Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

R ise of the Valkyrie interrupted their goodbye and show of appreciation to Susan Black. She’d confirmed Bulldog’s suspicion that the landlord to Paige’s building had no cause to terminate her lease now that she was paid up and current. And even if he did, he had to give her a thirty-day notice and bring her before the magisterial district court with probable cause.

Demo frowned when he saw the caller was Angel. “Angel, hey, we’re?—”

“Get to the clinic! Get to the clinic now!” From the sound of wind in the background, Demo deduced Angel was running.

Demo wasn’t sure which one of them hung up the call first. “We need to go!”

Bulldog did not waste time arguing. He was already uneasy being away from Abby as he was. They raced out of Susan’s offices. The clinic was down Main Street, on the other side of the traffic light. Demo hated it, but driving would be faster than running with the snow and ice obstacles.

They didn’t fight over who was driving. Demo’s Bronco was closer. “Something’s happening at the clinic,” he told his SAA. “Angel was running.”

Fury crossed over Bulldog’s features. He did not need to tell Demo to get them there fast. Nor did he press Demo for more information. He knew Demo would have given it if he had it. Demo sped out of the parking spot and shot down Main Street. He didn’t even check if the traffic light was green before he crossed it, paying attention only to ensure the crossing was clear.

He hit the brakes hard outside the clinic. Not bothering to park properly, Demo only brought the vehicle to a complete stop before throwing the gearshift. He ran out and into the clinic.

The expectant ding-dong! of the bell was covered by the blast of a gunshot. Bam!

“Abby!” Bulldog roared, pushing past Demo. The fear in his voice was palpable.

Demo’s own heart was thundering as he followed on Bulldog’s heel to the first therapy room. A room Demo had come to think of as his and Paige’s quickie room. It was all they had done in there since the first time when they’d broken the massage table.

Bulldog and Demo came to a halt in the doorway. The room itself looked as it always had, immaculate due to Paige’s need to clean so thoroughly… Except now there was a splattering of blood along the back wall.

“Paige!” Demo yelled when his eyes landed on her bound to her own massage table. Fear radiated off of her. Tears streamed down her face from wide eyes. Her mouth was gagged with some sort of cloth that knotted at the back of her head.

He rushed forward, pulling his pocketknife from his pocket. He cut loose her right wrist, the one closest to him, which released her left he discovered. The rope must have bound them together under the table.

The moment he removed her gag from between her teeth, Paige let out the most heart-wrenching, ear-piercing scream. She threw her arms around his neck as Demo pulled her equally as tight against him. She cried and sobbed against his sweater.

“Where’s Abby?” he heard Bulldog demand.

“Studio,” Angel said. Demo had done a piss poor job of clearing the room before entering. All he’d seen was Paige in distress.

He shifted slightly, still holding onto Paige, so he could see the rest of the room. Bulldog left the doorway, presumably to go find his wife.

Angel stood opposite of Demo by the tall cabinet where Paige kept most of her supplies. The doors were currently open and no supplies were inside, making Demo wonder where it all was. He knew Paige and Abby had been working on inventorying.

On the floor at her feet was a…boy? No, a man. He was dead, given the bullet wound between his eyes. Angel was a former sniper and didn’t miss her targets. Demo’s blood nearly boiled when he saw the man’s cock was sticking out the zipper of his jeans.

“What happened?” he asked Angel through gritted teeth. Paige was in no condition to answer. His heart seized at the idea that he could have lost her.

“I don’t entirely know.” Though the man was dead, Angel still stood guard over him and did not put away her gun. “Abby came running into the tattoo studio. Her hands were zip tied and she had managed to wiggle her gag out of her mouth enough to tell me that a man held Paige hostage here. I left her with Cage, ran and called you.” She indicated to the man with the barrel of her gun. “You know the rest.”

Demo looked down at Paige to see her feet were bare. There was a sheen to them, like something clear was lathered on them, in addition to blood splatter.

Had the man…? Why would…?

Angel answered his unspoken questions. Her voice was soft as if she was worried about upsetting Paige more. “He was masturbating over her feet.”

Paige shot up so fast she nearly clipped Demo under the chin. “He licked and sucked on my toes. He kept calling my feet ‘my goddess’! He never even looked at me. I don’t even think he knew I was here once he tied me down.”

Fury seethed from her.

Demo felt himself stiffen. He was not a violent man by nature, but damn he wished Angel had not killed the man so quickly. That was far too quick a death.

Suddenly, Paige gasped. “He has a gun!”

