“Bracelets.” I tremble. The urge to vomit burns the back of my throat. His hate for me in this moment is so strong I can almost taste it. The bitterness makes me cold.
He tosses them aside. I yelp and lunge for them but he’s too strong. His grip is merciless. With his free hand, he rips my shirt down the middle. My naked breasts hang out for him to see and I cringe in shame. He slaps me hard, not across my face but across my breasts!
“Why even wear a shirt if you mean to flaunt your nudity? Go without,” he shouts.
I try to cover myself, closing my elbows together so my abused and naked breasts have some covering. My face drips with his spit and my tears. Between panting sobs, I cry, “Stop it, stop it.”
But he doesn’t. He stares in disgust at the purple and red bruises around my breasts and torso. The secret marks of possession that I was so proud of before now seem terrible, like the mark of the devil. Father looks at me as if I’ve lain with Satan himself.
He throws my wrists aside and I reel in shock and surprise, trying to cover myself with the tattered pieces of cloth. With a sigh of utter disgust, he moves away from me.
“You need to go to your room and pray.”
I run there. Inside my room I see a mat of rocks. He wants me to kneel there, but I’m not going to do it. I’m leaving. I rip the suitcase off the upper hall closet shelf and race into my bedroom but I’m not fast enough. He’s already at the doorway with a paddle from my childhood in his hands.
He advances quickly and pushes me facedown on the bed, his heavy knee planted in the middle of my back. I’m like a pinned butterfly on a corkboard. He whacks me on the back, just above my bottom.
“Did I spoil you too much?” he bellows.
“What? No! I—”
There’s no room to finish my thoughts for he pushes himself off me and I scramble back. He stalks me to the corner. He raises his paddle again and I raise my hands to ward off a blow to the face, but he hits me right in the pelvis and I fold over from the pain.
“Did they touch you there?”
“Father. Stop this! This isn’t right. I’m not a child!” This time the paddle strikes me right in the face and I reel against the wall. He strikes me again from the other side. I collapse into a heap, dazed and in real pain.
“Did you fornicate with both of them at the same time like a whore of Babylon?”
He begins hitting me with the paddle everywhere. I curl up into a ball to protect my head. My arms feel like they are on fire. My back hurts. I hear the clink of his belt buckle and then feel the bite of metal on my shoulders.
He yells, punctuating each blow with a barrage of words. "The body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body."
I become turtle-like, until all I feel is the lash biting into my bare skin, onto my jeans and my arms. Until there isn’t anything.
Chapter Nineteen
Easy
The business in Minneapolis takes longer than we anticipated. Junior swears up and down that his brothers are being set up by a rival gang. We don’t know many cops up here and neither does Junior so we can’t buy anyone off. It looks like a couple of these guys are going down on weapons charges. The best we can do is hire them a good lawyer and move their assets.
After Wrecker has a talk with the two soon-to-be felons, we take the cage to the three different safe houses. They’ve got a stash of cash, drugs and some weapons which we’ll take to a cabin in Detroit Lakes. There’s a cellar that only the Death Lords know about and we’ll stick everything there.
Both of the club brothers will get about four years. It sucks, but they’re young. Better to make those mistakes when you’re twenty than when you’re forty.
It’s four in the afternoon by the time we get done transferring everything to the private cellar. Wrecker and Abel climb into the cage and head home while Michigan and I stop to make a phone call to Annie.
“That’s funny. Annie’s phone isn’t working. Says it’s disconnected.” Michigan holds up the phone and I hear the distinctive beep beep beep of a line not in service.
“Let me try.” I pull out my own phone and dial her number but I don’t even get the disconnected signal. Instead an automated voice says “This number has been disconnected. If you believe you have reached this message in error, please hang up and try again.”
“Something’s fucked up.” Michigan looks grim.
“Maybe she’s getting a new one along with a new apartment.” I toss my phone in the saddlebag and throw a leg over the seat of my bike. “Let’s go get our girl.”
When we get home, though, the house is completely silent. There’s no dinner on the table, not that there needed to be, but there isn’t any sign of Annie anywhere. She’s not sitting in the living room or lying in either of our beds. The bathroom is empty.
We go down to the unfinished basement and there’s no one there either.
“What the fuck?” Michigan snarls.
“Her dad has her,” I conclude. “Let’s go.”
“Wait.” He grabs my arm as I’m climbing the basement stairs. “What if she decided it’s too much. That she doesn’t want to live with us?”
“Then she tells it to our faces.”
Only when we get to the house, the old man refuses us entry. “She’s not interested in seeing you.”
“I’d like to hear that from her.” I try to look past him but he’s a big fucker and fills the doorway.
“She said to give these to you.” He holds out the two bracelets. “Now please leave. We aren’t interested in your kind anymore. Annie’s praying and seeking forgiveness for her behavior.”
Michigan snatches the bracelets up.
“I still want to see her,” I repeat. Michigan is ready to believe that Annie has rejected us, but I’m too stubborn or stupid to leave. “And I’m not leaving until I do.”
“If you continue to remain here, I’ll have you arrested for trespass.” He slams the door in our faces.
“Let’s go,” Michigan says.
“No.”
“She doesn’t want us, man.”
“So you’re giving up?” I walk around the small house trying to pinpoint which room is Annie’s.
“I know when to cut my losses.”
There. On the upper left side is a window covered in lacy curtains. I mean, it could be her old man’s. “Don’t you think it’s fucking strange that he won’t let us see her? I’m calling Pippa.”
To avoid getting arrested, I stroll to the sidewalk. For all of Michigan’s complaints, he’s not getting on his bike and leaving. I know he’s not ready to give up no matter what he says. He leans against his bike and lights up a cancer stick. Fuck, I gotta get Annie out of that house.
“Hi, Easy. Shouldn’t the three of you be too busy to call me?” she laughs throatily.
“I’d like to say yes but Annie wasn’t at our house when we got home and her old man is telling us that she doesn’t want to see us.”
“What? I thought she was with you all day. I told her that I’d take her over to meet Judge but when she didn’t show or call me, I thought you guys got home early and were, um, celebrating.”
“No. So when’s the last time you saw her?”
“Last night. I drove her straight home from your place and waited in the car until the front light came on and her dad came to the door. God, I hope nothing happened to her.”
“I called her phone and it was disconnected.”
“Oh,” Pippa’s obvious distress bothers me. Something is wrong. “Should I come over and see if I can talk to her? I’ll tell her dad it’s library business.”
“Let me call you back.” I hang up and turn to Michigan. “Pippa hasn’t heard from her since she dropped Annie off. We need to go back.”
“And do what? He’s not letting us in. We should just knock the preacher over and bang on her bedroom door until she gives us a reason why she isn’t coming over like she promised?”
I nod because that soun
ds like a dandy idea but before I can say another word, my phone rings. I answer immediately without looking at the screen.
“Annie?” I bark into the phone.
“No, Abel here.” The low voice of the Marine is definitely not the one I wanted to hear.
“What’s up?” I scrub a hand over my face. I hope we don’t have club business that needs attending to because right now, I’m not in the fucking mood.
“Your grandmother’s here.”
“Here? At the granary?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. Tell me that everyone is clothed.”
“Everyone’s got their clothes on but some of the guys’ jimmies are rustled so you might want to get her on the phone and see what she wants.”