Page 38 of Laila Manning (Shadeport Crew #3)

I couldn’t find her.

I couldn’t breathe without knowing where she was.

She was gone, and it was my fault.

I scanned the sidewalks, searching for the angry brunette who shoved my ego down my throat and twisted it so deep before pulling it back out that it brought my conscious back up with it. Something I hadn’t seen in decades.

God, she was pure and innocent, and I threw that into her face because I was jealous that she had spent more time with Diesel.

And now I couldn’t find her.

She ran from me when I became the monster I’d always been, but this time to her.

“Where are you?” I whispered to myself as I turned another corner and drove further into Shadeport’s dark streets. She had no business here, but something in my gut told me it was exactly where she would go .

My phone rang through the car speakers, and I mashed the call button on my steering wheel when Carly’s name popped up. “Did she call you?” I asked in place of a greeting.

“No.” She sighed, and I could hear Jed muttering in the background. “But I know where she is.”

“Where?” I snapped.

“Lux.” She replied. “Theo called me.”

“Lux?” I bellowed, even as I whipped a U-turn in the middle of the crowded street, heading toward Ryker’s strip club. “Why would she be there?”

My imagination was running rampant as I flew through the city. Why would my broken little Dove go to a place where women were objectified?

“If I had to guess, because it’s the last place you’d expect her to be.” She sighed, “Maybe you should let me come get her. I don’t think she exactly wants to see you right now.”

“No.”

“Zeke.” She huffed, “Think about it. She’s running away. What happens if she sees you and bolts further?”

“I can’t.” I shook my head, tightening my hand on the steering wheel as my chest constricted. “I can’t breathe without her, Carly.” I admitted, hating how fucking weak I felt with the rift between Laila and myself.

“God, Zeke.” Carly sighed, and I envisioned her rubbing her forehead at my plight. “Be gentle with her. I don’t care if you have to get on your knees in the middle of the damn club, but be gentle with her.”

“I know.” One of the bouncers ran around the line toward me as I pulled my car in front of the door. “I’ll let you know when she’s safe.”

“Good.” Carly said and then hung up as I got out .

“Park it, or keep it here, boss?” Teenie, the obnoxiously big bouncer, asked as I shut the door behind me.

“Keep it here.” I rounded the front of the hood, “I’m not staying.”

“Got it.” He nodded, moving back to the line as another bouncer opened the front door for me.

I used to love coming to this club. The loud music and dark mystique behind the events happening just on the other side of the velvet curtains or in the VIP rooms upstairs used to entertain me.

But now, walking through as I searched for my girl, in a room full of other willing women, I was dangerously close to losing it all.

“Boss.” Theo met me right inside the front lobby, and I could tell by the edge of his gaze, he knew why I was here.

“Where is she?”

“In your office.” He fixated on one of his cufflinks as he explained.

“Willow recognized her.” Willow had been trafficked at the same time Carly had been and ended up in the brothel that held Laila captive for years.

“As soon as I talked to Carly, I approached her, and before I could even say anything, she asked to go to your office.” He shrugged almost sadly, “Like she knew you would be coming for her.”

“Did anyone bother her before that?” I glanced over the crowd, looking over the men in attendance and half expecting to see a scar-faced biker sitting amongst the crowd, lurking for another chance to steal my girl.

“No, boss.” Theo shook his head theatrically. “She was giving off—” He grimaced, “Well frankly, she was hostile toward anyone that came near her. She just sat at the end of the bar and drank.”

“Is she drunk?” I questioned, moving toward the staff entrance to the back offices.

He shrugged leaving me to go on my way, “Kind of hard to tell when there’s that much anger radiating off of such a small woman. ”

“Thank you, Theo.” I called, but didn’t wait for his reply as I moved through the dark hallway to my office. To be honest, I never wanted her to be in this place. The space I used for such carnal things over the years felt like it was tainting her perfection.

I could see the desk lamp on through the frosted glass of the door and hesitated outside. Theo said she was angry. And Carly said to be gentle with her.

