A small hand reached out to her and she looked up at the woman who smiled down at her. “Hi, I’m Tabby.”
“Hi, Tabby, I’m Millie.”
* * *
His phone rang as he gathered everyone up in Reyes’ office. All five of Millie’s friends as well as Reyes, Razor and Jason.
Pulling his phone out, he frowned as he saw it was his home line. Would Millie still be up this late? Fuck. He never did get around to calling her earlier. He should have known she wouldn’t sleep until she heard from him.
“Millie?” he answered.
“Spike? Oh God, Spike. You’re okay.” Her voice sounded odd. Filled with tears and raspy as though she had a sore throat.
“Course I am. Baby doll, what’s wrong?”
She’d started sobbing. Huge sobs that reached inside him and twisted up his gut until he could barely breathe. “Millie! What’s wrong?”
He was aware of everyone staring at him, hyper alert.
“I w-was so s-scared,” she managed to get out.
“Because I didn’t call? I’m sorry,” he crooned. “I’m fine.”
Where the fuck was Hack? Why had he let her get into this state? She cried into the phone, breaking his fucking heart.
He was going to kill Hack.
“Baby doll, listen.” He gave Reyes a look that told him to keep everyone here. Reyes nodded back, not looking at all pleased. Not that Spike blamed him. Reverend Pat was pissed that he wasn’t being taken to Millie immediately, Mrs. Larsen was chatting to Jason about tattoos. Mr. Spain was snoring on the couch and Mrs. Spain seemed to be sharing recipes with Razor. That left Reyes to face off with Reverend Pat and the big Russian guy.
He slid out into the corridor. Millie was still sobbing. Fuck. He needed to get home to her. But first he needed to calm her down before she made herself ill.
“Baby doll, Daddy wants you to calm down. Nice, deep breaths. Can you do that for me? Stop crying please. Deep breaths. You can do it.”
“D-daddy . . .”
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“N-need you.”
“I’m going to be heading home soon. I’ve just got a small situation here.”
“M-me t-too.”
He frowned. What was she talking about? What situation?
“Millie, where is Hack?”
“H-he’s still a-alive!” she wailed.
What the fuck? What the fuck did that mean?
“What do you mean he’s still alive? What happened? Where is he?”
“S-still u-unconscious. Luther h-hit him so h-hard I t-though he was d-dead. But T-tabby has p-pressure on his w-wound. But Luther c-could wake up. We tried to t-tie him up. Tabby d-did while I h-held gun. But Daddy, I need you!”
43
He’d never driven so fast in his fucking life. He’d raced out of the bar, shouting at Reyes that there was something going on at his place. Reyes and Razor had jumped into his truck with him, leaving Jason to deal with their visitors.