Claiming the Runaway by Emma Bray

Chapter Seven

Hadley

The restof my shift goes by without incident. Though I’m still a bit strung tight after what had transpired with my stepfather earlier and find myself glancing over my shoulder more often than usual, I’m able to perform my job seamlessly enough, I think.

By the end of my shift, I’m finally starting to relax. I’ll be going home with Damon soon, and I already can’t wait to be in his arms again.

I open my locker at the back of the restaurant to retrieve my purse. I don’t carry much with me. Just my wallet and a few necessities. Tony provides all of us girls with a tiny locker space where we can lock our purses and any other belongings up when we’re working our shifts. He wants to eliminate the chance of any drama, such as a waitress losing her purse and crying that someone stole it. That’s why he makes sure to provide us with the lockers.

I frown when a little slip of paper falls out of my locker. It’s torn and looks like it was hastily ripped from another sheet.

I bend over to pick it up where it floated to the floor.

My hands begin to tremble when I read what’s scrawled on it.

I know who you’re living with. I know who is and what he was in prison for. If you don’t want him to go back, you’ll come home, and you’ll never run away again.

How did Randal find all this out? Yeah, he’d seen Damon in the restaurant earlier when Damon had threatened him, but how did he find out I was living with him? Better yet, how did he find out what he was in prison for? How did he get this note in here?

My blood seems to freeze within my veins when I realize what he’d said. If you don’t want him to go back… I don’t like what that implies. Is Randal saying that he would frame Damon somehow just to get him locked back up?

I think back on everything I know about Randal. He might be a piece of shit, but he’s actually friends with several cops. They’re probably dirty cops. They’d have to be to be friends with Randal, right?

I look back down at the note, and my heart crumbles within me.

I close my eyes and absently drop the note into my purse.

I can’t risk Damon getting locked back up because of me.

The tears start to roll down my face as I begin moving toward the back door of the restaurant to slip out the back where Damon can’t see me. He always waits for me out front.

My heart breaks when I think of Damon waiting for me only for me to not show up. I think of the confusion that’ll cloud his face. Will he think I just up and left him? As much as it hurts my heart to think that’s what he’ll conclude, that’s what I need him to think. For his own safety.

At least I shouldn’t have to worry about him coming after me. I never told him where I used to live, and I’d written his address on my application to Tony’s so he wouldn’t know the address of my childhood home.

I stick to the back alleys as I slowly begin to make my way back to the block my mom and stepdad live on.

I swore I’d never go back there, but I’d break my promise to myself to save Damon, the man I now know I love without a shadow of a doubt.

* * *

Damon

Something’s wrong. Hadley is never late coming off her shift. I wait exactly five minutes for in case she got held up in the bathroom or something before I barge through the restaurant and straight to the employee section in the back.

When I don’t see her anywhere, I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I check the women’s restroom to find it empty. A quick survey of the employee lounge shows it empty too.

I head to Tony’s office and walk in without announcing myself.

Tony looks up with a scowl until he sees it’s me, and then his face smooths over before he frowns himself when he sees what is undoubtedly a harried, worried look on my face.

“Damon, how can I—“

I cut him off with, “Have you seen Hadley?”

“She left the floor about fifteen minutes ago. I haven’t seen her since. I assumed she left a little early considering all that happened today, so I didn’t say anything about it.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” Tony calls after me, but I’m already leaving his office.

I pace back and forth in the hallway like a lion, my thoughts going a hundred miles a minute.

Why would she just not show up? Did I hurt her when I took her so roughly on her break? She’d begged me to go harder. I thought she’d wanted it rough, but what if I’d gone too hard? What if I’d scared her with my intensity and the filth I’d whispered in her ear?

I remember how her pussy had clenched around me, though, and know that’s not it. My perfect little angel loves it when I talk filthy to her when I’m inside her—whether she’d ever admit to it or not.

My next train of thought is that piece of shit stepdad of hers, but I know he hasn’t been back to the restaurant because I’d kept a careful eye on the place after I left. Not only had I been obsessive checking myself in between servicing cars, but I had Tony watching too. He was here nonstop. Surely he’d have noticed if the fucker had come back in.

So what the fuck is it? What’s going on? Where is Hadley?

I walk back into the employee area and notice a slip of paper laying on the floor. I pick it up to throw it in the trash for Tony, but I pause when I see writing on it.

I read the message, and my vision goes red.

There’s no name signed on the note, but it’s obvious who wrote it and who the recipient was.

And it’s also blatantly obvious to me where Hadley’s gone and why. The fucker threatened me, and my precious girl was offering herself up like a sacrificial lamb to save me.

I pull my cell phone out and ring Hadley, and I hear the ring coming from one of the employee lockers.

“Goddammit!” I curse. She left her cell phone behind so she couldn’t be reached or traced.

I dial another number on my phone. “What have you got for me?” I ask without introducing myself. Who I’d called would know who I was. I’d had my guy do a complete profile on Randal fucking Stevens, and I needed to know his address now.

I wait as he begins rattling off criminal history before I interrupt him. “I need the address right now.”

He stops mid-sentence before reading it off to me.

I commit it to memory and hang up the phone before resolutely heading back out to my SUV, taking the information about who Randal owed and placing a few other phone calls on my way.

I’m coming Hadley.

* * *

Hadley

“Well, well, well,” Randal gloats as I walk woodenly through the door to the home I never wanted to see again. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

I don’t say anything. There’s no sense in arguing with Randal. He’s got me now. He has leverage, and he knows it.

“Come here, babygirl, so I can welcome you home properly.” His words are a bit slurred, and it’s obvious he’s already been drinking.

My eyes flick over to my mother who’s passed out asleep on the couch. Oblivious to everything going on—again.

