Page 22 of Dirty Salvation

Jesus Christ. This wasfucked up.

“Does someone wanna shut her up for fuck's sake so Butcher can work.” He growled.

All his boys stood statue still, unwilling to volunteer.

His inhale was fast, he didn’t want to leave Zara’s side, but the kid’s caterwauling was grating on his last nerve, as if he didn’t have enough to worry about with cops who could turn up at any second to see him with a hysterical kid who was more than likely kidnapped and a beaten unconscious female who was also likely to be have been taken by theRebels.

“Hey kid. Listen…you’re called Angela, aren’t you? I’m Rider.“ He didn’t move, but he switched his focus a few yards away, she was a tiny thing, swamped in a hoodie far too big for her, eyes terrified and wide leaking tears by the second. “You gotta stop the noise, get me? Zara is going to be fine, she’s just tired.“

The young girl’s eyes filled more, tears pouring down her dirt face leaving dirt track marks, she seemed to shudder, those same eyes wildly searching the common room before hitting on. He turned his head to see Lawless in the doorway. Before Rider could say anything, the kid had taken off at a dead run almost plowing down his enforcer, her slim arms banded tightly around his waist.

“Holy fuck!”

“What in the world…”

“Kid done lost her mind.”

Rider agreed with all those who chimed in. His eyes narrowed. Of all the men to choose for protection, the kid had turned to Lawless.

“Law got himself a fan!” snickered one.

“She looks like a little woolly limpet.” laughed another.

Meanwhile Lawless had gone deathly still inside his ankle length leather duster, his arms automatically coming up and out to hold them away from the girl.

“FuckingHELL! What’s happening right now? Get it off me, Prez! Someone get it off me fucking now, it’s watering all over me!” His voice strangled.

Lawless wasn’t known or hired for his social graces if anything the tall shaved head outlaw was one of those dangerous men your mama warned you about.

And as strange as it was seeing a little kid wrapped around his enforcer, the deadliest man to draw breath within the borders of Colorado, Rider admitted it had got the kid to shut up. Not a peep out of her now, though he saw her body was still shaking.

“Are you all fucking deaf? Come and get her off me!” arms waving in the air waist height giving no contact to the girl whatsoever apart from her death cling, he glared hard and Rider shrugged.

“She’s not so different to a cat, Law. She’s quiet. Keep her that way.”

Rider dismissed his brother by giving him his back, turned towards Zara again right as Butcher was pulling down her shirt, he caught the swell of her breasts before they were covered again.

His brain slid straight to his cock.

Jesus. This wasZara.

“Well?” His voice was less than steady.

“Looks to be exhaustion to me, far as I can tell. She’s painfully skinny, you can see her fucking hip bones poking out, so you gotta weigh in malnourished. The wounds are superficial; the eye probably looks worse than it is. She might need some antibiotics; I can get those. You wanna tell me what happened tonight, Prez? We didn’t order two girls and I forgot, did we?”

His joke went unanswered as Rider scrubbed a hand through his hair.

All his plans were crashing down around his boots, weeks of thought and planning to destroy those cocksuckers for good, all because he had the unnatural urge to take care of that girl. Her pain called out to him, made him feel like shit to know she had suffered at the hands of someone like Hades and his animal crew.

That shithead was going to die so much slower.

His chest was tight.

His gut was tighter.

He wanted to hurt someone badly for every bruise on her body.

And while he stood in his own inner fucking turmoil statue tall in the middle of his common room with most of his outlaw brothers looking on, sending their unsure, confused, wary gazes from him to Zara, all he could think about was; he’d thrown this fucking girl away without a second thought a handful of years ago.