by Jessica Ames
“Oh, I can brew the kettle,” I tell her, starting to unfold my legs from under me, but she holds up her hands.
“I can do it, Liv. Do you want tea then?”
“Yes, please.”
Tea without milk or sugar is one of the few things that doesn’t leave me running for the bathroom. The phone starts to ring in my hand.
DEAN CALLING flashes up on the screen and I quickly swipe across it to take the call. Harper, I notice, makes herself scarce.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey, darlin’. God, it’s good to hear your voice.” He sounds tired, on edge, and I hate that.
I close my eyes and breathe out. “Yours too. I miss you.”
“I miss you too. How’re you feeling?”
“I’m fine. A little nauseous but that’s to be expected, I guess.”
“I wish I was with you. I hate that you’re going through this shit without me.”
I hate it too, but there’s no point making him feel worse about it, so I say, “We’ll be together soon. Then you can hold my hair back every time I’m puking to your heart’s content.”
“Deal. Are Axel and Harper taking care of you?”
“Yeah, they’ve been great.” I pause because I don’t want to bring his mood down, but I also want to know whether we’re any closer to me being able to come home. “Any news on Simon?”
“We’re closing in on him.” His words are assured but I’m not sure I buy them. He’s been saying the same thing since I left Kingsley. “Darlin’, we’re going to get him, I promise.”
When though? I’m tired of being away from my friends, from him. I don’t want to add to his stress, so I just say, “I know, Dean.”
“I love you, Liv. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. I love you too.”
“Beth’s in town this week. Worst time for her to come home, but what the fuck can you do? Jack arranged it all before Derek had a chance to say shit to him. I hate keeping this shit from her, but she’s only going to be here a short time—no sense ruining her visit by making her worry.”
Jealousy pangs at my chest. Beth’s there? I don’t know why because I know she doesn’t mean anything to him in that way, but I hate that she’s there and I’m not.
“Oh.”
“Darlin’… you’ve got nothing to worry about there. Beth’s—”
“Like your sister,” I interrupt. “I know. I just… I wish I was there with you.” Tears brim in my eyes. What the hell? These pregnancy hormones are a nightmare. I don’t know why I’m upset. I shouldn’t be. I know Dean would never be unfaithful to me and it’s not even about that. Truthfully, I don’t know what it’s about.
“Soon, darlin’. Soon. I got to run. I told Beth I’d take her out on the bike today and I’m already late to pick her up. You stay safe, okay? I’ll call you tomorrow evening. Love you.”
I slam down my jealousy but I struggle with a heavy sensation in my chest that I’m here, hidden away while she’s riding around town with him.
“Love you too.”
The line goes dead and for a moment I just stare at the phone as my emotions swirl. It’s ridiculous to be jealous of Beth; I’m here because of my issues. I thought Simon might have been out of the picture by now, though.
The next week or so passes slowly. Dean’s calls are shorter and tenser. Something is going on but when I ask him, all he says is “it’s not for you to worry about”. I hate that he won’t tell me what’s happening; it makes my mind think all kinds of shit—none of it good. Has Simon resurfaced? Is he making life difficult for Dean, for the Club? My ex can be vindictive, a total bastard, truth be told. Don’t get me wrong, I know those men can handle him—I wouldn’t have left Dean if I thought otherwise, but I hate thinking that they’re being forced to deal with my castoff problems.
Axel and Harper try to keep my mind busy with games and binge-watching old television shows, but I can’t stop thinking about Dean and Simon.
Dean calls every day like clockwork so when he doesn’t call one evening around his usual time, I start to feel anxious. When he still hasn’t called the following evening, my anxiety morphs into fear and I’m crawling the walls. Why hasn’t he called? He never misses.
“He’s probably caught up in Club shit,” Axel says as we sit around the dining table, eating dinner.
I’ve barely touched my food because my stomach is in knots. I know I have to eat but the mix of emotions and morning sickness is making it tricky to keep anything settled at the moment. “Happens all the time. Derek’s probably got him neck deep in something. He’ll call.”
I wish I was as assured as him, but I’m not. My gut is telling me something is wrong. Really wrong.
I push my chair back and stand abruptly. Axel mirrors my movement as Harper watches on.
“I have to go home. I have to make sure he’s okay.”
“Uh, Liv—that isn’t happening,” Axel says.
“What if he’s hurt? What if Simon’s done something to him?”
“Then the Club’ll take care of it,” is his infuriating response.
I slam my hand on the table, the dishes rattling. “Fuck the Club! This is my mess, not theirs and not Dean’s. If something has happened to him—”
“If something has happened to him then you’ll be the first to know, but nothing will have happened to him, Liv. Your ex-fucker isn’t interested in Dean; it’s your blood he’s baying for. Dean’s safer than you are right now. He’s got a Club full of brothers all watching his back. But if it’ll make you feel better I’ll call Derek, see if I can get an update.”
I take a steadying breath and nod. “Yes, it would make me feel a lot better.”
