by Simone Elise
Still felt some guilt about it. But I knew Ivory was used to the after parties with Gabe. So she would know that the models lose their clothes as soon as the doors close.
From Prince’s snapchats, they were still partying.
I don’t know why, but I felt guilty about seeing those women naked last night. Fuck. To think that I used to see women naked on the daily while I was with Olivia and never gave it a second thought.
Fuck I was lucky to get a girl like Ivory. I didn’t deserve her.
So I feel myself about to do something that could put my relationship with Ivory in trouble. I was going to tell her about the women.
“Ivory?” I keep my eyes on the road.
She stops humming. I glance at her, seeing her eyes on mine.
“There was something I didn’t tell you about last night.” I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. Was I just making something out of nothing? My hand shook a little, and I gripped the steering wheel tighter. And I feel Ivory squeeze my other hand.
“What about it?” She says softly with an understanding voice.
“You know I’d never let someone disrespect you?” I glanced at her, and see confusion in her eyes. “I’d never let someone straight up hurt you either?”
“Kace what are you getting at?”
“The models, you know the stock car ones?” I glance from the road to her, and see her face slowly drop of expression. “Well they were partying with us last night.”
I see her inhale sharply. “Okay. I don’t need to know anymore.”
“Nah baby you do. Nothing happened but they lost their clothes and for some fucking reason I’m feeling guilt about it.”
“Kace.” She says my name in a way that causes me to look at her. “It’s not a big deal. You are always going to have women chasing you, stripping for you.” She goes to pull her hand from mine and I clench it tighter.
“If you know that, why are you pulling away from?”
“I’m not. I just feel bad. Cause you have nothing to feel guilty over and for you to even be feeling guilty means you think I’m one of those girls.”
I frowned but had to keep my eyes on the road.
“You know the girl that is insecure.” She adds. “Just for the record, I’m not that girl. And you don’t have to feel guilty about seeing a girl naked. It’s not like you touched them. Even if you did, I wouldn’t be that mad.”
I just continue to frown. How the fuck did I get so lucky to get a girl that is not just drop dead gorgeous but is understanding about the lifestyle?
“Well for the record.” I inhaled sharply. “It doesn’t go both ways. If you touch another guy, I’ll fucking knock his lights out.”
And she bursts out laughing. “Come on Kace, don’t you want to share? I’ve always wanted a three way.”
And that makes my eyes go off the road to see if she was serious. But I couldn’t fucking tell with the grin on her face, if she was serious or joking. ‘
“Serious or joking?” I ask and look back to the road.
She leans over to me, her mouth going to my ear. “I think we could have fun with another girl in the bedroom.”
I smirk. “Nah darling, the only girl I want in the bedroom is you.”
“And that right there is why I’m not insecure.” And she kissed my cheek. Like I had just proven her point.
25
Ivory
Lighting up a cigarette, my feet just through the balcony of the rail out of my apartment door. I was staring down at the pool, debating whether I should go for a swim or not. When I heard a clearing of a voice. I glance to my side, sort of pissed off that I was being asked to move when I wasn’t in the way.
Then my eyes locked with his green ones. And immediately I know I’m in trouble. It was Jeff and my debt wasn’t settled. But he was about to take payment.
KACE
Being at the track for a late meeting wasn’t ideal. But all drivers were called apparently there was a press problem. I was barely listening, and much to my disgust I had to sit next Gabe. Crossing my arms and hating every second of it.
He was chewing and popping gum and it was bugging me. Till his phone went off, and while everyone else listened to the boss when he said to put our phones on silent, Gabe hadn’t and the boss of the track shoots him a glare, but that glare only intensifies when Gabe answers the phone.
“Ivory you alright?” He says into the phone.
Everyone is silent, because he is interrupting the whole meeting. Gabe sits up straight. “Is she okay?” he says into the phone and my interest was sparked when he said Ivory’s name, but when he follows with ‘is she okay’—I’m on the edge of my seat.
“You call an ambulance?” Gabe runs a hand over his head. “How bad is she?”
What the fuck was going on!
“Yeah I’ll meet you at the hospital.” Gabe is up, and is making a beeline for the exit. And I’m fucking following him.
He hangs up the phone, looking panicked. And pauses when he sees me behind him. “You lost Striking?” he looked at me like he could scare me away. Didn’t he understand that I wasn’t the bad man he was a poser.
“I care about your sister.” I don’t go into detail. “And if she is in trouble. I want to know.”
“Well she doesn’t care about you. Ivory doesn’t let anyone in. Let alone a biker.” He snaps at me. I know he is pissed off, because Ivory would let me, and he hated that little fact.
We could go back and forth all day and I would normally but there was a more important question on my mind. “Is she okay? Ivory. What happened to her?”
Gabe smirks. “For me to know and you, to never know.” And then he walks to his car.
“I’ll just follow you!” I shout at his back, heading for my bike. She was at the hospital I knew that much.
GABE
Not one word would describe how angry I was. Seeing my sister with a tube down her throat, and in an induced coma all because she owed some thug, who thought he could beat a woman and get away with it.