But what did my Dove need? Would she bolt and run away from me again?

Would she yell and fight?

Would she cry and crumble?

Before I could dwell on it, I turned the brass doorknob and took in the sight before me. “Dove.”

Laila sat in my office chair, with her feet up on the polished desktop and a glass of red wine between her fingers. She wore the same clothes from earlier, and as she looked at me from over the rim of her glass, I could almost physically feel the fatigue through her stare.

She didn’t say anything to me but watched me with those dark eyes I’d fallen in love with from the very beginning. Usually, they rounded with fear and excitement when I called her Dove, but tonight, they stared flatly.

Something wasn’t right.

“Are you okay?” I asked, loosening the button of my shirt at my throat as it started choking me with the anxiety in the room.

“I’m fine.” She replied, taking a sip of her wine. “How did you find me?”

“Why were you hiding from me?” I countered, leaning back against the door and sliding my hands into my pants pockets. It was a power move to pretend I was unaffected by the entire thing, and probably the wrong decision altogether. But I was grasping at straws, desperate for some control.

I was always desperate to hang on to the control around Laila.

“You embarrassed me.” She lowered her bottom lip to the rim of the glass and held it there. “Why did you do that?”

I regarded her, hearing the steadiness of her words. At first, I thought she would be drunk. Yet when I walked in, my assumptions were proven wrong.

No, something else was wrong.

“You spent time with Diesel.” I admitted exposing my weakness to her. She wasn’t my enemy; she was someone I was trying to make into my partner, so I gave her my vulnerability without her even asking for it.

“Wrong.” She sipped from her glass. “He followed me around on the street like a little lost puppy dog.” She leaned back and rested her head on the chair, “The same way he has since I first met him. I’ve never given him anything, especially not my time. Yet you punished me for it.”

Her backbone was iron-straight as she stared down her nose at me.

And my God, what a magnificent sight she was to behold.

I’d never seen her act so sure and strong before.

Yet now, and even earlier today at the shop, she told me off.

“Correct.” There was no point in lying, we both knew why I did what I did.

“Did you feel big?” she asked and cocked her head to the side with a bit of a sneer on her perfect wine-stained lips. “Did it make your cock hard to push me down into my place?”

I raised an eyebrow at her and leaned off the wall. No woman had spoken to me like that for years.

Not one that lived long afterwards, at least .

“No.” I slowly stalked across the office toward her. “But I’m getting harder now by the second.” Her eyes ignited, and I couldn’t tell if it was anger or arousal behind them. “I was wrong.” Her thoughts eluded me, and I hated it. “I was jealous. And a fool.”

Her teeth clenched, and she looked away from me for a moment before she snapped those beautiful eyes back at me.

“I don’t think you grasp how it made me feel.

” She pursed her lips before taking her feet off the desk and leaning forward in the chair to stare up at me directly.

“The things it made me feel—,” She hesitated, “They took me back.”

She didn’t need to say where or when they took her back to.

I knew. And my stomach rolled at the mere thought of causing her any sort of flashback to that time.

That was why she looked so detached when I walked in.

She was disappearing back into survival mode, where she disassociated from her surroundings to protect herself.

I took the glass of wine from her fingers and set it on the desk.

Her breath caught, and for a moment I thought she was going to yell at me, but she didn’t, sinking into the space in her head meant for escape.

Slowly, so she wouldn’t be alarmed, I sank to my knees at her feet, sliding my hands over her thighs as I tried to connect us.

Her inky black eyelashes widened as she watched me present myself in a way I’d never done for another woman before.

“I’m sorry.” Kneeling before her, I met her gaze as my thumbs gently circled the tops of her thighs, connecting us through my touch. “I was wrong to talk to you like I did. I’ve never had to share this part of my life with a woman before. I’m not used to explaining what I do or why.”

“He’s a kid.” She repeated the same mantra she had fought with earlier over the scrawny street kid that had started with the crew a few weeks ago. “He deserves a chance. ”

“We can’t save every kid.” I reasoned with her. “But we can give them an opportunity to earn the things they need. No one else gives them that.”