Axel pushes up from the table and digs his phone out of his jeans pocket. Then he moves to the door. Clearly, this is not a call he’ll be making in front of me. And that annoys me. The secrets… the half-truths… I know that is Club life, that there are things I can’t know because I’m not a brother, but this concerns me. I should know.
But I also want answers and I’m not about to push my luck. If Axel can get them and is willing to call the Saxons’ president then I’m not going to do anything to jeopardise that.
I sink back into the dining chair, slumping into the seat. When I catch Harper’s eye I don’t see censure there but sympathy.
“It’s not an easy life.”
“What’s not?” I ask.
“Club life. You have to be a certain type of person to deal with the way it all works. We’re women who are put on pedestals by our men but the moment those kuttes go on their backs… well, we take a back seat. Club always comes first.
“But that also means those boys’ll do what they have to in order to keep your man safe. You have to trust he’s okay, and if he’s not talking it’s probably nothing sinister.”
“I’d just feel better if I could speak to him.”
She smiles. “I know, but sometimes Club business takes them out of our reach.”
“It’s hard being away from him.”
“I know. I find it hard being away from Axel, but the Club is their life and to be in a brothers’ life it has to be yours too. Like I said, it’s not always easy but it is worth it. The love Axel has for me overshadows everything else. And Dean is the same. He loves you.”
“I don’t doubt that he loves me, Harper. I never have. I’m just… I’m worried that something’s happened.”
Axel steps into the room, cutting off any response Harper may have been about to make.
“Derek’s got him in deep doing Club shit. Nothing to worry about. He’ll call you as soon as he can.”
He says it with confidence but there’s something about the directness of his words and the way he meets my gaze with a hint of challenge that makes me pause. He’s lying his arse off, and I don’t know why. And that worries me.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I’m lying on the sofa reading a book I took from the shelf unit behind me a few days later. I’m d
emolishing a packet of chocolate digestives, which seems to be one of the few things I can keep down. I can’t complain too much; my morning sickness hasn’t been too horrific so far, although the thought of this lasting for at least another six weeks does not fill me with happy thoughts.
My phone rings as I’ve just finished chewing and I see Dean’s name pop up on the screen. I quickly accept the call.
“Dean?”
“Guess again.”
I bolt upright, my entire body taut at the familiar voice—a voice that is most definitely not Dean.
“Simon…” My breath catches in my throat as I say his name and my mouth dries as I ask the question I’m not sure I want an answer to, “Why do you have Dean’s phone?”
I glance over at Harper, who is sitting at the desk on the other side of the room, working as usual. Her face pales at my words and she pushes up from her chair, quickly rushing from the room—probably to get Axel.
My attention is brought back to Simon as he laughs, a high-pitched shriek. It’s dark, macabre, and it sends chills racing up the back of my legs right up my spine.
“Me and Dean are getting better acquainted.”
What the hell does that mean? I sit forward, my hand going to my stomach as I try to ward off a wave of nausea.
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing him and that fucking Club of his wouldn’t have done to me.” I hear a noise in the background, like metal rattling. “Too bad I got in first, eh, Dean?”
There’s a grunting sound, but nothing that sounds intelligible.
My heart is racing so fast I feel lightheaded. I try to think, but I can’t.
“You have Dean there with you?”
“Check your messages, darling.” I love it when Dean calls me darlin’; Simon saying it makes my skin crawl. I don’t think about that as I pull my phone from my ear and glance at the screen. Sure enough there is a message alert.
I open it and I gasp. It’s a photograph of Dean. I have no idea where he is but the space behind him looks dark and dirty, industrialised even. There’s graffiti covering the exposed brick wall behind him and the edge of a desk just in frame. But my eyes are locked on the figure in the centre of the image.
Dean is trussed up, his arms pulled over his head and secured to a large hook hanging down from what I assume must be the ceiling, but that’s off screen. His head is dipped forward, as if he’s struggling to keep it up, but his eyes are open a slither—enough to tell me he’s conscious, barely. I scan over the rest of the photograph, taking in his bare chest, the tattoos I love so much visible. There is a smearing of blood on the side of his face.
My vision rolls and I have to close my eyes to both steady myself and to avoid seeing the horror in front of me.
With a shaking hand I put the phone back to my ear.
“Do you see how your actions have consequences? You dragged this man into your fantasies, into your lies, and now he’s going to pay for it.”
I close my eyes and try to take a steadying breath. I need to be calm; I need to keep my head.
“And what exactly am I fantasising, Simon? That you beat me so badly I ended up in the hospital—on more than one occasion? That you played mind games with my head until I didn’t know which way was up?”
“See. There you go again—ever the drama queen.” He snorts. “It’s no wonder your own parents washed their hands of you, that your siblings couldn’t even stand the sight of you! It’s all in your head, sweetheart. I did nothing but love you. You’re unhinged, baby. You need help.”
His words hit me hard, but not as hard as they once would have. Because I’ve had time to heal, a long time to get my head on straight. I’ve worked through my issues, I’ve talked through my marriage; I know I’m not the one who needs help.
“You didn’t love me, Simon; you wanted to control me.”
He laughs, a maniacal sound that makes my neck clammy. “What’s it like living in this made-up world where poor little Olivia is the victim every time?”
