Chapter 45 #2
I t’s way too fucking quiet, the kind of quiet before a storm, and I’ve felt this impending one brewing all morning.
The metallic click of the ratchet and the occasional hiss of a tentative sigh through my gritted teeth seem louder.
Vanna said nothing happened, other than busting Lucinda’s lip and maybe blackening her eye. She said Legion showed up at the bar and got her home. They had a few more drinks to unwind from the fight. I’m not thrilled about any of it, but I trust my wife. Trusting her comes with knowing her.
And I know something isn’t right.
I checked the time she texted me that she was home with the time logs on the tracking app on her phone. It all adds up. But I can’t shake the feeling there’s a major omission in the timeline of last night’s events.
I tighten the bolt on the exhaust and wipe the grease off my fingers with a rag, more so to steady myself than anything else. The scent of oil and rubber usually grounds me, but not today.
She flinched when I touched her…tried to cover it with a smile too late. That simple split-second told me more than any of her words did. She was afraid, not just hungover from a rough night and an encounter with my ex.
The question tearing me apart…is she afraid of how I’m going to react to something she hasn’t told me?
Did he do something to her?
I set the ratchet down, the heavy clink of it against the metal tray rings louder than it should. I run a hand through my hair, already feeling the cold pit forming in my solar plexus.
What did he do? And why aren’t you telling me, baby?
“Hey, Dean?” Axel’s voice calls from the lot just before he ducks under the open garage door.
The confused expression on Axel’s face isn’t what makes my stomach drop. It’s what he’s holding.
Black leather, worn at the seams, slung over his arm. The still crisp, white embroidered skull and angel wings patch stitched on the back of the cut.
Legion’s cut.
Axel drops it onto the workbench beside me, and it lands with a dull slap. “Cherry just found it on the pool table, folded up like it was left there, waiting to be noticed.”
“He quit?” I say quietly, mostly to myself.
Axel shrugs. “After everything he did to get in with us, why would he just up and leave?”
Did he leave? Or did he fucking run?
People don’t run unless they’ve got a reason. He didn’t just quit the MC…he abandoned the scene of a crime…
I snatch up the cut the motherfucker shed like snakeskin.
Whatever Vanna isn’t telling me is something bad enough to make the demon run.
“Get Cherry. Have her drive the Mustang to my house. I need her to watch Ace for a bit.”
Axel nods, concern in his searching eyes. “What happened, Dean?”
“I need you to contact the Jokers and let them know if they see Legion, strap him to that fucking chair in the basement until I can get there.”
“What did he do?” Axel asks, practically leaping out of my way when I move past him to grab Serene’s keys off my workbench.
“I’m going to find out.”
T he sound of Ace’s laughter rings out through the open windows in the front of our home as I walk up the porch steps, clutching Legion’s cut in my fist like a piece of evidence drenched in betrayal.
Cherry and Axel are right behind me. The crash of plastic toys hits me like a punch to the chest. This is the home I built with my family to protect them, and he slithered his way in and…
I try not to let my thoughts spiral into worst-case scenarios.
Vanna opens the front door before I reach it. Her welcoming smile falters when she spots the cut in my hand.
Ace barrels over to me the moment I step inside, plastic truck still in hand. “Daddy!” he shouts, crashing into my leg the way he always does.
I drop to one knee and wrap him in my arms, kissing the top of his head. I try to keep my voice from cracking when I tell him, “Hey, buddy… Aunt Cherry and Uncle Axel are gonna take you to get some ice cream. Cool?”
He beams up at me, thankfully oblivious to the turmoil in my soul. I pick him up and hand him off to Axel.
Vanna steps closer, rubbing her hand against Ace’s back. “What’s going on?” she asks, making a valiant effort to keep smiling for Ace’s sake, but I can hear the worry in her words.
I gently take her arm and pull her back from him, keeping my voice low when I tell her, “I don’t want him to see either of us like this.” Her eyes drop once more to the cut in my hands. “I don’t know where this conversation’s gonna go, and he doesn’t need to see his mama cry, or his daddy lose it.”
When she peers up at me, eyes already misted with tears, I can feel my heart breaking… What did he do?
“Mommy?” Ace frowns.
“We’ll be right here when you get back, buddy.” I force a smile in hopes of reassuring him. “You go have fun with Aunt Cherry and Uncle Axel.” I nod at them, and they take Ace out to Cherry’s car, distracting him with talk of sprinkles and whipped cream and maybe a trip to see his Uncle Viking.
I shut the door behind them and join Vanna where she’s standing beside the kitchen island barstools, staring at the marble. I place Legion’s cut down on it.
“He quit. Left it on one of the pool tables.”
Her watery gaze shifts to stare at the leather, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Why’d he run?” I press.
“I don’t know…” she barely whispers.
