by Bourne, Lena
I’m looking at them both, hoping they can understand what I mean, hoping they love their women enough to know what I’m talking about, but that black, dead look in Cross’ eyes just tells me he’s incapable of understanding love. I know he’s not, I know he loves his wife and his children, I know he cares about his men, but right now, all that seems like the lie, and this loveless, compassionless darkness in his eyes like the only truth. Scar’s face might be the stuff of nightmares, but this look in Cross’ eyes, this is worse.
“That may be so, and I’d like to believe you,” Cross says, his voice completely devoid of feeling. “But the fact remains that you disappeared and went completely off the grid for more than a week.”
“Hawk knew where I was going,” I say. “Doc did too.”
“It’s a pretty feeble excuse, I know that, but it’s all I got,” I add after only black silence follows my words. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get back on your good side, Cross, and convince you that I can be trusted. Whatever it takes, I mean it. All I need is a second chance to prove my loyalty to the club and to you. I’d never speak to the cops, not even if my life depended on it.”
“Words are worthless at the best of times, and especially in a situation like this,” Cross says. “You’ve done a lot for the club, I don’t deny that. You probably saved Ace’s life before you were even a brother, and you certainly saved Hawk’s old lady. Ice and the other guys you worked with on the Spawns jobs all claim you went above and beyond each and every time. Hawk and Doc, and hell, even Roxie’s telling me to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m not the best of friends with your uncle and Road Knights MC, but we’ve never had a problem before. This is serious, though, and I’m gonna get to the bottom of it even if it creates bad blood between us.”
Cross always struck me as a fair-minded, level-headed guy, and that’s the reason why I was willing to risk coming back here after disappearing in the first place. But I also know that in this world—my uncle’s and Cross’ world, my world—even the suspicion of snitching to the cops is enough to get you killed. It’s the only way to keep everyone safe. And my actions after Cross started searching for a snitch were very suspicious. Suspicious enough to get me killed. I wish I had the time and the chance to explain this to Julie, but I don’t. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better to think a person just vanished than to know they’re dead.
All the mistakes I made—with Julie by leaving her, with my family and my MC, even the mistake of going back to Julie when I should’ve stayed put, and coming back here after all that—have led me to this moment. The reckoning is here and there’s no escaping it anymore. I’ve been running from death for the past year and that road was never gonna lead anywhere good.
“Alright, fine,” I say. “Do it, kill me. I’m ready.”
That took him off guard, the blank black stare in his eyes slipping for just a second, before righting itself. The surprise stayed a little longer on Scar’s face.
“You’re ready to die?” Cross asks, kinda mocking me, but kinda impressed too.
“I know how it works, and I got nothing but words for you. I’m guessing they’ll never be enough,” I say, so damn calmly and stonily I’m shocked at myself. But then again, I spent a lot of time wishing I was dead, and doing all I could to get myself there. This past week with Julie, dreaming about how good the rest of my life with her could be, that was just a taste, just a drop of hope for better things, for a better life in what’s been a very dark and hopeless year. “I’d prefer it happened sooner rather than later.”
Cross isn’t saying anything, he’s just looking at me with a very thoughtful, appraising expression on his face. He opens his mouth to speak, but whatever he was gonna say is interrupted by the door opening and Hawk walking in. He’s holding my saddlebags in one hand, and my phone in the other.
“I went down to the clubhouse to get his things. You know, the stuff Brick neglected to bring along,” he says. “I don’t see anything suspicious, Cross. I think he just went too look for his girlfriend and then spent the week with her like he said. She’s called three times and left a couple texts, and it lines up with his story of the two of them getting back together. Apparently he promised her he’ll check in every couple of hours.”
I don’t much like the idea of Hawk reading Julie’s texts, but that’s the least of my worries right now. The phone starts ringing once he’s done talking, and I can see it’s Julie, but he just hangs up the call, looking at Cross expectantly.
“Let’s send some guys down there to find out what’s been going on before we do anything rash,” Hawk adds.
Not much is showing on Cross’ face as he considers it. Julie’s calling again, and seeing her name light up on the screen of my phone for the second time is putting what I just got done telling Cross in a very different perspective.
I don’t want Julie and the week we spent together to just be a glimmer of hope, just the last spark of life before I die. I want years and years and decades of weeks just like that before that happens. But I know full well that these seconds right now, while Cross is deciding my fate, might very well be the rest of my life.
I’m seeing everything very clearly. Every stain on the concrete walls of this cell, every line on Cross’ weathered face, every crease in his shirt. I hear everything too. The scrape of leather boot soles on the ground, Scar’s breathing, the sound of the chair I’m sitting in creaking as I shift my weight in it. The sound of my phone vibrating as Julie calls yet again. Hawk cancels it immediately, but it was a wake up call of sorts for the second time today. I wish I’d been kinder to her, more loving when she woke me up this morning.
“Come on, Cross,” Hawk says. “I owe him that much. It’s on me if we’re wrong to trust him.”
“You’ll vouch for him?” Cross asks and Hawk nods.
