They say it’s a weak woman who turns tail and runs at the first sign of trouble, but it takes a strong woman to stay and makes him pay. At first I thought this was what I was doing, I was being strong in staying and making him pay for his mistake instead of leaving, and letting him get away with it. I just didn’t realize when I did it that I’d be paying right alongside him. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have changed what I did, at the time it was the best way out of a bad situation. But now, looking back on everything that has happened since, I realize I should have thought harder about how I chose to make him carry out his penance seeing the effect it has had on everyone involved.
It’s human to make mistakes, but what separates us from our ancestors is learning from them. Along with our ability for forgiveness, compassion, and understanding. It isn’t human to make the same mistake over and over again, consciously, willingly, and without sparing a thought for the people you’re hurting in doing so, that’s stupidity. I consider myself to be fair, reasonable, and for the most part a good person, but his constant and deliberate actions are something I just can’t get over. I don’t have it in me to do that, I don’t think many women do. Once I could have forgiven. Twice I may have grudgingly accepted. Three times, call me an idiot, but I might have put it behind me eventually, but multiple times spanning the course of months? I don’t fucking think so.
If you put all of those things together, the years of people’s pity and disappointment in me, a marriage that’s falling apart at the seams, and a life I have come to the realization I don’t want, what do you get? A bitter, irate woman set on path of revenge…
I don’t want to be this person, and I know I could have made the hard choices that would have changed the outcome of my life earlier and avoided this whole fucked up situation. But that’s the thing; when you’ve spent so long being put in a box, perceived to be something you’re not, told to be the bigger person, you learn to adapt. You turn into the thing everyone believes you are. You begin to accept the hand you’ve been dealt. That’s common nature. Then one day, when your life has spiraled out of control and you no longer recognize the person you’ve become, you start to think why? You begin to question everything you know, every decision you made, and whether it was worth it to begin with.
Questions like, why did I do this to myself? Why did I let them convince me this is all I could hope for out of life? And most importantly, why did I let him do this to me? He took everything I thought was sacred and turned it to ashes right before my very eyes, and I let him. Blinders on, head in the sand, I let him keep doing this to me day after day, week after week, then finally when the weeks became too many to count, month after month. I didn’t stop him, if anything I was the one to encourage him to continue what he was doing. Not that it makes him any less responsible for his choices, but doesn’t it make me just as culpable?
When I was a little girl, I dreamed of a white picket fence and a tire swing hanging from a tree in the front yard. I imagined a house filled with the laughter of children, the smell of cookies baking, and dog barking happily in the back garden. Most of all I fantasized about a man who would love me more than all the stars in the sky. A love that burned brighter than the sun. A love forged between two people that couldn’t live without each other. That was all I ever wanted, and I would have had it, or at least I believe I would have. I was only a heartbeat away from having everything I dreamed of for myself when it all went horribly wrong. It shouldn’t have come as such a shock, and maybe it wouldn’t have if I’d been told that real life is nothing like fairytales.
See, what your parents never tell you when they’ve finished reading your bedtime story is the Prince and Princess don’t always live happily ever after, and if they do, it sure as hell isn’t all smooth sailing. Sometimes the Prince and Princess fight, throw shit at each other, scream, and complain about the dishes not being done. Other times they argue and the Prince doesn’t come home for days, finally showing up smelling like an enticing mix of distillery, and cheap whore with no explanation as to where he’s been. Then there are the occasions that should have acted as a warning for the Princess; the times the Prince is distant and cold, nothing like the Prince she married in the beginning. Those are the times the fairytale is more like a nightmare.
I want to tell you I’ve had more of the first than the last, but that wouldn’t be starting my story out right, and I refuse to lie to you. As much as you might hate me by the end of this, and I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest, I want to begin as I mean to end, by telling you the whole unadulterated truth. In doing so, you’ll probably want to hate him too, at least some part of me hopes you do, but in the end if you’re anything like me you won’t be able to. There’s just something about him that makes you want to forgive him, absolve him for all of his sins.
If all of that wasn’t enough, I have another secret, a secret that could tear the club apart. It will cause brothers to fight brothers, and force people to take sides. It’s a secret I’ve held onto, one I haven’t told a soul for precisely those reasons. I’ve lived with this for so long, kept quiet, and suffered in silence all to save something I’ve never really felt part of. My silence wasn’t completely selfless mind you, I had other reasons for protecting my secret and carrying the burden of it on my own, but mostly I did it for them. For a club that looked after me and my sister when we thought our parents were gone. I felt like I owed them that much.
But that silence came at a cost, and that cost was to me. Regardless of that, if given the option I would have continued to suffer alone, not because it was ultimately what I wanted, but because it was what was best for the club. Although I haven’t ever felt truly accepted by the club not in the way my sister, Priss has, I know without a shadow of a doubt any one of the men that belongs to Devil’s Spawn would lay down their life for me and my children. For that I’m grateful, and because of it I spent the last eighteen years repaying them the only way I knew how; by protecting one of their own.
