Royally F**ked (Royal Bastards MC: Royal Sons CA Book 6) Page 7

  “Nobody will hurt you here, Dai-tai. Am I pronouncing that correctly?”

  “It is fine,” she agreed.

  “Stop it,” Lennox growled.

  “You can call me Tai. Chinese names have meaning, you know. My father was American. He came to our village one day and seduced my mother, or so she said. He was a soldier and supposedly promised her many things, only he left her with a lifetime of dishonor. My mother was already a widow with two young sons. She thought he, my father, was going to take the three of them to America with him. Instead he left, and nine months later she had me. She named me Dai-tai, which means leading a boy in hopes. My mother says it is a disgraceful name, just as I was a disgrace.” Dai-tai lifted her shoulders in a dismissive shrug. Why she was telling these strangers her life story she didn’t know. Maybe it was so they’d stop asking so many questions.

  “Your mother is a horrible human. The only disgraceful one is her. More than likely, she is the one who seduced the American thinking to trap him, but he probably saw through her treachery. Although it wasn’t right of him to skip out on his child, but he may not have believed her. Or another possibility is, he may have never known of you. You have to remember, there are three sides to every story.” Lennox held up her hand with three fingers distended.

  Tai made the ok symbol with her right hand.

  “What’re your plans now?” Lennox asked.

  Tai looked away. “I will be fine.” She’d be fine once she escaped from wherever she was and found a way to survive. One of the women she’d met at the strip club said that prostitution was the oldest profession of all. While she hated having men use her body, she’d seen the money they’d passed to her Handler. If she were to be able to keep some of the money for herself, she would be able to survive on her own. Why did the thought of doing those things again make her stomach roll?

  She didn’t realize she’d made any noise until Cosmo began rubbing her back. How could he still want to touch her? And when had he returned?

  “You ain’t running on me, Baby Girl,” he murmured.

  “You can’t keep me, Cosmo. Those men will come looking for me, and when they do, they’ll kill whoever is with me.” She knew that as much as she knew her name was Dai-tai Zhou.

  “Watch me. You don’t know what I’ve been through or the horrors I’ve suffered. You think the shit you’ve been through in six months is bad? Baby, I’ll see your six months and raise you ten years.”

  Cosmo tried to keep his voice from showing the truth of his childhood, but he’d seen the shame in Tai’s eyes, had known that same look had been written all over his own face for a long fucking time.

  “You think leaving is the right thing to do? Fuck that. You ain’t going anywhere.”

  “You don’t know anything, Cosmo. You and your fancy car and fancy things. I have nothing. I don’t even have clothes,” she cried.

  “I know you running is the coward’s way.” He knew he was pushing her, but damn it all if he was going to allow her to continue to punish herself.

  “The coward’s way? I only want to protect you and your...friends or brothers.” She rubbed her forehead.

  He bent, picking her up from the bench. “What you need is a shower and sleep. Tomorrow if you still have a headache, I’m calling Doc and don’t even think to argue with me. We’ll have more intel on your Handler tomorrow as well. Now, don’t wiggle so much unless you want to flash your ass to whoever we pass in the hallway to my rooms.”

  “Why do you care?” she asked.

  “Ah, Baby Girl, that’s a loaded question. You might think it’s because I want to fuck you. I know you ain’t a virgin, but you can sleep tonight without fear I’m gonna crawl between your legs. The reason I won’t tonight isn’t because I don’t want you, so don’t stiffen up on me,” he growled.

  Shit, he’d never had a problem soothing a woman’s ruffled feathers, yet with this little bit in his arms, he found it harder than anything to say what he was feeling without sticking his foot in his mouth.

  “I’m dirty, Cosmo. I could bathe in the hottest water for days, and still I’d never feel clean,” she whispered.

