My phone buzzes beside me.
Tracie: You still sick? You’re scheduled to work tonight.
Maybe work is just what I need. It’s normal. I text Tracie back that I’ll be in. I force myself to get out of bed and into the shower.
The entire time all I can hear are Hades’ words.
You need to get me some goddamn information.
If not I’ll make good on my promise and find out what I need a different way.
A chill runs through me. All of the Sons were scary and cruel; Hades was by far the worst.
I grab a towel, wrapping it around myself and walking out of the bathroom.
I jump when I see Twisted standing in the middle of my room. “Sorry, I was just coming to check on you.”
He cares about me. I’m his family. It hurts to know that. “It’s okay.” I pull out my work T-shirt and a pair of jeans shorts.
“You going in tonight?”
“Yea.” I look over at him. “I thought the distraction might help. I’m feeling a bit better too.”
“Great.” He smiles at me. “Well, I’ll let you get dressed. Let me know if you need anything.”
I need a way out, but no one can give that to me.
I know I should tell someone.
I need to ask for help.
When you’re ready, when you need someone to talk to and be in your corner.
I’ll be here.
No judgment.
I can’t help but wonder if she would be there for me after hearing my story. Out of everyone here, Lucy seems to be the most in my corner, she and Max.
Max.
A part of me imagines that he’ll hate me when this all comes out.
The other part wishes that I will tell him and that he’ll wrap me in his arms. He’ll promise me that everything will be okay, not knowing if it really will or not.
I’m terrified that they won’t believe my story. I’m even more afraid that I won’t even get to finish my story. They will hear me say that I was sent here and immediately kick me out. If I’m on the streets I’m as good as dead, or Hades will make me wish I were.
I head out to the club, thankful for the distraction from the storm raging in my mind.
***
The club is packed and thankfully I haven’t had time to think about my life once. There are only a few guys lingering around now and Tracie is starting to close down the bar. I bring them their last round when one guy grabs my arm. I look down at him.
“Hey, sugar,” he slurs. “Why don’t you give my dick a special dance?”
All his buddies laugh and it pisses me off.
I pull my arm, trying to free myself of him.
With one hard tug, he pulls me onto his lap. When he thrusts upward I freeze.
Hades walks into my room and every part of me wants to cower in the corner.
He smiles and that’s even scarier. “Today, we are gonna try something new, for you at least. Strip and get on all fours.”
I’m pulled up and shaken out of my daze.
“Get the fuck out of here.” Max’s voice booms.
When did he get here?
The drunk stands up and sneers at me as he stumbles past us. My heart is beating so fast that it almost hurts. Maybe coming into work wasn’t such a great idea.
“Izzy, are you okay?” Max’s words cut through the fog in my brain.
“Yea, he was just a jerk.” I shake my head and walk over to the bar, sitting down.
“Do you need anything?”
“No.” Yes. I need help.
“Okay, well, Tracie said to take you home.”
I stand up and start to walk to the door. When I don’t hear him following me I turn around.
He’s looking at me like I have three heads. After a couple seconds, he starts to walk toward the door.
The ride is awkward. We aren’t close and we aren’t talking.
When we pull into the clubhouse lot I open my door and head inside. Max stops me just before the door. “What is going on?”
I look at him, but I keep my walls up so he can’t see me.
“I’m just tired, from being sick.” I place a kiss on his cheek and rush inside. I know he can’t approach me in there, so it is a total chicken shit move.
I’d rather push him away than have him leave me because he hates me.
Chapter Nineteen
Max
I’m taking Izzy out today, hopefully to get her mind off of whatever has had her in a funk. I want the girl I fell for back. I’ve been texting her, but I only get one-word answers. Nikki actually came up to me yesterday and asked if I had noticed a change in her. She hasn’t been the same since graduation last week.
She’s told Twisted that I’m taking her to grab some more clothes. That way he wouldn’t expect her back anytime soon. I hate hiding our relationship like it’s some dirty little secret. Today I’m going to take her for a ride and then wherever she might like to go. I just want to make her happy. With as strong as my feelings are for her I also have so much to learn about her. I want to spend today doing that.
When she walks out to my truck she looks as emotionless as she has the past couple days. I’ve been racking my head, trying to figure out what could have happened to her. Everything was fine until we had dinner. I know my parents are assholes, but they didn’t do anything too horrific that day.
Once she climbs into my truck, I pull out of the lot, determined to get my girl back today. We drive to Cliff Ridge, and I park in one of the open spaces. Izzy looks over at me in question. “Follow me,” I say before climbing out of the truck.
Walking around back, I grab a blanket out of the bed and close the back. Izzy is standing at the front of the truck looking around. I take her hand, leading her to one of my favorite spots to come and think. We sit on the blanket, and I pull her to me so that her head is resting on my lap.
This place is gorgeous. Tall trees line the different paths around. There are numerous benches and grills for people coming who wish to have a barbecue. Where we are is more secluded. A ring of trees surrounds the small area. The grass is a little overgrown and a vibrant green. In front of us is one of the ridges; a small wooden fence stands before it to prevent any accidents. The sky is a pure blue with only a few clouds in sight.
