Cole: The Wounded Sons, Leah Sharelle [the reading list .TXT] 📗

Back to Oaklee.

Back to my light.

And now here I was, standing out the front of the business my Uncle Mannix and Aunt Rainn ran, about to go inside and finally be face to face with the woman I loved more than I ever thought it was possible to love another human being.

Watching my Temptress for the last two days had been an exercise in control. All I wanted to do was storm inside that alcohol and drug-infested house and carry her out of it.

I didn’t, though, first I had to get an idea of where she was mentally and health-wise before I went barging in and possibly making things worse for her.

The first time I laid eyes on her once I got back in the country just about killed me. Seeing how much weight she had dropped brought me to my fucking knees right there in my hiding spot across the road. A vacant house directly across the street became my vantage point to observe without being seen.

I sat my arse inside the front room, a sleeping bag and my gun scope my only companions. I didn’t budge until earlier this evening when Oaklee marched out of the house, walked a few hundred feet up the street, and got in Thayer’s car.

Booth had already asked Ford to run Thayer’s name through his database at VIC ROADS, so I knew whose car she was getting into.

Unfortunately for me, my bike broke down a kilometre into following them. I lost them because, for some fucking stupid reason, I let the prospect go earlier in the day to follow her father, wanting eyes on him too, just in case he decided to go to his parent’s property.

From what I learnt from Oaklee and the surveillance we had them under, Oaklee’s parents were real cunts. They had no morals, and it was crystal clear they didn’t care about their daughter. Not paying rent for months, making it necessary for Oaklee to sell her car, so she had money. Yeah, I knew it all, and I couldn’t find it in me to give two fucks at the length of digging I did into Oaklee’s personal business. They might not give a shit about her, but to me, Oaklee was my whole fucking world; making sure she was safe was why I was put on earth.

That much I knew.

What I didn’t know was why Oaklee was at a strip club on Girls’ Night.

Although that wasn’t totally true, Thayer was the one that picked Oaklee up, and wherever Thayer went, trouble was never far behind.

Nodding to Dave, the bouncer on the door, I bypassed the chick taking the entry fees and walked right inside, letting my eyes adjust to the strobe lighting and my ears to the god-awful techno crap blaring too loud from the speakers.

Fuck, I was too tired for this shit. Too many hours on planes, sitting on my arse and left alone to brood. Then two days sitting in one spot and sleeping on a floor that had seen better days, getting angry every time I watched Oaklee walk past a window or come outside and cry, then proudly watch as she pulled herself together and stomped back inside.

On top of that, my dad and I weren’t in the greatest of places right now with each other. I was still pissed at him for interfering for reasons he had no business getting into, as well as the Team FIVE issues. To say I was at my breaking point was a huge understatement.

Just one dick gets flashed at me and someone is going to taste my fist deep in their throat.

Scanning the room with a practiced eye, it didn’t take me more than a minute to find Thayer, or rather I first heard her. Zeroing in on her shrilled whistle, I stood there and watched as some barely dressed cockhead sauntered over to the table where Thayer sat facing in my direction. In her fingers was a fifty-dollar note, she was waving it back and forth, a drunken smirk on her face.

Trouble.

Following where Thayer was looking, I dropped my eyes from her to the chair on the other side of the table. From where I was standing, a crowd of people gathered in front of me, blocking my view of the person sitting there.

But I didn’t need to see to know it was Oaklee. My hopes that Thayer had dropped my girl off elsewhere before coming here were dashed when the hairs on the back of my neck pricked as I moved slowly around the group of screaming women.

It was my dick twitching in my pants that cemented in my mind that my girl was here. The closer I got, the harder he got. He knew she was near, fuck he could probably smell her. And shit, did he miss her.

A waterfall of long, black silk appeared in my vision, and that was all it took for my heart to calm and thump wildly all at the same time.

That was until the stripper moved away from Thayer and planted himself in a straddled position on my girl’s lap.

“Oh, fuck no, he did not!” My bellow catching the attention of patrons and bouncers, and Mannix, who was standing behind the bar, a deep scowl on his face.

Why he was letting this shit go on was a mystery. He would never let the male patrons be let loose on the female dancers, and hell Mannix had a no-touch policy. No touching the dancers and absolutely no touching your dick. So why was some fuckwit, sitting on my girlfriend with nothing more than a scrap of silver shit wrapping his cock?

Making a slashing motion with my hand, I signalled Mannix of my intentions. His reaction was exactly what I expected it would be. Reaching for his phone, he put it to his ear, giving me a clipped chin lift. I knew who he was calling, and that was just fine