Blood & Bones: Sig (Blood Fury MC Book 2)

by Jeanne St. James

  She squeezed his thigh as he paused to take a couple of breaths. But this was his story so she tried not to interrupt.

  “Another night, Silvia was so fuckin’ blitzed she let it slip that Buck was my real daddy and not Razor. That she’d been fuckin’ Buck even before Razor claimed her as his ol’ lady. She had kept it quiet since she didn’t want Tammy to find out. Because again, she woulda had her ass kicked and been tossed from the club, if not killed for sleepin’ with Tammy’s ol’ man. Trip’s mother was no fuckin’ joke. Neither was Buck. Buck had a fuckin’ temper that was unmatched. Never saw anyone who could fuckin’ flip a switch in a second flat. He didn’t like what you said...?” Sig shook his head. “Seen some bad shit, Red. A lot of bad fuckin’ shit. That’s why it surprised me Trip came home and wanted to do this shit all over again.”

  “But not like Buck.”

  “Fuck no, not like Buck.”

  On their walks, Stella had talked a lot about the club, past and present. And she was proud how her ol’ man—the new president of an old MC—was building something great. Stella said she’d been skeptical at first, but now the woman backed him completely. Supported him one hundred percent.

  Autumn had no doubt that Stella loved Trip and was completely loyal to him. It was easy to see it on her face when she talked about him.

  Stella said their relationship wasn’t perfect and probably never would be. But then, whose was? She had laughed and said, “Whoever says their relationship is perfect is lying.”

  Autumn had agreed.

  “But still,” Sig continued, “Trip lived through alotta the same shit I did. Judge, too. A few of us who are old enough to remember. All got scars from some of the shit we’ve seen and been through. But back then we knew no fuckin’ different, all that shit was normal. My point of all this is, got my temper from my sperm donor. So does Trip. Somethin’ we both share and struggle with. Thinkin’ he faired a lot better ‘cause of joinin’ the Marines. Think that gave him some discipline and control. More than me, anyway.”

  “You just need to find the right outlet to focus that anger.”

  “Yeah, baby, just need to find the right outlet. Got no fuckin’ clue what it is.”

  “Stella said Trip’s temper sent him to prison.”

  “Yeah. His wife was a cheatin’ whore like my mother.”

  “Have you been to prison?” Autumn held her breath as she waited for his answer. Knowing it before he even said it. Stella had warned her, even told her about some of the charges, but Sig had never mentioned what they were and she wanted to hear it from him.

  “Ain’t gonna lie. Spent more time in than out.”

  “That makes me sad.” And that was what it was. Him being an ex-con didn’t make her scared of him, it made her sad for him, instead.

  “Point is, know what it’s like to live in a small box, Red. Know what it’s like to lose your freedom. Know what it’s like to have choices taken away from you. Understand it better than you know.”

  Every muscle on her seized.

  “Don’t wish what happened to you on anyone. ‘Cept for the people who did it to you. They need a taste of what they fuckin’ did. No, more than a taste, a great big fuckin’ servin’.”

  “Sig,” she whispered, dread bubbling up her throat, beginning to choke her.

  “Last night when I disappeared... I went up there.”

  Her breath caught. “Where?” Oh God, she knew where. “Why did you go up there?” She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. Her hands pulled at his arms but he just held on tighter.

  “Hear me out, baby.”

  She yanked at his arms harder. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You’re fuckin’ goddamn strong. Look at you. In only two weeks look how far you’ve fuckin’ come. Anybody else woulda been a quiverin’ fuckin’ mess. Hidin’ in a corner, not lettin’ me touch them like I’m touchin’ you. They woulda givin’ up. You didn’t give the fuck up.”

  “I did.”

  “No, baby, you didn’t.”

  “I did give up, Sig. I did. For the longest time, I wanted it all to end. I couldn’t take the darkness anymore. The loneliness. The suffering became too much. My mind began to play tricks on me.”

  “But you did it. You survived. You found a way to escape.”

  “I survived because they took everything from me. Which meant, I had nothing to kill myself with. No clothes, no blanket, nothing. So I stopped eating. I decided a slow death was better than staying there forever. But they forced me to eat. They forced it down my throat.”

  “The bruise.”

  “Yes, she’d kick and hit me to get me to eat and toward the end, I was too weak to fight her off sometimes. So, I’d roll into a ball. Then she’d go get Vernon’s son and he’d choke me until I opened my mouth and they shoved the food and water down my throat.”

  She didn’t want to talk about this. Why was she telling him any of this?

  “But it was when they began to do that, I knew they wouldn’t let me die that way. So, my thinking changed. If they didn’t let me escape that madness by dying, then I had no choice but to find another way to get out.”

  “How’d you do it?”

  Autumn closed her eyes. He wanted to know everything. She wasn’t sure if she could tell him everything. She told him too much already.

  “Don’t tell me that yet, then, if you can’t. Tell me about your family. You said you can’t go back to ‘em. That you got nowhere to go. Why?”

