Chapter 6 Olivia
I sit in the metal chair in front of my father’s grave, and I feel like I can’t breathe.
There’s only like six people here, and that’s including me and Winnie.
Just being around the people here, the funeral home employees, and the pastor performing the service, I feel like I’m dying.
I’ve really been unable to be around people since I got away from my brother.
As she always does, Winnie picks up on my panic. She puts her hand over mine and squeezes it. “Breathe. It will be a quick service, just as you requested. It’s going to be fine.”
I nod my head, trying to hold on to her words.
I stare down at the ground, hating the person I’ve become.
I can’t even remember who I was before. The woman who thought she understood what her place in this world was.
The woman who thought she was in control.
A bitter laugh escapes me. It’s quiet, and I doubt anyone can hear it besides me and Winnie.
She knows what today is doing to me—even if it wasn’t to lay my father to rest.
“Jesus, Blade, baby. Why in the hell would you bring me here? There’re other places we could go and have much more fun.”
My body jerks as if I’ve been shot. My breath seizes in my chest.
“It can’t be,” I whisper, the words stilted. As the last syllable leaves my lips, my body starts shaking like a lifelong junkie going into DTs.
“Livy? What’s going on?” Winnie asks, sounding panicked. “Talk to me, honey.”
“It’s him,” I manage to croak out.
“Him?” Winnie asks.
“I think she’s talking about me,” Blade announces strolling up to stare down at me.
The moment seems to freeze. I force myself to look up at the man whom I honestly never wanted to lay eyes on again. I owe him nothing. I told Bear’s man what I knew that might help Blade. I did that for Bear. I still remember the last time I heard Blade’s voice …
Flashback — A Little Over Two Years Ago
“I almost feel sorry for you, Blade. You’ve lost everything. Your club, your freedom, your brother, and what for, really? Was it all worth fucking my sister?” Douglas laughs, the sound bordering on maniacal.
“Your sister is a piece of shit, just like you. How long did the two of you plan this?” Blade growls out, sounding like a wounded animal.
Through the cracks in the wood of the old barn, I can see three men holding Blade back.
He’s been beaten. He’s bleeding and his eyes are swollen together.
You wouldn’t think he’d have the energy to even hold his head up, but instead, it’s taking all the strength my brother’s goons have to hold him back.
“Now, Blade. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get you here. You wouldn’t believe how much it cost me to get one shit-for-brains convict brought to me from the jail for this little meeting. So, don’t be like that. You’re here because I want to give you the opportunity to do something great.”
“End your fucking life? Because that’s the only thing I’m interested in, Eyeball.”
I watch on as one of my brother’s goons delivers a punch to Blade’s ribs. “Oh, Blade. You’ll be sucking in your last breath before I ever do.”
By the way he moves, I wonder if they aren’t cracked. He doesn’t say a word, he just does his best to stare at Eyeball, and despite his injuries—or maybe because of them—his face is the perfect mixture of hate and anger.
“Just get on with it.”
“You can save my sister. I’ll bring her out here and I’ll give her the freedom the bitch has been begging me for and all you have to do is—”
“Fuck her,” he screams. “Do you think I don’t know how the cops found my cut and knife at the scene? Ayita told me she’d seen Oliva snooping around my old room at the club. If I see the conniving cunt again, I’ll put a bullet through her head—just like I plan to do to you someday!”
Before Bear died, I knew I could never go back to Blade.
I did love Blade, but my heart has always belonged to Bear.
No matter how much I tried to fight it. It always had.
I fell in love with him before I understood what love was, and my heart never completely let him go.
I thought for a while I could be happy with Blade—but then, I didn’t really know him.
He and Bear had too many secrets. Secrets Bear should’ve made me aware of.
In a way, everyone I’ve loved or who should have loved me, has let me down.
I’m alone and that’s how I’ll always be.
As I listen to Blade scream, that feeling solidifies inside of me.
I have no one but myself. There’s a calm that overtakes me with that realization.
If I had held out any hope that I would live my life and try to find love with Blade, like Bear asked me to do, here is positive proof that will never happen.
Blade hates me as much—if not more—than he does Douglas.
