Chapter Sixteen
Rage
The pulse beats quickly in her neck as I keep her hand hostage in mine.
Tonight, when we were holding each other, I felt something I had never felt with a woman. A certain comradery, I guess. Kind of like what I feel with my brothers, but more than that. It’s a feeling I haven’t felt since my dad was alive.
I knew there was something about her the moment I laid eyes on her, but tonight I saw her as my person. That proverbial soulmate who I thought was as elusive as Santa or the Easter Bunny. But here she is, sitting right beside me.
I’ve done a lot of work on myself over the past few years, knowing I needed to be a better man for Mila. I sat through a lot of shitty feelings to get where I’m at, and meeting Serenity feels like some sort of divinely timed event.
I feel like I could share anything with her, and she wouldn’t judge me. I feel like she would still love me.
Yes, I think she loves me. I know that sounds crazy; she hasn’t given me one ounce of indication she’s interested in me, but nonetheless I feel her love at a soul level.
If she ever leaves, it’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch.
I release her hand, and the connection lessens but it doesn’t go away. My mind begins to clear a little, and I realize I’ve been holding her captive. “Would you check on Mila for me while I say goodbye to the guys?”
“Yeah sure.”
She remembers to take the music box I gave her, clutching it close to her chest as she hurries inside.
I calmly step in behind her, turning my focus on Cub and the text he sent me earlier.
“He wants our next shipment directed to him or he’s bringing his whole crew up here to cause problems for you while you’re going through Mila’s custody hearing.
He also wants Serenity back.” He takes a deep breath.
“I know she seems sweet, but who else could have told him? Tiff left town before the shit went down with your sister.” He grabs my cut, giving me a shake to wake me up.
I push his hand away. “It’s not her.”
“You sure about that?”
The twins speak up on Serenity’s behalf. “We searched all her shit. How would she be communicating with him?”
Cub shakes his head. “I guess it could be someone outside of the club. Maybe a hospital worker or something, but he knows she’s here with you. He knows both of them are. He wants her back. He wants her returned with the shipment.”
We’re all quiet as we think about it.
“He has all the leverage now that he knows about Mila,” I say, grinding my teeth.
“No way is Serenity involved. She was going to kill herself before going back to them,” Cole argues.
“Unless it was all an illusion.” Cub waves his hands in the air like a magician.
Soft voices filter down the hall.
“Call a meeting for tomorrow night. Ask Wizzard to drop by in the morning. Tell him I want every fucking name involved in Savage’s chapter. From their prospects to their patch bunnies. I want bank accounts, travel movements, anything he can fucking get.”
The three of them stand. “This stays with the officers for now. Like you said, he could have found out about Mila from someone outside the club, but I want to make damn sure we don’t have any rot coming from inside.”
When they leave, I lean against the wall outside of Mila’s room eavesdropping.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Accidents happen.”
I peek around the corner and see Serenity changing Mila into pajamas. She places her little hand on Serenity’s shoulder as she lifts her foot. “That’s a baby,” she says, pointing to the picture of her and me on the end stand.
“That baby is you,” she tells Mila. “And this is your brother.” Serenity leans over and taps her finger over my face.
Mila rests her chin on her hands in front of our picture, studying it as Serenity begins to change the bedding.
“There. All done,” she says moments later.
My sister rubs her eyes sleepily as Serenity tucks her back in bed, then she taps Serenity’s head. “Mommy.” She points to the picture of me and her. “Daddy?”
It’s obviously a question, one that makes Serenity uncomfortable, and I get it. It’s a crazy situation we find ourselves in. I’m not sure how my sister even understands the concept of a mother and father after the life she’s lived. Unfortunately, she’s never had either.
“How about I read you a book?”
Mila nods sadly, twirling a piece of hair around her finger.
Serenity sighs, realizing Mila’s disappointment in not getting an answer.
She sits on the edge of the bed and picks up the picture frame.
Once again, she taps her finger over my face.
“This is Chase. He is your brother, and he loves you very much. He wants Mila to have a clean, safe house to live in. He wants her to live here with him.”
I’m not sure if Mila understands any of this, but I applaud Serenity for the tone of her voice. It’s calming, and that’s all my sister really needs right now. Understanding will come later.
“And my name is Serenity, and I’m your brother’s friend.”
“And Mila’s.”
“Especially Mila’s,” Serenity says, her shoulders falling in relief.
She hands my sister a stuffed giraffe, then walks over to the bookshelf. Her eyes snag on mine. I point to Mila. She’s already fallen back to sleep.
She walks over to me and whispers, “Until the judge …”
I place my finger over her mouth. “You don’t have to explain. You were telling her the truth.”
“What if the judge doesn’t side with you?”
She doesn’t hide the panic on her face. Unless she’s the best actress I’ve ever seen, it seems genuine.
“He’ll be on our side,” I assure her.
Her eyes lift to mine, and I cup the side of her face. “I promise.” I lean over and press a light kiss to the corner of her mouth, my lips lingering longer than they should.
When I pull away, she sways toward me. I wrap my hands around her arms, keeping her upright. The way her brows pull together worries me for a moment, but when her fingers go to the place I kissed, I realize she felt it too.
“I … I need to pick up the dirty bedding.” She turns away from me to gather the sheets and then hurries down the hall to the laundry room.
