Spartan (Forsaken Sons MC Book 1)

by Jessica Joy

  Sawyer leans forward and kisses me again, pulling back and giving me a reassuring smile. “I know Babydoll, me too,” he says, his eyes welling again. “King’s waiting in his office; we can go as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Now, I want to go now. I’ve slept enough,” I say, pulling away and unfolding myself from his embrace. Standing, I stretch the stiffness and aches from my joints, wincing against the pain in my neck. I need to tell him the truth, unvarnished and raw. I haven’t really let anyone in since I left, but if I have to let anyone in, I’m glad it’s Sawyer and his Brothers.

  Following Sawyer out the swinging double doors and into a wide curving hallway, I brace myself for what’s coming. The infirmary is at the far end of the curved roundhouse that makes up the main building of the compound. I hadn’t been to this end of the building during the party but it’s quite a walk. My mind wanders as we go; I find it hard to concentrate as each overhead light sends me wincing. But that pain is nothing compared to the hollow in my gut from losing my baby. How could I have slipped up so badly? Why did I think I was safe? I adore this man who keeps checking on me as we walk, but can he really protect Evan and me?

  “You ready?” he says, stopping at a heavy oak door.

  “Yeah…” I say quietly.

  This is the right thing to do. I should trust him; it’ll be the only way I can get Evan back.

  Sawyer knocks on the door and we pause for a moment before he opens it and ushers me inside with a hand to the small of my back. We enter a well-appointed office; the walls are a warm gray with dark wood trim to match the door. A large solid desk with a leather top dominates the room. In front of the desk are two black leather club chairs and two men are behind the desk.

  King and… Tinker?

  Everything is fuzzy and I feel like my brain is plodding through a layer of molasses. Names and thoughts coming slow as I take in my surroundings.

  Focus girl. You’ve got a job to do.

  King is seated behind his desk, hunched over a stack of papers while Tinker reads over his shoulder. Hearing us enter, he looks up and a weary smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Sawyer, Tessa, come in. It is good to see you on your feet sweetheart,” he says, motioning to the chairs across from him. Sawyer closes the door behind us as we move to the chairs. Tinker settles against the back desk, crossing his arms over his chest with a pensive look on his face.

  “I know you’ve been through a lot Tessa, but I have to ask some more of you to help us find your boy,” King says, a look of concern crossing his face which turns to steel. “You’ve been keeping things quiet since you rolled into town, keeping things from those who’ve taken you in. We’ve all got secrets, but now is the time for some hard truths. What can you tell us… Bethany?”

  I feel Sawyer start next to me, his attention snapping to King and then back to me. I can’t bear to meet his gaze, afraid of the accusation I will find there.

  Tinker mumbles under his breath, “Still don’t think she looks like a Bethany.” King shoots him a sharp look and his mouth closes with a click of his teeth.

  I take a deep, bracing breath and sit up straighter in my chair, clasping my hands in my lap. I stare down at my hands for a moment before starting my story.

  “My name is Bethany Grace Hayes. I grew up in Seattle. I had a pretty great childhood, my parents were still together and in love, my younger sister and I never went through that sibling rivalry thing, and we never really wanted for anything. It wasn’t a charmed life, but a good one, at least on the surface. Our parents were incredibly strict, my father was the Sheriff and wanted nothing more than to present us as the perfect little family, and when things didn’t go that way… well let’s just say his parenting philosophy followed the phrase ‘spare the rod, spoil the child.’ He never beat us, don’t get me wrong, but we learned quickly to mind him and avoid the wooden paddle that hung on the wall in the kitchen.

  “In high school, I wasn’t one of the popular girls, but I did well enough for myself, on student council, good grades, in line to get the right scholarships and go to the right colleges. Then I met David; David Lindholm. He was the captain of the football team. No one thought he would pick me over the gorgeous and deeply available head cheerleader or whatever cliché people expect the quarterback to follow. We started dating my junior year, falling fast and hard. He said and did all the right things and being the naive little girl I was, I believed it was meant to. He was my first everything.