I look down at my girl. She is staring out into the sky, and I can see the wheels turning behind her eyes. “What’s on your mind?”
She looks up at me and shakes her head. “Nothing important.”
I sigh in frustration. “I don’t know why you’re keeping things from me, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on. Talk to me.”
“You keep asking me stuff like this, but it’s not like you have told me anything about your past, about why you have so much hatred for your parents.” Her eyes glare at me.
What she’s said is fair. Getting into my family drama was the last thing that I wanted today. If she needs to hear it to trust me then so be it. “I had a brother. Trent. He was the opposite of me, completely okay with fitting into the mold my parents made for him. All he wanted to do was make them happy and for them to be proud of him. They were never satisfied. Even when he did what they wanted it wasn’t enough. There was this stupid thing my mom signed him up for. He was supposed to escort some stuck-up priss to a ball.” I look up at the sky, hoping it calms the anger inside of me. My body tenses and my muscles tick as I let myself go back to that night.
“It was pouring, and I told him to just forget it. My mom wouldn’t hear it. She insisted that he go and he did. The drive was somewhere around an hour. She got a message from one of her friends a little bit after Trent left that they were rescheduling the ball. I planned on calling him and telling him. She and my father forbade me to. They thought that if he went to the girl’s house anyway maybe they’d hit it off. She was from a ‘good family’ and it would help his standing. He never got there.” Izzy’s breath catches in my lap. “A sixteen wheeler lost control and his car was thrown off
the road into a ravine. He was five minutes from the girl’s house. If those assholes had just let me call him, if they hadn’t forced him to drive in that fucking storm. If they didn’t insist on controlling every aspect of his life he’d still be alive. They killed him, and I’ll never forgive them for it.”
Izzy sits up and wraps her arms around my neck. I let her comfort me and take in the fact that this is the first emotion I’ve seen from her for a few days now. I pull back to see her.
“I told you my story. I need to know what’s going on with you.”
Her eyes drop and she shakes her head. “It’s nothing. I’ve been having nightmares and I’m just frustrated that I can’t remember anything.”
She’s lying to me.
It’s so obvious that it pisses me off.
I told her everything like she asked. I bared my demons to her, but she won’t trust me to handle hers.
“That’s bullshit.” I force the words out through my teeth. She flinches at my comment. “You’re lying, and I hate liars.” I stand up, my fists clenched in anger. “Let’s go.”
She stands up but looks at me. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you back to the club. You don’t get to do this shit. You can’t ask me to show you mine, and then refuse to share yours. I also won’t take you lying to my face. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re not the person I thought you were.” It’s harsh and I know it.
Right now I’m so pissed off that I don’t even give a shit. I mean every word of it.
The drive back takes half the time. We don’t say anything and once we pull up she all but jumps out of the car. I know I hurt her with how blunt I was. She needs to understand that I care, though, and if I didn’t care I’d let her keep pretending everything was great and I wouldn’t care how much she is hurting, but I do.
I feel like for now, I need to care enough for the both of us.
Chapter Twenty
Izzy
A knock at my door causes me to jump.
Twisted walks in. He seems nervous. His hands are in his pockets and he’s shifting back and forth as he looks at me. “So since you’ve been here we haven’t really had much time together. Would you maybe want to go grab a bite to eat and talk some?”
“Um, yea, sure. Just let me get dressed and stuff.” I look down at the pajamas I’m wearing.
“Right, I’ll be downstairs. Just come and find me when you’re ready.” He gives me a small smile before walking out of the room.
I stand up and grab some clothes out of my dresser. I’m excited to be spending time with him and getting to know him better. Maybe he’ll tell me something about my parents. My whole life I wondered what they were like.
My mind drifts back to Max yesterday. He was so mad at me, but I can understand why. I wanted something from him that I’m not willing to give myself. He gave me what I asked for, and I returned it with lies. Hearing him talk about Trent and what had happened made me hurt for him. I wanted to be there for him and take some of the pain away. I wasn’t ready to go into my issues, though, and that pushed him away.
I run the brush through my hair. I need to tell someone, soon. I wish that Max would stand by me, but there is no guarantee that he will. I know how these boys feel about rats, about people who betray them. They’ll throw me out on my ass and then Hades will kill me.
I might as well enjoy this life while I’m still allowed to be in it, while they all still want me here. I walk downstairs and see my brother sitting next to Nikki on one of the couches. “All ready,” I say as I reach them.
“Well, you two have fun.” Nikki stands up and walks over to a few of the other girls.
Twisted stands up and starts to walk toward the door. Once we’re outside, he heads over to Nikki’s black SUV. “Thought it’d be kinda weird to put you on the back of my bike, so Nikki said we could use her car.”
“Sounds good.” I smile over at him.
We drive to a nearby restaurant and he chooses a table on the patio. Aside from one other couple, we are the only ones out here. After the waitress takes our order, I look over at him and can’t help but laugh at how uncomfortable he is.
