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Wincing, because that was something I could not think about, I demanded, “Stop.” I jogged away and down the hallway by the bar. In denial myself, I wanted to see Elle working on her dream kitchen. “Babe!”
Deep down, I knew she wasn’t. All construction halted after Everleigh’s abduction. Elle couldn’t even eat. Guilt was ruling her mind.
At the end of the hallway, I rounded the corner in a rush. The desolate room had leftover construction tools… but no Elle.
It was time to face the truth, but I wasn’t interested.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I ran across the hall to the room she never got a chance to show me: the old garage. She wasn’t there, but her writing was, all over the unfinished sheetrock walls and raw concrete floor.
Like her drawings, in colored pencil, she had labeled where everything was to go:
Soda station…
Plate and silverware station…
Stacked highchairs…
Careful not to step on her labels on the floor, a tortured sound vibrated from my chest as I walked, running my fingers over the words on the walls.
Dessert station…
Cabinet for tablecloths and supplies…
From behind me, Dagger’s voice cracked as if he hadn’t had a sip of water in weeks, “Son, she’s just a little girl.”
The heart in my chest wanted out and into a burning pit so it could escape the pain that my love for her created. “So was Elle, once.”
Getting closer to me, Dagger groaned, “Oh, Jesus, I don’t even know what we’re doing anymore—”
I turned toward him, my face so drawn I was surprised it wasn’t dragging with each of my steps closer to Dagger. “You really believed Lorenzo would keep his word? Just turn over my sister? After humiliating him like I did?”
Dagger ran stressed hands down his face wet with tears. “We prayed for that, yes.”
It was all coming full circle now… I explained, “When Elle was a little girl, more alone than you and I will ever experience, she dreamt of me as a little boy.” Inhaling a breath full of hatred, I pointed to where I couldn’t see but knew so well, our bedroom where we had made love so many times I lost count. “Now, as a man, I dreamt of her—the agony she is in because of the torture she’s already enduring, again.” I could still feel the rain stinging my back.
Yes, Elle was an adult and accustomed to Lorenzo’s cruelty, not like my innocent sister, but there was a glaring fact Dagger and I were positive my father had forgotten.
My fist crashed into Dagger’s face, knocking him to the ground.
While he lay there, not bothering to fight back, I told him, “You broke a club law by not protecting the VP’s Old Lady.”
I’d been so damn busy with everything going on, I hadn’t made her ‘Property Of’ cut ceremony a priority but was going to… if I survived this. There would be no room for doubts. With that leather on her back, it would mean ‘die for her, or die by my hands’.
Dagger just lay there, holding an imaginary Everleigh to his shoulder. “I know, but Lynx… That baby. What is he doing to that baby I held and loved so much?”
“Nothing we can stop while dealing with your insubordinate decisions.” I left him there, so angry such a smart man had suddenly become so stupid.
Reentering the Barn, I asked my Road Captain, “He still outside?”
Si nodded.
Passing him, I asked, “Were you in on this?”
Appearing torn between Pops’ actions versus his duties, he shook his head.
I was going to ask my Sargent and Arms, Jett, but he was on the phone. By his grave expression, it wasn’t good news he was receiving.