  “After graduation, I went off to college and David went to a trade school in town. We did the long-distance thing for the first semester but when I was home for winter break, he started talking about how he couldn’t live without me. He said we were soul mates and he couldn’t handle being so far away from me. Looking back now, I know that was never the case, and I always knew, but I was a dumb girl who thought she was in love and who so badly needed to be loved. I transferred schools the following semester to the local community college so I could be back home with him. By the summer, we were living together,” I take a breath, squeezing my hands tighter in my lap to ease the anxiety.

  “Things stayed relatively happy while we were in school. Honestly, which was a surprise since we were both working and in school; that’s always an insane time. Once he graduated, he started working and saving money, every so often talking about the next steps, a house, marriage, kids. He said all the right things, at the right times, in just the right way and I was simply too busy to see how perfect everything he said was; how calculated it all ended up being. A week before my final semester, I found out I was pregnant.” I pause here, my hands instinctively going to my stomach, remembering how hard it was to get up and make those 8:00 classes while fighting that first trimester morning sickness.

  “One thing you need to understand is that my sister and I were raised in an incredibly devout religious home. Our parents were very conservative and staunch in their beliefs. When they found out I was pregnant out of wedlock, they had two reactions. The first was to burst into tears and tell me what a horrible sinner I was, and the second was to demand David and I get married immediately to cover my indiscretion as much as possible.”

  “I fought them on it, as I did every time they tried to take control of the major decisions in my life. I knew David wasn’t bad, but when he talked about the future I just glazed over. If I would have taken the time to think I would have realized he wasn’t the right choice but all I could say was that, ‘it just didn’t feel right.’ After a few weeks they wore me down and I relented, letting them guilt me into marrying him. We were set to get married just before Christmas that year, my mother said she always loved winter weddings.”

  The pain of those fights floods my mind. Of yelling matches with my mother about how it wasn’t her business and I can take care of myself. Fights with David who seemed equal parts annoyed about having to plan a wedding and gloating that his plan was coming together. I breathe through my nose, and exhale through my mouth, attempting to settle my nerves and hold back the tears that are threatening to break free.

  “My parents… they, they died two weeks before the wedding. Car accident. I didn’t handle the loss well. We may not have been close, but they were still my parents and the shock of losing them both like that and being stuck with this wedding while trying to keep the baby a secret; it broke me. The stress caused me to miscarry the baby. The doctors said it’s not uncommon with traumatic experiences like that. With the loss of the baby, and losing my parents, all of it combined was too much for me. I was in a terrible place mentally for a long time. David saw what a mess I was and took advantage. He convinced me to still go through with the wedding to satisfy my parents' dying wish, that I owed it to them.”

  “I’ll never forget the feeling I had in that judge’s chambers at the courthouse. I knew. I knew deep in my gut that it was wrong, that I would regret that moment for the rest of my life. I wish I would have listened and ran,” my voice breaks off as I try to choke back a sob. I refuse to break
until I get through all of it. I have never told this story before, not to anyone, and I need to get it out.

  “David was always a little off, and I knew he wasn’t the one, but he had never been bad. A few months after we got married, he started saying he was upset he was ‘stuck with me’ and that caused him to start drinking heavily. When he drank, he went from annoying bastard to raging asshole. With the drinking came the yelling and the fighting. All the damn time. It took a couple years for it to get truly awful, but honestly in all that time I never once thought he would actually hurt me. Words are one thing, but I truly believed he would never take a hand to me.

  “After a few years he started getting upset that I hadn’t gotten pregnant again, that I hadn’t ‘replaced the child I stole from him’… the bastard… he never allowed me to be on any kind of birth control, and always said it was his right as my husband to… ‘avail himself of me…’ and I couldn’t rightfully say no. I was stupid and went along with it, believing that if I just tried enough or did enough that I would fall in love again and it would all be alright. That everything would be good again.

