by Simone Elise
She and Abby may have had similar features, being twins, but Kim was nothing like Abby. And Abby was nothing like Kim. But together they were a powerful a force. Right now, Kim was grieving for her other half and only today I started to feel what she had been going through all week, since those detectives came.
“What, then?” She picked up a brochure on coffins.
“I want to help.” I was positive that this morning my heart had stopped beating properly. I was positive I would never be the man I was before she was taken from me. Abby had wanted me to move on. Abby wanted me to not become heartless. Abby wanted me to find another woman to be Tyson’s mother.
All that wasn’t helping.
I could never love another woman, because I would always love her. I didn’t know how Tyson was going to cope not having a mom. Somehow I’d handle it. Somehow I would give him what he needed.
“With the funeral?” Kim looked at me, shocked. “Does this mean you’ve finally come to terms with it?”
The tears just fell. Come to terms with it. Was that what I’d done? “No and yes, I guess,” I said.
Her hand went to my knee. “You don’t have to help.”
“I want to. She was my wife. I need to know she is at peace.” She deserved peace. She deserved to still be breathing. She deserved a hell of a lot more than she got. I had caused her life to end. It was all my fault and now all I could ensure was that she was at peace.
“OK.”
“Was it hard?” I asked her. “Living without a mother? Was it hard?” She had lost her mom. She had gone through what Tyson would go through when he realized he had lost his mother. I could bet everything I had he would hate me for it. Because when he was older, I would tell him the truth. I was the reason he didn’t have a mother.
“It was. But Tyson will be OK.” Kim looked me in the eye. While my eyes blurred, I could still make out the pain in her eyes. “He has something I didn’t. He has an aunt who will always be there. You don’t have to worry about him not having a mother figure because I’m going to be it.”
“You don’t have to, Kim. I don’t expect that of you.”
“Abby would. And I do. So don’t fight me on it. Tyson will have a mother figure in his life. He mightn’t have Abby, but he will have me.” She nudged me on the shoulder. “And you.”
Would that be enough? My heart had gone so cold that I wasn’t sure if I could give Tyson what he needed. A drunken, wasted, useless father. Maybe I was better off letting him go, letting Kim have custody.
Abby had made it clear. She didn’t want him to have a shadow of a father. She told me to man up. She told me to pull myself together and be there for him. But that wasn’t possible. I wasn’t capable of functioning without her.
I wasn’t capable of being a father. The father to her son. I couldn’t do that without her.
“I was thinking black for the coffin. She loved black,” Kim said, flicking the pages of the brochure. “As for the service, she didn’t want one.”
I nodded my head. “I know. I reread the will and what she wanted.”
“She picked the cheapest coffin. I’m ignoring that request of hers.”
“She always hated spending money.”
“Which is stupid because you’re loaded and she has more money under her floorboards than guns. Blake must have been paying her for those hits because that is the only way I can explain her having that much cash.”
“Yeah, I think he was too.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Has your dad shown his face since the other day?”
“Nope, and it’s a good thing because I’m not in the mood to deal with his mood swings.”
“Custody of Tyson, is that something you still want?” I looked back at her. She had to know I wasn’t capable of being a father now. I couldn’t love him like he needed. Not when I took his mother from him.
“You aren’t thinking what I think you are thinking, are you?” Her words were as sharp as knives. “Because Abby would want you to be the one to take care of him. You need to man up, Reaper. Tyson just lost his mother. He can’t lose a father as well. I can’t be a father.”
“You can leave the club. I’ll set you up. I’ll pay for everything. All I want is for him to have a normal life and I can’t give that.”
“NO!”
“Come on, Kim. It makes sense. I can’t give him what he needs.”
“All he needs is you!”
“And love, Kim. He needs that. And I’m not capable of that.”
“You love him. Unconditionally. You’re just freaking out because today you realized you lost your wife. So you are thinking you aren’t capable of loving something or someone as much as you loved her. But I’m telling you, holding onto Tyson will help you get through this. Abby gave him to you. Don’t turn your back on that.”
I didn’t say anything.
“He only has you and me, Reaper. So don’t take yourself out of the picture.”
“The father he needs, I’m not capable of being that. The father Abby wanted me to be. I’m not capable of that either. Not without her.” Didn’t anyone get it? When I lost her, I also lost my son because how could I look at him and not be eaten up with guilt for costing him his mom?
How the hell was I meant to live without her? I didn’t know how to. Today was the first day without her. The first day I accepted she was dead. Yeah, that had stopped my heart beating. The man she loved and the man Tyson needed died when she did.
“You’ll get through this, Reaper.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because Abby would want us to,” she said firmly. “And I’m not letting her down and neither are you. Running from Tyson. Giving him up. That isn’t happening.”
I scoffed. “Kim. The biggest part of me died when I realized she was gone. When I realized I’d never see her again. I’m capable of running this club. But I’m not capable of being a dad. Not without her.”
“Reaper, you’ve been doing it without her from the start, when she was taken. You have been on your own since then. And you’ve managed fine. Just because the dream of getting her back is dead doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of continuing to love her son. Your son.”