“In exchange for what, though?” She pleaded, and the indifference in her eyes shifted to the glowing life normally burning so brightly when she was passionate about something.

“Their life? Don’t try to tell me they aren’t doing dangerous things on the street for you and Ryker, because I already saved him from a beat down once.

” She jabbed her finger into my chest. “Over your drugs.”

“Not my drugs.” I grabbed her hand and held it tight so she couldn’t jab me again. “And what he did to deserve the beat down was his choice, not the crew’s.”

“Whatever.” She scoffed, fighting my hold, “We’re obviously not going to agree on this.”

“Why is it so important to you?” I asked, reading her body language, watching as she went from fiery and passionate to cold and defensive. “Why does he matter to you?”

She licked her lips and stared off at the lamp on the desk as her mind took her far away from me and that room. “He should matter to someone.”

“Like you didn’t, you mean.” I added, but she still didn’t look at me. “This is about you, not that kid.”

She shook her head, “No. It’s about him. Because something can be done to help him. No one helped me.”

I was hesitant to interpret her veiled language, apprehensive about saying something that might cause her emotional distress or revive bad memories. It felt like walking through a minefield blindfolded. But I’d do it, again and again, to help figure her out.

“Okay.” I sighed and squeezed her thighs as she looked over at me finally. I gave her a small smile and lifted my hand to her cheek, when she leaned into my touch, I breathed deeply for the first time. “I’ll help him. Because he matters to you.”

“I don’t want you to do this for me. I don’t want you to resent me for it later.”

Shaking my head, I stopped her before her worries grew. “You matter to me. That’s the only reason I’m doing it. That’s not something to resent you for later.”

“But you don’t agree with me on it.” She countered, and I hated that she was hesitating to take what she wanted from me, like she was expecting a trick at the end.

“Do I think it will make the grand change to his life that he needs, to suddenly be successful and thriving? No.” I admitted.

“But I can see how he’s struggling as much as you can, and maybe I ignored it because I’m desensitized to it at this point in life.

So instead of ignoring it, I’ll help him.

” I squeezed her thighs again, “Because he won’t get a fair chance at life from anyone else but you. ”

“I don’t know why I’m drawn to him.” She admitted relaxing her shoulders for the first time since I had walked into the room. “But I can’t seem to shake the need to intervene.”

“Then let’s agree that there was a reason you met him on the street that day. And go from there.”

“And you won’t hate me?” She chewed her bottom lip.

“Never.” I promised immediately. “Especially not over your generous heart.”

She sighed and offered me a small smile. “I’m sorry I ran.”

“I’m sorry I yelled.”

“Yeah, I really didn’t like that.” She widened her eyes and pursed her lips.

I chuckled and rose from my knees. “Make me a promise? ”

“Uh oh.” She droned, standing from the chair with her hand in mine. “What is it?”

“That if you need space from me like this again, you are free to leave. But please tell someone where you’re going. Even if it’s Carly or Jed. Just don’t go dark on us again.”

She swallowed and nodded her head, “I won’t do it again.” And then fluttered her eyelashes, “Sorry Daddy.”

I growled and cocked my head to the side in warning as a smile pulled on her full lips.

“Careful, Dove.” I leaned down until my lips were hovering above hers, “Because I’ve thought of nothing else all day except how sexy your moans were when I slid deep inside of you each time yesterday.

And I’m on edge, barely containing that need, until we get back to your place. ”

“Hmm, and if you didn’t contain yourself?” She questioned, “Would you fuck me before we got back.”

“Minx.” I groaned, tightening my hands around her waist and pressing my ever-growing erection into her stomach as she giggled and licked those lips. “Car. Now.”

“Yes, Daddy.” She whispered, leaning up to peck my lips briefly before all but running for the door.

Trouble; Laila Manning finding her footing and backbone was nothing but trouble.

And I was ready to fucking thrive in the chaos of her strength.