Chapter Seventeen
Grayson
H er eyes are wide, and tears fall down her pale cheeks as she stares up at me. “It’s okay, I got you. I have you,” I tell her as I gently undo the restraints holding her down and pull her up from the bed so I can slide behind her and hold her. “I have you,” I keep telling her as I kiss her head.
What did they do to you, beautiful girl?
Her skin is pale and she has lost weight. There are bruises and marks all over, and something is on her chest, a white piece of gauze covering it. Talking through my earpiece, I say, “We need Doc. Something is wrong. She’s awake, but she’s hurt and can’t move very much.”
I hear them talking, but I stop listening as I rock her and whisper softly. My eyes land on Ryker, who is completely consumed in his fury as he destroys the man for the piece of garbage he is. I faintly recognize him, but I can’t register who he is.
Noah and Cade come into the room next, and both of them come straight to us. Cade rips his shirt off and helps me get it on her. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
Cade cups her cheeks and presses his forehead against hers. “Oh, baby girl, I’m so sorry. We have you now.”
She blinks at him, but she doesn’t even try to speak. She moves her muscles, but it’s all slow, like it’s taking all her strength just to bend a knee.
Glancing at Noah, who has been staring at her with wide eyes, I ask, “Can you get Ryker?”
He jerks his eyes away and then nods once. “Take her?” I ask Cayden, who immediately scoops her up in his arms.
“Let’s get you the fuck out of here, baby girl.”
Sugar comes into the doorway, and he lets out a harsh breath at the sight of Harley. “Rage?” I ask him, and he pinches his lips together before shaking his head.
“We haven’t found anything.”
“Harley?” Cade questions, and I approach them, glancing at Harley’s tense frame.
“I—“ She clears her throat. “Help me stand,” she says very slowly. Cade reluctantly places her on her feet, keeping her steady when she wobbles.
Instead of saying anything more, she steps forward slowly to walk out of the room. I glance at Ryker and Noah and then back at them.
“Get him calm. Come find us when you’re ready,” Cade says softly.
I nod as Cade starts walking with Harley and Sugar while I check on Noah and Ryker.
Ryker sits on the floor next to the body that isn’t even recognizable anymore. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and his eyes are wide and dark as he stares straight ahead. Telling Noah he can go, I walk up to Ryker and drop down to my knees next to him. Taking his bloody hands in my own, I use my other hand to turn his face towards me.
“Breathe with me.” I inhale, and he joins. We hold it in and then release it, continuing this for several minutes before he finally seems to relax his shoulders.
“We have her. She’s going to be okay,” I say.
“He was—” He chokes on his words, and a heart-wrenching sob breaks free from his chest.
“We all get to heal together now, Ryker. It’s going to be okay. No matter what. It has to be,” I murmur as I hold him against my chest.
As his sobs lessen, he asks, “Did you see his face?”
“I did, but I can’t place where I know him from.”
He lets out a harsh breath. “Mr. B. My piano teacher. The one who helped me throughout high school. The one who Harley knew too.” He sits up and rubs his eyes as he laughs without humor. “How fucked up is our world that someone who is trusted to teach kids, to guide them, is a monster by night?”
Harley
Cade keeps a tight grip on me as I lead them farther into the basement. Even though his grip is bruising, I don’t comment. I relish the way his hands feel on me after craving them for the last month.
My body aches. It takes more energy than I have to keep moving forward. All I want to do is get the hell out of here and sleep for a year, maybe eat my weight in pizza too.
Get somewhere safe and then– Don’t think about falling apart. Keep it together.
As we approach the door at the end of the hallway that leads into a small office, I pause.
“Darlin’?” Colton questions quietly, and I spin around to face him and Cade. Taking a breath, I stare at them as I prepare to tell them exactly what they won’t want to hear.
“Gabe–Dad didn’t…” My words get caught in my throat as I realize I haven’t spoken them out loud. He has been gone for a month, and I have yet to process his death. I’ve done this before. It should be easy. Just spit it out.
But as I look at their faces, at Cade’s stoic frown, Colton’s hopeful, yet sad eyes, I can’t do it. I can’t be strong and tell them what they need to hear. “It’s okay, baby girl. Just show us,” Cade says softly, reading me like an open book.
Colton sucks in a breath and steps backwards away from the door as I turn back around and open it. Once inside, I go to the far wall to another door and open it.
