I didn’t understand. How had I allowed myself to be pulled under his spell for so long? How had I let him control me? He really was a monster; there was no denying that.
“No!” I screamed in his face.
But he just started laughing. “You can’t just say ‘no’ and expect me to listen to you. These were the terms of our agreement. You broke your end of the deal, so now I get to break mine.”
“Kill me instead.” I begged. I wanted to knock him out, to punch him square across the jaw, but Grace’s life was at stake. I needed to try a non-violent, non-provoking attack first.
“Ryan, it’s not like we’re trading a life for a life. You have value to me. You have to see that. Everything you’ve done for my club so far… every plan you’ve set in motion… I couldn’t have done that without you. And I’ll be the first to admit that. But Grace, she makes you… this.” He made a gagging face as he pointed his hands at me. “So, it’s time for her to go.”
“And what makes you think I’ll do anything for you if you kill her.”
“Because, my dear Ryan,” he proudly put his hand to my cheek, “you literally have no one else. You are nothing without me.”
Those words hurt more than any punch he could throw, because they were the God’s honest truth. I had alienated myself from any life that wasn’t Grace or the club. With Grace gone, I would have no one. I would have nothing but my thoughts of vengeance, my thoughts of vengeance toward Sean and toward my mother. Unfortunately, those were the only two people in my life who even pretended to care for me.
Sean had killed my Pops, and yet I still was drawn to him. Who was to say that him killing my one reason left for living wouldn’t do the same thing? What sick, twisted power did he have over me?
“So where is she, Ryan?”
“Why the fuck do you think I’d ever tell you.”
He rolled his eyes at my answer. “Oh, come on, you know I’m going to figure it out. Just tell me so we can get this over with already.”
“Over my dead body.”
“I already told you I’m not doing that.”
“Well, then you’re shit out of luck, I guess.”
“Danny! Doorway, now!” Sean yelled into the clubhouse again.
While we waited for Danny to show his face, I quickly peeked over at Rocky. He was just staring at me, unsure of what he had walked into. Or, more accurately, what I had dragged him into. “I’m so sorry.” I mouthed at him.
He pursed his lips and nodded his head. I saw nothing but pity. He didn’t hate me; he felt bad for me. He knew that I was in too deep. He was just then realizing that he had no idea what I had been going through the past six months.
“What’s up, boss?” Danny appeared in the doorway, taking in the facts of the situation around him.
“I need you to find Grace.” He said as he stared at me.
“I can do that.”
“Great. Check all the usual places. Then bring her in.”
“Danny, no. Please, no.” I begged him, praying that there was just a shred of humanity left within him. “If you ever had any decency, you would leave her out of this. Just leave her be.”
My face recoiled from the slap I then felt pierce my cheek. “Danny listens to me, not to you.” Sean shook his reddened palm as he scolded me.
It was instinct really, but I lunged at him. My hands were around his throat in a split second. Sean grasped at my wrists, trying to release my grip, to no success. The two guys with two guns, though, were almost as quick as I, pulling me successfully from my attack.
“I’ll let you know what I find, boss.” Danny lowered his eyes to the ground as he began to walk away.
“Hold up a second.” Sean eyed me as he placed his hands yet again around my wrists. “Interesting.”
“What?” I barked.
Sean smiled as he lifted the sleeve of my thermal. “Danny, she’s at the hospital.”
“Sir?” He questioned.
“Ryan is wearing a hospital bracelet, which means my little Gracie must have given birth to that sweet little baby.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“I’ll call her whatever I like… whenever I like… how ever I like.” He loved every second of his tease.
“Sean, if you so much as…” But I couldn’t finish my sentence. I couldn’t even say the words to what he might be thinking of doing to my wife, or worse, to my helpless child.
“Oh relax, Son. I’m not heartless.” He condescendingly patted my head. “And hey, if you’re good, I’ll let you keep your baby.”
Grace
“Grace, I have to take you to him now.”
I spun around, clutching my child to my chest. Danny sorrowfully shrugged, as if he was apologizing for the role he played in what was about to happen. I shook my head, begging for him to reconsider, but I knew it wasn’t an option. If he didn’t bring me in, Sean would see to it that he was reprimanded.
“Danny, please; don’t do this.”
He held out his hand to me. “Please, let’s just get this over with the easy way. You know I have a gun on me. Don’t make me pull it on you. Not with the baby.”
He was pleading with me. It was interesting, and seemed oddly out of character. There was a time when Ryan had really cared for Danny, when he called him a true friend. The only Danny I knew was the one who threatened me in my doorway. He claimed to be Ryan’s friend, his confidante, and then degraded me to my face.
“I hope Sean lets me have a taste before he’s done with you.”
But this Danny, the one who stood before me, he was different. He seemed tired, beaten, regretful. He didn’t want to hurt me. He was simply carrying out a task assigned to him by a madman.
I reached my hand out to his, but when he wrapped his fingers around mine, I pulled him my way.
