He shrugged. “In a way. Now I think we can get to where you open up to me, which I think intertwines with the things that made you a badass bitch.”
I pushed off on the porch and sent the swing into motion. “I don’t know what you mean by open up to you.”
“I’ll help you out. You remember how we did twenty questions before?” I nodded. “Well, this time, I’m going to be the one asking questions and you’ve got to answer them.”
“I don’t want to do this, Maniac.” I would rather have a root canal done than do this.
“It gets to be too much, just let me know and we’ll stop. You gotta try though, darlin’.”
“You’re the one who said the therapy I was going to was bullshit. So your solution is to now play therapist yourself?”
He held his hands out in front of him. “What have you got to lose?”
I chugged the rest of my wine and set the empty glass porch. “Hit me with it, Maniac.” I didn’t know how many questions I would be able to answer, but he wasn’t going to let this go unless I tried.
“What’s your middle name?”
I blinked slowly. “That is one of your twenty questions?”
He smirked and nodded. “Yup. Don’t wanna scare you off with the first question.”
“Elizabeth.” If this was going to be how all of the questions were going to be, I had nothing to worry about.
“How did you and Cora become friends?”
Again, an easy question. “I moved to River Valley my sophomore year. Cora took pity on me and was nice to me. She was about the only one who was nice to me.” Cora was a lifesaver.
“I knew she was good people, even if her brother is a tool.”
“Jenkins is an ass. I don’t know how Cora can stick around the clubhouse and not want to kick him in the nuts all of the time.”
“The Weston Chapter of the Lords feels the same as you, darlin’. The guy only thinks of one thing and one thing only.”
“Money,” I muttered. I had seen Jenkins choose money time and time again over Cora and everyone else.
“How did you get tangled in with the Hell Captains?”
And here came the hard questions. The ones I didn’t want to answer because then he would realize what an idiot I was. “I met Rack while I was working.”
“Where did you work?”
“A bar. I was a waitress.”
“Can’t see you being a waitress.”
I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest. “And just what exactly do you see me doing?”
“Kindergarten teacher? Maybe a secretary.”
“All things that need more than a high school diploma. Waitress falls into my skill level.” I barely managed to make it through high school. College was something that just wasn’t in the cards for me.
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not selling myself short. It’s knowing what you are capable of. Next question.”
“You didn’t answer my last question fully. I asked how you got tangled up with the Captains. All you told me was you met Rack at a bar, working.”
“I was your typical dumb girl falling for the bad boy. You know, thinking I could be the one to change him.” I blew my hair out of face and sighed. “I got tangled up with the Captains because I was dumb.”
“You’re not dumb, darlin’.”
That was hard to believe. Looking back on hooking up with Rack, all I wanted to do was go back in time and yell at myself to never even look at the man. “Next question.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Four simple words were going to be the undoing of me.
Tell him what happened, Wren. If I told him, would it make a difference? Would he look at me in a different way?
I pushed off the deck again and lifted my legs. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on my knees. “It didn’t start off bad. He was rough around the edges, but it seemed like he cared about me.” It really was good when I first started seeing him. Late night dinner after I got off work, rides on his bike on the weekends, and just hanging out. It was like the start of any relationship. We were getting to know one another.
“What changed?” Maniac asked quietly.
“The first time he took me to the clubhouse, something felt off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I just knew deep down something bad was going to happen.”
“But you stayed.”
I looked over at Maniac and smiled sadly. “I stayed, because I was going to be the girl to change the alpha asshole.”
“How long were you with him?”
I laughed and shook my head. “I was with him for three weeks before it all changed. We went to the clubhouse. It was like the fourth time we had been there together. Before we had just gone to his room, messed around, and then we left. This time, we went when there was a party going on.”
“Jesus,” Maniac said under his breath. None of this was probably going to be a surprise to him. He lived the club life. He knew what went on during the parties. I was the one who was shocked that first night.
“Everything was fine, until Rack started playing cards. He had me sit on his lap, and I could feel every other player’s eyes on me the whole time. Rack was losing. He was really losing. I tried to get him to stop and convince him to go back to his room with me, but it was too late.” I closed my eyes and could still see the man I thought I knew change before my eyes. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do, woman.”
Maniac grunted, and I turned my head at his voice. “He put you for the bet, didn’t he?”
“You saw it coming, but even in that moment, I didn’t know I meant that little to him. That I could easily be used in a game to repay a debt. He ran out of money, and I was the next best thing to put up for the next hand.” I cleared my throat. “He lost, and I wasn’t his anymore.”
“You never were his, darlin’. He wasn’t worthy of the ground you walked on.” Words I needed to hear months ago before I fell for the deceiving charm of Rack.
“That night, after I was shoved off of Rack’s lap, it became a game to win me, and then put me up to bet again. But while whoever won me waited to lose me, they took whatever they wanted from me. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t run. If I didn’t let them do what they wanted, my cheek was met with the palm of their hand and the harsh side of their tongue.”