Cross glances at me then back at him.
“Alright, fine,” he says. “I’ll give you a little more time to find out what’s what. He won’t be talking to anyone in here, so a couple of days won’t change much.”
“You’re just gonna keep me locked up in here?” I ask, the prospect suddenly seeming worse than immediate death.
“If you’re telling the truth, you’ll get to walk out of here alive, son,” Cross says. “Or is that not what you want? Are you so eager to die?”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
“Good,” Cross says, then turns and leaves the room. The other two follow him, Hawk nodding at me before closing and locking the door.
Is this what a stay of execution feels like? Because it feels like shit. Hope’s warring with the black certainty that there’s nothing in my life, my belongings, or my past that can prove I’m not a snitch, and Cross will take that absence as enough proof that I might be, that I have to die. How can he not?
I was ready to die, ready to prove my innocence by offering my life. But sitting here in the near dark, waiting for death with all the time in the world to think…that’s punishment of the sort I’m not sure I can face.
17
Julie
He’s graduated to refusing my calls, hanging up instead of letting it ring to the end and not picking up. What kind of an idiot woman keeps hope when her boyfriend starts doing that? If he’s somewhere where he can’t pick up, like in a meeting of some sort, he’d just let it ring. He wouldn’t take the time to press the red button each time I call. That’s been happening all day now. I’m the idiot who won’t accept that it means what I know it means. He’s left me again with even less of a warning than the first time. He’d find the time to call me back if that wasn’t the case.
I’m done. Really and truly done with him this time. I just wish he’d pick up the phone so I could tell him.
But my calls have been going straight to voicemail for the past two hours so I suppose that hope is an empty one too.
Why?
By now, he was supposed to at least call me to tell me how far along our plans are. But that’s just it, is
n’t it? Our plans aren’t going anywhere. He’s left me again under some pretense that’ll let him disappear for good this time. He did speak about returning to his MC being dangerous, but he went willingly and happily enough. I doubt he would, if it was really that dangerous. It was bullshit, that’s what it was. He wanted to see me, I don’t doubt that, he couldn’t have faked those kisses and the rest we shared, but it’s clearly not something he wants all the time from now on. So now what? He’s just going to show up again a year down the road and expect me to welcome him back once again?
I took him back too easily. All my friends would say this to me, call me an idiot and worse for it, a total dumbass for believing he really was back because he couldn’t live without me.
I went to visit his mom earlier. She hasn’t heard from him either, nor does she expect to.
She was very adamant that I shouldn’t make a fuss over the land deed I found, that it’s all in the past now and would bring more trouble than it’s worth. She also said it would change absolutely nothing and that it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.
When Ink and I made this plan to go back home to face the problems that have kept us apart and right the wrongs done to his family, I was going to use the deed and the rest of the incriminating papers I found in my dad’s safe, as leverage to force him to leave us and Ink’s family in peace. Ink told me to just give it back and avoid more problems, and now his mom is doing the same thing. It just goes to prove what an idiot I am. They don’t want my help. Maybe they don’t even want me around.
Ink also said we should just run away and avoid all our problems forever. It seems like that’s what he’s done now. Without me. Again. For the second time.
It’s Saturday evening. My dad’s probably at the golf club, having drinks with his business partners, but I call him anyway.
“Juliet?” he asks as he picks up and he sounds shocked and breathless.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Give me a second,” he says and I hear him saying something to whoever he’s with.
He never mixes personal life with business. At least not with his suit-wearing business partners. He was more than happy to use the MC he’s buddies with to ruin my life and Ink’s by driving him out of town and killing his dad. No matter how angry I am at Ink, that will always be something I’m infinitely more angry about. It’s time my dad answers for it, even if Ink never comes back to me. The love me and him had was magical, was out of this world good, and even if we didn’t get to share it for very long, I’m still thankful for having experienced it. I can’t handle wishing and waiting for Ink to return, but I can be grateful for our love and I always will be.
“Are you out of earshot of your business buddies now?” I ask scathingly once I hear the wind whistling through the phone.
“Where have you been? I was worried sick,” he says. “You can’t just disappear like that.”
“I was in San Diego. I told you I was going there for a school reunion weeks ago,” I say. That was a lie before, but it became true in a different way. I did go to San Diego for a reunion, the only reunion I ever wanted.
“I hoped and prayed that was it,” he says and sounds like he means it, even though he’s never prayed for anything in his life. Not honestly anyway.
“But I did tell you to postpone your trip, Juliet,” he says more sternly. “There’s the council meeting to prepare for. And I need those documents you took back.”
So he does know about that. The way he started this conversation, all concerned for my safety and whatnot, I figured that maybe he didn’t notice they were missing yet. I also expected him to be a lot more pissed off at me for taking them.
“I’m not giving them back,” I say, deciding on the spot that whatever happens between Ink and me, I am never going back to work for my father, and I will do what I can to make the injustice of what happened to his family right, even if none of them want any part in it. “That land was bought with blood and we’re giving it back.”
He gasps and clears his throat nervously a couple of times. “We can’t have this conversation over the phone.”
