Chapter 23
Summer
I swallow hard as I look at every member of the brotherhood, minus the old ladies, all standing in front of the door while I sit at the head of the table, all waiting for me to speak, but honestly, I don’t even know what to say.
I killed my biological mother, who sold me.
She wasn’t the first person I’ve killed, trying to survive my horror, and she won’t be the last, no, Hanz will be the last, right after Gabriel.
I’m trying to destroy all my demons so they can’t hurt innocents ever again, even if it means dirtying myself even more because my soul isn’t worth saving anymore but all the innocents, theirs are.
Not one brother says anything, only staring at me while my eyes stay locked with the ones I fell in love with so long ago, ones that captivated and scared me because I knew he was going to become my world.
I can’t say that I regret it, though, giving him a chance, even if he did dip his stick out of revenge, I don’t regret it. I found a love my dad couldn’t fathom, and I wish he had the chance to find someone before the stress of work and keeping me safe took him too soon.
Eric tilts his head, the silence in the room deafening, and I clear my throat. It has started to tighten with the fear consuming with all these men staring at me, fear that is unwanted and not needed here right now, and I look down, breaking our connection.
“She’s not freaking out,” I hear someone mutter, “Why isn’t she freaking out, she just killed her biological mother...”
I hear a smack before the voice snaps, “Ouch, Dad…” and I know it was Thunder who spoke and if my fear wasn’t clouding me right now, I would have laughed.
I’ve come to realize the brother doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut or keep to one girl.
The man is a player, something, according to Doc, a role that used to be Eric’s, which I must admit, I did not like hearing.
Though to be fair, I am used.
I blink, the memory of a woman biting my breast hits me hard, and bile rises. I try to swallow before making eye contact with Eric.
“You can leave me now,” I whisper, and every brother tenses while Eric, he doesn’t even flinch, like he expected me to say those five little words.
Instead he asks calmly, “Why? Because you killed someone? Because you are a killer? Because you had to terminate one of your demons, the main reason why you were in that warehouse to begin with?”
I flinch, I can’t help it, but he doesn’t know how many I’ve killed.
“I’m a killer, sunshine,” he says, and I swallow hard because, yeah, I already knew that but the one or two people he’s killed doesn’t compare to what I’ve done, to how brutally I killed them, how unlovable he should find me but then he opens his mouth and shocks me as he explains, “I have killed several men and even women who have deserved it, but it doesn’t mean they don’t haunt me,” he holds his arms up, “Every man in this room has killed before, baby.”
I watch his jaw tick as he drops his arms and he admits, “I was seventeen when I did my first kill…”
My mouth parts in shock while his brothers, his family look at him in shock.
Eric tilts his head and ignoring them, he admits, “I drowned someone, tying them to the anchor I sunk and drowned them after I caught the fucker raping his little brother.”
Oh my… My eyes widen in absolute shock.
“Shit,” his dad whispers in shock as Doc snaps, “What the fuck?” but Eric yet again ignores them and states, “We have all killed, sunshine, we all know what the feeling can do to you.”
“Amber wasn’t my first kill, Eric,” I remind him, my bottom lip wobbling, and he nods as the men who weren’t near me earlier to hear my confession stand up straighter in complete shock.
Guess they’re finding out more and more today than they bargained for.
“You did what you had to do to survive,” Eric whispers, and a single tear falls down my cheek at the love he still holds for me, the love shining bright.
“Seven,” I whisper, “I killed seven men, one of them with the same knife he was going to use inside me.”
Doc steps forward, an aura surrounding him. Gone the E.R. doctor, and in place the MC president, and I tense involuntarily.
“Do you remember their names?” Doc asks, and I slowly shake my head numbly.
I admit, “I only remember what they were going to use on me and I knew how painful it was going to be because they had already paid to have me before and I knew the punishment I was going to get from Hanz, but I couldn’t go through the pain again.”
“What did they use on you, sweetheart?” he asks, and Eric growls, but Doc doesn’t pay him any attention.
I blink, my eyes clouding over as the memories suck me in.
