I couldn't pin my hopes on a biker. Hammer was so wrapped up in his own demons he could barely put one foot in front of the other. How could I expect him to be able to see clearly enough to help me? I had no right to expect anything of him. He had no obligation to me.
As I sat there, a sinking feeling developing in the pit of my stomach, I felt reality begin to intrude on the little cocoon we had here, cutting through the haze and afterglow of sex. I felt my breath catch in my chest, and the air felt warm, too warm. Stifling. "How long have we been here?"
"A few hours," Hammer said, glancing at the clock. "Oh. More than a few. It's already six."
"Shit," I said. "I need to go."
"What did I say?" Hammer asked. He sat up on the bed, and I felt his eyes follow me as I rose and began to put my clothes back on. "Meia, talk to me."
"I can't stay here," I said. "I have to get back, to the apartment. I can't be gone this long. If Aston calls for me - if he sends for me and I'm not there. He will kill Ben."
"You have your cell phone, right?" Hammer asked, his voice intense. I couldn't tell if he was angry, didn't look at him as I slid my dress over my head. "Has he ever just shown up at your place before?"
"No," I admitted. "But I can't risk it. If I'm being watched, I have no reason to be out at night like this, dressed like this. It's not part of my routine."
"Can I see you again?" he asked.
No, I thought. Say no. Stay away from him, bide your time with Aston. Then, the other part of me, the cynical questioning part, chimed in. Until what? Until Aston tires of you and kills you and Ben both?
"Meia." Hammer came up behind me, slid his hands down the length of my arms, pulled me tight against his body. His breath wafted over my ear, raising goose bumps on my arms and making the hairs on my neck stand up. "Don't shut me out."
"I'm not," I said. I couldn't think, not with him standing there, with his hands on me. "All of this - it happened so quickly. It's not safe. Staying with Aston, doing what I have to do to get Ben back- That's safe."
Hammer turned me around to face him, put his fingers under my chin, and tilted my face up toward him. "Look at me," he said, his voice dark. "Being with Aston is never going to be safe. He's breaking you, piece by piece. He will kill you, do you understand?"
"If he finds out I've been with you-" I said. "If he finds out what you're doing, it'll be the end."
"He won't find out," Hammer said. "We'll be careful. I promise you. On my life, Meia. We will figure this out. We will get you and Ben away from him. I won't let anything happen to you. I can't."
His voice broke as he said it, and I saw the pain behind his eyes. Of course.
I smiled sadly. "Saving me won't undo the past, Hammer," I said. "It won't change what happened to April."
His brow furrowed, and a look of hurt passed over his face. "I wasn't -" He stepped back from me. "What happened here wasn't about that. It was about you and me."
I brought my fingers to my lips, then touched them gently to his cheek. "I know it wasn't just about us, Hammer," I said. "That's just reality, for both of us. The room is filled with ghosts."
“I love you, MacKenzie,” I said. I had to make sure she knew it. It was the first thing I did after I left that hotel room, before I could do what I knew I needed to do next.
“I know, dad,” she said. “Hey, when I come back, do you think we can talk about getting a horse?”
“Do you want to come back?” I asked, my heart racing. I thought she was loving being in Puerto Rico. My biggest fear was that she wouldn’t want to come home.
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, when school starts again, you know?”
“Okay,” I said, barely able to contain the feeling of joy at her desire to come home. “I promise we’ll think about getting a horse.”
“Do you mean it?” She squealed with delight, a sound I hadn’t heard in a long time.
“Are you going to take care of a horse?”
“Dad, I promise,” she said, her voice suddenly solemn. “You aren’t going to go back on your word, right?”
“I won’t go back on my word,” I said. On the horse issue or any of my promises. Like finding out where Ben was. Even as the thought went through my head, I felt a wave of nausea at the idea of someone taking my child from me. Or harming her the way Meia was hurt. “And Mac-”
“What’s up, dad?”
“I’m really, really happy you want to come home.”
“Well, like, I couldn’t stay here forever, dad.” She said it as if it was the most self-evident thing in the world.
“I thought you wanted to stay with grandma permanently,” I said.
“I mean, Puerto Rico is really fun and everything,” she said. “But you’re my dad.”
“Are you just saying that to get a horse?” I asked, my voice teasing. Shit, I didn’t care even if she was. It was enough to hear that she wanted to come home.
“Dad.” She sighed loudly. She was quiet for a minute, and I almost thought she’d hung up. Then she finally spoke. “I want to go see mom’s grave.”
"What made you bring up seeing mom's grave?"
"The counselor, the one I'm talking to," she said. "We were talking about it."
“Okay,” I said. “We can do that.” And I meant it. For the first time, I felt ready to confront the past.