Neither Demo nor Angel corrected Paige on her use of the present tense. The man had nothing now.

Angel bent and patted the man’s pockets. She reached under his back and pulled out a silver pistol. One look at it, though, and Demo knew it wasn’t real.

As if to demonstrate, Angel pointed the gun at the wall and shot the stream of water from it. “Water pistol. Looks real but isn’t.”

“He knocked me out. I heard the bell and thought one of you had come back since I didn’t have any appointments on the schedule. He tackled me and I hit my head.” She touched the back of her head and winced.

“Let me see,” Demo said gently. He moved Paige’s thick locks around until he found the goose egg on the back of her head. “No blood, but you got a good bump.” He carefully pressed his lips to her head next to it.

“I didn’t know he had a gun until Abby told me. I think that’s how he tied her up. Threatened to shoot her.”

“Abby’s a fighter,” Demo told Paige with confidence. “She knows how to act to make someone think she’s complying while her mind is working on escape.”

Paige looked doubtful by this knowledge, but the club knew it to be true. Abby had spent years in captivity and faced unimaginable horrors. But she never stopped fighting her captors and trying to break free to get back to Bulldog. It might have taken sixteen years, but she finally succeeded.

Whatever Abby had been thinking, Demo owed her for being able to get away and get to Angel.

The clinic door burst open and heavy footfalls echoed into the hallway. Carlos came through the door, followed closely by Steel and Lucky.

“Abby?” Demo inquired.

“Safe,” Carlos and Steel answered in unison. “Bulldog insisted on calling an ambulance for her,” Carlos continued. “One’s on the way for you too, Paige.”

“Thank you,” Demo answered as Paige said, “That’s not necessary.”

“The fuck it isn’t,” Demo snapped. “You could have a concussion. You’re getting checked out.”

Paige lowered her voice as she confessed, “I don’t have insurance.”

“You think I give a damn?” Demo asked, harsher than intended. “You’re going to the hospital, you’re going to get checked out, and I’ll pay any goddamn overpriced bill that comes our way.”

Then he was figuring out how to get her and the boys on the club’s insurance plan. How the fuck did he not know she didn’t have health insurance? While no longer penalized, it was not a good idea to not have coverage. Sure, it was expensive, but what if she got hurt?

Like now!

Demo seethed. He wanted to punch Richard. Maybe he needed to look into necromancy to see if there was a way to raise the bastard from the dead so he could kill him again.

Steel approached the massage bed. He carefully unbound her legs from the table. “Get her out of here. We’ll take care of this.”

There wasn’t much for the club to ‘take care of’. For once, this was a legitimate and legal shooting that they did not have to cover up. Get answers about? Absolutely, but Angel had been within her rights to shoot to kill.

Though Demo did wish Angel was a slightly worse shot, he appreciated her protecting Paige.

Demo picked Paige up and carried her out of the therapy room. Maybe it was a good thing her landlord was evicting her, even if the eviction wasn’t valid. He doubted Paige would want to stay working here after this anyway.

As he carried her from the clinic, he pressed a kiss to her temple. “I love you,” he reminded her.

She tightened her arms around his neck, pressing her nose against the warmth of his skin. “I love you too.”

Two Months Later

In the cool March afternoon, Paige stood next to Demo at the gravesite of Richard Hannigan. She held Mikey while Demo held Nelly Bean. Though neither one understood what the service was for, Paige felt that they had a right to be at their father’s funeral. She wasn’t sure exactly why she felt like she needed to have this service. She certainly didn’t owe it to Richard. Her therapist, Dr. Rutenberg, reminded her that funerals were for the living, not the dead. In a way, Paige supposed she was laying to rest the part of her life that she’d shared with Richard by having a service to honor his life.

Harper and Lucky stood at Demo’s right. They had not brought Conner, as the weather for the day was brisk at best. Paige had not wanted to wait longer and had chosen to bury Richard as soon as the graveyard said the ground was thawed enough to dig.

Ronald and Cindy stood at Paige’s left. They were both solemn, mourning the son they had raised and not the man he had become. With everything else that had happened the day Paige had been told about Richard’s death, it hadn’t occurred to her until later that neither Ronald nor Cindy had looked surprised by the news. When she’d asked them about it, Cindy had confessed that she’d suspected Richard was dead after so long of no contact. She hadn’t voiced it to Paige because it would have made it too real.

Demo was her rock and her salvation. He hadn’t even blinked when she told him that she wanted to have a funeral for Richard. All he’d asked was when and if she wanted him to be there.

