by Bella Jewel
My head whips around and my eyes get wide. “What is it?”
She puts up a hand and keeps listening. “Is she okay?” she finally asks.
She listens for a bit more, and then says, “Please keep me updated.”
Hanging up the phone, she turns to me, and her expression is grim. She looks like she’s about to break some pretty terrible news, and that news is going to upset me.
“What is it?” I say frantically. “Please tell me.”
She exhales. “Penny’s ex was at Boston’s house, high as a kite, threatening them. He had a gun. Boston arrived, all hell broke loose, and Ashton shot Penny.”
I gasp and my hand flies over my mouth. “Is she okay? God, is she … alive?”
Panic floods my chest, and suddenly my problems seem non-existent in comparison.
“She’s okay, she got shot in the leg and has been taken to the hospital. But …”
“But what?” I cry out, my voice high pitched and frantic.
“But Mason said Boston … he beat Ashton, really bad … he didn’t say how bad because we are on the phone, which makes me think …”
“Oh God.”
Saskia nods. “Look, I don’t know, but he said everything is a big mess over there and Boston has gone MIA.”
Oh.
No.
My heart aches, for everyone, for Boston, for Penny, for the whole situation.
“When will we hear if Penny is going to be okay?” I ask.
“Mason said they’re about to find out, and he’ll call me soon.”
I hang my head.
How is this happening?
Why is this happening?
“It’ll be okay, Chan, she’s strong.”
“This has just gone from bad to worse,” I say, rubbing a hand down my face.
“Yeah, it has, but we’ll get through it. The club always does.”
“Do you think Boston is okay?”
I look up at her, my eyes holding hers. She shrugs. “I honestly don’t know, honey.”
“Do you think … he killed Ashton?”
Saskia shrugs again, her eyes concerned. “I don’t know, but the fact that Mason wouldn’t say it over the phone makes me wonder why. Maybe he just messed him up real bad, but … for Boston to go missing …”
God.
Poor Boston.
He’s been fighting so hard to protect Penny and I, that he’s found himself sinking into a pit of more despair, when he’s already endured enough. I want to find him, to go to him, to see if he’s okay, but I don’t know if that’s the right thing at the moment.
If he killed a man … in cold blood … would that honestly be a deal breaker for me?
I shake my head. No. Not if he was protecting someone he cared about. Boston isn’t a monster, I know that and I believe in that so entirely, that I don’t even second guess it. He’d never hurt someone, unless he had a reason to. And he’d never be so cold as to do something without cause.
I just hope he’s okay.
I hope Penny is okay.
God, I hope we’re all going to be okay.
~*~*~*~
CHANTELLE – TWO DAYS LATER
I’m sitting at the club with Saskia, Scarlett and Charlie when the boys arrive back from a ride. None of us asked what the ride was for, but we all figured it had something to do with Ashton, and making sure none of what happened came back to bite anyone here. Especially Boston.
He’s still gone.
Nobody has seen him.
Saskia told me Penny is out of the hospital, and staying with Malakai and Amalie. That she’s okay, but she’s shaken up still and doesn’t want to be bothered too much. I won’t go and see her, because I don’t want to push her. She’s been through enough.
After all, Boston did beat her ex-husband to death in front of her.
Everyone knows it, but nobody is talking about it.
Malakai walks in, and his eyes come straight to mine. “Can we have a word, Chantelle?”
I glance at Saskia and Scarlett, who both look to Malakai.
“I guess,” I say, standing.
I’m sore all over, and bruised up pretty bad. Half my face is swollen and puffy. But we went to the hospital and got checked out, and everything seemed to be okay, so that made me feel a little better. I told them it was a drunken bar fight, with a girl I didn’t know, and while I’m sure they didn’t believe me, they couldn’t argue it.
I slowly follow Malakai down the hall and into his office, where we step in and he closes the door. This must be serious, if he’s pulling me away from everyone else to tell me whatever it is he’s about to tell me.
“Is everything okay?”
He leans against his desk and holds my eyes, “It’s Boston.”
My heart feels like it launches into my throat, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. Has he gone and done something stupid? Is he okay?
“Is he okay?” I say quickly.
“No. He’s not. He’s fucked up. In a big way. Went to his house today, he’s there, and he was out of it. Drunk as fifty men, and vacant. Completely detached.”
Oh God.
“Penelope is refusing to see him, she’s made it clear she doesn’t want to be with him, and that what she saw was too much for her. She has that right, and has said she will talk to him, but she needs time to recover. Respect that. But it’s only made him feel worse. He’s shutting down, and fuck, I don’t want to see him do that again.”
Penelope wants nothing to do with him?
I’m surprised by this. I mean, don’t get me wrong, what he did … it’s scary and over the top, and crazy, even, but he’s not a monster. He’s not.
“How am I supposed to help?” I ask, confused.
“I think you might be the only person who can get through to him. Nobody else can even get a word. He fuckin’ needs someone, Chantelle, and I think that someone is you.”
“You want me to go to him?”
I’m surprised.
I didn’t know they held me at such a high regard in his life.
“Yeah, I want you to go to him. Because I think he needs you, darlin’. He needs you fuckin’ bad.”
