Chapter 4
Chapter Four
GHOST
Even eight days later, she was all I could think about.
We were moving onto the next phase of the build work, with the walls finally complete and dry, and lintels going in for ceilings and upper floors.
This would be the main building that fed into the bar area, and looped around the courtyard.
The plans showed something amazing, and being able to actually be involved in the build was just what I needed to feel a part of things here.
Being one of the old crew had made it harder for me to connect with the newer brothers from the other Phoenix chapter, and likewise with any new arrivals, prospects, or otherwise.
Grease, the tech guy, was constantly here, locked up in his tech ‘box’, and the Pres was onsite more than I’d expected with a young baby at home, but apparently that was his old lady’s preference. He seemed to be keeping his eye on me though, and not in a bad way.
“Hey, brother. You wanna head out to the club with us tonight?” Rocket, one of the aforementioned guys from the other chapter, was leaning against the doorframe behind me, right beside the high powered lights we’d rigged up once the structure had started blocking daylight out.
“Club?”
He grinned. “Yeah, a bunch of us are going. You want in?”
I shook my head, focusing on the task at hand, rather than wondering what fucking club he was even talking about.
“Grimm’s good people, man, you’ll like him.”
I finally stopped, the tools neatly packed away as I straightened up.
“I have no idea who you’re talking about, but I’m busy tonight.”
The smile dropped from his face. “Look, I get it. You’re from the old club, and we’re the interlopers, but we’re just trying to be a brotherhood. Surely you can see we’re better than the old members?”
I’d liked a few of them, but they’d moved on as soon as the patchover was hinted at, and the ones I didn’t like? They were dead, which was exactly what they’d deserved.
“I know. I’m just dealing with my own shit right now. Can you just give me a chance to get my head straight?”
He rubbed his jaw. “I’ll offer you the same therapy I offer any brother. You’re welcome. Want me to punch you?”
He grinned widely, and I laughed.
“Do they usually say yes?”
He shrugged, moving closer to poke around the tools I’d just tidied up.
“More often than you’d expect, kinky fuckers.”
I reached past him and neatened things again, while he smirked at me, straightening up again and smoothing his cut.
“I probably deserve it, but no, thanks.”
“We all deserve it, brother. We’re men. Anyway, the offer remains if you want it. I’mma go get my drink on with V.”
Now his old lady I liked. Strong and a little violent, both things that made her no kind of target. Something I wished Elizabeth had been, because she may have had a chance of fighting back that night.
“Brother, you need to talk, just hit me up. Or hit me. Either way, it’s all good. Don’t be surprised if Micro boots you out soon. He said you’re working too hard. Ha. He’s never said that about me, the bastard.”
He was already halfway back out the door, his bulky form filling the doorway and blocking more of the light for a brief moment. The darkness felt good. It matched my fucking soul. I sat down with my back against the wall, dust covering me as I slid my legs down flat.
Yeah, darkness was what I deserved, because some things could never be undone. For the millionth time, I wondered if she was doing okay, not that she ever would be, but after her recent injury. Another injury that I fucking caused.
“I’m such an asshole,” I groaned, closing my eyes as I rested my head back against the rough bricks.
“Bit harsh.”
Ugh I was being monitored again. In so many ways, this club was better than the old one had ever been, but in others, I felt like I was under a spotlight, when I wished they’d just move on and leave me be.
“Just taking a breather, Pres.”
He nodded, sliding down to sit a few feet away from me, just quietly gazing around the large space, littered with equipment and supplies as it was right now.
“This is going to be fucking amazing when it’s done. For so long, I felt like it’d never happen, and now this is it. Our new home.”
I nodded, keeping quiet, because I felt like this was a prelude to what he really wanted to say. Softening me up, maybe.
“You’re doing great work. I know the crew we hired are really impressed with you.”
“Thanks.”
He tapped his fingers on his knee, eyeing me shrewdly. Here it comes. Time to start digging away at my psyche again, and my tentative hold on the crushing guilt eating me from the inside out.
