“Like me and Callum?” she asks and raises her eyebrow at me.
“You have to admit that your relationship is weird.”
“I guess so.” She shrugs.
“This is your one chance to get a free pass and confess to any funny business. Speak now or forever hold your sin.”
“Fine. One kiss.” She sighs.
“Okay…”
“And it was fucking awkward. He’s like my big brother, that’s it, I promise.”
I nod, finally accepting what she’s telling me. “Why wouldn’t you two tell me that you two kissed?”
“Because you kept asking if we fucked?” She grins, looking quite proud of herself
“I also asked if anything had ever happened between the two of you.”
She sighs, sounding frustrated. “Really? I’ve done worse with other men.” She gasps and I can tell that she’s regrets saying it as soon as it’s out of her pretty mouth.
“Thanks for the reminder, but those guys aren’t any of my best friends.”
“Fair point. Can we stop now? I don’t want to fight.”
“Neither do I. How long have I been here?” I ask. I have no clue what day it is or how long I’ve been out.
“Three days.”
“Seriously? Fuck.” I frown.
“Yeah, you had me worried sick, you wouldn’t wake up.”
“I’m sorry. How come I don’t have a tube down my throat and all that?”
“They removed it this morning. Apparently your lung wasn’t as damaged as they initially thought and you could breathe on your own. They were surprised at how quick you’ve been recovering.”
“Not so bad then,” I say and let out a long yawn.
“Am I that boring?” She chuckles lightly, trying to lighten up the mood.
“Cut me some slack, I was shot three days ago.” I narrow my eyes at her before grinning.
“Oh you’re going to be such a pain in the ass to look after, I just know it.”
“How dare you!” I fake being shocked even though she is right on the money with her assumption.
“Because I know you.” She looks at me with a serious expression.
“Fair point. I’m going to take a nap. I feel drained. Are you staying with me?” I ask her and I can see the cogs turning in her head. Even though I can’t forgive her just yet, I still need my Gorgeous Girl by my side.
“Of course, Bennett.” She smiles and pulls the chair as close to the bed as she can. She sits in it and hugs her knees to her chest with one hand as she holds my hand with the other.
“Thank you, my Gorgeous Girl,” I say with a smile.
I close my eyes and let myself fall into a deep sleep.
I smile as I wake up. I’m not in as much pain as I was before which gives me a more positive outlook on my recovery; for my physical recovery as well as my relationship with Nancy. I look over to the chair and my smile falters, Nancy isn’t there. Maybe she went to get a coffee. I have no idea how long I was asleep for, but it can’t be that long because it’s still light outside. I press the red button to call for a nurse; I need to fucking pee and more importantly I need to know where Nancy is.
“Can I help you?” Nurse Charlotte asks me. I swear she knows whenever we’re injured because she always seems to be on duty. She must have a sixth sense or is our own personal wound stalker. I chuckle at my own joke and wince as it causes a sharp pain in my side. “Something funny?”
“Only in my head. I need to pee.” I grin awkwardly.
“Okay.” She smiles and disappears into the bathroom before walking back to me with a weirdly shaped bottle.
“What the fuck is that?” My voice goes high like a girl’s as I look at her as if she’s crazy. “I’m not peeing into that.”
“Well you can either pee in this or pee yourself, or try getting up but then you could risk tearing one of your stitches and then you’d faint from overexertion and would probably need to be in here for longer. It’s up to you.” She grins at me whilst looking incredibly proud of herself.
“You can be a bit of a bitch, you know that?” I glare at her.
“Oh, I know, but guess what?”
“What?”
“I really don’t care.” She smirks and wiggles the pee bottle in the air.
“I fucking feel for Ryan.” I shake my head and extend my hand for the stupid pee bottle thing.
“Oh don’t worry, I’ll take good care of Ryan.”
“I’m sure you will Nursey. Would you mind turning around? This is weird enough already.”
“Fine. Prude.” She mutters as she turns her back to me and I can just picture her smug smile.
I try to maneuver my dick into the hole at the top of the bottle with great difficulty. My stitches pull every time I try to angle my head so I can see what I’m doing and there is no way I’m asking Nurse Sarcastic for help. “Fuck yeah, that feels good.” I moan as I finally get my dick in the right position
“You better be peeing and not masturbating.” She warns me.
“Shit, almost forgot you were there, Nursey,” I tell her
“Perks of being a nurse, I’m very good at being quiet.”
“You’re a bit weird, you know that? I’m done.” I frown as I hand the now full bottle to her. Gross. She disappears into the bathroom and I close my eyes for a second.
I open my eyes and find that Nurse Charlotte has come back into the room without making a sound and is looking at my chart. “I know. People are constantly telling me the same.” She shrugs.
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“Not really, I know I’m a bit weird, but then again, isn’t everybody.”
“Fair enough. Do you know where Nancy is?” I ask her.
“Who?”
“My woman. She was here earlier.”
“There was no one with you earlier.” She looks at me like I’m crazy and I start to panic.
“What?”
“I’m just messing with you.” She laughs. “I think she went for a coffee. Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll be back soon.” She smiles reassuringly at me.
