Chapter 23 #2
“Yes, I took you.” The monster goes back to pacing.
I don’t look at him, but I can feel the room nearly shake with his movements.
“Don’t get so fucking worried though. I’m not gonna hurt you.
Lucky for you, it’s not in my nature to hurt women.
My vendetta is with Viking and The Riders.
This, you both leaving of your own free will to start fresh, your sister as well, is gonna trigger the war that will destroy them both.
Viking lay down like a fucking dog and allowed his club to be patched over.
Once he realizes that The Riders were using him, it’ll be game over They’ll take each other down without me having to lift a finger. ”
“And that fire,” Steph breathes. “You started it. You started it as a distraction so that our men wouldn’t be home.”
“Except yours was. He’s not even high enough in the ranks to get called when something shitty goes down. They didn’t call me Tracker for no fucking reason. Stealing you out from under that fucking idiot’s nose was one of the greatest pleasures I’ve had in the past few months.”
“No one will believe I wrote that note you left,” Steph baits him. I wish she wouldn’t, but I press my lips into a hard line and say nothing. “It’s not my writing.”
“You’re not in some cop show, darlin’. Ain’t no one gonna be doing forensic analysis on a three line note from a woman who left her dumbass husband after a forced marriage.
They’ll believe you wrote it. That you couldn’t stand to be married against your will to that pig.
Considering your other sister found herself married to a wife beater, you wanted out. And you…”
His eyes go to me, and I instinctively drop my gaze to the floor.
I refuse to let him see my eyes, because I know I’ll give away everything that I feel, and I want to keep that hidden away.
The one thing he can’t hope to touch, the last thing I have left.
Did he have something to do with Ami getting beaten, did he frame Gage?
“You. I know all about your husband’s pathetic past. I saw what you wrote. Couldn’t have done it better my fucking self. Wraith rode with me more than once, he’s weak. He might be clean now, but he’s still junkie scum. You should be thanking me for saving you from him.”
“What- what are you going to do with us?” Steph’s voice does tremble this time, when she voices the painful question.
I tense automatically, then wince, hoping he didn’t notice.
The bastard laughs, a sick, dark sounding chuckle that raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. As long as you never go back to Helena or Jacksonville, you’re free to go wherever you like.
To start fresh. I’ll even give you each a thousand dollars to help you out.
But if you ever show your face in either place, or try and contact anyone there, I will personally see to it that your husbands die a most painful death.
Well, that’s if they even survive the upcoming war, once Viking realizes Steel’s been using him. ”
The more he talks, the more I realize it’s the ramblings of a madman.
He thinks he’s five steps ahead, and he clearly thinks he can outsmart everyone, but what he doesn’t realize is my father didn’t get to where he is by being easily influenced.
I don’t know what went down the night that he agreed for the Devil’s Slaves to be patched over and become a chapter of Steel Riders, but I do know my father would have only agreed to it because he realized it benefited him more to become allies than remain enemies.
Steph lets out a low whimper and her body vibrates against mine. A shiver claws into my spine, climbing my bones one by one like a sick human ladder.
“You could go and join Ami. She was smart. When I approached her and offered her a way out, she took it. I had to rough her up a bit, to make shit believable, though I paid her well to keep her mouth shut. She’s starting a new life, same as you two will. One day, you might even thank me.”
“Thank you?” Steph scoffs. “For taking us and threatening our families? Why would we ever thank you for that?”
I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from blurting something I’d regret. Something horrible and acidic. Hateful words that will only fuel the black cloud of vengeance brewing inside this bastard’s black soul.
“You’re plunging our family into war. People we love could be hurt and killed. You expect thanks?” Steph’s voice grows bolder and more agitated with every passing minute. I lean back into her. Hard. I want her to shut up and not antagonize this monster.
“Comes with the lifestyle, sweetheart. Steel and the rest of his fucking band of pussy-ass followers know what they signed up for when they put on that vest.”
“And what about you? You swore allegiance to a club you betrayed,” Steph hisses, clearly missing the memo about shutting the fuck up.
The monster just laughs that cold, sick, spiteful chuckle again.
“You can’t betray what you never valued.
I suggest if we’re gonna get along, that you just shut the fuck up.
I’m gonna feed you and let you enjoy the comforts of my home.
Then you’re gonna leave Florida, find yourself a new life, and stay the fuck away from here.
Look on it as a rebirth. Or do you mean to tell me that you were both fine with your daddy marrying you off to strangers? ”
He waits, our captor and monster. He lets his words sink in, swirl around the empty, aching pits of our chests and burst through the walls of our straining souls.
When neither of us offer a response, he leaves, satisfied that he’s crushed us, our spirits, our bodies, our lives, secure in his power and utter authority.
We sit back to back in silence, the heat of our bodies blending into each other, our only solace.
Finally, we both jump slightly when we hear a door slam down the hall.
A minute later, the crunch of tires on gravel reaches both of us.
Steph lets out a hard breath and sags against me.
I remain straight, my posture rigid, afraid that if I let myself sag, I’ll keep deflating, that sad little balloon that disappears entirely.
I’m afraid to breathe, afraid to cry, afraid to speak.
“Don’t worry,” Steph whispers in a shaking voice, thick and strained with tears that she can’t, or won’t, hold back. “They’ll come for us.”
“Our father never cared and our brothers certainly won’t want to get us back,” I whisper when I finally find my voice. “To them we were just a nuisance, a liability, a commodity. They won’t care that we started over. They’ll go to war with The Riders and take what they want by force.”
“I wasn’t talking about our father or our brothers,” Steph says quietly, so quietly that I have to strain to hear her even though we’re so close. “The Riders. They won’t believe it. Adam would never believe that I left.”
“We put it in writing.” I close my eyes, picturing those six words, hastily scrawled on the back of that paper I left on the counter. I can only hope that Wraith will turn that note over. That he’ll read them. That he’ll know I could never betray him.
“They’ll come.” The certainty in Steph’s voice rings through the room.
Her words pierce through me, that glimmer of hope more painful than my numb hands and feet, than being ripped from a man I truly believed was my destiny, more painful than the fear our captor roots into our hearts just by existing.
I breathe out hard, shaky at the end, trying to find courage for my sister, if not for myself.
I don’t want to give her false hope. I don’t offer her words, because I know I won’t find the right ones.
Instead I lean back and rest my head against hers in a gesture of solidarity.
I close my eyes and I very nearly smile the smallest of smiles, when her neck tilts, bringing us cheek to cheek.