Free Retribution: A Motorcycle Club Romance by Sienna Valentine Page B

of no visits under Rick’s control: malnourished, exhausted,
bruised, utterly spent. She had never seen Laura look so frightened before or
since.
     
    Eva hated that she understood what a
trapped animal felt like, that she would never be able to fully shake off the
darkness which Rick had shown her existed. For months after she left him, Eva
couldn’t even stand to walk by pet stores, because the urge to compulsively
rescue every single animal there would overwhelm her until she was crying in a
puddle of fabric on the sidewalk.
     
    She spent the last two and a half
years with Charlie, trying to heal. And her misunderstanding of men was not
confined to her romantic entanglements; Eva had never quite understood her big
brother, either. Smart, sweet, attractive, and driven, Charlie had nonetheless
never shown much interest in any of the sort of connections Eva enjoyed so
much. A few girlfriends in his early twenties fizzled out unceremoniously, and
then he just seemed to stop caring about it altogether. In a lot of ways, he
reminded her of their pa and his deep work ethic, only taken to a greater
extreme.
     
    Living with Charlie was basically
like living by herself, with an occasional man stopping by to leave empty milk
cartons in the fridge and piles of dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. If he
wasn’t at work, he was working on his own projects. Eva still felt a bit
isolated, but never for long, and never like she felt before. It might have
been lonely, but Charlie’s place was stable, quiet, and peaceful. He made
enough money that he didn’t care when she went back to work. She lost herself
in the pages of her books, still too tender to rejoin the world at full
strength, but longing for connections regardless. Connecting with book
characters had never been difficult for her.
     
    And then Uncle Owen had called, and
led to this: Eva, lying on some strange lumpy mattress, trying to figure out
why she couldn’t stop thinking about the handsome, rude stranger who had just
saved her life and then bit her head off. Remember when life felt
monotonous, like, a week ago? she thought to herself with a sarcastic laugh.
     
    Eva sighed and reached for her phone
on the night table with the ugly doilies. She texted Laura to see what she was
doing; she told her developments had unfolded. Eva’s phone started ringing not
ten seconds after she sent the text.
     
    “Developments!” said Laura as soon as
Eva answered. “I figured something good must have happened when you had to hang
up on me like that.”
     
    “I’m not sure if ‘good’ is the word,”
said Eva. “But it’s not boring.”
     
    “Should I get popcorn?”
     
    Eva laughed. “No, just shut up and
listen. So, you’re not going to believe this, but our bar just got… like… hassled. ”
     
    “What, like, by some Fifties biker
gang in leather jackets? Did you chase them away with a broom?” said Laura.
     
    “Seriously, they were shoving
customers out the door and threatening them.”
     
    “Holy shit, Ev! Are you guys okay?”
     
    “Yeah, we’re fine. But there’s this
guy… this other guy…”
     
    She heard Laura’s laugh through the
phone speaker. “Oh, I can already tell this guy is gonna be good.”
     
    “He just kicked the shit out
of them,” said Eva. “Remember that one time we were at Morningside Park with
the Cicero brothers, and Tony kept prodding at that skinny nerd from Ms.
Locusta’s class?”
     
    Laura gasped, “Oh, and then that guy
just came up swinging out of nowhere like he was Van Damme and made Tony look
like a total bitch!”
     
    “It was like that with this guy today.
Just quiet, and then suddenly, pow, ” said Eva. “He broke one of their
arms and chased them off.”
     
    “That’s incredible!” said Laura.
“What the hell kind of storybook did you walk into?”
     
    Eva laughed, “I knew you were going
to say that.”
     
    “Seriously, though, are you okay? Did
anyone get hurt? I assume you called the