by Jordan Marie
“You’re the reason she went into hiding. You’re the reason Diesel almost died…”
“Liam, if you just let me explain…” she says hopelessly, her body is heaving with the force of her sobs.
She reaches out to touch me and I recoil from her. I can’t stop it. I walk out, leaving her alone and wondering if I ever really knew her at all.
Ellie
I didn’t realize a person could cry as hard as I did for that long a period of time. My eyes are red and they’re burning. My head hurts, a migraine forming, but it’s nothing like the pain in my heart, but my vision is blurry with it. I ignore it. I don’t have a choice.
I knew once Liam found out the truth that he’d be angry. I thought maybe we could survive, but after seeing Liam’s reaction and having him walk out on me, I know that we can’t. I waited and waited for him, but it became clear he wasn’t coming back. Now, it’s the following day, the sun is just starting to come out and with no word from Liam… I know that I can’t stay here. I take the letter I wrote him and fold it, putting it on our bed. Tears leak from my eyes again, but I wipe them away. I told Liam that I’d keep my cell with me. I begged him to forgive me and apologized again. It sucks, but I know that’s all I can do. I hurt him. I betrayed him and I have to live with that. I knew better. As an old lady in the club, some things are sacred. It doesn’t matter that I was upset and grieving, nor that I was sick of seeing Vicki throw away the child that I wanted so badly. Liam and I had been trying for over a year and it just never happened. I have endometriosis and we were told that getting pregnant would be a challenge. Getting that negative result after having my hopes up, nearly destroyed me. It’s not an excuse, but my mind truly wasn’t clear. If I had it to do over, I would. I wish like hell that I could.
But I can’t.
There’s nothing I can do but leave. Before I do that, there is one thing that I need to do. I leave my suitcase by the door as a wave of dizziness hits me. This headache is going to be my worst one yet. It’s already amplified. It kind of feels like a sledgehammer is pounding against the back of my head.
I walk slowly to Diesel’s door. There’s a chance he and Rory are already moving around for the day, but I’ve noticed since I came back that Diesel spends time with Rory in their room early, and then goes to work with his brothers. I noticed it because I was happy for him. Before when I was here, I don’t think he slept much at all. There were times when I doubted he ever used his bedroom. He’d fall asleep in his office most nights, or in Ryan’s room on the floor.
I’m so upset that I actually pass up his door and knock on the wrong one at first. I’m not sure I would have realized it, if it hadn’t been cracked and I looked inside, only to realize it was the laundry area.
I’ve got to get a grip. I just need to hold it together to talk to Diesel. After that, I can find a hotel and spend the day crying in bed—much like yesterday. When I finally make it to the right door. I knock, swallowing and trying to ignore the nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
When Diesel answers the door, I can tell by his face that he’s already spoken to Liam.
“Diesel,” I murmur, curling my fingers into a fist and letting my nails cut into the palm of my hand.
“I thought you’d be around.”
“You’ve talked to Liam,” I respond, already knowing, but his tone is even. He’s giving nothing away, but I can tell he’s not happy.
“Did you think he wouldn’t tell me?” Diesel asks, and I was wrong. He’s not just unhappy.
He’s mad.
“No, I knew he would, I was going to tell you myself. That’s why I am here. I was hoping that maybe you would let me try to explain—”
“How you sold out the club and put my son in danger?”
“Noah,” Rory says from inside. I can physically see Diesel put a cap on his anger, trying to reign it in.
Diesel backs up, opening the door wider, waving me inside.
Suddenly, I feel like I’m walking to my doom…
Fury
You know you’re a miserable fuck when alcohol doesn’t dull the pain. I stare at the whiskey left in my glass, not really wanting another drink. I drank most of the night. It didn’t help.
“You look like shit, Brother.”
I pull my gaze away from my whiskey glass to look at Devil.
“Thanks,” I mutter. I really didn’t think it was possible to drink yourself sober, but I have. Either that or I’ve been staring at my next drink so long the effect of the others has worn off.
