by Hart, Eve R.
So if Dade had been put in the same position as Iron and Blade and Charming, what would he have done? The thought was so insane and made my head spin. It was hard placing my brother in that situation because it was his body that it’d had happened to. But I tried to see around that. If it had been Dade, he would have done what was right, my feelings be damned. Because the right thing would have been to protect me at all costs. So yeah, he would have burned up the body. He would have made ashes of the evidence. And he would have kept it from me to spare my heart.
I really was being a big baby. The very thing I fought so hard against. I just wanted them all to see me like a real grown-up person. One that had her head on fairly straight and could take care of herself. And here I was, running away and sulking. Like a child.
I had to fix this, I did, but I needed a little more time to get over what had been done. I realized that I had to come to grips with that and accept it before I began to fix stuff. Because if I couldn’t let go of the anger I had about what had happened to my brother’s body, then going back would never matter. If I couldn’t stop hurting knowing my brother was nothing but ash and dust, then I’d always hold some kind of grudge toward everyone associated with the club.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Charming
Everyone was grumpy. I wished it was because my mood had rubbed off, but it was something much, much worse.
“I’m going to beat the fuck out of you,” B-ry said to me as he stomped into the kitchen and took a seat across from me.
The women were cooking breakfast. They’d stepped up in Abigail’s absence but I got the feeling it wasn’t because they wanted to take care of us.
Laurel shot a look over her shoulder, daggers flying from her eyes in the direction of her husband. My body instinctively leaned to the side so I wouldn’t get clipped by that shit. However, all that did was catch her attention. And, fuck, forget the daggers, she was burning me alive with lava by the look in her eyes.
“Don’t fucking blame me for this. I wanted to go after her,” I said and it was a half-assed attempt to get out of it. There was no excuse I could come up with why my ass was still sitting here soaking in all the hostility. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I deserved every second of it.
“Do you know what it’s like at home?” B-ry grumbled under his breath. “She’s horny because… well, because she is right now, more so than normal. And she’s got her boobs all pushed out and that scent going on. One minute, she’s giving me sexy eyes like she wants me right now and the next, it’s like she remembers and she’s shooting damn nails out of those eyes at me.”
I studied him for a few long beats. His eyes slid to the side and it was clear there was something he wasn’t saying. I almost moved my gaze back over to Laurel but luckily I remembered it was best not to look in that direction.
“Fuck you both,” Cable said and I think this was the grumpiest I’d ever seen the guy. “Claire won’t even look at me.”
I could tell that hurt him deeply. I swallowed hard and replayed Blade’s stupid fucking words again in my head. I shouldn’t go after her. She needed her space. Give her some time to figure it out on her own. Then she’d come back. That’s what he’d said. She’d fucking come back on her own. But it had been four fucking days and she wasn’t here.
“I don’t think we should trust the food,” Brand said. His body was so hunched over that it was practically folded into itself. He was hiding, that much was clear. And the look on his face was like a scolded, beaten down dog. Though I knew it wasn’t because Cami had yelled at him or cut him down in some way. No, she was too sweet and caring. A little soft, too. She wouldn’t outwardly be mean. But she’d let her unhappiness be known in a colder way. Even if she didn’t realize she was doing it.
“I ate before I left the house,” Ky said and he looked a little less upset and beat down than the rest of us.
“Why the fuck are you even here this early?” B-ry barked in a harsh whisper. “Chris isn’t here. You don’t have to suffer like the rest of us because our women just have to fucking be here. And no, I don’t trust them right now, I’m not letting her come here alone. Leave them alone long enough and they might come up with a plan to cut our balls off.”
I covered up my laugh with a fake cough.
“Don’t think you’d be excluded from that,” B-ry said with a sharp look in my direction. “They’d probably start with yours.”
Like driving by a car crash, I couldn’t help and look over at all the women tittering around the stove. Some of them knew how to cook and some of them couldn’t boil water. I wasn’t trying to be mean, it was just the hard truth. But there they all were, banded together like they were on some kind of crusade.
But they kind of were, I guess. We’d hurt one of their own. No, fuck that. We’d hurt one of our own because Abigail was as much a part of this club as every single old lady in this room.
“To gloat,” Ky said as an answer to B-ry’s previous question.
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Knight grunted.
“Well, Chris isn’t mad at me, so there’s that. I mean, he’s not happy with me. But he’s not withholding sex, that’s for sure.”
The asshole had the balls to smirk in B-ry’s direction.
“He’s not pissed?” Cable shot out.
“No, he’s fucking pissed. But he also gets it. He just wants Abigail to come home more than anything. He’s worried.”
Of course, he was. We all were. The attitude Chris held on the whole situation didn’t really surprise me. He knew how to ride that line between the club and real life. He’d been around it long enough to know how things went and in a way, he trusted and respected the club enough to realize they would always do the right thing for everyone in the end.
And that was it, the thing that bugged me the most. The decision that Iron had made wasn’t fucking easy. But did any of them see that? Did the old ladies stop to think about that? How he did it to protect their men? Huh?! I bet not. Iron had made the call not only based on what was best for the club, but also what Dade had wanted. But all they could focus on was that we’d hurt, lied, and run Abigail out of here.
