Monster: Angels of Chaos MC

by Parker, Zoey

  He sits me down in the booth, then sits opposite me. I open the menu, not seeing the words in front of me. Trying to think of a way to get help. I look at the other patrons over the top of the menu. They’re all tired, minding their own business. I guess that’s how it goes at this time of the morning.

  “See anything you like here?” Tommy asks, now the indulgent parent. He’s so pleased with himself for remembering this place. I’ve been trying to forget it for years.

  “Oh, I don’t know…I don’t usually eat at this time of night. I’m not very hungry.”

  “Come on. If I know you, you love your french toast. Right?”

  At least he remembers that. “Yeah. French toast. That’s usually my favorite.”

  He claps his hands. He literally claps his hands like a little boy. If I didn’t feel so dead inside, I’d laugh.

  “See? I know you. I’ll order you some of that.”

  “Okay, sure. Thanks.”

  No sooner do I put down the menu than he takes my hands in his. I use every bit of self-control to keep from screaming. I do flinch, but only slightly. He doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I’ve missed you so much. I bet you didn’t think I’d come for you, did you?”

  “No, Tommy. I knew you’d come eventually.”

  He smiles, not hearing what I’m actually trying to say. Only hearing the words. “You did? You knew I’d rescue you?”

  “Yes. I knew you would come. No matter how hard I tried to run away from our relationship, you’d never let me get away. You don’t give up that easily.”

  “You’re damn right, I don’t.” The waitress comes over, looking bored.

  “What can I get for y’all?”

  Tommy grins at her. “This little lady will have french toast and sausage. I’ll have buttermilk pancakes and bacon, please. Oh, and coffee for both of us.” He smiles at me. “I know you like your coffee, too.”

  “Yes. I run a coffee shop.”

  The waitress doesn’t care either way, and walks to the kitchen.

  His face changes. “You did run a coffee shop. That’s all in the past, now.”

  “Oh? Why? Where are we going?”

  “You don’t think I’d ever let you go back there, do you?”

  “I guess I should know better than to think that.”

  “You should. No, we’re going to the place I told you about in the last messages I sent you. Didn’t you get them?” I search my memory, but come up empty. He frowns. “You mean to tell me you’re here with me, and you don’t even know where we’re going? God, how rude of me! You must be completely confused.” He laughs like this is all a joke. I crack a tiny smile.

  “So where are we going?”

  “We’re going back to the tower. Remember? Where we first fell in love?”

  “Oh, right. That’s very romantic.” I can’t bear to squeeze even a bit of emotion into my voice, but he couldn’t care less. He’s on cloud nine, thinking how impressed I am.

  “Remember? When we went up there together and could see the entire campus and then out in the distance for miles and miles? And you said you felt like a princess in a tower, and I was your prince? How I’d come to rescue you? Don’t you remember?”

  I do remember that. I’d believed it at the time, too. How could I have been so naïve? He wasn’t a prince. He was a demon.

  “I remember,” I say, my voice still flat. Like a robot.

  He doesn’t notice. “I thought it would be fitting for us to go back there. See, that’s where I first knew I loved you. When we stood in that tower together. You were my beautiful princess. I was your galant prince. Rescuing you from a life of loneliness. And I’m rescuing you again. Taking you away from that awful place. That town you ran away to. What made you do that?”

  “I don’t know, Tommy. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “To put it mildly.” Has he always been this completely insane, or did it just happen? Did my leaving throw him off the deep end? Maybe he needs medication. This isn’t the man I used to know. He wasn’t this delusional. I guess time spent alone, brooding, might do this to a person. Maybe he was always sick, and it didn’t start showing until now. Either way, he’s unnerving.

  The food comes quickly. I was secretly hoping it would take a while, not because I wanted to spend so much as an extra second with this insane person who I once thought I loved but because I know he plans to kill me. All he wants to do is get me to the tower. Not live happily ever after. I notice he says nothing about the future.