All those years, all that time I spent trying to cope with what was eating away at me day by day is about to be all for nothing, because the one person I hoped never to see again is coming back to Blackwater, permanently. In the midst of my life falling to ruins around me, my worst fear is coming true, and the collateral damage it’s going to cause will be epic.
But before the middle and the end there’s always the beginning, and this is mine…
I was eleven years old when my world as I knew it imploded. It set me off on the path I’m on now, irrevocably changing the person I was destined to be forever. The cause of that life changing event was someone close to our family, so close in fact he actually is family. I need you to know what happened to me isn’t what you’re thinking. I wasn’t sexually abused in any way. I wasn’t raped, and he didn’t force me to do anything to him, but in my eyes what he did to me was worse, far worse.
This is my beginning, my middle and end are still to come. My life might not have turned out like the fairytale I’d once hoped it would, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped believing in them. It definitely doesn’t mean I’ve stopped wishing for my happy ending either.
They say good things come to those who wait. Well, I’ve been waiting and nothing has come of it, so now it’s time for me to take control of my own destiny. I’m going to make my own happily ever after no matter what it takes. If that means I have to fight tooth and nail to get it, consider me all in.
My name is Tallulah Annaliese Phillips. I am strong. I am worthy. And telling my secret will set me free…Or at least I pray it does.
EPILOGUE
Tobias
“Feeling sad? Lonely? Like nobody cares?
Tough shit, and welcome to the real world fucker.”
- Rotten eCard
If you’d have told me I could fuck my life up this badly I’d have called you a liar and probably punched you in the face for good measure, because back then I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me staring me in the face. No
, I wanted to believe I’d done something to deserve the beautiful life I’d been given. I grabbed on with both hands and held on tight. I knew then, when I had to hold on to it with a death grip that it wasn’t meant for me.
See, I didn’t only make the mistake that will more than likely cost me my marriage, not that it wasn’t bad enough, but I made one that could jeopardize everything. Worse still, I did it on purpose. I knew what would happen if she found out about it, and I didn’t care. I wanted her to be mine, so I made it happen, end of story. Fuck the risks. Fuck the consequences. It would take an act of God to pry her out of my cold, dead hands, and even then I’d fight with everything in me to hold onto her.
From the moment I met Tilly, I felt a connection with her. At first I thought it was just because she reminded me so much of my sister, the sister I lost, but after weeks of not being able to get her out of my head I knew there was more to it. I couldn’t put a label on what I felt for her, I didn’t want to either, but I knew it was something big.
There was no way of knowing that the teenage girl I was intrigued by, would end up being the woman I fell in love with and married back then, however, it was only three short years later I did just that, I married Tilly and made her mine for good. Although it took me three years to get her down the aisle, mostly due to her still being underage, I fell in love with her long before that. Tilly’s an easy woman to love, so it should come as no surprise to you that when I did, I fell hard and I fell deep, quickly.
When Glock started talking about his best friend, how awesome they were, and the shit they got up to together, I figured he was talking about some guy not affiliated with the club, not the woman who would one day be my wife. It wasn’t too much later I finally got to meet this ever elusive best friend, and the day I did my world turned upside down.
Up until meeting Tilly I’d been a closed off shell of a man. I didn’t get close to people, Glock being the only exception and even then we’ve gotten into it more than a few times. I didn’t date women, take them out to expensive dinners, buy them flowers and the rest of the shit that went along with it, I fucked them. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s how I wanted it. No strings, no ties, no connections, to anyone. Until Tilly that is.
Originally I hadn’t wanted anything to with the delicious little blonde. She was young then, too young for twenty-one year old man. She wasn’t outgoing and extroverted like the women I was usually drawn to. She was the complete opposite of the body type I looked for in a woman too. Where I was used to women who wore short as shit skirts, shirts that barely covered their big, more often than not fake, tits, and all-year-round tans, Tilly was all subtle curves, tits that were barely a handful, and porcelain skin. All that should have turned my ass right back around and had me heading for the door, but strangely it made her even more attractive.
Tilly was like a wounded baby bird, one look at her wide chocolate brown eyes and I was done. Every instinct I had screamed she needed protecting, that the stunning five-foot-three goddess in front of me needed me to be the one to save her. So save her I did, at least from everyone who wasn’t me, the one person she should have run from.
I didn’t have shit in my past like Glock. Fuck, no one I knew other than Ade had skeletons like that in their closet. That didn’t make me any better mind you. I was probably an even worse choice for her than Glock would’ve been, if they’d had a relationship like that, that is. A least he was able to love her the way she needed to be loved. Glock would’ve treated her like the Princess she is if he hadn’t have been hung up on Lexi for years. Me on the other hand, I couldn’t love Tilly like that. I wanted to. I fucking yearned to. But part of my heart wasn’t in it from the very outset.
