“I know, Jake,” I tell him soothingly. I trace the line of his jawbone and lose myself, if only for a brief moment, in the scratchy feel of his stubble against my fingertip. “I feel the same,” I assure him. “I would do anything in my power to keep you safe. You know that,” I tell him. I don’t tell him the lengths that I would be prepared to go to. Partly because I’m not even sure myself.
“If that piece of crap Ryan did anything to hurt you… If he threatened you…” Jake says warningly, “I want to know about it, and I will end him. Promise me that you would tell me if that’s what he did.”
The single-mindedness in his expression tells me that what he’s saying isn’t just macho-posturing or a way of feeling like things are back under his control. He means what he’s saying, and right there is another reason that I can’t tell him what Ryan and I spoke about. If Jake had any idea of what Ryan had said, he wouldn’t even pause for breath or to think. He would get in his car, drive over to the Angel precinct, and do everything he could to make Ryan wish he’d never been born. Rational Jake would know that won’t help his case with the Angels. It won’t stop them from coming for him when the month is up and it won’t even protect me. But I know that as soon as I tell him what Ryan has offered me in exchange for him getting a free pass, Rational Jake will go out of the window. I know this because that is exactly how I would feel in his position.
“We’ll talk about it soon,” I promise, wondering to myself when that time will come. “Just hold me for now,” I ask him, my voice small. I feel like I don’t need anything more right now than to feel his arms around me.
“That I can do,” Jake replies softly, holding me tight against him.
We stand like that, together but at the same time separate, both thinking our own thoughts. We’re as close as it’s possible to be and yet I don’t feel like we’ve ever been further apart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I’ve heard the expression before of “not sleeping a wink.” But I think that night was the first time I actually experienced it. My eyes remained wide open all night, my brain too busy to let my body sleep. Ryan’s offer keeps circulating around and around in my head. The very thought of it makes my skin crawl, but at the same time, it’s the only option I have that keeps Jake out of the Angels. The same happens the night after, and the night after that. There are only a couple of days left until the month’s truce is up, the Feds haven’t shown again, and I am out of other ideas.
It is clear that the Feds are going to take an indeterminate amount of time to get together what they need to charge the Angels. I wish that I could have Jake’s certainty, but I don’t feel like we can rely on them. We’ve never been able to rely on the law in this town, so what makes the Feds any different? Nothing but a badge.
I know that if I do this then I’m jeopardizing everything that I have with Jake. I don’t know if he would ever forgive me for sleeping with Ryan, even if I did it for him. But he would be safe, I tell myself. Even if he wasn’t with you, he would still be safe. Maybe he would even get out of town, start a new life for himself somewhere, away from the Angels and everything else. The thought of not being with Jake feels like a punch to the gut. But the idea of anything happening to him or the Angels making him do the awful things that patches do during their initiation is even worse. I know Jake well enough to understand that if they made him hurt anyone, he would never forgive himself. Even if he knew he doesn’t have a choice. I can’t let that happen. Not when I have the power to stop him. Power—that’s what Crystal had called it. The power of being a woman. Right now it didn’t feel much like power. More like helplessness.
It’s my day off at the diner, but I lie to Jake, telling him that I have to go to work. That’s another lie between us. They keep mounting up.
“You haven’t had a break in a while,” Jake notes, sounding concerned as he passes me my coffee just the way I like it.
“I know, I’m just covering for Crystal,” I sigh. “I owe her one.” I hate myself for being able to lie so easily. “I’m pulling a double, so I’ll probably be home a little late,” I tell him, avoiding his eyes.
“Hold on a sec,” he says as I start to get my things ready to leave. I turn around slowly, waiting for him to call me out for lying. “Don’t I get a goodbye kiss this morning?” he asks, frowning at me.
“Sure,” I sigh, in part relieved but in part wishing that he had seen the lie in my eyes just to lift the burden on my shoulders. I walk over to him and lift my head up towards his. I try to imprint this moment on my mind. I have no idea if I’m ever going to have it again. Our lips meet, and the comfort and excitement and joy that I always feel when Jake and I kiss are all there. He feels like home, and the idea that I may never get to feel like this good again is enough to make the tears spring to my eyes.
“Hey, hey,” he says quietly, meeting my gaze. “What’s the matter?” he asks, holding me close to him as if protecting me from whatever is making me sad.
“Nothing, it’s nothing,” I lie. “I just didn’t get much sleep last night.” The first nugget of truth in a while passes from my mouth. “My eyes are a little watery,” I explain, wiping away the tear that has made a path down my cheek. “I’ll see you later?” I ask, heading towards the door as quickly as I can.
“Sure, see you later,” Jake says, his voice telling me that he knows that something isn’t quite right. “Hey, Aimee,” he calls as I get to the door, forcing me to turn around. “I love you,” he says simply, smiling that amazing smile of his that can light up an entire football stadium.
