Chapter Twenty-Nine
Garrett
I lay Calli on the bed and watch in concern. She didn’t go out for more than a minute, but she’s disorientated enough I can slip out into the hall where Phoenix is waiting.
Fuck, this is a disaster. I still have no clue what happened. How Nero ended up in Calli’s apartment. Or how she got injured. My anger is simmering below the surface. I want to go after Nero and Dutton. Calli needs me more.
This isn’t how I wanted her to find out about the real me.
Hell, if I’d had my way, she never would have got to know anything about me at all. She doesn’t deserve to have this shit brought to her door. She’s been through too much. Having my crap piled on is only going to make things worse.
“She okay?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“You should have told me about Dutton.”
I guess Nero filled him in while I tended to Calli’s head. “Not now.”
Phoenix looks at the door and back at me. “This is why you disappeared?” I glare at him. “I know what you want to do, but this is the shit Nero deals with. You’re not like them .”
No. He doesn’t get it. It isn’t that I want to do it. I need to. I need to look that fucker in the face before Nero finishes whatever his business is with him.
Based on this shit show, that likely means death.
I should be glad he’s doing it. It means I don’t have to. How do I live with not facing the fucker, finding out why? What did Gwen do to deserve what she got?
A sound from the bedroom brings me back to reality. Gwen is gone. I might not have made my peace with it, or this entire fucking situation. Calli is still here, and she needs me.
And fuck, realization is a fucking bitch when it wants to be. I can’t leave her. I won’t.
“Nero knows what he’s doing.”
He’ll ask the questions on my behalf. “Where’s Caleb?” I mutter quietly.
“They took him too.”
“You should get out of here, in case someone called the cops.”
“They may come knocking here if they do.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“You sure? Okay fine,” he relents at my expression. “I hope she’s okay. It could have been worse,” he adds with a concerned look. Then he shakes his head and gives me a contemplative stare. “She’s good for you. We’ve all noticed. Don’t fuck it up.”
“Might be too late for that,” I grumble.
Phoenix leaves. I stand still a moment, trying to gather my shit. Calli will have a lot of questions. Ones I can’t hide from anymore. And I don’t want to. Not from her. I don’t know how she will react. Or if she’s going to tell me to get the hell away from her.
I wouldn’t blame her if she did. Fucking typical right? The first time I feel anything for a woman, and all the worst parts of me and my past might ruin everything.
Inside her room, Calli is sitting up with her knees drawn to her chest, and her arms wrapped around her legs. There is no way she didn’t hear Phoenix and I talking.
She doesn’t tell me to go away or yell at me to get out, so I step into her bedroom. A room I’ve spent nights with her wrapped around me. Where I’ve slept next to her.
It hits me like I’ve run into a brick wall. What I’ve been running from, or pretending isn’t happening. Hiding behind fucking her and convincing myself I only want to help her regain her equilibrium about her talent.
Am I so far gone I can’t see what’s in front of my face? It takes something like this for me to realize if I lose her, it’s going to fuck me up.
“What do I say if the police do come?”
“The truth.”
“That won’t hurt your friends?”
“They’re not my friends.”
“Right, they’re friends with Ghost .”
Shit. I lean back against the dresser and hang my head for a moment.
“You don’t have to tell me anything.”
Yeah, that sounds a lot like I do, given the tone of her voice.
“I want to tell you, but I’m worried. You fainted.”
“I’m fine.” Her chin lifts. We both know she isn’t fine, but that determined look on her face says she wants answers before anything else.
“At least let me get you some painkillers.”
After a moment, she nods. I deal with that, bringing in her water and watch as she takes them. After setting the glass down she looks up at me again, waiting.
“It’s something I fell into when I got out of the army,” I start. “I didn’t have anyone when I got home. I took up the apprentice job at Blackhawk and kept to myself. I didn’t know Brick was in the MC. Getting caught up in that happened slowly, but I was mad. About a lot of things. And they gave me something I needed.”
“Family?” her voice startles me a little. I wasn’t expecting that question. Calli knows I’ve been on my own since Gwen died.
“Kind of.” I think of how to say the next words, if I’m telling her, I’m telling her it all, no holds barred. “They needed someone to do work that wouldn’t fall back on them. It was an outlet for me too. I’m not proud. One thing I never did was fully join up. I have a road name but I’m not a member.”
“I don’t know what any of that means,” she says.