  “As time went on his ranting and raving only got worse, more frequent. It was always still just screaming matches though, or the occasional bout of throwing things against the walls, but he still never raised a hand to me. Until he did. He came home from the bar one night and wanted to ‘claim his God-given husbandly right’ but I tried to wave him off, telling him I was on my period. He lost it and started screaming that I was useless and a waste and what good was I if I couldn’t give him the child I stole from him. I tried… I tried to calm him down, but he was too far gone. He backhanded me across the face. I’ll never forget the feeling of it. The pain exploding in my cheek, the force of it knocking me to the floor in shock. He just stared down at me, part of me still hoped he would see what he had done and would crumble to his knees and say he was sorry, to beg me to forgive him. Stupid, stupid girl. He just stared at me, sitting there on the floor, holding my hand to my cheek as I gawked back up at him. His eyes were so cold. So dead. He just nodded once and then walked away.”

  The memory of that night finally breaks through the careful hold I have been struggling to maintain on my emotions and tears start to slide down my cheeks, but I refuse to move, refuse to let out a sound. I will get through this.

  “It just kept escalating from there. A slap here, a shove there, having to dodge things thrown my way when he was in a particularly bad state. Yet I still never left. I kept rationalizing, kept thinking if I just tried a little harder that he would love me again, if only I would stop disappointing him.

  “A little over a year ago now I found out I was pregnant with Evan. I hoped, I truly hoped, that having a baby would fix things and bring us back together. He kept talking about wanting a son to carry on his name, all he wanted was for me to give him that son. He wasn’t all that excited when I told him honestly, he just got frustrated that I wouldn’t be able to do as much around the house when I was already lacking in that area in his mind. I gave up hope for him and threw everything I had into the pregnancy and the baby. I focused on the baby as a way of distracting me from the rest of the mess going on in my life. It worked for a few weeks, but at about eight weeks along I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a form of severe morning sickness that is downright crippling. I was vomiting twelve to fifteen times a day on a good day, any time I sat up my stomach would revolt. I was losing weight and unable to drink or eat because nothing would stay down. When I went to the doctor to see what they could do to help, David refused to let me take any of the medication I was prescribed and flushed all of it down the toilet saying I was only being dramatic to get his sympathy.” I swear I hear one of the men growl at this, but I can’t look up to see which one. I have to just keep going.

  “That kept on through the whole of my pregnancy, normal morning sickness goes away after the first trimester, but HG hung around until about three weeks before I went into labor. I was so excited to meet my baby, still held onto a flicker of hope that when David saw his son he would change, everything would magically snap into place. Once again, I was so wrong. He played the doting father in front of everyone, but as soon as we were behind closed doors, he was downright ruthless and vicious in his attacks on me. He refused to do anything to help with the baby, and he would start screaming and yelling whenever Evan made any amount of noise. He would go on and on about how horrible of a mother I was and how Evan was a miserable child because I was doing things wrong and I was trying to hurt him.” my voice breaks on a pained sob. “I knew none of what he said was true, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t cut deep.”

  Sawyer reaches over and grabs my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze, letting me know he’s with me. I take another shaking breath and continue, still not able to look up.

  “By the time Evan was three months old, these tantrums were an everyday occurrence. Evan and I would end up locked in the nursery to hide from David and one of his drink induced rages. One night he finally was upset enough that he broke down the door and stormed in. I could smell the booze on him from across the room. I tucked Evan into his crib and turned to face him, keeping myself between David and the crib. I could take whatever he would throw at me, I had been for years at this point and had the scars to prove it, but I’d be damned if he would get to my son. He stood in the doorway and started screaming at me that I was turning his son against him, that I was the reason Evan cried every time he saw David. Naturally, in his mind, I was poisoning his son against him. I didn’t say anything. I had learned long ago that saying anything at all only made it worse, only made his fists land harder. When I stayed quiet, I saw something change behind his eyes. I knew he was going to hurt me, but for the first time I wondered if I would make it out of this one alive. I braced for it as he stumbled toward me, sending up a silent prayer to anything and everything that could be listening that I would last long enough for him to get bored and leave Evan alone. Let him do whatever he wanted to me, just as long as he didn’t hurt my baby,” I break into another shuddering sob.

