Delilah’s eyes raced to hers. Justice nodded, wringing my cut, and crying even harder. “Art is right. You saved him. Don’t let it all be in vain.” Justice gazed at her pregnant belly. “We need him… his children and me.” Their eyes met again. “Just like you and your baby need your husband.”
There was nothing left to say, so my wife, my brothers, and I watched Delilah, Viola, and Diesel and his Ryders walk away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
After the hospital released me, I decided not to run. I went back to the hotel Justice had my kids in and spent every waking moment with them. Every moment they slept, I spent inside my wife. Making love to a woman you are sure you’ll never get to hold again is like gutting out your heart and giving it to her for safekeeping until you meet again in another life.
We weren’t angry. We weren’t resentful. We understood Delilah and her loved ones had every right to turn me in. I had done the unspeakable. Whether it was me or not who committed the actual crime, it was me who needed to be a man and face the consequences.
Charges that I knew I would face for everything else felt unimportant in comparison to rape. After every despicable act that I had survived in my life, there was nothing worse that could be done to another human being in my mind. When you hurt friends and family, yeah, the rest just don’t matter. That’s why, when we got a knock on the door and looked through the window, I saw it was Tucker and let him in.
I let him grab me.
I let him shove me.
I let him hold me against a wall until my kids’ crying stopped him.
Tucker, madness in his eyes, peered over his shoulder. As soon as he saw two sets of blue eyes and one set of grey, he released me. He backed away, appearing so lost and crushed, telling my family, “I’m sorry. I’m… so sorry. Uh,” he wiped his shaky hand down his face, then asked me, “Can we talk?”
The door was still open, sun shining in.
“Of course. We’ll go next door.” Justice grabbed the kids. “Let’s go see Aunt Elle and Uncle Lynx.” Passing Tucker, she stopped. “I hope it’s okay that I ask, but… how is your sister?”
Tuck blinked, seemingly shocked at her kindness. “Uh, better. Thank you for asking.” Tucker said, “Your kids are beautiful—” but it was too late. Justice had closed the door behind her. His eyes found mine, then he sat at the edge of the bed closest to the door. “Jesus. I can’t believe you’re alive.” He looked baffled, gesturing to toys all over the floor and beds. “With kids.” He gestured to the door. “And a wife.”
I didn’t move from where he had left me standing. I didn’t feel I had the right to do so, or to even speak. I assumed I had done enough to his family, who had taken in a kid so long ago.
After an abruptly cold laugh, he fought tears. “Lilah is still defending you after all this.” Leaning on his elbows, he rested his forehead in his hands, stressed fingers raking through his hair. “I don’t even understand what this is yet. I wouldn’t let her finish talking. I had to leave.” He glared. “I had to find you.”
He sat up, his chest widening as if desperate for air. “I didn’t believe her when she told me you saved Mav. But… he’s awake.” Tuck shook his head, his eyes watering again as he stared out the window, the curtains letting in plenty of bright light. “That fighter fought his way back to my sister.” He covered his mouth as he swallowed. “Some of his first words were of you.” Tucker looked at me. “You.” His voice broke. “I couldn’t understand why since he had never met you… and you were dead.”
He stared at me for a while, then shook his head again. “Mav remembered your eyes from a shrine we had of you at school after you died.” As if not completely stable, Tuck shrugged. “A fucking shrine… for a rapist.”
Ah, shit.
“Yeah,” Tuck’s jaw clicked right to left, “when my man insisted you saved his life—that he was awake when you smacked out the fire on his legs with your bare hands,” he pointed to my bandages, “then saw your wife get shot in the chest,” he pointed to the door—now I understood his shock at seeing her alive—“you can imagine my surprise when my sister’s face showed such immense guilt.” He huffed a laugh. “I actually thought her pregnancy was affecting her mind when she told me Mav wasn’t dealing with brain damage, that, in fact, you were alive.” He stood and walked to the window. “God, I may get sick.” Leaning over, he held his stomach. “At first, I wanted to find my best friend and hug the fuck out of you.” He rolled his neck. “But a little birdy said more than it should have, and I figured out the truth. Now, I just want to kill you with my bare hands.”
I nodded. I understood that, too.
He glowered at me. “You think you have a clue of how I feel?”
“No.”
“You don’t, Kenny.”
I am James Gunn Dalton. “I know that.”
“My dad and I racked our brains, wondering why she stared at your room—your closed door—like a monster lived in there.”
“He did.”
He held up his large hands, showing how bad he wanted them around my neck. “You think some ‘disorder’ makes it okay for you to hurt my sister?”
“Not one bit.”
He smirked, but it was far from sincere. It was malice. “Every memory of you is now a lie to me.”
“I can see how you feel that way—”
“Kenny, there is not one fucking thing you can say to make this better. Don’t try.”
It was hard. I wanted to scream that I never meant to hurt someone we both loved—protected for years—, but I had done what he was accusing me of, so I let him have his say, swallowing my hurt.
“She made me fucking promise to let you live.”
My mouth fell open. Does this mean—
“For the sake of her precious heart and mental well-being, Dad and I are not forcing her to press charges.”
I blinked. Was he for real?