“I can explain if you want me to but the gist of it is, we have a mutual agreement where Nero asks me to help and I get paid for it.”
“Like a hired thug?” her eyes widen.
“No,” I push off the dresser. Fuck, I have to tell her the truth. “At first, sometimes I was there when things got rough, but I stopped doing that when Nero realized what else I’m good at.”
“So you hurt people?”
“Sometimes,” I tell her.
“I don’t know how to handle that, Garrett.”
“I’m not going to gloss over it. It’s part of who I am. It didn’t last long, but it happened. I’m not proud of it. I used my grief and frustration and anger at the world. After a while things changed. That stuff didn’t sit right with me, and I fought with Nero to get out of it. When he learned there were other uses for me, he agreed.”
Calli lowers her legs and sits up higher against the headboard. She’s waiting for me to go on.
I explain about my skill set, and without going into detail, some of the things I’ve done. Calli is smart, and she puts things together.
“I thought you were a delivery guy. It didn’t make sense when I found out you owned the tattoo parlor. You were here spying on Caleb, weren’t you?”
I nod, my jaw tight.
“And all the times you came here, when you saw him. Telling me to stay away was because you knew he was into something bad?”
“Not him. He was just a way to find the other guy. He was who Nero wanted.”
“The one who…”
“Yeah.”
Calli’s face screws up in thought. She lifts her face toward the window, the sunlight making her eyes squint for a moment.
“What will they do with him?”
When I don’t answer, she looks over at me, waiting. She will not let me get away with keeping anything from her.
“He won’t go on trial for Gwen.”
“They’re dangerous, aren’t they? Like really dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“And you work for them.”
“Yes.”
Calli touches her lower lip and plays with it. I wait in silence. I want to tell her only one other person knows this much about me, that I trust her enough to give her all my truth. She has to decide for herself. But I can’t walk away without her knowing one important thing.
Her head lifts as I walk around the bed. She watches me crouch down and rest my hand on the comforter beside her thigh. There is no flinching, or movement to get away from me, so I take that as a good sign. Or as good as I’m going to get.
“Five days ago, Nero told me he knew who killed my sister. All I wanted to do was find him, to know why he killed Gwen.”
Calli swallows.
“He told me I couldn’t. He said to give him five days, then he’d let me.” It is implied what that means. “He would never let me, Calli. Nero’s not a good guy. He’s hard and mean when he needs to be. He does things he should be put in prison for. But when I asked to be kept outside the club, he agreed. Finding out what happened to my sister has plagued me for years.”
My voice cracks. Calli goes to reach for my hand but stops herself. My head drops a little. We both stare at the space between our hands.
“I can’t change my past, Calli.”
“I know,” she croaks out.
I’m suddenly reminded of the torn drawing. Of the offer for her to go back to San Antonio. There is a choice to be made. One for her, and one for me. If I tell her what mine is, will it affect hers?
I’m out of my comfort zone, if I don’t try right now, I’ll regret it.
“Last time I saw him, I told him I want out. I want to live my own life free of the club. Not be owned by anyone.”
It’s wishful thinking. Nero isn’t stupid. What he gets from me, he wouldn’t get elsewhere. At least not the same caliber.
“I want a normal life. For the first time since…” I pause. I don’t want to use Gwen in this moment.
“What does normal mean to you?” she whispers.
Now or never.
“Not looking over my shoulder. Not waiting to get a phone call to say I’m needed on some job. Having to leave the shop to go work for him. Not being a grumpy as fuck asshole all the time.”
I’d hoped to get some kind of response to that, but her expression never changes. Lowering myself on to my knees, I sit up taller so I’m at eye level with her.
“You.”
Calli swallows. “Me, what?”
“When I went to that meeting with Nero, before I knew about the man I’ve been searching for years for, I was going to talk about you.” Her brow creases in confusion. “Protecting you, Calli. It’s what I’ve been trying to do from the moment we met. Why do you think I kept pushing you away, or saying stupid shit to piss you off?”
“If they were attempts to get me to stay away, they were pretty lame.”
My lip twitches but I don’t give a full-blown smile. Doesn’t seem like the right moment.
“That’s just it. They were, and it wasn’t only you. I couldn’t stay away either.”
That hangs between us.
“I’m not the kind of man who uses pretty words Calli. Or tell you what you want to hear to make things better,” I move closer so my hips press into the mattress. “After all this, anyone in their right mind would tell you to walk away. So, call me fucking crazy, because I’m not in my right mind.