Who installs a giant walk in freezer in their fucking basement? Fucking Killer does, apparently. Going inside first, I find the sheet covered body in the far corner and drop to my knees next to it, placing my hand on his chest without uncovering him.
He isn’t supposed to be in here. He should have been burned in a hole in the ground with any other bodies Killer had to dispose of, but I did things to make this happen, to have hope we would be found and I could lay my dad to rest peacefully.
Things I will never speak of. Things I will never tell the men I love or those closest to me. All they ever need to know is he is here, and we get to take him home with us. Because I was right to keep that tiny bit of hope. My guys found me.
This wasn’t like last time; giving up wasn’t in the cards for me. I fought and forced myself to be strong for this moment, for them.
As I take a breath, I stand back up and let Cade pull me back to the entrance of the freezer and allow Colton to step into the room alone. He approaches slowly, and I watch as his chest rises and falls. It takes him several minutes before he squats down and grabs the edge of the sheet to pull it back.
Not wanting to see this again, I spin around and bury my face in Cade’s chest. He immediately picks me up, and I wrap myself around him, breathing him in as he holds me impossibly tight.
“Fuck. Fuck,” Colton breathes. “You bastard. Fuck. I can’t–” His breathing picks up as he stands and spins away from him.
“Can we go?” I rasp quietly to Cade, needing to get the fuck out of here.
He nods and clears his throat. “Sugar, let’s head upstairs. We can find someone to–” he hesitates, “to get Rage, and we will get the fuck out of here. Let’s not make Harley stay any longer than necessary.”
Colton nods and comes over to us as I lift my head so he can rest his forehead against mine. He wraps his arms around both Cade and me. “Harley, I am so fuckin’ sorry.” His voice cracks.
I shake my head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“Who?” he rasps.
Inhaling sharply, I tell him, “Colton, Killer is still alive. His dad. This is his place. He–” I pinch my lips together, not wanting to go into the details right now.
“What? No–” Colton begins shaking his head rapidly.
“He is. It’s a long story I’ll tell at home. Did you guys find anyone?”
Colton yanks his phone out and makes a call. The second they answer he begins yelling, “Vance, check every single fucking body there. Every single one. Killer is still alive. If he isn’t there, we have another problem.”
“Let’s go find the others, baby girl.” I nod my head, needing to have my guys close. We all head upstairs and find Grayson and Ryker outside with a few others.
Ryker immediately storms towards us, and as Cade sets me down, he wraps his arms around me. Feeling all three of my guys close ranks around me lets all my walls come crashing down. As my knees give out, Ryker lowers me to the ground with the others close behind, and I break.
I don’t remember much after I fell apart in the arms of my men. I allowed them to take over and let myself mourn, feel everything I needed to feel. Which is too much. It all feels like too much, and as we pull up to the club, it hurts even more.
To see everyone standing there, waiting for our arrival, it becomes too much. “I can’t do it.”
“What’s wrong?” Grayson asks from the front seat.
“I can’t see everyone. Please–” I whimper.
“Okay. Hang on,” Ryker says and hops out of the truck. A few minutes later, he scoops me out of the truck, not even giving me the option to walk. Heading inside, he takes me straight up the stairs and into my room in the club. The others follow close behind us.
When he sets me back on my feet, I glance around at the space I became comfortable in and notice how the bed is unmade and the guys have clothes scattered around.
“We slept in here a lot when you were gone,” Ryker says quietly, rubbing the back of his neck. “What do you need right now?”
“I’m just going to shower, and then I want to sleep,” I tell them and disappear into the bathroom before more can be said. I feel like I am crumbling around the edges, and I need to just–I don’t even know, besides get in the shower and scrub myself raw.
Turning the water on as hot as it will go, I strip down and force myself to stare in the mirror. Slowly, I pull the bandage on my chest off and stare at the burnt skin that reads TANK and all the small cuts and bruises scattered across my body.
More scars.
More reminders.
The urge to slam my fist into the mirror takes over, and without a thought, I raise my hand. But before I can do it, a hand wraps around my closed fist, and Ryker yanks me back from the mirror so he can step in front of me. His eyes scan me from head to toe, and I see the moment he notices the brand on my chest. His eyes darken, and he tenses before meeting my eyes again.
“Don’t. If you need to hurt something, it won’t be yourself. You can hurt me, but not yourself, not even your reflection. There is nothing wrong or broken about you, and you aren’t going through this alone, Harley.”