Of course, she had. While some might consider it awkward for Demo to be present at his lover’s late husband’s funeral, Demo didn’t. And, bottom line, Paige needed him. She wouldn’t have survived the day without him.

Neither Paige nor Abby had any lasting physical injuries from the attack at the clinic. Paige had a minor concussion and some abrasions from the ropes used to bind her. But both had taken a while to get through what had happened mentally. Paige knew that Abby’s night terrors, which she’d been over a year since her last episode, had returned. Paige felt horrible about that, though neither Abby nor Bulldog blamed her.

The mystery behind the foot fetish site’s hack was finally solved as soon as Paige’s attacker was identified. Jeromy Copley was a twenty-one year old hacker who resided in Beaming, Missouri. He’d joined forces with the hacktivist group over three years ago but still did some side jobs on his own. He used the group’s signature code to infiltrate the foot fetish’s site.

Keys was able to find evidence that Jeromy had been following Paige’s postings on the site nearly from the beginning. Something about her feet called to him, because there were numerous printouts of her pictures as well as stills from her videos in his basement bedroom at his parents’ house.

What Paige hadn’t known was that a user could request a specific model for their personal requests. All of those video requests that she’d been receiving where she thought it was odd no other model had taken the job were not open to the entire community. Jeromy had requested her specific screen name for those videos and had been upping the amount he would pay per live video when she’d stopped posting.

Something about her last video with the donuts had triggered Jeromy into finding Paige, so he hacked the site. To hide his motives, he laid a trail to the hacktivist group and posted the client list to the public. While they would never know what had happened to make him act the way he did, Paige secretly wondered if perhaps Jeromy had somehow been able to tell that she hadn’t actually been eating the donuts as he’d instructed.

With his death, it would forever be a mystery.

Her stepfamily had ceased their harassment with no proof of the debt they claimed was owed to them. Paige was also able to file a restraining order following a very nasty voicemail her own mother had left her the morning the foot fetish site had been hacked. No one had heard from Clifton since his arrest for breaking into her house. Paige could honestly say she was not surprised by that news.

After filing for Richard’s death certificate, Paige was finally able to make some headway on her outstanding debts. The credit cards that Richard had in his name alone, Paige learned she did not need to pay back after his death. Though technically that money should have come out of his estate before any inheritance was given. Since Richard hadn’t left an inheritance behind, those credit card companies were just out that money. Paige did feel sorry about that, but still took the legal out.

She was not going to be filing for bankruptcy. After a long look at her finances, along with getting the remaining payout of Richard’s insurance policy, she was able to put her house up for sale. So long as the house sold for at least four hundred and fifty thousand, she would be able to break even. The remainder of her credit cards would be paid off in time.

Paige did give up her clinic. Firstly, because she did not want to pay a man rent who thought she would have any part in sexually assaulting her clients, and secondly, because she had a hard time entering her clinic following her assault.

While it did feel a bit cowardly, she just couldn’t do it. She’d been talking to Dr. Rutenberg, who was also Jumper’s therapist, to work through some of her trauma too as well as her grief and anger regarding Richard.

After she walked away from his grave today, she would never think of Richard again. Demo was her future and she planned on making it a good one with him.

Sara—now Scissors—and Will—now Jigsaw—were officially patched in at the end of January. At their party, Scissors had proposed to Sissy. Down on one knee in front of everyone, she’d waited for Sissy’s answer.

Of course, she’d said yes.

Sissy had officially joined the rank of ol’ ladies, with her father’s blessing, and ditched her club kid denim cut for one that said Property of Scissors . She and Paige, who wore her Property of Demo cut just as proudly, had come up with the idea of Paige utilizing some of the empty rooms in the clubhouse as her new clinic.

Paige was now the club’s acupuncturist and massage therapist. Until the town settled down about Paige being a foot fetish model—which Demo still did not understand the big deal of—Paige did not feel comfortable opening another clinic in town. Tessa had gone a step further and asked Steel for a medical clinic as well. Cage had the plans drawn up and would be starting construction soon. Pumpkin and SJ were going to be moving into the trailer next to Frankie while construction took place as Pumpkin did not want the dust and noise around SJ.

Once her house sold, Paige would be moving into the same apartment complex as Jumper, Jasmine, and Pirate. Demo would be remaining at the clubhouse. It wouldn’t be forever and, as much as he wanted to move in together, he understood Paige’s need to keep a small bit of distance between them. Independence was important to her.

Demo was looking forward to the day when Paige wore his ring as well as his cut.

