by Addison Jane
I took a step back, a jolt running through my body like I’d been shocked, and my heart stopped.
“That’s enough,” Optimus ordered sternly, finally stepping forward like the referee in a boxing match when he could tell one of the fighters had taken a heavy hit and he was going down.
That was me.
I felt Uncle Leo’s words like a right hook.
Holy shit! Was I being a totally selfish bitch?
I backed away.
This wasn’t our relationship.
We were stronger than this. And if we didn’t stop now, one of us was going to get hurt.
“I need to go,” I whispered, holding out my hand for the keys to my mom’s car.
Uncle Leo clenched his fists and shook his head, but I could see the anger starting to leave him. “Girl, just come inside. I haven’t seen you in fucking months.”
My throat burned with emotion, and I coughed, trying to clear it. “I love you. But right now, I think it’s better if I just go clear my head… before one of us says something we’re gonna regret.”
“You’re upset…”
“I’ll go with her,” Romeo offered, stepping forward. And at this moment, given he was the only one willing to stand up and tell me the truth, it was probably a good idea it was him. He walked around to the passenger’s side, Uncle Leo watching him like a hawk with his eyes narrowed. Romeo, though, he wasn’t scared of anyone. My uncle, who would usually make people shit their pants, was barely a blip on his radar.
And right now, I needed someone who was going to stand on my side.
“Please,” I murmured, reaching out my hand a little further.
Reluctantly, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the keys, placing them in my hand. When I closed my hand around them, he didn’t let go, and instead tugged me forward. His arms came around me, wrapping me in his warmth and soothing the raging anger inside me for a brief moment.
I let him hold me against his chest taking one last moment to inhale and breathe in the smell I knew so well.
Maybe I was being a bitch.
Or maybe I was just hurt.
Either way, things were only going to turn to shit if I stayed in this place any longer.
When he finally released me, I didn’t waste a moment, turning and walking straight to the car and climbing inside. Romeo doing the same.
Uncle Leo, Op, and Blizzard all watched as I pulled out, managing to hold in the tears until I got out the gates and down the road. I slammed my palms against the wheel in anger, cursing as I sped away.
“You need to speak with Ham,” Romeo announced like he wasn’t watching me have a complete and utter tantrum-type meltdown, while also trying to drive a car. “Finally, sort all this shit that’s been festering for these past few months. It should have been me in there you know, not him. But no, he had to go be a hero, and now because of me you’re both fucked.”
I didn’t understand what he meant by it being his fault, but at that stage, I was running on empty. Jet lag. Anger. And a fair dose of motorcycle club reality. Mix it up, and I felt like I was about to lose my fucking head.
“How the hell am I meant to do anything when everyone has decided my part in this is second? I love your brother, but he about destroyed me, Romeo. How am I meant to look him in the eye?”
He groaned and threw his head back. “You two are just as stubborn as each other. You need to talk to him,” he snapped.
“How?” I cried back, sick of being lectured and told what the fuck to do.
“I know how.”
I tapped my foot impatiently waiting for my brother to come in. Romeo came in every couple weeks. Usually, they wouldn’t let criminals who were still carrying bail conditions visit inside a jail, but Matt had somehow managed to pull some strings. Or one of the boys had managed to alter Romeo’s records for a short time, so the bail conditions weren’t showing.
Either way, it was good to see him.
I told Op and Blizzard not to come after the first time. It’d had only pissed the guards off, and I’d ended up in a world of pain with them rambling on about how, when they were done with me, they were going to go after my brothers and our women.
The club made them feel threatened, and it was better for everyone if they just stayed away. If they knew what was going on, the shit I was dealing with and the weight I’d lost, I knew exactly what they’d do. Half of them would get themselves thrown in here on petty shit just so they could have my back.
I knew because that’s exactly what I would do.
Not only that, but I knew asking them to keep this shit from Meyah was already causing tension within the club. I knew I was going to catch hell for it when I got out. But this was how I needed it to be for now.
One by one, family members were guided through the doors by guards, each one quickly finding their inmate and taking a seat at the tiny visiting room tables.
When the door buzzed open again, I felt the air shift, and the bristles on the back of my neck stood on end. I wanted to curse out loud, make a scene, and order them to get her the hell out of here. But I knew the more attention I drew to her, and the more upset I got about her being here, the more they would zone in on her.
This is what I’d spent the last two months trying to fucking avoid. Having her see me like this. Having it made known she was important to me. Giving the guards something to use against me.
I knew this was Romeo. He’d fucking done this. And he, of all people, should know how important it was to keep your cards close to your chest when you were alone.
I didn’t look up, not even as she took a seat at the table and the scent of her shampoo drifted past my nose. I wanted to take her by the neck and drag her across this table, bury my face in her hair and touch every inch of her fucking body that I’d been missing for the past eight weeks.
The struggle to control myself was very fucking real.
And that only made me angrier.
“You’ve lost weight,” she commented softly.
