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Fucking spirit.
I didn't think she had so much of it.
I should have known with her kitty cat self-defense keychain that she wasn't the kind of woman who would go down without using whatever weapon was in her arsenal.
"And that... got through, I guess. And he got off me and I got away and... I screamed at him until he left..."
Jesus Christ.
I think for maybe the first time in my life, I understood what true relief felt like. Sure, she had been roughed up, she had been scared out of her mind, she had been sure the worst was going to happen. And there were scars about that. There was going to be some emotional damage.
But he hadn't raped her.
He hadn't left her with those marks that might never heal.
It didn't change anything in my mind.
Because he would have done it.
The only thing stopping him was repercussions.
I guess he was counting on Kennedy rolling over and taking it.
I guess he also didn't count on me.
"Come on," I said, sliding my hand down her arm until my hand had hers, fingers slipping between. I was pretty sure it was the first time in my entire fucking life that I held a woman's hand. And somehow, it didn't feel weird or awkward like I thought it might.
"Come where?" she asked, shaking her head, looking around. "I... I need to call..." then she trailed off, like she wasn't sure.
Like maybe she was worrying about pressing charges.
Because this bastard held her future in his hands.
Oh yeah, that bullshit would not fucking stand.
"You can call whoever you need to call once I get you back to the compound," I told her, pulling her with me, grabbing her purse off her desk as I brought her to the door, flicking off the lights, and locking up.
"Pagan, I..." she started to object as I pulled her over to my car parked on the street. I had been on a bike for days straight. When I got back, the thought of getting on it again made my lip curl. So I brought the car to pick her up, something I was glad for at that moment.
Because the hand in mine and the arm it was attached to and the body on from there, all of it was still trembling slightly. I wasn't sure I would trust her to be able to hold on tight enough to stay on the bike.
"Sh, we'll talk when we get there, okay?"
Because, quite frankly, I needed a minute.
I needed to get my thoughts together.
I needed to try to calm myself down a bit.
Because that's what, whether or not she realized, she needed for me.
She nodded as I pushed her into the passenger seat and stayed silent the very short drive down the street, as we parked, as I went around to take her hand again and lead her inside.
The clubhouse was probie heaven that night.
The men who had women, Laz and Renny included, were off with them, getting reunited.
That left Cyrus, Reeve, Edison, Sugar, Virgin, Roan, and Roderick in the common room. As such, the TV was loud, liquor was around, and voices were somewhat raised and, until we stepped in, there were the upbeat sounds of laughter as they likely shared old war stories.
But then I pulled the door open and we walked in, drawing all of their attention.
And everything fell silent. Faces fell.
Because there was only one explanation for a woman standing there with a busted face, a ripped dress, running makeup, and swollen, red-stained eyes.
And the collective hardened reaction was exactly fucking why I loved my brotherhood, why I knew it was home when I came into the compound that night many months before. Because, quite frankly, it didn't matter that literally each and every one of them were criminals, that they all had taken lives, that they hurt people who deserved it. Under all that, they were good fucking men. They had moral compasses. There was a distinct line between wrong and right. They had a code.
Hurting women, yeah, that shit was not fucking acceptable.
There was a rumble, low, barely audible. I didn't even think Kennedy heard it, but I did and I recognized it. Maybe because I knew where it came from and why.
It came from Edison.
And while his past was mostly secret, one thing was clear, the man had a serious problem with men abusing women. He apparently had a reputation for beating the shit out of pimps who roughed up their whores. A couple months ago, when Bethany's past caught up with her, leaving her beat up, he had been fucking cold as ice, his anger running toward frigid.
He slowly stood, unfolding like a cat, and I felt myself stiffen, knowing that Edison was intimidating on a normal day, but when he was pissed, he was going to scare the shit out of Kennedy.
