Three Kinds of Trouble by Anne Malcom

Chapter Nineteen

My room was nice.

For a cell.

Martin held onto my arm the entire walk, squeezing it so hard, I let out a little whimper. He’d liked that, so he squeezed it harder.

I didn’t fight him because I’d suspected he’d like that too. I was actually relieved when he shoved me into the room, and I heard the click of the lock behind me. I tried my best not to think about the fact that he had the key and could unlock it any time he saw fit.

Of course I tried the windows, even though I was on the second story and there was nothing below but polished concrete. The windows were locked. There was no phone in the room. Nothing I could effectively use as a weapon.

There was a bathroom complete with a claw-footed tub, walk-in shower and a large four-poster bed. One that I was never going to be able to sleep in, no matter how long they left me in here. I had to keep my wits about me.

* * *

I woke with a start.

The kind of way you saw people wake up in movies that seemed ridiculously dramatic and unrealistic. Where they sat up with an audible gasp, hand at their throat.

Yeah, I woke like that.

I woke up in a bed in a house where I was being held hostage by my dead ex-boyfriend’s crazy, violent father. While almost five months pregnant. No one knew where I was, no one was going to be able to find me.

Save me.

I could very well die here. My hand went to my stomach. We could very well die here.

Yes, those were some pretty good fucking reasons to wake with a start. I chastised myself for falling asleep in the first place. I really had underestimated how tired I would get, especially after eating the large—and surprisingly delicious—meal that was delivered to me after the sun went down. Thankfully, it hadn’t been Martin who’d delivered it. Nor was it my driver, Sanderson. It had been someone else entirely, a man who wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Yeah, I would be pretty ashamed of myself too,” I snarled, imprinting his face into my memory, taking in every detail like I had with the other two. It was a very hopeful thing to do, something that was riding on a long shot. A really fucking long shot. I wanted to be able to describe every single detail of their faces if I escaped. If I needed to identify them in a lineup.

Or describe them to a very angry, possessive, deadly biker.

Like I said, a long shot.

I’d figured that the food wasn’t poisoned. What would be the point in bringing me all the way out here if they were going to poison the food? Plus, I was pregnant and starving and needed my strength.

I’d been dying for a shower, to scrub the touch of foreign men off my skin, but I hadn’t wanted to be that vulnerable. Hadn’t wanted Martin to walk by, possibly hearing the water running then getting ideas. So I settled for splashing water on my face, frowning at the angry red mark high on my cheek. Another Ashton man who had left a bruise on my face.

Then I got bored. It was kind of insane to get bored when you were a kidnapping victim, but they hadn’t left any reading material around. I didn’t have a phone to scroll through, no TV to watch. Again, I was pregnant, so I was exhausted all the time. In my life, before this happened, I took two-hour naps daily. There had been no nap today—or I guessed that was yesterday, squinting at the pitch black beyond the windows. There was no clock in here, but something told me it was around three. The night felt thick, heavy, foreboding.

My skin crawled with something.

It wasn’t just the unfamiliar bed, the unfamiliar sheets, or the overall situation. Something had woken me up. I threw the blankets off me and leapt out of bed, holding my stomach protectively.

The floorboards creaked as I tiptoed around the room, the sound puncturing the thick quiet. I froze when I heard it. A loud thump. Like a body hitting the floor. Even though I’d held my breath to listen better, my heart drowned out whatever sounds there might’ve been.

A footstep. I was certain I’d heard a footstep. Was that the low thump of motorcycle boots across Persian rugs? That was insane. It was close to impossible that he knew I was here. That he even knew I was missing in the first place.

But still, I hoped.

The chances of it being him were slim, which meant I was standing frozen and defenseless in the middle of the room while the footsteps got louder. They had definitely gotten louder. And they were coming my way.

Fuck.

I darted to the door at the last second, standing so that when it opened, I would be hidden. There wasn’t much purpose behind this, considering I wasn’t holding a weapon of any kind. But there was a chance I could quietly dart out the door while the person was walking farther into the room, looking for me. Or did that only happen in the movies?

My heart was a roar as the click of the lock echoed through the room, the jangle of the handle rattling my insides. The door opened with a squeak, and my body tensed even more. There it was. The thump. Of heavy footwear. Familiar footwear. But I couldn’t gamble my life and my child’s life on my talent for recognizing shoes by their thump. The door opened wider, and the wood got closer to me, masking me from whoever was entering. The air moved a little, and I inhaled. Musk. Cigarettes. Leather. Him.

I was frozen in place as the scents entered my nostrils. My sense of smell had rivaled a superhero’s lately, which had not been a good thing until this very moment. Until I smelled something that did not make my stomach roil.

Hades.