“How you doin’, man?” he asks sitting beside me.
“Now’s not a good time to ask me that, Devil.”
“You didn’t take my advice last night, did you?”
I frown, my grip on the glass tightens, but I still don’t drink it. After I talked to Diesel, I sought Devil out. He’s the man I’m closest to in the crew. I needed to talk to someone who could listen and help me sort through everything I was feeling. He tried, but it didn’t help. His advice was to go back and talk to Ellie and try to sort shit out with her. I didn’t do that, because I wasn’t sure I could handle looking at her.
“I didn’t,” I confirm, still refusing to look at him.
“Stubborn as hell. A man has to be, but I’m thinking you got an extra dose,” he mutters.
“She betrayed the club, Devil. Ellie was an old lady for over two years. She knew the rules. She knew what a fucking toxic woman Vicki was. She knew the hell that Diesel had gone through. How in the fuck am I supposed to overlook that she helped that bitch?”
“You aren’t supposed to overlook it, but you might keep in mind that Ellie isn’t a brother. She didn’t swear an oath to this club, and she doesn’t think like a man who has seen blood spilled does.”
“Bullshit. She swore an oath to me, and I am the club,” I growl.
“You and me. We see shit in black and white, Fury. There’s good and bad and sometimes the bad has to be dealt with. Nothing in between.”
“Devil, I really can’t handle any heart to heart right now,” I mumble.
“I think you get that when I met Torrent, she wasn’t ready for me.”
“Yeah.”
“And even when I knew she loved me, instead of giving in to what we both felt, she tried to play devil’s advocate and make sure no one was hurt.”
“Devil—”
“Which kind of blew up in our faces, but still her heart was in a good place and she was letting her heart lead her decisions, which ultimately is what a good woman does, Fury. They lead with their heart, because that’s where their goodness is. A good woman feeds your soul and she does that because of her heart.”
“Fuck, man. Are you the one drinking here instead of me?”
“Just listen to me for a minute asshole. You and Ellie had been trying how long to have kids?”
“A while,” I mumble, understating it. I knew that Ellie was beginning to give up hope. The doctor had been giving her fertility medicine and each month that went by, a little more of the light inside of her died.
“She got her hopes up and they were squashed. Then, she’s faced with a fellow woman—”
“A conniving evil cunt,” I spew.
“But, still a woman. A woman who had this beautiful son that Ellie would have died to have and she turns her pain loose, telling the woman to get help before it’s too late.”
“I know what she did, Devil. She warned the bitch. If she hadn’t have done that, we could have gotten to her before she kidnapped Ryan and put him through hell,” I growl.
“And, before I would have met Rory,” Diesel says, coming up behind us. I turn to look at him. Telling him about Ellie’s betrayal was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It’s not exactly easy to look at him now. I think that’s the reason Ellie’s actions hurt the most. I owe Diesel everything. He brought me into this club and gave me a life. After getting back from overseas and seeing so much shit, suffering with PTSD, I felt like I was drowning. Bein
g in the club gave me purpose again, and I began to heal from wounds that I wasn’t even aware I had. I owe Diesel for everything I am now. To know that the woman I loved sold him out…
“Diesel—”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t piss me off to know that the reason Vicki got away was more or less from my own club.”
“There was no more or less. If Ellie hadn’t told her to find a dry out and get her head together, we would have got her. The nightmare would have been over. Fuck man, Ellie’s actions created so much fucking fallout. You almost died. How do you think I would have lived with that if you’d died?”
“How do you think I would have lived without Rory in my life, Fury?” he asks and I pull my gaze up to look at him.
“Because of Rory, Ryan is happy. He doesn’t have nightmares. What he has is a life where he knows his mom would die for him and do it happily to protect him. My boy knows nothing but good now and that’s because of Rory.”
“Man—”
“And me? Fuck, Brother. I gave my club up. I walked away and went to Montana.”
