Chapter 20 #2
I look at Z once more, and somehow my respect for him grows exponentially. He’s sacrificing himself to make sure Tate’s safe. He’d rather die in prison than her to be hurt.
I need to take a page out of his book and stop being so selfish. I need to worry about Drew. She was the complication that I had never anticipated. There’s no contingency for if I fell in love with anyone, especially not her.
I need to keep her safe from all this.
Safe from this life.
Safe from my decisions that are going to fuck up my life.
Safe from me…
She needs to stay as far away from this as possible.
I have to let her go.
Even if it kills me.
My eyes well up as I look back at the road.
“You can hang up.” Z says next to me.
Nodding my head, he tilts his.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” My voice cracks, but I try to hold it together for a moment.
I maneuver the car into the parking lot, and Z clears his throat. “I know you have no reason to, but could you do me a favor?” he asks quietly as I open his door.
I just look at him, not sure what he’s gonna ask.
“More so, can you do my parents a favor?”
Even if things were exactly as they seemed, I could never say no to doing them a favor, and he knows it.
“What?”
“Can you make sure Drew’s safe?”
“What? You told Axe to…”
“I know, but you know how she is. She’s fucking defiant, and so far removed from this life right now, she probably doesn’t realize the severity of it.”
Nodding my head. “Yeah,” my voice cracks again. He looks at me for a second before I start again. “I’ll make sure she goes out there.”
“Thanks, man.”
* * *
Collins ends the call, and I sigh, leaning my head back onto the headrest. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the light in her apartment shine dimly through the window.
“Why couldn’t you call her?”
I don’t answer him, just shake my head.
“Man,” he laughs this time. “You’re in love with your best friend’s little sister.”
“Fuck you.” I mumble as my eyes remain glued to the window.
“What are we telling them when they ask?”
“That her car wasn’t here.”
“And what are you gonna tell Z when he asks?”
“That she’s safe.”
My breath hitches in my chest as she clears the door of the apartment building and walks across the parking lot with her bag slung over her shoulder and the phone pressed to her ear.
“You should go with her.” He tells me.
“I can’t do that.” I mumble.
“Why?”
But I can’t tell him.
She pauses with the phone still to her ear as she looks around before landing on her own car, tilting her head. And starts again.
“I can only intervene if she does anything to jeopardize them.” I mumble, reminding myself more than him.
“You don’t have to punish yourself.”
“I have promises to keep.”
Nodding his head, he lets it go as Drew moves the phone from her face, but lifts it up quickly. A smile spreads on her face, and it feels as if it lightens my soul. Maybe she isn’t as miserable as the last few voicemails make her seem.
“She has questions.” Collins tells me.
No shit.
“She deserves some answers.” He tells me as if I don’t know.
I don’t answer him. I wait on the side street before pulling onto the road a few seconds after she passes.
It makes me smile when she pulls up to pistons and gets out of the car, moving into the lobby and seeing the bay door roll open.
“Atta girl.” I mumble to myself as I know she caught the clue about the likelihood of the tracker on her car.
Am I certain that Sherman put one in her car? No, but there’s enough of a possibility that she needs to be safe.
“Goddamn,” Collins mumbles as the bike in the bay revs to life and Drew rolls out.
Without turning it off, she moves off the bike back into the bay before exiting the lobby of the shop, locking the door behind her.
“Typically, I’m not attracted to biker chicks, but —”
“I will murder you.” I mumble while following behind her, leaving enough space so she doesn’t spot us, but close enough so we don’t lose her
Collins laughs, shaking his head. “I mean, you gave it up, might as well make a move.”
I know he’s fucking with me, but he’s still getting underneath my skin and making me grip the steering wheel tighter.
“I’m just fucking with you, man, but know it will be someone.”
“I know.” I nod my head as my heart aches at the thought.
“And you have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Can we not?” I ask him.
“Suit yourself.” He mumbles.
The car falls silent, and we continue to follow Drew on the bike as she makes her way through the city.
I’m about to veer off from her as she leaves the city limits when she veers off and pulls into the parking lot of a drugstore.
Kicking over the bike, she grabs what I can only assume is her wallet out of the bag before walking through the sliding doors.
“Do you have a bike?”
“Yeah.”
“How long have you had it?”
“We finished it when I was 17.”
“We?”
“Yeah. Ash, Z, Zeke, and I built all three of ours.”
“So you helped build that one?” he points to the bike that’s waiting for Drew.
“Yup.”
The conversation falls again as Drew reappears from the doors, sighing as she shoves a small bag into the saddlebag and kicks over the seat, once more.
We watch as she pulls back out onto the road, but I don’t move the car, just continue to watch after her as she leaves the city, telling myself this has to be done.
“You should go after her.”
“No, I shouldn’t.” I mumble before turning onto the road in the opposite direction of where she’s heading.
“He was like a father to you, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, they were there when shit got bad. Took me in for a while. Gave me a purpose.”
“What do you mean?”
Shit, I hate it when I divulge too much information.
“He showed me how to be confident and trust myself.” I can see the confusion on his face already. “Ash came from a really fucked-up place and he made his own life, his own way. I think he saw a lot of himself in me, and he didn’t want me to make the same mistakes he did.”
“Like joining the club in general?”
“He never saw joining the MC as a mistake.” I pause as I pull back up to his car, and he gets out, grabbing our phones out of it before coming back and closing the door. “The club gave him a family.”
I add nothing else because there’s nothing else I can say or, really, nothing else I want to say. Sure, the entire force knows my family’s messed up, but I don’t talk about it.