I still didn’t move from my spot behind the door. My mind could be playing tricks on me. The trauma could’ve caused a break in reality. Or I could be smelling what I wanted to smell, hearing what I wished to hear. Maybe it was really Martin coming to do what his eyes had promised earlier.

So I waited. For him to speak. For something else to confirm it was him. But he didn’t speak as he stepped farther into the room, and there wasn’t any light to make him anything other than a large, black shape.

I tasted blood as my teeth sank into my lip, desperate to call out to him.

There was a swish of blankets as he searched the bed. Then there were other thumps from farther down the hallway. I heard heavy items, or possibly bodies, hitting the floor. A whisper that sounded familiar. One that gave my heart a little more hope.

My attention shifted back to the shape in the room as he moved to the bathroom. I prayed that he would turn on the light, illuminating the room just enough for me to see him.

But he kept skulking in the dark, barely making a sound.

More thumps sounded, coming from the hallway. Then coming through the door. I held my breath.

“You get her?”

My entire body sagged at the voice. But I still couldn’t make myself move.

“She’s not fuckin’ here.”

I almost collapsed at the sound of that voice. The voice. His voice.

“Well, how do you think you’re gonna see her stumbling around in the dark?” Swiss scoffed. “You think you’re fuckin’ Batman or something.”

I squinted as light flooded the room, momentarily blinding me.

“She’s not fuckin’ here.”

He was angry. Furious. Terrified. Spectacular.

“I’m here,” I whispered. My voice was scratchy and raw. It was almost nonexistent. My limbs were lead as I stepped out from behind the door.

Hades and Swiss were standing in the middle of the room, both of them staring at me. Swiss was grinning. Hades was not. When his eyes zeroed in on my stomach, they flared slightly, his only visible reaction. Then his gaze moved upward to my face. Then there was a reaction.

He stormed forward with such force that I reflexively slammed myself flat against the wall behind me.

Hades stood as close as he could without actually touching me.

“Who hit you?”

The words were ground out. Torn out from somewhere deep within him.

“Who fucking hit you, Freya?” He asked louder now. Almost a shout, but something more guttural than that.

My skin prickled, and I shivered visibly.

Swiss stepped forward, eyes fixed on me, filled with concern, full of rage. But there was also something softer.

There was nothing soft in Hades’s eyes.

“Brother, you wanna get your shit together? Freya—”

“Freya has been hit in the face,” Hades seethed, interrupting Swiss but not looking at him. He wouldn’t take his eyes off me. I’d been craving his stare for the longest time, but now I wasn’t sure I could continue to breathe under it.

“Someone hit my woman.” He was even louder now. “I won’t get shit together. And if you don’t step the fuck back, I won’t be responsible for what I do to you.”

Swiss’s expression turned steely, dangerous. I feared that there was going to be some altercation between the two of them, with me just standing there like a fucking scarecrow.

Unlike me, Swiss had full use of his limbs and stepped back. Not all the way back, though. He hung there, poised, taut, ready to do something, to jump in. As if Hades was going to do something to me.

I didn’t know a lot right in that moment. In fact, it seemed like my head was a big, white, vacant space full of nothingness. But there was one thing I was absolutely certain about, which was that Hades would never lay a hand on me. I had nothing to be afraid of. Conrad, on the other hand, had a whole fucking lot to be afraid of.

“Freya,” Hades warned.

“It was, Conrad,” I said, my voice a breath above a whisper. “He slapped me.”

I’d sentenced him then. Not to death, no. He was already dead the moment he’d made the decision to do this to me. I had sentenced him to something else entirely. I had sentenced him to Hades.

“They...” Hades trailed off and sucked in an audible breath. “Did they do anything else to you?” The words dripped ice, as though that was the only way he could speak them.

Anything else. Rape.

“No,” I reassured him quickly. “No one did anything else.”

“Need the names of everyone who touched you,” he demanded, recovering quickly. But I saw the relief that washed over him, the slight softening of his jaw.

“No one else hit me,” I told him.

His hands were fists at his sides. “But other men touched you.”

I frowned. “Yeah, they just ... squeezed my arm.”

Fuck, wrong thing to say.

Hades’s eyes zeroed in on my biceps. Then they blazed. I looked down at the reddish purplish fingerprints on my upper arms.

“Martin,” I whispered. Then I hesitated, thinking of Sanderson, how uncomfortable he’d been with this. “Sanderson.”

He’d been uncomfortable, but he’d still done it. He’d damned himself. I could’ve saved him, maybe. Maybe not.

“Find them. Ashton first. Bring him to me,” Hades spoke to Swiss but still looked at me. “Find Anderson, tell him to get Freya the fuck out of here.”

“No,” I jumped in, much louder than a whisper now.

