Chapter Twelve
Fuck me, what a night. They destroyed those two fuckers, after they confessed their sins, the second guy reluctant as fuck, but it’s amazing what a blowtorch aimed at your junk will make you say.
They’d transferred all their money to multiple children’s charities, including those specifically aimed at the kind of abuse they’d inflicted.
After that, they were beaten, burned, and tortured, before the building was burned down with their corpses inside.
In the end, the need to take a pound of flesh was more important to Has, and so many of us, than letting it look like suicide.
Let people know they were forced to confess.
In the end, it served a different purpose.
It showed that they would never have stopped, never have admitted to it, without the force of violence and death.
The videos were being released as I left the place, and Has was a fucking wired, messed up, well… mess. He was jubilant, and at the same time, fucking broken, all over again.
They were making arrangements to take him home to Elise, and with Lissa on standby, but my work here was done.
I made my way back to the clubhouse, feeling a ton of fucking relief when I saw V’s car sitting beside the rides that had begun to stack up again as people returned.
There was no party. No celebration. It wasn’t something anyone wanted to talk about, or make drunken fun of, because there was nothing good about a brother having gone through what everyone now knew Has-Been had suffered.
Fuck me. How the hell was he standing after all they did?
I didn’t know details, didn’t want to, but…
rape? Was he… Jesus fuck. I scrubbed my hands over my face as I marched toward my bedroom.
I wanted peace. I wanted quiet, but I also didn’t want to be alone with my fucking thoughts right now.
I didn’t want to dwell on this. I didn’t want to let myself imagine the hell my fucking brother endured, and I knew if V was there, she’d keep me focused on something else. Anything else.
Fuck. The door to my room was open when I approached it, and my first thoughts were that something bad had happened.
Someone got in. Someone hurt her, and my Nixie.
Someone fucking did awful things. That’s what happens when your mind is so caught up in the horrors you learned on a night like tonight, because if those things were possible, then wasn’t anything?
I shoved the door the rest of the way open, and focused on the curled up bundle on my bed. A woman wrapped in my covers, with my fucking pup tucked against her neck.
They were both sleeping, and trust me when I say I fucking checked that pretty frantically, because my mind was a cavern of horrors right now, and only the worst things seemed possible in this moment. Jesus.
I dropped onto my ass on the floor by the bed, and wrapped my arms around my legs, curled up in a ball of my own.
What a night. What a fucking hell of a night for us, but most of all, for Has.
For the man I’d spent years with. The man who’d hidden these monstrosities he’d suffered from me, this man who’d walked the walk, and talked the talk, but inside must have been fucking broken and torn to pieces.
Who recovers from that shit? Does anyone?
My mind kept seeing the child version of him.
The one we’d all seen in that damn show when we were kids.
The golden-haired, smiling boy who’d been too smart, too funny, and who’d obviously been hiding such pain and terror the whole time. That’s fucking acting.
My eyes burned, and the lump in my throat seemed to constrict it, as I fought to swallow against the tide of heartbreak and pain I was feeling, which I didn’t have any right to feel, because it wasn’t my fucking suffering.
It was his. He’d gone through things nobody should, and risen above it, and I was here, about to cry like a fucking pussy.
A sob choked out of me, and I slapped a hand across my mouth to try and silence it, to hold it in, but the fucking dam was broken, and I was drowning.
Heavy broken gasps were spilling out, as tears poured down my face, and I gripped my head in anguish. I was losing it. I was losing my fucking mind, and it wasn’t something I should be doing. I wasn’t the fucking victim, or survivor, and it wasn’t my right to lose it, but here I fucking am, right?
“R… Rocket? Oh, baby.” I dimly heard movement, as I buried my face against my knees, and heard a slamming door, and then she was beside me.
V wrapped her arms around me, holding me as I did the pussy thing, and cried my fucking eyes out.
What a shameful display of fucking weakness, and all in front of the strongest woman I’d ever met.
V
Ididn’t recognise the sound that had woken me at first, but to see poor Rocket, in a childlike pose, sobbing his heart out, was devastating.
How the hell did he even get back here, I mean, did he ride that damn motorbike while he was losing his shit?
I wished I hadn’t fallen asleep, so I could have been here for him sooner.
I held him tight, his body wracked with grief for his brother, and all I could do was wait him out.
Let him purge it all from his system, and come out the other side.
