I had to worry about what I knew too. Beyond my own self-doubts, there were facts that didn’t add up to good things for Deck. The men from Aces High had been unable to get The Trinity Group’s leader locked down for negotiations. Word on the street was that it was because the leader no longer lived, and worse, that three heads grew back when the one was cut off.
Having three different people who could possibly attempt to use Deck as leverage, or forget him altogether, was not something that worked in his favor. According to my sister-in-law, Christina, who had been kind enough to continue to update me when the men of my husband’s club refused to.
Still, I couldn’t get over the one picture where that bitch’s hands were on my husband’s body. I would see to it that those offending appendages would be removed from her body first. I wasn’t normally a violent person, but I definitely had violent designs for her very creative, extremely drawn out death. She would not go quietly once I got her in my grasp.
“You have ten weeks to go,” Doc told me as I tuned back in to listen to his directives. He turned to me, making sure our eyes connected before he spoke again. “I’m praying for your family, Ever.”
“Thanks,” I whispered the one-word response. It was all I had in me. Doc Middleton stood and gave me directions on what to do next before bidding me a good day and hurrying from the room to his next appointment. The nurse came in after I was finished dressing again and she walked with me up to the front desk to set up the appointments I needed, since I hadn’t been listening to the doctor about them.
“He thought you might need someone to go back over everything,” the nurse told me as she offered a sweet smile. “If you need anything, forget, or want clarification on what he needs you to do, just give us a call.” She placed a business card in my palm then. “I’m sure you already have Dr. Middleton’s number, but this is mine as well. Just in case he is unreachable. I’m a registered nurse midwife, so I can help too.”
“Thank you,” I told her as I scooped up my appointment cards and set out to head to the club, only when I left the office, Christina was waiting for me by my car. “What are you doing here?”
“Jay and I are staying in town for a bit, again. The images you sent me earlier, I forwarded them to Keys. I came by to tell you that she got a hit on the woman. Her face was seen on a random camera. It’s the first good lead we’ve had in a while. It also means that she came all the way here to deliver this package herself. Keys wants to know if you still have the envelope and everything. Maybe there’s a chance we can nab a usable fingerprint off of it this time.”
I nodded my head and then turned toward the sound of a motorcycle coming at us. J-Bird rolled up beside the curb and kicked the stand to his bike down before hopping off and coming to join us.
“Lucy and Tiger Lily have the twins and Pike,” he told Christina and me.
“Why? Amber and Ashton should be in school.” Panic set in as I thought about why they wouldn’t be there.
“The girls were in a fight,” he informed me.
“What? Why?”
“One of their little asshole classmates told them that their dad left because he didn’t want them anymore.”
“Jesus, what next?” I groaned the question, not really wanting to taunt fate to drop another bomb in my lap, but seriously, could the cruel bitch just back off of my family for a fucking minute and let us breathe?
“What do you mean by, ‘What next’?” Jay asked, not missing a beat as I lamented having a big ass mouth.
I hadn’t even mentioned the pictures to anyone from Aces High yet. I knew the moment I handed anything over to them, they would shut me out again. Instead, I had entrusted it to the women of S.H.E. So far, it sounded like I’d made the right decision.
“She got another picture and gave it to us,” Christina told her man.
“What?” Jay exploded. “He’s our President!”
“No, he’s not. He’s your brother, but you left the club behind years ago. The men aren’t capable of handling this one,” I told him. “He’s been gone for two months and nothing. You all have nothing.”
“What are you talking about? They’re doing everything they can to find him and bring him home to you,” Jay argued.
“Is he home yet?” Silence was my answer. “I gave them two precious months to bring him home. They brought me nothing. I gave the women of S.H.E…” I glanced down at the clock on my cell phone, “Five hours. They already have a strong lead about where he might be. A woman is part of his abduction. The Aces High MC doesn’t have a great track record dealing with women involved in their problems. They’re too prideful to know they need a woman’s help.