Maniac let out a guttural noise, and his nostrils flared.
“I was raped twice that night.” The words were out of my mouth before I even had a chance to process them and shove them back down my throat. No one knew except for the men who forced themselves on me. “I’m okay.” I felt the need to say that out loud because I was okay. For the most part. At least, I thought I was.
“That it?” he growled.
That was hardly it. That was the tip of the iceberg of assholes who thought they could take whatever they wanted from me. “It was weird,” I continued. “While I wasn’t Rack’s girlfriend anymore, he was my keeper, of sorts. I stayed in his room. He slept with me when he wasn’t out sleeping with some other girl, and he kept me fed. It was like a pet that got the minimal care given.”
“You’re not a pet,” Maniac growled again. “Please tell me that was it.”
I shrugged. “Sure.” There was more of the same. “Instead of having to be won in a game of poker, I was just free game to whoever wanted me. The word no meant nothing coming from a woman in their club. I wasn’t the only one who was a pet of the club.”
Maniac ran his fingers through his hair. “Wrecker said you heard things you shouldn’t have. That why the Captains are after you?”
“Rack was dumb and did drugs. A lot of drugs. When he would go on a bender, he’d get whacked in the head and just start telling me everything. Most of it, I didn’t understand because it didn’t make sense. It was like he was giving me info, but it was only good info if I knew the details surrounding it.”
“Fucking idiot.”
“Yeah, I really didn�
��t pick a good one, did I?” And this is where Maniac should start looking at me differently. I couldn’t even see what an asshole and loser Rack was until it was too late.
“Him being a loser and not realizing what he was has nothing to do with you, darlin’. None of this says anything bad about you. You saw the best in him, and he took advantage of that.”
I leaned my head to the side and rested it against the back of the swing. “Yeah, but what does it say about the fact I didn’t leave that night? Why didn’t I climb out of his lap when he offered me up?”
“You think those guys would have let you go, Wren? Those men raped and abused you. You really think they wouldn’t have kept you from leaving? You said when you showed a slight sign of protest, they hit you. You did what you did to stay alive.”
Tears stung my eyes. “You make me sound so much better than I actually was. I wasn’t strong enough to leave. I stayed and let them use me because I was absolutely terrified.” I closed my eyes and cried. How could Alice sit there and call me a badass? Did a badass let men use them and silently cry through the night, wishing for someone to save them, or even death?
Strong arms lifted me from the swing, and my eyes popped open. “Hush, darlin’,” Maniac whispered.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he situated me onto his lap as he sat back down on the swing. “What are you doing?” I whimpered.
“Was too far away from you over there,” he explained.
“Maniac, let me go. You shouldn’t want to touch me.” I struggled against his hold, but he held me tighter and ran his hand up and down my back.
“Wren, no one tells me what to do. If I didn’t want you in my arms, I wouldn’t have planted your ass in my fucking lap.”
“You and the F word,” I mumbled. If this was what he wanted, then who was I to argue with him?
“You know it’s my favorite word,” he muttered.
I hummed and rest my head on his shoulder. “None of this is real.”
“What do you mean?”
“You. Me. Here. Once the Captains get tired of looking for me, you’ll go back to Weston, and I guess I’ll go back to River Valley.” This was a false sense of reality. I was pushed onto Maniac. In real life, he never would have given me a second glance.
“Not sure why the hell you think that.”
Because good things like Maniac didn’t happen to me. “Are you really going to make me spell it out?”
“Apparently, because I ain’t got a fucking clue what you are talking about.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “I’m not your type, Maniac. The only reason you’re here now is because you have to be here. I’m just another check on your list of things you have to do for the club.”
“Fuck, you got a lot of bullshit swirling around in your head.”
I looked up at him. “It’s not bullshit. I saw the way you looked at me when you told me you were going to keep an eye on me. You didn’t want to do it.”
“I’m gonna clue you in on something.” He pushed off the deck and sent the swing into motion. “I didn’t want to be the one assigned to you.”
“See!” I shouted.
He hushed me and shook his head. “That was, until I saw you.”
“Wait, huh?” What in the hell did that mean?
“None of us in the club like to be told what to do. Especially when that thing is babysitting.”
“I don’t see how this explanation is supposed to make me feel better. Telling me I was a babysitting job makes me feel so much better, Maniac.”
“Lord. That bullshit swirling around in your head makes it really hard for you to see the things that are right in front of your nose, darlin’.”
“What’s right in front of my nose is a butthead.”
“A butthead?” he laughed. “Can’t say I’ve ever been called that before.”
Well, that was exactly what he was. A handsome butthead, but a butthead nonetheless. “Well, you should get used to it if you continue to call my thoughts bullshit.”
He shook his head and brushed my hair behind my ear. “There is a difference between the bullshit in your head and your thoughts. The bullshit was put there by that asshole, Rack, and his shithole club. You need to stop letting shit consume you.”
