Rogue's Retribution: Twisted Iron MC

by Liberty Parker

  Bella

  I know what he’s doing, why he’s chain smoking the way he is, but like a beacon in the dead of the night, he calls to me and I can’t keep from watching his lips as he draws in a lungful of smoke. Anxiety takes hold and I find myself eventually balled in on myself as I attempt to suck in some much-needed oxygen. The room around me begins to spin as dark spots dance before my eyes. His intimidation and stalling tactics are working well, he has me worried and scared of the impending conversation that will be taking place in a few, short minutes. On shaky legs, I carry myself to the kitchen and pull down a glass, putting it under the faucet and filling it to the brim full of water. My hands are trembling, causing water to slosh over the top, coating me with it.

  I haven’t needed to take my medication to calm my nerves in so long that I have to stop and think about where my bottle of pills are located. Rushing to the bathroom I share with Rogue, I pull the medicine cabinet open and am happy to find my medication there, staring back at me, taunting me with the need to swallow one. Giving into the temptation, I pull out a whole pill and toss it to the back of my throat before swallowing it. I practice my meditative breathing and soon, I find myself back in control of my body. Lifting my eyes up, I stare at the wide, frightened eyes consuming my face.

  “Find your game face, girl,” I state to the woman looking back at me.

  “Not sure that it would matter if you located it,” Rogue says from behind me, causing me to jump. He’s a fucking stealthy ninja who has taken me by surprise.

  “Fuck, Rogue,” I grit out, placing my open palm against my chest. “A little warning that you’re close by would be nice.”

  “Wasn’t being quiet, Bella,” he informs me. I look up to his eyes and stare at him through the reflective glass. His eyes look dead, no emotion is present. “You done with that?” he asks, waving his hands up and down before eventually pointing at my container of pills.

  “Yeah, all good here,” I lie in an attempt to believe my words personally.

  “Good, I’ll meet you in the living room,” he commands as he turns on his feet and leaves me standing here. A broken woman who’s terrified and anticipating the penance I’ll have to pay for the decisions I once made. “No stalling, Bella!” he hollers from the hallway.

  Even though he’s right and now is the time, I sneer in his direction with a soured look on my face. Taking one last deep breath and exhaling it, I proceed to the living area where he’s sitting, waiting for my arrival. He gestures for me to take up a spot beside him and I oblige. Finding the courage, my eyes roam upward, and meet his. “Where would you like me to start?”

  He leans forward, clasping his fingers together as an agitated look forms on his face; immediately I know I’ve started this entire conversation off wrong. “How about the obvious, Bella? Why didn’t you contact me as soon as you learned you were pregnant? All those years ago?”

  The large lump forming in my throat nearly constricts my voice. Clearing it, I hope I can explain this in a way that he will somehow understand. “It wasn’t done maliciously, I promise. Rora had just passed and you and I both regretted our night together. Mentally and emotionally, I was unstable and exhausted. Once I made it back home, I began drinking away my anguish on a nightly basis. It had only been one week since we had been together and in a drunken state, I made another mistake and slept with a random man from the bar. Three weeks later, I learned of my pregnancy. You were the first person I thought of contacting.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” he snaps at me, running his hands through his hair. “Fuck!”

  “Look, I know now how deeply I fucked up and how unfair it was to both of you. But you have to believe me when I tell you that after months of contemplation, I was convinced that I was doing what was best for all involved. Hindsight really is a bitch, but you have to believe what I’m saying is the truth. In my mind, you didn’t need any more unexpected life altering events, and honestly, I wasn’t sure the baby was yours.”

  “And what? You just thought that when the child was grown he or she would never have questions of their own?” I watch his mental state decline with the flaring of his nostrils as he says this.

  This conversation has brought me back in time and I can almost feel myself reliving the confusion and pain. Standing, I respond, “I wasn’t thinking, not properly, Rogue. Something I’ve only come to fully realize a few years ago. It sounds cut and dry to you and Rory, but it wasn’t, not at that time, not in that moment.”

  “Rory? That’s his name?” he looks up at me.

  I feel tears sting the back of my lids before my eyes well up. “After Aurora, it’s the closest thing I could come up with. And either way, I wanted to honor my late friend.”

  He gets up, walks to the kitchen, grabs a beer from the refrigerator, cracks it open and begins to chug it as he heads back in my direction. “She was pregnant.”

  My brain tries to catch up and make sense out of what he just said. “Who was pregnant?”

  “When I got the autopsy report, I found out that Aurora was nearly eight weeks pregnant when she was murdered. Later found out that she had literally learned of the news that day. Her mumbling last words were something about a baby, but it didn’t make sense at the time. You know we’d been trying for years with no luck.” He sits back down and stares off, away from me.

  No. No, no, no. The tears glide freely down my cheeks. She woke up that morning, learned at some point her and Rogue’s dream of expanding their family was becoming a reality, and in a few short hours it was stripped away. “No,” is all I manage to mutter out through my hands now covering my mouth.

  Rogue looks up at me with a scrunched forehead. “What do you mean, no?”

  I plop down back onto the sofa. “I-I didn’t mean it as if it weren’t true. It’s just something I never knew until now and even still, it pains me.”