“You have a choice here. You don’t have to do this.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know he’s still human. We can beat him.”
I could feel the fear and the frustration building up in my throat. I needed another option. This couldn’t be it.
“It’s a nice thought, but Sean wins this round, Grace. There’s no stopping him.”
This Danny wasn’t just tired; this Danny was defeated. Sean had taken him for all he was worth and turned him into something that was so obviously eating away at his core. I knew I would have to go with him. I knew I’d be brought to Sean. But I was hoping I could use Danny’s weakness to my advantage. I just needed to find a way for the opportunity to present itself.
I pressed the call button on the side of my bed and waited for the nurse to check in.
“She’s being fussy and I’m so tired. I could really use a nap. Could you take her to the nursery?” I lied.
“Of course, dear.” The nurse smiled at me as I placed the sleeping baby in her little wheeled hospital crib.
I lightly kissed her on the cheek before I whispered so only we could hear, “Goodbye baby girl. Mommy loves you.”
When she was out of sight, I slowly pulled on my regular clothes before I turned to Danny. “I just need to make one more stop, downstairs. It will only take a second.”
“I’ll be right beside you.”
The elevator doors sprung open, and I curled my way down the hallway toward the nurse’s station. I took a quick glance around, but Mark wasn’t there; he must had still been doing his rounds. They paged him over the loud speaker for me while I anxiously waited by the corner of the receptionist’s desk. Danny stared at me impatiently; he was ready to get out of there, to deliver me to his boss. But I needed to see Mark; I needed to tie up a lose end.
“Grace, what are you doing out of bed?”
Mark walked up to me, the concern washing over his face. He put his hand on my shoulder, but quickly peeled it off when he noticed Danny looming over me.
“You must be Ryan.”
“No, Mark, this is Danny.” I said it slowly and deliberately. I tried to give him any hint that t
his was not a casual friend just coming to say ‘hello’.
“Nice to meet you.” He held out his hand, but I could see the confusion in his eyes as he turned back to me. “So, what’s going on?”
I lowered both my eyes and my voice. “I have to go, but I’ll be back. Could you just watch over the baby until I get back? Don’t… just make sure they take care of her.”
I choked back the tears. I couldn’t allow myself to break, not in front of Danny. But Mark was not so easily fooled.
“Grace, you can’t leave until you’re discharged.”
“I have to, Mark.”
“This isn’t a day spa; it’s a hospital.”
He was becoming angry, annoyed at me, but as I had reminded myself of just earlier that day, Mark would never understand my past. He wouldn’t understand why I had to leave, why I couldn’t just tell this man standing behind me to go fuck himself.
I took one last look at Mark, the man who had been so kind to me. He had been the friend I needed, the one I always wanted. I would most likely never see him again. If I lived through the day, I would have to grab my baby and make a run for it, leaving Philadelphia forever. If I didn’t win… well… there was always the chance I wouldn’t make it through this fight. I had to accept that as the truth. But what would happen to my baby; my poor, helpless child?
I quickly took a step forward, threw my arms around him, and pulled his lips to mine. I knew it would be surprising to him, but it would also be surprising to Danny who would then take a second to settle before taking action. I closed my mouth around his and then angled my lips to his ear. “If I don’t make it back, please, just… protect her.”
“What? Grace? What are you talking about?” He quickly whispered back. Between the kiss and the plea, he was grasping at reality.
“You wonder why I don’t let people in… this is why.” I pulled away from him so he could see the fear in my eyes. Danny wrapped his fingers around my arm as he dragged me in the opposite direction.
“Bye, Mark.” I mouthed as we disappeared around the corner.
Ryan
“Get in there.”
Rocky and I were shoved into the large meeting room off the common area of the clubhouse. I looked up to see every member of the Cupids bound to a chair with a gun to his head. The room was windowless for privacy purposes, but the explosion had managed to rip a hole in the wall where it met the baseboards. It was weird, and oddly symbolic, to see the room filled with natural sunlight. The Cupids had been taken; their secrets were no longer in the dark.
“Fuck, no.” Rocky whispered. He went to move forward, but I threw my arm out, stopping him. There were too many guns in the room; any sudden movement from Rocky might give cause for one of them to fire.
Sean stepped into the room behind us, admiring the work his men had accomplished. “So, Ryan, do you care to give them their options?”
“Excuse me?” I turned to him, confused. I had assumed I gave up any right to make demands when I chose Grace over him. Why was he still offering for me to call the shots?
He came in closer to me. “I’m giving you a chance, Son.”
“I don’t want a chance. I want Grace.” I spat at him.
His face instantly reddened with anger and frustration. “Don’t test me, Ryan. Talk these guys into joining me, or you’ll be joining them.”
With that, he turned around, walked out, and slammed the door behind him. I inhaled sharply as I contemplated my next move. There was no way I could even plan a deception; Sean’s followers had stayed in the room, their guns still plastered to the Cupids’ heads.
