Chapter 7
Rowan
Shadow led Trey into the clubhouse, and all the brothers looked on as if they were worried he would try something. My heart beat a little faster when Reaper stood in front of Trey.
The tension was palpable.
“I need to talk to her first,” Trey said, firmly. “Then you can talk to me all you want.”
Reaper turned to me. “You good with that?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s okay.”
Trey moved over to me, but I led him down the hall, away from everyone’s eyes and up to where I was staying—his bedroom, now mine. When we closed the door, I moved over to the bed and sat down on the edge. Unsure of what to do with my hands, I clasped them in my lap and waited for him to start.
I didn’t even know why I was so nervous. This was just Trey. I knew him, I knew him better than most. I loved him. Even if it wasn’t that hot, passionate kind of love, and was more of a friend love, it was still love.
“Look at me, Ro,” he said. The pain in his voice was what had me looking up. He had watery eyes, as if he were going to cry. “Please, let me try and explain.”
“Are you high or drunk right now?” I asked him.
He shook his head, and he moved closer to me. “I promise you, Ro. I’m clean. I haven’t touched anything since…”
“Since you left me to be beaten?”
He hung his head, slinking to his knees in front of me. His hands clasped over mine, squeezing. “I swear I tried to tell you to get out. I tried…but you should be angry with me. I fucked up. I wasn’t thinking.”
“What do you mean, you tried?”
“I sent you a text, when I was on the way to the airport. I texted you that you should stay with Frankie for a bit, until shit blew over. But…well I was in the tunnel, and the message didn’t go through.
I ended up turning my phone off so I couldn’t be tracked.
Raf knew my number, he could have had one of his people track me. I swear I thought you got it.”
“You couldn’t have called?”
“I know, I know…I’m a fuck up. You deserve so much more than me. You always have. Please…believe me that I would never intentionally leave you to be hurt.”
“Trey…”
“Look,” he said, pulling his hands away and yanking his phone out of his back pocket. He unlocked it and held it out to me. I took it, and looked down at the message trail between us. The last message was the one he’d sent me but the one before that was…
TREYI can’t explain, Ro, but please just go to Frankie’s for a few days. I’ll call you in a bit and explain the best I can. Just don’t go back to the apartment after work. Please.
Underneath that message, the one word that sealed my fate.
Undelivered.
“Trey.”
My voice was broken, emotion clogging my throat.
“Ro, I am so fucking sorry,” he said, his voice was now breaking along with mine.
“I swear I had no idea. I didn’t think Raf would attack you, I didn’t know they would come and hurt you instead of me.
But I should have. I should have called you.
I should have taken you with me. I fucked up. I fucked it all up, and I know that.”
I threw his phone on the bed and got up, moving over to him and pulling him into my arms. He wrapped his around my waist and hugged me back.
It was so familiar, and yet so different.
He was still my friend, and he’d made a mistake.
A bad one, and yes, he fucked up, but it was a mistake because he was scared.
“Ro…I’ll fuck him up…I swear. I’ll find a way to fuck him up for what he did to you.”
“I don’t want you to do anything stupid, Trey, but there is something you can do,” I said, pulling from him and holding his hands in mine.
“Anything, Ro.”
“Tell your dad.”
“What?”
“Tell your dad, Trey. He can help you. He has the resources to help you with this. Whatever you’ve done, whatever they are after you for…he can help you. Trust him.”
Trey ran a hand over his head. I could see the indecision in his eyes.
They had a strained relationship, Trey thinking that Wyatt wasn’t a great father.
I had no idea, I didn’t know him back then but I knew he was worried about Trey, and I’m sure he’s the one that has been bailing him out for years.
He was his son, after all.
“If you don’t talk to your dad about it, we can’t be friends. I can’t forgive you. I want you to tell him it all,” I said, feeling a little more confident. Moving over to his phone, and handing it back to him. “Talk to him.”
Trey nodded. “I suppose if he kept you safe, helped you…I can trust him enough.”
He headed for the door, his hand on the doorhandle, when I called out, “Trey, tell him everything. Not just the addictions…everything that led up to you getting addicted.”
He didn’t turn back to face me, but I saw the way he stiffened. He’d never told a soul. I hated that this was the way I told him I knew, but it would help him in the long run.
Wyatt would sort it out.
I knew he would.
Reaper
Looking over at my boy, sitting at the end of the table, I could see the tension in his shoulders. He’d come down from talking with Rowan but she hadn’t followed. It took everything in me not to go up there and ask her if she was okay.
But my son needed to explain himself.
Whatever had him running, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“Talk.”
Trey looked up from where his gaze had been trained on his hands, resting on the wooden table in front of him. Sitting back in the chair, I saw him take a few deep breaths before he began.
“I’m an addict, Dad. If it’s not coke, it’s alcohol or pills. I was peddling drugs for this guy to pay for my habit. But…I got caught up with an old friend who introduced me to a guy who had a job for me. I wanted to get clean. He promised he would help me.”
“Did he?”
“In a way. He got me off the drugs. I stopped drinking, but not before I fucked things up with Ro. Fuck, she wouldn’t leave me to deal with it on my own. She just…stuck around to make sure I was okay.”
He ran his hand over his head, just like I did when I was frustrated. I knew Rowan was a one of a kind woman, and this just goes to show how much of a true woman she was. My chest tightened at that.