“You are such a bitch!” I glare at her.
“Well, my other patients seem to like my sense of humor.” She shrugs.
“That’s only because they’re as weird as you.”
“Oh well. Need anything else? Want some ice chips? We can’t give you any fluids or food just yet” She asks as she checks my stats.
“Please, that’d be great, thank you.” I half smile at her.
“Cheer up, buttercup. I’ll be back in a second.” She winks at me and writes something on my chart before leaving.
A few minutes pass by and Nurse Charlotte’s still not back with my ice chips and neither is Nancy. As I’m about to press the red button, Callum walks in holding a paper cup.
“Nurse Charlotte asked me to give this to you. Ice chips? What a fucking joke.” He shakes his head as he walks towards me.
“If that’s the only thing I can have for a while then so be it. Give me.” I hold my hand out like a child waiting for candy.
“You’re worse than a kid.” He chuckles.
“Where’s Nancy?” I ask as I pop a few ice chips into my mouth.
“She asked me to give you this.” He sighs and hands me a letter. Immediately a chill runs through my body
“Where is she?”
“Read it.”
“Where i-”
“Just fucking read it!” Callum whispers loudly. He glares at me before walking back out of the room, leaving me with the letter I don’t want to open and my ice chips. I set the paper cup on my bedside table and unfold the letter.
Bennett,
I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me some day.
I promise you I thought I was doing the right thing. Maybe if I had told you at the start then none of this would have happened.
There’s something I need to do and I wish I didn’t have to, but I don’t have a choice.
&
nbsp; If I don’t come back, please know that I’ll always love you, I always did.
Yours forever,
Your Gorgeous Girl.
Xoxo
What. The. Fuck?
She can’t be gone. She said she’d stay. I look around my room expecting her to pop out from behind a door and yell surprise but my heart drops as I realize that it’s just me here. I can’t believe she left. Is it because I said I needed time to forgive her? I honestly thought she’d be here for when I wake up and we would work through this together. I reread the letter and my blood runs cold as I really take in what ‘if I don’t come back’ means. Where in the hell has she gone that would risk her not coming back?
CHAPTER 29
Nancy
Leaving Bennett and giving that note to Callum is killing me. I didn’t want to leave him. Even though he can’t forgive me at the moment, the last thing I want to do is leave his side. I feel like I’ve left my heart behind in that hospital bed. All because I’m about to do the stupidest fucking thing I could possibly do. At least with the note, if anything happens to me, he’ll know that I’ll always love him.
I took the first flight I could get to Texas. It seems that me and my parents need a little heart to heart. I’m not giving into them, there is no chance of that; I just need to make myself heard so they will finally let me be. Going to them by myself might be a stupid idea in hindsight, but I didn’t want to risk Bennett’s wellbeing because let’s face it, he would have demanded to come with me.
I landed a few minutes ago and I’m waiting to get a taxi to my parents’. I look at the line in front of me and sigh. This is gonna take forever. The longer this takes the longer it’ll be before I get back to Bennett.
I intentionally left my note to Bennett vague so he didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do, I couldn’t risk him following me out here. I know my parents would make good on their threats if he so much as stepped foot in Pinehurst.
It’s finally my turn for a taxi and I jump in whilst giving the driver my parent’s address in a shaky voice. He tries to make small talk, but I’m too focused on the task ahead to answer. The drive over isn’t long enough to my liking and before I know it we’ve pulled up outside my childhood home. I don’t feel ready to face them, but I don’t have much choice, I’ve made my choice and now it’s time to follow through. I pay the taxi driver and climb out of the car. My heart is pounding; I feel like I’m going to throw up but my determination to tell them the hell I’ve been through gives me a much needed rush of adrenaline. I make my way to the front door and ring the doorbell. The shrillness of the bell makes me jump slightly. I wait for a minute but no one answers. As I’m about to turn around and run for the hills my mother opens the door.
“I see you’ve finally came to your senses.” She smiles but it looks more like a smug grin than a genuine smile.
“Don’t think you won this time, Mother. You didn’t. I’m just doing the sensible thing by coming here to tell you exactly what I’ve been through so you might, you just might, realize that Bennett is the one who saved me. Even though you don’t approve of him, he’ll always be my one and only.” I glare at her and walk past her into the house.
“We’ll see about that,” she mutters quietly but loud enough for me to hear.
We make our way to the kitchen. I look around and see that this place changed so much since I was last here. There are a lot more pictures with me, their attempt to act like heartbroken parents desperate for their long lost and ’dead’ daughter I’m assuming.
“Nancy,” my father greets me formally but the tone in his voice is a lot warmer than my mother’s.
“Father.” I nod at him and sit at the kitchen table.
“It’s such a nice surprise to see you.” He smiles and whilst I never got on with him because he just seemed to worship my mum like she was a god, he actually seems somewhat happy to see me.
“Right. Can we get straight to the point? I have a flight to catch.”
“You’re leaving?” my mother asks clearly unhappy with this news.
“Yes. My boyfriend is in the hospital, he needs me.”