“She wants you ‘free’.” He angrily finger-quoted in the air.
“Tuck—”
“Nope. Don’t say my name. Just leave and never come back.”
It was an answered prayer and another death. A judgment, freedom, and condemnation.
Begging the teetering tears in my eyes not to fall because I knew Tuck would view them as only treacherous lies, I nodded.
With a vile warning in his dark eyes, he told me, “You broke her. Maverick put her back together. Now, stay the fuck away from us all.”
Since I wasn’t to return to Georgia, the state in which I was born, I had one more thing I had to do.
Collect Jenny.
Gathering her bones was like collecting pieces of me and putting them in a box for safekeeping. With the sun shining through the trees that protected us, and Justice holding that box close to her chest, I found more fragments to make Jenny and me whole.
Stallions stayed a distance from us. It wasn’t from being squeamish. It was more out of respect. I was literally digging up my past and welcoming it back into my heart.
Justice must’ve understood and valued the true meaning behind this act that most would find gruesome. Once the pretty white box had all of Jenny’s obtainable remains, she placed the lid on top, wrapping a light pink and light blue ribbon around it. With utmost reverence, she wrapped the sacred box in a blanket and tied it to the back of my bike.
I won’t lie and say there weren’t tears behind my sunglasses as Stallion bikes surrounded mine, ready to escort me and my Jenny home. And I can’t say that I didn’t fight for air when we pulled out to the main road and saw Redemption Ryders on the side of the street, standing in front of their bikes with pink roses lying at their feet. And I can’t say that my world didn’t feel whole when I saw Tucker with them.
As we drove past men that were such a profound part of my life, old and new, I felt a heavy weight, one I hadn’t realized I had borne my entire life, gently glide from my shoulders. I mean, it melted away. I almost felt like a new man who no longer had to carry a truckload of guilt. What ha
ppened between me and Delilah couldn’t be changed, but it could be forgiven. There could be peace.
Peace. A beautiful word. A beautiful feeling.
In my rearview mirror, I watched Tucker wiping tears.
Love you, brother.
That peace continued to grow. After all that had gone down, the club was able to settle and let down their guard a little, even though they were planning more revenge. As they put out feelers for information about the mystery gang, Justice and I were able to stretch out our roots and buy a home for our kids. I had lived at the club for so long, it was almost unnerving to no longer rest my head there. It was even harder for Justice. But once we unpacked and had furniture delivered, it felt right. It felt whole. And once we relocated Saph and Jenny to their final resting place, my world was absolute and complete.
In our backyard that faced the woods, we built the kids a swing set, and an adult one, too. Justice loved our bench swing. We sat there so many nights, watching the sunset. We didn’t need to talk out there. Sometimes we sat in silence, in love, watching over our children and our two girls in the ground. Sounds morbid maybe, but we found it home.
Sitting with a few brothers in the back of the courtroom, I listened, watching the forensic interview with the child in question. My heart ached for her, as she was only five at the time. Answering questions by the interviewer, she sounded like Gracie, her words not quite right. “And da mans hurt my mommy…”
My ears rang, and my mind was suddenly feeling attacked. Images of Sapphire’s body kept plaguing me. I kept telling myself, she’s safe now. Home. With me. Right where she would always be. But my stomach continued to twist and turn…
I started listening again when the lawyer stopped the video to speak to the jury. “The two accused men…”
His voice faded as I thought back to the night Ice and Grace had been kidnapped. Gracie’s little red nose and tear-stained lips crossed my mind, and I remembered her saying, “But, dose bad mans pushed her.”
My spine stiffened as I stared at the lawyer who had just said, “The two accused men…”
Just like the video of the little girl in the courtroom, Gracie had used the word mans.
Could she have meant two?
Then I thought of Gracie again and how she had pointed to her teeny hands. “Goves. Where’d goves.”
My heart began to fucking thunder because the Prospect had told me the ‘boyfriend’ had a scar on his right hand. How the fuck would he have known that if the murderer was wearing gloves? And there was the answer. The Prospect couldn’t have. Not unless he knew the ‘boyfriend’ before he ever came to my house in gloves.
Ah, shit.
I had asked Saph not to bring the boyfriend around my kids due to all the danger that was possibly circling us. Now that I was thinking of it, her disregarding my order was so unlike the experienced bunny. She knew what our lifestyle encompassed.
Torque eyed me suspiciously when my body jolted.
No. No. No. No.
As my mind raced with scenarios, the truth started to ring clear. There was never a ‘boyfriend’ at Sapphire’s house that night.
Retrieving my cell from my front jean pocket, I rushed from the pew and out the door. Tapping on the phone to pull up Justice’s cell number, I begged, “Answer, baby. Answer.” All along, Gracie’s little voice echoed, “…da mans…”
Torque was by my side in an instant. “You’re scaring the fuck out of me right now.”
“Gloves… Mans… Diesel killed someone else.” I tried to explain as I called her again.
“Giver, talk to me.”
Meatball rushed to us. “What’s up?”
In frustration, I shook my cell when Justice didn’t answer. “Prospect. Where is the Prospect that was at my house the night Sapphire was killed?”