“Bitches be angry,” Sketch said as he took a chair at the end of the table.
“No, shit,” B-ry growled.
“Smells like a donkey’s ass up in here. What’d they do? Burn the fuck out of everything?” He didn’t seem to be bothered by the moods floating around. “Want to get some damn coffee but I’m afraid one of them will take my head off.”
“Best to stay away,” Ky said with a nod.
“This still about the Abigail shit?”
I cocked my head to the side while Brand actually shushed him.
“No disrespect. Just thought you would’ve fuckin’ handle that shit by now.” Sketch spread his legs wide and leaned back casually in the chair while shooting me a telling, cocky look.
“Blade told me to give her time. He says she’ll come back on her own.” I may have sounded a little whiny and defensive.
“Jesus, fuck.” Sketch shook his head at me. I had a feeling he was going to come up with some crazy shit to say. I’d listen and take it with a grain of salt. Sketch knew certain things about women, but this type of situation, no, I didn’t think he had anything good to say. “You both give her the dick for a bit and now you lost your balls to Blade. That it? Gonna be his bitch now?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself but snapped it shut when his hand slapped the top of the table loudly.
“You all think I’m a fuckin’ kid. I’m a joke,” he said but didn’t seem hurt by that. To be fair, he was kind of right. “But here’s the thing, I may not know a lot, but I know women.”
Lake snorted and I was pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing. Sketch carried on like he was unaffected by the noise.
“Men want to be all like ‘women are complicated’ and shit. But they’re not. Not one fuckin’ bit.” His shoulders went up in a little shrug as he let h
is gaze slide over to the other side of the kitchen. We all turned at the same time to look at the line of women that had stopped working to hear what Sketch had to say. “Gwen just wants to be a part of the club and make her momma proud by helping people go through what she had to. Make it a little easier on them. Cami wants to be free, to feel like she doesn’t have to be something she’s not.”
Fucking shit. He was going to break down each and every single one of them. I couldn’t see how this would help the tension that was choking the room but I wasn’t going to stop it.
“Laurel don’t want to be left in the dark. She doesn’t want to be treated like some pretty object even though she’s stunning.” He tossed a wink her way and damn if she didn’t beam with a smile. “She wants to show everyone that she can do shit on her own. Bridget… girl, you are freaky as fuck! But that’s the thing, Bridget just wants to share life with people that accept her for who she is. Claire.”
He paused and it almost seemed like he was choked up for a moment.
“She just wants to feel like she deserves to be loved,” he said and I could tell it came out strained.
There was a sob, I cut my eyes over to see Claire nearly crumbling with tears. The chair scraped across the cheap floor as Cable jumped out of his chair and flew at her, not hesitating to wrap his arms around his woman.
“I think we get it,” B-ry said and his voice sounded a little hoarse. His eyes were pinned on his woman though it was clear he was talking to Sketch.
“Nah, I ain’t done,” Sketch said and there was a cocky smirk on his face. “Ingram, though she isn’t here to hear this right now, she just wants the feeling of family. The true kind. Where the love is real and shit.”
“You going to break down Petra next?” I asked sarcastically. I was pretty sure none of us would dare to touch that one because there was no way to explain Petra in simple terms. Unless you said deadly and terrifying. And cold.
Then again, I’d seen moments where she would bluntly say something that made you think. She didn’t sugar coat anything, that was for sure. But sometimes she voiced the things that needed to be said at the right moments.
“Petra.” Sketch chuckled but he also looked over his shoulder as if to check that she wasn’t around. “She just wants someone that understands her needs without having to say them. And… accepts her soft the way that it is.”
The women had all dropped their tight shoulders and rigid postures, at least for the moment. Claire was buried in Cable’s big body looking like she didn’t want to let him go.
“So tell me, since you’re so wise with this fucking shit, what am I missing?” My voice sounded strange. I was a little emotional too. It must have been all the hormones floating around effecting me. Yeah, that was a shit thing to say, but maybe I empathized more than I wanted to let on.
“Abigail is easy,” he said and I nearly jumped out of my seat to punch him. “Not like that, fucker. I mean she doesn’t want to be treated like a kid. She doesn’t want to be protected all the time. And she needs to feel like she belongs. Like she’s a part of this whole thing. Doesn’t matter that we all see her that way, she needs to know it without a damn shadow of a doubt.”
I sat back as I took in his words. Cami and Laurel were nodding like they agreed and Claire was crying even more now.
Deep down, maybe not so deep, I already knew what he said. It was kind of obvious once I had been slapped in the face with it. The kid thing, yeah, I got that part before. She didn’t hesitate to tell me in her own crazy, ranting way, even if I wasn’t ready to hear it from her. And let me be real, I never saw her as a kid. Not really. Maybe when she had first come here. Or it could have been that she had been Dade’s sister and that it was safer to think of her that way.
Fuck!
Compared to me, she kind of was a kid. Yeah, I was nearly seven years older than her. And when I thought about it, Blade was even more than that. It could have been said that we took advantage and corrupted her. But I knew the truth. I think everyone here did, as well. I— we had just given her what she needed and a place to feel safe about it. At least, that was what I hoped we did.
