Sid, had been run off the road in a hit and run and was upstairs in this hospital, still unconscious. No way that was a coincidence.

“Good! I’m glad. Bring him to our house, too. I love a full house, and Tucker’ll love havin’ Cliff there. Thanksgivin’s in a couple days, anyway. Maybe all the commotion’ll help Sid.”

Muse didn’t know if it would. He wasn’t sure how she handled fresh trauma. He knew she’d been unsettled and afraid after the first time Green had hurt her. But she’d been determined not to do things any differently. He suspected she’d be determined again, once her head was clear.

“Her folks know about all this?”

Muse shook his head. “If she wants ‘em to know, she’ll tell ‘em.”

“They’re gonna see her Thursday, right? And meet you.”

“That’s the plan, yeah. I don’t know if she’ll be up to it now.”

Bibi sucked on her lip, obviously thinking. “Okay. Well, that’s a mess. But one thing at a time. Let me go back there and collect her—you get all these guys on their way. She’s not gonna want to be surrounded by the whole damn club tonight.”

He bent down and hugged her. “Thank you, Mama.”

“Family, honey. S’what we do.” She patted his cheek and then went to give Hoosier a kiss and say a couple of words. Then she went back through the swinging ER doors.

~oOo~

Muse knocked on the guestroom door, and after a second, Sid opened it. Fuck, she looked bad. She was cleaned up now, but all washing Green’s blood off of her had seemed to do was show how really badly he’d actually hurt her. Her left eye was swollen completely shut, and that whole side of her face was mottled red and purple. Her left cheek was stitched again—that scar would now be distinct. She had a small cut on the other side of her forehead; that was closed with two butterfly bandages. Her throat was ringed with bruising, and her chin had several nasty scratches.