  “My mother is my only family left.”

  “Can’t be as bad as mine, Red. And haven’t told you everything about her.”

  She squeezed his forearm. “I don’t know if I want to hear anymore. Not now.” It hurt her heart to hear about his childhood and that was only a small part of it.

  “Then tell me about yours instead.”

  She pressed her fingertips to her forehead and rubbed it hard, gathering her scattered thoughts. If she started talking about her mother she might not stop. She might end up telling him everything.

  She frowned when the truth hit her. “I was wrong.”

  “’Bout what?”

  “About my mother being my only family left. In truth, I don’t have any family left. I’ve got no one.”

  “Why?” he urged softly, his warm breath tickling her hair against her ear.

  Yes, why? Why did any of this happen? How did she end up here in Manning Grove? How did she end up in the situation she was currently in?

  How did she end up carrying a baby she did not want by a man she never wanted?

  He thought he was asking about her family, her mother. Did he realize that by asking about her mother, it would lead her to what happened with the Shirleys, too?

  Did he know there was a connection? Or was he just trying to get her to open up?

  “Unlike you, I had a great childhood. My parents were loving. Comfortable financially. Average. I lived a normal life, I guess. Though, everyone’s normal is different, right? But...”

  “It was good.”

  “Yes. No complaints. When I was away at college, my father died from a massive heart attack. It was unexpected since he didn’t have any heart issues that we knew of... So, it devastated us. He was the breadwinner in the family and, really, the glue. I went home for the funeral, but afterward I needed to get back to school. My father had been excited when I got accepted into his alma mater and decided to major in accounting. However, after his funeral, my mother begged me not to go back, so I compromised by taking the rest of the semester off to stay with her. But it was important I honor my father by finishing what I started, by following in his footsteps and becoming an accountant like him, so I went back. While accounting isn’t the most exciting career, it’s solid, would give me a good future and job security. Accountants will always be needed, right?”

  “Good with numbers.”

  “Yes. Well, that next summer break I didn’t go home except for Fourth of July and a couple short visits because I had la
nded an internship in a pretty big firm not far from campus. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. But in the meantime, my mother was struggling. She was having a hard time dealing with the loss of my father, who had always been her rock. Add in the fact that I was no longer living at home and it all snowballed. I never wanted to settle in the town I grew up in and told my mother once I graduated and found a good position somewhere she could move closer to me, get rid of the big house and move into something smaller.

  “She seemed to like that plan, but failed to mention that her loneliness had driven her to join some online dating site. If I would’ve known, I would’ve warned her to be careful.”

  “She get hurt?”

  She frowned. “Not exactly. She met a man who she began a relationship with, then without me knowing, she just up and sold her home in Virginia and moved to Ohio.” Autumn had been in shock that her mother hadn’t even said a word about this man until she had already moved and they’d been married.

  That right there had thrown some red flags. But her mother seemed giddy and content.

  “Without tellin’ you?”

  “Yes. When she told me, I was kind of in shock. I mean, every time I talked to her, she sounded happier and happier on the phone than the previous months, but I just thought she was finally getting out of her funk.”

  “She was gettin’ dick instead.”

  Autumn shifted in his arms. “Um. Yes. I guess so.”

  “Dick made her stupid.”

  “Sig...”

  “Pussy makes men stupid, too, Red. Same shit. Keep goin’.”

  While she didn’t know everything about this man, she knew he had no filter. Sig’s comments shouldn’t surprise her.

  “Well, I later find out this guy was a recent widower who had six children of various ages. His wife died while giving birth to number seven. We’re talking just a couple of months before he reached out to my mother online.” Another red flag. Who lost their wife and child and then was ready to date right away? Hell, not even date, marry another woman he hardly knew. Crazy.

  “Fuck,” Sig muttered.

  “Yes, well. He lives in a community which believes the more children you have the closer you get to God. At least, that’s what Mom said.”

  “Your mom’s not too old to have kids?”

  “She was forty-five when she met Aaron. She ended up having one. A boy. She kept that pregnancy a secret from me, too, until she couldn’t anymore.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yes, fuck. Anyway, she struggled with not only the pregnancy but the birth, so she’s done.”

  “Thank fuck.”

  “That’s what I said. It’s too risky for her to have babies at her age. I was upset when she finally told me she was pregnant. I’m not sure if that’s what her new husband’s plan was or if he just needed someone to take care of his kids.”

  “Or both.”

  Autumn nodded. “Or both.”

  “You got a brother.”

  “Half.”

  “He with them?”

  “Yes. Ezrah’s maybe two now?”

  “When d’you see him last?”

  “Right after graduation. She couldn’t travel because she just had him.”

  “Who the fuck was at your graduation?”

  “A couple of college friends. That’s it. But she begged me to come ‘home’ to celebrate and check out this tight-knit, self-sufficient community to see if I’d be interested in moving there. She also wanted me to meet my new stepfather and my step-siblings. And her husband’s extended family, which was a lot bigger than I expected. Everything on the surface sounded sort of okay and she sounded very happy, but something bugged me about the whole thing.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “Soundin’ way too familiar.”

