In the space of one afternoon, I found out Atlas is twenty-two, four years older than me, he rides a motorcycle, loves his mother, his uncle, and is quite possibly the most attentive listener that I have ever met.
Atlas listened to me drone on and one about my hopes and dreams, my aspirations to become a well-travelled, worldly fashion designer. He nodded and sympathized with me when I explained the complicated relationship I have with my mom, and the devotion I feel for my dad. He grunted his disgust as I relayed the way my friends dropped me off on the side of the road and told me they would have more fun without me. Atlas even got angry on my behalf when I went on to tell him the story of how I ended things with Scott just before leaving on my adventure to Tampa.
With this man, I felt alive for the first time. Every nerve ending in my body stood up and took notice of the sinfully handsome man who seemed to be just as taken with me. So when Atlas offered to give me a ride to a reasonably priced motel he knew of only a few miles away, I couldn’t possibly refuse, could I? Well, sure, I could, but I didn’t want to.
The ride went too fast for my liking, ending before it barely began. We pulled to a stop in front of The Sands, the motel he told me about, minutes later. Luckily, Atlas was on the same page as me, not having had nearly enough time to get to know each other, so as he helped me to my room, he asked me to dinner. Another invitation I readily accepted.
That was it. One dinner was all it took for me to recognize what I felt for Atlas wasn’t lust or mere interest, but my first foray into love. His dry sense of humor, and the way he touched the small of my back and held my hand possessively as if he were staking his claim excited me. The tenderness in his eyes as I spoke, even when it was about nothing of consequence was disarming.
However, if I had to pinpoint what won me over, it would have to be the sweet, gentle tone of his voice that ensnared my heart. Every syllable was infused with a tenderness the likes I’d never heard before, not even from my dad who loved me with every fiber of his being.
Atlas and I were inseparable after our very first date. Where he was, I followed. We spent every waking moment together, and quite a few not so waking moments together too. Atlas was everything I knew I was waiting for in a man, and I’d be damned if I was going to waste a minute of the time we had together. Neither of us spoke about what would happen when I had to go home. We were simply happy to just be.
If I were smarter, I wouldn’t have let myself come to crave him like I do. I would have kept my guard up if I knew what I know now. I certainly wouldn’t have handed over my heart to Atlas on a silver platter if I had any inclination Scott would make a reappearance in my life and steal my every hope for happiness in the future.
No, that’s a lie; I wouldn’t have held a damn thing back
from Atlas. In fact, I would have given him more. I would have given him all of me. To protect. To keep safe. To cherish. Because God knows, every day after I was forced to walk away from him would have been easier if I were but a shell of the woman I was with him.
“I’m talking to you bitch,” Scott bellows, jarring me out of my memories of Atlas.
I keep my gaze diverted on a small patch of worn carpet to the left of the bed as Scott continues to pace, hoping that my submission will cool his rapidly escalating behavior.
In all the time I have spent with Scott over the past two years, I have never seen him like this. His pupils are dilated, the whites of his eyes bloodshot, and his whole body is trembling. If I didn’t know any better, I would say he has taken something. What, I don’t know, but if his agitated demeanor is anything to go by, it must be something strong.
Crouching by my head, Scott mutters something to himself I can’t quite make out over the white noise echoing in my ears. Obviously frustrated by my lack of response, Scott slaps me hard, his palm connecting with my cheek. The skin smarts and stings, my lip splitting in the process. Blood rushes from the cut, dripping down my chin and onto the already stained carpet beneath my head. God, that hurts.
“You’re a smart girl, Emily, so I’m going to do you the favor of laying it out for you. When I’m done, I’m going to ask you a question, and based on your answer I’ll know where we’re going to go from here.” Gripping my chin
roughly, he commands, “Nod if you understand me.”
Weakly, I nod my head, keeping my eyes averted and my head down. Right now, I want nothing more than to curl into the fetal position and disappear. Closing my eyes, I send out a silent prayer for Atlas to come and save me. To ride in and save me from whatever it is that Scott has planned. But no such luck, my black knight dressed in leather, riding a Harley never comes. No one does.
“Good girl,” Scott croons, attempting to wipe the blood from my face.
With no regard for my bruised, battered body, Scott drags me off the floor by my arms and unceremoniously drops me onto the bed. Sitting down beside me at my hip, he begins his calculated, cruel, methodical destruction of my life as I know it.
“I’ve got plans, big plans, Em, and fortunately or unfortunately for you, depending on how you chose to look at it, you’re a significant part of them. I’m not fucking stupid; I know you don’t love me. You never have. The thing is, I love you enough for the both of us. In time, you’ll learn how to be what I need you to be because you won’t have a choice not to. Vengeance and the Soldiers of Havoc are on the verge of war, Emily. Hog’s been trying to come to terms with your old man for years with no success. Shit’s coming to a head, baby, and you’re just the incentive we need to make a deal that is in the best interests of both of our clubs.”
