Chapter 12
BEX - YOUR PAST
The front door slams hard enough to rattle the bottles behind the bar; the music is gone shortly after. Not turned down, someone killed it. For a second, you can still feel the low thud of bass vibrating in the speakers and the scrape of boots on wood.
Everyone turns, and that’s when I see him. Clutch walks in with the rest of them. Axel, Torch, and two prospects I recognize but don’t know well.
They look like men who’ve come from somewhere that didn’t go the way it was supposed to. Torch’s knuckles are split open. One of the prospects has dried blood along his sleeve. Axel’s jaw is tight as if he’s grinding his teeth.
Clutch looks…
Furious.
But it’s the way they move that makes my stomach drop. They don’t spread out or look for their women. They don’t come to the tables...don’t even look this way.
They go straight to Angel.
The room shifts around them like water parting.
I feel Meg beside me straighten slightly, as Marisol stops mid-sentence and even Dani’s fingers pause on the neck of her beer bottle.
That’s not normal. When brothers come back from club business or a run the first thing they do is check their women. A kiss, a hand on a shoulder, a quiet word.
Not tonight.
Tonight they move like soldiers returning to a command post, straight to their commander. Low voices start immediately, too quiet to hear, but the tension is loud. I watch Torch gesture toward the hallway.
“This is business for Church,” someone mutters.
Angel shakes his head slowly. “Not yet.”
Clutch hasn’t looked at me, not once.
My stomach twists.
This goes on for minutes that really feel like hours.
Everyone is holding their breath, waiting for what comes next.
The circle around Angel shifts slightly and opens.
Now I can see them clearly. Angel is standing in the centre of the group, Clutch at his left shoulder, half a step behind him.
Arms folded, jaw locked. Razor on Angel’s right, but he isn’t looking at Angel. He’s looking at me.
Behind them Cypher is hunched over his laptop at the bar, typing so fast it sounds like rain hitting metal. The entire clubhouse feels like someone pulled the air out of it.
Then Clutch finally looks up and our eyes meet. For half a second something flashes across his face. Something sharp, raw. Then just as fast it disappears.
He raises his hand, crooks two fingers at me.
Come here.
No smile or warmth. Just a summons.
The whispering starts immediately. The club girls who had been draped over Razor’s group suddenly drift closer to him, like they know something is about to happen and they want the best view.
Scavengers.
I inhale slowly. He’s not even coming to me. He isn’t going to speak to me first, ask how I am.. Explain any of this.
What the hell is this?
My chair scrapes loudly when I stand, the sound echoes in the silence.
The murmurs stop and everyone is watching what I do next.
Marisol rises too and Meg follows. Dani doesn’t stand but her eyes track me carefully.
Some of the other women peel away toward their men, others stay where they are, watching.
The room feels smaller with every step I take.
I walk toward the bar, toward Angel and the men surrounding him. I hold my head high, keep my shoulders straight. The leather cut presses against my back.
PROPERTY OF CLUTCH.
Usually it feels grounding. I had gone so long in my life living alone. Drifting from one place to another. Never settling in with a crowd or a person. Belonging to Clutch, to this group, had its appeal… even if part of me never quite trusted it to last.
Tonight it feels like armour that suddenly doesn’t fit right.
I stop a few feet in front of Angel, because even though he is not the one who called me over, I know who actually summoned me. Clutch is right there, close enough that I can smell the leather and sweat and engine oil clinging to him. He doesn’t say my name or step forward. Doesn't even look at me.
Angel clears his throat softly, pulling my focus back to him. “You know I like you, Bex… right?”
The question throws me, I tilt my head slightly taking him in. At first glance you would think Angel is having a casual conversation, that he is relaxed. But there is an undercurrent of tension in his body posture that is hard to ignore.
“Actually?” I say, my voice steady. “No.”
A murmur moves through the brothers.
“I always assumed you were indifferent to me at best.” I add.
Clutch makes a rough sound beside him, like he almost choked on something. A few brothers scoff. The audacity of a woman answering the president like that crackles through the room.
Angel smiles, not angry, almost amused.
“What do you think of me as president?” he asks.
That’s not where I thought this was going, but if I hesitate now they’ll smell blood.
“I think,” I say slowly, holding his gaze, “that in any society people shouldn’t follow one man blindly.”
The murmuring escalates immediately.
“What the hell.”
“Who does that bitch think she is?”
But I keep going. “Because one man can easily become blind to what his society actually needs… to what is happening behind closed doors..” I gesture lightly around the room. “And make no mistake. Each MC is a form of society. A community… A ecosystem.””
More murmurs follow. Some of the brothers look openly offended, others look curious. Clutch is staring at me now and for some reason the look in his eyes almost makes me falter.
Almost.
Because I remember how he used to look at me. The feeling that would spread through me at his touch that I never once had experienced before in my life. But he hasn’t looked at me like that in a while.
Angel chuckles softly. “See,” he says.“This is why I like you.”
