Page 10 of Tico

Reese sighs. “Last night, something wasn’t sitting right with how your dad and Ryan were acting. Then in the booth, I overheard Jerry saying something about finally being able to cash in on his investments. That he and Ryan were going to make bank and finally get the officer patches they’ve been wanting to reclaim in the club. After the fight, I slipped a tracker in your bag as a precaution. Duncan had given me a couple in case I needed them to protect you two.”

That last bit has my muscles tensing. It hits me that earlier, he said Duncan had called him as well—I just hadn’t caught it with everything going on. “Wait. Duncan gave them to you? He called you? How do you know him?”

His shoulders slump. “He’s the one that sent me to watch over you and your sister. I owe him a life debt.”

This time it’s my body that slumps. My throat thickens and it’s hard to swallow. Duncan didn’t just abandon us like I thought. Yeah, we texted every now and then, but in the beginning, I really did think he’d abandoned us despite it being my decision to stay.

The car slows and I jerk awake. Shit. I fell asleep and according to the dash, I’ve been out for a couple of hours.

“Where are we?” I ask as Reese pulls into a hotel parking lot.

“A hotel in Green Bay.”

I wait for him to expand on that, and when he doesn’t, I frown. Why are we stopping in Green Bay? It’s only a little after seven o’clock and if my memory is right, it’s only an hour and a half or so to Duncan’s tattoo parlor in Sheboygan Falls from here. So why are we stopping here?

A sliver of worry slides down my spine. My eyes dart all around the parking lot, taking in the cars and the people milling about. It’s then that I realize I don’t know much about Reese’s background. Could he be leading us into a trap?

Then, I spot him.

Duncan.

Shit, I mean Daemon. If we’re going to be around his club, I’ll need to learn to use his road name going forward.

The corner of Daemon’s lips lifts as he spots us through the windshield. Then his eyes turn sharp as he scans the parking lot. He gestures something and Reese nods in response. Daemon turns and heads into the office. A few minutes later, he comes out and starts walking around.

I go to open the door, but Reese turns, stopping me. “Wait for Daemon to open it.”

Frowning, I obey though I am curious as to why I have to wait. Turning my attention back to Daemon, it takes me an embarrassingly long time before I realize he’s checking the perimeter.

“Once he’s done and comes to get you, we’ll need to move fast. I’ll carry your sister; you grab your bags. Leave the books for now.”

Worry skates down my spine. Now I’m second guessing my decision. Is Sheboygan Falls far enough away from ThicketGrove? Will they get bored of trying to find us and let us go? Or will they keep chasing us until they get their hands on us?

Daemon walks over to my door and I unbuckle, but since Pyper is still asleep, I wait until Reese lifts her off me before sliding out on the other side. Quickly, Daemon and I grab the bags out of the back and he places a hand at my back, ushering me to follow Reese. We stop for a moment at his bike to grab his saddle bags before heading inside. On the way up, I catalogue where the stairwells and side doors are located. We get a few odd looks from some of the other patrons, but I ignore them for the most part.

Once inside the room, Daemon locks the door behind us and we set everything down on the desk while Reese gently lays Pyper down on the bed. I stare down at her, relieved she’s sleeping well and not having nightmares. Murmuring has me looking over my shoulder to see Daemon and Reese talking quietly and then Reese steps out.

“He’s going to grab some food,” Daemon says as he relocks the door. He grabs one of Reese’s bags and digs out his med kit. It’s then that I notice I never cleaned the blood off my hands or my knee. No wonder we got weird looks downstairs.

With a sigh, I take it from him and sit down on the bed before digging out the supplies to clean myself up and the bit of blood that escaped the bandage on my arm. I startle when he wipes my cheek with an alcohol wipe and he gives me an apologetic look.

“You had some blood on your face.”

I give him a small, strained smile and focus on finishing cleaning my hands as he sits down next to me. My knuckles are split in a couple of areas, but I use skin glue on them instead of a bandage. Tucking the supplies back in the case, I look up to find Daemon staring at Pyper.

“What happened, Em?” he asks as he turns back toward me.

I swallow thickly. All I’d told him earlier on the phone was that something had happened to Pyper and we had to get out. Taking a deep breath, I tell him about how her behavior was last night after the fight and then what happened today.

“Looking back, I think she started changing a couple of weeks ago. The changes were so subtle that I didn’t notice something was wrong until last night, but she wouldn’t open up to me about it. I tried talking to her about it today, but she wasn’t ready. She’d change the topic or just flat out refuse to talk.”

“Yesterday was the first time they got physical… like that,” Pyper’s quiet voice replies and we both look over at her. “But you stopped them before they were able to do anything.”

Daemon opens his arms and Pyper crawls off the bed and into his arms. I pick her legs up and drape them over my lap, needing the contact right now. Pyper looks up and gives me a guilty look.

“Dad told me that if I told you what he, Uncle Ryan, and Scooter were doing, that they’d kill you. That’s why I wouldn’t tell you what was going on. It started two weeks ago. Whenever you were at work during the day, they came over to the trailer and told me things were going to change since I’ll be sixteen next year. That I had to change how I acted, how I thought, what I wore, what I ate, what I did, even how I wore my hair. Everything. They only agreed to your demands years ago about keeping their hands off us so long as you fought because they were waiting for me to grow up so they could get more money out of us. When I fought them or did something wrong, they’d hit me but make sure it was in a place that my clothes covered them up.”

Rage simmers in my veins and I wish those assholes were in front of me so I could make them pay. There’s nothing wrong with Pyper. What’s wrong is their views on women. It’s the twenty-first fucking century for fucks sake! Women have just as many rights as men do. We shouldn’t be shoved back intothe old days where women were considered property. That our only worth was what was between our legs and how we kept the household.