An Eye For An Eye (The Club #11) (4 page)

Six

LORAND

Turning from the door, I saw Ella hurry around the corner; her blonde hair, a bright streak glowing in the newly installed recessed lighting. Jude is not with her and I couldn’t fathom why she would leave her anywhere, alone in a place like this.
Where is Jude?
My heart clenched with worry. I shouldn’t have left her on her own.

“Hey!” I chased her down grabbing her shoulder.

Quizzically looking me over, I realized Ella has recognized me. “Lorand?” Well, fuck a duck. So much for my anonymity.

“Jude–where is she?” Ella doesn’t respond, but open mouthed and eyes wide her gaze darts back to the door I had been standing in front of moments ago. Grabbing her arm, I dragged her with me racing back to it. If Jude is in there and something has happened to her I can’t promise to keep my trigger finger on my Sig Sauer 220 under control.

“Let me go, you psycho!” She claws at me making a commotion drawing the attention of a few suits nearby. She has no idea what kind of psycho I could be under the right circumstances.

“You were much friendlier five seconds ago,” I countered.

“I didn’t know you’d be dragging me around like a caveman.”
If she only knew.

“Who is she with? Who is that man in there?” I can feel my jaw clenching and I know I have to watch myself inside the club. As a last resort I know I could escalate to trashing the place like a madman which won’t help Jude.

“I have to go.”

“I don’t think so, Ella.” Controlling my anger takes a second more than I want as I force her down the hall growling. “Open the fucking door.”

“I-I don’t have a key.” In my furry, I pushed her back against the far wall none to gently and stepped back to give myself a running start. I don’t have patience for this shit and Jude doesn’t have time to spare. I rammed into the door not budging it one bit.

“Fucking get a key!” Snarling at Ella’s paralyzed expression, I try to kick the door this time when the two suits who were watching our exchange thinking it was a scene approached me.

“What’s the problem?” One yelled back trying to grab for me. If he thought he could restrain me he was in for a surprise.

“She’s in there.”

“You can’t interrupt a scene. I don’t care if it’s your mother inside.”

“She’s not in there willingly.” The two suits take a moment to pause looking at me and then at Ella who seems to be dolefully sniffling. Damn girl was a twit as far as I was concerned and one Jude didn’t need to be associating with when this was all over. Girl crush or whatever the fuck they had going on between them, I decided it was over. The proprietary thoughts stalled me for a second and I shake it off for now.

“Better open up the door and sort it all out before Mak or Tally hears of this.” They nodded and one tapped his earbud whispering to someone on the other side. The other pulled out a master key for the room. Pushing past them I jumped inside. Jude is spread on the St. Andrew’s Cross and this asshole has his hands all over her. My mind exploded as if it were the day I pulled her from the building.

“Fuck!” I roared with my rusty voice, grabbing the asshole pawing at her tossing him to the ground. I’d kill him for touching her, but there would be a lot of questions and shit I can’t deal with at the present time. Jude is more important and she needs me.

It’s happening all over again.

This is partly my fault.

Mostly, my fault if I’m honest.

The suits hauled him away and Ella followed them with some bullshit sob story. I don’t get his name because I don’t need it. I will find him later and instead focused on Jude who was doing everything she could to take in shallow breaths. Her cheeks were bright crimson and she looked on the verge of a panic attack or passing out. Selfishly, I was partial to her passing out if it meant keeping my mute status just a little longer.

I was doing alright until I saw my pendant hanging between her raw and bruised breasts. I wanted to find that piece of garbage and use my knife to separate his lips from his face like the fat pork sausages they reminded me of. I shook the dark thoughts away and looked at her again letting my eyes look her over. Her head was down and face vacant looking under tangled ribbons of dark hair. I’m shattered.

My voice faltered speaking directly to her for the first time in years. “Hey, Jude.”

Her face lifted, turned toward mine, for the moment I was still unrecognizable to her. A wry smile on her lips, one cut and bloodied through the tears slowly pieced things together. Watching her mind roll things around was fascinating to me. “I don’t suppose you’ll start singing to me next?” Ever the wise ass, my girl, I unhooked her legs first from the cross skimming my hands down her smooth skin, pulling her dress back down into place covering her bare pussy below. Carefully, I pulled the top of her dress back up and worked on freeing her arms. Her dress was useless so I took off my jacket and wrapped her up in it hooking her arms around my shoulders to pick her up.

“It feels like I’m swimming.” Her head lolled to the side nestled against me, eyes a little vacant. She was in shock and ice cold.