Randal’s eyes follow my line of sight. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be out for the rest of the night. It’s just you and me, babygirl.”

“Come here,” he says again.

Still, I don’t move. I can’t. I’m glued to the spot.

His eyes narrow at me. “I said come here, Hadley. Don’t make me say it again.”

I feel the dread settle in my stomach as I force my feet to move over to where he’s standing with his arms outstretched.

I can’t bring myself to step into his embrace, but it turns out I don’t have to because he takes the last couple of steps and pulls me into him.

I feel his belly between us, but he presses his hips into me, and I feel the bulge of his erection press against me too. I feel the bile starting to rise in my throat, and I instinctively pull away from him.

God, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to endure this. I know what he wants.

“You be a good girl and nothing will happen to that felon you like so much,” he reminds me.

I close my eyes and try to focus on not breathing in the rank smell of his alcohol-laced breath.

“Did you let him pop your little cherry?” Randal asks me. “Hmm?” he prompts me when I don’t answer.

He suddenly yanks hard on my ponytail, forcing me to look up at him. “Did you writhe and moan for him like a cock-hungry little slut?” He looks angry, but I feel him grow harder against me like the thought of it turns him on.

I stare up at him defiantly, glad that if I’m going to be raped by this disgusting pig that at least Damon was my first. Randal would never be able to take that from me.

As if he can read my thoughts, Randal frowns down at me, “That little cherry should have been mine, you know. I’ve been taking care of you all these years, waiting for you to grow up, and then you go out and give it away to some fucking grease monkey.”

I find it hilarious that Randal would have the nerve to trash Damon’s profession considering that he himself hadn’t held a job in years. He’d work one odd job after another, and when he did get fortunate enough to get something permanent, it would never last more than a couple of weeks before he’d fuck it up.

“You’re not even half the man he is,” I tell him with all the contempt I can muster.

Randal’s face turns red with anger as he sputters down at me. “I’ll show you how much of a man I am, you little bitch.” I feel his spittle rain down on my face, but I’m not sorry for what I said.

He raises back his hand to strike me, and I flinch before I ever feel the hit.

I hear a loud crack and wonder if he hit me so hard I can’t feel it, but then I hear an animalistic roar that doesn’t sound anything like Randal.

I open my eyes and look up to see Randal with his feet dangling out from underneath him.

Damon’s got him held up by the collar of his shirt, and he pulls his fist back and slams it forward, connecting with Randal’s face.

I hear the crunch of bone as Damon breaks his nose. Randal wails, his hands clutching his face where blood spurts from it.

Damon pulls back to swing again, but I stop him with a cry of his name, “Damon!”

I don’t give a shit about Randal and could care less if Damon beat him to a bloody pulp. It’s what he deserves, but I’m thinking of what would happen to Damon if he kills him. I don’t want him to go back to prison, away from me.

Damon pauses, looking over at me, his eyes wild.

“He’s not worth it,” I tell him gently.

“He fucking touched you!” Damon bellows.

“I’m okay,” I seek to reassure him. “You got here before he could do anything.”

Damon looks back at Randal, a battle obviously raging in his mind. He wants to kill him, but he recognizes the wisdom in my words. Damon knows better than most the consequences of being locked up.

He drops Randal with a rough shake, and Randal falls to the floor in a heap, still groaning over his nose.

Damon comes to me and wraps his arms around me, and I collapse against him. His touch is my undoing, and the sobs suddenly come pouring out of me. “He said he was going to send you back to prison if I didn’t come back,” I sob against his chest, “and I couldn’t let him do that.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Damon’s stroking my hair soothingly. “But there’s no way in hell anyone is taking me away from you. You should know that by now.” He lifts my chin and gently reprimands me, “You should have come to me.”

I sniff and nod, seeing that now. “How did you find me?” I ask him.

“I’ll always find you,” he tells me.

“You fucker!” Randal suddenly spats from where he’s still crouched on the floor. “I’ll have you locked up for this! I’ve got some friends in high places!”

Damon looks down at him with disgust before he says, “And I’ve got some in low places. Some who’ve been looking for you.”

I don’t really know what he’s talking about, but Randal’s face changes from anger to fear in a flash.

The next moment a couple of burly guys with wicked grins walk through the open door.

“Randal, my man,” they say. “We’ve been looking all over you for. You’re a slippery little fucker, we’ll give you that.”

They nod to Damon, who simply nods back at them before he starts to usher me out of the door.

I glance over at my mom. She still hasn’t stirred amidst all the commotion.

I don’t know what the guys are planning on doing to Randal, but something tells me it’s not good. I grab Damon’s arm, and he looks down at me. “They won’t hurt Mom, will they?” I ask him. I don’t know why I’m so worried about her. It’s not like she gave a shit about me all these years that she stuck me with Randal.

“No one hurts the woman,” Damon tells them.

I watch them glance over to her and see she’s passed out cold anyway.

“Done,” they immediately agree.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Damon tells me.

He leads me out of the house and to his car, but before he opens the passenger side door to let me in, he presses me up against it, staring down into my eyes intensely.

His gray eyes are stormy as he holds my gaze. “Don’t you ever run from me again,” he tells me, his voice breaking. “I don’t give a fuck what the reason is. You come to me with anything. Anything. You hear me?”

He grips my face in between his huge hands, and before I can answer, his lips descend upon mine. His tongue thrusts into my mouth, claiming it insistently. I can feel his hands shaking where they hold my face, and I move my own to cover his, humbled by the emotion pouring out of him for me—me.

“You’re mine, Hadley,” he growls possessively when he finally pulls back from me.

“Yes,” I tell him. “Yours. Always.”

With another growl, he kisses me again.