Boy, is she…
She seems angry, but she doesn’t seem angry at me. It’s almost like she’s angry at the world about something. But what?
You’re probably just looking for an excuse to be free of this drama, to be free of responsibility. You don’t get off that easily.
I took her to the club hall and, sure enough, I got some glares from some of the officers, primarily Parker. It was a little bit of an abuse of power, but it wasn’t like I was interrupting a club meeting to bring a woman in. In fact, at this hour, half of the club was probably sleeping a hangover off somewhere; that some members were here were only because we had to maintain a front of a business, not anything else.
I shut the door to the hall and sat down in the president’s seat. If it felt awkward in the meeting, it felt even worse here. At least in the meeting, there was the public expectation that I would take that seat. Taking it in private, with only one witness, felt like a slap in the face of Brock.
But I also did it so that I could accustom myself to being president while I was here. Unpleasant, but in my mind, necessary.
It was somewhat humorous to me that Caroline wound up taking my old seat.
“So, OK,” I began. “I know that this is all crazy, and I know it seems like I lied to you. I can understand where you are coming from.”
I was trying so hard to say “the right thing” as if I could somehow persuade Caroline if I just took the right tact. I didn’t mean so much in terms of like a teenager who would click on an internet ad that said “You won’t believe these five words that get a woman to do whatever you want,” but more so that if I just empathized properly, I’d win her over.
Of course, that was putting a ton of pressure on me and more fear than normal that this wouldn’t work out. It wasn’t very accepting of what might be.
“I should have said something to you yesterday about the club, but I got caught up. I’m not going to defend it, just going to explain it. I—”
“Landon,” Caroline said slowly.
Her voice sounded exhausted and weary, but again, not necessarily with me. It felt like she was just tired of the situation and wanted it wrapped up.
“I appreciate it, but to some extent, this is all a moot point.”
She hadn’t looked me in the eyes up to this point, having spoken with her eyes slightly cast downward. But now, when she looked me square in the eye, there was a very real part of me that knew it was all for naught. I didn’t know what she was about to say, but I began to fear anything from that she hated my guts to she was seeing a different man. Ludicrous? Yes.
But real? Yes.
“I’m moving to Arizona at the end of the year.”
Fuck.
She’s following her parents.
There’s nothing I can do about that. I may someday leave Romara, but to chase a childhood crush that I slept with once?
I mean, I’ve done some crazy shit before, but…
“I told you that my parents were moving, and you knew there was a possibility that I would follow them,” she explained. “And I think after yesterday, I saw two different paths. The first path was staying here and being with you while running my business in Romara. It would have been fun, sure. But then there would have been the risk of having you constantly drawn back to this very club. I mean, hell, Landon, we’re having this meeting on club grounds!”
“That was for safety reasons,” I protested, but even if Caroline believed me, it didn’t exactly seem like a winning argument on my part. “And in any case, I promise you that I was serious about not sticking around in this club. A temporary situation arose with my brother, and the club has had no time to process the fact that I left. In fact, most people here probably don’t even realize it.”
“Why?” she said. “Why don’t they realize it? Why didn’t you tell them?”
That… was an unfortunately solid point.
“Because I was scared for how they’d react,” I said honestly. “I told Brock. I even gave him my cut. But I left it up to him to tell the group. My family is Brock, my friends are the club. Family supports you, but friends may drop off.”
“I guess,” Caroline said, but her tone suggested anything but agreement. “I just don’t think you’ll be able to walk away that easily, Landon. Am I correct in assuming that there are plenty of other experienced members of this club who could have done what you are doing now?”
Shit. I had no choice but to nod.
“Yeah, see?” she said.
“But the club—”
“If you were serious about leaving, then nothing would change your mind,” she said. “In some ways, Landon, I respect that you’re sticking around to the club. You say they’re your friends, but you came back to them almost immediately after your brother got hurt. So you saying that you’re going to leave the Savage Kings is like me saying I’m going to leave my family behind. That’s not going to happen, and I would say that even before I decided to move to Arizona. My family is a part of me. There’s no escaping it.”
There’s no escaping it.
Those words struck a deeper chord with me than almost anything else that had been said up to this point. I could have moved to Thailand, and I might have dropped the Vice President title in the Savage Saints; I might have thrown my cut away; I might have cut off all communication with them.
But at my core, I’d still be a Savage King.
It was impossible to escape that after a decade in the club and over two and a half decades of being in the King family.