  I put the sausage off to the side.

  “What are you doing?” Tommy asks.

  “I don’t like sausage,” I say. “I never have.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.” I have no idea why it’s so important to have my way in this. Maybe I need to be myself, for only a minute. He doesn’t know me anywhere near as well as he thinks he does.

  “You are so ungrateful!” His fist hits the table, causing heads to turn our way. “This is so like you. Throwing my generosity back in my face. Being a little bitch.”

  Good. Throw a fit. Let everyone see how insane you are. “I don’t see what the big deal is. I just don’t like sausage. I’ve never eaten sausage in your presence.”

  “No, but I bet if some biker trash gave you his sausage, you’d put that in your mouth fast enough. Wouldn’t you?”

  I’m shocked, not only that he’d say something like that so loudly, but that he just referenced Jax.

  “Excuse me.” The waitress has come over to our table. “Do you need assistance?” She looks at me. I look up, desperately trying to send her a message with my eyes.

  “We’re fine. Thank you.” Tommy’s tone is cold.

  The waitress shoots me another look before turning away.

  “Don’t look at her again,” he whispers in a warning tone as she walks back to the counter. “Remember what I have in my pocket.” I turn my attention to my plate, half-heartedly picking at the food. Shifting it around on the plate so he won’t bug me about it again.

  “Why do you make me do things like that?” he whispers urgently. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Tommy,” I say. I’m so tired now.

  He takes a big mouthful of pancakes. “Bet you didn’t think I knew all about your little boyfriend.” He smirks.

  I’m too overwhelmed to care. I shrug.

  “Well, I do. I know all about him.”

  I know he wants me to ask how he knows. “How did you manage that?”

  “The internet. It’s not hard.”

  “How long have you been watching me?” Let’s cut to the chase. I’m sick of playing games.

  “Two days. I sent the clipping, then drove to your town. My car was sitting right outside your house, and you didn’t even notice.” He sounds gleeful.

  “You got a new car. I didn’t recognize it.”

  “I thought you’d feel me. You know what I mean? I felt you. The moment you drove up, it was like your energy called to me. Tried to pull me toward you. It’s a force of nature.” He stares at me, hard. I feel his steel-gray eyes boring holes into the top of my head as I stare down at my plate. “You can’t fight a force of nature. Don’t you know that by now?”

  I shake my head, tears falling onto my plate. I swipe my hand over my face, wiping the tears and my running nose. He hands me a napkin without a word. I blow my nose.

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Not very. Like I said, I don’t eat at this time of night often. I’ll try some.” I make a half-hearted attempt at eating a few bites, swallowing down some coffee. I take deep breaths to keep from having it come back up.

  He’s finishing up. Shit. I have to find a way to send a message. I look around, not moving my head. What can I do? The waitress has been watching us on and off, I’ve seen her from the corner of my eye. Can I get through to her? Somehow?

  “I have to use the bathroom.” It comes to me out of nowhere. The funny thing is, I actually do have to pe
e. I’ve been in a car for hours, after drinking a bunch of coffee at the shop. I’ll leave a note on the bathroom mirror in soap. Something. Anything.

  “Okay. I’ll take you in a minute. As soon as I pay.”

  My heart sinks. “What?”

  “I said I’ll take you to the bathroom.”

  “I don’t need you to do that. I’m a big girl. I know how to pee.”

  He looks at me, a hard glint in his eyes. The benevolent parent has left the building, along with the joyful child. “If you think I’m going to leave you alone, you underestimate me.”

  “I would rather not go if you’re going to go in with me.”

  “Tough. You’re going to. Don’t tell me you suddenly don’t have to go.”

  I fight back the tears. I won’t cry in front of him again. Not ever. He puts money down on the table, then stands. He takes my elbow, making me stand beside him. “Walk in front of me. Don’t you dare attract attention.” We go to the restrooms, which consist of a male and female facility. He pushes me into the ladies’ room, following me inside and locking the door.

