Hearts of Winter (Bleeding Angels MC Book 2)

by Stephens, Olivia

  I must look even more pathetic than I had imagined, as Suzie’s resolve seems to waver and I catch a look of something close to pity pass across her face. “They took him,” she says, her voice flat.

  I cover my face with my hands and do the only thing that I have left to do: I cry. I cry as if I’m crying my heart out. “He lied to me, the bastard lied to me. He tricked me like the idiot that I am,” I mutter, through my sobs. “How could I have been so stupid?” I ask myself, slamming my fist into the floor, just to feel something other than this ache that makes it hard to breathe. Then a thought occurs to me. “Is Jake alright? Did they hurt him?” I ask, getting to my feet.

  “He’s fine.” She waves my concern away as if I were an overprotective mother. “He went of his own free will, Aimee,” she says, looking at me intently.

  This is the last thing I had expected, and between my surprise and the ringing in my ears that has been present since Ryan punched me, I feel like I’ve missed something. “What?” It’s the only thing that I can articulate.

  Suzie sighs, getting up from the bed, as if having to repeat herself spoils all the fun. “There wasn’t a fight.” She shrugs, wandering around the studio that had been our home. “They told Jake about you and Ryan and he agreed to leave with them. Poor guy, he looked pretty broken up about it,” she says, scraping some spare change off of the table and pocketing it quickly.

  “What about Ryan and me?” I ask, my voice barely able to escape around the lump in my throat.

  “That you slept with him,” Suzie replies blandly.

  “But I didn’t sleep with him,” I tell her. “I only agreed to his offer because he told me if I did, then he would talk to Scar and persuade him to pass over Jake. That he wouldn’t become an Angel,” I explain to Suzie, desperately. “Ryan couldn’t do it, he couldn’t… perform,” I say, raising my hand gingerly to my chin, feeling how swollen it is.

  “What a surprise, Ryan can’t get it up,” Suzie says gleefully. “That’s not exactly breaking news, Aimee.”

  I feel like my life has come crashing down around my ears. I did something unthinkable, something unbearable to save Jake, only I didn’t get to save him and now he thinks that I betrayed him. All I wanted was to help him.

  “Why did he believe them?” I ask. “Jake knows better than to believe what the Angels tell him; he’s not stupid.”

  “No, he’s not stupid, you got that right. But he is in love, and between your little lie about working at the diner today and the old little green monster named Jealousy, well… There weren’t a lot of reasons for him not to believe us,” she reasons.

  “You told him,” I accuse her, as the realization hits me. “You were the one that told him.”

  “Well, if there was one person Jake was going to believe, it was going to be me. His long lost friend who’s had a tough time of things but who is really trying to make her life better,” she tells me.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask, amazed at just how far away she is from being the person that had been my friend. “Why are you doing this? And doing it with a smile on your face? How can you?” I ask, shaking my head in disgust at her.

  “Don’t you judge me, Aimee!” she shrieks, pointing at me. “You don’t get to judge me. You’re a slut that’ll do whatever it takes to get what you want, I know you,” she taunts me. “You were willing to sleep with Ryan to get what you want—how does that make you different from me? I do what I have to do to get what I need,” she says, grinding her teeth. “So do you.”

  “Get out of my house, Suzie,” I say to her, getting back up on my feet slowly, my voice stronger than I feel. “Get out of my house, before I do something that I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”

  She must see something in my eyes that tells her that I’m not just posturing, that I’m deadly serious. Suzie edges past me and I keep my eyes fixed on her the entire time. When she’s close to me I notice that her pupils are seriously dilated. She’s high. That’s what she’s sold her soul for—a chemical high, something that I’m sure is eventually going to kill her.

  “Never come to me for anything,” I say before she walks out. “We are done. You’re not the person that I used to know. That person is gone,” I say, my voice holding steady despite the fact that all I want to do is collapse on the floor and cry. “I don’t know you.” My voice is harsh as I bite out the words. “You’re just a drug addict.”

  Suzie’s mouth works open and closed as if she’s trying to say something, but we both know that there is nothing she could say that would go any way to making this right. She’s hurt the only people that have ever cared about her, and it seems like the realization of that has only just hit her.

  “Aimee,” she says, for the first time sounding like her old self.

  “Get out,” I reply, as I try to take deep gulps of air. I feel more hatred towards her than I have felt ever in my life and that alongside the events of the past few hours are enough to set me off on my biggest panic attack to date. My heart is hammering out of my chest, my head is pounding, and I feel like I can’t get my breath, but I refuse to let her see me vulnerable. I refuse to let her see me afraid.

