Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The Apartment
The door to the apartment opened and Brooks—Ripper—a stranger—came inside.
He looked at me as he slowly closed the door.
I was on the bed, curled up in a blanket. I hadn’t moved for hours, and I hadn’t answered my phone despite the several missed texts and calls. Some from Wyn. Some from Hadley.
Only one text from Brooks.
On my way home.
Home. To this apartment we shared, where we’d begun to build a life together.
He set the keys down onto the counter, the sound of it clanging in the otherwise silent room.
“Welcome home, Ripper,” I drawled.
A muscle in his jaw ticked.
“I’m sure Archer filled you in already,” I said. “So why don’t you tell me everything you’ve been hiding from me.”
“I haven’t hidden anything from you,” he said as he took off his cowboy hat and hung it on the hook by the door.
“No?” I asked with a raise of my brows.
“I don’t belong to a motorcycle club anymore. That part of my life is over. It’s been over for years. Why would I tell you about that shit now? Have you told me everything about your past? All of it?”
“Oh, so that’s how this is going to go? You’re going to fire back the questions at me like we’re the same? You’re going to try and pretend that my past is as shadowy and tarnished as yours?”
“You already know I went to prison. You know I did time for something I didn’t do. You know I walked away from that life and never looked back. What else do you need to know?”
“Who is she?” I demanded.
“She who?”
“She, the one Smoke tried to ask about before Archer cut him off. So? Who is she?”
He grabbed one of the chairs from the kitchen table and set it down in front of the bed. If I wanted to get up, I’d have to slide to the end and go around him.
Brooks sat down and faced me.
“She is Gina Russo. My biker brother’s Old Lady. The one I went to prison for.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. “When he died, I made her my Old Lady.”
“You what?” I whispered.
“To protect her and the kid,” he explained. “Graves pissed off a lot of people. The club was beginning to fracture, and by becoming my Old Lady, I could protect her with my name. Even from inside prison no one would touch her. Plus, Old Ladies are off limits. It’s just part of the life.”
My heart began to pulse in my ears. “Your name was powerful enough to protect her from the inside?”
“Yeah. And with the help of Archer on the outside, Gina and her daughter were safe. I never slept with her, Poet.”
“Ripper,” I whispered. “How did you get that name, Brooks?”
He swallowed. “You don’t want to know.”
“No, I don’t want to know,” I agreed. “But I need to.”
His sigh was deep and labored, like he knew whatever he was going to tell me would forever change us.
“Jack the Ripper,” he said, his tone low.
His eyes were devoid of emotion.
“Enemies of the club knew my name. I had a reputation. That’s all I’ll ever say about it. You don’t get to know more. I’m sorry.”
My heart beat as though it was trying to escape my chest and my body was paralyzed.
I’d given my virginity to a ruthless, violent killer.
I’d fallen in love with a killer.
I was having a baby with a killer.
“Get out, Brooks.”
He stared at me for a long moment until he finally rose from his chair and walked to the door. He slipped on his boots and grabbed his hat.
The door clicked shut as Brooks crossed the threshold.
With his departure, he took my heart with him.
I fell over onto the bed, curled into a ball, and cried.
How?
How had it come to this?
My hand rested on my belly.
How had my heart not known the truth?
How could I have been so stupid?
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I’d dismissed his past easily because I’d never witnessed it. And if I didn’t see it, it wasn’t real in my mind.
The only record he had of his time in the motorcycle club were the tattoos inked on his body. I hadn’t even known his road name, and he never talked about his time in the MC. He’d mentioned prison a few times but used it as seasoning for my understanding.
And I’d never asked. I’d never thought to ask or dig. Not really. But it hadn’t been because I didn’t care. Brooks never seemed to want to talk about it anyway.
We’d been building a beautiful life together. Focused on the present.
On second chances.
Muddy knew he’d gone to prison and why. But did she know about how he’d gotten his road name? And if she did, would it matter to her? Would it have changed her stance on offering him a job?
My guess was that she didn’t know.
I’d kicked Brooks out, and he’d gone immediately. He hadn’t tried to coerce me into staying.
He’d given me space.
He’d given me everything I’d ever asked for. He’d taken care of me. He’d bought me a safe car.
The man I knew was not the man he used to be.
But you couldn’t just cut off parts of your past and rewrite history.
Ripper.
Jack the Ripper.
A serial killer who’d slashed his victims’ throats.
Nausea churned in my belly, and it was the only thing that got me off the bed. I made it to the bathroom and threw up. After that, I dry-heaved until there was nothing left.
Exhaustion pulled at me—so heavy, so dark that I lay down on the bathroom floor instead of crawling back to bed.
There was a knock on the front door of the apartment.
It wasn’t Brooks. Brooks wouldn’t knock.
Maybe it was Hadley or Salem.
Oh God.
How was I going to face my friends and tell them I’d made the biggest mistake of my life?
The knock sounded again, louder this time.