“Tell me, would you rather bring him home, or keep waiting on intel that will lead them to the ‘man’ they’re trying to negotiate with for his release? A woman is setting up these photos that I keep getting. When was the club going to stop chasing the ghost of a man who they think they need to deal with, and start chasing the woman who is obviously in charge and using Deck for her own personal reasons?”
Instead of answering, J-Bird turned to his old lady. “You should have told me.”
“I would have. Later,” she insisted. “No secrets!”
“No secrets,” he whispered back to her. “I get it, Ever.” Jay finally acknowledged. “How about we all head to the clubhouse, conference Keys in, and get everyone on the same page?”
I climbed into my car and followed Christina back to the clubhouse. It was kind of awe-inspiring to see her take the point position on her Harley while Jay brought up the rear. It’s how I had always imagined Toby and Jay would have ridden, reluctantly, when I was able to drive. Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly how things had gone down. Still, I smiled and wondered where my brother was and if he was somewhere that he could see everything that happened to us. Maybe I should stop praying to gods who don’t listen and start hoping my brother might be out there somewhere and able to intervene for me.
Once we were in the parking lot of the Aces High MC clubhouse and everyone was off their bikes and out of the car, I heard Christina chirping into her phone. “How soon could we get someone on her tail?” She stopped and listened for a moment. “Fuck! We have no one in close proximity?” She saw my questioning gaze and clicked her cell over to speakerphone.
“I wish. We don’t have anyone up there. I have a couple guys from Redemption Inc. in New York right now, but they’re neck deep in shit with the girls from Dusty Rose. That situation blew up in a nasty way,” Keys informed her.
“We just pulled up at the clubhouse here. We’re going to go inside and see if they have anyone up that way that might be able to hop on her trail, so we don’t lose her,” Christina suggested.
“I hope like hell they have someone available. The last sighting that I have for her was at a rest area off 77 near Mt. Airy. Maybe, one of the guys from Cedar Falls can get to her as she’s passing through West Virginia or Virginia. Honestly, we have to hope we pick the right path to follow and catch her, because she has two major routes to take. I don’t think she’ll deviate to backroads since she probably wants to get back as quickly as possible.”
“Why not fly then?” I asked.
“Who is that?” Keys questioned.
“It was Ever,” Christina told her.
“Oh! Hey, Ever! She won’t fly because she knows she can be tracked easily that way. This bitch has got to be crazier than a whole can of nuts because if she came all the way from where we last thought Deck was, then she has at least a 15-hour drive in each direction.”
“That should work in our favor though, shouldn’t it? There’s no way she can drive the 15-hours straight through. Right? So, someone should be able to catch her if and when she stops to rest.”
“Maybe, if we’re able to keep track of her movements. I’m working on narrowing things down, but it’s not like we have eyes in the sky watching her in real time. Besides, we want someone to be able to keep a bit of distance and follow her back to where
she has Deck, not pick her up. We don’t know how well interrogation will work on her. We also don’t know what they’d do to Deck if she doesn’t check in or come back in a specified amount of time.”
“I hate this,” I mumbled.
“I know you do, sweetie. We’re going to find him!” Keys sounded so confident that I really believed her for the moment, even though the odds didn’t seem to be in our favor at all. The woman had a ton of miles to cover in a car and she could easily get lost in anywhere, everywhere, or even find herself a new set of wheels if she was paranoid enough about possibly being followed.
Lucy and my mother-in-law stayed with the girls overnight because I refused to leave the clubhouse. I ended up staying in a spare room that was kept for the president of the club. I don’t think he had ever actually used it. From the time we had the girls, he never missed a night coming home to us and, before that, he wanted me to have complete faith in him, so he never stayed there. I would have trusted him to be there alone if he needed to be, but he didn’t ask me to do that. He just did what he knew he needed to do for me. It was one of the best things about Declan. He did that in all facets of his life. He took everyone’s feelings into consideration and did what he could to accommodate them. Obviously, that wasn’t always possible, but he did his level best.