Links looked at me. “Why wouldn’t she ask us for money if she needed it?” he was asking the question we all wanted an answer to.
“Pride. I’m guessing.” I know my sister backwards and forwards and seeing her in this state because of money, hurts me, physically hurts me.
“Do we know who did it?” Asher is looking at Ivory, with this calculating look.
“His name is Jeff, from what the neighbor told me, when I got there.” I run my hand over my chin. Payback, us Billionaires didn’t get our hands dirty but Asher, Links and I were prepared to. However I knew we wouldn’t be able to take this Jeff down.
It has been four hours, and we waited, most of that time in the waiting room, where Kace was. He waited but what for I don’t know. We hadn’t given him any update, after the doctors called us in.
The neighbor found Ivory outside, and called the ambulance and then me.
Now we had to decide how we handle this. And my mind was going to one man. And I didn’t fucking like it.
“Let’s face it, we can’t do shit without it coming back on our image.” Asher muttered, pissed off like the rest of us.
“This still can’t go unanswered.” I said, and turned heading towards the waiting room. Kace Striking. He was the last man I wanted to turn to however, he said he cared for my sister. So I was going to see if he was willing to put his public image at risk for her.
Walking into the waiting room, and he’s on one of the plastic chairs, looking emotional. Fuck. Kace Striking didn’t do emotions.
“She’s in an induced coma.” I say to the room, and his eyes snap up and on to me.
He swallows sharply. “What happened?”
I tilted my head. “She was beaten up, to settle a debt to a thug.”
“Name.” Kace said standing up. The conviction in his one word, told me he was prepared to go to war over this—he was willing to risk his public image, his reputation—everything to make this right.
Fuck. One would think he loved Ivory.
If I gave him the name it meant it would be left in Kace’s hands to make right. I hesitate.
“Name.” he growls.
Fuck it I didn’t have a choice.
“Jeff. Don’t have a last name.”
He nods his head and goes to storm past me and I grip his arm. “I wanna see a hospital admission for him.”
Kace’s lips twitched up and he looks me dead in the eyes. “He won’t make it to the hospital.” And he ripped his arm from my grip and leaves.
Can’t help but think that I just fed the devils addiction. That devil being Kace and his addiction being my little sister.
26
Kace
Two days. I took me to track this Jeff down. I knew who he was but couldn’t fucking track him down. He went under ground as soon as he heard I was looking for him. He did a small job for the club but was more known as a loan shark.
I inhaled sharply on a cigarette. Day three and he was mine.
I soaked my right hand in a bowl of ice. The swelling causing the pain, it was still a much needed distraction, knowing Ivory was still in a coma. And it took me three fucking days to make it right. That I would struggle to live with. Three, fucking, days. After all I was taught a man handles his own, and for me to take three days to make wrong right—disgusted me.
I had just made it right. Now I was preparing myself to go back to the hospital. But I knew once I saw her, it would bring back memories I can’t handle or cope with. But I had to go up and see her, and I might be in liver failure by the time I make it, as I threw back another shot. Mentally preparing myself for what I was going to walk into.
Arriving at the hospital, I got Ivory’s hospital room from the nursing staff. Who for some reason looked scared stiff of me.
I headed for the room. Only to push the door open and freeze. Seeing the machines, I was pulled back in time.
“Kace, you have to tell her goodbye.”
“I don’t want to.” The tears hadn’t eased once for the last week, since mom was admitted.
“The machines are breathing for her Kace, do you understand that?” My dad fed up with me not going into the room, told me. And then he gripped my be the shoulders, and pushed me into the room that I was scared to enter. That I didn’t want to enter. My eyes widened as I see my mother, dying. The machines beeping. Her chest barely raising.
I panic and duck around my fathers legs and run. I won’t say goodbye. She isn’t leaving.
GABE
The whole family was taking it in turns to be with Ivory. It was the third day in. I hadn’t left the hospital, feeling partly to blame for the beating. Because she would have borrowed the money for the NASCAR. I knew that, yet I didn’t have the guts to say that to my family.
This whole mess, was on my hands.
I was leaning forward in the chair when the hospital room door opened. And I see Kace standing there. Blood drops cover his white shirt. His fists cut up and bleeding. But his eyes were locked on Ivory. He stands there for a moment, then just turns and walks out. Well more like runs away from the room.
I get up going after him.
“Kace.” I shout to his back, and he turns around and I see tears in his eyes.
“I won’t do it.” He says something that confuses me.
“Do what?”
He clearly wasn’t talking about punishing the man that had hurt Ivory. Cause he is covered in blood. Unless he had beaten someone else up lately.
“She’s yours Henderson.” He says looking me in the eyes, and I frowned.
“She was always was mine.”
He shakes his head. “I was a fuck head for risking it.” He again says something that confuses me.
“What you on about Striking?”
“My heart. I should have known it would turn out badly.” He locks eyes with me and I see tears but I don’t think they are for Ivory. “I always lose everything I love. She was no different. After all I was taught to love by choking things.” And he shakes his head, turning around and storming off.
