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I massage my temples.Can’t fucking help herself.“Of course, he would.” Fuck knows, if I were in his position, I’d want to capitalize on the opportunity to fuck over one of my biggest obstacles. “If not the mafia looking for a way in. We need Rae’s existence here to look legit. You’ll get a room upstairs and the trappings that came with that—food, laundry facilities, shit to do so you can pull your weight around here.”
“Like what?” Maddie presses. “You know as well as I do that the unhitched women around here are either sweet butts or fuckin’ house mice being used at their ol’ lady’s will. You going to make Rae trade one abuse for another?”
I frown at my fucking daughter, jaw working a knot. Fucking mouth on her works before her brain does.
“That’s not what I said.”
“You didn’t have to.” Maddie rises, hand out for Rae’s. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
The girl doesn’t move. Rae looks at my daughter with resignation in her heavy-lidded eyes. “Where else do I go, Mads?”
“What?”
“What choice do I have? Really? I walk out of here, and then what?”
“I don’t know,” my girl flounders, “But I’ll work out a way to keep you safe that doesn’t involve you droppin’ all your goddamn morals for a bunch of arrogant assholes.”
“Don’t let the property girls hear you say that,” I warn. “Sit the fuck down before I make you, Maddie.”
She relents with a huff.
Any one of my men talked back the way she does, and they’d find themselves down the road with a sore head for their troubles. Goddamn girl’s gonna get her ass in trouble one day, opening her fucking mouth around the wrong man.
“Nobody is sayin’ you gotta go out there and spread your legs for any old brother,” I assure Rae. “But we need this to look as though it’s legit. So…” I bring my hands together before me and knit them tight, the knowledge of what I’ll say next sitting heavy in my chest. “You’ve already been seen on Digger’s bike. He ‘rescued’ you from Connor. And he visited your place last night.”
“Jesus, Daddy,” Maddie whispers.
“As far as anyone outside these walls is concerned, you’re involved with my brother. You feel me?”
Rae nods, her throat bobbing as she chokes down the bitter taste of safety.
Of security.
Of giving up more of what she’s already lost—freedom—in the hope of having it back at all.
“When does this start?”
I drink her in—all her broken and beaten down glory—and find nothing less than a warrior of a woman determined to fight for her life. “Now.” I glance at my daughter. “Take her upstairs and set her up in one of the spare rooms. Rae,” I say, shifting my attention back to the shell of a woman on the sofa. “Make me a list of what else you need from your apartment. You won’t be back there for a while; I’ll send someone to collect your things.”
“What about my landlord? Brawny?”
“Leave that to me.” I rise from the seat and expel a heavy breath. “I’ll go find Digger and let him know what’s happening.”
“He agreed to this?” Maddie asks.
I note Rae’s sudden uptick in interest as her gaze flicks between Maddie and myself.
“He was the one who came up with the idea.”
9
RAE
Seated cross-legged on the bed,I flip through an old magazine I found on the bottom shelf of the wardrobe while I wait for Maddie to finish in the shower. Not that it helps much to distract from the day. The clubhouse was relatively quiet when we arrived this morning, but as the day progressed, more and more people filtered through the doors. Maddie did her best to keep me occupied, stashing me away in her room for a Netflix movie marathon. But as the sun went down, the noise level downstairs went up—to the point that I felt I’d surely scream if I had to listen to one more outburst of raucous laughter.
Apparently, I’ve reached my limit. Overwhelmed by all the bullshit that’s gone down the past two days.
Who would have thought?