  I’ve never felt so humiliated in my life. I sit there trembling while he watches. There’s a soap dispenser and a big mirror. I could have left a note. I could have.

  We walk back out to the car after Tommy orders me to make no eye contact with anyone. In the parking lot, he berates me in a menacing whisper the entire way back to the car.

  “I wasn’t going to make you get back into the trunk, but you leave me with no choice. If you didn’t have to try to be smart, to trick me, I would have let you ride in the front seat. But no. I can’t trust you. I have to put you in the trunk. You did this to yourself.”

  “Please don’t make me ride in there. It’s so cramped and uncomfortable. There’s no fresh air. Besides, don’t you want to talk some more? We can’t talk when I’m in the trunk.” The car is getting closer all the time. I could make a break for it now. My legs don’t feel cramped up anymore.

  His hand tightens on my elbow. “I don’t think so. You need to learn your lesson. Good girls get to ride in the front seat.” He pushes the button on his car key, popping the trunk. I look around. Surely, somebody has to see this. But we’ve parked far from the diner. We’re out of sight.

  He shoves me inside with a word, then slams it shut. I wait until he starts the engine before bursting into tears, one fist in my mouth to muffle the sound.

  Chapter 35

  Jax

  I ride for hours, nothing much to do but think.

  Opening up to Adam was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I buried that shit so far down inside myself, it was almost like reliving the moment when I talked about it. There was still something about that day I didn’t tell him…but he didn’t need to know. It might have been too much.

  I didn’t tell him how Marissa tried to shoot me. I told him I was too slow to stop her from shooting herself. That was true. But it was because I’d just ducked to avoid getting hit by the shot she aimed at me. It hit a tree behind me. Then she pointed the gun at herself. I lunged. Too slow from an awkward position.

  Why did she do it? Because she wanted to stop me from stopping her. She didn’t care if she hit me or not—maybe she wanted to kill me, maybe she wanted to scare me. Since I took the gun, there was no way for the police to know she’d fired an extra shot. I don’t even know where it hit, exactly.

  She was that desperate in the end. That determined to die. She couldn’t live with herself. I can only imagine how her mind was twisted up. Feeling like she’d killed our friends. She hadn’t. I tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault. Frankie used her. I loved him once, I said, but not for a long time before that final ambush. He’d become a monster. Not just by skimming. By ruling with an iron fist. All he cared about was money. He had rules once. Never hurt women, never hurt children, don’t bring the innocent into our business. Then a series of row homes had burned to the ground, all owned by a rival of the club and rented out to low-income families. A mother and her three kids died in that fire. Frankie always denied involvement, but I’d known better. That was the beginning of the end for me.

  Once he was gone, and Marissa, I’d had enough. Right after Frankie’s murder it was rumored I’d be the one to step into his shoes. I didn’t want them. I saw what power did to him, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to get my wife far away from the noise. It was too late for her, though. The addiction had taken her too far away from the person she really was. Then she killed herself, which brought heat onto the club. The police were looking for any excuse to bring everybody in. By the time the dust settled, none of them had wanted anything to do with me anymore. Especially with Adam going around, poisoning the other members against me. Saying I’d killed my wife, his sister. The woman the rest of the guys also saw as a sister, knowing her most of her life.

  I was asked to leave. No punishment but that. I could no longer wear the kutte, couldn’t associate myself with the club. I was more than happy to get out. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I stood outside that party, wishing I could find a way to get inside and be a part of things.

  The only other rule I was given was staying out of town as much as possible. They didn’t want me going around bad-mouthing the club. I had no problem with that, either, seeing as how there was no love lost there. They could go fuck themselves, all of them.

  It was just my dog and me. Marissa’s dog, that is. I didn’t need anyone else.

  Then came Christina.