  “I’ve been there. Trust me, one day you’ll be better, and then the next, you’ll be even better. Finally, you’ll wake up one day and realize you didn’t have to claw your way out of a nightmare. I’m not saying you won’t have those days. Hell, what am I saying? I just had one of them. They’ll get fewer and farther between. You just have to pick yourself up and decide to go on or choose an alternative. My mama used to say not to sweat the rain in the desert, for it was a sign that good things were coming. I used to sit near a window, wherever I was when a rainstorm was happening and pray. When the sun came up and my day was another day of Hell, I would curse her. Then one day, my life was mine again.” He stopped outside the room that was his at the clubhouse.

  Several of the brothers had rooms, but his was at the very end of the hall and had been completely remodeled to his specifications. He placed his palm over the pad, waiting until it unlocked. The locking mechanism sounded, then he pushed the door open.

  He walked in, still holding Tai in his arms as he shut the door. “Do you know the night I took back my life? It was a night that was still. There wasn’t a single cloud in sight, and then, out of nowhere, the sky opened up, and it began to rain. I took that as a sign.”

  Tai took a shaky breath before she looked him in the eye. “How did you take your life back?”

  “I killed the man my father gave me to for the weekend. I’d planned it for months. I knew he had guns, lots of them. It wasn’t my first time with the bastard. I knew where his guards would be posted up, listening, jacking off while their boss got his rocks off. After I killed him, I took out those fuckers. After I cleaned up, I availed myself of the cash he kept on hand. The rich always made sure they had a couple grand on them at all times, at least the ones that rolled in those types of circles. I made my way back to the hotel where my father was staying. He had a young boy with him, the grandson of the fucker I’d just killed. I slit his throat while I sent the kid into the bathroom. It took all the restraint I possessed to keep from prolonging the fucker’s death. However, that boy didn’t need any more nightmares than he already had.” He put her down, holding her gaze.

  “Your father...did he,” she trailed off as she stared at him.

  Cosmo knew what she was asking. “No, he never touched me in that way. He liked to beat the shit out of me. After I killed him, I did find videos of me—yeah, he obviously watched what those fuckers had done to me, but he never did it himself. Oh, don’t think it was because he was above it or anything. So, you see, I have more blood on me than you do. That young girl who died because, she chose death over survival? She took the easy way out. But you and me? We’re survivors. We’re fucking warriors, Tai.”

  “I don’t feel like a warrior. I feel—bruised inside, Cosmo. So very bruised,” she hiccupped.

  “I did too, Baby Girl. For a long time, I felt so damn bruised, and then came numbness. When I got angry is when I knew I was ready to claw my way out, and I did. It took me years to do it, but I had to be smart, smarter than the sick fuckers who bought, sold, and traded children for their pleasure. I saw boys younger than me being taken out in bags. They didn’t make it. I refused to be a victim. I never, not once, submitted, but I stopped fighting. You see, a lot of the perverted bastards liked that. So, I became what they didn’t want. A zombie kid didn’t appeal to most of them. It got me punished by my father, but I preferred a beating than the alternative. Ten long motherfucking years, and I knew I was ready. I didn’t have help when I walked into that hotel room where my father was. Before I killed that bastard, I made sure everything was in order. I knew he had me down as the one who would inherit his fortune. He had no fucking clue I was aware. Stupid fuck thought I was so beat down I would never look through his computer. I had memorized all his account numbers, staying in the background, quiet and watchful.”

  Cosmo
closed his eyes, thinking how the world had viewed him. The golden boy to the outside. What everyone didn’t know was, he’d been the son who’d lived in hell for ten long fucking years. “When I’d watched him make my mother suck his guard’s dick, then shoot her in the head at point-blank range, I had no clue that would be the start of my Hell. When I boarded the helicopter, my mama’s body hadn’t even gone cold. That night was the first night he gifted me to one of his associates. Me, his son, who was hysterical because his mother had been shot and killed by his father. I don’t want to hear you say you’re dirty, Tai. If you’re dirty, then I’m fucking filthy. I didn’t even flinch when I killed him, Baby Girl.”

  “I...I’m damaged, Cosmo. You have all this. I have nothing.” She plucked at the T-shirt he’d given her.