I try to blink the tears away and pull away from him. “I need a shower,” I mumble. Stepping under the burning water, I bask in the way it feels as I begin to scrub my skin. Tears roll down my cheeks the longer I scrub, realizing that cleaning myself isn’t going to make me feel clean. There is no feeling clean after everything that has happened.
Ryker is wrong. I am broken.
“Let me, beautiful,” Grayson murmurs in my ear as his front presses against my back. He takes the washcloth from me and gently cleans me. Once he is done, he takes the shampoo and guides me as he washes my hair while I silently cry.
I don’t want to cry. I’m tired of feeling so much all the time.
As he finishes, he turns me towards him and wraps his arms around me. I immediately cling to him and bury my face in his chest. “We have you.”
When I step out of the shower, Cade is waiting there with a towel he wraps around me and guides me to stand in front of the mirror again. Wiping away the fog, he steps behind me and kisses each shoulder before meeting my eyes through the mirror.
“We have you.”
Once I’m dry, he guides me back into my bedroom, and Ryker helps me into one of his shirts. Grayson gets in the bed with me while the others disappear and come back a few minutes later freshly showered.
Ryker lays between my legs with his head on my stomach while Grayson and Cade are on either side of me. “Sleep, Harley. Nothing else needs to be worried about right now. Just rest,” Ry says, and I let my eyes fall shut, truly sleeping for the first time in over a month. No matter how hard I seem to fight it, Grayson, Cayden, and Ryker have me.
Blade (Noah)
“We can’t let this stand,” Axe growls, turning his pain into anger as we all process the death of our president.
“We won’t. This ends now. We will find Killer and his second hand, Tank. We will destroy them and make sure any connections they had around here are gone. We will bring down the Wilsons once and for all. Harley will get her revenge. This is our town, and we need to make it known again,” Sugar seethes.
That fucking cunt. She destroyed my nightclub. Tammy and her piece of shit husband burned it to the ground, and they didn’t even try to hide it was them. And now they are back in town at their house, as if nothing is wrong. This isn’t the end. They are after something, and we won’t stand for it. I won’t stand for them killing multiple of my employees. People who did nothing wrong. People who were just trying to live their lives and take care of their families. They took my baby from me. I turned that nightclub into what it was. I worked my ass off to make it something I could be fucking proud of, and now, I have to start all fucking over again.
“And a funeral?” Axe asks.
“We have three days. Vance and his guys got Rage for us so we wouldn’t have to–” Sugar drops his eyes to the ground before clearing his throat. “But the funeral home he was taken to said we need to get a move on with it.” He leaves out the part about how his face was so badly beaten, you could hardly recognize him. and none of us would have handled moving his frozen lifeless body well.
“I’ll get on it. We need a last ride and then a celebration,” Axe tells him.
Sugar is being forced to step up and take his position as our President now, but he is reluctant—not that I blame him. He has large shoes to fill. Stone has been silently standing in the corner, watching everything, Axe is turning his pain into anger and determination to take care of everything, and Nerds…he hasn’t spoken a word, not even to Oakley who is back and struggling to put herself back together and stay sober.
And I don’t know how to handle this. Rage is–was–my father. He was more of a father than my piece of shit one. He helped me raise three teenagers and never once got upset when I wasn’t the best with them, that he had to take on a lot to keep them in line because I was just a kid myself.
Rage saved me, just like he did most of us in this room. There will always be something missing now, and all I want to do is beat the shit out of the people who took him from us until the feeling in my chest goes away.
“Thank you. We saved a total of thirty victims. It was a much larger number than the warehouse, so we got most of ‘em to a hospital. A few refused to go and went off on their own. Sebastian is helpin’ to find places for some of them to go. As for Tabby– I checked in with Vance, and he was able to get ahold of her brother, Robert. He is coming to help because she won’t speak to us and is terrified of Vance and his men,” Sugar explains.
I didn’t fucking like the little brat, but fuck, being sold off by your own fucking parents is a new low. I hope her brother plans to step up and help her. She may be a shit, but she was raised by literal psychopaths, so we will be checking in if she stays with her brother to make sure everything is good. Maybe she’ll get a chance to turn shit around after everything.
They keep talking about Harley and other shit we are going to have to deal with, but as I twist a blade between my fingers, I let my mind wander. Our club has been flipped upside down.
I don’t know what the future is going to hold, but I do know holding back no longer exists for me. I fucking loved Rage, but maybe we did get to soft. Maybe we need to harden our shells a bit more.
Who says you can’t do right in the world while also showing no mercy?