  My chest tightens when I think of her. Where is she? Am I close? Did they maybe stop off somewhere? They’ve only been on a road a few hours—no way he’s made it to the campus yet. There’s a chance she’s still alive.

  And probably terrified. My chest tightens further. I scream into the wind. There’s no one to hear me, not at this time of night. I’m virtually alone on the road except for a trucker here or there. Every car I approach, I wonder if I’ll see him. What would I do if I did? I can’t run him off the road, not when she’s in the car. And if he’s been watching her at all, he probably knows about me.

  I see her in front of me, replacing the road. That thick, dark hair. The freckles on her nose and cheeks. The way she looked when she yelled at me, when I made fun of her soufflé. How it felt when we first kissed. I thought I’d burn up. It was never like that with any other woman. Intense. Passionate. Wild. Her body. I can almost feel it under my hands.

  She’s a good person. A caring person. She told me she had my back, she supported me no matter what. I can’t think back to a time in my life when I had that. I thought I had it with the club. I was wrong about that. I believe her, though. Just when I wanted to open up to another woman, this happened.

  I should have been with her. I shouldn’t have run away, pissed or not. I lost sight of what mattered. Her safety. Now I’m facing the possibility of losing her the way I lost Marissa.

  I pass a diner, my stomach rumbling. I can’t even stop, no matter how hungry I am. I can eat after I find her.

  ***

  By the time I arrive at the campus, it’s nearly daylight. It’s been the longest night of my life.

  I see the tower in the distance. Before getting any closer, I pull out my phone to dial 911. I tell the operator where I am, and why. “Please, send all the cars you can to the tower. I hope I’m not too late. This man is crazy.” Then I continue, hoping to head them off.

  I park my bike several hundred yards away from the tower. There are no other cars in sight, so maybe I beat them here. He might have stopped at some point to get food. I hope I wasn’t completely off-base with my theory. I might be leading the police on a wild goose chase. They won’t be my biggest fans if that happens.

  After a few minutes, a car pulls up. Since it’s winter break, the campus is almost empty. The presence of a car breaks up the near-silence all around me. I watch from my position behind a dumpster as a man gets out from behind the wheel. He looks slightly older, a little paunchier. But there’s n
o mistaking that face. I’ve seen it in front of me for the past six hours, along with Christina and Marissa. Tommy.

  He looks around, then walks to the trunk. My heart clenches. He opens it, bends down. I can’t see at first, but when he closes the trunk there’s no mistaking Christina. Jesus, he had her in there all this time? She can hardly walk. He has to nearly carry her. Her legs must feel cramped and stiff after being curled up in that tight space all this time. I want to kill him for doing this.

  He’s babbling something to her, his mouth moving a mile a minute. Completely insane. I crouch, running toward them. Using hedges to hide me somewhat. The closer I get the more I can hear of what he’s saying.

  “I told you we’d be together, didn’t I? Didn’t I always say you could never hide from me? There’s no way. I love you too much to lose you to any man, especially not a scumbag like that bastard you were with. I don’t know if I can forgive you for that, but if I do it’ll take a long time. I can’t believe you’d go from me to a man like him. What’s happened to you?”

  On and on he goes, unable to stop babbling. He’s dragging her to the tower, overlooking campus. I realize he wants to take her up into it, maybe to the very top. There’s no telling what he’ll do once he gets her up there. I can only imagine he’ll throw her from the top.

  “Stop!” I run toward them. They both freeze. Christina turns in my direction, frightened at first. Then she sees it’s me, and I watch her face crumple in tears.

  “Jax!” she cries, reaching for me. Trying to break free of his grasp. He’s too strong for her.

  “Shut up, bitch!” Tommy pulls her toward himself. “I should have known you were lying. You had your boyfriend come after us.”

  “I didn’t! I didn’t know! How could I know?”

  I hold up a hand—the one not holding the gun in my pocket. “No, Tommy. She didn’t know I was coming. It’s just me. It was my idea.”