“And you did that because I wasn’t able to shut Vicki down.”
“I did that because I was tired, Fury. I was tired of being the president of this club. I was tired of living. I was turning cold and into someone that I didn’t even recognize. I was someone who hurt a woman that I was growing to love. I was a fucking mess.”
“That at least, I can understand,” I tell him. “I’m definitely a mess,” I mumble.
“If having Rory in my life means telling Vicki I was hunting her down and to go into hiding? I would have done it myself. I’d have told her exactly where we were looking. I’d have sold my soul if it meant I could have Rory when it was all over.”
“That doesn’t excuse what she did,” I warn him.
“It doesn’t, but in truth, what did she tell them, Fury? She didn’t say anything to Vicki that I hadn’t said to the bitch a hundred times over. I screamed at her that I was going to send men to hunt her down if she kept trying to get Ryan. I told her she needed to get her ass in re-hab. She just didn’t listen. Chances are she didn’t listen to Ellie either.”
I look at my brothers and really try and consider what they’ve said.
“So, you want me to forgive her? You can deal with having her here in this club, knowing what she did?” I ask, shocked and confused as fuck. I also feel a little bit of hope beginning to grow.
“That depends,” Diesel says. “Do you still love Ellie?”
“Of course I do. You can’t just turn that shit off, Diesel. But—”
“The way I look at it, if I ban Ellie from the club, I’m going to lose my Sergeant of arms and I’m not prepared to deal with that shit.”
“I…You…”
“You can tell me you wouldn’t follow her to Phoenix or wherever it is she’s packed to head out to, Fury, but we both know you’d be lying. You grieved for her for almost two years. I didn’t notice it as much because of my shit, but I sure as fuck saw the difference in you when she came back. You were already planning on going to her then. I’m just stepping up before that happens again.”
“You’re serious?” I ask, feeling like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Ellie and I still have a lot to work through, but at least now it doesn’t feel hopeless.
“I’m telling you the same thing I told Ellie when she came to my room to talk to me and Rory in person. Besides, my wife pointed out that I’d never made it mandatory that we don’t talk things over with our old ladies. Our club is more relaxed than others—a fact she knows thanks to talking to Torrent,” he says, giving Devil a pointed look.
“That’s my Angel,” he laughs.
“She lovingly pointed out that I couldn’t get pissy now because ultimately it was my fault that I hadn’t talked to my men about the issue before. A woman who was struggling to become a mother shouldn’t have been expected to deal with all of the information she had. That’s on me.”
“And me,” I admit. I slipped up and told Ellie too much. That’s a big part of the problem.
“So, we work on those issues in the future—which hopefully won’t happen because we won’t have to face them,” Diesel says. “Now, it’s up to you, but Ellie was in bad shape earlier. Rory was worried enough about her, she talked her into staying in our room longer, and sent me to find you. Then, of course Torrent showed up with Cannon. That means you two need to go see to your women, so I can have mine back.”
“I’ll go find her.”
“Good call. I’m going to go hunt Crusher and Dani down to collect my offspring,” he says with a wink, walking off.
“Hey, Diesel?”
“Yeah, man?”
“Thanks.”
He nods, Devil thumps me on the back, and I take off to find Ellie. It’s not going to be easy, but I can’t let her leave. Diesel was right. If Ellie was banned from the club, I’d end up leaving. There’s no way I could go back to living without her.
I walk to Diesel’s room, and just as I’m about to open the door, Ellie opens it, crying. For a minute, I’m afraid that things have gone south again.
“Ellie, I’ve got my keys. Torrent will tell the boys—Oh, Fury!” Rory gasps, surprised to see me.
“What’s going on?” I ask, then my attention turns to Ellie. Her face is white, she has tears in her eyes and she’s holding the back of her head.
“It’s jut… st... just. Just a migraine,” Ellie says.
“It’s getting worse and she admitted her vision is blurry. I was going to drive her to the emergency room.”
