Brynleigh
I thought I might be dreaming, because surely, I was still in the basement. But the intermittent bumps I felt, the feeling of something soft beneath me, and the smell of leather filling my head told me I wasn’t where I’d been chained up.
I opened my eyes slowly, everything coming back in fragments, my vision blurry, my mind confused.
The memory of someone coming into the basement, then action, so much emotion in the air surrounding me, it had all been a whirl. And then I crashed, darkness claiming me, confusion and exhaustion settling in.
I blinked a few times and stared at the ceiling of a vehicle. I was in a car, and it was moving fast. My body was sore, and as I shifted, I winced, my arms screaming out in pain from being chained up for so long. There was no doubt that I was covered with marks, bruises and visual reminders of what happened.
But I was not bound. A thick blanket was draped over me. Wherever I was, whoever I was with wasn’t going to hurt me. And as my mind tried to grapple with what was going on, what actually happened, I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
It was then that everything rushed back to me in startling clarity.
Rooney.
He’d come for me.
He’d rescued me.
And now we were on the run.
I pushed myself up, keeping the blanket wrapped around me tightly. I started shaking, not really cold, but the shock settling in. I looked at the driver’s side seat, seeing Rooney’s big body, his hands tightly wrapped around the steering wheel, his knuckles white from the force.
It was obvious his hold was something fierce. I could tell by his demeanor he had yet to realize I was up. I didn’t want to startle him, even though I wanted to launch myself into his arms.
The heater was on full blast, and I closed my eyes and just let that sink in. I wasn’t in the basement anymore. I wasn’t chained up and a prisoner. Things were looking up. Things would be okay now.
I didn’t say anything at first, just looked out the windows, trying to gauge where we were. But it was too dark, and wherever we were, wherever we were headed, looked like it was in the middle of nowhere.
“You’re up,” Rooney said in a deep voice that was laced with relief but also with something else.
I looked at him, saw him intermittently watching me through the review mirror.
“You came for me. You found me.” I could have cried with happiness, but I was so damn tired. “Things are okay now,” I said softly, but felt his gaze on me, knew that the heaviness I suddenly felt meant something wasn’t right.
“We can’t go back, Bryn. The club is after me.”
He’d never actually told me about the club, but I knew, and as he looked at me in the rearview mirror, I could see that he saw I knew as well.
“We have a lot of shit to talk about, Bryn, a lot of shit about my life and my past. I know that. But right now, we need to get somewhere safe.”
“Where? Rooney, what’s going on?”
He was silent for a moment.
“I have a cabin out in the country, the middle of fucking nowhere. No one knows about it, not even the club. I bought it a while ago, a backup in case shit hit the fan, or if I just needed to get away from everything and everyone.” He lifted his hand and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been a while since I’ve been up there, and we sure as fuck will need supplies, but it’ll keep us safe until I can figure out what the fuck to do, how to keep you safe.”
“What?” I felt my mouth dry at those words. “What do you mean? God, Rooney, please tell me you didn’t do anything so bad that we can never go home.”
Silence greeted me.
Dread filled me.
“Bryn, we can’t go back because not only is Vincenzo going to come after me, but so is the club.”
I didn’t speak because I knew this was bad.
“I killed the MC president.” He looked at me in the rearview mirror for a second. “I killed Venom to get you back.”