Hades stared at me. Just stared. He hadn’t needed to say a word. His eyes told me that this was not up for discussion. I figured he’d been doing that a lot lately. Staring at people with eyes full of menace, threatening people without speaking. It worked on everyone else because I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt anyone else. But not me. I straightened ever so slightly, his eyes panning down to my stomach as I did.

I swallowed at something I thought I might’ve … maybe had seen there. But it was too fleeting to catch, his eyes quickly returning back to mine, full of that cold menace.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I proclaimed.

“Yes, you fuckin’ are,” Hades refuted. “What I’ve got in mind is going to take a long time.”

I crossed my arms. “Then I’ll wait.”

“Like fuck you will. I want you checked out by a doctor as soon as fucking possible.”

I wasn’t going to argue about the doctor. I knew that I wouldn’t win that. “Well, then you better rethink how long you’re going to take with Conrad,” I challenged.

Swiss was no longer glowering behind Hades. He was smirking.

Hades was nowhere near smirking. He was furious. At me for deigning to argue with him. And at himself, because he was carrying the blame for letting another man lay his hands on me.

I was pretty furious too. At myself for letting him push me away, for running. At him for pushing me away in the first place, for not chasing after me. I was also determined. No way was I leaving the room I was sharing with Hades after spending months apart.

“You will have to get Anderson to drag me out kicking and screaming if you want me to leave,” I advised.

A muscle in Hades’s jaw twitched. He was pissed. Beyond pissed.

He took one more look at me, in my eyes, not my stomach, then he stormed out of the room.

Swiss wasn’t smirking anymore. He had a full-blown smile. “Oh, darlin’, have I missed you.”

Although it was shaky, I did my best to smile back. “Right back at you.”

* * *

I didn’t hear any screaming. I didn’t know why I’d expected to. This was a fucking big house, and Swiss had urged me out of the bedroom to a ginormous room with insanely priced rugs and a floor-to-ceiling fireplace. He shielded me from the blood, the bodies, but I still knew what was happening so it was like I witnessed it all anyway, my imagination running wild. I’d blinked at it all, emotionless. In shock, surely.

The whole club was there—Hansen, Jagger, Elden, Anderson, various prospects and a couple of patches I didn’t recognize. Their cuts read ‘Colorado’, which made sense. The men stared at me and the red mark on my face with varying degrees of fury. It was comforting, their anger insulating me from the reality of it all.

Swiss sat me in front of the fire then disappeared, presumably to help with the torture. No one touched me. I’d figured that had something to do with Hades going around torturing all of the people in this house who had touched me.

Someone brought me water. I sipped it thoughtlessly, staring at the flames, waiting.

Then Hades was there, kneeling in between my legs, his hands on my bare thighs. They were covered in blood. It was the first time he’d touched me in months, wearing the blood of the men who’d hurt me.

I didn’t know if that was him apologizing or trying to scare me away. I didn’t care. Hades was touching me. My body could relax, finally. I could breathe again. My hand covered his without hesitation, the other reaching up to cradle his jaw. His entire body was granite, but he didn’t flinch away from my touch.

“Will you take me home?” I whispered.

His eyes stayed locked on mine. I hadn’t needed to say that I didn’t mean the house full of boxes in Falcon Springs. I said home. I’d only ever had one of those. We’d only had one of those.

* * *

As much as I’d wanted to go back to New Mexico tonight, logistically, it didn’t work. Hades wanted me to see a doctor, and the Colorado charter had already arranged for me to see theirs which happened to be less than an hour from Falcon Springs.

Then there was Aunt V who had been expecting me to come back with groceries hours ago. Who would’ve been worried sick. And Sirius.

Home had to wait.

The club doctor in Colorado checked me over then said I seemed healthy, the baby too. He advised that we do a sonogram to be sure, but I knew that the baby was fine. I’d do it for Hades, who had been quiet and brooding during the entire drive. As much as I had wanted to, I couldn’t ride on the back of his bike. So he’d driven a fancy SUV, just the two of us. We didn’t say anything the entire drive. His hand remained on my thigh the entire drive, though. The sun was shining by the time we pulled up to the small house Aunt V and I had been occupying. There was no police car, so I guessed the Sons had taken care of that like they took care of everything.

Aunt V and Sirius met us at the door, Aunt V crying and hugging both of us. Sirius pressed heavily into my leg, looking up at Hades with accusation.

Aunt V had forgiven Hades for whatever pain he’d caused me the second he brought me back. She hadn’t said so in words, but if she hadn’t forgiven him, there would’ve been a lot of words. We sat with her, letting her lead the conversation while she cooked us breakfast. I was so tired I could’ve fallen over, but I knew that Aunt V needed this, so I leaned heavily against Hades as I ate. He ate one-handed, palm still resting on my thigh as if it was glued there. Eventually, Aunt V saw through the grief and worry, registering my exhaustion, the thick tension between Hades and me. She ushered us into my bedroom, telling us she had a gym class to get to and wouldn’t be back for hours.