Somehow, I forced myself to stand. I shuffled to the door and opened it, surprise coating my face.
Archer stood at the threshold, his expression stoic. “Can I come in?”
“No.” I frowned. “How did you get into the building?”
“Brooks gave me a spare key.”
“He’s just giving them out to everyone, isn’t he?”
“Please, Poet.”
I gripped the doorframe hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
“Why are you here?” I demanded. “Did Brooks send you?”
“No. He doesn’t know I came.”
Something in his eyes called to me. My heart cracked.
I stepped away from the open door and turned my back on him. I shuffled to the bed and wrapped a blanket around me. I hated that it smelled like Brooks. It only made me yearn for him, and I loathed myself for it.
Archer shut the door and sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, keeping his distance.
“So, you wanted to say some things to me? So, say them,” I snapped.
He took a deep breath. “One of our biker brothers had a middle-school-aged kid who found out his friend was raped by a social worker. When the club found out . . . Brooks refused to let it slide.”
I sucked in a breath of air.
“So, Brooks finished it once and for all. The second man he killed was a known pedophile. He already had a record for raping a seven-year-old girl and leaving her for dead after beating her to a pulp. System went light on him and a few years later he got caught taking pictures of kids from his car outside a playground. Someone in town who knew the club came to us, and once we verified his record . . .”
“Archer—”
“The third man he killed was a drunk who nearly beat his four-year-old son to death one night for no fucking reason at all.”
Blackness swam before my eyes.
“I’m going to throw up again,” I whispered, placing a hand on my mouth and running for the bathroom. Bile and acid burned my throat as I heaved, but that didn’t sting as bad as the tears I tried to suppress.
When I came back out into the living room, Archer had a glass of ginger beer poured. Salem and Hadley had left it when they’d come over; I was glad to have it.
Now that I was pregnant.
I took the glass and gulped.
The ginger settled my stomach and parched my dry throat. When I collapsed onto the bed, Archer retook his seat as well.
“You ready for more?” he asked.
“More what?” I asked tiredly. “More explanations? He killed evil people.”
“Doesn’t that give you comfort?” he asked.
“Comfort? The man whose ring is on my finger killed vile, despicable people. People who hurt others. I’m not sure comfort is the right word.”
“He didn’t torture them. He didn’t derive pleasure from doing it. He just did what he had to . . . what society failed to do. Protect those who can’t protect themselves.”
“How do you know he didn’t enjoy it? Did he tell you that?”
He stared at me. “Because I was with him. Every time.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I cried. “How can you even be telling me this? You’re admitting to murder. I could turn you in. I could turn him in.”
“I’m taking a chance that you won’t.”
“That’s a big fucking chance,” I murmured. “Really big chance. Also, a big chance that whenever I look at Brooks all I’ll see is the darkness of his past.”
“A past he left behind. He wanted something different. For both of us.”
I was silent, trying to take it all in. The man sitting in my apartment was also a dangerous member of an MC.
I wasn’t sure what to say about Archer’s revelations, but I knew I had to say something. “He told me about Gina.”
“They dissolved their ties a year ago,” he explained. “Long before he met you.”
“I knew there were things he wasn’t telling me. But I . . . I didn’t want to dig and unearth his secrets. And I have a feeling that if Smoke hadn’t shown up, I’d still be living in ignorant bliss.”
“Still living not knowing the man you’re in love with,” he said gently. “You know why he didn’t tell you?”
“Why?”
“Because he never wanted to be sitting across from you like I am now, and have you look at him like you’re afraid of him.”
Was I afraid of Brooks?
I churned that idea over.
No. I wasn’t afraid of him. If I was, I would’ve felt it in my body. It would’ve settled there, curling into a ball of ice and freezing everything inside me.
I’d told him to get out and he left.
No questions. No intimidation. No manipulation.
“I’m not afraid of him,” I admitted. “But do I really know him?”
“Yes,” Archer said. “You know him. You know him by his actions. You know why he went to prison, and who he went to prison for. You know why he made Gina his Old Lady—to protect her and her kid. You know he killed people who hurt others. You know him, Poet. And deep down, you know he’d never hurt you or your baby. ”
My eyes widened.
“How did you—”
“Your hand,” he said, nodding at me with his chin. “Your hand has been on your stomach this whole time.”
“I’m not sure I’m pregnant,” I blurted out. “But Muddy said I was—and she has a certain knowing about her. It’s spooky.”
“You haven’t told him, have you?”
I shook my head.
“Were you planning on telling him?”
“I was,” I said slowly. “But then I . . .”
“Right.”
“You can’t tell him, Archer. Promise me,” I stated.
He looked at me. “I’ll promise on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Really think about what I told you. He’s . . .”
“He’s what?”
“He’s been surviving the past few years,” he said quietly. “But then he met you and now he’s really living. He has someone to live for. Without you, I don’t think . . . anyway. I won’t put that on you. But he needs you. Maybe more than you need him.”