I ran my hands down my face. “I just want to wake up from this nightmare.”
Kim’s face twisted in sorrow. “You know what’s been helping me get up in the morning? Knowing I’ll never see her face again, or laugh at her stupid jokes, or tell her off for doing something completely stupid?”
I shook my head. Because today was my first day without her and I was managing it. I doubted tomorrow I would even see the point in getting up. I had been living to find her, to get her back. I had been living for that.
“She said once she would rather die quickly than to suffer like Mom. And if she was given a quick and painless death, I didn’t have the right to wish her back. Because she would be at peace.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “So don’t wish her back. Let her be at peace. I’m letting her have the peace she wanted. So now you need to give her that as well.”
I couldn’t just let go of Abby. Never. I would never let her go. It didn’t matter if she was breathing or not. I still wasn’t letting go of her.
I nodded my head. “So where are you up to with the funeral?”
Kim started telling me details. I was only half listening, even though I knew she needed my full attention. I just couldn’t give it to her. Because my heart was bleeding. I had died inside. My heart had stopped beating along with Abby’s.
Tears welled in my eyes. Jake said it had been painless. She hadn’t suffered. But I knew that to be a lie because knowing you’re dying and waiting for the day to come for your life to end was torture enough. That wasn’t painless. Waiting for your death.
Even in that video she had sent me saying goodbye, she had accepted the fact she was dying. She was just waiting for the day.
I was meant to stop that day from ever coming.
I had failed.
She had faced death without me. And I didn’t think I could ever forgive myself for letting her go through what she did.
She had come into my life, abruptly, and she had left it the same way.
She took everything that made me me with her.
***
I hadn’t touched drugs since Abby was taken. I also hadn’t drunk. But I was doing both tonight. Because I sure as fuck wasn’t going to sleep with tomorrow being what it was.
Her funeral.
I had to face her funeral in the morning.
I lit up another joint. I think I had smoked my weight in this stuff since I’d come to terms with the fact Abby was dead.
Kim had taken Tyson on full time.
She said I needed time to ‘grieve.’ That wasn’t the case. I wasn’t going to wake up one morning and be fucking smiling and happy. Abby was dead. My purpose, the reason I had been getting up in the morning, was gone.
Brad was running the club. He said I needed time. Everyone thought it was their place to tell me what I needed.
Even Roach had come around and told me that Abby wouldn’t want me to be grieving for her like I was.
He had even said he was ‘sorry for me.’ I didn’t believe it. The man was loving the fact he was right. He was right all along. He told me I would kill her. He was right.
So I wasn’t going to argue with him over it.
The man was right.
I hadn’t kept her safe. I hadn’t looked after her. I had killed her.
I inhaled the joint, enjoying the fact I was getting slightly lightheaded. Maybe it would knock me out for the night and then I could face tomorrow still stoned and drunk. Because I didn’t know how I was meant to get through tomorrow.
Or any day that would come after that. Because facing the world with no Abby, well, I didn’t fucking want to do it.
My phone was ringing, doing what I had done all week. I ignored it. There was only one person I wanted to hear from and the dead couldn’t make phone calls.
I was looking at her phone, rewatching videos when the private number called again.
Again, I ignored it.
A private number had basically been calling my phone all week but I didn’t care who wanted me. Kim even rang me a few times when I needed air and went to a bar that wasn’t at the clubhouse.
I still didn’t remember how I got home that night. But I woke up there the next day. On my side of the bed. It hit me that morning. Her side of the bed was always going to be empty.
I pressed play on the video of her showing off her pregnancy in the mirror and telling me to be proud of it. I had watched that video I don’t know how many times.
It was when her phone started ringing that the video stopped.
Abby was getting a phone call. I thought she had this phone for me and me alone. There were no contacts in it. I didn’t even realize it had a SIM card in it. But it was ringing.
Did I answer it?
Whoever it was would want Abby, not me.
Who would she have given this number to? Kim said Abby used this phone as a spare. So no one should have this number.
I pressed answer and, for the first time this week, I answered a phone.
“Hello?”
“ALL WEEK, REAPER! ALL FUCKING WEEK I’VE BEEN CALLING YOU AND YOU HAVEN’T ANSWERED!”
“ABBY?”
“Do you have any idea what I have to do to get him out of the house? I can’t just use the phone whenever I want!”
“You aren’t dead.”
“No. Which you would know if you had picked up your phone once this week!”
Abby was yelling at me. Abby was still breathing! “You’re alive,” I repeated myself. “You aren’t dead.”
“I’m not, Reaper. But I’m going to be gone in a matter of days. You’re running out of time.”
I was alert now. Not even the drugs stopped me from picking up on Abby’s tone. She was serious.
“Where is he taking you?”
“Overseas. He isn’t going to kill me. He did that so you would stop searching for me. He is, well, I think he is in love with me. He said something about how he couldn’t lose the second love of his life. Actually, he is calling me the love of his life.”
“You’re mine.”