The Prospect was the only witness who could give a reliable account of what went down that night. Or so I had believed because that is what he wanted me to.
I slammed my hand on the phone. “He said there was only one!”
The Prospect had set up his partner in crime. He let the man with the tattoo take the fall.
My lungs were heaving. “Think about it! Why was our enemy so elusive?” When they just stared at me, I growled, “Because he was under our noses the whole fucking time.”
My mind thought of Art, lying in bed, his soul finding no peace in Seth’s death. His subconscious had been screaming…
Too impatient to wait for my brothers to catch on, I took off running. “I was wrong. The Prospect never had a crush on Justice.”
“Giver! Wait!” yelled Torque.
Already to the court exit, I yelled back. “Don’t you get it? The Prospect is Seth!”
When I turned off my bike’s engine and heard thumping music blasting from my house, I knew he was there. Running into our home, I was horrified to see my children tied in a sitting position, tight gags in their tiny little mouths. They were on the verge of hysterics, tears rushing down red faces. Each of them sat in the middle of their own set of train tracks, with a train circling.
Jenny. “His tracks of hell…”
As soon as I sensed someone enter my door behind me, before I could even reach my children, I spun around, gun ready. Vice, also with a gun, had a raised hand to stop me from shooting him. After he entered, more Stallions poured in, all guns pointed, ready to kill the intruder. No sign of Meatball told me he’d stayed to watch over the child’s family at court.
Thank you, brother.
I rushed into the train track circles and to my babies. Without untying them or cutting the gag from their mouths, so Seth would not be alerted, I kissed them then handed them off to waiting arms. They were passed to Crow, who held one in each arm and ran out the front door.
To the remaining Stallions, I motioned for a few to check downstairs. My gut told me where my wife was. If Seth was as sick as Justice claimed, he had her in our bedroom. I pointed to the stairs, tilting my head to my hand, imitating sleeping, so they knew where I was headed. Gun drawn and trigger finger in place, I snuck up the stairs, skipping every other one. At the top, I put my back to the wall and crept toward where my wife and I laid our heads to dream about the beautiful life we were building together, even with all the odds stacked against us.
Our canopy bed had been Justice’s foe that day. The posts made for the perfect place to tie her wrists and ankles. I could only see her bare chest and the gag in her mouth, due to the naked man standing at the end of the bed. My wife didn’t know I was there. Her beautiful Church Eyes were slammed shut, tears flowing... Her toes and hands were squeezed tight as if trying to handle some sort of pain.
Not even certain what Seth was doing to my wife, one thing I knew for sure was that a bullet would be too kind.
My gun, for the first time in a battle, was put to rest. As I stalked behind the monster who thought I would be gone for hours protecting a child, while he damaged my wife, I pulled out my knife.
The first strike was in his kidney. I ignored his grunt of pain.
The second, under his rib. I ignored his body arching in agony.
The third, in his side. I ignored his hands trying to grab whoever was killing him.
The fourth, his thigh. As I held it there, I took hold of him so he could struggle no more, and whispered in his ear, “Die knowing it was Giver who gave you your ticket back to Hell.”
With the fifth, I reached around and stabbed his chest.
The sixth, his stomach. The seventh, his groin.
My wife’s body sagged in relief as she stared at me. So many emotions floated in those remarkable eyes as she listened to the gurgles and groans of a man dying way too easily for my taste.
Still behind Seth, I held the edge of the blade to one side of his throat. His whines and soft pleas for mercy were music to my ears. I had no mercy for such a cruel bastard who would want to harm those I love.
With steel in my veins, I waited… for her…
The eighth… was he
rs. This was her kill. I was only the weapon she guided.
Justice took a deep breath… She stared Seth in the eyes, then nodded.
Slowly and meticulously, I drew the blade across the throat of the animal who would never fuck with my family again.
Then… I let his body drop to the floor.
With that same bloody knife, I cut the restraints off my wife. I grabbed a blanket and threw it over her, then freed her mouth before my arms scooped her up and held her impossibly close. Cradling her, I carried Justice to a window so she could feel the sun, and I whispered, “Any storm. Any storm.”
With her arms around my neck, she hid under my chin, her body trembling.
“Giver and Justice.” I assured her, “Our babies are safe.”
She was riveted to the spot, face flowing with tears.
“Let it rain. Let it pour.”
She cried for the recovery to come. With the shape I found my woman in, I knew that the fucker had been alone with her for too long. When the nightmares came, it would be me to help her through those this time.
I rested my head to hers. “Like the moon loves the night, babe.”
I could feel her struggling for air.
“You are beautiful.”
Her heart ripped wide open in my arms.
“You are courageous.”
She sobbed through a past and present she couldn’t evade.
“You’re my heart and soul, Church Eyes.”
She wailed in an agony that I knew would take time to heal.
“You are my fucking justice.”
Had I not died at that tree the night my world turned upside down, I would have never known the chance to love with all my being.
The creation of haunted roads can be devastatingly painful, but… the lingering lessons and unseen answered prayers on those haunted roads brought me to a path of absolution.
Every time I took, someone paid the price. I would only give to Justice.
Bleed Me (Haunted Roads Book 3) Page 30