My heart aches for him.
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise that you’re right on this Malakai, he may not want to see me …”
“Maybe,” he nods, running a hand through his hair. He looks exhausted. “But I gotta do somethin’ here. Watched him drown after Nerissa, don’t wanna fuckin’ see him do it again, because I’m scared this time, we won’t be able to bring him back to life.”
“Okay,” I tell him, turning toward the door. “I’ll go now.”
“Chantelle?”
I look back over my shoulder.
“Do what it takes, yeah? Be brutal, if you have to, but do what it fuckin’ takes to keep both hands on him to stop him from fallin’.”
I nod.
And then walk out.
I say goodbye to everyone and tell Saskia what I’m doing, to which she cautions me to be careful, and then I get in my car and drive to Boston’s house.
I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get there, or what I’m going to say. I don’t know how he best would want to be dealt with. I think about it long and hard on the drive over, going over every scenario, and how he might react to everything I could do in an attempt to get him to work with me, and decide that I know the best way.
I know it.
But can I bring myself to do it?
I’m terrified about what’s going to happen.
Terrified because I’m pregnant, terrified because I love him, and terrified, that after it all …
He might not love me enough for this to matter.
And that’s the scariest thought there is.
~21~
NOW – BOSTON
Feeling nothing, is a fuck of a lot worse than feeling everything.
Feeling nothing means you’re living in an empty, bottomless pit of just … fu
ck all.
That’s where I’m at.
Haven’t been in this place for a while, and never wanted to find it again, but here I am, sitting in its fuckin’ living room, drowning.
I killed Ashton.
And that’s not the part that bothers me the most. That mother fucker deserved everything he got, he was out of control and would have killed Penny, if I didn’t make that choice.
No, that’s not the part that bothers me.
The part that bothers me is that I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t control my body. My rage. It’s that she was screaming, and scared, and saw the worst part of me unleashed.
It was the look in her eyes after it. The horror. The disgust.
And now, she wants nothing to do with me.
I can’t say I blame her, but the feeling of knowing that I caused that in another person, especially a person I care about, is eatin’ me fuckin’ alive.
I take another long drink, swallowing the burning alcohol, trying to numb myself even more, because feeling nothing means you feel fuckin’ everything, and none of it makes sense.
I don’t see her, at first.
I’m sitting on my patio, unshowered, unshaven, drinking straight from the bottle. A few of the guys have come around, tried to talk to me, I’ve said nothing to any of them. I have nothing to say. I lost control. I lost control and I can’t get that back. I can’t undo what I did. That’ll haunt me forever.
“You know,” Chantelle says, and I whip my head around as she walks, very slowly because she’s still in pain, out onto my porch, “You’re a miserable drunk, Boston.”
I study her face. It’s still battered, and bruised. I never checked on her. Never went to see if she was okay after the attack. I just drowned in my own pitiful existence. And yet, here she is. No doubt about to tell me she can’t stand me, too. Can’t say I blame her. I can’t stand me.
“No reason for you to be here,” I grate out, my voice gravelly and broken.
She rolls her eyes, and walks over, sitting down beside me on the spare chair. I should have moved it.
“Well, one could argue that you’re my friend and you’re currently acting like you’re in serious need of mental help …”
I shoot her an angry glare, but she doesn’t even flinch. She just stares at me.
“I figure we have a few ways of being able to do this, Boston,” she says, holding my gaze. “Either you get up, go and shower, and we’ll have something to eat and talk, or I’ll make you get up, go and have a shower, and we’ll have something to eat and talk. Either way is fine by me.”
“Leave, Chantelle.”
“Yeah,” she shakes her head. “That’s not going to happen, so throw out whatever words you need to, to make yourself feel better, I won’t be leaving anytime soon. So, the choice is yours.”
I turn and take another long drink out of the bottle, saying nothing.
“Okay,” she says, snatching the bottle from my hand. “Have it your way.”
She tosses the bottle and it tumbles across my porch, leaking out everywhere.
“The fuck you think that’s going to stop?” I growl. “I’ve got more.”
She stands, turning to face me, and then, without warning, she is straddling me, my hair in her hands, tugging it hard. She tips my head back so our faces are close. “Now you listen to me, this is pathetic. You’re better than this. You’re stronger than this. And I’m not going to sit back and watch you wallow in self-pity. You’re going to get up, and you’re going to shower, and we’re going to sort this out.”
My eyes flash and I hiss, “Get off me, Chantelle, your little fuckin’ speeches won’t work.”
I go to move her off, but she hisses in pain.
“Well fuckin’ played,” I growl. “You know I won’t hurt you.”
“Exactly,” she says, hands still tangled in my hair. “Which means I’m here, on your lap, tugging at your hair, until you decide to talk to me, or listen, or something other than this.”
“Nothin’ to say.”
“There’s plenty to say.”
“I killed someone,” I snarl, staring into her eyes, but she doesn’t flinch. Not a single fuckin’ flinch. “I beat him until the life was sucked from his fuckin’ body.”
Still nothing.
Nothing at all.
