Chapter 19
Ami
When I arrived at Gage’s house, out of breath like I’d just run a marathon, my heart glued to my throat, he isn’t home.
I shouldn’t have waited.
I convinced myself that he wouldn’t do anything overnight.
That he’d need a few days to plot his revenge or even find the man whose name I buried beneath the layers of shame and self-degradation a long time ago.
Instead of driving to his house in the middle of the night, exhausted, with bleary eyes, endangering myself and everyone else on the road, I waited until morning.
I called him at five.
He didn’t pick up.
I called him again at five twenty, then at five thirty, at six, at six thirty, and at seven.
I assumed he was sleeping after a long, hard night.
I should have known better.
Gage isn’t the kind of man who can sleep after what he’d learned. He’s not the kind of man who tucks in for the night and sleeps soundly after finding out that his wife was raped. After seeing the word inked into my flesh, a brand of a sadistic man that Gage couldn’t save me from.
He’ll blame himself, even if it was irrational. I know he did. I know he does. I saw the rage in him, the unholy demons that demand vengeance.
I thought that if I got there in the morning, I could stop him. That I could plead with him, beg him, get him to see reason. I’d even be willing to offer to burn those stupid papers if it meant that he wouldn’t find the man I never wanted to see again and end his life.
Because Gage is a member of The Riders. They don’t mess around.
I thought I could get to him before he rallied his brothers to his side and declared an unholy war.
I was wrong.
I didn’t think he could possibly pull it off in a couple hours.
So either he’s out getting breakfast or going for a morning jog, or he’s gone.
I let my fist fall to my side and I turn slowly.
As I stare out at the rain sluicing off the roof, gathering on the sidewalk and pelting the sidewalk and the street beyond, puddles forming along the edges of the pavement, my legs slowly give way.
I can’t hold myself upright. I can barely swallow back the bile at the back of my throat.
My back scrapes against the abrasive wood of the door as I collapse onto the hard porch.
There isn’t so much as a doormat and my ass hits hard.
I stare stupidly at the street, unblinking.
My head feels like a ball of sludge, my brain overheating as it tries to slog through the muck to find a solution.
It doesn’t help that all I can do is berate the hell out of myself for being too stupid not to have driven to Helena during the night.
Emotional wreck or not. I might be willing to gamble with my life, but I couldn’t take a chance on anyone else’s.
The rain mixed with the terrible state I was in after Gage left would have turned into a disaster.
I should have called.
Like that would have done anything. He wouldn’t have answered.
I did call.
By then it was too late. He still didn’t answer.
I want to go back. I want to go back to the apartment and stop him from leaving.
Beg him to stay. I want to take back my last words.
Tell him he was wrong and that I was ready.
Beg him to stay. Ask him to wrap me up in his arms and beg him not to leave.
Make him promise that he wouldn’t do anything stupid and rash.
I pound the deck boards in frustration, but all I get is sore knuckles for my trouble. How the hell did Gage find him so fast?
It occurs to me that since it’s only nine in the morning, he could be at work.
He could be at the clubhouse. He could be anyfuckingwhere.
Maybe I’m seriously overreacting. His phone could have died.
He could have been busy. He has a life. A life that doesn’t involve me because I didn’t exactly give him a choice in the matter.
Despite what we did last night, he doesn’t have to answer to me.
I’m not his mother or his keeper and I’ve been a shit wife.
Maybe he just didn’t feel like answering the phone and having an emotional conversation.
Maybe he thought I was calling to ask him about those fucking papers.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I don’t fucking know a goddamn thing and that’s the worst part about all of it.
I slowly shove myself to my feet. My legs feel watery, like the pavement and the grass and the sidewalk and the rest of the fucking world out there. It’s a deluge. It doesn’t rain that often in Florida, at least not like this, but today it seems to be making up for years of lost time.
I try and give myself a pep-talk. Try and get myself going, propel myself in the direction of the car.
There are other places I can check. Helena isn’t a big city.
I know where the clubhouse is. I can ask his brothers if they’ve seen him.
I can call my sisters. Get them to ask their men if they know where he’s gone.
It’s pouring out. Surely, he couldn’t have ridden off in this.