I’m not sure when I actually managed to fall asleep, but it felt like I had only been out for moments when I was awakened. “You need to see this,” Christina whispered to me as she encouraged me to get up out of the bed. “Keys has video footage. One of the nomads from Aces High was able to track the bitch down and followed her across the border to where she had been hiding Deck.”
“Was he there? Did we get him back?”
“Please, just come with me. It’s better that you see it,” she insisted and all I heard was the fact that she couldn’t tell me we had him back. Surely, she would have told me that up front it were true. My heart plummeted at the thought of what I might be waking to see. Would it be his emaciated, dead body? Would it mean, not only the end of our search, but the end of my husband as well? Every cell in my body ached for him and I couldn’t stave off the worry that threatened to swamp me.
“Ever,” Jay intoned coolly as he twisted a laptop around so that I could see what he had been looking at. He didn’t bother prefacing the video, just hit play and stood back as I watched.
The same woman from the pictures that had been left at my house stood outside a small cottage-style house, glaring in disbelief before she went inside. “Where have they taken you?” She screamed as she came storming back out of the house to search the area around the cottage. The desperation shrouding her was palpable as I watched her run around, shrieking the entire time. She cursed the gods, her brother, and Deck himself. “When I find you again, I will make all of you pay for your treachery!”
“Jesus, she really is completely out there, isn’t she?” I asked. “She just threatened Deck and he obviously had no choice in being moved again while she was away.” I turned to Jay then, “Or did he manage to escape?”
“Our guys searched the area, just in case. No sign of him, but there was a sign of other vehicles having been there recently. We think someone else was responsible for moving him while she was gone. Whether or not they inform her of his whereabouts is another story. Phoenix is sticking to her like glue, and can follow her if she is contacted. Ghost sent someone up with him to take shifts so that we don’t have any mishaps.” Jay pulled me in for a hug and just held me tight for a few minutes. “I know that this is incredibly difficult, but you are the absolute strongest person I’ve ever known. This is the closest we’ve come to finding him too. Keep holding on to whatever reserves you have, be they faith, positive thoughts, or prayers. At this point I don’t care. Just keep it in your heart that we are going to bring him home to you.”
I simply nodded my head against Jay’s chest and let his warmth surround me for a few minutes. “I need to get back home to the girls. You’ll call me if you hear anything?”
“You know I will,” Jay told me as he kissed my forehead before he released me. “Keep your phone close, just in case.”
Chapter 11
No Justification
Lucy
The lines on the paper started to blur along with the words as I read CJ’s latest letter I pulled from another box. It was an odd one because it didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the timeline where he only wrote when we were separated. This one had been written when Ever was struggling so hard with our family and with CJ’s extended family with the club.
Lucy,
I don’t even think I deserve the right to call you anything else right now. I realize I’ve been a complete asshole. I know I’ve been unfair to Ever and, in turn, to you as well. Everything has been left on your shoulders and I don’t know how you bear the weight of my fuckup. I had a child with someone else, yet you’ve been able to look past that, while I have let the thought fester and bubble up inside of me. It was supposed to be only you. Always, only you. As much as I try, I can’t rectify that in my mind.
You have stood by our girl, my girl, since she came to us. You’ve sheltered her from me. Me! The person who should have been the one to protect her from anyone else. You’ve turned away from me, and rightfully so. I feel so completely lost. If I do one thing, my family suffers. If I do the other, my brothers suffer. Well, I guess they don’t so much suffer as get pissed off. The thing is, they were there for me when I went through all that shit when you were gone. They stood by my side, picked me up when I was at my worst, and they put up with me beating the shit out of them, literally. Anything to curb the anger and sadness I felt with your loss. They knew, when that shit went down with Ever’s mom, how it bothered me. The tailspin I could have gone down, they kept me from the worst of it.
