Chapter Twenty-Four
Aspen
As soon as the door closed behind Banshee, I stood from my perch on the couch and looked at Diana. “I can’t stay here. I can’t see them. Not yet.”
“Aspen, wait!”
I shook my head and left the room quickly, Diesel nipping at my heels. I ran up the stairs to the room I now shared with Banshee.
They were here. There was no question Zeus was here. And my father. Was my mother here too? Uncle Issac?
I wondered who they would bring. Hades would have stayed behind. He and my brother rarely left the compound together. Atlas? Erebus?
Oh God, if Erebus came with them and Banshee learned I’d slept with him... my father would surely find out.
I paced the room as Diesel whined from the end of the bed. He was begging me to sit so he could calm me down. But I didn’t think even he had the power to soften my anxiety.
What would happen when they found out I was here?
I stopped and looked at the door. Maybe they didn’t have to. If I waited until they were all inside, I could sneak out. Ask the prospect outside to take me back to the ranch.
They’d found the person responsible for Grayson’s accident. It had nothing to do with me or the war the Death Dogs had declared.
Everything I’d done. The secrets I’d kept, the lies I’d told—all to protect my family and the Silver Shadows. It was all for nothing. We were at war anyway; despite everything I’d done to prevent it.
And it wasn’t even about me. Everything I’d done was for nothing.
A soft knock on the door pulled me back to the current situation. I didn’t dare answer it. Not without knowing who it was.
“Aspen, it’s me, Brandy. Banshee sent me.”
I closed my eyes. Of all the people he could have sent, he sent her. I slowly made my way to the door and unlocked it. Opening it carefully, I looked behind her down the hallway.
“I’m alone. He asked me to sit with you until he could come up.”
I hesitated, but only for a second before opening the door wider and letting her in. I walked to the bed and sat; Diesel whined as he crawled closer.
Brandy closed the door and locked it behind her. And I wondered if she truly understood what I was feeling. She sat on the other side of my dog and quietly said, “I won’t pretend to understand what you are feeling right now, but I’m a good listener.”
I snorted my disbelief. She was the last person I wanted to talk to. She was too close to Banshee. Too friendly. When I didn’t speak, she decided she would.
“Most people think I must have come from a troubled home. Maybe had a mother with addiction problems, an absent father, or worse, an abusive one. But I come from a regular middle-class family in Connecticut.”
I glanced at her through the corner of my eye.
“My mom was a housewife; Dad worked a blue-collar job. I have two brothers and a sister. Three nephews and two nieces. The all-American family.”
I wasn’t sure what point she was trying to make. As much as I wanted to, I wouldn’t ask her any questions.
“I just like sex.” She shrugged. “I came out here to go to college. And ended up at a party. When King made the offer that they were looking for girls to help around the club and keep the brothers company, I thought, Why not?” She blew out a harsh breath.
“I’m not here to piss people off. And I don’t shit where I eat. When a brother is taken, I don’t go near them again.” She turned to look at me. “I’ve never slept with Banshee.”
What? I could feel my brow scrunch at her statement, and she chuckled at my confusion.
“Banshee is almost my dad’s age. I don’t have daddy issues.”
I dropped my eyes to the floor. I was beginning to think maybe I did have daddy issues. Maybe the lack of a father’s love had done more damage than I realized. Except, I’d fallen in love with Banshee long before my father betrayed me.
“Shit, I didn’t mean that the way it came out.” She buried her face in her hands, then looked up again. “I’m a few years younger than you. Banshee is almost twenty years older than I am. I like talking to him. He reminds me of my dad, and I miss my family.”
“Why haven’t you gone home?”
“I hated it there. There are so many people, and believe it or not, the town I lived in had probably seven times more people than Diamond Creek, yet I felt like I couldn’t do anything without someone watching and telling my parents.
I still talk to them, but they don’t know what I do out here.
They think I’m a housekeeper. Which, in a way, I am.
” She shrugged again, and I was starting to see how much I had misjudged her.
“I’m not sure I can forgive my father.”
There, I’d said it out loud.
“What did he do?”
“Basically, sold me off to a man who hated me.”
“Wow,” she whispered. “I mean, I’ve heard whispers about Kronos, and what an asshole he is.
But the way people talk about him and your mom.
And the things I’ve heard about how he went crazy in New York looking for your sister, I thought it was just disgruntled bikers who pissed him off and got a beatdown. ”
“Yeah, well, that’s part of it. And he does love my mom. He’d die for her; kill for her.” He had killed for her. And Diana. But not me.
Me, he’d given away and forgotten about.
“But you don’t think he’d do the same for you?”
I shook my head. I knew he wouldn’t. He’d had the chance to, and he left me to fend for myself.