  He finishes the last sip of his beer. “Yeah, well, now you’ve just gotten a small taste of how I’m feeling.” He stands again. “You literally stole the opportunity of raising another child, my son, from me.”

  “We still aren’t sure if he’s yours,” I mumble through my tears, his true but hurtful words still haunting my thoughts.

  “A fucking blind man can see that he is mine, Bella! He and Gunner will be here for a few more days possibly. I’ll have Stitches get the paternity kit and I have hospital staff on my payroll so the results can be expedited. I mean, fuck, Bella. What did you think was gonna happen once you came back to town? That you could hide your son, my son from me forever? This is insane! Not to mention that Rory just so happens to be a member of an allied MC of ours. One that is now questioning your loyalty considering you’ve been back for a little while now and yet I’m still just finding out about this. I’ll be at the clubhouse until further notice and I need some space and time. None of this looks good, the old lady of an MC president keeping secrets from him? Life changing ones at that?” He turns his back to me to throw his beer away.

  “Old lady? Oh, so now that there’s controversy I’m allowed to be given that title?” I question through a raised voice as my own anger takes hold.

  “I’m not sure what you are or will be to me after this. What I do know is that the club is dealing with some heavy stuff right now, so you can expect your day-to-day routine of seeing PeeWee to continue,” he finishes before exiting the house.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rogue

  The tires spin underneath me as I eat up the asphalt. Every mile I put between Bella and myself still doesn’t calm me, if anything, I find that my angry feelings are amplified. By the time I pull up and into the club lot, I’m breathing fire. I don’t feel as if we accomplished much with our talking, but the fact that she justified keeping Rory from me because of my loss, isn’t enough of an excuse to make me want to forgive her. If anything, it makes me want to kick her out of mine and my children’s lives… permanently. There’s only so much deceit a man can take before he tosses up his hands and gives th
e fuck up.

  Scanning the parking lot, I see that it’s a skeleton crew here. Everyone else has gone home to their family, yet here I am, putting as much distance between myself and mine. I was becoming annoyed with Bella’s excuses and when the desire hit to put my hands around her neck, I bounced. I’m sure we have a lot left to discuss, but that wasn’t the best bet for either one of us tonight, the outcome would’ve been detrimental to our future. In my state of anger, I didn’t think that I’d be able to rationally think things through and would jump and make a unilateral decision I might come to regret later on down the road.

  “Pres,” a voice coming from the shadow catches me off-guard. This pisses me off, I’m allowing Bella and my thoughts of this situation to forfeit my own self-preservation. I can’t let my enemies catch me slacking the way my brother just did.

  “Bane, why aren’t you home with Harlow?” I ask as I dig out a cigarette and light it up.

  “Her sister is a social worker ya’ know,” he begins, and I nod my head, knowledgeable of this fact. After all, I am the man who has to know it all about my men and their extended families. “Anyway, there’s these two kids who are petrified to talk to anyone. Since Harlow has been working with street kids and has a way of getting them to open up, her sister asked her to come and assist. She’ll be gone for a few days, a week at the most.”

  “Who’s her guard?” I ask him, knowing good and well he’s aware of my order that no one is to be alone during this tremulous time.

  “Shade and Stretch went with her.” Once again, I nod my head, happy to hear that she has two good men at her side, ones who would give their lives for hers.

  “What has that worried look on your face brother?” I question, happy to deal with someone else’s problems and being able to put mine at the back of my mind for now.

  “Each kid, Pres. Each and every damn one whose path she crosses; she wants to bring home. She gets attached and then cries for fucking days when they are placed with a family.” The worry in his voice has me standing taller. Their loss all of those years ago still cuts Harlow to the quick. Her dream of motherhood was stolen from her thanks to Marx the fuckhead. I wish I could dig him back up, bring him back to life and torture that sonofabitch for eternity. He and his old lady Lisa stole so much from this club. We lost many good men, my woman, and Bane and I both lost the chance at parenting our unborn children. “I don’t know how to help her mend this part of her that’s been shredded.”

  “This isn’t something that can be fixed,” I commiserate, inhaling in a lungful of smoke. “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let her bring one of her so-called strays home, Bane.”

  “And if things don’t work out, what do I do then, Rogue? How do I make her want to live again if that happens? It took years for her to get somewhat stable. I can’t go through that again and neither can she.” The pain and sorrow lining his face as he says this brings my own back to the surface, as I find myself feeling empathy for his conundrum.

  “And, if you don’t, you take the chance of her never feeling complete. It’s a hard choice to make, but at the end of the day, not only would you be giving a child a stable environment, one filled with family and loyalty, but you’ll be helping Harlow find her way and giving her something she desperately desires. It may be what fills her heart again. She can’t keep hiding that part of herself with grief. She needs to feel wanted and needed by a little one.”

  “You may be right.” He sighs as he tosses his own butt to the ground and grinds it out with his boot. “I feel my old friend Patron calling out to me, wanna join me for a glass?”

  “Nah, you take the glass, brother, I’ll take the bottle,” I say, slapping his shoulder as we head inside the doors.