“I don’t want to walk away. All I want to do right now, is put you on the back of my bike and take you away from this. To make you mine. You feel like you’re mine, Vixen. There is no denying how I’ve changed, what you’ve done to me over the last few weeks.”
“Meaning?”
God, she is making me work for this. I would expect nothing less if I’m being truthful. It’s one of the things I love about her.
“You broke through the wall I’ve put around myself. You made me feel things I’ve not felt in years. I’ve shared stuff I haven’t been able to open up about. You never judged me. You never ran from me. It pissed me off how you challenged me. Drove me fucking insane. Turns out that is the way to make me trust you.”
“How do I trust you? You lied to me, about so many things.”
“I tried not to draw you in, but you got under my skin. When I called before, when I heard him getting in here, I almost lost my mind. If anyone ever hurt you…”
“You hurt me.” Her eyes are sad when she lifts her head to me. “I don’t know how I feel anymore, Garrett.”
My gut churns. I’m still me, under all this emotion and revelation. I’m not a man to give up on what I want. I reach up and cup her jaw, spearing my fingers in the back of her silken hair, careful to avoid the cut. Her back arches. From the look on her face, against her will. It gives me confidence to know she isn’t immune to me, or my asshole ways.
I’m mindful of what she’s been through. The shit her ex did to her. Handling people with kid gloves isn’t my forte.
How do I get across to her I understand all of that, but I’ll be fucked if I let her go without a fight?
As has been my way for too fucking long, I choose to go with what I know. I don’t use words.
Her lips part in shock when I press mine to hers. It gives me the opportunity to roll my tongue between them, to find hers and touch them together. Calli gasps and her hands come up.
We’ve done this dance before. She wants to push me away. Her grip tightens and twists my T-shirt and I surge further toward her. Somehow maneuvering her so her legs are hanging over the mattress on either side of my hips, without breaking the kiss.
I pour everything into that kiss. All the words I’ve never been able to say. Everything I feel for her, and I hope she understands how sorry I am. I never apologize for who I am, but with her, I’d get on my knees and beg, offer her anything to make her stay.
As expected, she comes to her senses and leans back. Her lips are wet, parted and swollen from the kiss. Her chest heaving as she pants. She’s angry, confused but her eyes betray the other things she’s feeling.
She’s never looked more beautiful, more deserving of the name I gave her all those weeks ago.
Calli bites her lower lip between her teeth. It’s a lot for her to take in.
“That’s how I feel,” I tell her. “And that is only part of it.”
I draw back and get to my feet. Her head tips so she can still see my face. What I want right now isn’t important. She had a scare, a bad one, and needs something more than me right now.
“Call Sin, go stay with her tonight, don’t be alone here.”
“You’re leaving?”
“It’s the last thing I want, believe me. You need time to process. I can give you that,” I step back again, but I take her hand and pull her up. “Call her, get packed up and I’ll take you over there.”
“My phone broke.”
I let her use my phone to call her friend. Calli barely gives her much, but Sin agrees. I kick the broken glass out of the way and look back at the drawing on the table.
We still need to discuss that. It’s one more thing that can take her away. I turn my back on the drawing and open the door, moving so that she doesn’t have to see Caleb’s apartment. The hallway is quiet. The Disciples have left.
Calli gets on the bike without argument and gives me Sin’s address. She clings on like she always has and I convince myself it’s because she wants to hold me, not for safety reasons.
Sin lives near the shop. It’s good to know she won’t be far away. Her friend comes out of the house when the bike pulls up. She looks worried. Calli climbs off and stands to the side.
“We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Calli arches a brow. “You were the one who said I need time to think.”
“I didn’t say indefinitely.”
“Jesus, you’re so arrogant.”
“Would you want me any other way?”
“Who says I want you at all?”
After tonight, who knows. But I’m not driving away letting her think it will be easy. I grab her hip and pull her into me. Her own fault for not stepping further away. Her body shivers when I press my lips close to her ear.
“I’m going to make shit right with Nero. Then I’m going to make them right with you. I will not stop trying, Vixen. Fight it all you want, I don’t think you want to stop either.”
Her lips part, then close. I kiss her one last time, then ride away. I’ve poured my heart out to her in the only way I know how. If I have to do more in the next few days, I will.
Calli isn’t getting away. She’s mine.