“They don’t know you’re here, do they?”
I shook my head again. “I don’t think so. I don’t know what Diana told them when she called.”
“Well, I’ll hang out up here with you while they beat the shit out of each other downstairs. One of the guys that came with them looks like he could hold his own.”
I huffed out a laugh. They could all hold their own. Every member of the Gods of Mayhem knew how to fight. They knew how to shoot, and they knew how to win. By any means necessary.
“You only saw one?”
“Your mom—at least I think it was your mom—came in first with one guy behind her. Big guy, tall. Dark hair. Tattoos covered every inch of skin I could see up to his neck.
“Poseidon,” I said.
“Are they all named after gods?”
I nodded. “They’re road names. My sister and I are named after goddesses, but not my brother. His name is Kane. I guess my parents figured he’d end up with a road name, so they gave him a regular name.”
“Wait, Aspen is the name of a god? I don’t think I’ve heard of that one.”
I smiled at her. I had definitely judged Brandy unfairly. “Aspen isn’t my birth name. That was Irene.”
“Irene?”
“The goddess of peace.”
“I like Aspen better,” she said as she bumped her shoulder against mine.
“Me too.”
“So, who was Diana?” Brandy asked.
“The goddess of the hunt.”
“Wow. I noticed the tattoo on her arm, but I guess I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Asclepius.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
I liked Brandy. She had a way of making me laugh without even trying. “The God of medicine. It’s my uncle’s road name. He’s a doctor.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes before Brandy asked me a question I had never considered.
“Will you go back home once your family knows you’re here?”
“No. I don’t know that I could ever go back home again. At least not to live. Maybe to visit one day.”
“What about your sister?”
“I don’t know.”
I wondered what Diana would do. Her husband was a doctor in New York. A member of a club in New York, but her children were here. Mimic was a member of the Silver Shadows, and Kytten was the VP’s old lady. I knew neither of them would leave.
Diana would have to make a choice: Stay and risk losing her husband or leave and never have a relationship with the children she lost.
Sure, children moved away when they grew up. But that was after twenty years of living with their parents. Losing ten years with them and then leaving them again would be a hard choice to make.
I wondered if Bane loved my sister enough to give up his life in New York. Would he give up everything he’d built over the last twenty years and live in a little map-dot town?
Did he love her enough to give up everything for her?
Then again, Mimic and Kytten were his kids too. He’d never had a chance to know them at all. Would he be the kind of dad who would burn the world down to keep his kids safe?
According to Diana, he never gave up looking for her. Never moved on. Maybe he was that kind of man. Maybe Diana found a love like my parents had.
“You sure you don’t want to go down there and give your family hell?”
“What?”
“Maybe what you need is to blindside them. Catch them unaware so they don’t have a chance to make up lame excuses for what they did. Take back your control.”
Take back my control? I’d never had any control. I’d never had any say in my own life. My own choices.
Except Banshee.
Him I chose.
Maybe Brandy was right. Maybe I should march downstairs into church and tell my father to fuck off. That would get his attention. Oh, how I wanted to walk up to him and smack him in the face. Hurt him the way I was hurt.
“That’s not who I am.”
“No, that’s not who you were.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her, confusion marring my brow.
“Well, you were Irene, the goddess of peace. Now you’re Aspen, the shaking tree. Shake that fucking family tree, babe, and make them listen to you.”
Was Brandy right? Could I stand up for myself and face my father and everything he was responsible for? Could I stop worrying about keeping the peace and shake things up?
I looked down at the dog lying across my lap. He lifted an eyebrow as if he was asking me, ‘Are we doing this?’ He had given me strength to overcome so many fears since moving into the clubhouse.
Banshee had done the rest.
There was no question that Banshee would back me up. With them both by my side, what did I have to lose?
I tapped Diesel on the back. “Down, boy.” He jumped to the floor and sat watching me. Waiting to see what I would do. I took three deep breaths before I finally stood.
“You’re right, Brandy. It’s time I took control of my life.”
“Damn right, girl!”
I marched to the door, flipped the lock, and yanked it open. Stepping out into the hallway, I hesitated only a second before walking down the stairs.
Diesel was at my side, and I could hear Brandy’s footsteps behind me. The sound of her shoes on the floor gave me a strength that surprised me. Hearing her words of encouragement bolstered me. Empowered me to continue down the stairs out into the main room.
I looked around the room for any of my father’s men, realizing they were all probably in church. I stepped in front of the doors and paused.
Sam stepped beside me.
“You can do this. Banshee is just on the other side.”
I smiled at her. She always seemed to know more than she let on. She truly was the mother everyone here needed. With one more deep inhale, I shoved the doors open and stepped inside.