“I’ve got you now. It’s going to be alright.” My own body is shaking, adrenaline coursing through it. I wanted to kill that guy. I still did, but making sure Jude was going to be okay took precedence. She would always take precedence. I could find him easily enough.

“What the hell happened in here?” Tally rushed inside the room pushing the suits a part. They looked away from Jude’s exposed body respectfully and that was their saving grace. Tally guided us toward a private suite next door.

“It would seem Ella’s Dom decided she should do some recruiting.”

“Damn it. We’ve always been so careful, so safe. Is she alright?” Tally fussed checking Jude over who clutched me tighter, withering away from Tally’s gentle contact. Her face remained hidden in my shoulder safely.

Cupping the back of her head for support with the rest of her body, I placed Jude on the bed and began a cursory review of her condition. She remained placid and allowed my hands to open my suit jacket covering her and roam over her in a clinical manor. Torn dress, split lip, a few deeper bruises that would surface fully in about twelve hours from now covered her breasts and shoulders.

“I think so.” Jude’s brow furrowed and I wasn’t sure if it was pain, embarrassment or something else that caused her expression. I caressed her face with my hand and she skittered away to pull me closer. “Shhh. It’s alright now. I’m here.” Kneeling down on the bed next to her, I did what I could to comfort her as the shock coursed through her.

“I’ll see that the other two are dealt with.” Tally leaves to find Ella and her Dom. I hoped she banished them not only from the club but from Karim all together, because I would find them both and make them pay equally when the time came. I had a good mind to speak with the owner, Jet Mak to see what else could be done.

“We need to get you out of here.” My mind waged a war between fixing this situation and doing something that would probably make it worse considering what I usually did to men like this.

“Please don’t go.” Jude burrowed deeper into my arms and I held her there kissing her brow, my distracted thoughts putting distance between us I hadn’t intended. She must have sensed my hesitation because her fingers dug deep into my dress shirt, her nails pin pricks through the fine fabric.

“You’re experiencing shock, it’s alright.” I pried her grip from me so I could fix my jacket and wrap her up in it more securely. This was all too familiar territory for me. She resisted until I pulled it tight around her shoulders giving her no choice securing her in the wool like swaddling. There would be time enough for her to be angry with me. My fingers stroking the pendant that hung around her neck. One hand clutched it tightly between her fingers, the diamonds of the eye almost glowing.

Warning me
.

Some job it did of that.

“Let’s get you home.” I picked her up and carried her down to the basement level out of the club through a back entrance led by two other suits placing her inside my car gently buckling her in. We had a shit ton to discuss once I got her back to her house.

This was it.

She was it for me…
and I was in so much fucking trouble.

Seven

JUDE

“Are you going to tell me who the f-fuck you r-really are?” We had been sitting in his car, a jeep or something large for some time letting the engine idle, the heat on high blast. Sweat began to trickle between my breasts and I fumbled reaching for the switch to turn it off between swaths of fabric from his jacket. I felt uneasy having traded one strange situation for another. My throat constricted as I tried to desperately control my emotions and leaking tears.

“I brought you back to your house. I thought you’d feel better being in familiar surroundings.” He sounded contrite, my mystery man.

His response made me snort. “I mean–who you really are not some bullshit excuse.” I clutched his jacket closer around me taking in his familiar scent.

He cleared his throat and I felt his fingers touch my hand, his much larger, warmer one closing over mine canceling out Ken’s slimy impersonal touch from earlier. The warmth seeped into me like a virus spreading only this one brought comfort and the fevered shivers didn’t frighten me.

“My name is….” He cleared his throat before continuing and I spiraled back into the past, my ears lifting back to hear him more clearly discerning the changes in the tone of his voice over time.

“Stay with me Jude. I’m not going to let you go. I am so sorry this happened. You weren’t supposed to be here.” The burning feeling overwhelmed me and I couldn’t open my eyes. I was choking from the inside out and his touch was cool against my heated skin. His voice is smooth and pleading with me. He sounded unsure and I forced my eyes to open. It felt like the skin was splitting at the seams and I cried out loud. My last vision was of a familiar youthful face behind a mask that reminded me of a bad sci-fy movie before it melted away into nothingness. I felt him pick me up and air sliced at my exposed skin. Something was burning at me and I struggled to get it off my body. Pain consumed my thoughts and his identity washed away with more pressing concerns for my livelihood.