He couldn’t have found him in a few hours… I’m overreacting.
My brain whirls in circles, furious, working overtime, so that my head aches. It feels like it’s going to split down the middle, and I grab at it ineffectually, my fingers like claws.
Clubhouse. I’ll check the clubhouse and I’ll go from there.
As I step out into the rain, my jeans, t-shirt, and hair pretty much already plastered to my body from running the short distance from my car to the house the first time, I make a determined effort to shut off the bullshit train wreck of thought and just focus.
That effort goes completely to shit after two hours of searching for Gage and coming up empty.
***
The clubhouse was locked up, the chain link surrounding it cold and unwelcoming and formidable.
There were a few bikes parked inside, but no life stirring on the outside and I couldn’t bust through the gates or scale the fence with the barbed wire at the top.
I wait in my car for an hour, but no one came or went.
I guess if anyone is there, then they’re recovering from last night’s partying.
I pull out my phone while my stomach sloshes sickeningly and try every single number I know, even Steel.
No one answers.
Stephanie doesn’t answer.
The only person who answers is Leena. I don’t want her to panic, so I try to stay calm.
I tell her I’m looking for Gage and that it’s urgent, but I won’t tell her why, not even when she presses.
Eventually, she gives up and tells me that Wraith isn’t currently at home.
She hangs up after she promises me she’ll try calling him and get back to me.
Half an hour passes and she calls back, just to say that Wraith isn’t answering his phone either, but that’s pretty common, as he’s in Jacksonville dealing with club business and doesn’t often have time to check his phone for long periods during the day.
She gives me a few other numbers to try and asks me if I’m okay.
I assure her that I am, even while I’m falling apart in my car, a few minutes away from putting my fist through the windshield in worry and frustration.
I try every single number she gave me, my hands shaking violently. No one answers.
Since I don’t want Leena or Steph to see me having a meltdown, I lock myself in my car and sink down low in the driver’s seat. I stay that way for a long time, chewing my bottom lip to shreds, until the metallic taste of blood floods my mouth.
I don’t know how many hours pass or how many times I put my phone to my ear and dial every single number over again.
No one picks up.
Finally, near one in the afternoon, I drive myself to a gas station so that I can use their washroom to splash water on my puffy, ashen face, and empty my bladder.
I nearly empty my stomach too, but the thought of puking in a public washroom makes me force down a few deep breaths and I manage not to upchuck what is likely just stomach acid, since I haven’t eaten in almost a day.
After that, lost inside myself and my own personal version of hell, I manage to somehow navigate back to Gage’s house.
I can’t bear to stay in my car anymore, since it’s absolutely suffocating.
The rain still pours on unmercifully and I get soaked again on the way to the porch.
It doesn’t matter. I can’t feel anything but the terrible regret, horror, and sadness that make breathing nearly impossible.
I tuck myself against the front door, since Gage’s bike isn’t in the drive and the house is still dark. I’d slept zero hours the night before, and somehow even in the state I’m in, my eyes close.
I don’t even realize that I’ve fallen asleep until I come to with a start, my heart jumping up into my throat, to find Gage standing in front of me.
He’s even larger when I’m on my ass on his porch staring up at him.
His size is so imposing that I suck in a quick breath, even though I know he would never hurt me.
His hair is soaked and plastered to his skull, water sluicing off his face and dribbling from his clothing in wet, splashy droplets all over the porch.
He blinks, surprised to find me there, looking like a disheveled, drowned rat myself.
I scramble to my feet and grip his freezing cold hands in mine.
Not that my palms are much better. I’m soaked through as well, my skin damp and clammy.
My hair hangs in stringy, half dried ribbons down my back and probably has six inches of frizz on the top.
I don’t know why I bothered to put on makeup before I left, since it’s probably a mess now.
I don’t care. I don’t care that I’m a mess. For the first time in my entire life, or at least as long as I can remember, I care about someone other than me.
Gage studies me, his face hard and closed off, giving nothing away. I curl my fingers into his palms, so that my nails bite into his callouses.
“Gage,” I breathe. “Where were you?”
His jaw clenches and I have my answer.