Page 22 of Vengeance (Ruthless MC 4)
“Sure, but that’s not my room. It’s yours. We decided you should have the biggest bedroom for yourself.”
They’re giving me the biggest bedroom in their house? When did they decide that? Just now before breakfast? Or earlier before they even brought me here?
I dismiss the answer to that question just like I ignore foot pain in my medical board's study guides. It’s interesting, for sure, but potentially distracting and not something I need or want to know to reach my end goal.
Somehow, I manage to keep a straight face as I nod and back out of the room.
New plan, new plan, new plan…
I spend the rest of the day plotting what I’m going to do next between long naps filled with strange dreams and light meals brought to my room by Hyena.
He guides me over to the armchair for both lunch and dinner and has me sit in his lap. There’s a charcuterie board on the table instead of a Celebrity Weekly. But he calls it a “cute board” beforehand, feeding me pieces of meats and cheeses and hand fruit from it.
The act of receiving food is weirdly sensual. If it didn’t go against my entire ethos, I might be able to see the appeal. But I make myself act like I’m into it until I’ve eaten my fill.
Step one of the new plan: Play along.
“We’re giving you some space to wrap your head around all of this,” Hyena explains when I’m all done with dinner. “We need you to accept it, but we understand that’s going to be difficult for you.”
Difficult is the understatement of the year—or in this case, the fourth year of my five-year plan.
Now that I know my life isn’t in shambles, my brain is screaming at me to return to Tennessee and earn enough money to hit my debt-free goal.
I try to reason with Hyena. “The only thing is, I have to work. I have to finish my shifts at the roadhouse.”
He tilts his head. “Why do you have to do that?”
“Because I’ve got bills to pay. And I can’t do that if I’m stuck here being taken care of.”
He’d been careful not to touch me more than necessary while feeding me dinner. But now he takes my hand and lays it on his chest.
“I know it’s going to take you a while to understand this, Doc. But you’re with us now. You don’t have bills anymore. No work shifts at the roadhouse. There’s nothing we haven’t taken care of for you. You’re here, and safe with us now. You don’t have to worry about that five-year plan of yours. We’re your new plan.”
What. The. Fudge.
I always pride myself on having a plan. But it occurs to me, along with a roller-coaster-level stomach drop, that they have a plan too—one that’s powered by three psycho bikers. Vengeance doesn’t consider themselves a fun ride—at least not one I can get off. They didn’t just bring me here to let me rest. They’re planning to keep me, whether I like it or not.
And I practically handed myself to them on a silver platter.
Panic rises, threatening to collapse my mind the way it did after I stabbed my aunt’s boyfriend. All the warnings I’ve learned to heed the hard way blare like tornado sirens inside my brain.
This is why you can’t trust other people. You can only trust yourself….
“Doc?” Hyena interrupts my panic spiral with a worried look.
Focus on the new plan….
I tamp down the panic. And instead of freaking out, I reverse the hold on our fingers, taking his hand in both of mine. “Am I allowed to ask for things?”
Wariness flickers over his green eyes. But eventually, he raises his arm to cradle my face with his free hand as he answers, “You can ask us for anything.”
His expression and voice are tender, but I can hear the firm unless underneath his soft words.
“My phone…I should call Nestor and explain why I didn’t make it in for my shift yesterday.”
“Your phone was broken in the fight with that Lado Norte we should have protected you from.” His jaw tightens, as if it pains him to even mention it. “But no worries, we let Nestor know you’re with us now.”
No worries, he says, while my mind screams with panic.
But a knock sounds on the door before I can ask any follow-up questions.
“Come in,” Hyena calls out.
“Hey, have you seen the first season of Stranger Things?” he asks me as Des-E enters the room, hauling another arm chair in front of him.
“Um, no…” I answer. “I don’t really do TV—or, you know, leisure.”
My lack of pop-culture knowledge is the number-one thing that makes it hard to talk with the other staff at Nashville Baptist. Catching up on everything I have, and will, miss while focusing on my two consecutive five-year plans to pass my boards is actually one of the items on the Evernote I’m keeping for my next five-year plan.