I hear Douglas practically cackle right before he orders Fitch to bring me out. “Come see your ex-lover, Olivia. He’s dying to see you again,” he demands.
“Remember, bitch. You pull this off, or you end up just like Bear. Plus, your father will die. Give Eyeball what he wants, he can live,” Fitch—my brother's newest asshole follower—mutters, his putrid breath brushing against my ear.
“And I get my freedom,” I respond, needing him to confirm it, even if I have my doubts that Douglas will ever keep his word.
“You and that bastard you’re trying to protect get your freedom, but only if you do what he wants now. Got it?”
Nodding, I feel cold all the way to my soul, but I don’t argue.
I just want this over. There’s a slim chance I’ll get my freedom, but I do know that for whatever reason, Douglas wants to keep my father alive.
I have no idea what it is, but he’d keep me alive to take care of Dad—he’s done it before.
Douglas has been bitching for the last two and a half years how expensive it is to keep Dad in that home and how nosy they’re getting.
It’s my only hope in hell that I might get free, so I cling to it.
I walk in front of Fitch directly to my brother—which is not easy.
The bastard has me dressed up like I’m going to a fucking nightclub instead of a woman who has spent the last couple of years of her life in a five-by-five cell wearing nothing but rags.
Still, I make it beside the throne-like chair that Douglas is sitting on—barely keeping the disdain out of my features.
We’re in the middle of a deserted old farm that is nothing but weeds, a collapsing house and barn, and rusted machinery.
Yet, for some reason, Douglas has a fucking throne chair.
I lean down to kiss his cheek—as I was instructed to do earlier.
I bring my lips to his ear. “You’re a fucking moron,” I whisper.
I feel his muscles tighten against me. I know I’m going to pay for that remark later, but it’s worth it.
Sure, I was promised my freedom and the chance to be with my father if I went through with this stupidity, but I have my doubts he’ll deliver.
Mostly, I’m doing this because if I didn’t, Douglas would kill my dad.
I definitely believe he’ll do that. I should feel guilty, but Blade is nothing to me anymore.
It’s good he hates me. I don’t hate him, but I want nothing to do with him.
That man had me in his bed and didn’t bother to tell me who he really was.
If he had, I would have confessed who my brother was.
Maybe then things would be different. I’m not sure.
What I do know is that he lied to me even when he had several chances to tell me the truth.
There are other reasons, but those are definitely the ones that keep swirling in my head.
“Lying, fucking cunt,” Blade spews at me.
“Look who’s talking,” I murmur, barely sparing a glance at him.
I admit, I don’t like to see him in the shape he’s in, but after spending so much time trying to pull Bear back from the brink of death, wounds don’t really bother me anymore.
I’m just a shell of a person anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. Nothing does.
“She looks good, doesn’t she, Blade? Lucky has been enjoying her quite a bit.
Demon keeps wanting her back. They were pretty hot for each other back in the day, but Lucky doesn’t want to share her just yet,” Douglas says with a sick joy that only a true monster would derive.
“Didn’t know you had such a whore in your bed, did you? ”
There was once a time I’d feel shame at having my brother announce just how easily he allowed my continued rape and abuse.
Now, it bounces off me. I check out so much lately, even Lucky has begun to bore with playing with me.
Which makes me glad. Apparently, he has his eye on some girl the Feral Kings captured when going after a rival club a few days ago.
I don’t hear a lot, but Lucky likes to talk a lot when he’s wasted.
I hate it for her, but I’m damn glad it might mean the end of his torture for me.
It will work out if Douglas lets me go. If not, I will find a way to survive until I can kill Demon and anyone else that I must. Then, I will get away.
I’ve been slowly forming a plan. Since Lucky’s growing bored with me, he’s getting lax placing guards on me.
I think because I’ve stopped fighting him, he thinks I’m too broken to escape and just conditioned to take what he gives.
He couldn’t be more wrong—even if I play that angle up a little more.
I even moaned and acted as if I enjoyed it for the last month.
The first time I did it, Lucky froze, and I didn’t have to endure him quite as long. I think he needs my fear to stay hard.
“You’re a fucking cunt. Bear loved you, and this is how you repay him?” Blade growls, bringing my attention back to the here and now. I almost zoned out too long, and I see the displeasure on my brother’s face.