Yes, I fell hard and deep for her, I couldn’t not, but that wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough, because my love had strings and conditions on it. Strings that kept me from being able to devote myself to her like she did selflessly for me. Strings that stopped me from giving her everything, including the fucking truth when I fucked up. I knew deep down that my love for her wasn’t unconditional either. There was shit I wouldn’t be able to forgive or forget, shit I’d never be able to get past.
I rationalized it by telling myself that regardless of not giving her what she deserved, I would always protect her, keep her safe, and love her as best I could. I told myself it’d be enough, that she’d never know the difference, that she’d me happy because I’d make it so. What I didn’t factor in was her realizing it, and choosing to stay with me anyway.
If I thought that was what I wanted, for her to stay no matter what, I was fucking dead wrong. Watching your wife reach the understanding that her husband will never cherish her the way all the other old ladies are cherished is soul destroying. Seeing the light in her eyes dies each day when the reality of what she’s gotten herself into is worse. I saw my wife suffering, I knew she was feeling it deep when it hit home that I didn’t love her the same way as all those other men loved their wives, but I did shit about it. I left her to it, telling myself she’d learn to live with it. I had so why couldn’t she.
Not once did Tilly confront me about what she’d learned. She didn’t demand answers. She didn’t try to change me, or make me love her more. And she didn’t change the way she loves me. Tilly was still just as open with showing me how much she adores me. She took the time to express it in all the little things she did for me every day, and that only served to make me feel even more like a piece of shit than I already did. That was also what led to me making my next mistake. The one that I knew would take what was left of my marriage and the love my wife had for me, and decimate it in a heartbeat.
Now this is where our story gets messy, and a whole fuck of a lot more complicated. It’s also where I made my final and biggest mistake…the one that will without question be the end of me if I can’t make it right.
I want you to take everything I just told you about how I love my wife and it not being enough and burn it. Erase it from your memory, because it was all bullshit.
See, that was it, my last mistake, believing I didn’t love her with everything I am. I should’ve seen it earlier, I should have recognized I was wrong. Fuck, all the signs were there, but I was too wrapped up in my own head and all the shit I’d done since to see it for what it was; I don’t just love my wife, what I feel for her transcends that. I’d go as far as to say she was created for me.
Everyone has a purpose in life, a reason why they’re here and mine is Tilly. My world doesn’t just revolve around her, she’s the only reason it and I exist in the first place. Now I’m facing down the barrel of a life without her, all because I was too blind to see I already had everything I’ve ever wanted. But it goes deeper than that, because now I stand to lose everything I never knew I needed as well…Her.
OTHER BOOKS IN THE DEVIL’S SPAWN MC SERIES
Burnt – First Release January 29th, 2015
Second edition + bonus content – Released February 28th, 2015
Declan and Kendall
Floating – Released February 26th, 2015
Arrow and Veronica
Saviour – Released March 27th, 2015
Tank and Priscilla
Captive – May 10th, 2015
Reaper and Adelyn
Broken – June 20th, 2015
Glock and Alexis
Forged – August 24th, 2015
Saint and Tilly
BOOKS IN THE VENGEANCE MC SERIES
Call me… Vengeance – October 24th, 2015
Boss’ Story (featured in Devil’s Spawn MC books 1 & 2)
Make me… Beg – December, 2015
Diesel’s Story (also featured in Devil’s Spawn MC books 1 & 2)
Take me… Away – February, 2016
The Vengeance MC Series is intended to be a darker, more disturbing MC romance than the Devil’s Spawn MC collection, but don’t despair, each book will still contain a HEA. There will be a preview into this series in the final book, book 6 of Devil’s Spawn MC – Forged,
Saint and Tilly’s story. Please read the preview carefully in order to determine whether this is your type of reading material before purchasing. I can assure you, they will be a heartbreaking read, but all good things come to those who wait, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy their endings.
- Natasha Thomas
What’s Next?…
After the first three books in the Vengeance MC series are released I’m going to take a short break from releasing the last two books, and introduce you to the men of EyeSee, the Patricks’ brothers. If you’ve finished reading Broken you’ll have had a brief introduction to their existence, but I can’t wait to share their stories with you…they promise to be highly entertaining and a very different read to the MC books I’ve been writing up until now.
Eye See You… - March 2016
Brookes and Harper
Eye’ll Find You… - May 2016
Brandt and Giselle
Eye’ll Catch You… - July 2016
Finn and Kiera
Eye’ll Save You… - August 2016
Broken: A Devil's Spawn MC Novel Page 28