  He’d just told her he’d basically been sucked, fucked, and done everything in-between from the age of seven to seventeen. It’s been fourteen years since that night, sometimes it felt like yesterday. And she thought she was damaged? Fuck. “Did you hear me, Tai? I was raped, sodomized, made to suck cock from the time I was seven until I killed my father. How the fuck do you think I’m better than you, Baby?” He worked to keep his tone gentle.

  “Because you’re strong. You said yourself you rose above all that. I just want to...do what I’ve done for the last six months. That’s all I’ve known that makes money, but I’m scared to even do that. I don’t have any idea what I can do or where I can go. I’m nothing. I have nothing. I’m nobody,” she cried.

  He pulled her into his arms. “You’re somebody. You’re Tai. We’ll figure out what you can and can’t do together. Trust me. I had to figure out what the fuck a seventeen-year-old boy, with no real education could do on his own. I had more blood on my hands back then, and a fuckton more than you can comprehend, so much more than you, Baby Girl, and look at me now.” He took a deep breath. “One step at a time, Tai. How about we get you showered and into a T-shirt that’s clean?”

  She nodded.

  He hated that she stopped talking, but he’d take that over crying. There would be a lot she’d discover about him, but one thing he wasn’t, was a quitter. King and the others had come on his radar because he’d been slowly going through all the men who had been in his father’s portfolio. Every last sick fucker who had bought or been gifted him, had been eliminated. While Cosmo had never been given to King Senior, the old bastard had bought other kids. He had never told the Royal brothers. He knew that neither man loved their old man, but he didn’t want to bring more shit on top of the fucker’s legacy than what was already there.

  “What’s wrong?” Tai asked.

  Cosmo inhaled, shaking the memories from his mind. “Nothing. Everything you need should be inside the shower. Here, let me get you a towel,” he offered, moving around her.

  “Don’t, please,” she pleaded.

  “It’s just more ghosts from the past.” He wasn’t going to burden her with his secrets.

  “I understand.”

  He saw hurt flash in her brilliant green eyes. “No, you don’t. Baby girl. I have so much shit in my head that would literally have you running for the border. I...I don’t want to scare you from me before you get a chance to see I ain’t the boogie man.” That was as close to the truth he was willing to get at the moment.

  “We could probably trade stories. Back from where I come, I was a pariah in my home, too.” She hung her head.

  He lifted her chin up with his finger, making sure he kept his touch light. She may say she wasn’t forced, but doing something to live, and doing something because you wanted it are two very different things. The first time he slept with a woman, he’d immediately pulled out and jumped in the shower. It had taken him several more—attempts before he was able to fuck a woman before he felt as if he wasn’t dirtying her up.

  “Your family are the pariah, not you. I wouldn’t let any of those fuckers lick the shit off my boots. Now come on, you need to shower, and then we need to sleep. Keyword sleep. I promise, you’re safer here than you are anywhere else in this entire world. Nothing and nobody will ever touch you as long as you’re with me.” He’d do absolutely everything in his power to keep that promise.

  She stared at him without breathing for so long, Cosmo thought she would pass out from lack of oxygen. “I trust you, Cosmo. Don’t make me regret my choice.”

  Chapter Six

  Tai didn’t know why she was putting so much faith in a man she barely knew. Staring into his dark eyes, she did as her Lǎo lao had always claimed she could do by staring at a person. While looking at him, her instinct told her he was a good man, trustworthy. Her grandmother had said to listen to her heart, so that is what she did. She prayed her Lǎo lao was right, for her very life could depend on it.

  Inside the bathroom, Cosmo placed a large, fluffy, black towel on the rack outside the shower door. He hesitated before he nodded. She took a deep breath, then bit her lip before speaking, hoping she didn’t make a complete fool of herself. “Can I borrow that T-shirt you promised?” She didn’t want to put the G-string and bra she’d worn on stage back on, but a clean shirt of his sounded perfect.

  “Ah, yeah. Go ahead and hop in. I’ll put it on the counter for you when you get out. I promise I won’t look in on you when I drop it off.” He winked.

  His joke made her smile. In the miniscule get up she’d worn on stage, there couldn’t be much he hadn’t seen. “Thank you,” she laughed.