Hades closed the door quietly, with a gentleness I hadn’t seen from him the entire night. There was still blood on his knuckles. He didn’t turn to face me straight away, keeping his back to me as if he couldn’t handle looking at me. As if he couldn’t face me.

I was grateful for it. For his back. For a moment to contemplate the familiar cut and try to regain some courage. He hadn’t given me enough time, though. I still didn’t have enough courage, enough oxygen.

Hades didn’t look familiar. There was something different about his face. Something about the way he held himself as he just stood there, almost plastered to the door, staring at me.

He didn’t have enough courage either. Hades was scared.

Hades.

Something about that made it all melt away. The months. The pain. The details of it all. I crossed the distance between us quickly, then without hesitating, I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my body to his. My body relaxed as I drowned in his scent, as his warmth seeped into my bones.

He didn’t hesitate either, his arms encircling me the second I touched him. It was a relief to know that despite everything we didn’t have right now, despite everything we had to figure out, we still had this.

We stood there for a long time, hugging. It was strange. I didn’t think I’d simply hugged Hades ... ever. Not without his hand in my hair or his lips on my neck. It felt like the most intimate thing we’d ever done, despite all of the very intimate things he’d done to me.

Eventually, it had to end. There was a small swell to my belly that was pressing into his flat abs. Small but it took up the entire room. It filled up all of the cracks we had inside of us.

Hades put his hands on my shoulders, pushing me back gently. Even more gently than he had closed the door.

My breath emptied from my lungs as his eyes locked on mine, as I searched the angles and the ridges of his face, tracing his full lips with my eyes. His lips didn’t part, he didn’t speak. Instead, he moved a hand from my shoulder and placed it down on my belly. His hand spanned the entire bump, covering our baby with his bloodstained palm.

We both froze as a very small and very determined foot kicked against his palm.

I’d never seen Hades open his eyes so wide, never seen his expression change so dramatically. I’d never seen them filled with marvel.

“Was that?” his voice was croaky, rough, full of holes.

It was the first time I’d heard him speak words that weren’t reinforced with iron.

“The baby,” I whispered. “That was the first time she’s done that.”

His hand twitched on my shoulder, the only movement in his entire body.

“She?” His words were even more ragged this time.

I nodded. “I found out three weeks ago.”

“A girl,” he breathed.

“Our girl,” I corrected, my heart beating in my throat.

“Our girl,” he repeated.

Then, I saw something I’d never thought I’d see in my life.

A tear ran down the porcelain cheek of the man I loved. A tear for our daughter. For us. A tear that said everything that I knew he couldn’t say.

* * *

I fell asleep naked in his arms that night.

We’d showered together, the tiny shower stall barely holding us, but that was fine since neither of us wanted any distance of any sort. Blood ran quickly down the drain then disappeared. Hades soaped up and washed every inch of me. He must’ve spent three times as long on my belly as he did anywhere else. He was fascinated with it, captivated by the small bump.

We stayed in there until the water ran cold, then Hades got me out, wrapped me in a towel and dried me like I was a child. We both fell into the bed.

We didn’t have sex; we just fell asleep holding each other.

I woke up to his lips at my neck, his fingers parting my legs. Still half asleep, I opened for him, completely.

My body writhed when his fingers entered me. I let out a moan of pleasure, my eyes fluttering open. Hades was there, right above me, staring at me.

“Hades,” I whispered. It was a moan. It was a plea.

“I know, baby,” he murmured, adding another finger, coating himself with me, coaxing my climax forward.

“I need you to fuck me,” I begged.

His eyes flared. “I need to watch you, Freya. Just for a little while longer.” He kept his fingers moving, the cords in his neck tight with restraint. With need.

Just when I was about to explode around him, his fingers left me. He moved quickly, sensing my desperation, meeting it with his own.

He hovered above me, his torso brushing against my bump. I was glad that had not freaked him out, his cock pressed against my pussy.

“Seeing you growing my baby,” he rasped. “Fuck.” He let out a growl from the back of his throat. “Never seen anything more fucking beautiful in my life. Mine,” he murmured against my lips as he surged inside me.

My nails raked down his back as he filled me up, replenishing all the empty fucking spaces.

I reached up to hold his face in my hands, to still him. Our eyes were locked. “Don’t you ever fucking walk away from me again,” I whispered.

His eyes burned as his hard cock flexed inside of me. “Never.”

His words were an oath.