I had.
Because I was being fucking starved.
“The fuck are you doing here, Meyah?” I finally growled, raising my eyes to look at her. I sat back, the dark purple locks that blended and weaved through her dark hair were a shock, but I instantly fucking loved it. I loved it because I knew it meant she was finally stepping out, taking what she wanted and owning her choices.
Fuck, I was proud of her.
I wanted to tell her that and ramble on about how everything she thought she knew about what happened that day was false. I hated knowing she thought I would ever do something like that. The need to just admit what was going on, so I didn’t see the obvious pain in her eyes almost caught me, but my eyes spotted Kent and two of his buddies across the room, eyeing me and whispering between them.
Instantly, I shut down.
I needed to get her the fuck out of here.
“What happened to your lip?” she asked, her voice soft and her brow knitted.
It was a fresh split, courtesy of an elbow on the way here. She reached out, across the table, like it was natural for her to want to touch it and examine it. I flinched, pulling away. Her eyes ran over me, and she shook her head like she was confused.
“What’s going on here?”
She’d barely drawn her hand back, and Kent was already marching across the room with that menacing grin on his face. “Excuse me, miss,” he addressed Meyah, placing one hand on the back of her chair and the other on the table in front of her, boxing her in. She leaned back, obviously uncomfortable with how close he was to her. “You need to keep your hands to yourself. If you fail to do so, I will need to strip search you before you leave. Just as a precaution.”
Meyah squared her shoulders, looking him directly in the eye. She could feel there was something off, but she wasn’t backing down. Instead, she clenched her teeth as she spoke, “Sure. Sorry.” Her words were short and snappy, and I almost laughed, except I saw the way Kent reacted to her tone.
He didn’t like to be questioned.
He continued to stand there for a moment longer, his eyes flicking to me, trying to gauge my reaction to him invading her space.
I gave him nothing.
A couple more seconds and he pulled back, his eyes moving between us in confusion as he stepped away again, leaving us be.
“Why are you here?” I snapped, when he was finally out of earshot again. “You need to go home, Meyah. This ain’t the place for you.”
“That why you asked everyone to keep it from me?” she threw back. She sat a little straighter, and her eyes narrowed. They were already red and bloodshot, and a little puffy. Kind of like she’d spent a lot of time crying.
“Yes, that’s why,” I responded, the words making her body jump like a shot to the chest. “Like I said, this ain’t the place for you.”
She placed her hands on the table, gripping the edge like if she let go, she might fall off the Earth. She was struggling, she was fighting with her emotions, and all the shit swirling around in her head. I knew it was hard for her—she was angry, she was hurt, she was confused—because she missed me. She hated I was here, and she didn’t know why. She thought I’d betrayed her, and on top of that she couldn’t understand how I would do that if I loved her like I did.
And the answer was that I wouldn’t.
I’d never fucking cheat on her.
Meyah was fucking it for me.
But right now wasn’t the time to let her know that. Not when I knew these fuckers who ran this place were looking for any excuse to get under my skin. Word was out I was looking at walking in court this week, but they still believed I’d done it, and they were going to make my last few days here absolute fucking hell.
They were going to try and push me over the edge. Any excuse to force me to make a mistake. Anything that might change the court case and land me in a pile of shit.
Including using Meyah.
Or even hurting her.
“How dare you,” she whispered in a dark tone which surprised me. “They are my family, too, you know, and now I’m the idiot because… stupid Meyah, right? Bet everyone knew you were sleeping with the club girls behind my back, too, didn’t they? What else did you ask them to lie about?”
I gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to yell and scream about how I never touched a damn club girl. Not since I figured out it wasn’t going to make these feelings I had for Meyah go away.
I refused to fucking lie to her.
Knowing I would have to explain all this shit later, it wasn’t going to be any easier if I’d already told her I’d fucked Jess and then turned around and tried to deny it.
God, when did I dig myself such a massive fucking hole?
Her nose crinkled, and I could tell she was fighting the tears.
“I loved that place. I loved it there.” Her voice cracked, and it was near enough to break me. “I finally felt like I knew my place in the world. I felt empowered, supported… loved. And you’ve now made it feel dirty. How dare you fucking destroy that for me? How dare you take that away because you wanted to get your dick wet?”
Straight for the jugular.
This beautiful, amazing fucking woman.
She wasn’t a little girl anymore.
She was holding her own, and I knew for a fact if we’d been anywhere else but a fucking jail visiting room right now, she’d have likely kneed me in the balls and smiled.
And I wouldn’t have blamed her.
Right now, I kind of wanted to kick myself in the balls.
I was hurting her.
With every moment I held the truth in, every second that I kept my mouth shut, I was driving her away. And right now, it was getting harder and harder to convince myself it was the right thing to do.
How do you look the person you love in the eye and pretend not to care?
It was almost impossible.
