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In spite of the chaos, people bustled around me, completely unaware of what I was going through.
As if it didn’t feel like the world was collapsing around me.
Like I was being attacked from all sides.
Unable to escape the torment that was on my mind.
Something was very wrong.
“You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?”
I blinked. “I’m sorry. What did you say?” I absently responded.
Strong hands gripped me as they lifted me off the ground and threw me over what could only be a shoulder, a rush of air huffing from my lungs. I closed my eyes as soon as I smelled the comforting, leathery aroma of Hunter’s jacket and let it take me away. With his arms around me, I felt like a helpless rag doll, no matter how tightly he held me.
A feeling I never wanted to feel again, yet I had no control over.
Dimitri must have cleared our path, because no hands or bodies touched me as Hunter stalked through the crowd. I struggled against his grip, but he only held me tighter as we passed the bar and made our way into the office, the rowdy atmosphere from our usual clientele suddenly muted as Hunter slammed the office door with a hard thud.
He slowly lowered me off his shoulder, my feet connecting with the smooth, cold hardwood.
Then and only then did I open my eyes.
Hunter placed his hands on my shoulders, gripping them before asking, “You okay?”
“Anyone notice?”
“Honestly, the only reason I threw you over my shoulder was so that they would only see me carrying you off and wouldn’t assume anything other than me being an ass.”
“Good thinking.”
“I know you’re gonna be pissed, but I don’t think tonight is a good night for you to go.”
“You’re right.”
“I am?” he smirked.
“Don’t push it,” I warned him playfully.
Dimitri led us all back the way we came. With Hunter’s arm wrapped around me we trailed behind him through the crowd and back up the stairs. I tried to ignore the onlookers, the last thing I wanted was to look weak in front of them, but what was I supposed to do.
There was no warning before the rush of fear that made me feel like I was suffocating, signalling the onset of a panic attack. A surge of anger flowed through me as they carefully shepherded me up to my room, like a piece of glass that could shatter at any moment. My fingers ran across the keys of my cell phone, typing out a message to Brax and Liam that I wouldn’t be able to join them tonight. That’s when I realized the most crushing thing of all.
I hated not being in control.
ChapterEighteen
HARLEIGH
For all thefeelers we had, we still hadn’t located Dirk. And until we had him in our clutches, we couldn’t make a move on the Crows. After seeing Dirk in Loraine’s trailer with someone with a direct connection to the Crows, I knew there was more than just a small connection between everything.
So, I went in search of something I could actually do in place of what I wanted, to take my mind off what I couldn’t control.
After an afternoon of talking with some people at the drop-in centre downtown, I was ready to knock some heads in. The centre was a social services building that helped people who were homeless or needed rehabilitation. Just down the street, the homeless had constructed a small encampment. They had placed tents and makeshift structures in a line against one side of a large black security fence.
According to the article I read online, the area had become valuable territory for drug traffickers and in the last couple of months, there had been more than twenty violent incidents. They ranged from sexual assaults to physical attacks using sledgehammers and if you could believe it, machetes! The moment I’d heard what happened to them, it took everything in me not to track them down and return the favour.
When Dimitri and I arrived back at the clubhouse, we went our separate ways. I headed toward my office so I could come up with a plan of attack, and he went upstairs to rope Hunter into our plans. The moment I pushed open the office door and spotted Erik behind the desk, I knew my plans would be squashed. Ever since I came back, he had been spending more time here.
