20. Natty
TWENTY
NATTY
PRESENT
I saw Killian riding first. He had Laura behind him, and the bike next to them had Wes Ryan, and on the back of his bike was a familiar dark-haired woman…
Rachel.
Dust kicked up from the tires, as the remaining members rolled to a stop in front of the club. Wes parked, and Rachel let his waist go as she tipped her head back and took in the Stone Riders clubhouse.
Killian helped Laura from their seat first, then swung his leg over until they’d took a few steps from the bike. Laura moved first, to assist Rachel off Wesley’s bike.
I jogged over to Killian who gave me a look of relief which had my heart warming.
“You’re back!” I said, catching the gaze of the group.
Rachel stepped forward, tentative at first, but as soon as I caught her eye, she rushed me.
“Are you okay?”
I opened my arms and pulled her into a hug as she inspected me.
“I’m okay. Are you…how did you get away?”
Her green eyes were bright out in the sun, her hair was frizzed and a little tangled, and other than a little dirt smudge on her chin, she looked perfectly fine.
“I took that pack meant for you and I just walked until I saw a group of bikers riding around the area as if they were looking for someone. I spotted the Stone Rider patch, and when I remembered what you’d told me about Killian, I stepped out where they’d be able to see me.”
“You’ve been gone for days…was everything okay?” I directed my question at Killian as he drew closer.
He glanced up at Wes then over at someone behind me, which I assumed was Silas or Jameson. “She was dehydrated…we stayed until we knew she felt okay enough to ride back.”
“No issues with Fable?” I knew they didn’t owe me answers, and the way these clubs worked, they likely wouldn’t give them to me because I wasn’t a member, but I couldn’t help but try.
Killian dipped his face, and Wes stepped off to the side pulling his phone up to his ear. He was likely checking on his pregnant wife who was at home.
“We ran into a messenger.”
Rachel’s hand wrapped around mine and squeezed tight as I waited for Killian to continue. Silas stepped closer until he was crowding my back, and it was as if the ground beneath me fell out from under me as Killian lifted his chin toward Hamish, who was riding behind him.
That’s when I saw him.
Being pulled off the bike by two other members, Alec stood in front of us, gagged with a white piece of fabric across his mouth. He wore a sling for his amputated hand. The breath seemed to stall in my lungs the second his eyes landed on me and froze.
I wasn’t sure what to feel other than shock.
He’d kidnapped me.
Held me captive. Literally cuffed me to him for days on end.
Sexually harassed me.
My throat felt tight as I took all those memories and mentally placed them next to the ones where Alec had been my friend. My refuge in some situations.
A safe person once upon a time. Now I didn’t know how to even look at him without wanting to hurt him .
“You don’t want to hear this message, Natty,” Rachel whispered near my ear.
I glanced at her, my brows furrowed in confusion and then stepped away from her before Silas could hide whatever was in that bag. He was avoiding looking at Alec, which was a tactical move, so I followed suit.
He didn’t open it wide enough but it didn’t matter, Silas pulled the severed hand out where all could see and inspected the note nailed through the palm.
I read from over his shoulder and felt those invisible spiders crawling down my back, along my scalp and even inside my head. It was as if Fable had invaded my very bloodstream, and I didn’t know how to escape him.
My Dearest Son,
Looks like you left something behind when you came to collect your whore.
I was going to give your precious Caelum to Alec as a gift, he has, after all, been pining for years for her. I was inclined to entertain his desires because she’d be out of your way and more importantly, out of the picture.
But now, I think I might want to keep her for myself.
She’s taken your good sense, and now cost Alec a hand…and honestly his remaining worth.
So I’ll trade you. Here is your brother, now give me your wife.
Leave her with the Stone Riders, walk away from her forever…or she becomes my plaything. Mine to torture and fill, and who knows, maybe she’ll give you a little sister after I fuck her enough times .
You know as well as that cunt of a mother that this girl was never supposed to be a part of the plan. - Fable
Silas didn’t show any signs that the letter had impacted him at all. He scanned the words, and then shoved the note in his back pocket, while tossing the hand at Alec’s feet.
Alec glared daggers at Silas, then shifted his glare to me, but his expression softened the smallest bit.
I ignored him and focused on Silas, turning away from the crowd so we had a small amount of privacy.
“What plan is he talking about, Silas?” My voice sounded strange… as if I’d found an empty well and started screaming into the darkness, my words all returning void.
Silas glanced down at me, his jaw tense and his eyes glacial.
I felt like fear had stepped out of that letter and took shape as a pair of shears, clipping my invisible wings. The ones I stupidly thought I grew after falling in love with Silas Silva.
Dirk had been my personal monster, but Silas had another…one much darker and more depraved. While I assumed I knew how to manage nightmares, it seemed there was another layer of deceit I had been oblivious to.
“Silas, what plan?”
His hand found mine, and suddenly he was pulling us away from the group. I heard Killian curse, and Wes start his bike. My brain connected the dots, aligning them into similar spaces they’d always fell into. I was merely a visitor in this place. I had no one that belonged to me…no one except Pen. I searched for her dark hair, that tiny piece of perfection she kept pressed to her chest as she soothed Connor. I looked for her husband, but they weren’t out here.
My gaze dropped to the ground as the gravel turned to grass.
I felt untethered, like I was fourteen again, waiting on a sun-soaked dock for Silas to come back to me. Just so my life would make sense again .
Suddenly a shadow fell over us as Silas pushed my back up against the side wall of the clubhouse, where no one could see us.
His hand planted next to my face, and his nose nearly touched mine.
“He always had plans for me to take over. That was the idea…Alec would be set up with his own club, but he wanted the Destroyers to be mine. My mother knew that was his plan…”
“If that was the plan then why join The Death Raiders as seventeen?” I searched his face, so clueless as to how I had missed so much when we were growing up. I blindly followed everything Silas said and did, too enraptured to ever question any of it.