As I wait for her to return, I look up the call log on my landline. There are no calls leaving the house. I know Carson and Cole went through her shit pretty good. We wanted to make sure she didn’t have anything to hurt herself with. But maybe she has a phone stashed in her car.
I check the video footage fast forwarding through all of the hours she was here by herself. She never once went outside.
There is the possibility she called him from the hospital. I send the twins a message, asking if they thought there was a chance this was the case. They both instantly reply that one of them had eyes on her the entire time except while she was in the restroom.
When Serenity doesn’t return, I go looking for her. She’s staring at something in her hand.
“Everything okay in here?” I ask. Suspicion niggles its way into my veins at the way her hand wraps tightly around whatever she was looking at.
“I … I have a confession to make,” she says, not looking at me.
The way my heart takes a nosedive into the pit of my stomach has me wondering why I let my guard down with this woman.
“I … I stole something from you.”
Wait a minute. This isn’t about her betraying me. Not in the way I thought, anyway.
She turns and walks toward me. “It’s nothing really, and I don’t know why I hid it from you. I should have just asked for it.”
I’m so fucking confused.
Serenity continues to explain as my mind scrambles to figure out what the hell she’s talking about.
“It reminded me of my brother.” She wipes her eyes with her closed fist. “I always thought we’d stick together, but then he fell further and further into …
” She throws her head back. “I don’t even know what to call it.
The madness, the life of a hustler. He was just like my mom but each were hustling for different things.
Her for love and he for money. Both became addicted to it, and neither were willing to be patient and wait for it to come naturally.
They jumped at anything that moved, ignoring all the signs from the universe they were going in the wrong direction.
They never saw the patterns and the loop they created for themselves. ”
“What have you been hustling for?” I ask.
Her head snaps up, and her watery eyes turn my direction. “Peace.”
The irony isn’t lost on me that her very name is Serenity. The universe’s cruel joke perhaps.
She turns the washing machine on before coming to stand in front of me. “I gave this to Mila earlier today. I forgot she had it in her pocket.”
When she opens her hand, I’m not sure what to think. It’s a tiny porcelain duck.
“This isn’t mine,” I tell her. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“It is. I found it at the Cage. It goes with the music box you gave me tonight.” She slides past me, and I follow her back to Mila’s room where she quietly retrieves the bag I gave her earlier.
We both give Peanut a few scratches before heading into the bedroom. She stands by the door nervously, clutching the bag to her chest. I walk over and sit on the bed, kicking my boots off.
“I’ll just show you and then …” She points to the room across the hall from us.
I shake my head. “No. I’m going to need you right here.” I pat the spot beside me.
“But I’ll sleep …”
“Also right here,” I say quickly, leaving her no room for argument.
“Rage.”
“Here at home, and around Mila, you can call me Chase if you want to.”
A small smile lights her face. “Wolfe told me using your government name could get me –” She draws a finger across her throat.
“Well, I’ve heard you use it a few times and look, you’re still kicking. Besides, I think my wife should be able to call me by my full name.”
Her head dips shyly, and I find myself desperately hoping this is not all an act. Tiff was easy to spot, but this woman …
She sits down beside me and begins to wind the music box. Her nearness instantly quiets my thoughts. When it begins to play, she drops the little duck onto it, and it slides to a hidden magnet underneath the porcelain pond.
We watch it spin until it slows and then freezes in place.
“My grandmother lived by a lake. My brother and I loved it there. It’s why it reminded me of him.”
And that is all she says about it.
“Anyway, I’m sorry I took it. Grief makes you do funny things.”
Here I am worried she’s working with my enemy, and all the while she’s been stressing over a little duck that one of my guys salvaged from an estate sale or a dumpster.
“It’s okay. It was your time in the room. Everything in there was yours to destroy.”
“I didn’t even pay for the room.”
“It was my gift.”
Her eyes bounce over mine like she’s searching for an answer. “You have been gifting me a lot of things. Food, use of your business, this.” She turns her focus to the treasure in her hands. “And I’ve given you nothing in return.”
“You saved my sister, you set up her room, and most importantly you’re making her feel safe.”
“I meant I’ve given you nothing physical,” she says, unconsciously diminishing her own worth.
“You know money means nothing. You’ve given me far more than I’ve done for you.”
Her gaze sweeps the room. “Why do you want me to stay in here with you? I can keep my stuff here in case CPS returns, but I can sleep across the hall.”
“I want them to believe us. We need to be comfortable around each other. We talked about this earlier, remember?” I sigh, trying to explain myself a little better. “I’m not a good actor, Serenity, and neither are you.”
A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “True, but I can’t …” She glances over her shoulder at the bed.
“We don’t have to go that far,” I assure her.
“Sometimes I have a hard time sleeping,” she admits quietly.
“Me too.”
“We keep our clothes on.”
“We keep our clothes on,” I agree. “But I’ll be in shorts. I’ll get too hot in anything else.”
“You’ll stay on your side of the bed?”
“For as long as you want me to.”
My joke doesn’t make her smile, and I see a flash of fear race over her features. I don’t like it. That was not my intention.
“It’s a king size bed. I promise I won’t cross the center line.”
“For Mila.”
“For Mila,” I agree, knowing full well this part is mostly for me. I want her close.