I’m not sure what Scott’s talking about since dad rarely involves me in club business. As far as I know, my dad’s MC Soldiers of Havoc and Vengeance have had an accord for as long as I’ve been alive.
“Cards on the table, Em. You’re the key to me getting what I need and Hog getting what he wants,” Scott imparts matter-of-factly. “My parents made a few bad investments, ended up owing the wrong people a shit ton of cash, and they came to me to help bail them out. I’m not happy about it, especially since I’ve got better things to do than peddling coke to pay off their debts. But they’re my family, and family helps family, right?” He asks, demanding my agreement.
Knowing better than to ignore his question, I nod slightly, murmuring,
“Yes.”
“I knew you’d see things my way,” he smiles.
Fucking idiot. I don’t see anything but a selfish, spoiled, self-centered asshole who refuses to cut the apron strings of his destructive, toxic family. Not that I’ll tell him that, but I can’t help what I feel.
“Vengeance gives me the freedom to operate under the radar, and Hog’s got the resources to provide the product I need to make enough money to get my parents out of the hole they got themselves into. Problem is, the gateway to getting more product out there, making deals that run in the hundreds of thousands instead of the tens of thousands, is
just over the border in your dad’s territory. With the DEA up in the clubs’ business every other week, we need your dad’s pipeline to shift our merchandise. Hog’s been sweet talking your old man for months, offering him a more than fair cut of our profits, but no dice. Skull’s a stubborn motherfucker, so that’s where you come in.”
“I don’t understand,” I whisper when there’s a long enough lull in his monolog.
“I know you don’t, baby, but I’m going to help you out with that,” he grins cruelly.
Stroking his hand down my side, I shudder at his caress. While his touch isn’t painful, it still doesn’t hesitate to make me sick to my stomach. It isn’t Scott’s hands I want touching me. It isn’t his body I want holding me. And it isn’t his words I want soothing me. My mind, heart, and soul revolt at the thought of this man, the wrong man being my future, causing bile to rise up violently in the back of my throat.
Swallowing it down with a wince, I continue to listen to Scott intently, trying to remember every detail so that I can relay t
hem to dad as soon as I’m able.
With a bark of laughter, Scott digs his fingers into the tender, bruised skin of my midsection.
“I can see the cogs turning, sweetheart. So before you get any further down that path, I’m going to have to stop you there,” he states, as if he’s reading my mind, although I know he’s not. “You mention a word of this to your dad, I’ll
kill the fucker in his sleep. He’ll never see me coming, Emily. I’ll make sure of it, then I’ll pay your little boyfriend and visit. Him I’ll make suffer, though. Not just for putting his filthy hands on you, but just because I can.”
“No,” I rasp hoarsely. “No, please. Not my dad. Not Atlas. Please don’t hurt them. I’ll do anything you want, just don’t hurt them. Please,” I beg as tears spring to my eyes.
Running one calloused finger down my cheek, following the path of my tears, Scott nods.
“You want to keep them safe, sweetheart?” The worst mistake of my life asks.
“Yes,” I say with a strength to my voice conjured from the very depths of my soul.
With another nod, Scott goes on to issue his demands.
“There’s only one way to make that happen, Emily. Their safety, their very fucking lives depend on you doing as I say. Not just today either, sweetheart. I need you to know that. This shit isn’t going to be over with quickly; we’re talking years here. If you agree to what I’m proposing, you’ll do what I say, but in return, I’ll guarantee your dad and Sarge’s safety.”
“Okay,” I agree readily, not having the first clue what I’m getting myself into. As long as my dad and Atlas are safe, I don’t care what happens to me.
“All right then. Let me make a few calls and then we’ll get on the road. You can ride, right?” he asks, looking down
at my body that’s subconsciously curled in on itself during our conversation.
“Yes. Or at least, I think so,” I mutter, trying and barely succeeding to shift myself into sitting position.
“Good, because it’s a long ride home, sweetheart,” Scott smirks, standing up and making his way over to the phone hanging on the wall beside the TV.
CHAPTER SIX
~ Emily ~
Loneliness is not a state of mind; it’s my new normal
The miles between that motel room in Tampa and what would become my permanent home in Furnace were agonizing. Every pothole, every bump in the uneven road caused shards of white-hot, searing pain to coarse through my broken body. Scott didn’t stop unless it was for gas or to use the bathroom, and he never left me unattended.
The further away from Atlas we got, the more my hope for a miracle diminished. By the time Scott crested the hill leading into Furnace proper, my spirit was as broken as the rest of me. I became numb. My heart seized and ceased to beat. My soul withered and died. My future was betrothed to a monster. My very existence hinged on Scott’s capacity to show mercy – something I would soon learn he didn’t possess.
However, even in the darkness, there is a ray of light. For me, that light shone through four weeks later when I found out I was carrying Atlas’ child. A child conceived the first and only night I spent with the man who I could only
hold onto in my dreams.
