“What’s the Russian looking to transport?”
“Women and drugs. Something you would know if you fucking listened to me,” he snarls.
Jack’s jaw ticks as he turns his attention back to me.
“Find out who did your girl dirty,” he orders. “Be sure before we throw our balls to the wind and go to war.”
“The club will back me?”
“She your woman, then she’s property of the Satan’s Knights and no one fucks with what is ours.” He turns to Rocco. “Looks like you got your wish, boy. You ready to work with me?”
“If it brings justice to the people who hurt my sister then I’ll do whatever the fuck you tell me to do.”
Jack glances back and forth between us silently assessing the two men who vowed to protect one woman and both failed.
There’s something in his eyes.
The same thing I saw in Blackie’s when he led us to the Corrupt Bastards' clubhouse.
It’s a promise.
A vow of retribution.
-Thirty-four-
Gina
The light of the bathroom temporarily blinds me as Celeste closes the door behind us and sets the duffel bag on the counter. With my swollen eyes, I try to stare at the floor, at the grout outlining the tiles, unable to lift my head and look my cousin in the eye. Subconsciously I’m also aware of the mirror behind her and I’m not ready for that truth. I’m not ready to look at myself and accept that this isn’t a nightmare.
I won’t wake up from this.
“Gina,” she begins hoarsely. “Let’s get you out of these clothes, okay?”
Nodding, I reach for the waistband of my skirt but Celeste takes my hands and places them at my sides. Gently, she unzips my skirt and eases it down my legs, helping me step out of the material once it’s pooled around my ankles. I glance down, waiting for her to remove my panties and realize I’m not wearing any.
Tears fall from my eyes, stinging my cheeks as they slide down my face.
She squeezes my hand before undoing the two buttons left on my shirt and lets the torn silk fall from my shoulders. My breasts are exposed; the cups of my bra were pulled down and never put back in place. She unclasps the bra and I’m completely naked.
Instinctively I try to cover myself with my hands and then I realize there is no point, I drop my hands back to my sides as I lift my head and meet my cousins worried gaze.
Worried and full of sorrow.
Maybe pity.
I’d pity the girl standing in front of her too.
The girl too afraid to look at herself in the mirror.
Celeste clears her throat and reaches inside her bag, pulling out a bunch of medical supplies. Some I recognize from television shows and some others I have no idea what they’re for. She lifts a syringe, filling it with something before she turns back to me.
“I took this kit from the hospital,” she explains.
Shrugging my shoulders, I turn my damaged body over to her and let her do her job. I close my eyes and pretend I’m far away, that my feet aren’t planted firmly on the floor and my cousin isn’t prying my legs open. I pretend like she doesn’t inject me with needles filled with antibiotics or a tetanus shot. I’m on a beach in Saint Thomas not in a tiny bathroom having multiple swabs inserted into my mouth and vagina. I’m sipping on a margarita, not downing a glass of water and the morning-after pill.
I’m not sure how long it goes on for, if it’s minutes or hours because I’m completely detached from reality until I feel the water wash over me.
“Is the temperature okay?” Celeste asks as I stand under the showerhead and let the water stream hit my battered body. I nod my head in response and she steps out of the shower, drawing the curtain closed.
“I’m right here, Gina,” she assures.
Forcing open my eyes, I stare at the white floor of the shower, watching as the blood and dirt wash off my body and spiral down the drain. Deciding I don’t want my body anymore, that I’m absolutely terrified of it, I wish I could fade down the drain like the blood and dirt do, but I know it’s not possible. I’m stuck here and forced to live through this nightmare. I’m forced to face the world as a victim, something I swore I’d never be.
For a moment I wonder if I pretend I’m okay, if I pretend my whole world didn’t just crumble; if the people around me will buy it. They bought the happy act I gave the world for so long. No one knew I was lonely and miserable. It worked so well that at times I forgot the truth. Maybe this could be similar. Maybe if I step out of the shower and assure everyone I’m okay, that I will survive this, well, maybe I’ll believe it too.
Maybe I’ll believe the lie.
Long after the blood and dirt are washed from my body and the scent of cologne no longer lingers on my skin, I stay under the water and wait for it to turn cold. Celeste peels back the curtain and helps me wash my hair. At first I cringe at her touch but then I force myself back to the beach, back to my happy place and allow her to condition the knots from my hair.
The water turns off and my time is up.
I can no longer hold off the inevitable.
Stepping out of the shower, I take my first steps as a victim of violence and stand before the mirror.
This is my moment of truth.
I lift my gaze to the mirror and gasp at the woman staring back at me, knowing she belongs to me. That we are now one.
The strength and independence I prided myself on is now masked by rape.
This is the face and body of a woman who said no.
A woman you didn’t hear cry out.
A woman you won’t see on the news.
A woman you wouldn’t remember if you had.
I am a woman who has been raped.
And these abrasions and lacerations are now mine for the rest of my life.
They will fade, the world won’t see them again, but every time I look into the mirror they will still be there.
Celeste stands behind me, wrapping a towel around my battered body sheltering it from both her eyes and mine. I struggle to watch in the mirror as she looks away and tries to compose herself.