“Vanna…this is one of those moments where I need you to tell me everything.”
When she shakes her head, a tear rolls down her cheek, and she brushes it away.
“What did he do?”
“I…I don’t know,” she whimpers.
I try to keep my temper to an idle. “That was a sealed bottle of Jameson. Are you telling me you got so blackout drunk you don’t remember what happened with him?”
“I didn’t drink the Jameson… I was still a little tipsy from the bar. That’s why I didn’t drive home. I made us coffee while we waited for my car to get here.”
“Wait… What?”
She lets out a quivering breath. “We left my car at the bar. I must have forgotten my phone inside it. We were in a rush to leave before Lucinda could call the cops. We left on Legion’s motorcycle…”
That cunning motherfucker knew I’d be watching her location .
“I…I don’t even remember when my car got here…” Vanna goes on, “Or texting you that I was home… Or plugging in my phone and getting in bed myself.”
Jesus fuck… “Did he…?”
She shakes her head wildly. “No. No, I don’t think so.”
“But you aren’t sure?”
She hesitates. “I think I’d know… I don’t think he did.”
“He just drugged you and tucked you in bed? Staged the fucking kitchen like you were both wasted? What else are you not telling me?”
“I swear that’s all I remember.”
“Vanna, if he took advantage of you… if he fucking raped you…it wasn’t your fault.”
“He didn’t… I just know he didn’t…”
“If you’re fucking protecting him?—”
“I’m not. Dean, I swear I’m not. I don’t remember what happened after we talked, but… I think I’d know... I know I’d know.”
Did he stage this as well? Hope we’d fight about it? That I’d see her as damaged goods, tainted by him? Did he hope this would be what breaks us? Is he that fucking evil and vindictive? Or did he simply lose his nerve? Does he possess enough of an inkling of a conscience that he stopped himself?
“I’m sorry, Dean,” she cries. “You were right, I never should have trusted him… This is all my fault.”
I turn back to her and cup her face with hands that have broken bones and pulled triggers but never trembled like this.
“It’s not your fault . I let this happen…and I’m so fucking sorry, Vanna.” I kiss her forehead and wrap my arms around her as she sobs against my chest.
“I don’t understand why he would do this now?” Vanna whimpers. “I know he was still adjusting to the club’s ways, but…”
“I said some shit to him that probably set him off… Put him in his fucking place and that’s all it took for his true colors to bleed through.”
Bleed all over her…
She shifts in my arms to peer up at me. “What did you say?”
“I don’t remember everything, but I ripped into him.
Enough for him to snap…” I let out a tense sigh, partially regretting my words, but only because they led to this, not because they weren’t true.
“I told him you don’t see him as a man. He’s just a broken little boy in your eyes, incapable of loving you in all the ways you deserve.
In all the ways I do . Something to that effect.
I just wanted him to back off. I didn’t think he’d… ”
“ He didn’t.”
“Is that because he lost his nerve? Came to his senses? Or just wanted to put a crack in our foundation before he tucked-tail and ran?”
“He tried to convince me that he was the Knight I summoned. He broke into the old farmhouse when we went to Myrtle Beach. When I had the spell hidden in the closet under the stairs. That’s how he found out about Jack, too…from the letters.”
“And did he?” I have to swallow the knot forming in my throat. “Convince you?”
Her watery eyes soften, and she places a hand against my chest. “No, Dean. You are. You will always be. My rejection of his belief could have been what pushed him over the edge.”
“It’s no excuse,” I growl. “And there will be a reckoning when I get my hands on him.”
“Just let him go.” She lets out another quivering sigh, wiping the remnants of tears from her cheeks as she takes a step back. “It was only a matter of time before he left anyway.”
The fact that she seems saddened by this twists my guts, and I hold onto her arms a little tighter. She still cares about him. Even after this monumental betrayal of her trust.
“Jesus fuck, Vanna… Tell me you don’t love him.”
“What?”
“He did this to you…to us…and yet you’re still concerned about him… You’re upset he took off.”
“I thought he wanted redemption. I wanted it for him. I thought he was trying… He was trying.”
“Trying to pull us apart. You can’t deny that now, doll. No matter how you slice it, that was his end goal in this final act. Cause as much damage as possible and vanish because he finally realized he’d never win you. That’s what he does. He never changed. He’s just patient.”
“It didn’t work, did it?”
I hold her tighter. “No. Never.”
“Then just let him go. Let him disappear. Let us move on with our lives without him. Nothing happened, but if what he did was enough to make him realize there’s nothing for him here, so be it. He made his choice.” She touches my cheek. “And we made ours and sealed them with our wedding vows.”
“He’ll never touch you again. I promise.”
“I know… Just let him go, Dean. Promise me you’ll just let him go…”