A WEEK LATER
"Holy fuck." Skunk stood inside the living room, staring at the wall. "What the fuck is all this shit? You've fucking lost it."
"I told you not to come here," I said through gritted teeth. The only reason I tolerated Skunk was because of our history. We'd been friends for a long time, and yeah, he'd been checking on me when things were shitty. I knew he thought all of this meant I'd finally gone over the edge.
What he didn't understand was that this was the most clarity I'd felt in a long time. I could see what I had to do. I had purpose - one that didn't involve beating the shit out of someone.
"Seriously, Hammer," Skunk said, walking along the wall, in the empty space where I'd moved the sofa to the other side of the room. His fingers traced the length of the huge map that covered the expanse of the wall. "If you tell me that all these pins and shit have to do with some kind of government conspiracy or something, I swear to God, I will fucking bring you to the looney bin right now."
"It's not," I said. "It's something private." I hadn't told the club anything, despite what I'd told Meia about the club backing me. Fuck, I didn't know if they would. I was only just out of retirement; sure, there was some kind of tie to them, because I was a brother, but not the kind of tie that would bring them into some of my personal shit. Especially when that personal shit involved a guy like Aston.
And my paranoia had started taking over. I guess I was jaded from all the shit that went down with Mad Dog, but I sure as shit didn't blindly trust the club. The club worked for Benicio, and Benicio was a smuggler, plain and simple. It wasn't exactly far-fetched to think he might be smuggling people, not just things. And if he was, he could have any kind of tie to Aston.
This was the kind of shit I thought about, the kind of shit that had been keeping me up at night all week, as I tried to work through what I could do to help Meia.
But I was grateful for it. It was a hell of a lot better than thinking about what a shit father I had been and how it was my fault my wife was dead.
"Hammer," Skunk said. "We've been friends a long time. I've seen you crazy before. What the fuck kind of private shit is this?"
"It's nothing," I said.
"Don't look like nothing," Skunk said. "Definitely looks like something."
"I'm looking for someone, okay? Christ, leave it the fuck alone."
Skunk peered closer at one of the pins on the wall. One of twenty-three. Each pin marked a possible location where Meia's son might be held, based on what I'd gathered on Aston. Possible, shit. There were an infinite number of possible locations. I didn't know why I'd thought hacking Aston would magically give me a location
for Ben.
I'd promised something to Meia, and I was severely doubting my ability to deliver on that promise. And if I couldn't....I didn't want to think about what she was going through, knowing her son was in Aston's hands. What she had been going through for years, being forced to be with the monster who had taken him. If Ben was killed...well, fuck, I knew how it felt to have the one thing you loved taken from you, and to feel like it was your own damn fault.
It would fucking destroy her.
"Does this have to do with April?" Skunk asked.
I felt my fists clenched by my side. "Not a fucking thing," I said. "I'm trying to help someone."
Skunk looked at me, disbelief etched on his face. He thought I was close to putting tin foil on the windows and ranting about how I'd figured out who was the second gunman on the grassy knoll. I could see it in his eyes. "Fuck, man, I don't know," he said, shaking his head.
"Why the hell are you here, Skunk?"
"Want to see if you want to get in a fight next Saturday," Skunk said. "If you're feeling up to it." He nodded at me, referring to whether or not I'd healed from the last fight, but I saw him glance at the wall and knew he was really talking about whether I was a paranoid wing nut who needed a straightjacket.
"Yeah," I said. "What the hell? I'll do it." I agreed, but I wasn't sure I was feeling it. I was starting to feel like I'd lost the drive to fight, at least in that sense.
I looked past Skunk to the map on the wall. Especially since I was going to need a lot of fight in me to find Ben.
I opened the door, and her eyes lit up, brightening her face. It was so different from the first few times I'd seen her. There was a glimmer of something there now. Happiness? Hope? I wasn't sure.
"You were careful, coming here?" she asked, walking straight toward me and collapsing against my chest. I felt my pulse start to slow as I held her her, calming down from the fear she wouldn't show up. All week, she'd been walking at night while she talked to me on her throwaway cell phone, while she stole moments away from the reach of Aston. She thought I was at home, and I didn't disabuse her of that notion. But I wasn't. I was following her, keeping my distance, making sure she wasn't being tracked by Aston's men. Once, I saw them, tailing her for a few minutes, but they turned back as she walked in her workout clothes, assuming that's all she was doing. Aston seemed fairly unconcerned about Meia's whereabouts, I supposed since he had the ultimate form of coercion in her son.
He hadn't called for Meia since we'd met. Since before we'd met. I assumed the last time had been the time he left the bruise under her eye, the one that was nearly completely faded now, entirely covered by the makeup she wore.