“So I’m sure you have questions for me. I’ll give you whatever answers I can.”
“Okay, I guess my first one would be what were my parents like?”
His face darkens. A part of me is sorry that I brought this up. “They were evil. I’m glad you had the opportunity to grow up without them. Jesse and I had enough on our plates protecting Lizzie. I don’t know how we would have kept both of you safe. I don’t want to get into details. It isn’t a story I share. Just know that you’re better off never knowing them.”
The finality of his tone makes me drop the subject.
“I talked to Jesse yesterday. He and Lizzie are planning on coming down next week sometime. They were as shocked as I was when I told them about you.” Twisted shakes his head. “I still can’t believe it myself. I remember one time my parents telling us that they had a baby but it died. Honestly with the way they were, a part of me thought they killed it.”
I gasp. Were they really that terrible?
“Torch found out something that might explain it a bit. Apparently, you came two months early. She had been doing a bunch of shit she shouldn’t when she was pregnant, which is no surprise. Lucy’s oldest was born early; it’s a lot of work and time spent at the hospital. Knowing those assholes they probably didn’t want to deal with it and so they gave you up. We’ll never know for sure, but I can almost guarantee that was their way of thinking.” His hand rubs the back of my neck.
“How did you find the club?” I ask just as the waitress is dropping off our food.
“I was a punk ass. Getting into trouble trying to make my way. Our previous president, Shooter, he found me and told me to stop by the club the next day. The second I walked through the doors I knew I had found a home.” A large table of people are seated a few feet away from us and I don’t miss the wary way they look at my brother. “People get scared when they see us. They watch some damn show or read their books and they think they know what we’re about. Like we are a bunch of asshole running around selling drugs and shooting anyone we feel like. Shit might not be sunshine and roses, but we take care of our family and each other. We are a unit and for the first time in my life I had found somewhere that I belonged.”
He is so sincere right now, and I can see why Nikki loves him. Underneath all the club stuff, and the facade you have to put on in front of everyone, he is really awesome. I wish I could tell him everything. Leave all my cards on the table and know that, in the end, he’d still stand by me. This conversation basically solidified that I can’t. The fact that I came to the club with the intention to betray them will be unforgivable to him. He’ll never look at me the same and I’ll lose the family I just found.
***
After spending the day with my brother I realize how much I could possibly lose at the end of all this. I find some of Lucy’s rum in the fridge and decide to drink my anxiety away. After four shots the empty bottle haunts me. I’m not numb yet. I want to drink until I can’t feel anymore. I want to drink so that I can pass out and sleep so heavy that my damn dreams don’t haunt me. There is a liquor store a couple blocks away, so I decide to walk since it’s still light out.
I don’t know if it’s my paranoia or what, but I feel like everyone around here has been watching me more than usual. I slip out one of the back doors and then through the unusually unmanned gate. Kicking the rocks under my feet, I think how easy it would be for me to just run right now. The club would be safe because I wouldn’t have given Hades any information. I would be free to exist without the devil looming over me. Max could patch in and move on with someone who deserves him. Everyone would be happier without the drama me being around causes.
I walk into the store, grabbing a couple bottles and giving the clerk cash.
Lost in my own thoughts, I don’t even hear him come up behind me until it’s to
o late. Hades spins me around, forcing me back against the brick wall behind me. I hit my head and wince from the pain. The brown bag with the bottles crashes to the floor and I hear them break.
“I haven’t heard from you,” Hades growls in my ear. To anyone driving by it probably looks like we are making out and not like I’m about to die. “Was I not clear the other day?”
I close my eyes and pray that someone will drive by and scare him away from me.
“Answer me, bitch!”
I shake from the force of his voice. “I-I haven’t found anything out yet.”
His eyes bore into me. One of his hands releases me, but it’s back a minute later. Even in the dim light, I can see his switchblade. With one quick swipe, he slashes a cut into my palm. I scream, but his other hand quickly covers my mouth.
Keeping his eyes focused on me, he lowers his head to my wounded hand. His tongue darts out, licking the lines of blood streaming. His mouth opens and closes over the cut as he sucks the blood from my body. “For a dirty skank, you taste pretty sweet. I might need to check and see if every other part of you is so good. The blade traces over the skin on my neck. Forty-eight hours. I want information by then or you’ll fucking regret it.”
He presses his lips against mine before turning away from me. I hear his maniacal laugh as he climbs back onto his bike. As soon as he drives away I start to run. Once the lot comes into focus, I see a prospect at the gate now.
“Open the gate!” I scream. I’m sure panic is evident in my voice.
He does, and I run through the entrance. I double over, completely out of breath and scared. The boys come racing out, and I hear Twisted yell my name.
“Shit, what happened to your hand?” He braces his hand on my back. “Let’s get you inside.”
They bring me over to one of the tables, and Torch runs over with a first aid kit. He cleans my hand, and I wince as the alcohol stings. Next, my hand is wrapped and secured.
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