“I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea. I just wanted to see you. I’d spent the last two months thinking you’d let me walk, and that you were living your life at the club.” She hung her head, shaking it back and forth. “I convinced myself maybe if I came, there’d be some kind of explanation. I bullshitted myself into thinking this was all some stupid misunderstanding.”
It was.
A huge misunderstanding.
One I never would have let continue had things been different.
When I didn’t answer, she laughed and shook her head. “Wow. You’re just like him, you know,” she murmured, placing her palms on the table as if she was getting ready to stand. “Worse actually. At least Nick didn’t lie and sneak around.”
The instant she said his name, my whole body electrified and a fire was lit inside me, one I struggled to contain. I pushed to my feet just as she did, rage building inside me. I didn’t even give a shit that two guards were already making a beeline for me, and Meyah was stepping away. “Don’t you dare fucking compare me to him.”
Her eyes were red, but she wasn’t done.
Maybe the old Meyah would have taken that as her cue and walked away. But not this Meyah. This Meyah didn’t walk away without having her say, and she was going to make it count.
“There’s actually no comparison,” she sneered as one of the guards grabbed me and pulled me back, while Kent took her arm, ready to lead her away. “At least he was honest about the disgusting pig he was.” She spun on her heel, ripping her elbow away from Kent and stomping toward the door.
Fire and rage burned inside me, and I didn’t give a shit anymore. “We aren’t done, fury fists,” I called after her, struggling against the hold this guy had on me.
She held up one hand over her shoulder, her middle finger in the air as she was guided out the door.
Common sense was out the fucking window.
I needed to get the fuck out of here.
I needed to get my fucking woman back.
Screw the damn consequences.
I tried to keep the tears at bay. Romeo had warned me Ham was going to try and force me to leave. He also encouraged me to just talk to him, to hear him out, and try to keep a level head.
I tried.
I failed.
I lost my shit.
Instead, when I didn’t get the reaction I wanted, I’d resorted to whatever words I could think of that would cause the most pain. And the moment I said them, I knew I was going to regret them.
“Are you okay?”
I spun around, realizing I was still standing in the middle of a county jail. The guard who had lead me out of the room when Ham looked like he was about to lose his shit, was looking at me with a worried expression.
I felt a shudder run through me. I wanted to get out of there, but I also wanted to walk right back in and finish telling him everything I thought of him, but in a way that wasn’t so fucking bratty and immature. That wasn’t me, but my emotions were all over the damn place. No one prepared me for what I would see when I got in there.
The state he was in.
The pain he was in.
I instantly felt protective, like I was going to stand up and demand answers.
But it was obvious when I spoke he didn’t want to see me at all.
I cleared my throat, trying to fight back the burn of tears. “Yeah. I’m fine, I just want to get out of here.” I turned and made for the counter where an old woman sat. She’d taken my belongings when I’d arrived, and I promptly asked for them back, tapping my foot on the concrete floor.
With each minute that passed and the old lady shuffled back to gather the tray with my belongings—obviously not in a hurry, I felt the guilt begin to get the better of me, my eyes drifting between the exit and the door the visitor’s room.
“I don’t want to speak out of turn…” the guard started again as I loaded my things into my handbag and hooked it over my shoulder, “… but I’d feel like an asshole letting you leave while you’re shaking like that.” I was shaking? “I’d really like it if you came and took a sea
t first, maybe had a cup of coffee or tea?”
I looked up at him with a frown.
He was the guard who’d come over and warned me about touching Ham, threatening to strip search me. As if he could read my mind, his hands went up in the air, and he smiled, looking like he was almost embarrassed. “I’m sorry for being so sharp with you in there. You’d be surprised at how many girlfriends come in and manage to hand their boyfriend’s drugs or weapons with just one touch,” he explained. “I’ve lost more than my fair share of inmates and seen my work colleagues injured pretty bad due to not being more careful.”
I heard what he was saying, but it was like the tone of his voice was too slimy and greasy. It was as if he’d spent too much time practicing his lines to feed people. He was too smooth. I didn’t trust him for a second, and my gut told me to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I asserted with surprising confidence as I made my way toward the door. I stood there for a moment, the camera above me buzzing before the metal locks on the door creaked and I pushed it open.
“That was convincing,” the guard teased, following me out, slipping through the door just before it closed.
“I thought it was.”
“It wasn’t.”
I wanted to get the hell out of there, away from this place, away from Ham and away from this dumbass who somehow has made it his duty to try and what? Charm me maybe? Show me there’s something better on the other side?
I made it to the front door, tearing it open and stepping out into the fresh air, inhaling deeply and trying to calm the raging bitch inside of me before I spun around and hit the guard with a glare. “I’m sorry, do you chase down all your visitors and try and force them to have coffee with you?”
The caring and playful persona he was forcing fell for a second, his lips pursing in agitation, telling me one thing—he didn’t give a shit. This was purely a play, and with the condition that Ham was in, the bruises, the split lip, how he looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks I could only imagine how they were treating him.