He’d be beating himself up for letting me see this, but I’d kick his ass for that later.
For now, I let my heart break with him, my own tears soaking my cheeks, as he rode out his sorrow.
Nixie yapped a few times, watching us from the edge of the bed, but she didn’t try to make the leap, and that left me able to focus on Rocket. I rubbed his back as he started to quiet down, his breathing still ragged, and hitching.
“God… I’m such… a… pussy…”
I slapped his back instead, and he choked a little, lifting his head to glare at me through teary eyes.
“The fuck?”
“You’re not being a pussy, dickhead!”
“But I apparently am being a dickhead?”
My lips twitched, which felt like a really weird thing for them to do after the horror and grief of this night.
“Yeah. Clearly.”
He leaned back, trapping my arm behind him, as he rested his head at an awkward angle against the wall.
“It’s not my fucking trauma. It’s his. Why am I being such a fucking wuss?”
I couldn’t slap his back again, so I dug my nails into his shoulder instead, and he groaned.
“You’re vicious, woman. I feel even weaker falling apart in front of someone like you.”
The fact that he saw me as strong, compared to someone like him, like his brothers, was pretty fucking amazing. It felt better than I’d realised it would, when someone saw me as something other than weak and disposable.
“You needed to let it out, Rocket, and so did I. It was a horrible, horrible night.” He rolled his eyes at me.
“Really? I didn’t notice.”
I dug my nails in again and he grinned, just a little, but it was a start.
“How was Has-Been after whatever they did was over?”
Rocket squeezed his eyes closed again, and his bottom lip trembled just a touch. Just enough to tell me his emotions were still running fucking high at the thought of his brother.
“A mess. About what you’d expect,” he finally murmured, but he wasn’t done, “but how the fuck did he rise above all that shit, and become the man he is? I fucking love the guy. He’s the most decent, genuine fucking person you could know.
He’s been beside me ever since I joined Phoenix, and I miss him like hell being here.
I hate that he couldn’t tell me, but I also get it.
Who’d willingly tell people about that shit, right? ”
I had a feeling it was the kind of thing he should be willingly telling someone, because wasn’t that how you kick start the healing process? I had no idea, but it seemed logical.
“He’ll probably need to see someone about it. Get counselling. We could look into options for him. Do you think he’d be open to it?”
Rocket smiled, turning those intense dark eyes on me, and looking a little more like the man I’d been starting to learn how to read. Thank god for that, because he’d been a shadow of him since I’d woken up.
“For a savage deadly woman, you’ve got a heart of gold, V. That fucker who let you go was the biggest idiot on the planet. Has is covered, but thanks for offering. The other chapter has a therapist living and working there. She’s Ice’s old lady. She’ll be helping him, I’m sure.”
Huh. What kind of biker club had their own therapist, right? Next he’d be telling me they had a hospital, and a vet, and all sorts.
Rocket suddenly dragged a hand over his face, sniffling a little as he tried to straighten up, probably telling himself something dumb in his head, like he had to ‘man up’ or something.
I fucking hated that phrase. Man up. What the fuck is wrong with having feelings, and not bottling them up until they destroy you?
If that’s being a man, I’m glad I was born without a dick.
“Don’t do that,” I said softly, reaching up to smooth his short hair back, probably trying to be soothing, but who the hell knows if it was anything like that.
“Do what?” Rocket asked, his eyes a little wide as I pulled my hand back. Why did I do that? The moment was clearly over, and I was still putting my hands on him.
I sighed, settling both hands in my lap, so I’d stop touching him.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed or something. You don’t have to try and hide the fact that you feel things. I like that you feel them, and I think it’s stronger to do that.”
Rocket shoved up from the floor, and reached down to offer me a hand, hauling me up in one swift, and sexily strong move.
“Haven’t you heard Harley and the others? I don’t have feelings. I’m just some emotionless cunt.”
I flinched, and glared at him. “Stop saying that word.”
“Which word?” He asked with a grin, clearly trying to bait me. The closeness of the earlier moments felt lost already, as he slipped easily back behind his walls and back into dickish behaviour. Maybe he was too comfortable acting like that to ever change.
“Forget it.” I turned and grabbed my jacket, planning to get home before I made a bigger fool of myself.
What did I think I was doing here? I came here to what?
Offer him support? Get support for myself after the things I’d witnessed, and the things I’d imagined?
Was I looking for more? What was my fucking deal?