  It should. “Since my internship had ended and I hadn’t found a permanent job anywhere yet and I wanted to meet my new brother, plus visit with my mom to make sure they both were okay, I went.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered again.

  Fuck wasn’t strong enough.

  “When I got there, what I suspected was confirmed. My mother had fallen into the cult mentality of that community. A community that followed their own rules. Who claimed they were not government sheep, that they only answered to God and their community leaders. No one but their leaders made the rules for their sovereign nation. They were free citizens to do whatever they pleased however they decided to do it. My mother explained their distrust of the government was what made them break off from regular society. And they wanted to be independent as a whole.”

  “The Guardians of Freedom,” Sig growled.

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus fuck,” he bit off.

  “I didn’t really want to leave my mother and baby brother there, so I decided to stick around long enough to try to convince her to leave with me. To try to get her to see things weren’t what they seemed.” It was a struggle she lost. “Every night at dinner, they’d invite a different man over and introduce me. They were trying to set me up. A couple of them already had wives, but my mother explained that if they held a high position within the community, their reward was to be allowed more than one wife. First off, no way would I marry any of them or live in that community. And, second, they were crazy to think I’d ever marry someone who had more than one wife. After being there a month, I realized convincing my mother was a losing battle. I packed my bags and told her I was leaving the next morning.” She pressed her fingertips to her lips and whispered, “I never should have told her.”

  Sig went solid against her. “She fuckin’ snitched.”

  “She was my mother.” Someone she should be able to trust. Someone she trusted her whole life. Someone who was supposed to love her unconditionally. Someone who was supposed to protect her, her own daughter. Her child.

  “Fuckin’ cunt threw her own fuckin’ daughter under the bus.”

  Autumn swallowed, trying to loosen the tightness in her throat. “I should’ve left that night. I went to bed not realizing...” Not realizing she was being betrayed. “I should’ve left.”

  “What the fuck happened?”

  “When I finally woke up...”

  “Red...” His arms tightened around her again. He tucked his nose into her hair by her ear. He was taking long inhales as if trying to keep himself together.

  She mentally shook herself. “When I finally woke up, I found myself... Are you sure you want to hear this? I can feel you getting tense. I can hear how you’re breathing. I can feel your heart racing, too, Sig.”

  “You can handle tellin’ me, I can handle listenin’.”

  “I don’t need you disappearing again and coming back injured because of something that has to do with me.” Even though he wouldn’t lock her in because she now had a key, she didn’t want to be the reason he hurt himself again.

  “Baby,” he murmured close to her ear. “Asked you to tell me. Gonna keep my shit under control.”

  “You promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Promise me,” she insisted, squeezing his thigh again.

  “Just did.”

  “I need to hear it again,” she echoed the same words he’d said to her when he wanted to be sure she wouldn’t run.

  With a grunt, he said, “Promise to keep my shit together.”

  “I need you to help me keep mine together, too.” If he concentrated on that, maybe, just maybe, he’d try hard to keep himself together for her.

  He swallowed so hard, she could hear it. She reached back and cupped his bearded jaw, which was tight and popping.

  “Need you to help me keep mine together, too,” she repeated in a whisper. A burn in both her eyes and her nose began, but he was right. She was strong. She had to look at everything that happened to her as making her stronger. That she could survive whatever life tossed at her.

  She missed her father. She had to call on the strength that man had passed down to her.

  She also missed her mother the
way she used to be. Her mother had let herself be manipulated, enough so she let her own daughter be put into danger. And worse.

  “Just gotta tell me once. Just once, Red. But need to hear it all.”

  For him to hear it all, she needed to tell it all. She’d told him a lot already, but wasn’t sure how much more she could relive.

  But maybe if she got it all out now while it was fresh, while the baby was still inside her, then once it was born, she could keep moving forward and never look back again.

  Yes, that’s what she needed to do.

  Purge herself from the past, and look toward her future.

  That’s what she needed to cling to.

  “When I showed no interest in any of their marriage prospects in Ohio, they decided to bring me here, hoping I’d change my mind.” She frowned. “Why would they think that? What sane person would think you could kidnap someone and they’d just up and decide... ‘Oh, yes, I see this would be a great life here. I’d be glad to marry one of your community members, have lots of children and raise them in this fucked up place.’”

  She shook her head, wondering if it had ever happened before. If they’d ever kidnapped some woman, she woke up, smiled and married one of those fucked up men, popped out his babies and lived happily ever after. At least the community in Ohio wasn’t like the one up on that mountain where most of the Shirleys lived in squalor.

  From the outside, the Guardians of Freedom community in Ohio could appear normal. You only discovered it wasn’t once you scratched below the surface. You didn’t have to scratch at anything to know the Shirley branch of the Guardians of Freedom was not normal. There was no way for them to hide it. Autumn didn’t even think they tried.