Fuck! Yes, again.
How did things get so screwed up?
“So then, I’m going to go get her,” I said as I got to my feet ready to flee the damn state this second.
“No,” Blade said causing my head to whip in the direction of the doorway.
When the fuck did he get here?
“Nope,” I said with a smile, the kind that I knew annoyed the hell out of him. “I’m done listening to you. I’m going to go get my woman and bring her back to her family.”
I could feel him silently chuckling and I knew he hadn’t taken the fact that I’d said ‘my woman’ as a jab to him. I hadn’t meant it that way. He’d made it clear that he was letting go, after all.
“Do what you want,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just telling you that you shouldn’t.”
“Fuck that,” I said turning back to the table “Right?”
There were murmurs and a few nods like they were siding with me. I was sure it was because they wanted things to be right again. They wanted their women not mad at them.
“Prez,” I called out as I knocked on the office door with a little too much enthusiasm.
“What?” he said as he pulled open his apartment door.
My head turned in that direction and I took him in from top to bottom. His jeans looking like he’d just tossed them on, not even zipped up or buckled. His chest was bare and his hair was down and looking like it had been in a fight with a pillow for a few hours.
Had I really banged that loudly?
I guess I had.
With a shrug, mostly to myself, I made wide strides until I was at his door. He stepped out of the way so I could pass.
“I’m going to go get Abigail,” I stated with a kind of force in my tone that said I was sure about it.
“Okay,” he said sounding half-awake.
“I just wanted to let you know,” I stated feeling a little silly that I’d bothered him for this.
“I appreciate that. You want to take someone with you?”
“No,” I told him with a quick shake of my head. “I’ll do this one alone. It should be safe enough.” I huffed out a laugh because what could really go wrong? I guess I shouldn’t have thought things like that. I was liable to jinx myself.
“Alright. Text me when you get there.”
“Thanks, Prez,” I said and was already turning for the door.
I went back down, got the address from Cable because I had told him to hold off on telling me because of what Blade had said. I didn’t trust myself not to slip off in the middle of the night after laying in bed for far too long and thinking too much. Oh, yeah, and feeling lonely as fuck.
The girls nearly suffocated me to death in happy hugs before I was able to get away.
Fingers crossed that I fixed shit for my pathetic, miserable brothers.
I chuckled at the thought as I jogged up to my room.
It took me less than five minutes to get my shit packed on my bike. Then I was off.
I knew the drive would be long, even with speeding a little. Which was a good thing, I guessed. I needed time to prepare all the things I had to say to her. I had to get them all just right by the time I got there.
With Sketch’s words ringing in my head, I was determined not to fuck this up.
Nearly halfway there though, my phone started blowing up. I found a safe place to pull over so I could check it.
When I saw almost half a dozen calls from Blade, I was half tempted to just ignore it.
I was sure he was going to tell me that I was wrong. That I needed to turn my ass around and come back. That she’d show up when she was ready and that I shouldn’t push her. And so fucking on. Only, maybe I was tired of letting him get in my head. He’d let go. He’d said this was my time to shine or some shit. That I was supposed to give Abigail everything I had and hold nothing ba
ck. So I was going to do that.
I couldn’t understand why the fuck he was so hellbent on keeping my ass at the compound. It started to piss me off the more I thought about it. He had said he cared about Abigail. Yeah, he said in his own way that he wasn’t in love with her. But for a split second, I wondered if he wasn’t in some way trying to sabotage what I wanted to have with her.
I shook my head. That shit needed to stop. Those jealous feelings weren’t me. And I knew Blade. He’d never bullshit me. He wouldn’t. I knew it in my heart even if my head was raging mad. I couldn’t make sense of it, but I knew Blade had his reasons behind all the things he said.
With a long, pissed-off sigh because I’d pulled over for this, I called him back.
“Get your ass back here,” he said as a greeting.
Not so much as a gruff hello. Sitting there alone on the highway, for some reason, my chest puffed up as the anger flowed through me.
“She’s here, brother.” Then I heard the click letting me know he’d hung up.
And I deflated like a damn balloon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Abigail
I had taken my phone with me because I wasn’t stupid. I might not have wanted to be found, but I also didn’t want to be stranded on the side of the road with no way to call for help. And since I knew the way back home easy enough, I’d turned off my phone in hopes that Cable couldn’t track me if there was no power. Maybe that was dumb because, from little bits that I’d caught here and there, he could pretty much track anyone. And I didn’t have the first clue on where to look or what to look for on my car. What did a tracking device look like? And where would someone typically put one?
If there was one, well, I guess I couldn’t really be mad. I figured it was more of a safety thing than a keep-track-of-me thing. Seeing as I rarely went anywhere anyway, it wasn’t really necessary. Until now, that was.
However, seeing as I’d been gone for almost four days and no one had come for me, I supposed they didn’t know where I was. That was better than thinking they didn’t care about me. When I first arrived here I might have jumped to that conclusion, but now I felt like that wasn’t so right. It didn’t stop the doubts from running through my head.