  Sawyer is squatting in front of me before I realize he’s moved. He reaches up and tags the back of my neck pulling me forward to look at him, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I got you Babydoll. You’re doing so well. So damn good Tessa. You’re almost done, you can do this. I’m right here with you, got it?” he gives me a firm look, waiting for me to respond. Not able to manage words still, I give him a weak nod. “You with me?” he asks, with a gentle squeeze of his hand.

  “I’m with you,” I whisper, meeting his gaze and giving a steadier nod. Sawyer looks at me for a moment longer before giving me a kiss on the forehead and settling back in his chair, his hand still holding mine. I take another shuddering breath before squaring my shoulders and look up at King, meeting his firm, emotionless gaze with my own.

  “David beat me that night, beat me within an inch of my life. I woke up on the floor of our bedroom, not sure how I had gotten there. Thankfully nothing was broken, but I was bruised and bloodied and my ribs killed. I knew, I just knew right then, that I had to go. I was hurt but not incapacitated. Evan was untouched, thank God, but I knew he wouldn’t be as lucky the next time, or the time after that. And there would be a next time; I was sure of that.

  “I went back into our room and found David passed out on the bed, having drunk himself into a stupor. I grabbed anything and everything I could and shoved it all into my car. I took the money he had stashed in his office and everything that I thought could fetch any kind of price. I got Evan packed up in the car and we ran.

  “I drove until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer before I found an out of the way motel to crash at for a few days. I needed to lie low until the bruises went down. I couldn’t afford people asking questions or remembering me. I sold my car and the jewelry while I was there; Took the money and got the junker outside from a small dealer; they just so happened to misplace the paperwork for the sale for a slight premium. The salesm
an also got me in touch with a forger who was able to get new identities for Evan and myself. I was able to get all the documents we would need to get set up, whenever we finally settled down. Tessa and Evan Johnson. Tessa had been my grandmothers’ name, I adored her when I was growing up and it was the first name that came to mind when he asked. After about a week, I moved on and ended up in Denver. We were in Denver for about two and a half months, but I could never shake the feeling that I needed to look over my shoulder and never really felt safe. I worked at a small diner while we stayed at one of those long-term motels, you know the ones that rent by the week. Eventually, I just couldn’t stop feeling that paranoid tingle on the back of my neck.

  “I packed us up and headed out again. I was headed toward the East Coast somewhere; I was thinking maybe Atlanta. Somewhere warm sounded nice, but my car broke down in Iowa. While I was waiting for my car to get fixed, I saw one of those racks with all the travel brochures and the one for Minnesota caught my eye. All the fall colors looked amazing. I flipped through it and saw a page on Duluth and something about it stuck out to me. It’s a big enough city to disappear in, but far enough out of the way most people don’t even know exactly where it is, let alone would go out of their way to come here.”

  “And the rest is history. I came into town in that stupid snowstorm and didn’t want to try finding my way into Duluth proper with all those hills in the dark and snow, so I pulled off and ended up at Clay’s,” I close my eyes and let out a long sigh, sagging back in my chair, relieved it’s done. The story is out and in their hands now.

  I hadn’t known how heavy my past had been weighing on me, but now that it’s out, I feel so much lighter. The weight has been lifted from my chest and I can take my first full breath in months, hell… in a year. I have never told anyone about what was going on with David, never seeing what good it would do. Honestly, I was afraid he would find out I had said something, and it would only get worse for me. Now that everything's out in the open, I can feel the sense of anticipation building; the sense that I’ll be able to move forward.