Always Someone’s Monster (Battle Crows MC 1)

I didn’t move either hand as I said, “Are you okay?”

The knowledge that something might’ve happened to her, at my place where she was always supposed to feel safe, made me literally sick to my stomach.

“Someone broke into your house,” she whispered. “When I got home, the garage door was open. I closed it, locked all the doors, and then went to your chair…”

“Ma’am,” a cop interrupted her. “Can you explain what happened?”

That’s when a man started to scream. Deep, bellowing, high-pitched screams that sounded like he was in pain.

It took me a moment to realize there were people there still, causing me to reluctantly move my hands so that they were in more ‘appropriate’ places.

Still, my arm stayed around her ass so that I could hold her up more easily.

Because, despite her being a ‘kid’ in my eyes, she wasn’t a little one anymore.

She was heavy.

Though, that was likely due to the CrossFit that she did, and not because she was actually heavy.

Sophia cleared her throat and, still hanging on to me, turned so that she could see the police officer.

Then she explained again.

“This is Haggard, my best friend’s dad.” Sophia looked at the cop, and the cop looked at me with raised eyebrows.

“Your name?” the cop asked.

“Sophia Madden.”

I dropped her to her feet inside the door, having not realized I’d even climbed the stairs to my porch, and said, “Go find some clothes, honey. You can talk when you’re dressed.”

She shivered again, allowing the cop to see that she definitely wasn’t dressed to be explaining everything that happened.

“Wait,” I said when she started to take a step inside. “I’ll go first.”

I did, leading the way into my front room to make sure it was safe.

When I deemed it so, I pointed toward my room. “I have some sweats in the top drawer of my dresser. Go grab them. Sweatshirt is on top of the dresser.”

Because in the little time that I held her, I could tell that she was braless.

“Thanks,” she whispered, zipping away.

The cop gave me a look, and I ignored it, focusing instead on the piece of shit on the floor with Body attached to his leg. Each time the guy twitched, Body wiggled his head.

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked.

The guy swallowed and shook his head.

Body did the thrashing thing again with his head, causing the guy to squeal.

“Who are you?” I repeated.

“My name is Jaylin Smith.” He sounded sick.

“Why are you here?” I growled.

He shook his head, seemingly as if he didn’t want to answer the question.

“Why. Are. You. Here?” I asked as Body punctuated each of my words with a twist of his head. “Was it because of the girl?”

“I…” He paused. “I… there was another girl here that I followed.”

My daughter.

Not Sophia.

And sadly, no better answer for him.

“Body, nine,” I called him back.

Nine being his word to ‘let go’ or ‘stop guarding.’

Body unlatched himself from the man’s thigh and pulled himself back until he was parked behind Sophia, whose heat I could feel at my back.

Sophia’s hand touched my shoulder, as if she knew that the man’s words were about to set me off.

There was no about about it.

I was nearly losing my shit, and he had no clue what kind of danger he was in.

Had I arrived home, and he’d been the only one here with Sophia, no cops? I’d have killed him right where he lay.

Or, I’d have allowed Body to kill him.

He had a kill word, too.

“What happened?” the cop from earlier asked, likely aiming that question at Sophia.

“I arrived here and the alarm was set, but the garage door was open. I closed the garage door, locked the door between the house and the garage, and then set the alarm. I woke up to Body’s growling to find this man in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. He said he was going to…” she hesitated, her limbs shaking slightly. “He was going to do things to me.”

That made me close my eyes as I reached behind me and pulled her into my back.

“Wait, you’re Madden’s daughter?”

I rolled my eyes.

By now, all of these dumb motherfuckers should’ve known who she was.

She was practically the princess of the department.

Mostly because of Madden’s son, Jasper’s, death.

After Jasper perished in a bombing/fire, there’d been a rather large memorial service for him. Everyone that was anyone in this town had gone, and Sophia had been the center of attention right along with her dad.

There was no way in hell these men didn’t know who she was.

Or at least, suspect.

There weren’t very many beautiful twenty-two-year-olds in this town that looked like her.

Sophia looked a whole lot like Madden in the hair and skin color department. Long, wavy brown hair that didn’t know whether to be curly or straight. And skin that looked sun kissed, even in the dead of winter.