Chapter Three
Chloe
The celebration of life for Ashley continued at the clubhouse, still going well into the evening.
My sister saw how upset I was after we left the gravesite and she offered to keep Gemma with her for a few hours so that I could get myself together, promising there were other MC kids for her to play with, and girlfriends and wives to watch over her.
With great reluctance, I agreed and disappeared into the room that was mine, at least temporarily, though after the way Will responded to me—twice—I was sure of two things.
First, my days here at the Steel Demons clubhouse were numbered.
Second, there was no place on this earth that Gemma and I could ever truly be safe.
I’d thought after everything that happened we had a chance for a new start.
Me and Gemma had found an apartment just outside of Steel City.
I’d enrolled her at school and finally we could breathe.
Then it started, bricks through the windows.
Graffiti sprayed on the door. I couldn’t prove who was doing it, but I had my suspicions.
In the end, Faith spoke to Diesel, and he’d agreed that we could stay at the clubhouse.
It had been two weeks now, and it felt like a prison sentence.
Today at the cemetery, when two members of the Ghost Riders found me, I knew for sure who was behind it. The attacks on my home had been a warning, but now they had a message for me:
“You’re dead.”
Sitting on the floor inside the dark room with my back pressed against the door, I hugged my legs close to my body and counted the small rectangular windows that were the only other point of entry into the small room.
It was something I did that helped me cope and feel as safe as I could feel outside of an underground bunker.
This ritual had become part of my life. It wasn’t quirky or cute, it was neurotic and paranoid, and it was just who I was now.
A terrified woman who jumped at shadows.
A woman who would never know genuine safety ever again.
That thought settled deep in my gut and I let it fester and take root until it became part of me.
Every day until I took my last breath would be spent keeping Gemma safe from harm.
I had to. It was the least I could do when Faith had taken three lives just to keep me safe.
She’d killed three men from the Ghost Riders MC and that hadn’t stopped them from attacking me today at Ashley’s memorial.
It was all the proof I needed that they would never quit, never stop coming after me. After Gemma.
They wouldn’t stop until I was dead.
The music continued to blare on the other side of the door, so loud that it shook the floor underneath me. The moment should have been peaceful, but it wasn’t, making me wonder how my life ended up like this.
But I knew.
I spotted him from across a crowded bar.
Cliché, but it was true. He was big and beautiful with a wild shock of red hair that looked as if he’d been running his hands through it all day.
His smile was wide and just a little bit arrogant and when his gaze caught mine with a wink, I never looked back.
He’d romanced me so completely, so thoroughly, that I never stopped to look at the moments in between the romance.
We dated for months and with every date I felt a little bit closer to him until I had fallen totally in love with him.
It didn’t bother me that he was a biker, despite Faith’s reservations, because he made me feel special.
Four months later I moved in with him and one day later he gave me a backhand that sent me flying down the stairs.
Nothing was broken but I was stunned and hurt, until he love-bombed me into forgetting.
Over the next six months it was a roller coaster of beatings and dates, humiliation and degradation, pleasure and pain.
His backhands turned into fists, which slowly became belts, whips, and cords.
One time he even beat me with a chain. I’d been trapped in a cycle of control and violence for years with no breaks, not even the three times I was pregnant before Gemma.
Not even during my pregnancy with Gemma.
Marcus’ bloodlust knew no end, and I was his favorite target.
At least I was somebody’s favorite.
These thoughts never left me for long, just long enough that I started to fool myself that I could forget the man who changed my life forever. There were no breaks, no pauses, and there was no reprieve from Marcus, who was destined to be with me forever.
Long after the party had ended and Gemma was curled in my arms, the thoughts swirled in my mind.
They kept me up most nights… well those thoughts as well as the fear that someone would break in and kill me and Gemma while we slept.
Tonight it was safe to say that it wasn’t death but rather life, that kept me up.
Sleep should’ve brought relief but instead it brought more buried memories that I’d tried hard to forget.
There was one in particular that I couldn’t seem to shake, in which Marcus had been particularly cruel.
He’d been entertaining some of his biker friends and other hangers on and wannabe bikers at our home.
Snacks sat on every flat surface in the living room and kitchen while I prepared dinner for a dozen men.
Gemma slept upstairs through the loud music and video games.
I’d been walking past Marcus and his friends after refilling bowls of chips and replacing old beer bottles with new ones when he backhanded me for no reason, other than he could.
Probably to show off in front of his friends too, if I was being honest. I fell to my hands and knees.
The room fell silent, and no one moved to help me, so I started to stand but Marcus was right there with his hand gripping the back of my neck, shoving my face into the leftover beer, broken glass, and chip crumbs on the floor.
Some of his friends laughed.
Others looked away.
Nobody told him to stop.
The good news was that dream ended right there but the bad news was that it morphed into a different day, the last day of his life.
The inability to breathe. The fear that gripped me.
The blood that coated my hands and spread out onto the kitchen floor.
“No!” I shouted that one word over and over as if it could change the outcome of what I did.
“It’s okay, Mommy.” Gemma’s soft, fear-filled voice broke through the nightmare. Her gentle touch pulled me from the depths of my torture. “Mommy it’s okay! You just had a bad dream.”
My eyes opened in the darkness and found Gemma’s adorable face inches from mine, concern etched in green eyes just like mine and Faith’s. “Mommy’s okay, baby. Thank you for waking me.”
“I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you, Gemma. With all my heart.” I kissed the top of her head, holding her until her breathing evened out and she was deep in the land of dreams. I hoped the things that invaded my daughter’s sleep were more pleasant, that she held no residual memories of the first three years of her life.
Sleep never claimed me again as I held my daughter, watching the clouds float by until the sun streaked the sky, marking the start of a new day.