“Shhh….Jude. I’m so sorry. I wish…I wish there was something I could do.” There was something so final in is voice. I was pretty sure I was going to die here and it was because of him. He laid me down on something soft and I turned my head to the side. Between the smell of something chemical and toxic there was the scent of something floral. Flowers maybe, but I wasn’t sure because the overriding pain that clouded over everything else and the chaos.  

“Lorand Duvall.” I breathed in to clear my thoughts and search my brain for why he seemed so familiar to me now that I have a voice and a name to put together. Why I didn’t connect it then was a mystery but the shock of the events made that day filter into a muddy mess I stopped trying to recall years earlier.

His body moved like he was nodding though I couldn’t visually tell and part of me fractured
. He was there
. “Oh my god, it was you.”

“It was me and I am so, so sorry for what I did.” I’m not sure what he thinks he did except save my life. Shaking, I touched his face and my hands rested against his throat. Thick and muscular I felt him swallow deeply with regret and my fingers reached to touch each indentation, angle and curve of his face placing it from my memory to now.

The first night alone in my house I get up, unsettled as usual. Banging against unfamiliar furniture and things I forgot to pick up which bruise me now that I’m alone. “Hello?” My hands darted out into nothing and unbalanced I nearly fall head long into nothing.

Hands clasp around my forearms gently. “Who?” I tried to pull away scared at first. Confused the hands become an embrace both restraining and holding me before guiding me over to my kitchen table. Warmth radiated unexpectedly from the table with scents that pleasantly tickled my still sensitive nose. “What?” A hand places a warm croissant between my fingers and pushes it towards my lips to taste. Weird. I should be screaming down the house calling out for my deaf but nosy neighbor Mrs. Goddard to come running and help me. My panic button is here somewhere, but I don’t know where I’ve put the damn thing having just moved in.

I take a bite of the flakey dessert and taste something buttery sweet and filled with fruit jelly and sweet cream. A treat, something a guardian might give a child. I felt resentful for a moment. I wasn’t a child, but I was more broken than most.

The hand, I recognized as masculine traced over my skin and after I ate the French pastry he placed that missing panic button into my palm and waited. Maybe food does soothe the beast? I had no desire in that moment to press the button calling for help. I placed it on the table, my decision made. Leaving me at the table he kissed my forehead with tenderness that made my damaged eyes burn with tears as he left me alone in my darkness. I sat there until the next morning hearing Mrs. Goddard banging at my door.

“You went to Karim?” I made it sound like a question but I knew.

“Yes. Both my sister and I.”

“I always thought it odd neither of you sounded Texan. French, then?” I asked him, the quiet thudding in my brain sorted accents like shapes in my world placing the puzzle pieces together. The accent was light, barely there, but traced in his voice like a hint of smooth vanilla and spicy cinnamon mixed together.

“Originally, I’m Canadian. Ontario province up by Lake Huron but…please don’t hold that against me.”
So he has a sense of humor…my mysteriously silent hero.

“I’ve never been, seems pointless I guess.” I fall deeply into my hole of self-pity and doubt unwilling to crawl out from the feelings that swallow me up.

“Travel is never pointless. You can still see places in the crisp smells; textures...places have a feel about them.” I snort but he continues talking. “I have a house on Lake Huron. You’d like it, it’s…peaceful.” Tuning off the car, I guess he decided we were out here long enough. He gets out of the car shutting the door with a gentle click. A moment passes and he’s opening my door and reaching in to unhook my belt and help me out on unsteady legs triggering another memory. 

My legs give out as I fall to the floor. I can’t tell if it’s morning, noon or night. My eyes, they’re broken is the best way to describe my state of being. The tiles are cold, hard and unforgiving inside the hospital. My elbows and knees hurt from falling so many times and refusing to let anyone help me. My face is wrapped up like a mummy. I’m supposed to be wearing these stupidly soft socks with rubber soles but I don’t. I think they’re childish and stupid and I don’t want to be either. I want to rebel whenever and however I can. I don’t have much, but this I won’t give up on. I assume he’s a nurse or an orderly, but he doesn’t speak to me. And I don’t ask. His arms folded around me and he picks me up carrying me back to my room. The silence is the place between where we exist. He lays me on the bed and instead of putting the stupid socks on like my mother would have insisted on doing he picks up one foot and then the other rubbing them warm until I fall asleep.

I fall into his arms and he holds me upright letting my legs find stable ground. “Is that where you go…when you’re not here?” The question escaped quicker than I have sense to hold back. A pause and a sigh leave me waiting for my answer. I’m confused because I know somehow that not all of the pieces he was giving me fit together in nice neat picture.

