Fifty-Three
I hated having to remember anything about him. I hated having to let myself focus on anything outside of this room, and on anyone besides Has. I’d nearly lost him, because even though I’d been taken away from him, he’d been attacked, and I didn’t doubt that the bastard meant to kill him.
He looked so different without his dreads. He looked younger, more vulnerable, more troubled and damaged than he’d ever looked before. Had I ever noticed the small scar up by his hairline before? No, because it was hidden. I wondered how it had happened, and whether it was from something fun, like him playing as a kid and getting into some kind of mishap, or whether it was from something he’d rather forget. It was the only reason I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want to send him back to a bad memory.
“Babe?” Has squeezed my hands, and I realised I’d fallen silent on him. Damn. I forced myself to try and picture the monster who’d taken me.
“He was big. Uh… muscular, but he’d covered up well. He wore a black motorcycle helmet, and gloves, and long sleeves. He was careful to hide anything that might identify him. I couldn’t see any ink or… oh god …”
My heart stuttered in my chest as I realised I had seen ink. I’d seen very distinctive ink, hadn’t I? Somewhere really personal and gross and… and I didn’t want to picture it, or remember it. I didn’t want to force my mind to focus on it, or see it again.
“Elise? What… you remembered something? Will it help us?”
I swallowed hard against the rising bile as memories assaulted me. Being trapped with that bastard, and the way he stroked his dick and groaned with pleasure, jerking off over my face, and coating my skin, and my hair, with his cum.
I gagged and lurched out of the bed, running to the bathroom, and barely making it before I lost everything I’d managed to put in my stomach.
“Babe, Jesus.” I flinched as I felt a hand rest on my shoulder, before I remembered that it was the only hand I wanted touching me. I hated that he pulled away the moment I did that.
“Sorry.”
Has crouched beside me, making sure I could see him in my peripheral vision.
“What can I do, babe? Tell me. Give me something I can fucking do, because I’m losing my shit here.”
I shuddered as another wave of nausea hit me, but I wasn’t sick this time.
“Water. Can you get me water please?”
He moved, and by the time he returned, I was breathing a little easier, because the nausea was fading. I gargled and spat out some water before I sipped a few mouthfuls, while Has kept reaching out, like he wanted to steady my trembling hand before I ended up wearing the water.
“He… had some kind of tattoo…”
Has looked stunned, reaching out again as the glass in my hand twitched with another shudder.
“But you said you didn’t… o h Jesus … his dick was tattooed? That’s what you’re struggling to say, right? His fucking cock.”
He looked like he wanted to throw up too, but he also looked like he wanted to hit something, or more likely, some one .
“Has-”
“Sorry, I know this is really hard for you. You don’t need to deal with my shit too. So what was the uh… what was the tattoo, could you tell? Did you see it well? Oh fuck… I don’t wanna ask… did he...”
“He didn’t rape me, no. He didn’t even force me to suck it, thank god, although he really wanted to.”
Has released a sigh of relief, but then he was frowning again. He took the glass from me and set it on the tiled floor, then he took a deep breath, and grabbed at one of my hands.
“Babe… I hate to ask this, but… if he wanted to, and he had his dick out, and we know he got off… what stopped him from uh… from forcing…”
Oh god. Of course! How could I forget that?
“Oh god… he had a phone call! He forced me face down so I couldn’t look at him, when he removed the helmet to answer it. Has… oh my god… it sounded like the call was from Reacher .”
Has-Been
O f all the things she might have said right then, that was the last thing I expected to hear. Reacher? That meant the guy was definitely one of us, and more importantly, we might be able to find out who really fucking easily. How many guys could Reacher have even phoned today, or was it yesterday… hell, it’d still narrow it down, right?
“Babe, I’m so proud of you. You’re gonna help us catch this fucker. How did you know it was Reacher? Did he have him on speaker?”
“No… but he called him Pres, like you guys do. I mean… unless it was a guy called Pres, but that’d be too weird a coincidence, wouldn’t it?”
I helped my girl out of the bathroom, after she’d freshened up, and I put her back to bed. With her permission, I called Reacher, unfortunately waking the fucker up.
“Pres, I need you in our room asap. Bring Stitch too. Elise remembered something important.”
Grumbly and grouchy, Reacher was the Club President we all knew him to be, when he just responded to say he was on his way, and then ended the call.
Less than ten minutes later, I let Reacher and Stitch into our room, leaving Elise in the bed, and carefully covered up.
“She okay?” Stitch went to push past me and I stopped him.
“She remembered some stuff, and I think it’s important, but she wants me to tell you. Look, the main thing is he didn’t rape her. He didn’t force her into anything, aside from fucking jerking off over her face.”
Stitch groaned and dragged a hand down his tired face.
“Thank god, even though he’s gonna pay for degrading her like that.”
“Damn straight he will. Look… she’s been very upset, and it made her physically ill to talk about it, so I’m not pushing her to go through it again.”
Stitch nodded, dare I say, even looked like he respected me for it. I gestured to the sofa and they both sat down.
“You’re only gonna be here a few minutes, because Elise needs me, but look.” I sat down on the low coffee table, casting a quick glance across the room to check on my girl. She was curled up on her side, and I think she was finally asleep.
“When he did what he did, she could see some kind of tattoo on his dick. She couldn’t describe it, because of course she didn’t want to see it at all, but there was definite ink.”
“Okay, that’s really fucking useful, because I think at most we have about four guys in the club with ink down there.”
“That’s sick, who the fuck lets a tattoo gun near their dick?”
I let out a frustrated growl.
“Can you shut it and listen? The other more important fucking fact is that she said he took a call while he was with her, and that call was probably what stopped him from doing more to her. That means I owe the caller a huge fucking thank you. So thanks, Pres, you saved my girl right then.”
Reacher suddenly sat up and lunged out, catching my arm with a tight grip.
“I did what? I called this fucker?”
Stitch kept glancing past me, checking on his sister, and I followed his gaze, to catch her watching us. Had Reacher woken her?
“You okay, babe? Need anything?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Did you tell them?”
“He told us, sweets. Don’t worry about a thing, we’ll figure out which member of this club needs to die.”
She gasped, sitting up in bed. “You can’t! You have to let the police take him. This isn’t the damn wild west!”
I grinned, shrugging at Stitch as he stood up, and crossed the room to his sister. I decided to leave them in peace, and turned back to Reacher, who was scrolling through his phone.
“Pres?”
He kept scrolling. “See, over the last couple of days, I’ve called so many fucking brothers. Not all because they were off site, but because they were in their rooms, or whatever. Jesus. I mean, even if we rule out the ones we trust-”
“Don’t.”
He lifted his head then, those sharp eyes meeting mine.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t trust anyone, Pres. The only ones we can be sure of are in this room right now. I don’t want to think that any of my brothers could do this, least of all the ones I’m closest to, but I think we’re trying so hard to trust the ones we know best, that we’re potentially overlooking the one person who could do the most damage to us. He took Elise because she’s the VP’s sister, as well as my old lady. He knew it’d fuck us up more than any other old lady, no offence.”
“We need to trust Ice, because he’s the only one who can look closer at everyone. If we suspect him, then we’re really on our own.”
I clenched my fists, hating myself for my next words.
“Then we’re on our own, Pres.”