“But as you said he has a lot of friends, surely one of them can take care of him for a couple of days while we catch up,” she insists.
“I’m not going back because I don’t trust them, I’m going back because I want to, and trust me, I want to get this talk about what happened done and over with as quickly as possible.” I tell her bluntly.
“Go on then, we don’t know anything about what happened to you,” my father presses.
“That’s not quite true now is it, Father? I know you’ve seen the pictures so you have some kind of idea. Well, anyway, at that party, I was taken as you know, and I know you blamed Bennett for that because you were fixated on your ‘all bikers are scum’ theory. You know my captors mentioned something when I was there. Ever run into the club the Satan’s Inferno whilst you were there?” I ask my mother and she pales. “That’s what I thought.” Pieces of this fucked up puzzle are slowly being put together, but there is so much more to uncover. “Anyway, when I was taken, they didn’t wait long before putting me to ‘work’. Their President, Richard, had his turn first and fucked me until I bleed. I wasn’t a virgin, Bennett was my first, but Richard was so rough that I bled for days.
“And it didn’t stop there! He forced himself onto me a couple of times every day until I turned eighteen, then I wasn’t interesting for him anymore, he only liked jailbait. He let a few of his buddies fuck me however and whenever they pleased before selling my ‘services’ to their clients. He was a fucking pimp, Mother. He didn’t care how we were treated as long as it brought him money. Some girls were literally fucked to death and I’ve watched some of the girls being choked to death whilst they were being fucked.
“I was hurt and was fucked too roughly with their dicks or various objects. More often than not I was left wounded and bleeding. I’m not even fucking sure if I can have kids after everything I’ve been through! My last client beat me with a fucking spiked paddle! Do you have any idea how much that fucking hurts? Do you have any idea how it feels to be used and abused every single day for years? You feel like a ghost, like none of it is real and you have to make your mind go to a happy place so you don’t fully comprehend what they are doing to you. It was my own personal level of hell. And do you know what brought me out of that hell? Bennett. My memories of him are the reason I’m still alive today.
“The only good thing you’ve ever done for me was asking Bennett to come look for me. I literally ran into him within thirty minutes of escaping. So don’t fucking tell me he’s a criminal when he is the only one out of the four of us that is worth anything.” I keep my voice as calm as possible and revel in seeing my mother’s face drop with each word. I don’t know if her reaction is because she actually cares or if it’s because of my carefully chosen words.
“I had no idea, Nancy. I wish we could have found you and saved you from this nightmare sooner. You need a good man to live your life now. You need to think about your future.” Yep, it was the swear words that caused her pained expression.
“Did you even listen to what I fucking said? I was raped multiple times a day for five years and that’s all you can say? I don’t want a fucking good man in my life; I already have the perfect one waiting for me at home!” I yell at her.
“No Nancy, this is home and we have the perfect man for you.” She smirks.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I ask dumbfounded.
“You see, my plan worked perfectly. You were so absorbed in your little romance with Bennett that I knew you would be so terrified of something happening to him that you would run straight here. This has played out exactly like I wanted. You came here on your own free will, but you won’t be going back, oh no, you’ll stay here with us and marry George.” She smirks.
“You are one twisted fucking bitch!”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” She ye
lls and backhands me before I can react. “You’re going to go on a date with him tonight and we’ll announce your engagement in the next few days. Everything has already been planned with his family. Once you’re married, we’ll hold more power in the country club and have more money, of course.”
“Of course you will.” I shake my head. “This is so fucked up and you’ve lost your damn minds if you think I’m going to get married to a fucking stranger without kicking up a storm!”
“You’ll do as you’re told or Bennett will die. It’s no idle threat, Nancy. I’ll find a way to get rid of him, I’m sure the private investigator I hired to find you wouldn’t mind killing him and making it look like an accident.” I can feel the blood drain from my face as I listen to her. I know perfectly well what she’s like and what she’s capable of. She wouldn’t hesitate to sink lower than hell if it’s beneficial to her. “Now go to your room, you need to get out of these clothes and get ready, you look like a homeless person. And don’t try anything funny, I know you’ll try all you can to run away, just don’t.” She looks down at me with a look of disdain that has me wondering what happened to my sweet but strong mother. Oh yeah, that fucking CUNTry Club.
I walk upstairs, feeling lost and defeated. I want nothing more than to call Callum and ask him to come rescue me, but it’ll only make things worse. She’ll go bat shit crazy and will order that PI to kill Bennett and probably Callum too.
I open the door to my teenage bedroom and see that everything has changed, it’s like they pretended that I still lived here. The room has been redecorated to look more sophisticated and something like a twenty something year old Country Club Barbie would live in. Everything is brand new and clean. Gone are my drawings and photos that plastered the walls and actually, all of my things are gone. It’s like they’ve turned this room into what they wanted me to be: a boring, generic rich brat.
I open the walk in closet and see a shit load of outfits, all a hell of a lot more conservative than what I would wear.
I feel trapped.
My life is one massive fucked up vicious circle and I’m starting to think that I’ll never truly be free.
Forgiving Nancy (Last Hangman MC Series Book 5) Page 20