by Lila Rose
Still, I missed my family with every fibre of my being, missed their warmth and protection.
Because of that, everything hurt.
Simone tried her best to make me happy, get me to laugh, and for her, I did as best as I could.
I knew that when I smiled or laughed at her jokes, it didn’t show in my eyes. There was no fooling her either; she would see through my façade every time, causing her to sigh in defeat. But she never gave up. The next day, she would make another attempt. I loved her for trying so much.
I stopped doing anything other than classes or work. As soon as class or my shift finished, I would race home. I was lucky I didn’t live far from both places.
Cameron showed up many times at home. If Simone was home, she’d send him away. If she wasn’t, I’d sit on the floor in the corner of the living room to listen and wait until he eventually left. I’d never cave and open the door to him. If I did, the outcome wouldn’t be pretty. His foul language and anger was enough to convince me he was a threat. It was that anger that would be taken out on me physically, destroying what little hope I had of ever finding normalcy.
About two months earlier his nightly visits finally stopped. One night when he came by, Parker, the owner, was home. He must have had a very bad business trip because when Cameron banged on the door, Parker swung my bedroom door open. The force from it hit my wall, causing me to squeal and jump. Parker stood in the doorway scowling. He then demanded to know if the loser at the door was annoying me. All I could do was nod. I was too terrified to do anything else. Once I answered, Parker then barked out, “Never be scared of me.” I gave another nod and then he added, “I’ll deal with it.” He closed my door with a bang and stomped off toward the front door.
I wished I had the courage to have seen what occurred at the front door, but all I heard was yelling, mainly from Parker. After a few noises, which sounded like punches, things fell silent and Parker was at my door again opening it. “He won’t come here again. If he troubles you at other places, you need to find someone to deal with it.” With that, he closed my door, gently that time, and went back to his room, leaving me with yet more questions regarding my housemate. All I knew was that he looked to be around twenty-four, and he travelled a lot; though I wasn’t sure he liked what he did.
If it wasn’t for the day he handled Cameron, I would have kept on thinking he was a nerdy bookworm with how he stayed locked in his room reading with his sexy glasses on his nose. I had seen he was a fan of reading when one day I’d been walking past his room, his door suddenly opened and he stepped out. I looked over his shoulder quickly to see his walls were lined with bookcases and many books sat upon them. However, the way he handled my trouble at the front door had me second guessing myself. Parker had been true to his word though. Cameron never darkened our doorstep again. Though, it hadn’t changed the attention I still got at uni. If anything, whatever Parker did caused Cameron’s stare to turn deadly.
After that incident, Parker stayed around for two more days before he left again. We said nothing to each other about what had happened. Even when he returned two weeks later to stay another three nights, zilch was shared between us. Since then, he hadn’t been back. I couldn’t help but pray he was okay.
Simone, knowing something had changed, asked me why Cameron wasn’t coming to the house any longer. I told her about Parker. Her eyes glazed over and she got a small, satisfied smile on her face. “Now we just need to find someone to do whatever he did in public when dickface is still screwing with you,” she’d said.
Standing in the bathroom, I shook all thoughts from my mind, my eyes were still red from crying in the shower. I waited in the bathroom trying to hide it from Simone. I took a deep breath and swiped at the fogged-up mirror to stare at my reflection.
I’d lost weight, enough for me to know that I was underweight. My cheek bones jutted out and my once shiny styled hair looked lifeless, so did the bags under my eyes. I lifted my red waves and let them fall back into the wet mess it was. Simone had surprised me on my twentieth birthday, just four months earlier, with a beauty day.
I’d been reluctant to go due to my phobias. Still, because Simone was such a great supportive friend, I sucked it up for the day and went out with her to get my nails painted black and my long, very curly, red hair was styled into a modern wave. Something I absolutely loved. It was too bad it looked lifeless once again, even when dried. What didn’t help was my lack of care.
My mum had been ecstatic when I sent her a picture of my hair. She’d gushed over it and told me how beautiful I was.
God, I missed her.
People were right. Home was where the heart is, because mine had never left Ballarat. My heart stayed with my family, only making an appearance sometimes when Simone brought it out in me. Any other day I was lifeless, a shell.
Maybe I was being overly dramatic, maybe I could go home and not think I was a failure.
Honestly, I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know because I stopped thinking a while ago.
I stopped feeling.
All that mattered were the grades I needed.
At least there was still that tiny, minute spark inside of me that wanted the future career I longed for so long ago.
Currently, that was the only thing that kept me there, that kept me from running back to my family.
I often wondered if I had someone to care for me back then, maybe I would have noticed David’s attention was more than fatherly. Perhaps I would have seen that he was nothing more than a dirty old man lusting for a minor. If someone had been there for me, I wouldn’t have been beaten, broken or raped.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew I couldn’t help all children being abused or taken advantage of by becoming a social worker. But I could help some and I would fight with everything I had to make sure those children knew they were worth something. Those children needed to know life could get better and I would do anything in my power to make that happen for them.
So for now, I would hold onto that little spark inside of me for those children.
I would get the grades I needed and continue each day as it came.
