surface because, well, it might not matter in a few hours' time if I felt them or not. Because there was no guarantee I would live through this.
I cared about Huck.
And not just because the sex was good or because he had been a buffer against my terrible family. I just... liked him.
I had seen the way he'd interacted with his men—authoritative, but kind and fair. He took their opinions and feelings into account, he listened to their worries. But he always made the executive decisions, usually—if you were being objective—the right decision. He was both laid-back and serious at the same time, but could take a joke, wasn't' slow to smile.
He gave a shit about people. While he wasn't all mushy about it, it was clear he'd been worried about Seeley both times something had happened to him. And Remy had told me that he was worried about some guy by the name of Arty who got obsessive about his work and forgot to eat and sleep. Hell, even after coming out of my seizure that one time, I had seen concern on his face, in his voice. For me, a practical stranger at the time.
He was a good man wearing a bad boy's clothes.
And I had known so many bad men dressed as good guys.
It was new and refreshing and when all that was wrapped up in Huck's outward package? Yeah, it made someone very easy to catch feelings for.
I had them.
Feelings.
And as my headache slowly started to ease, all I felt was a bone-deep sort of fury that because of whoever had taken me, I might not be able to explore those feelings, get more of them, maybe, possibly, in some fantasy world, know what it might be like to have them reciprocated.
I pulled myself up, sliding halfway behind the door, making myself small, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders.
I figured that someone would come in that door at some point.
And maybe, if I was alert, if I was fast enough, I could grab the door, slam it back into whoever was entering, disorient them.
Then, I guess I had two choices depending on if I heard other voices or not.
I could run.
Or I could attempt to keep my freedom quiet by pulling the person in, and attempting to suffocate them with the blanket, giving me a chance to find a way out of the house without running across others.
Once I was on the street, I could run and scream and hope someone would take pity on me.
I wasn't someone who was certain in their ability to take another human life.
But, I figured, in this sort of situation, if it was me or them, I could do it.
The only problem was, no one came.
Hours passed, long enough for me to reach for the bottle of pills again, taking another two to get rid of the lingering headache.
It was the pills that consumed my mind then.
Why were they there?
How did someone know I would need them?
Even if they did know, why would they care if I had a migraine, if I was sore from being bumped around?
But before I could come to any logical conclusions about it, I finally heard them.
Footsteps.
Coming my way.
Chapter Thirteen
Huck
"Where is she?" I roared, slamming the guy up against the wall, watching the pain slice across his face, feeling a sick sort of satisfaction seeing it there.
I'd felt anger in my life before. I'd even felt twinges of rage. When someone threatened what was mine, hurt my people.
This, though? This was something else entirely. This was an inferno that swallowed me up whole, burning away anything even resembling rational thought.
I'd always been a careful leader. That was why there had never been any question about my role as president, why my men trusted me with their lives. Because I thought shit out. I made sure every move we made bettered us as a club or, at the very least, didn't put us in more danger.
But then Harmon was taken.
And I was flying across town at thirty over the speed limit without a helmet, just daring the cops to pull me down, putting my men at risk of new marks on their rap sheets because they had to keep up with me.
I didn't even try to hide my gun as I hopped off my bike in front of the little ranch house on a corner lot in a rough area of town, charging up the front path before my men could even get off their bikes