Mart nods and moves to untie the kid. It doesn’t take us long before we have him loaded into the back of the van. Kyza and I head out. We dump him along the way.
“How do you feel?” I ask as I keep my eyes on the road.
“Amazing,” she admits scooting into the middle seat. She rests her head on my shoulder. I throw an arm around her to keep her close.
“That mean you’re stayin’ with me?”
“Staying with you?” she asks as she looks up at me in shock.
“Yeah. No more sleepin’ in that nasty fuckin’ office,” I tell her.
“I can’t do that to Paul.”
“Didn’t ask you to do anything to Paul. I just said no more sleepin’ there. You can work there. I don’t give a shit about that, but as for sleepin’? You’re in my bed every fuckin’ night. Yeah?”
Kyza snuggles into my side and sighs.
“Yeah. Every fucking night.”
Chapter 20
Kyza
I thought that I’d be uncomfortable going with Monster to Key Largo. I wasn’t though. He makes me feel like I matter, and that’s not something I’ve found often if at all. No one has done that for me since Ryan, and we all know how well that ended.
I’m sitting outside the gates on his motorcycle waiting for him to come back. He called a few of his guys to come and meet him. Apparently this Ortega guy is bad news. I’m a little on edge wondering what’s happening in there, but I haven’t heard any gunshots, so I think that’s a good sign. I climb off of the bike and pace in front of it until I hear laughter coming my way. I turn to see him and his guys laughing as they come toward me. When they are out of reach from the guards the laughter just stops. Their faces turn to stone and anger dances in their eyes.
“You okay?” he asks me as they get closer.
I nod my head and wrap my arms around myself as the others take me in. It isn’t that they’ve never seen me before, but I find myself wondering if Monster told them what I did.
“Are you?” I ask him in return.
“I’m good babe. We need to go. Shit might get crazy if we stick around.”
“Head straight back. We’re havin’ church,” the guy I know as Mason says.
Monster nods his head, grabs my hand, and pulls me back to his bike. He climbs on and I get on behind him. I snuggle in close as he revs up the bike, as we’re starting to pull out a car pulls up. The guys don’t seem to pay them any attention, but I turn my head just as we pass and nearly fall off the bike. That can’t be. What the hell would she be doing here? Why? No! That can’t be her.
“You okay?” Monster hollers over his shoulder when I realize just how tense I actually am. I swallow hard knowing that it can’t possibly be her and try to calm myself.
“Yeah. I’m good,” I call back.
The entire ride back to the clubhouse has me on edge. The visions of her are stuck in my head. She looked so much like Annie, but it couldn’t be. Ortega isn’t our last name, and I left them in Louisiana. I try to shake the thoughts from my head, but I can’t. She looked so much like her.
When we pull up into the clubhouse Monster kills the engine and climbs off. He offers me his hand and I take it climbing off next to him. When he goes to remove my helmet I feel his eyes on me.
“You wanna tell me what’s runnin’ through that head of yours?”
“The car we passed leaving Key Largo? The girl in the back reminded me of my sister,” I say softly. Monster pulls me to his chest and runs his hand through my hair.
“Do you hate her?”
“I did at one point. I hated that she was better than me. Well, that’s how it felt at least. She never got treated the way I did.”
“And now?”
“I forgave her a long time ago. She did what she had to do to survive. I can’t blame her for that. She was just trying to stay alive just like I was,” I admit out loud for the first time.
“That’s a heavy weight yeah?”
I pull back and look up at him before I nod.
“It was worth it. You are worth it. If I wasn’t that girl back then, I