  Bella

  Every noise the house makes causes me to flinch and rush for the front window. My heart is racing to the point that I fear it may beat itself right out of my chest. The icemaker dropping ice cubes has me jumping, the house creaking has me looking for monsters in each corner. I know that I have security detail, but the fact that my nerves are frayed has me looking for an enemy every which way I turn. My mind knows that I’m safe here, but my emotions are screaming at me to run and find a safe place to hide.

  Rogue has been known to hold a grudge for long periods of time. I just never thought that it’d be aimed directly at me. Though, if I’d stopped and thought it through, I’d have known that once this secret of mine came to life; I’d become the number one enemy in his mind. The two men who fill my world, heart and soul, won’t even look me in the eyes without hatred and disdain staring back at me.

  I’ve made a mess of all of our lives. Grabbing a glass of wine, I settle into the couch and turn on the television. A movie begins to play and I find myself crying alongside the heroine. What feels like buckets of tears slide down my cheeks; landing on my chest, soaking my top. Movie after movie I sit here, drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Merlot and commiserate with the women.

  Eventually, I find darkness overcoming me as I fall asleep sitting up on the couch.

  Banging wakes me from slumberland. It takes a minute for my mind to remember the events that led me to sleep in the position that’s given me a crick in my neck. The banging begins to come in rapid successions. Now, not only is my neck aching, but my head is leaning toward that direction.

  “I’m coming,” I call out as I stand and stretch before heading to the door.

  “It’s fucking cold as hell out here, Auntie Bella, hurry the hell up, would ya?” Harmony hollers out, causing dread to sink into my chest. I knew this time for her and I to have a sit down would come, I had hoped I’d have more time to prepare for this confrontation.

  Yanking the door open, I hold it wide and wave her in. The cold air hits me in the face and I shiver as the coldness rains down on me. “Wow, the temperatures drastically dropped overnight,” I issue as I wrap my arms around me in an attempt to conserve my body’s heat. Walking ahead of her, I head straight for the kitchen to make me a pot of coffee and her a mug of hot cocoa. I may be bribing her with the chocolate confection, but I’d do anything to put her in a good mood, even if only temporarily. When the cups are made just the way we like them, I add a scoop of whip cream to top hers and then go and join her where she sits on the couch awaiting me. “Made it just the way you like it,” I alert Harmony, as I extend her cup, handle first.

  “Thanks,” she says as she blows the top in order to cool it down some. “I know my dad asked me to wait to speak with you, but I can’t, Auntie. I need to know.”

  “Know what, sweetie?” I ask her, already knowing the answer in my mind, but my heart isn’t quite ready to accept.

  “Why?” she simply asks. “Why did you keep my brother from me, from my dad? I thought you loved us?” This is exactly what I wasn’t prepared for but should’ve been. Her words break my heart further than it already was. Tears are swimming in her orbs, but my tough girl refuses to let them fall. I, on the other hand, have no such control and allow my own to freely slide down my face as they profusely empty from my tear ducts. Clearing my throat, I go on to share what I did with her father last night, only when I say the last word from my well planned out explanation, instead of running away like her father did, she stares at me as if there’s more that should be expressed. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” she inquires, pressing me for further explanation. “No, there’s more and I’m not leaving until you tell me what it is that’s missing from your story,” she deadpans.

  “I’d like to have this talk with your father first, Harmony. He deserves to hear all I have to say before I share it with you,” I explain to her, hoping she’ll accept my reason.

  She sighs dramatically before sitting her steaming mug down on the coffee table. Once it’s settled there, she turns her body halfway to where she’s facing me. “I can appreciate that, truly I can, but Auntie, you’re gonna need me on your side if you want to continue building the relationship with Daddy. He’s hurting right now, which mea
ns he’s going to shut down for an extended period of time.”

  “And I know you’re right, but it wouldn’t be fair to him if I shared it all with you first,” I state, hoping that she’ll continue to see my reasons and understand why I’m putting her off. Even Rory doesn’t know it all, and it’d be a kick in the teeth to him if I told his sister before I took the time out to give him and Rogue a more in-depth explanation.

  “We’re not going to resolve anything here, are we?” she asks, although she looks up at me with pleading eyes, begging me to change my mind. But I can’t, not with this, this is one time she’ll just have to deal. I need to stand my ground and stay true to my word.

  “Then we have nothing more to discuss,” she imparts as she stands and walks toward the front door. “Just remember, the more you keep to yourself, the less friends you will have in your corner.” With that said, she walks through the front door, leaving me standing there slack jawed and unsure if I should say anything further. Should I chase her out the door and make amends with her? Indecisions are my worst enemy, I hate leaving things unresolved, and what’s worse is that she isn’t known to simply let things lie, much like her father. She’s either up to something, or she’s emotionally wrecked. I don’t want to lose what she and I have, but what other choice do I have right now? I can tell her everything and possibly lose Rogue and Rory, or I can keep my mouth shut and pray she forgives me. Once again, the thought of packing my things up and hitting the road runs through my mind, but I don’t want to be that person anymore. That mentality is what has me in this position to begin with. I want my family, which means I need to fight… for them all.