She’s had enough.
Seen too much.
I tuck the towel around me and turn to her.
“I’m okay,” I assure her, because that’s what she needs to hear, and the lie feels good on my lips. I remind myself of my plan and continue to lie. I’ll lie to everyone as long as in the end I believe the lies as much as they do.
“Did you bring me clothes?”
“Yes,” she cries, wiping away her tears as she digs into her bag and pulls out a pair of sweats. “Do you want me to help you?”
“I can do it,” I tell her, taking the clothes from her hands. I pull the underwear out first and realize they are the kind the hospital probably gives all the women who are raped. Robotically, I dress in the clothes she’s brought for me and once I’m covered, I brave another glance at myself in the mirror.
They beat me badly.
My face resembles a prized fighter, but the clothes serve their purpose and cover the shame that colors my body. One glance at me and you wouldn’t know I was violated by three men. No, you’d think my boyfriend threw me down a flight of stairs. For a moment I wonder which role is easier to accept, the battered woman or the rape victim.
Why can’t I just be Gina?
How did I lose her?
Celeste opens the bathroom door, collecting the evidence of my rape and steps out of the room before me.
“Celeste?”
“Yes,” she rasps.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Please, don’t thank me for this,” she pleads, leaning over to kiss my cheek. “Do you want me to send them back in here or would you like to be by yourself?”
“Them?” I ask confused.
“Stryker and your brother are here,” she tells me.
How could I forget that? How could I forget Stryker had been the one to take me away from that alleyway?
&nbs
p; I’ve got you.
“Gina?”
“Sorry. Yes, they can come in,” I say as I lift my gaze to her and take a seat on the foot of the bed. She stares at me for a moment before nodding and walking toward the door. I toy with the hem of the sweatshirt and look around the motel room when I hear the door open.
Turning my head, I lock eyes with Stryker’s.
“There’s my pretty girl,” he says huskily from the doorway.
Pretend you're fine.
He’ll believe you.
You’ll believe it too.
“Hi, soldier,” I rasp.
His face remains neutral and I can’t tell if he’s buying my act, but he steps further into the room and keeps his feet moving until he’s standing in front of me. He drops to his knees, lifts his hands to my face and I fight with everything left in me not to cringe as he gently caresses my cheeks.
“You’re going to be okay,” he promises.
His words hit me—another truth is born.
He’s pretending too.
If he says the words and makes me believe them; then he will believe them too.
“Yeah, I am,” I lie.
Lies become our reality the same as rape has.
“Gina,” my brother whispers. I glance over Stryker’s shoulder and look at Rocco standing off to the side. Beside him is the man I once wished for Stryker to introduce me to, Jack Parrish. He tips his chin toward me before taking a step back.
Turning back to my brother I see the remorse in his eyes and I contemplate telling him the words that stick out from my attack. The accent thick in the voices of the men who attacked me and promised to kill my brother if I didn’t cooperate.
The words that ring in my ears louder than the sound of my own voice saying no.
“They told me they were going to kill you,” I whisper.
His shoulders slump in defeat the same way they did when the doctor told us our mother had passed.
Have you ever wondered how the people closest to you would react to your death? I think at one point we all have, and right now I have a ring side seat to my brother as he mourns the life I knew. The life an enemy of his took viciously without regard.
“I want to go home,” I say, turning back to Stryker. “Will you take me home?”
“I’ll take you wherever you want to go, pretty girl.”
“Will you stay?”
“I’ll never leave,” he swears.
And he doesn’t. From the moment we step foot into my apartment Stryker stays with me. He shadows me from room to room until it’s time for me to sleep. Then he takes his respective position in the chair of my bedroom and watches me as I sleep.
But I don’t sleep.
I close my eyes and I relive my attack over and over again. Every single time I close my eyes I see their faces, hear their voices, feel their bodies on top of mine. My voice cries out both in pain and in defeat as I fight and lose.
I wake up screaming, thrashing in my own bed but my mind doesn’t know I’m safe and at home. In my mind I’m still that helpless woman who has been dragged behind a dumpster. I’m still that woman crying no to men who don’t give a damn. I’m the woman they used to send a message to her brother. I’m the woman left to die in an alleyway, the woman a homeless man stumbled upon as he filtered through the trash looking for his next meal.
I’m that woman.
Not the woman who has a pair of strong arms wrapped around her and a man whispering against her ear.
I’ve got you, pretty girl.
If only that were true.
If only I could believe that lie.
-Thirty-five-
Stryker
She doesn’t sleep.
She doesn’t eat.
She exists much like I did before I met her. There’s no spark of life, just open wounds that swallow her whole. We lie to one another; she tells me she’s okay and I nod and let her think she is.
She’s not okay.
Neither am I.
The only way either of us will be okay is if we can turn back time and erase what has happened. That’s not an option so while she tosses and turns in her bed I dream of ways I will make the men who did this to her suffer.
I will do it too.
I’ve been given targets, battled with my conscience on whether to pull the trigger. I’ve been God and I’ve been Satan.