“You can’t change the past, brother. God knows I’ve wished I could so many times.” Yep. There it is. I’d told him things I wished he never had to know about me, but he hadn’t judged me. Just listened quietly, nodding slowly, asking sensible questions at the right moments.
“Yeah.”
“You weren’t to blame for what happened. You didn’t physically cause it. You just expected it to be safe for her. It should have been. If it’d been us, she would have been protected.”
That fixed absolutely fucking nothing, but I guess the sentiment was there. The fact that things would be different now, you know, if a woman ever trusted me again. If I ever let one even try.
“I was stupid. Na?ve. Arrogant. I don’t know. Maybe all three.”
He snorted. “We’ve all been there, man. The decisions I’ve made over the years, aside from the really bad things I did? Those still eat at me, at times.”
“Like the reason for your road name?”
He groaned again, flipping me off. “It always comes back to that. Look, I know you’re deflecting, see, that’s a word I learned from my sister, the therapist.” Ha. Suddenly I got why he was trying to shrink me. It ran in the damn family.
“I don’t need therapy.”
“Maybe not. Maybe everyone does. It’s available to you if you need it. Lissa helps any brothers who need to talk shit out. She earns from club dues so she’s got the time for us.”
“And what am I supposed to talk to her about, huh? The fact that I got a woman raped, because I was too stupid to realise that the old club would immediately set their sights on her, and see how many dicks they could force into her before I got free and saved her? Maybe the fact that I knew they were monsters, I fucking knew, and I still risked it. I was cocky. I was a fucking idiot. Or maybe worse than that,” I gritted out as I stood up, “because how do I know I’m not just like them, huh?
How do I know that I didn’t suspect it’d happen, and wanted to see if it did?
What if I’d wanted to join in, huh? How much of what happened was truly out of my control? All of it? None of it?”
Micro stood up too, watching me pace, his hands tucked in his jeans pockets, like he wanted to stay out of my way.
“Guilt, brother. It makes you suspect your worst possibilities. You didn’t bring her to the party with the idea she’d be raped.
You brought her because you liked her, and wanted to have a fun night.
You might not have trusted the guys in the club, but you’d have expected that they’d at least respect your claim on her. ”
My eyes were burning, and I felt sick to my stomach.
“I’d been patched in for eight months, and I thought I was a fucking god.
I thought they’d treat me like they treated each other.
My woman, they keep their hands off. I was a stupid, arrogant little shit who was forced to watch them drag her off and rape her, while they held me back.
She was screaming, Pres. Screaming her head off for me.
Yelling my name. Begging me to save her, and I was powerless.
Useless. I was watching her suffer the most horrific assault, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. ”
When did I start crying like a pussy? When did the burning in my eyes and my throat turn into a physical manifestation of my grief and sorrow? Micro’s hand was on my shoulder as I choked back sobs because I didn’t fucking deserve to feel this.
I took a woman on a date from hell, and I’d ruined her life.
Destroyed her. Maybe destroyed both of us, because living through this?
Living with the knowledge of that night?
The memories? The fucking nightmares? It was hell, and I only had to witness it.
She suffered it. She felt every fucking moment of their touch, and their forced entry into her body.
She wore the remnants of their forced pleasure when they finally tossed her aside and laughed among themselves.
They fucking laughed. They went back to drinking beer, while she trembled in a curled up ball, and when they finally let go of me, and I fell to my hands and knees beside her, she took one look at me and began to scream again.
My face was forever cemented in her mind, in her heart, as the one that caused it all.
The reason for her agony. The reason she lost herself that night.
“That’s it, brother, let it out. It’s okay.
This had to happen,” Micro was murmuring, patting my shoulder gently as it all flowed out, gutting me from the inside, and leaving a ragged broken mess in its wake.
Me. The man who destroyed a woman, just because I fucking wanted her for myself.
Her life was forever changed because I didn’t walk away when I saw her, because I stopped and hit on her, and took her for drinks.
Because we went on three amazing dates before that night.
Because I was falling in love with her, and wanted to share the rest of my world with her.
I never deserved to even breathe the same fucking air as her.
“You weren’t the monster, brother. You weren’t the one. It’s okay. Breathe for me, it’s okay.”