“Why? Do you think someone’s listening in?” I ask scathingly, even though I realize someone very well might be listening. My father’s company might be small, but it’s still one of the bigger and oldest players in the region, and the construction and real estate development business is not exactly a clean and wholesome one.
“I’ll come over to your condo,” he says sternly. “Are you alone?”
I almost say yes, but if he comes here he’ll make me hand over the land deed.
“I’ll meet you at the office in half an hour,” I tell him instead.
“Fine,” he says and hangs up.
The office will be empty, since it’s Saturday night, so it’s a good, neutral place to meet. I’d suggest just meeting him at my parents’ home, but I’m not sure how much my mom knows about this, and if she does, I really don’t want to have both of them pestering me.
I stuff the papers and hard drive I took from his safe under the mattress, and call Ink again. But predictably, it goes straight to voicemail. I almost toss my phone across the room, that’s how angry and frustrated I am by all this.
I’m not even sure why I’m meeting my dad. It isn’t to give him the papers back and it’s not to tell him I won’t be working for the family business again. That was part of the plan me and Ink made before returning here. It was part of the plan we made back in the day before he abandoned me the first time, and it was my plan before he just showed up out of the clear blue sky to disrupt my life. Now that he’s gone again, unreachable again, I don’t know what the plan is.
I think I just want to hear my dad’s side of the story Ink told me. It’s a heavy thing to believe that my dad stooped to murder to keep me away from Ink. It’s pretty unbelievable, to be honest. Ink never used to lie to me, and he never hid things. Until he left me for reasons he kept hidden for a year and would’ve gone on hiding them, if I hadn’t insisted we clear up the past before moving on. Maybe he just made it all up, so I’d be more inclined to take him back. The thought shocks me to the core, especially since I can’t find anything concrete to defy it with. What if I’ve been wrong about him all this time?
My heart is screaming, “No, you haven’t!” but I know plenty of girls and women in love have been duped by a guy’s lies. It’s not something that almost never happens. It’s something that happens all the time.
I try to ignore both those voices as best I can.
By the time I let myself into the office parking lot, I’m not totally sure what I want from this meeting with my dad. To find out Ink was lying? To find out my dad’s a murderous monster? To find out that the past I wanted to fix is so totally unfixable it was the worst mistake of my life to go digging around in it?
Dad’s Porsche is already parked in his spot right next to the entrance. I’m about to get some answers, but I no longer have any hope that they’ll make anything easier.
* * *
Ink
After they locked me in, it kept getting hotter and hotter in this room, but now the temperature has been keeping steady at unbearable for awhile, so I’m guessing it’s late afternoon or early evening. That’s pretty much my only way of telling time in here. My watch stopped working around New Year’s and I never got it fixed. Right now, I really wish I had. That’s a mundane, stupid detail to be focusing on given my current predicament, but that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing. Focusing on mundane things. Everyday things that I might never get to do again. I’ve also been trying not to think about Julie. She’s probably mad as hell at me right now. Maybe that’s for the best. If I never get to return her calls, she’ll just stay mad at me and maybe not miss me that much. Or at all. It’s a painful thought. Selfish, but painful nonetheless.
No one’s come to see me since Cross, Hawk and Scar left this morning. I’m starving because no one’s brought me any food, or water, for that matter. I’ve been sucking on a roc
k I scratched out of the wall to keep my saliva going and keep the worst of my thirst at bay. It’s not a good sign that they left me hungry and thirsty and locked up this long. When the door opens next, it’s probably bringing my death. I hope I’ll be able to go with dignity when the time comes. As long as I keep my thoughts on mundane shit like my watch stopping, I can stay hopeful it will be. As soon as my thoughts drift to Julie—which has been happening non-stop—I know it won’t be. If I let myself think about her, I’ll die crying and begging for my life. I don’t cry and I don’t beg, and I don’t want to go out changing that.
I hear footsteps approaching, the scrape of leather against concrete loud, louder than a train passing.
Then the metal bar keeping me locked up in here slides across the wood and the door starts creaking open.
My only thought now is that Julie will never know where I disappeared to when I die today, and that is one fucking unbearable thought, but I can’t shake it, not even a little bit. I’m watching her smiling face in my mind, her eyes looking into mine, but her face turned slightly away. The sun’s catching the blonde streaks in her hair and her golden brown eyes glint like liquid gold. It’s the same image I always see when I think of her. No matter how long we spend apart, I always see her face clearly in my mind, just like this, and the image will never fade, no matter how many years pass, not even in death. I hope.
18
Julie
An invisible force crashes against me as I enter the office building, cold and unrelenting, strong and sad, and all of it condenses in a vice like grip around my throat. Ink. Something’s wrong. The thought forces it’s way into my brain and stays there even after the weird choking sensation passes as quickly as it came over me. I’m freezing even though it’s stuffy inside the office building, since the ACs been off all day. A part of me wants to run back outside, run to help Ink wherever he is, but another part knows there is no more time. And the reasonable, logical part of my mind knows it’s all just in my head.