  The door closes quietly behind her and I hear her footsteps retreat down the stairs. It’s a small victory, but it’s mine. I sink to my knees, all the energy sapped out of me as I take in one breath after another, but I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere near enough oxygen. I wheeze, struggling to remember the steps that Jake had taken me through whenever I had a bad attack. It’s the thought of Jake and what he must think of me that finally tips me over the edge. I’m vaguely aware of my head hitting the wooden floor, and after that, just blackness.

  EPILOGUE

  “Aimee.” The voice comes out of the darkness and pulls me back. I feel like I’m drowning, but there are strong arms around me trying to lift me up, trying to save me. “Aimee,” the woman’s voice says and, in the back of my mind, I recognize it. It’s a voice I haven’t heard in such a long while, but it’s so familiar at the same time.

  “She’s opening her eyes,” another woman’s voice notes through the darkness that feels as thick as molasses.

  I blink, trying to clear the blurriness from my vision, and find that I’m on the couch in the Summers’ family room. Sally is on one side of me and on the other—I have to rub my eyes to believe what I’m seeing—is my mother.

  “Hi there, you’re awake,” Sally says, looking so relieved I wonder if perhaps they hadn’t expected me to wake up at all.

  “I guess,” I say groggily, moving to get up. But my entire field of vision swims as if I were on a boat and I sit back down again heavily.

  “You’ve had a bit of a bang on the head,” Sally says calmly. “Bill found you,” she tells me, filling in the blanks.

  “Jake?” I ask, before everything that happened comes rushing back to me at speed and hits me like a freight train. “Oh, God,” I moan, clutching my head.

  I can see that Sally herself is close to tears, but she’s trying to put on a brave front for my benefit. “I’ll go fix some tea for us all,” she says quietly, squeezing my hand briefly before slipping out of the room.

  “Aimee.” I hear the voice again, the one that I vaguely recognized that pulled me out of the darkness. But this time, I know that it’s coming from the woman sitting beside me. It’s coming from my mother. I open my eyes again, figuring that she’s just repeating my name as she has done before, but when I look at her I see that her gaze don’t have that absent quality that I’ve become accustomed to. They’re vibrant and questioning and alive.

  “Mom?” I ask, barely able to breathe with the thought that she might be back.

  “Hi, baby girl,” she says, reaching up a tentative hand to stroke my hair like she did when I was a child.

  I’m struck dumb by what I’m seeing and feeling. Something that I never thought would be possible has happened.

  “But, how?” I ask, frowning at her, utterly baffled.


  “I found my way back to you,” she says, smiling softly, her eyes bright with tears that she hasn’t cried.

  “I don’t understand,” I say, shaking my head.

  “It’s a little miracle,” Sally supplies helpfully as she comes back into the room with a tray giving off wafting aromas of various teas. “It’s about time we had one here, don’t you think?” she asks, taking my mother’s hand in one of hers and my hand on her other side.

  “Sally, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” I say, trying to stop myself from breaking down again. I don’t know if I even have any more tears to cry.

  “It’s not your fault,” she tells me quietly, squeezing my hand a little tighter.

  “I tried,” I assure her. I need her to believe me. “I really did.”

  “We know,” my mother replies, stroking my hair again from root to tip.

  “But Jake doesn’t, he thinks… I don’t know what he thinks.” I sigh, wishing more than anything that I did know and that I didn’t feel this emptiness inside of me.

  “It’s not over yet,” my mother says, looking between Sally and me.

  We sit in silence, the three of us, one that lost her husband to the Angels, one that has lost her son, and one that has lost the love of her life. I remember what Crystal said to me, about us, the women, being strong because we’re the ones left behind.

  I feel a thin sliver of hope, of possibility breaking through the throbbing the pain in my head and jaw. The Feds were still investigating the Angels and they knew that I wanted to help them. I’ll do anything that I have to, anything that I can— perhaps some things that I never thought I could do—to rid Painted Rock of the Angels and to find the man that has become my home.

  “I’m going to get him back, Sal,” I say, my voice sounding stronger than I thought it could. “Mom’s right.” I look at the woman who is almost a stranger, but who has come back to me at last. “It’s not over; I’m going to bring him back,” I repeat. After all, we’ve had one miracle—there’s no reason that we don’t deserve another.

  PREVIEW

  Be on the lookout for the breath-taking sequel, A Dream of Summer

  Available soon FREE for Kindle Unlimited customers!

  Aimee Winters wants revenge.

  Reeling in the aftermath of the Angels' betrayal, Aimee is consumed by the thought of vengeance--for her father, for Jake, and for herself.

  Jake Summers wants to be in control of his own life for once

  Patched and tatted, Jake may be an Angel in name, but never in spirit.

  They'll bring justice back to Painted Rock, no matter the cost

  Together, they'll choose freedom over servitude, love over crime, a family over a gang of thieves and outlaws. Or die trying.