Why did I suddenly get a feeling that my sister had been having a thing with him? He said the word love. A man doesn’t love a woman, without encouragement.
I walk back into her room. And wonder for a moment, what had my little sister started with the biker? And how did she cause a monster like Kace to love her. Or Loved. To be correct.
27
Ivory
Three Weeks Later
He never wrote back to my messages. At first I put it down to him being busy. At first I made excuses, for a week. I thought he was staying away because of my family. But he had to know I would want him here, hell it might not have taken me two weeks to wake up, if he was there.
Gabe mentioned Kace came up three days into my stay, only to leave abruptly. It wasn’t until the second week in hospital that I realized. He didn’t want to see me. I knew then he knew the truth; and didn’t want me anymore. After all I was caught up with a loan shark. I was that desperate and poor at one stage. Kace now knows I’m serious when I say I don’t have any money. And he has seen me for the leech I could possibly be.
So he has washed his hands of me. And while I accepted that, it still hurt like a stabbing pain in my heart. I couldn’t lie and say that it didn’t hurt, it did. I cried many nights in the hospital once my family had left. I let him in. I gave him a piece of me. And he burnt it, or threw it away like it was nothing.
“Okay can someone,” Elle looked at me. “Aka you, can you please explain this to me why we are home alone on a Saturday night?”
I rolled my eyes. I was crashing at Elle’s because the family deemed it as unsafe—me being by myself that is.
I had recovered well, and I think that was what Elle was getting at.
“Come on Ivy, let’s hit the clubs. Dance a little, flirt a lot.” She nudged me with her shoulder.
I looked at her dryly. “I’m black and blue Elle.”
“Nothing a bit of makeup won’t cover?”
“No.”
“Come on.” She whined.
“Nothing is stopping you.” I threw back at her “Now I’m going to bed.”
“It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night!” She exclaimed. And gave me a look like I had lost my mind.
“Night Elle.” I say over my shoulder and head for her guest bedroom. I wasn’t going to lie, going out, meant people, and for some reason since it happened I felt unsure in social situations. After all at the charity event, I had been basically relying on an old supply of Valium to get me through.
I closed the guest bedroom. But I knew the real reason I didn’t want to go, it was because I didn’t want to move on from him. I clenched my fists together. Why did it have to hurt so much? Why couldn’t I be good enough? Why couldn’t he see that I wasn’t like normal girls? That I wouldn’t use him for his money. That I loved him for him. Not the money that came with him.
Tears swell in my eyes. I couldn’t face him again. Which had me making a life decision. I was leaving the tracks and Kace behind.
Chapter 27 Part 2
IVORY
“You sure about this?” Gabe looked at me, like he was prepared for me to change my mind. But I wasn’t going to do it. I nodded my head.
“I can’t do the crowds right now Gabe. Men always hit on me. I can’t take that..” I wasn’t fully lying. Men always hit on me at the track, and a part of me was terrified of going back to that.
Gabe, nodded his head. “If this is what you really want Ivy, I’ll respect it.” He had a grim smile on his face and I turned to leave, only for him to stop me. “Tell me that this has nothing to do with him?” He knew and I knew, who he was talking about and the answer was. It had everything to do with Kace.
My eyes drop for a moment and then I looked Gabe back in the eyes. “It has nothing to do with Kace." and I lied right to my brother’s face.
He nodded his head, and let me leave. And thus I leave the racetrack training s
heds for the last time.
Heading to my car, I hear a bike approaching and I go stiff. Knowing it’s his bike. My eyes are locked on my car door. I hear it getting closer. I don’t want to. But I can’t stop myself from looking up just as he rounds the corner. And my eyes lock with his jet black sunglasses. And I froze, my hand on the door.
He’s in a t-shirt and shorts, showing his tattooed skin.
As he slows down, I can’t read his reaction he is just staring back at me. My eyes swell with tears because I loved him. And he didn’t love me as much back, or trust me enough not to hurt him.
My mind goes back in time, to the feel of his touch, the feeling that fills me when I’m with him. I blink and he keeps riding past, and I see his head turned back to glance at me, before he looks back at the road, and keeps travelling in the opposite direction of me.
And so I learn what it feels like to have an outlaw burn your heart and ride away. I look back, giving Gabe a wave who was watching me and I got in the car. I clench the steering wheel, not wanting to put the car in drive, and close this chapter of my life. Its physically painful as I put the car in drive. And my hands shake. Until I swallow sharply and I know that a large part of me will always be at this track, with my brother but a massive part of me, would be in my old apartment with Kace.
And now?
The only piece of me I was taking with me was a shell.
So I pulled onto the road and headed for the exit. Watching my past get smaller in the rearview mirror.
28
Ivory
Three Months Later
Running an elite garage wasn’t easy. I employed the best staff and mechanics. While I was the lead mechanic, I couldn’t do all the jobs. As much as I wanted to. Because every job that left my garage, had my name on it—and I didn’t want to be associated with poor workmanship. Lucky enough the mechanics took my reputation seriously and knew their jobs depended on good quality work.