“What the fuck did you do, Ryan?” Rocky just stared at me.
“I screwed up, Rock. I screwed up bad. But I was protecting Grace.”
“By putting us all in danger?”
“It wasn’t like that. You weren’t supposed to be involved.”
“You had to have known he’d go that route eventually.”
“It might have crossed my mind, but Grace was…” She was dying right before my eyes. I had no other choice. “You wouldn’t have done the same for Becca? For your kids?”
Upon hearing his wife’s name, he shook his head, knowing I had won the argument. He couldn’t fight me; family always came first.
“So now what?”
I looked around the disheveled room at the bound men I once called family being held captive by the men I had found, the men I had trained, and the men I had turned into monsters.
“Listen,” I spoke up over the murmurs, “you have a simple choice here. You can either decide to surrender the club and all its assets over to Sean, or you can die.” I hated being that frank with them, but the Cupids were tied up. They weren’t in any position to fight, and certainly in no position to win. “Trapped as you are, you’ve already lost the battle. If you give up now, you can be part of something new. Sean wants you guys.” I continued on, as none of them had yet to speak up. They were all just staring at me. I hated speeches.
“We were all once a family, and now we can be something even greater. Most of you were hand picked by either my Pops or me. That means you all have something, a trait, that we admire, that we found inspiring. I can’t even fathom what we could all do together, as one body, as one heart. We could finally outrank the Shadows as the leading club in Pennsylvania. Think of it. Think of the legacy we’ll leave behind.”
I felt as though I was the president of the country, delivering a speech in order to rally the troops into battle. I deserved thunderous applause and a standing ovation. I deserved to be poised at a podium with our colors flying high behind me. Instead, I got silence.
Then, from the back of the crowd, I heard a Cupid speak up. “Sean murdered James Cassidy. I’ll never follow him.”
It was that line that was given the thunderous applause, and, had they not been tied to chairs, I’m sure would’ve also gotten a standing ovation. The Cupids were loyal. There was no way they would surrender to a traitor, even if it meant their deaths.
I wanted to whine like a child. I wanted to beg for their lives. I wanted to tell them that they were wrong, that Sean was different, but I knew it wouldn’t help. And I didn’t actually believe anymore that he was different. After all we had been through, after all I helped him to obtain, he was still threatening Grace’s life. I don’t know why I had chosen to convince myself that he had been redeemed from his faults in the first place.
Sean was a monster, and the Cupids refused to follow a monster. We would all be punished. And me worst of all, because while everyone died around me, I would be forced to live. That’s what Sean meant when he said: “Don’t test me, Ryan. Talk these guys into joining me, or you’ll be joining them.”
I turned to Rocky, praying for him to take the lead and force them to surrender, but he simply smiled and shook his head. “We can’t, Ryan. It’s not in our nature to follow someone who is willing to kill his own. There are rules that can’t be broken. That’s the first.”
My shred of hope was gone. The last thing I could do was to try and unsuccessfully barter for their lives. They had proven their loyalty to my Pops; it was the least I could do in his honor.
I nodded at each man and circled around Rocky as I made my way to the door. My hand wrapped around the brass knob just as I heard a woman’s muffled scream followed by the shot of a gun.
“Grace!”
Grace
“It was you. It was you the whole time.”
I don’t know what spawned it exactly, but the moment I saw her face, I began to see flashes of that night, six months ago. Nothing was clear, no pictures were certain, but nevertheless, I began to remember what they had done to me. I remembered how I was taken.
“The tea. It was drugged. You did that.” My shaky voice accused her.
“Grace, just put down the gun. Don’t do anything stupid.” Anne Marie had her hands up in the air as she inched her way closer to me.
“Stay there. Don’t take one more step or I’ll shoot.�
� I screamed at her. It was fear, it was exhaustion, but mostly it was that feeling of utter betrayal.
It was in that instance when I realized Ryan and I were stolen from our perfect life under false pretenses. Anne Marie Carter, Ryan’s mother, was in on it from the very beginning. She tricked us, and we so easily fell for her deceit. She was the reason I wasn’t sunning on the beach in California, she was the reason my husband had disappeared for six months, and she was the reason I was handcuffed to a chair in an office that belonged to a club of outlaw motorcyclists that I had been bred to despise.
When Danny had caringly helped me into the car at the hospital, I noticed his gun hanging from a holster under his jacket. I sneakily slipped my hand in and removed the gun from his possession without him becoming any more the wiser. It wasn’t for Danny; it had become apparent to me during our brief trip from the hospital to the club that he was willing to bend his allegiance to Ryan’s uncle just enough that he might be able to protect me from the madman who barked orders at him. So the gun wasn’t for Danny; it was for Sean. The gun was just in case I found the nerve to end it all, to take my life back.
But when Danny handcuffed me to that chair, begging me to quietly wait, I had no idea that just seconds later, Anne Marie Carter would step into the room.
Death of Cupids (The Blood of Cupids MC) Page 15