“You’re going to take this blade inside that tight cunt of yours and you are going to fucking like it,” a voice growls, and I fight against the chains around my wrists and ankles, trying to break free as I scream around the ball gag feeling the worst pain in my life down below like a thousand razor blades cutting through me and dizziness takes hold…
I swallow the bile rising, the phantom pain kicking in, making down below hurt and my stomach tighten.
“Fuck, you're so tight,” the guy grunts as a woman bites down on my nipple while a metal pole is being shoved inside my forbidden hole, sending so much pain through me I feel like I’m about to pass out, and I welcome it as everything fades, the black eye I gave the guy not doing anything to deter him.
“Doc enough!” Eric snaps before I feel a warm hand cup my cheek, and I flinch as I lock eyes with his hazel ones, but mine cloud over as I continue.
“How does it feel, baby, to have that electricity shooting through you, huh?” a woman whispers while she licks down below as a man thrusts into my ass and moves a long metal pole that sends electric volts inside my entrance.
The bile rises and I let it go as I vomit, the little they feed us coming back up, but the ball gag stops it, and I choke, causing the woman to cackle as she bites my clit, sending disgust through me, my body revolting away from her touch.
“We just need to know if someone will come after her brother, you know this…” Doc rasps, and Eric replies with a growl, “And I don’t want to lose my girl even more than I already have, she’s blacking out with her memories as she explains the details which is why Tank and Rose did their examination while she was passed out.
She said she doesn’t know the names of the men she killed, so fucking leave it and have Dirty look into it! ”
“I’m already on it, brother,” Dirty whispers.
Eric squeezes my cheeks lightly, and I blink again and lock eyes back with his.
“You back with me, sunshine?” he asks quietly, and I nod slightly.
“How can you still touch me knowing what they did to me?” I ask just as quietly, but the several sucked breaths echoing showed the brothers heard me.
“Because I love you, Summer, I have always loved you, and what you went through doesn’t define you, it doesn’t make you broken, it makes you strong because you never gave up the fight.” He replies full of love, and more tears fall as I grip his cut.
“I want to put the baby up for adoption,” I whisper, and he furrows his brows as I admit, “To a nice couple far away from here, so it never knows it was conceived through rape and horror.”
His eyes race between mine for a moment before he finally nods and whispers, “Okay, I’ll sort it.”
I nod, and he leans forward and presses his lips against my forehead. I manage to hold in my flinch, and I close my eyes for a moment, enjoying his warmth that I don’t deserve, and he murmurs, “You still need to punish me for what I did, sunshine.”
I shake my head. He says this every day because I haven’t lost my shit with him, and it will come, I know it will, just not right now.
“It’ll come,” I repeat, like I always do, and I feel him smile against my head before he presses another kiss, then whispers, “Go take a seat in the common room for a moment, Willie should be at the bar, alright.”
I nod as he presses another kiss to my head, then moves back and helps me stand.
Locking eyes with him one more time, my heart fluttering seeing nothing but love shining back at me, I do something my whole body is screaming at me not to, and I grip his cut, push up on my tiptoes, then press a kiss on his stubbly cheek, sparks rushing through me at the contact.
Before he can say anything I move past him as all the brothers squished into this room move around the table, giving me the space I need and I’m grateful.
I really am but I don’t look their way as I leave the room, keeping my head down, Taser’s, “Fucking explain about you purposely dropping that anchor to kill someone, son, right now,” just hitting my ears as I walk out the door.
Even I wince at the anger lacing his voice as the door slams and I kind of feel like I need to go save him.
Shaking my head, I take a step forward but pause as the air around me changes and fear rushes through me.
“Hello Summer,” a snarly voice says, sending spike of terror down my spine, and I look up and lock eyes with the green ones I have nightmares about.
Hanz stands before me, looking thinner than the last time I saw him, while Gabriel holds a gun at the clubwhores, all glaring at him, and Willie is lying unconscious on the floor near them and my stomach tightens, reminding me about the baby inside me and I begin to shake as he grins wide.
“Miss me?”