Prologue #3
“I do! I do love you. Christ, Honey Bee. I love you more than anything on this fucking planet. But we don’t have to leave.
Baby, we can make this work.” His tone was pleading, but I could see it in his eyes.
He thought the same thing I was starting to.
That this was it for us. The same pleading I could see in his gaze filled his voice as he asked, “Why can’t you just stay here? ”
I hated him a little bit just then. Because he already knew the answer to that question. I swatted the tears away, willing the anger to grow. Anger was so much easier than the soul-destroying pain I was feeling. “Why can’t you go?” I shot back, bitterness dripping from my tongue.
“I just can’t, Dakota.”
“Why?” I demanded to know, the word coming out harsh enough to make him flinch.
“Because this is my family.” The words spilled out fast, and his eyes widened in shock. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. I could see the instant he wished he could take them back, but it was too late.
All the air whooshed from my lungs. The blow he just delivered with his words hurt worse than anything my mother had ever inflicted with her fists.
He knew what my life was like. He knew. He said he understood my animosity toward my father and the club and why I kept my distance.
But with that one sentence, he proved himself a liar.
That lump grew even bigger, making it almost impossible to talk. “I—” I cleared my throat. “I thought I was your family.”
“You are!” he declared quickly, but it didn’t matter, the damage had been done. Those words were out and they could never be taken back. “You are my family, Dakota. You know that. But these guys are too.”
“And you’re choosing them.”
It wasn’t a question. I already knew.
His hands shot out, his fingers wrapping around my arms and pulling me into him before I had a chance to evade.
“There doesn’t have to be a choice. You don’t have to leave, Honey Bee.
You can stay here and we can get a house together or something.
I’ve been working a lot of hours at the garage and saving up.
I have enough for a down payment.” His words were a silent plea, which only made everything hurt worse.
“I can take care of you. You’ll never have to see that vile bitch again if you don’t want to. ”
Being a Wraith meant the garage wasn’t Roe’s only source of income, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I would use a single cent of the money he made doing whatever illegal shit the club demanded of him.
The sadness and anger faded into nothing as a cold numbness wrapped around me like a shroud.
“Do you remember what I said to you the first time you saw the bruises?” My gaze was pointed at the center of his chest but I wasn’t actually seeing anything as my mind spun back to that night.
“That night was one of the worst. Mom was mad because Dad was with the club again. She got drunk on cheap vodka. Do you remember?” I didn’t wait for him to confirm.
“She found out you and I were dating, and she lost it. Said one of her daughters would be a whore for the Iron Wraiths over her dead body.”
“You are not a whore.”
I carried on like he hadn’t said a word. “She beat me senseless. Said it was for my own good. Once I was able, I got up and ran to you. What did I say when I finally found you? What did I tell you, Roe?”
His throat worked on a swallow. “You said you’d rather die than stay in Ashland forever. That you were getting out no matter what.”
“And what did you say when I told you that?”
The glassiness returned to Roe’s eyes but it wasn’t from the alcohol this time. It was from his own tears. “I told you that where you go, I go. Because you’re my home.”
“I guess those were just words, huh?”
Roe dropped his gaze to his boots, unable to meet my eyes for another second, but not before I caught the flash of shame in them as he looked away. “I’m sorry,” he said so quietly I almost didn’t hear.
“My mom was right,” I whispered, the razor edge of those words slicing my throat to shreds on their way up.
“I was a fucking idiot for falling in love with a Wraith.” I felt along my wrist for the bracelet he’d given me for my fifteenth birthday.
To anyone else, it probably wouldn’t have been that special, just a cheap piece of jewelry with chips of glass meant to mimic diamonds.
But to me it meant everything. Roe hadn’t had a lot of money back then, and what he did have, he used to get me a present.
I’d worn that bracelet like a badge of honor every day since, never once taking it off. Until that moment.
I ripped it off my wrist, busting the cheap clasp, and dropped it onto the carpet.
“This is over,” I croaked, the sharp, jagged edges of those words slicing my throat to ribbons on their way up.
Without a backward glance I ripped his door open and stumbled out into the hall, clutching at my chest right over where the organ inside was bleeding out.
“Baby girl?”
The voice down the hall came from the very last person I wanted to see.
Batting the tears from my cheeks, I lifted my head and turned to look at my father.
The memory of the man I had once adored and loved with everything I had flashed in front of my eyes before it was replaced with the man of today.
A man who might have looked so familiar but was little more than a stranger.
A thousand emotions played across his face at warp speed, starting with concern and ending with understanding. Then, finally, resignation.
“I’m not your baby girl,” I gritted out. “I’m not your anything. Not anymore.”
Desolation filled my father’s eyes, but instead of fighting for me like I’d always prayed, he simply nodded, not saying another word as he let me go for good.
As I walked out of the Iron Wraiths clubhouse and away from the only two men I’d ever loved—the same two men who’d destroyed me—I vowed to myself that I would never come back.