I knew he would call for her again, and the thought of it made my blood boil. I knew she had no choice in the matter. I knew she hated him. But the thought of his hands on her, touching her like he owned her...I couldn't fucking tolerate the thought of it.
"I was careful," I said. "Aston hasn't asked for you?"
She shook her head. "Hammer," she said. "You know he will. And there's nothing I can do to change that fact."
"The thought of him touching you..." I was too angry to speak, my voice trailing off into nothing.
"Hey. You're hurting me." Meia wriggled under my grasp, and I became aware of how tightly I was holding onto her shoulders.
"Shit, Meia." I immediately let go of her, and she stepped back. "Fuck, I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry."
"I don't know, Hammer," she said, glancing at the door. "I don't think this is such a good idea, you and I."
"Fuck. Meia, I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. It's not who I am."
She smiled, but the expression was grim. "You forget, I've seen you lose control before. I've seen you beat a man into the ground."
"It was a fight. In the ring," I protested, a gnawing feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.
"Yes, but you weren't in control then," she said. "Do you think you're in control now?"
"I'm in control, Meia," I said. But did I really believe that, or was that just another lie I was telling myself, deluding myself with the thought that I could stay in control when it came to her? How could I think I was in control when I was following Meia to make sure she was safe, spending every waking moment sifting through Aston's internet footprint, my living room covered in the clues to Ben's whereabouts?
I hadn’t told her any of that. She didn’t know. So some part of me knew it was too much, suspected she would think I was crazy. A reasonable person would think that.
I just couldn’t stop.
So what the hell made me think that I was no longer preoccupied by my dark impulses? Maybe I was just an unpredictable shithead, someone who might hurt her.
I shook my head, as if I could shake away the thoughts. “I am in control.” I repeated the words slowly, not sure if I was trying to convince her or myself.
“Hammer,” she said. “If you are not in control, if you can’t handle the fact that Aston owns me, you could cost me everything.”
“I know that, Meia,” I said. “Don’t you think I know that? I just…don’t want to think about him laying a hand on you.”
Her eyes flashed anger, and she stepped closer to me now, this tiny bundle of fire. “He doesn’t own me, not really, not where it matters. And you shouldn’t talk like you own me, either, Hammer.” She pointed her finger at my chest, and I grabbed her wrist, pulled her against my growing hardness.
“I’m more worried that you’re going to be the one who owns me,” I said.
He hovered for a moment, his lips close to mine, and I felt my breath catch in my throat as something stirred in my core. I had just gotten done telling this man he didn’t own me, but the only thing I could think about was what it would be like to be possessed by someone...not the way Aston possessed me, but the way I imagined it could be.
I’d had a hint of that the last time Hammer and I were together.
Hammer made a sound under his breath, gravely and guttural, and pressed his lips to mine, sending arousal coursing through my body. His touch was like electricity, like no one had ever touched me before.
All of the hell I’d been through, the men I’d been forced to be with...I’d never come to associate sex with anything other than pain and humiliation. But with Hammer, it was anything but that. Not that it was rainbows and sunshine. I didn’t know how to not disconnect during sex, to stay within my body, to not enter some other headspace. But the last time, at least, my body had seemed to sense that it was not a predator touching me.
It made me hope that someday I might be normal. Maybe I could even love someone.
Hammer’s hands were up under my shirt, touching my breasts through my bra, and my nipples immediately hardened under his palms. I moaned, and he muted the sound with his mouth as I pressed my body to his, reveling in the hardness I felt against me.
“Please,” I said. It came out, not something I expected, to be practically begging a man to sleep with me. But desire coursed through my body, and I didn’t want to think about anything else except Hammer’s hands on me. I wanted him to touch me like he did last time, to make it so that his touch was what I felt, the imprint of his hands on my body when I closed my eyes at night. Not Aston’s. Not anyone else’s. I wanted him to erase the pain I’d endured, to make it so that I forgot what others had done...at least for a while.
“You sure you want me?” Hammer asked, pausing for a moment.
“You don’t have to ask me every time,” I whispered, sliding my hands up under his shirt, feeling his hard muscles tense under my fingertips.
Hammer groaned as I ran my fingers over his nipple. “Of course I fucking do,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I won’t get tired of hearing you say it.”
“Say what?” I couldn’t think. I slid my hands down his tight stomach, started to undo the buckle on his pants.
“You saying you want me,” he said.
“Well, then, let me say it again." I slid my hands further up under his t-shirt, an
d he pulled his leather cut from his shoulders, looking at me and grinning. "I want you."
He kissed me full on the mouth, then pulled back. "I'm going to take this off, and then I'll give you what you want." He walked across the room, hanging his leather cut on the chair. He looked at me from where he stood, and winked. "You better get those clothes off, or I'm going to rip them off you."