I would do all that and then, finally, before I took any job with children, I would take the time to sort myself out. No past, no hurt, no pain of my own would reflect on any case I took on.
For now, I would continue to pray and hope that each day may be better than the last.
Chapter Two
Pick
Lounging back on the couch in the compound while my brothers joked and laughed around me was nothing new. I enjoyed nights like that, just chillin’ and drinkin’. I never used to. After my brothers-in-arms found out I was double crossin’ the boss, my life had turned to shit.
For a while there, before I redeemed myself in Talon’s eyes, in turn my brothers’, I was glared at, smacked about, spat on and shouted at. All of it I could take, all of it was well deserved and all of it was nothing compared to what my hellish life already had been. And that fuckin’ said something.
Because what most of my biker brothers didn’t know was how my life before Hawks had been a fuckin’ nightmare.
My fuckin’ mum was a bitch. Christ, bitch was too simple. She was true evil. From an early age, she was nothing but a bad dream. I was beaten, starved, and my body was sold so my mum could stay high or drunk.
What made my stomach churn, every fucking goddamn day, was the thought of not stopping her control sooner.
All I could think was that she was my mother, the one who birthed me. No matter how much shit she put me through, I should be there for her. She had no one else.
I wish I’d been smarter.
Guilt had the better of me for eight years. From when it all got worse at the age of twelve, when she started to sell my body to women and men for money. Which lasted for two years until I had the physical strength to say no. However, those two years were what night terrors were made of. I had been touched, groped and taken in every way.
Fuck. Just thinking of it made bile rise in my throat. It made my body sweat and chest pound, even now twelve years later. I quickly took a pull of my beer, closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the couch.
Stupid motherfucking memories. I wished I could wipe them all out. I wished I could forget.
The only thing that eased any of it was...
No, I couldn’t even go there, because then other memories would rise, even when they were good. When they were the cleanest and most precious ones I had in my sad fuckin’ life.
Hell, they weren’t even that momentous, but they made me smile. They made me feel.
Shit. I couldn’t think of them because none of what I wanted, what kept the bad dreams at bay, would happen again.
She was gone.
And he didn’t want anything to do with me.
Instead, my mind drifted back to the years after I stopped the selling of my body. When I took to stealing. The one bad thing about that was when I got caught and charged. Thank fuck, I was only sixteen so only had to do a small amount of time in juvie. The only good thing that came from stealin’ happened after I got out of juvie. In the small amount of time I was away, my stupid mum had racked up an even bigger debt. So I went back to stealing, which was what led me to Talon, my boss and brother.
He’d caught me trying to knock off some of his tools in the Hawks’ mechanical business off the compound. He beat me, but while doin’ it, I was taught a lesson. In the end, he gave me a job working on cars. It helped a fuckload with getting money in. Still, after a year, it wasn’t enough. Mum was an addict. She no longer survived without her fix and if she didn’t get it, she made my life hell. Christ, if it wasn’t her making my life shit, it was her suppliers coming around taking stuff out on both of us.
Finally at twenty-two, I kicked the habit of supplyin’ Mum with money after I saw my errors from that one night.
And after I risked my life for two gay guys.
How-fuckin’-ever, before that, I had fucked up big time by helping a bastard get his hands on Zara, Talon’s woman. I’d let those pricks take her and the retribution I got in return for my fuck-up was earned. Having the crap beat out of me was nothing. I deserved more.
At least I was back in my brothers’ good graces. I had proven myself in many ways with the help of Zara, Matthew and Julian. Fuck, not only them, but Zara’s ‘rents, and most of all Talon.
He was the one who knocked more sense into me. He was also the one to pay off all debt my mum had. In return, I stopped all contact with her, which suited me just fuckin’ fine.
Didn’t stop her from trying though.
Not a week went by that I didn’t hear her pleading messages about helping her out.
But no more.
I was done.
My life and my family was the brotherhood of Hawks.
For them, I would do anything. They had my respect and alliance.
My head straightened from the couch. I opened my eyes, because even over the music, we all heard the front door to the compound slammin’ shut behind someone. My brothers and I turned to the hall and when Talon’s scowling, hard face stepped through, I knew something was wrong.
The whole room tensed.
Griz was the first to stand and then Blue.
My hand around the beer bottle tightened as Talon’s eyes searched the room. Fuck, when they landed on me, my heart pounded once again and I clenched my jaw. “Office, now,” he ordered. I sent a chin lift and stood from the couch.
“Someone’s gettin’ another spanking. What you done this time, Pick?” Dodge asked.
Snorting, I replied with my middle finger and made my way down the hall that led to Talon’s office at the end. Opening the door, I found Griz and Blue already in there.
“Boss, what’s goin’ down?” I asked.
“Fuck,” he hissed. A hand ran down his face as he stood stiff behind his desk. Griz sat on the couch in the corner and Blue leaned against the opposite wall, both were waiting for the shit news to be dealt. “Blue, go get Billy.”
Now it was my body’s turn to stiffen.