“I love you too,” I reply, managing to keep the waver out of my voice. I close the door quickly behind me and get out of the body shop as fast as I can. The tears are threatening to overtake me at any point and I can’t afford to break down somewhere that Jake is likely to see me.
I’ve made my decision, and I’m going to have to live with it. But there’s one person that I need to talk to before I go to do what I have resolved to. I need her to explain to Jake why I did it and to explain how much I love him. There’s only one person that I know Jake will hear it from: his mom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“What a lovely surprise,” Sally says as she leads me into the kitchen and motions towards the coffee filter. I nod, quickly sitting down before I fall down.
I try to smile, but I’m pretty sure that it comes out more like a grimace. “I just thought I’d drop by. I hope I’m not intruding?” I ask, the words sounding hollow in my ears.
“Of course not,” Sally waves away my concern. “They don’t need me at the Post Office today so I thought I’d catch up on some gardening.” She gestures in the direction of her muddy overalls. I don’t say anything, and after a short while, Sally looks into my face and sees something that Jake hadn’t found. “Sweet pea, whatever is the matter?” she asks, rushing over to me to hold my hands.
“I need to talk to you about something. Something that I have to do,” I start, wishing that my hands weren’t shaking so much. “But first I need to ask you a question.”
“It’s Jake, isn’t it?” Sally asks. “Has something happened to him?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” I reassure her. “But we both know what’s going to happen in a few days.”
“It might not.” Sally shakes her head, sounding desperate.
“Sally, of course it’s going to happen,” I say, my voice louder than it probably should be. “The Angels aren’t just going to let him go. He seems to mean too much to them. Especially to one Angel in particular,” I say, scanning Sally’s face for a change in her expression. But there’s nothing.
Suddenly, a thought occurs to me. “Where does the scar come from, anyway?” I ask Sally, wondering how I’ve gone so long without asking the question. I think back to the charred photograph of Travis at one of Jake’s kiddy birthday parties. He didn’t have the scar then, as far as I could make out. So when did he get it? Was it one of the many ways that the initiation of the Angels had ta
ken their toll on him? The photograph is sitting in my pocket and I pull it out. The folds are deep and have creased the picture. It’s been tucked away, hidden in the pages of my favorite book, Great Expectations, since I found it again after the fire. The irony of the book’s hiding place isn’t lost on me.
Sally looks at the photograph and zeroes in on the image of her and Travis in, what looks like, heated debate. Abruptly, she turns around so her back is to me. “What makes you think I would know that?” she asks, her voice strained.
“Well, you were friends, right? You and Mom and Dad and Travis. You guys all used to hang out, didn’t you?” I ask, trying to keep my voice as level as possible.
“That was a long time ago,” Sally says slowly.
“Right, like twenty-one years ago,” I say, watching her reaction out of the side of my line of sight. I see Sally jump as if someone has snuck up behind her and frightened her. “Are you alright, Sal?” I ask, getting to my feet and putting my arm round her. I hate having to put her through this, but Jake deserves to know why the Angels want him so badly. He deserves to know the truth that I can only guess at.
“Fine, fine.” She nods. “Just felt like someone walked over my grave,” she mumbles, shivering as I lead her to a chair to sit down on.
“Sally, please,” I plead with her. “Tell me what this means.” I push the photograph further towards her.
“Aimee, I wish I could. But I can’t,” she says desperately, and I see that her blue eyes are clouded with tears.
“This is important, Sal. Don’t you think that Jake deserves to know?” I ask gently.
“I have spent twenty years making sure that he never knows,” she says, her voice harder than I have ever heard it. “Jake knows everything about his family that he needs to.”
“Right, everything except who his real father is,” I blurt out. The theory has been spinning around in my head for weeks, and now it’s out.
All the blood drains out of Sally’s face. “Bill is Jake’s father. There’s nothing else he needs to know,” she says quietly. “Now, I have some things to do, Aimee, I think you should go.”
I sigh heavily, wondering why I had expected Sally to tell me something she’s been struggling to keep a secret for so very long. “There’s something else,” I say as I get up from the table, suddenly feeling more tired than I have ever felt in my life. “Would you give Jake a message for me?”
“Why can’t you give it to him yourself?” she asks, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
“I don’t think he’ll want to hear it from me,” I say truthfully, trying to ignore the churning feeling that I’ve had in my stomach since I walked out of the body shop. “Tell him… that I did it for him,” I say to her.
“Did what for him?” Sally asks, turning to face me and holding onto my shoulders. “Aimee, what are you going to do?”
“Just tell him that for me, okay?” I repeat, not trusting my voice to say much more. “Try to get him out of Painted Rock,” I say after a moment. “Try to make him leave, to have a real life, somewhere else.”
“Aimee, what are you saying?” Sally asks, her voice full of fear. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it, please. Jake needs you. You need each other.” Her words rip me in half.
“I’m trying to do the right thing for him,” I say through gritted teeth. “Please, just tell him.”