When Ever showed up, I went to that dark place again. That space in my head where my choices were taken from me, where I felt filthy all over again. Unclean. I didn’t know how to process it. Hell, I still don’t.
I love her. I’ve watched her grow. These feelings inside me are so goddamn conflicting though. I am proud of her and all those accomplishments she makes on the one hand, and on the other, I’m pissed off at the amount of time you’re spending with her and not our children. Not me! I know that sounds completely selfish and fucked up. I don’t deny that. It’s just that I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that she had all your attention, but I could never pull my head out of my ass long enough to see that it was only because she was getting none of mine. Yeah, the balance was off, but it was entirely on me. I just couldn’t see it. I’m starting to though.
I smiled at my daughter yesterday and she cringed. Cringed. At a smile. What in the hell kind of piece of shit am I, that simply smiling at my daughter makes her jerk back reflexively? Anna came around the corner shortly after, and when I half-assed smiled at her - afraid of getting the same reaction - she beamed at me and nearly knocked me down with a hug. I just kept imagining Anna cringing at me too and, it was that moment I knew. I understood the insane amount of damage I had done to my own daughter. Her mother didn’t make her into the evil child I had dreaded or was made to fear by some of the guys.
No, I made her into a victim. I made her feel worthless. I made her cringe at smiles. She fled my presence as quickly as possible and thinking back, I realize that was the norm for her. I had taken for granted that she wasn’t in my space that often, and I finally had my eyes open wide enough to understand why. If she had turned into an evil child, it would have been justified and completely my own doing. But she didn’t, because she had you. My love and appreciation for you pales in comparison to what you’ve done for me. You took my daughter in and made her your own in spite of everything. I have you to thank for the beautiful girl that stood before me today, the one I scared away with a smile. Everything broken is on me. Everything beautiful, that was all your doing, baby.
I’m going to make this up to both of you. I don’t know how, but I’l
l find a way. If she’ll even let me. I’m sorry I put it all on your shoulders. You’ve always been my partner, an equal, but in this, you carried me and that should have never happened. I love you, Lucy. I love our girl too. I’m so damn proud of her, and I don’t even have a right to feel that way.
One day, maybe I’ll be able to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. Do you think I can fix it in time? What if I can’t? How the hell did I leave it all so long? I know it’s not fair to ask you, but you’re the best at knowing how to fix things, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m telling you now, if it didn’t work, I’m well aware that it’s all on me.
I want to be the father to her that I’ve been to our other children. I’ll figure it out, I promise you.
I will love you until my very last breath, then long beyond that too.
CJ
“Is that one of the letters that Anna was telling me about?” Ever asked as she stood in the doorway having knocked previously. I had been so lost in the heartbreak of the letter that I hadn’t noticed.
“It is, and I think you should probably read this one,” I told her.
Ever shook her head, blond strands of hair fell into her face as she did. Before she answered with more than a gesture, she pushed her hair back behind her ears and watched me for a moment as I swiped at a tear that had fallen. “No,” was her only answer.
“But, I really think…”
“No,” she insisted again. “I don’t believe they’re gone and you’re here torturing yourself with the words of a dead man.”
“You just said you don’t believe…” I tried to argue.
“He meant them to be his death bed confessions,” she explained. “Besides, they’re your words. He wrote them for you, not me.”
“I just really think,”
“He’s out there, doing his best to show me, right now.” Ever’s words were everything. If only I could lock them away and pull them back out when CJ got home so he could hear them for himself. He still had doubts that she could ever truly love him, despite her telling him over the years that everything was okay. CJ just couldn’t get past the difference in how his daughters treated him. Anna was always open and demonstrative, while Ever was different. She didn’t offer up hugs quickly to many people, and definitely not to her father. She showed she cared in her own ways, but something I couldn’t quite get him to understand was that she was like that with most everyone, not just him. He still blamed himself for her behavior though.
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