He takes a slow drink from his bottle.
“You’re smart. You see things differently.”
His eyes sharpen slightly.
“And I agree. No one should follow blindly.”
He gestures toward the men around him.
“That’s why I keep the brothers I trust most close.”
His gaze sweeps over them.
“When they start talking…”
His eyes come back to me.
“I start listening.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, because the words sitting on my tongue would start a war.
What about the women?
What about your sister?
Angel tilts his head slightly.
“You know… Cypher couldn’t find much about your past.”
My stomach bottoms out and it takes everything in me to stand tall, to not react.
“He found where you enrolled in the nursing program. All the courses you took since, your work history after you graduated… and everything after.”
He trails a hand towards Clutch and then drops it at his side, shrugging lightly.
“But nothing before.”
The room goes very still.
“Why is that?” He asks.
I don’t answer and I can feel Clutch’s eyes on me now, heavy and searching.
Angel continues casually. “Do you think it’s strange that even your husband doesn’t know?”
I can feel his eyes on me, I can feel the tension from Angels left, but I still don’t look at him. Because I already know what I’ll see and he is not the wounded party in all of this.
Angel takes another sip of his drink, casually steps back to the bar, leans against it and taps the bartop signalling for another beer.
Cypher motions to him, Angel moves in his direction and Cypher whispers something into his ear.
Angel nods once, then leans back against the bar like this is all just conversation.
“You know… just before my dad died there was a trafficking ring a few counties over.”
The women behind me go quiet. Even some of the men are looking at Angel with confusion and a look I cannot place.
“Young girls, ages ranging from six to twelve.”
My fingers curl into my palms.
Don’t react. Don’t show your fear.
For one foolish second I hope against all hope that Clutch will jump in. That he will move… do something. That he will choose me, stand at my side. Pull me into him like he used to when I actually believed we had something real.
But that isn’t the truth of this situation or our relationship.
He is choosing to stand silently by Angel’s side. He has chosen whatever this is. He is choosing to allow this conversation to happen, to just stand back and watch.
“At first everyone assumed they were being kidnapped. But some rumors said the parents were trading them to settle debts, others said they were selling them outright.” Angel continues like he is talking about the weather.
The room is deathly silent now. Not a sound. I can hear the blood rushing in my ears, feel my pulse in my neck. But I hold myself still.
A few ol’ ladies shift in closer to their men, seeking comfort. Must be nice.
“After months of looking, the sheriffs, along with local MC help, raided the warehouse where they were supposed to be.”
Angel studies my face carefully.
“You know what they found?”
I don’t answer. I don’t blink. I don’t move.
“Nothing.”
The single word is loaded. But, Angel is still leaning back against the bar, a new beer in his hand that he casually sips before continuing.
“No girls…no bodies. It was like someone got to them first.”
He looks around the room like a King addressing his subjects.
“They never figured out what happened, everyone assumed they were either moved, or rescued… or something else… something worse. Leads went cold and people assumed the worst. But my father always believed those girls were still out there somewhere, he feared that the group relocated them and that the girls were still alive but captive, he hoped that someone rescued them and because they couldn’t be safely returned to their families… helped them disappear."
His eyes narrow slightly.
“He had said that if it was him, his club that found them… he wouldn’t put them back in the system either. That the smart thing to do would be to get them fresh identities and a new life…”
I can feel sweat trickling down my neck, down my back. Settling heavy beneath the cotton of my t-shirt and weighed down by the leather of my cut. I swallow, my mouth feeling pasty, letting my eyes trail quickly to Clutch, but he isn’t looking at me, he is looking down at his clenched fists.
“Bex looks thirsty,” Razor says lightly.
A couple of the club girls laugh behind him. I don’t look his way. Angel’s eyes never leave my face like he is tracking every facial expression.
“Now all these years… decades later. Rumours are swirling of trafficking and cartel involvement and of course everything the Blood Reapers are being accused of.”
He lets that information sit there. He isn’t accusing me, not asking a direct question.
But he is giving his club just enough information that they can make their own assumptions.
Angel is either giving his club enough rope to hang me with or someone fed him just the right amount of information to fuck with me.
“When was the first time you met Preacher?” he asks.
“I never have.” My voice doesn’t shake as I hold his eye contact. “The first time I saw him in person was this morning outside the hospital.”
I gesture toward Angel slightly.
“And you know that. Because you and Razor were waiting by my car when I finished my shift.”
Angel studies me for a long moment, then nods slowly, like he believes me.
Then he asks quietly, “Tell me something, Bex… Why would someone be at a hospital with no record of treatment?”
I shrug slightly. “I’m sure there are lots of reasons.”
Angel straightens, the relaxed posture disappears. He steps forward so Razor is now at his side and Clutch is behind him.
The room tightens and it feels like the walls are closing in. And then he asks the question that makes my pulse spike. The question he’s been building to, setting up this whole time.
“Where is Mara?”