He’s tense standing on my doorstep and the moment is disjointed at best. “Sometimes.” Using his own key, made from mine at some point I assumed, he takes my arm and guides me inside. I should have known he would have made one of his own. I know the way by heart, but tonight I just want it all to be a bad dream I’ll wake up from and gladly accept whatever help he gives me. He does have a canny way of sneaking in and out on me.

“Honey, we want you to consider moving back in with us.” The accident happened when I was seventeen and by the time I left the hospital I was eighteen. I moved to a special housing complex my uncle had found for me so I could manage on my own. My mother didn’t like it but when I fought with them tooth and nail there wasn’t much they could do. “It’s for the best.”

“The best for whom? You can’t even look at me. I’m freak to you and your perfect image.” I shouted back.

“Judith, that’s not true, we just think you’d do better with us, at home.”

“You mean away from the public, shut away instead of out and on my own. Hiding me won’t get you elected as the new school chancellor, Mother, but I guess it will make you feel better.” My parents left Texas after that checking in on me with a weekly phone call and plenty of guilt money in my account. Mom got a new school to run and dad a new law partnership on the east coast like they wanted. They escaped the prying, pitying eyes and got their fresh start.

“Three years and that’s all I get?
A fucking sometimes?
” Anger ripped through my chest worse than being violated at the club by some crazy Dom. I’m not sure what comes over me except time and space seemed to collide at hyper speed. I wondered how he could behave one way and then leave me for months on end leaving me to flutter in the wind in a tailspin.

“I’ll take you to Lake Huron so you can experience it, first hand.”

“Right, because I’ll never actually see it.” He grunted and I know I’m being a brat, but sometimes you just have to have the tantrum you didn’t get to have over your shitty life to begin with.

“You can feel the wind and smell the pine trees against the water. The sand is peppered with pinecones. It’s the best before the first snow falls.” He touched my cheek with his hand and a tear leaked, shaming me finally.

“So I can be fucking Pocahontas?” I said.

He chuckles which sounds uncomfortable than anything. “Ever the pessimist, Jude.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Jude–”

“No. You don’t get to
Jude
me. I want to know why you’ve been coming to me like this and then leaving me…with unfinished business.” I lamely retorted.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it,” he says and my frustration boiled over.

“Well, would you like to rub me to a near orgasm and leave me panting in frustration again? I’m waiting with bated breath.” Defensively, I crossed my arms over my chest. Enough was enough.
Batman would have been less complicated than Lorand Duvall.

“Ouch. I’m going to assume you’re distraught and overly emotional by the evening’s events. I doubt this is really about sex right now and more about how I’ve treated you the last few years.” His voice harden, too bad, I wasn’t putting up with his crap anymore.

“You don’t get to dismiss me, Lorand Duvall. I dismiss you and I’m done being played.” Shaking with anger, I turned and walked into my own wall, overcome from the evening’s events forgetting where things are in my own home. “Shit.” I covered my bruised face, my nose literally feeling bent out of joint and flushed with embarrassment.
That’s what you get for spiting yourself.

“Easy, Jude. Let’s get you settled and I’ll answer your questions.” Annoyed, I sulked, letting him guide me to me bedroom, his strong arms, heavy around my shoulders. “Do you want to take a shower or a bath first?”

“No.” Lorand propped me up on my bed removing my shoes. I wanted so badly to take him to task, but as I replayed the night’s events I think about how he did save me. What was he doing there, in a sex club?

“Here, I couldn’t find an ice pack, but I found a package of corn.”

“It’s just as well. I never liked corn anyway.”

“Good because it’s really peas.” He flicked a stray hair off my forehead before pressing the cold vegetables against my face.

“Jerk. Now you’re lying to me about the vegetables in my own freezer.”

“Hey, I got a smile out of you and that counts.”

“I still don’t understand how you came to be here in Karim or why you’ve been entangled in my life so secretively. Or–or why you were in a sex club tonight. It’s unsettling, Lorand.”

“There’s a lot about our situation that is unsettling and I’m trying to unravel the tangles.” Kneeling on the bed next to me he runs his fingers through my messy hair which surprisingly calms me.

“I feel like an idiot for trusting Ella,” and that was a hard truth to face. I was growing tired the more we spent time in the bedroom and I bit back a yawn. He was finally here and I didn’t want him to leave me if I drifted off to sleep.

“She didn’t show you her true self until it was too late, that’s not your fault, Jude.” So why did I feel like it was? Could I trust myself to trust anyone? Could I even trust him?

“And neither have you.” I said sadly.