So if that were the case, the question was less about escaping it or running away from it than it was managing it or, perhaps even, embracing it.
But that was a question that was far too heavy to grapple with right now, especially considering that Caroline was still standing before me and I was still grasping at straws—very thin and very slippery straws—to try and reignite what we had.
“I’m starting to think you’re right,” I admitted.
“And if that’s the case, then I’m going with my family to Arizona,” she said. “They’re everything to me, and it would take something extraordinary to keep me here. You’re a lovely man, Landon, and I know you’ll find someone wonderful, but it won’t be me. I will get too stressed out knowing you’re putting your life on the line and living in this lifestyle so much. I will fear that you’ll still become the withdrawn, surly Landon when things go wrong.”
So that’s it, then.
She thinks that my sulking is because of the Savage Kings. I can see why she’d think that.
If you’re going to have any chance whatsoever of swinging this pendulum back in your favor, Landon, you better shape up. Stop being a bitch. Don’t complain when responsibility is given to you. It’s not the title that’ll make you better. It’s you.
Man up, buck up, and stop fucking around.
“I understand,” I said, deciding that mature acceptance was the best thing that I could offer right now. “If you want to meet up before you head down to the desert, I’d be happy to. But if not, I understand.”
“Got it,” Caroline said, and I could tell by her reaction she had not expected me to act so maturely. “I guess this is it for now, then.”
“Can I walk you to your car?”
She at least gave me that courtesy. I briefly extended my hand to help her out, but when she didn’t even look at it, I begrudgingly withdrew it. This is the choice she’s made. Don’t cry about it. Don’t mope. Accept it and move on.
And if you do mope, you better sure as hell not do it in her presence.
I again drew glares from the club members, but really, what were they going to do now? If anyone asked a question, I’d just explain it was for safety reasons. If people still argued the point, there was going to be hell to pay from me.
I got to her car, opened the door, and smiled. In the moment just before she raised her right leg to squat inside, I thought I saw recognition on her face—recognition of a subtle change in my mindset.
Recognition that if I had this…
But then reality got in the way and she got all the way in the car.
“Thanks, Caroline,” I said.
I meant it. The conversation had helped me realize that I had screwed up some things. I needed to be a more mature and better man.
“Bye, Landon.”
The words didn’t sound final.
But even if they were, then I truly believed that I would be fine.
That wasn’t to say that the rest of the day was easy or comfortable, though.
For starters, just because I had found acceptance didn’t mean there weren’t moments where I regretted what had happened and I wished that I had done things better. There was still a part of me that said “follow her to Arizona” and there was still a part of me that said make a dramatic move to win her heart over.
Petey was the only one to directly speak to me about taking Caroline into the private room, though thankfully he understood my point. He just warned me that it was making for a bad precedent if I kept doing it and suggested that I refrain from doing it in the future. Once he and I talked, I noticed that the questioning stares and apparent distrust that people were showing me faded significantly.
By the time closing hours came, I prepared to head home for bed early. I planned to be up at five in the morning for our six o’clock strike, which I had actually pushed back to fifteen minutes before the top of the hour. It wasn’t because I thought that it would make the difference between success and failure, but rather, I had no faith that a bunch of adults who had the sleep schedule of a teenager would have any more self-discipline than said teenager.
I grabbed my phone and got to the front door when I saw Caroline calling me. Figuring she just wanted to chat more or grab dinner, I kept walking to the bike.
“Hey, what’s up?”
She sniffled once before she spoke. I stopped walking.
“Landon. I need your help.”
6
Caroline
What could have been, Landon.
I told myself that even if my parents hadn’t made the decision to move to Arizona, we wouldn’t have worked out. That feeling went a long way to making me feel like I’d made a defensible decision.
But of course, the fact that I had to tell myself that and that I couldn’t just believe it in silence was pretty telling. It was an obvious indicator that Landon had, just as I had expected from beforehand, charmed me a bit with what he’d said and how he had acted.
It was why I hadn’t wanted an in-person meeting, much less an in-person meeting at the club. I’d had to adopt an infuriated mindset so that I wouldn’t be persuaded so easily, but unfortunately, that just meant that the second he broke through that mindset, I swung to the other side and started to silently look for ways to see if we could have been something.
But that just so happened to be around the same time that Landon seemed to come to terms with what I had said, and as a result, when I headed back to my apartment, I did so convinced that Landon and I would never be anything more than friends.
