Chapter 3 Callie #3
His warmth, his scent…his touch. I hadn’t even realized I closed my eyes until his rough voice scraped against the shell of my ear.
“You don’t get to suddenly show up and decide to start reading his letters. Not after you’ve ignored them for the past three years.”
Shock had my eyes flying open and my grip going slack.
“What are you talking about? My father never wrote me.” He didn’t call me; he didn’t do anything to reach out and have a relationship with me.
Wes scoffed, and this close I could smell the delicious scent of leather and cedar, plus something else annoyingly intoxicating. His body was still nearly flush with mine as his chest heaved and his eyes searched the envelope he’d stolen from me.
His eyes roamed over the page for a brief second before they landed back on me, as if I’d stolen his attention. This close, it felt like we’d stepped back in time. He was my first love. He was once my protector, my savior…and then he ruined me.
“He sent you one once a month for the past three years. I know because I was the one who took them to the post office for him.”
My brows pulled forward as I tried to make sense of what he was saying. I should have kept my thoughts to myself, but my mind was racing too fast so I mused my confusion out loud.
“The only letters I received were from you, and I haven’t opened any of them.”
Whiskey eyes narrowed on my face, before a sneer lifted his lips.
“You actually thought they were from me? Maybe he put my name and address, but they were from him. I had nothing to say to you.”
Hurt wound through me like a poisonous vine, gripping my organs and squeezing tight.
Why did it matter that they weren’t from him?
I wanted to snarl back about the one letter he’d sent right after we’d broken up and how he had something to say then, but considering that letter eviscerated my heart, I wasn’t eager to draw attention to it.
What should matter is that I had a handful of unread letters from my dad sitting in my top drawer at home. Maybe there was a chance at some kind of reconciliation to be found in his musings.
My back was against my car, and my eyes were on the letter in his hand. My letter.
I snatched it as quickly as I could from his fingers and tried to slip away from him. I had no idea where I would go, but my fucking keyless entry wasn’t working, and I had to get this letter away from him.
So like a mature adult, I stuffed it inside my bra.
Wes watched with narrowed eyes and a strong tick in his jaw. I hated how good his hair looked.
“You think I won’t reach in between your tits to grab it?” He stalked closer, a dark glint shining in his eyes. “You must have forgotten how much I enjoyed them, Callie. It would be a fucking pleasure to frisk you.”
Why was my tongue so dry? Shit, did my heart just fucking stop? He was messing with me, trying to get into my head. I took two steps back and gathered my resolve.
“This is my letter, and the only reason I didn’t touch the others you sent was because I assumed they were from you. Now that I know they’re not, I will go home and read them, just like this one.” I lifted the paper and shook it slightly.
Wes’s face transformed, as if the sun had suddenly broken through the graying clouds. His lips twisted to the side with a sly grin and his arms came across his chest, linking under his armpits.
“Why’d you keep them?” He stepped closer, that curl of his lips growing more sinister. “Better yet, why keep them and not read them? Why not just trash them?”
How did I get out of this?
“Just fuck off, Wes. I don’t owe you shit.”
His face shuttered the slightest bit, his jaw tightened, and then his eyes found the concrete at our feet.
“Callie, you can’t take the club. Your dad wouldn’t have wanted that.”
Why did it hurt so badly to hear from him what my father would have wanted?
I needed to get out of there and collect myself, because there was a sob working its way up my throat. My father rejected me. Wes didn’t choose me. Now it felt like they were both mocking me somehow.
“Why do you even care? And why did you stay in the club, anyway, much less become the president? I thought you’d have gone to college or started your own garage.”
I didn’t think he’d reply, but he shocked me by saying, “I did both, actually. I just also stayed in the club.”
A few silent seconds slipped by, the sounds from the dock and the river echoing around us, the sun was making its way higher in the sky.
His response landed in my sternum like concrete.
He’d done all of it. College, a shop…he had a life, one he always talked about, but he also had the club.
He chose the club and that life over me.
The pain from seven years ago burned fresh as I tried to take a calming breath.
“Just let me leave, Wes. You remember how that goes, right? You simply let me walk away. I get it…it’s not about me, it’s about your stupid clubhouse.
I don’t know what I plan to do, but if you don’t give me two seconds to gather myself and read this letter then I’ll do something reckless, like hire a bulldozer and level the place. ”
He seemed to think it over, this time backing up with a small shake of his head.
My shoulders sagged with relief as I made my way back to my car, right as Wes straddled his bike.
Before he turned the engine over, I had to ask one last thing.
“Wes, why was a Death Raider at my motel this morning?”
His fingers froze, hovering over the key.
Whiskey eyes tilted up, landing on me like I’d just grown a second head.
I shifted uncomfortably in my boots, scraping a tiny pebble from the asphalt as I waited for his reply.
I had left this place, but there were things about this place that would never leave me.
I wanted to make sure Rose Ridge was still safe.
There was a reason Death Raiders didn’t come here.
Rose Ridge was strictly Stone Rider territory…
especially after what happened eight years ago.
“You saw one this morning?” Wes asked.
The fact that he didn’t know made my stomach churn. If Dad was gone, that meant Wes was in charge now, which meant he oversaw keeping the town safe from them.
I nodded, gripping my key fob tightly as I watched him.
“Right as I was coming out of my room, he was exiting a few doors down.”
Wes cursed, looking off to the side.
“Did he say anything to you?”
I should lie. The tremor in my stomach told me as much. I should just forget I saw anyone and leave. Take my new property and get the hell out of Dodge. But I’d dealt with the Death Raiders, and if they were fraternizing with his members, he needed to know.
“I don’t think so. He asked if I wanted a ride, but I think if he’d recognized me, he wouldn’t have asked.”
When he didn’t reply, I took a step closer to him.
“What’s going on, Wes?”
Deliberating, with a jaw that looked as though he was chewing glass, my ex finally let out a ragged breath and ran a hasty hand through his hair. “You don’t need to know. Just go back to DC. There was a”—his chin dipped to his chest as he let out a muttered curse—“just go back to your life.”
“I will right after I get what’s mine. That’s my property now, and my house. I’m coming for it.”
His expression hardened. He toyed with the key in his bike before leveling me with that glare again.
“If you come for the clubhouse, you’ll be met with a war, Princess.”
I didn’t want to show that I was already afraid that I might be walking into a turf war, but like hell would I let that stop me from taking what was owed to me.
“In case you forgot, I grew up in this life, Wes. You don’t scare me.”
He terrified me.
His eyes stayed locked on mine as he started his engine, which was his form of cutting our conversation off. When he began backing his bike out of the space, I finally ducked into my car.
Then I inhaled a choppy breath and resisted the urge to scream.