Billy the Kid. That was what he was named when he joined the Hawks MC because he was patched in as prospect at the age of fifteen. Now he was twenty-two. His real first name was Eli, last name Walker.
Eli Walker was...fuck, too much.
“Pick,” Talon said to get my attention from the floor. They’d named me Pick because I was able to pick any lock. Nothing could stop me from gettin’ in. My real name was Caden Adams. When my eyes met Talon’s, he asked, “You okay?”
Obviously, I hadn’t hidden my reaction of hearing Billy’s name. Why I reacted was because I thought once Billy could mean something to me. I had been wrong and since then, I hardly saw the guy. We steered clear of each other and that was fine by me. What also didn’t help us was the fact we both loved the same woman.
Just as I sent a chin lift to boss-man, the door opened behind me. My hands fisted at my sides as Billy’s heat appeared beside me.
“What’s up?” Billy asked, his voice gruffer that usual. He didn’t like that I was in the room. Well, tough fuckin’ shit. I was over it all.
The next word from Talon had both Billy and my attention tenfold.
“Josie,” he said, and then stopped as if he wanted it to take affect and Christ, it did, because Josie was the woman we both loved. “Nancy rang me earlier. She wasn’t herself so I knew somethin’ was up. Josie is havin’ some trouble at school.”
“What sort of trouble?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“Some dicks won’t leave her alone. We all know what Josie is like. She hates any type of attention, especially from men.”
“What’s the plan?” Billy asked.
“I need the two of you to go to Melbourne, find out what in the fuck is goin’ on and fix it. No one causes shit for a Hawks family member. You hear me? Fix it good,” Talon ordered.
“Done,” I hissed.
Knowing someone was fuckin’ with our woman caused my blood to boil. My ears rang from the sudden rush to the head. I wanted to find the fuckers and hurt them.
“Why the two of us?” Billy asked.
Closing my eyes for a second, I breathed deeply and opened them to the floor. He didn’t want to work with me. Christ, I couldn’t blame him. He knew what I wanted from him. He knew what he did to me and he knew my eyes followed him everywhere.
Only he didn’t want any of it.
Instead of Talon answering the obvious, Griz did, “Josie trusts the two of you.”
“She trusts you lot as well,” I said.
“Maybe,” Blue started. “But not like you two. She’s more herself with the two of you, like she is with her parents and Wildcat. No one else will get the job done.”
“And because of the way you both feel about her,” Talon added.
Fuck. They all knew.
“Will you both be good boys to fix our girl’s shit?” Talon asked with a smirk.
Bloody motherfuckin’ hell. They’d all noticed things weren’t right with Billy and me since Josie had left.
Billy and I...yeah, I had feelings for the kid, but he wouldn’t let anything happen without Josie.
Josie was what made us stick.
Otherwise, Billy didn’t want anything to do with a wanker like myself. I had too much baggage. He’d found that out after the one night we’d shared together, after he’d sucked me off one drunken night and I’d become addicted to his touch.
Shit. Thinking of Billy’s mouth around me was not a fuckin’ good idea.
I was dirty. I was wrong in so many ways.
Wished I had time to go to the club where I had no trouble gettin’ sucked off or thrustin’ into any pussy I wanted. It went either way at club Enchanted. If I wanted some random guy or woman, I could have either or both at the same time. But shit, I had no time for it. I was itchin’ to get on the road, to deal with the dicks gettin’ at Josie.
Lettin’ our past go was what I
had to do. Not thinking of Billy and Josie as my salvation was what I needed to focus on in order to fix Josie’s problems and work as a team.
Then after, I could go back to being the sad sack of misery, waiting for my happily ever after like my brothers had found.
Instead, I had to face the fact it was never for me and it never would be.
“I’m fine,” I growled.
“Yeah, Josie needs help. Once she’s good, we’ll come back.”
“See if you can bring her back with you.”
Griz scoffed. “She won’t have it. She’ll think she’s a failure.”
“Then we’ll make sure she doesn’t. She’s my woman’s sister, which means she’s mine. She needs to be home with her family. She can study here in Ballarat where we can keep her safe.”
“Deal,” I said and walked toward the door. I went straight to my room.
Not having a house of my own, I lived in the compound. I liked it that way. It was easy for me to be there and help when shit went down.
Grabbing a bag out of the walk-in-closet, I started packing it with random clothes, my mind not really on it. Fury burned in my veins, my attention focused solely on Josie and the shit hand she’d been dealt once again.
Not for long though.
I knew Billy and I would do anything to stop her worries, make it right.
We’d risk anything...even our lives.
Chapter Three
Billy
Jesus motherfuckin’ Christ. Hearing Josie, the one woman who stole my heart, was in trouble, I wanted to slaughter everyone who did her wrong. Ever since I carried her small, scared body into the hospital four years ago, she owned me. Though, for two years I didn’t let it show. Even though she was crushin’ on me, she’d been too young and messed up. Christ, she still was, and anyone who knew what had happened to her would understand why. I’d fought my feelings for her because she was sixteen and I was eighteen. But then, when she turned eighteen, I broke and told her I wanted her in my life. It was a lost cause because I wasn’t the only one.