I am the victim though—as much as I hate that word, that’s exactly what I am. Simon’s games, his attacks chipped away at my soul, piece by piece until there was nothing left of me. Dean has rebuilt me in ways I can’t even explain.
“Simon, you need to let Dean go. He’s not involved in this.”
“So he didn’t help you to hide after you left me for dead?”
Ice settles in my belly. I had left him for dead after he attacked me in the house. Then Dean and Clara had put me in hiding. “Dean’s not involved,” I reiterate.
“Where are you?” he asks.
I glance up as Axel and Harper come back into the room.
“Let Dean go.”
“No fucking chance. He’s my collateral because one way or another one of you is going to tell me where the fuck you are and you’re going to come home so we can play happy fucking family. We’re still married; it shouldn’t be hard. If you don’t… well, I’ll make him talk.”
My stomach rebels and I swallow down bile. “Dean can’t tell you what he doesn’t know!”
“Then you tell me!”
“Simon—”
“If you don’t come home what happens to him will be on you.”
My heart skips a beat and clenches painfully beneath my ribs as Axel grabs my phone and hits the loud speaker button before handing it back to me.
I am strong. I am in control.
“Whatever happens here is on you and no one else. I’m not responsible for your actions.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he snarls, his enraged voice filling the room. Axel twitches, his lip curling. “All of this is on you. You left me. You took everything from me. Do you know what it was like, waking up one day and you just being gone?”
“You put me in the hospital,” I fire back, but my voice is choked.
I am strong. I am in control.
I’m neither of these things. Simon is completely in control right now and I have no idea what the hell to do.
“You drove me to it!” he screams, his voice so loud the speaker on my phone crackles. Harper reaches out and grabs my hand.
“I drove you to hurt me?” I have no idea what I’m saying, only that I need to buy time so I can work out how to save Dean, a man I can’t live without.
“You know you did. You betrayed me. I had to explain to your parents, to my parents, to our friends why in the hell my wife up and disappeared one morning.”
He’d said this in the house and I give him the same response.
“I’m sure you managed, Simon. You were never short of excuses for anything.” There is derision in my voice that I can’t stop, even though I know I shouldn’t antagonise him.
“I loved you!” he screams. “I fucking loved you! And you left! As if five years of marriage meant nothing!”
It didn’t. It meant absolutely nothing; Simon had made sure of that. He tarnished everything we had, everything we could have had, but arguing that with him is pointless.
“Simon, please let Dean go. This is between us; not him.”
“You think you can be happy without me, but you’re wrong. You’re nothing without me.”
I try to placate him. “I never meant to hurt you.” And this is true; I didn’t want to hurt Simon; I just wanted to leave and restart my life. I’ve been doing that with Dean, with the shelter, with Holly and the Lost Saxons girls. Things were good—better than good. For the first time in a long time I was happy, life was finally delivering. Now, Simon could take all that away from me. “But hurting Dean isn’t the answer.”
He ignores my words. “Why did you involve him in our problems? He’s trash.”
“Yet he’s never raised a hand to me!” The angry words slip from my mouth before I can stop them.
“You think he’s better than me.”
I don’t think it; I know it. “If you want to take out your shit on anyone, take it out on me!”
“Oh, sweetheart, if you were here I would, bel
ieve me. But since you’re not…”
There is the sound of flesh meeting flesh and it takes my brain a moment to realise what I’m hearing. He’s hitting Dean.
“Simon, stop!”
He doesn’t. I hear more grunts and more sounds of flesh being struck. Harper’s hand covers her mouth as she listens, but Axel just types on his phone, signalling for me to continue talking to Simon. Truthfully, I’m not sure that is a good idea because I just seem to be making this whole situation worse.
“Simon! Simon!” I yell into the phone and after a moment his voice sounds.
“He’s not so tough. Bleeds the same as any other fucking man once you have the Club vest off.” His words are breathless, the exertion of beating Dean taking it out of him.
I hear a groan in the background—Dean? My heart stutters.
“Is he okay?”
“The fuck do you care?”
I care about him more than you, you piece of shit.
“Simon, is Dean okay?”
“He’s still breathing, if that’s what you mean. For now, anyway.”
“I want to speak to him.”
“You’re not calling the shots, babe, I am.”
“Okay, Simon. I’m sorry. Just tell me what you want!”
“I told you—you owe me a fiancée, and I’m collecting. So, wife of mine, you’re coming home. As soon as you’re back I’ll release them.”
Them?
“Who else do you have?”
“Dean’s girl. She’s a pretty thing, considering she’s trash.”
My heart stutters. Dean’s girl? Who the hell is he talking about? Axel looks positively murderous as he types frantically on his phone,
“Simon, who did you take?”
“She’s been on the back of his bike more than she’s off it. I know what that means.” He laughs, a dark sound. “I knew you’d never come back on your own—you’re too weak, too much of a coward. But Dean, he’ll tell me where you are to save his bitch. You have an hour to decide what you’re doing. Then I’m cutting pieces off these cunts.” The line goes dead. Fuck.