The moment I saw the plus sign on that pregnancy test, I promised myself, mine and Atlas’ child would know nothing but love and kindness. I would teach our child everything I knew about compassion and how to lead with your heart. I would teach him how to be a good man in the face of hardship. And would protect him with every breath in my body.
I didn’t know how true the last part of that statement would be then, but it wasn’t long before I learned another valuable lesson. A lesson Scott taught me with his very own brand of sick, twisted glee, reveling in every second of my despair and heartache.
When my husband – yes, I did say, husband, Scott organized a rushed ceremony, stating we simply couldn’t wait as his reason for getting it over in done with within two weeks of our return – found out I was carrying Atlas’ child, he didn’t react with anger as I initially expected. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Scott was overjoyed with the news, which in and of itself was odd, to say the least. But soon enough, I found out why he was so calm, and it chilled me to the core.
Scott was elated at the knowledge I was pregnant with the man he had deemed his enemies baby. In his mind, my child was just another way he could control me, and in turn, ensure my capitulation to his each and every demand. Which of course, I did, because what other choice did I
have?
I couldn’t tell Atlas because the thermonuclear fallout from him finding out would cripple Vengeance, and put an end to the tentative truce my dad’s MC had with them in one foul swoop. I couldn’t tell my dad for much the same reason. Simply put, if my dad caught wind of what Scott had done and was planning, along with Hog and his once SAA, now VP, Demon, bullets would fly, and lives would be lost. It was inevitable. It was a fact. It was also something my
conscience couldn’t bear.
So who was left? My absentee, phone it in on holiday’s and birthday’s mom? I think not. The men I had the privilege of calling my honorary uncles? Well, they were out of the question, since each and every one of them reported directly back to my father, their President. My grandparents on both sides had long since passed. The women I could count on one hand that had once been my friends? Absolutely not. That was it; those were the only people I had, and none of them were viable options, so I did it alone. Always alone.
Eight months later, as the matronly nurse who had helped me endure seventeen excruciating hours of labor, placed my tiny, perfectly formed son into my arms, I knew I had found my renewed purpose in life. From that second on, I dedicated my every breath to Diesel. His happiness was my soul reason for getting up in the morning. His safety was why I shielded him from every beating, every verbal lashing Scott delivered over fourteen long, torturous years. Diesel was my everything, and there was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do for him.
As the months bled into years, my son grew up to become the spitting image of his father. How Atlas never recognized himself in his son amazed me, but I was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially, not when Atlas realizing Diesel was his would only upset the delicate balance, I had spent years bleeding and begging to uphold.
Not one to be, ignored though, my husband took every
opportunity, some he even created, to ensure I knew my place as his wife and what hung in the balance if I stepped out of line. What Scott hadn’t counted on though, was my son. My son that was now thirteen, taller and stronger than his self-proclaimed father, who did not appreciate in the slightest, Scott’s vicious treatment of his mother.
Diesel began to voice his outrage at Scott’s continued abuse his freshman year of high school. More than once, I was forced to intervene, stepping in between my son and the man who had held me hostage for almost half of my life, in order to redirect Scott’s rage. There was not a chance in hell I was letting, my husband by name only, take out his anger on Diesel, broken bones be damned.
Needless to say, everyone has turning points in their lives, I for one had already had more than my fair share. However, in light of what happened next, fate evidently deemed I was due another.
*****
I had just opened the front door when I heard Scott’s deep bellow. Dropping the bags of groceries I was carrying, I take off toward the kitchen at a dead sprint. There was only one reason Scott would be yelling like that, and it began with D and ended in IESEL.
Over the past six months, give or take a few years, my son’s hostility toward his father had escalated to almost unmanageable proportions. Gone were the days I could simply promise tomorrow would be better, that once he
calmed down, Scott would apologize and everything would be okay. At fourteen, Diesel was done with my excuses, and he made that known, as only a teenage boy could; loudly.
Unfortunately, more often than not, Scott was wi
thin earshot of Diesel’s heated rants borne from frustration and fear, at which times that never signaled good things for the moment Scott got me alone.
With more than a little thanks to whoever was up there watching out for me, I had managed to withhold one solitary, yet integral piece of myself from Scott. While my husband took every liberty he could when it came to my body, I had never, not once had to have sex with that vile man. That was where I drew a very firm line in the sand. I may not be able to stop Scott’s abuse fueled by a dangerous cocktail of alcohol and drugs, but I could deny him the use of my body for carnal pleasure.
Early on in our marriage, as in the very instant, I said “I do,” I issued Scott with my own brand of ultimatum. I told him that I didn’t care who he slept with or where, with the exception of it being anywhere near my son, just as long as it wasn’t me.
At first, he balked at my declaration, but he quickly acquiesced when I informed him that my promise to keep his drug habit a secret would be forgotten the moment he tried to force himself on me. I’m sure it took every ounce of self-restraint he could muster not to hit me right there and then. But seeing as we were only a scarce few feet away from all of his brothers, his family, my family, and my dad’s
Sarge: Book 8 in the Vengeance MC series Page 8