He dipped, his head, his face solemn.
“Mom thought it would help put a barrier up between me taking over The Destroyers. We knew Dirk just had to die and I had a good chance of stepping in…it was my primary focus and why I went back so often. I needed to learn as much as I could about him.”
My arms came over my chest as if I could guard the pathetically weak organ that had absorbed all of Silas, taking in all his darkness and filtering it for the both of us. I was his beam of sunshine all doe eyed and in love, too na?ve to ask questions or to demand to be included. I assumed he wanted to be there, doing his father’s bidding. I had assumed he was undercutting Fable, or working against him, but Sasha and him…they’d had actual plans in place. A goal to work toward. Something, all this time I could have partnered with them on. Perhaps if I’d been included, I could have told Silas about Dirk. Maybe if I was helping him take down Fable, I could have gone with him, or stayed somewhere else while he worked. Instead, I was just left behind.
His pretty piece of sunshine that stayed put in his room, there to absorb his darkness when he needed me.
Bitterness was a tangled root around my emotions.
“Did your mother ever tell you what happened with the trade?”
The gray hue of his eyes turned violent as he clenched his jaw. “No one has ever fucking told me what really happened, Natty. I came back and you were gone. I was given some bullshit reason, but no. I never got the full story. You sure as hell never told me.”
I hated how heavy that statement felt, and how even years later, the fear over his reaction and him self-destructing was too overwhelming for me to just open my mouth and explain it. But he’d never come back for me. “I’ve never had a chance to tell you, Silas. You were suddenly gone from my life, and I was here…and you acted like I was in a different world, unreachable.”
A breath escaped him as he hung his head.
“You were in a different world. If I had come knocking on Simon Stone’s door, demanding you back, it would have started a war. Especially because Dirk was still alive, and he was the one that Simon made the deal with.”
“How nice of you to choose when and how you choose to follow club politics.” I pushed the hair away from my face. I knew I wasn’t being entirely fair, but I also hated that there was a whole group of people that seemed to know what Silas had been planning with his father, and it didn’t include me.
“Why are you upset about this? We’re going to find him, and we won’t?—”
I pushed at his chest so I could get some air. He sidestepped, allowing me to pass, so I began pacing.
“I’m upset because I feel like I keep getting fragments of you, Silas. Tiny pieces that get stolen from me the moment they land in front of me.”
His steady gaze moved with me as I continued to pace.
“Caelum.”
I shook my head, a tear sliding free. “Don’t call me that. Just call me Natty. You’ve made me think that one day we’d have this amazing life, Silas. This beautiful love story. Yet I’ve been here waiting for you to come and get me, and you never have. You never did. I was taken from you. That is the only reason you came for me. I am a tiny speck of dust on your map of domination and plans.”
“Will you stop it?” Silas moved in again, his hands going to my hips, and his chest covering mine. “Stop saying this shit. You don’t even understand what I’ve done to be with you, to be free…to have the Death Raiders just so I have an army to fight him with. If I go from you, it’s only to ensure you’re safe. I’m never far, and it’s never for long. You’re acting like I want to be away from you.”
It felt like he did, but I knew those were my own insecurities .
Closing my eyes, I inhaled a sharp breath.
“I know you want to, but I also know that you have some overreaching plan for Fable. I always thought you were going to leave him behind back then…but you kept returning. We nearly ended because of it, Silas.”
The silence between us grew and Silas pushed a hand through his unruly hair.
“We don’t end, Caelum. We just keep going, we’re like the roots that hold the crust of this fucking earth together. Bound to one another.”
Until an earthquake or something came along and shook the crust apart.
“It doesn’t matter, Silas. We can be in love and want to be together, but Fable is still coming for me. He wants you to leave me here.”
“Honestly, it’s difficult not to leave you here, Natty. You have a family, people who love you and care about you. A better life than what I could give you.”
My stomach clenched with nerves at the confirmation that he did plan to leave me.
I focused on the ground as his words made a home inside me, and when he walked closer to tip my chin back, I glared at his stoic features.
“Would you leave your Raiders for me?”
Silas paused with his hand resting on my neck, his jaw tensing. “I need them to fight him…once he’s gone, I would. In a heartbeat.”
“Who will the Destroyers go to? Aren’t you worried about someone just taking his place?”
A sad laugh escaped his lips as he tipped his head back.
“No, Caelum. I’m worried about someone taking my place here, with you. You’re the only thing that’s ever mattered to me. I know you think that’s not true because of how I lost you, but it is. I want the best thing for you. I want you to have everything, all the happiness you possibly could withstand in a singular lifetime.”
This felt like goodbye, and I refused to accept it.
Stepping forward, I relished the way the wind picked up and brushed against my face.
“You’re it.”
His eyes narrowed as my hand went over his heart. “I’m what? ”
“All the happiness I could possibly withstand in a singular lifetime. You’re all of that. Let’s leave, just forget the Raiders, the Destroyers, all of it. Run with me, and let’s start over.”
“What about Penelope and Connor, or your job at The Drip? What about your baking with Red, and your kitchen here?” His voice dropped in challenge, his eyes hardening with that obstinate glare he always used with me.
“Why do I have to live without those things in order to be with you?”
“Because all I bring is death, Natty, and I want you to live. I think you want to live too, and that’s good. You deserve to.” He pulled me in and kissed the top of my head.
I still felt like he was trying to say goodbye, but I couldn’t work out exactly how he was going to say it. If he would just leave me in the middle of the night, or what he’d do, but my chest already ached with the memory of how the last time he’d left ruined me so thoroughly and how, to this day, he still did not know what had actually happened.
Maybe it was finally time he did.