The scare of Clifton’s break-in and then her assault at the clinic had prompted Paige to have a very serious conversation with Demo regarding the boys’ future. Should something happen to Paige, what should happen to the boys?

After assuring her over and over again that he wouldn’t allow anything to happen to her, Demo had told her he would be honored if she entrusted her most precious creations to him. He did, however, understand if she felt they should go to Ronald and Cindy or Harper and Lucky. It wouldn’t change how he felt about them or the hand he planned to have in raising them.

Following her release from the hospital, Paige had a will drawn up naming Demo as the boys’ guardian should anything happen to Paige. Both Demo and Paige also signed paperwork to become the other’s medical and financial Power of Attorney.

Come spring, Demo was breaking ground on the club’s newest housing area. This one would be known as the Square, because it only had four plots. The design would be the same, though, and have a communal backyard between the four houses.

While no other takers had claimed the other three plots, bets were flying. Pumpkin was the top contender with SJ but he seemed adamant about staying in the clubhouse.

Demo wanted Paige to have a hand in everything going into his new house. He wanted her to feel welcome for when she was ready for them to start having sleepovers, as well as eventually move in. Be it in a month or in a year.

Everyone was gearing up for Jasmine and Jumper’s April wedding. It was not a rare sight to see Pirate and Sophia, as Best Man and Maid of Honor, at each other’s throats regarding one detail or another. There were also bets taking place for how long before the two either came to blows or started fucking. Demo was betting on the latter, mainly because he knew Pirate would never actually hit Sophia—no matter how often the club brother looked like he wanted to strangle the sassy minx.

Every day Paige worked her witchy magic on him a little bit more. Just when he didn’t think it was possible to love her any more than he already did, she would do something to prove him wrong.

Following her assault, their sex life had taken an understandable hiatus. She hadn’t felt clean and it had taken some time before Paige had felt comfortable with the two of them engaging in any sexual activity. It was rare for Demo to see Paige insecure, but old wounds had shown themselves when Paige had asked him if he wanted to take a break from dating her while she got her head on straight.

When he’d asked why, she replied nervously, “So you don’t feel guilty about wanting to seek out other sexual partners.”

Demo nearly busted a lung laughing so hard. “You do recall when I said ‘I love you’ right? That wasn’t contingent on you being willing or able to put out, Paige. I could care less if we ever have sex again. Okay,” he amended, “I do care, sue me. But there’s no need to rush things. You take care of you and I’ll take care of you.”

“Then who takes care of you?” she asked in return.

“My right hand,” he said while wiggling the digits in front of her face. “Paige, you never have to wonder or worry about me being faithful. You own me, heart, body, and soul. That includes my cock and lips, last I checked. I’m yours, regardless of when you’re ready to have sex again.”

A few weeks later, he’d surprised her with two new tattoos. In true Demo fashion, he’d gotten several lines to Austin Giorgio’s You Put a Spell on Me down his back. The only change or addition he made to the lyrics was adding Paige with a comma before the first line. Then he got a tattoo below his bellybutton that read Property of Paige with an arrow pointed down at his groin.

Paige laughed so hard that she’d nearly toppled off of her bed.

Standing at the gravesite of Richard Hannigan, Demo felt good about facing their future. He’d found his woman and she’d given him two adorable little boys that he would one day get to call his own.

And it helped that his woman had magic needles that helped him manage his shoulder pain.

Demo even made peace with his dad. It had taken a shouting match over the phone for his father to hop on a plane and finally make it out to Pennsylvania. It would take time for father and son to mend bridges entirely, but his father’s heartfelt apology was a very good start. He was even considering moving to Mount Grove to spend more time with Demo, as well as get to know Paige, Mikey, and Nelly Bean better. The idea of being a grandpa had brought a smile to his father’s face that Demo had never seen before.

Time would tell. Demo was willing to let bygones lie so long as his father did.

Taking her hand, Demo led Paige away from her late husband’s gravesite. Their present was just as important as planning for their future—and Demo knew there was an ice cream bar waiting for them back at the clubhouse.

Paige was his miracle and proof that magic did exist in this dark world. Demo would do anything and everything necessary to ensure her happiness. As he’d told Paige before, there was no rush. They had time. There was no relationship checklist and monitor verifying they completed certain milestones by a certain date. Paige would move in with him and wear his ring when she was ready and not a moment before—because Demo wouldn’t let her.

Their future was theirs and theirs alone. Filled with laughter, love, lots of witchy magic, and the promise of dancing naked in the moonlight.