Easier said than done.
“Give me everything they did to you. That shit is something you don’t need to live with.”
“You don’t want to know, Maniac. If I told you everything and every man who took a part of me, you’ll never look at me again.”
His hand cupped my jaw, and he tilted my head back. “I’m looking at you right now, Wren, and I swear to God, nothing you ever tell me could make me think of you differently.”
“I can’t even tell you how many men I slept with when I was in the clubhouse.” He wasn’t understanding what I was trying to say.
“I can’t even count how many women I’ve been with,” he countered.
“They were all there willingly, though.”
He nodded. “They sure as shit were. All I gotta hear is the N in no and I’m off like a dirty shirt.”
“So it’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not. Every one of those guys who hurt you deserves to die, and I know for a fact each and every one will meet their fate eventually.” His voice was low and menacing. “What they took from you, I’ll take from them ten-fold. There aren’t many rules for the Fallen Lords, but one of them is you never hurt a woman. Ever.”
“They’re not Lords, Maniac. You can’t sit here and say you’re going to hurt them all.” I had just told him I didn’t even know how many men I had been with, let alone remember their faces. There was only one face I remembered through all of this. Rack’s.
“I can, and I will, Wren. This isn’t something you need to worry yourself about.”
Not worry about it? The man had basically just sworn vengeance on the whole Hell Captains club. That was a pretty damn big deal. “Maniac, this is crazy.” I was sprawled out in the man’s lap, enjoying the feel of his body beneath me, while he told me he was going to kill everyone who ever touched me. This was not real life.
“I don’t want you to worry about them, Wren.”
I pursed my lips. “I’m not worried about them, I’m worried about you.”
“The Hell Captains don’t have anything on me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not what I meant. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Trouble. You really don’t know what the Fallen Lords are capable of, darlin’.” His thumb stroked my cheek, and I closed my eyes.
“Can we not talk about this anymore?” Talking about Rack and the Captains had drained me.
“We’re done for now.”
Ugh. For now? “How about we’re done talking about that for forever?”
Maniac chuckled. “You still got a long way to go.”
“I’m fine, Maniac. There isn’t anything more I can do about it.” That was true. It happened. I couldn’t go back and change it.
“You’re not fine, but you will be.”
I laid my head on his shoulder and sighed. “You wanna watch a movie?”
“Only if I get to pick,” he rumbled.
It wasn’t like he had much of a choice. “Deal. You pick the movie, and I’ll get the cake.”
“Mmm, cake.”
I patted him on the stomach. “I figured you would like that idea.” I was finding the way into Maniac's good graces was through his stomach.
I wonder if the same was for his heart?
*
Maniac
I pointed the remote at the TV and turned it off. The movie had ended an hour ago, and I had watched two reruns of Roseanne while Wren slept tucked under my arm.
After she had crawled out of my lap on the porch, she had cut two huge slices of cake while I picked Indiana Jones to watch. She had grumbled her protest when she had seen what I had put on, but I reminded her she had agreed to my movie pick.
We had started out w
atching the movie side by side on the couch with both of our feet kicked up on the coffee table. After I finished the best piece of cake I had ever eaten, I set my plate on the table and helped Wren finish off hers. I was a sucker for anything she made, her chocolate cake included.
An hour into the movie, she started to nod off with her head kinked to the side. I managed to maneuver her to lie down with me with little protest. Our long ride and talk on the porch had taken its toll on her.
My mind went to the things she had said while I stared into the darkness.
Her words had fueled the fire that had been burning deep inside me. I knew horrible things had happened to her, but knowing exactly what it was pissed me the fuck off.
A man who had a woman in the palm of his hand sells her in a fucking card game? Rack and the rest of the Hell Captains didn’t deserve to live.
And I was going to be the man to make sure they didn’t breathe for much longer.
The Hell Captains were dead.
*
Chapter 11
Wren
My firm pillow gently moved up and down.
I cracked open one eye to see I was in bed, but I wasn’t alone.
Maniac was sprawled out on my bed, his bare shoulder beneath my head, and my hand splayed on his stomach.
Well, this is nice.
But how had it happened? I remembered complaining about Maniac’s movie choice, eating cake, and then from what I can gather, I had passed out. But how did I get into bed with Maniac?
“Jesus, darlin’. I can hear your brain churning away.”
I tilted my head back and looked into his eyes. “You cannot hear me thinking.”
He quirked his eyebrow and gave me a lazy smile. “Trust me, I can.”
“Then I’ll just ask you instead of thinking. How did we get into bed?”
Maniac ran his fingers through his hair. “We fell asleep on the couch. I picked you up to put you in bed, and you refused to let me go when I tried to lay you down.”
My eyes bugged out. “Say what?” There was no way in hell that happened.
“Swear on my bike. You wouldn’t let me go,” he replied smugly.
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