Chapter 52
Chapter
Fifty-Two
My head is pounding, and my eyes feel like they are full of grit. I think I managed a grand total of two hours of sleep last night. Every time I closed my eyes, I was taken back to that room. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back there trying to fight them off as they hold me down, and he rapes me.
I look across the breakfast table at my dad and Dylan, the prospect. He came with me to Newcastle. According to Nitro, the kid asked to come with me to make sure that I was safe. I know he feels guilty about what happened. I heard him and my father talking last night as they sat outside my bedroom door after I woke them, screaming, and they both came running into my room thinking I was being attacked.
My dad even tried reasoning with him, telling him that what happened to me was not on him, but he thinks he did the wrong thing leaving. He’s beating himself up, thinking he should have known better about the text from Wrath’s phone telling him to leave me. He thinks that he should have realised that Wrath would never have sent that.
As he made breakfast this morning for us all, I tried to tell him that I had overheard them, that my dad was right, that none of this was his fault, and that he just wouldn’t believe me. He told me that he transferred to the Newcastle chapter but has been given permission to stay off-site of the clubhouse so he can stay here with me. When we got back two days ago, I found him outside in my car, sleeping or trying to. The kid is six foot one, and I own a bloody Mini. I made my dad tell him he had to stay in the house or he had to head to the clubhouse. We weren’t prepared to let him sleep outside. After he made a couple of phone calls, I’m assuming, to Juggler and Nitro, he reluctantly came inside. Mind, given how tired he looks right now, I think he might prefer being in the car.
“Hey, Dad, Dylan.” They book look over at me, the worry clearly evident. “I’m so sorry that I’m keeping you guys up all the time.”
My dad gets up and comes around to my side of the table. “Sweetheart. I don’t want you to apologise for anything. You’ve been through something traumatic; the only thing I care about is you and how you’re doing. I don’t want you to worry about anything else, ok? Do you hear me?” It’s not a question. I know he’s only telling me this because he doesn’t want me to worry about them. But he also knows me well enough to know that I will always worry about the fact that they aren’t sleeping because of me. I take a deep breath and let it out.
“But—”
“Your dad is right. Your comfort and safety are all the matters right now.” Dylan gets up from the table and begins to clear it. I stand to help him but stop when I hear the rumble of multiple bikes. I look from him to my dad and then turn to the door when it opens.
My shoulders sag when I see Griff and Juggler, walk through the door with Steph. She smiles and pushes past the guys, wrapping me in a hug before dragging me upstairs away from the others.
The moment she closes my bedroom door she turns to face me.
“Wanna explain to me why you’ve come running home?”
I’m thrown by her question so much that I laugh. She raises her eyebrow at me as we both take a seat on my unmade bed.
“It was for the best,” I tell her, but even I’m not convinced by my own tone. She doesn’t say anything; she just sits there in silence, watching me, waiting for a better answer. I hate this, I hate that she knows me well enough to know that there’s more to it. Several minutes pass and I can’t take it anymore.
“Fine. I couldn’t stay there, ok? I couldn’t face those men every day and not tell them who did this to me.”
“Why the hell would you not tell them? They need to know babe; they need to make the fuckers pay for this.” She waves her hand up and down indicating the state of my body. I drop my head. Do I tell her, do I be honest with her? I know if I do, she’ll want me to tell the others. Hell, she might even tell them for me.
“Riss. Talk to me.” She places a hand on my leg, and I hide my face in my hands.
“He is one of them. The person who took me, the one he did the most damage, is one of their brothers.”
“What?” she asks, stunned by my admission.
I look at her, tears streaming down my face.
“If I tell them and they believe me, then I’m destroying their club, their family. And if they don’t believe me, then they’ll hate me and accuse me of lying. The best thing to do was to just leave…”
“You can’t be serious, babe. You have to tell them. They need to know who they have patched into their club; they need to deal with the piece of shit. And I don’t believe for one minute that they won’t believe you. I heard how many of them refused to leave that hospital while you were there; you’ve made a dent in their cold little heart’s girl. Please think about telling them.”
“Telling who, what exactly?”
I jump as I see Griff standing by the door, Juggler right behind him.
“We came up to see how you were doing. We wanted to check in and caught the back end of the conversation.” He steps forward and takes a seat on the bed beside me as Juggler comes and kneels in front of me. I look at him as he grabs hold of one of my hands. “Flex. Please tell us who did this. You don’t need to tell anyone else, but I need you to tell us. We need to know.”
I shake my head as a sob escapes. “I can’t, please just leave it.”
“Never gonna happen, babe.” Juggler grabs my face to look at him. “The London boys are giving you a chance to heal, but they’ll be riding up here in a week or so to talk to you. They want to know who did this. They will make them pay; they have to, and you know it.”
I can’t speak. The tears roll down my face as Griff pulls me into him and then slides further up the bed, pulling me with him until he’s resting against the headboard and I’m lying into his side. I feel the bed shift behind me, and I stiffen, but Juggler places a hand on my shoulder. “Get some sleep babe, you’re ok.” I relax slightly, feeling a little safer. Not as safe as I did when I was with Wrath. God, I miss him, but I can’t ruin things for him. That’s exactly what he thought I would do by being in his life. I won’t let it be true. The tears continue until I wear myself out, and I fall asleep tucked between the guys and Steph, sitting on the bottom of my bed.