  Cosmo brushed the back of his knuckles down her cheek. “If you get lightheaded or need any assistance, just yell. I’ll be right outside.”

  She swallowed but didn’t say anything, fearing she’d do something stupid like beg him to join her. No, hussy, you don’t need to complicate matters by asking a stranger to join you in the tight confines of a shower. Her body called her a liar, while her head waffled between being a good girl and thinking her hussy was right. Geesh, if she kept thinking like that, she was going to be a candidate for multiple personality syndrome. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said instead of dragging him into the glass enclosure.

  Nope, she’d keep the hussy locked away or become the whore they wanted you to be, and the woman your family claimed you were.

  She waited for the door to close behind Cosmo before stripping out of the shirt he’d lent her. The hated outfit she’d worn that night at The Club went next. How she loathed wearing them, but at least they’d afforded her a little privacy, unlike what went on in the back when she’d been made to do things for men who wanted special things. While the other girls got to choose whether they did the lap dances and more, she had no choice. If her Handler made a transaction, she was to do whatever it was he’d been paid for her to do. “Stop it, Dai-tai. You aren’t the property of anyone anymore,” she told herself, praying it was true.

  The water turned hot remarkably quick. She’d gotten used to the lukewarm water in the shared quarters she’d been staying with the other girls. Her stomach churned at the thought of what would be happening to the others. That was it. She knew what her goal was. She was going to work to stop the Handlers. She didn’t know how, but that wasn’t going to stop her.

  With her back to the door, she lifted her face to the water, letting it wash away the filth of the past year. The shampoo looked new, but there was one that looked like it had been used. For whatever reason, she chose the one she was sure Cosmo had used, lathering her long hair in his scent. Next she washed and nearly sighed at the sight of a new razor. While her Handlers had them in for regular waxing, they weren’t allowed anything that could be a weapon. It felt odd to be thinking of mundane things without fear of one of the men barging in, demanding to be serviced, or telling them they had a client.

  She heard the door open, her hands freezing in mid-air. A glance over her shoulder showed her an empty room, but she could see that a small pile of clothing had been placed on the counter by the sink. She didn’t want to be caught in such a vulnerable position, so she hurried through the shower, shutting the w
ater off, and reaching for the towel while keeping her eye on the door. She dried off inside, even knowing if Cosmo was to return, he could overpower her no matter where she was. If he’d been able to kill men at the age of seventeen, he’d have no problem taking her on.

  The counter was another surprise. He not only brought her a shirt of his, but there were a pair of sweats, clearly way too big, but they were something when she had nothing, along with a new toothbrush and toothpaste. She also noticed he’d left a hairbrush next to them. Although it looked as though he’d used it. The man did have a nice head of hair. “Stop thinking of all the things that were nice on him, Dai-tai,” she mumbled.

  Like she’d known, the T-shirt was huge, big enough it could be a dress. The sweats she nearly laughed as she pulled them on. The elastic around the ankles helped a little to keep them from dragging after she rolled the top over three times. Did she look like a child playing dress up? Yes. Did she care? Heck no, because she was covered from neck to ankle, and, bonus, she smelled like Cosmo, and he smelled like heaven.

  With a couple strokes of the brush, she hurriedly plated her hair, then opened the door. When she walked out, the room was dimly lit by one lamp. She quickly found Cosmo sitting in a large comfy looking chair, reading a book. He looked up, meeting her eyes before a grin split his lips. “Feel better?” he asked.

  She nodded, unable to move away from the door.

  “Are you scared of me?” he asked, placing the book beside him on the table next to a bottle of beer.

  Again, she thought of lying, but then she nodded.

  He didn’t get up, both arms resting on the arms of the chair in a very masculine way. “Why?”

  Tai blinked, wondering how to answer him without pissing him off. “I...I don’t know. You’re you, and I’m me. Wait, that’s isn’t what I meant. I’m not like you.” When he grinned, she smiled, slashing her hand in the air. “Not like that. Obviously, we’re aren’t the same. I mean, you’re a lot bigger than me. If you wanted to, you know—I couldn’t stop you.”