“She has meds, she gets migraines often, although they’ve slowed down lately. I’m sure she’ll be…”
I stop talking as Ellie drops to the floor. I dive down to try and catch her, managing to get at least the upper half of her body in my arms.
“Ellie? Ice, wake up.” She’s out cold, looking abnormally pale.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Torrent says, taking out her phone.
“Fuck that. I’m taking her,” I growl. Panic spreads through me. She’s never passed out before in her life. If the pain was so bad that she was stuttering earlier, something has to be seriously wrong. I can’t wait for an ambulance to take her to the hospital, I can get her there sooner.
I pick Ellie up in my arms, carrying her toward the front door—praying that she’s okay, and terrified that she’s not…
Fury
I thought I’d been afraid before in my life. I’ve faced death with a gun aimed at me, I’ve watched my fellow soldiers blown to fucking pieces in front of me. I almost lost Devil, a man that is my true brother and family, same with Diesel. I’ve seen shit that gave me nightmares for years. But, not once, in all that time, have I ever been as scared as I am right now.
I made it to the hospital in a scary amount of time. I’ve never driven so fast in my life—and that’s saying something. The entire ride, Ellie was completely unresponsive. I didn’t know it, but they were waiting for us when we got here, Rory had called ahead. I’m thankful for that, because they immediately took her back.
I’ve been sitting here ever since, waiting. It’s been at least twenty minutes and I’m not sure I’m going to survive much longer. Crusher, Dani, Torrent, and Devil showed up a bit ago. They had to have driven pretty damn fast themselves. They asked if I knew anything, but I just shook my head no. I’m not sure I can form words right now. We’re all just…waiting.
“Mr. Maverick?” I jump up, looking at the woman coming out of the small door of the waiting room. She’s wearing a white coat and scrubs. There’s a large bright red streak on her coat and although Ellie wasn’t bleeding when she went in, I’m terrified it’s hers.
“That’s me,” I manage to say, my voice hoarse. I feel my family gather around me, leaving me thankful for their support. “Can you please tell me what’s wrong with my wife?”
“We need to go in and do emergency surgery. I want to explain everything to you, but I don’t have mu
ch time,” she says.
“Emergency surgery?” I mimic, feeling like my fucking legs have given out on me.
“Your wife is bleeding on her brain. It appears she had an aneurysm that ruptured.”
“How? I don’t understand. She’s not had any injuries. I want a second opinion.”
“Mr. Maverick, I know you’re upset, but time is of the essence here. The fact that your wife is still holding on is a miracle in and of itself. A lot of patients don’t survive getting to the hospital. We already have her in the operating room. I need your permission and you need to sign the papers so that our surgeon can begin.”
I never informed the hospital of our divorce. I was afraid they wouldn’t tell me what was going on with her if I did. If she survives this shit, the first thing she’s going to do is marry me again.
If she survives.
“Fuck, okay. Do whatever you need to do. Can I see her?” I ask, wondering how I’m still standing when my world is crumbling around me.
“I know you’re worried, Mr. Maverick, but we can’t delay. You need to know that Dr. Maples is the top in his field. We’re very lucky to have him here. Your wife is in good hands.”
I know she’s trying to be reassuring, but she’s not.
I walk like a robot to sign the paperwork they give me. I stay in that same trance as I go back into the waiting room.
“Fury, buddy, I know you’re scared. I’ve been where you are now. There’s nothing I can do or say to make you feel better, but look at my Hellcat. She’s still giving me hell today. It’s going to be okay. We don’t fall in love with weak women. They fight tooth and nail to keep the life they love,” he says.
His words hurt me, although he probably doesn’t realize it. Will Ellie fight? She was getting ready to leave. I walked away from her, and I stayed away the entire night. Will she even know that I’m here? She was so confused, and looked so bad right before she passed out, that I can’t know for sure she even knew I was there. I don’t reply to Crusher, I just hold my head down, feeling useless.