“Continue. How did Rowan end up beaten and almost dead in the apartment you shared?”
Trey sighed, and I saw a glimmer of something. Regret, maybe, I don’t know but whatever it was, it wasn’t near enough of an emotion for what happened. I could still see her intake photos in my mind’s eye and it made me murderous.
“I found out the man I was working for was Rafael.”
I stood up. “Are you fucking kidding me, Trey? You work for the Ironborne Crew?”
“No,” Trey stood up this time, too. “I don’t.
When I found out it was Raf, I told them I was done.
I would do one last job and I was done. I’d finally got my addictions under control and I was finally…
I don’t know, happy I guess. I wanted to make it up to Ro.
I wanted to give back to her for sticking by me. ”
“Rowan deserves more than someone who disappears and doesn’t warn her when danger is coming. You should have fucking told her face to face, admitted you fucked up, and brought her here so we could protect her, and you.”
“I know, fuck!” he groaned. “Look, I tried. I sent a text message to her but I didn’t realise it didn’t go through. I didn’t know, Dad. I thought she was with Frankie.”
“Trey…I know we have a shit relationship but you know I would do anything to protect you. This club would do anything to protect you. You chose to not seek help, and it hurt your girlfriend.”
His brows furrowed for a moment. “I fucked up. I know I fucked up, but no one is going to hurt Ro again. I made her a promise. I will keep it.”
“What did you promise her?”
“I will make this right for her.”
“Trey, what did you promise her?” I ground out, getting a very bad feeling about what he was about to admit.
“I’m going to kill him,” Trey announced. “I’m going to kill Rafael.”
The blood drained out of my body at the resolute admission from my only son. I may have failed him as a father, thinking I’d done the right thing by him, but right now, I’d be an asshole if I let him do that.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Trey, he’ll kill you the second he spots you. He’s the Ironborne’s most lethal assassin. There’s no way I’m letting you take this on.”
“But he hurt Ro–”
“Because of you!”
He sat back down, frightened by me raising my voice. I rarely did it, but when I did, people sat down and shut up.
“I let her down, Dad. I need to make it up to her…for everything, for the last year, for…everything.”
“What do you mean by the last year?” I asked him. “What the fuck have you done to her?”
“Nothing like that, jeez, I’m not a fucking monster. I was just fucking confused. All of this was because I was confused and I didn’t know what to do. She begged me to come and talk to you, and I refused. She swore you’d understand, but when Mum didn’t, I just assumed you’d be the same.”
“Understand what, Trey? Stop talking in riddles and spit it the fuck out.”
“I’m gay!” he cried out, slamming his hands down on the table. “I’m gay, okay?”
I had no idea that was going to come out of his mouth, that was for sure, but my mind didn’t go to the admission about his sexuality, it went straight to Rowan.
“What about Rowan?”
“She and I have been living as roommates for a year. I didn’t think she knew, she was just helping me with everyone when it came up, being a friend.
But she knew…this whole fucking time and she waited for me to tell her,” he admitted, before his eyes zeroed in on me.
“Are you seriously not going to comment on what I just told you?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed, standing up and heading to the door. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything else. Mum kicked me out, told me I shouldn’t darken her doorstep, so I guess I get the same from you.”
“I didn’t dismiss you yet, kid, sit down.”
“Why?”
Closing the distance between us, I pulled him up against the door, keeping it closed.
“I don’t give a fuck who you want to fuck.
I don’t care if you want to marry a goddamn mannakin if that floats your boat.
Your Mum is a fuckhead, but you know that already.
You wanting to be with another guy doesn’t stop you from being my son, and it definitely doesn’t stop me from loving you. ”
His lip trembled, and I saw the way he was crumbling before my eyes. I pulled him into my arms and hugged him, the way my father never dreamed of doing to me. The way I had always dreamed of being hugged when I needed it when I’d been fighting for my life.
The fact he had been holding that in all this time and I had no idea, the very fact he didn’t feel safe enough to tell me, killed me.
“I will die for you, kid. Who you love doesn’t change that. Nothing will change that.”
He pulled from my arms, dried his eyes and nodded. “Can I ask you a favour?”
“Anything, kid.”
“Can Ro stay here for a while?” he asked me. “She’s under some crazy illusion that if you found out we weren’t together, you’d kick her out.”
“Leave Rowan with me. I want you to go with Mav, and set up in one of our safehouses for a bit. I’ll sort the shit out with Raf. Trust me, he’s not going to get away with what he’s done to you or Rowan.”
He nodded. “I have to make amends somehow.”
“You can, but right now, you need to leave it with me. I’m your Dad after all.”
His smirk had the tightness in my chest easing a little bit. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for him to have to admit to me that he was gay, especially when he’d struggled so much that he’d gotten caught up with the Ironborne.
Fuck. This was a mess.
“Go get a drink, kid, and send Mav in.”
He nodded and headed out of Chapel, leaving me reeling. This was a mess, but it wouldn’t take long to track down Raf and send a message.
But the sooner I do that, the sooner Rowan will leave, and I didn’t want that either. Not now that I knew she wasn’t with Trey anymore, and hadn’t been for quite some time. Those heated looks had been just that…desire.
A match to my own.
Somehow, I knew Rowan Martell was going to be mine, it was just a matter of making sure nothing stood in my way before I could claim her.