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I was so worried about losing her to the enemy that I didn’t realize how easily I could be the reason she’s gone.
“Mason, man, I need to go get the girls. I can’t keep fucking sitting here twiddling my damn thumbs.” The moment the words are out of my mouth, Sloan walks inside. Alone. “Sloan! Where is she? Where’s Taylor?”
“Slow down, Munsey,” Mason warns. “She’s with Owen.”
“With Owen? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Sloan and Mason exchange glances. “She wanted to stay,” Mason replies.
“That’s bullshit. There’s not a damn thing you can say that would make me believe that.”
“And why is that?” Sloan says, crossing her arms over her chest. “She told you she loved you, and you rejected her.”
Just like everyone else in her life.
I run a hand through my hair and heave out a sigh. “She knows me, though. She knows how I feel about her.”
“Maybe she doesn’t.”
“All the more reason I need to go get her.”
I start toward the door, but Mason grabs my arm, stopping me. “I ordered her to stay.”
And there it is. The truth. She isn’t leaving me. Isn’t choosing her mom over me. She’s trying to help the club. Doesn’t make this any easier.
“And if you go there trying to play fucking hero, it’ll fuck up everything. We need her there.”
“You have no clue what you’ve done. Her mom…her mom is evil. Taylor can’t handle it.”
Mason pats my shoulder. “Give her more credit than that. She’s a smart girl, and she wants answers as much as we do. I’m hoping she’ll help us get them.”
“And what if she’s sold off like all the other girls? What if that happens and we never find her?”
“We can track her,” Sloan says, touching her Harlots’ necklace. “The necklaces have a tracking chip. Lina had Carson install them when they gave them to us, just in case. Taylor doesn’t know.”
She’s safe. That’s all that matters. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back home. Back to me.
40
Taylor
I’ve been on edge since the phone call with Mason. Owen said my mom doesn’t tell him when she’s coming and going. He’s tried sending one of his guys to tail her, but she always loses them.
“Why don’t you go have a drink? Hang out with the guys? Might make you look like you aren’t ready to jump out of your skin.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
If my mom is suspicious in any way, this whole thing is over. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t have a hero complex or anything but I want to be the one who brings her down. I want to be the one to find answers.
One of the Eagles hands me a beer, and I take a sip, walking over to the pool table to watch the game. These men are strangers to me, but the way they joke and cut up reminds me of the Bastards. After about an hour, I’ve loosened up and am winning a pool game. It’s strange how quickly things change. The mood in the room shifts. The laughter fades. The camaraderie ends. My mother is here.
She walks in with my stepsisters, and her eyes instantly find mine as though she were looking for me. I swallow hard, managing to keep the vomit rising in my throat from expelling.
“Taylor, sweetheart. There you are.”
She reaches up and cups my face before kissing me gently on the forehead. When I was a little girl, she used to do this after I’d been outside playing. She was a good mom then. She bandaged my scraped knees, gave me ice cream, and sang me to sleep.
But she changed. Morphed into someone I didn’t recognize after my dad died. She met my stepfather, and suddenly, she was grooming me for a life I didn’t want. I knew the moment he came into my room, crawled into bed with me, that my life would never be the same.