And Satan will come for the three men who touched my girl.
Yeah, there was three of them, a fact she revealed one night when she woke up screaming. She looked at me, asked where the other two men were before shaking her head, hoping to forget the attack and the three faces that stole her life.
Every night it’s another nightmare, another piece of torment she relives and another reason I have to kill. Night after night, I console her when she wakes from the torture and try to get her to go back to sleep. I feel like a hypocrite and I’m not even sure it’s the right thing to do. I’ve stayed awake many nights, fighting sleep just to avoid my own nightmares and here I was coaxing her back to sleep only for her to engage in her own. I don’t know how to be what she needs. I don’t know how to make it better for her, and as much as I want to I’ll never be able to erase what’s been done, so I continue to do the only thing that seems to work. I climb into bed with her, wrap my arms around her and never let go. Sometimes my arms aren’t enough to tame the ugly.
The cruelty of what happened to her is just another piece of ugly in this world we’re subjected to. It’s the beautiful that’s rare, the beautiful that will one day tarnish the memory of ugly. I have to find that beautiful for her.
I have to give her the beautiful.
Me.
I have to find whatever that is and I have to give it to her.
But for now, I give her what I’ve got and I wrap my arms around her and give her five facts.
“Five facts,” I rasp, kissing the top of her head as I lean against the headboard and she relaxes in my arms. “One, when I was first diagnosed with PTSD I punched the doctor in the face. Two, he prescribed me meds, a prescription I didn’t fill until the next visit when I saw the black eye he was sporting. I finally filled the prescription, but the bottle sat in my saddlebag for months before I finally took them. About two years ago I thought I was cured and stopped taking them. I stopped seeing the shrink too. Three, I was ashamed of having a mental illness. I thought it made me less of a man, less of a Marine. Four, I’m not the only one who suffers in silence and it doesn’t make me any less human. If anything it makes me more human, more flawed. Five, I’m okay. That’s a fact. At the end of the day I’m still okay. I’m still here, and for some reason every day I find the will inside of me to fight. I didn’t realize what that will was or what I was fighting for until I had you. As long as you’re in this world, pretty girl, I’ll be fighting. You’ll fight too, maybe not yet because it’s all still too fresh, too raw, but I promise you I will help you find your reason.”
My voice trails off and I glance down at the beauty in my arms.
Beautiful in a world full of ugly.
Her breathing is labored, and she’s fallen asleep to the sound of my voice, and my promises that were once dirty—now promises of hope.
I hold her until the sun comes up, wait for her anguished cries to torment her, but instead she gets a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Gently, I ease out of the bed, careful not to wake her and step out of the bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar in case she has another nightmare.
It’s been weeks since her attack, weeks since Jack vowed to make this right. I don’t think he realizes nothing will ever be right for me again. Even when the time comes for me to take care of the scumbags responsible for hurting Gina, it’ll never be enough. There will always be a hatred burning in my gut, an indescribable need to inflict terror on those that deserve it. Still, waiting around as Jack figures out how to make it right is driving me crazy.
I haven’t left this apartment since I took her home. My brothers have been taking
turns dropping off groceries and such, but no one has any information for me. No one will even speak of Yankovich. Rocco’s been missing in action too and part of me wonders if Jack is working with him, the other part doesn’t give a fuck as long as someone delivers these cocksuckers to me.
Taking my phone off the charger in the kitchen, I dial Jack’s number as I make myself a cup of coffee. I’ve been living off caffeine these days which is more than Gina has sustained. The girl needs a fucking bologna sandwich before she wastes away to skin and bones.
“What, did you smell me?” Jack answers. “Open the door I’m outside your girl’s place.”
Grabbing my cup of coffee from the Keurig, I make my way toward the front door and pull it open. Raged is one way to describe the president of the Satan’s Knights. Pissed the fuck off is another.
He reaches out and takes my coffee, knocks down half the cup before he brushes past me and walks into the apartment.
“How’s your girl?”
“How do you think she is?”
“Yeah,” he mumbles, running his fingers through his hair. “Did she really crash Rocco’s car or was that part of the tale you were spinning?”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him. After weeks he’s still bringing this shit with Rocco up.
“Just proving a point, brother,” he says pointedly, downing the last of the coffee before he shoves the empty mug against my chest. “Had you told me you were hooked on that mafia pussy we may have had a fucking chance at salvaging this shit.”
“This shit,” I repeat, glancing down at the mug but not taking it. Trying to control my anger I clench my fists at my sides and peer back at the Bulldog.
“Yeah, this shit—the shit that’s about to blow wide open on our asses. Cobra wasn’t bluffing when he said we were no match for Yankovich. It’s going to take a lot of man power and a well-executed plan to shut him down. Spinelli thought tampering with his next export would silence the motherfucker, and though Rocco didn’t get to execute his plan, Yankovich is remaining eerily quiet. For all we know he isn’t even in New York. Like Cobra said, he rarely sticks—he’s as much a drifter as you are. The difference is he’s got connections in every state, almost every fucking country…and our harbor is just a stepping stone for him.”
The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition Page 26