“Kade, it doesn’t matter whose I am. In a matter of days, I’ll be gone. You have to find me now.”
“I don’t know where to look! I’ve pulled every connection I know, Abby. I can’t find you!”
“That’s the other reason I’m calling. There are two other people besides Jake who know where I am. You won’t get shit out of Andrew but you might be able to get something from Billy.”
“Who is Billy?”
“Shit, I’ve got to hurry up. He’s back. Dad knows Billy. I don’t know where he lives. But Dad knows him. He used to be his VP. He has a daughter named Shelly and a grandson named Charlie. They live in the suburbs with her husband, Daniel, who is an accountant. I don’t know any more. But he knows where I am. I have to go.”
“Don’t, Abby. I just went through a whole week of thinking you were dead. Don’t leave me again.”
“Reaper, in a matter of days, you might as well consider me dead. Because as soon as I get on the plane, he won’t be letting me go again. So find Billy. But if you don’t get to me in time, I stand by my video.”
“I’ll find you. I promise you, Abby, I’ll get you back.”
“I hope so.” She said those three words in so much pain. Like she couldn’t face what would happen to her if I didn’t.
“I’m coming. Hear me when I say that, Abby. I’ll find this Billy and I’ll make him tell me where you are.”
She sighed. “You’ve never let me down.”
And I wasn’t starting now. I was already up opening my bedroom door. Roach, I needed Roach.
“Bye, Kade.”
I didn’t want her to hang up. And, as if she knew I was going to plead with her not to, she hung up, not giving me a chance.
She said I never let her down. Well, I had when I believed she was dead. I knew I would have felt something if she was dead. I was sure, though, I had felt it when the facts wouldn’t leave me alone.
I banged on Roach’s door.
He answered, looking how I felt before Abby called.
“Why the fuck are you grinning?” he barked at me.
“Abby isn’t dead.”
He grunted. “Back to denial, are we?”
“Who’s Billy? Abby said he was your VP.”
Roach frowned. “How would you know about Billy?”
“Abby said he knows where she is and you are going to tell me where he lives.” And I was going to find Abby and I was going to get her back.
I had just gone a week thinking she was dead. I was meant to be going to her funeral tomorrow. She wasn’t dead. I hadn’t lost her. But I was going to, if I didn’t find this Billy. There was only one way he was going to tell me where Abby was. That meant we were taking a trip to the suburbs to collect his daughter and grandson.
I really wasn’t above threatening them or killing Billy’s daughter to get the information I wanted.
I was desperate. And I would do anything if it meant I didn’t have to face a world without Abby.
Chapter 22
Reaper
It took a day to track him down. But he came home. Came home to us waiting for him.
I punched him again, my knuckles bleeding, my fists aching. He still wasn’t speaking. He made a point of telling Roach he would die before Roach saw his daughter again.
I had threatened him. I had beaten him close to knocking him out completely. I had even shot him in the leg. Still he wasn’t speaking.
So I nodded for Brad to bring them in.
His good eye went wide when he saw his daughter and grandson with their mouths duct-taped. They were strangers. They meant nothing to me or Abby, as far as I knew
. Which meant I would use them to get what I wanted.
“So this is what we are going to do next, Billy. You tell me where my wife is and I won’t put a bullet in your daughter’s head.” I flexed my knuckles. My hands were going to be swollen tomorrow.
“Let them go,” he gritted out.
“I’m planning on killing one of them. You can pick if you want.” I wasn’t above it. I would kill them if it meant I got Abby back. I was more Reaper now than Kade. I didn’t care what I had to do to get her back.
I wasn’t letting Jake fly off with her.
I wasn’t willing to face a world without her.
So yeah, I would kill his grandson if he didn’t start speaking. He must have realized I was serious because his facial expression changed.
“Even you are above killing a kid,” he spat out, blood running from his mouth. I was sure he had internal bleeding.
“No, I’m not.” I really wasn’t. “So, you pick. The boy or her?”
“If I tell you where Abby is, will you leave them alone?”
“Maybe.”
“Let them go and I’ll tell you.”
“The three of you won’t be left unguarded till I have Abby back.” I pulled out my gun. “Now, which one?”
“14 Clove Street. Two-story house. Gate code, four seven eight. He has cameras but no security.”
Had I finally got an address? “You lying?”
“Why would I lie when you have a gun pointed at my daughter’s head? I know you, Reaper. You aren’t lying when you say you aren’t above killing a kid for information. So there, I told you. Now leave us alone!”
I looked at Brad and then at Roach. “Do you think he is telling the truth?”
Roach stepped forward, taking the cigarette from his mouth. Nodding his head, he said, “Yeah, I think he is. Took him long enough.”
The address repeated in my head. “Brad, get the boys ready. Leave a bunch here. They aren’t free till I have Abby.” I looked back at Billy. “If I don’t get her, I’ll come back and kill him first, then her, and I’ll leave you breathing.”
“You might be too late anyway. They are flying out tonight or tomorrow. So if they aren’t there, it isn’t my fault.”