“Yes, yes you did,” she says, her voice strong, and unwavering. “And that’s sucky, Boston. I’m not going to lie. You didn’t have to take it that far. But you did. And it’s done. And Penny is alive because of you.”
I flinch.
“She fuckin’ can’t stand me.”
“Then she is weak,” she shrugs. “Because one mistake does not make a person a monster.”
“I’m the reason Nerissa is dead too, or have you fuckin’ forgotten that?”
“Snap out of it,” she snarls, jerking my hair so hard pain shoots through my scalp. “Just snap the fucking hell out of it. You’re not the reason Nerissa is dead, and you damned well know it. And regardless, that has absolutely fucking nothing to do with this. Nothing at all. So, stop wallowing in the past, and pull your shit together.”
Fuck.
“Are you done?” I snap my teeth at her, getting frustrated.
“Nope,” she says casually. “Not even close. Now, you did a shitty thing. You probably didn’t have to kill him, but you did. And it’s done. And it cannot be undone. You can either choose to carry on about it, or you can put one foot in front of the other, and move on.”
“I fuckin’ murdered him, in cold blood,” I snarl.
She nods. “Yep, you did. Are you telling me that the other club members have never done something like that in their time?”
I say nothing. Because of course they have. We’ve all been in situations where the outcome was less than fuckin’ spectacular.
“Exactly,” she continues, when I have no answer. “So, let’s move on from the fact that you took a life, and look at the real problem. You failed someone. That’s what this is about.”
I flinch.
Fuck her.
“Fuck you,” I spit.
She holds my eyes, unwavering. “Maybe later. Now, as I was saying, you failed someone. That someone being Penny. The reason this is hitting you so hard, is because you’ve let failure become a big part of who you are after Nerissa. You failed Maverick, or so you believe, because she got killed. And now, you failed Penny, or so you think, because you killed her ex-husband and now she doesn’t want to look at you.”
Those words hurt, and anger bubbles in my chest. I clutch her hips, wanting to throw her off, more than fuckin’ anything, but bein’ unable to do that, because regardless of anything, I’d never fuckin’ hurt this girl.
“You need to get off me,” I rasp, my body trembling.
“No, you need to listen. For once in your fucking life, you need to listen. You’re only getting angry, because I’m right. I’ve hit you right where it burns, Boston, and that’s okay. Whatever it takes to get you to see that you’re not wrong here, I’ll do.”
“Get off me,” I bark.
“No.”
“Fuck, Chantelle,” I roar.
She tugs my head so hard a wince rips from my throat. “Now you listen to me, and listen good. You are not the reason that Nerissa is dead. She wanted out. She made a choice. She knocked you out to get away. She is her own worst enemy. And you are not the reason Penelope is sinking right now. She is that reason. She couldn’t handle what she saw. She couldn’t handle the part of you that all of you bikers have. She couldn’t take the world you’re in. That is not on you. You took it too far, yes, and you need to forgive yourself for that. Because, Boston, not one other woman in that fucking club would have flinched if her man did the same. She might not have liked it, but she would have accepted it. Because she accepts them, as they are, and the life they lead. Penny does not accept that. That is not on you.”
I jerk my head angrily out of her grips and hiss, “I don’t want to hear anymore.”
“Well you’re going to!” she yells, losing her shit and shoving my chest. “Because I’m not going to watch you sink, and your club sure as shit doesn’t want to see you going down that fucking rabbit hole again. So, we’re going to talk about it!”
“Fuck off.”
She rears her hand back and slaps me so hard my head swings to the side. A feral hiss leaves my throat and I grab her hand when it swings again, gripping her wrist tightly. I shake her with it, just a little, not enough to hurt her.
“Do not fucking hit me.”
“What are you going to do about it?” she snarls, baring her teeth.
I stare at her, and my body roars to life. Wild and feral. Nothing but pure, raw, heat. I shove her wrist around behind her back and then I use both our hands to shove her body closer, until she’s grinding against me.
“That doesn’t solve anything,” she pants.
“Sure as fuck makes me feel better.”
“Boston …”
I kiss her.
Hard and fuckin’ deep.
She’s not getting away from this.
I need her.
Hell, I just need something.
~*~*~*~
BOSTON
Lips.
Fucking angry pants.
Hair pulling.
Feral hisses.
I kiss her like I’m desperate. Hell. Maybe I am.
She kisses me back with the same ferocity. Hard and deep, angry, drawing blood on my bottom lip as she bites at it.
I’m hard as a fucking rock. And I need release.
I grab hold of her dress and I hike it up around her waist, then I take her panties and tear them aside. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to make sweet fucking love. I want to fuck her. Raw and deep. Here on my porch. I want her to make me forget everything in the fucking world for a minute, just a god damned minute. And right now, she’s the only woman on the face of this earth that can do that for me.
I shift her aside just enough to jerk my jeans down with some force, and free my cock. It’s pulsing, and she’s hot. I can smell her arousal, and I can feel her pussy heat radiating through my jeans. She wants this just as much as I do. And I’m going to give it to her, as hard and fuckin’ deep as I can. I lift her up, and without warning, slide her down onto my cock. Her pussy hugs my dick like it has been starved of it for a long fuckin’ time.