Friends who, frankly, probably wouldn’t see each other until a week or so before I left Romara.
Landon represented temptation for me. Landon was the guy who, if he really wanted to, could have made my life very tricky to navigate. That wasn’t an insult to him; it was just an acknowledgment of the kind of impact that he had had on me.
The more that I would hang out with Landon, the worse I would be at saying no to him. And the worse I got at saying no to him, the worse I would feel when I finally did leave.
At least work would keep me plenty busy.
I walked up to my apartment slowly, the steps up feeling twice as hard as the steps down. The rain from yesterday had mostly vanished, though some ominous clouds remained on the horizon. By the looks of it, the clouds were drifting away from Romara and in the direction of Golden Valley, but I was no meteorologist.
I unlocked the door, went to my couch, and sat down.
As I looked around the apartment, trying to figure out how I would kill the remainder of my Sunday, suddenly, I saw my apartment not as the place I lived, but as the various spots Landon and I had hooked up. There was the wall where everything had started, where our passionate and erotic making out turned into so much more.
There was the table where he propped me up and slammed inside of me.
Here was the couch…
There was the room…
Am I always going to be thinking like this? Am I always going to be having Landon on my mind so much that I won’t be able to carry on a normal day without thinking about him?
Maybe I could just be casual.
I actually laughed out loud at that. I’d never done casual in my life, and now I was going to do it with a man that I actually liked? Please.
My phone rang. I reached into my pocket and looked at it. It was an unknown number.
I really didn’t want to answer calls from people I didn’t know, but given that it came from a Romara area code and it might have been a client of mine, I decided to just suck it up and answer.
“Hello?” I said, trying to make my voice more chipper.
“Caroline! Oh, Caroline, thank goodness.”
“Mom?”
She sounded frantic. Around her, I could barely make out what sounded like a bunch of footsteps moving around, as well as some men I couldn’t pick out in the background.
“Listen, baby, your father and I, we’re OK. But some evil men have come—”
“Mom?!?”
Her voice got cut off, though I could still hear her in the background, as if someone had taken the phone from her. The next voice I heard was of a very creepy and rage-filled man.
“Boy, that woman doesn’t know how to shut up.”
“Who the hell are you?” I said.
“Ah, you’ve got your mother’s insolence, I see,” the man said. “The name’s Owen. Your parents are going to serve a mighty fine purpose here.”
“My parents?!?”
Oh, God, what’s going on? Are they being held hostage? Are they…
“You see, I know about you and the pussy King,” Owen said. “I know how you two are. But unfortunately, you guys have gotten smart. You’ve learned not to go out in public anymore. So it’s harder to track you. But, fortunately, it wasn’t hard to find your parents. And since going after the love interests of the club hasn’t worked out so well, it’s time to take a different tact.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, tears starting to well in my eyes. This can’t be happening. Not Mom and Dad. Not them. Anyone but them.
“I”m talking about the fact that we’ve tried for so long to break the fucking Kings, but that was a very poor strategy on Vulture’s part,” he said. So they’re going to break us, instead. “So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get the Kings to come to us. We’ll tell you where we are, in fact. We’re at 2205 Riversong Drive.”
My parents’ house. They’re at my parents’ house. Oh, fuck…
“If they do not show up in an hour, then you will have a pair of funerals to plan, Miss Caroline,” Owen said. “At least you’ll be able to arrange a two-for-one deal. You better fucking hurry. I am not the patient man Vulture is.”
“Owen, what—”
But before I could get a word in, he hung up. I stared at the phone, trembling.
I started to cry.
But even as I cried, I knew that I had to act. I pulled up Landon’s phone number and dialed. I was going to sound like a blubbering hot mess, but what the fuck did that matter?
“Hey, what’s up?” he said.
“Landon. I need your help.”
Tears blinded me. My emotions made it impossible for me to think coherently.
I could only hope that Landon had the clarity needed to save them.
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They’ve gone too far this
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They’re holding Caroline’s parents hostage at the moment.
She needs my help.
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Savage Redemption
“My life was all about revenge until I met her.”
I want them destroyed.
The Anarchists killed my father, haunt me and my brother, and seek to destroy my club, the Savage Kings.
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But for years, I also never forgot her.
She was everything to me.
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And I had to leave her without explanation.
But a chance encounter has brought her back to me.
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Devil's Sin Page 3