I don’t wait for a response. Instead I walk out the door to the backyard and see my mother sitting exactly where I was expecting. She’s drifting gently in the swing chair, looking out into the distance.
I bend down and kiss her forehead gently. “I love you momma,” I tell her, and it feels good to say the words out loud. Then I turn around and walk away. I imagine her voice telling me that she loves me too, but I know that it must just be the wind in the trees. It’ll be winter soon, I think to myself. I head in the direction of Wheels, the place I figure I’m most likely to find Ryan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Wheels is one of two bars in Painted Rock. It’s where the bikers of Bleeding Angels tend to hang out by day and by night. It’s not just a bar—it’s part of their compound. Where they do their business, where they eat, rest, play, and even sleep.
I’ve never been inside, but I’ve heard stories from the few people that I know who have seen the place. They’re either people who have gone to the bar to score the drug of their choice, or they’re girls that like the lifestyle—girls that like to be close to power, that like to know that they’re going to be taken care of, even if that sometimes means getting hit or being passed around from one biker to another like they don’t even matter. It isn’t something that I could ever hope to understand, but to each their own.
I’m still wearing my buttercup yellow diner uniform and it makes me remember the lie that I had told Jake. I’m sure Sally spoke to him straight away to say that I’d come to see her. God only knows what he’ll be thinking. I feel a stab of guilt in my gut, but I can’t focus on that now. I’ve come here to do something, so I better just get on and do it.
The parking lot outside the bar is packed with bikes of all different sizes, shapes, and colors. It isn’t hard to figure out that I’ve come to the right place. I take a deep breath to steady my nerves and I walk inside. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to how dark it is in the bar. The windows have been covered by black cloth and the lighting is low enough to be almost nonexistent. I’m suddenly very aware of how alone I am and that I’m not among friends.
It’s a little like that moment in those old Western movies, where the gunslinger walks into a saloon and all the customers go quiet and stare at him. That’s pretty much exactly what happens. I try to keep my back as straight as I can as the catcalls and whistles start.
“Hey baby, you lost?”
“Let me show you a good time.”
“I’ve got something to show you, beautiful.”
I pretend that I can’t hear them and that only seems to make the bikers angrier and more intent on getting my attention.
“Prissy bitch don’t wanna talk.”
“You can’t talk, but can you suck?”
“She wants it, she wants it bad.”
That’s when I start getting crowded, from behind me, from the side. Eager hands start reaching out to touch me wherever they can reach. My stomach rolls as one guy squeezes my ass. I’m in way over my head—way, way over. I’m too far from the door to leave, and even if I could, then what would I do? I remind myself that I’m here for Jake and I try to keep that in my mind as I slap away the hands that are getting more and more curious.
“Aimee Winters.”
I squint in the darkness, trying to make out who has spoken my name and it takes a few moments for me to recognize the man. It’s Elvis, the guy that had treated me like a piece of meat at The Hideaway, the guy that had targeted my friend and got her addicted to whatever was the flavor of the month. He’s a real piece of work and I have to resist the urge to walk up to him and slap him as hard as I possibly can.
“Hands off, boys. She’s Ryan’s. For now, at least. Maybe you’ll get a taste later,” he hisses, and there’s a rumble of appreciation from the men around me. The men start to disperse and Elvis walks around me, looking me up and down. “Beats me what all the fuss is about,” he says loudly, to the laughter of the men around. “So you came here to suck Ryan’s cock?” He’s enjoying my humiliation. I don’t reply, I don’t say anything. In fact, I try not to even think anything in case it comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. “Say it bitch. Say you came here to suck Ryan’s cock,” he repeats, getting in my face.
Don’t do it, Aimee. Don’t do it, I tell myself. Too late. I do exactly what he’s told me. “You came here to suck Ryan’s cock,” I say, loud enough for all the men at the tables to hear me, and they laugh hard at Elvis’ expense. “Now are we going to play who has the bigger dick, or are you going to tell me where Ryan is?” I ask, sounding a hell of a lot ballsier than I feel.
>
Elvis looks like he would enjoy nothing better than to pay me back for making him looking like an idiot in front of his buddies. But I’ve gambled on the fact that he won’t want to run the risk of making Ryan angry. Pissing off the son of the leader of the Angels wouldn’t be worth his while. The gamble pays off and Elvis stalks off towards the back of the bar, motioning that I should follow him.
I take my time to walk through the bar. Not because I’m trying to make a point, but because I’m trying to commit as much of it as I can to memory. The more details I can give the Feds when they decide to eventually get back in touch, the better. I make a mental note of the entrances and exits, how many men there are here right now, the location of the windows. I scan the place, trying to put the smarts that people keep telling me I have to the test.
“Ryan, your bitch is here,” Elvis announces unceremoniously, almost pushing me out of the way as he heads back into the bar.
Hearts of Winter (Bleeding Angels MC Book 2) Page 16
