by Eve R. Hart
It was sick.
And so horribly sad that I hadn’t seen it all while I was in the thick of it. I had been one of those people. I never got my hands dirty and I never really thought about the people that the money went to help.
This was the moment that most people would have begged God for a chance to change, or so I imagined. Vowing that they would right all their wrongs if they could just get out of whatever situation they were in. Perhaps, I should have done that even if I wasn’t all that sure about God.
Instead, I thought about the man that made me feel like I had been worthy of so much more than I was.
Bryan.
If only…
What?
If only I could have had the courage to tell him all the things I had felt for him? Let him know how his touch made me feel safe and warm? Told him that his lips were addictive and his kisses made me feel more alive than I had ever before?
Would it have even made a difference?
Or was it better that I had kept my mouth shut?
This way he would never know and what we had would remain something so shallow. Something he could forget about quickly.
And that led me to thinking about just how fast he would move on from thoughts about me.
Only, I didn’t want to believe that I meant that little to him. Maybe we hadn’t said it out loud, but there were moments I saw more in his eyes. I had thought it was best to ignore it but maybe I had been completely wrong.
Fear gripped me so tightly. Fear that this was the end for me and I would fade away with so many loose strings blowing in the breeze.
I cried, I did.
Because I was weak.
With as hard as I sobbed, I would’ve bet that the thin stream of tears could have made a river if I hadn’t been so dehydrated. I imagined myself drowning in them then, at least if I could then this would all be over.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
B-ry
“Where the hell you been, biker?” Andrei asked in his thick accent.
I smiled, maybe a bit more cocky than normal. It could have been that I was trying to cover everything up.
I stepped up to the ring where he had been sparring with another one of his men. It didn’t look like the guy was going to last much longer.
“Get in,” he said causing me to pause.
Andrei nodded at the guy standing on guard in front of him and the guy got out of the ring like his asshole was on fire.
He’d never invited me into the ring.
I’d never really had the want for him to.
But he caught me on an off day and I had to admit that I was a bit curious right now.
I’d seen Andrei fight enough times to know that he wasn’t someone you messed with.
Yet, here I was about to climb into the ring with him. Okay, it wasn’t like we were fighting for real, but it wasn’t like we weren’t going to try our hardest.
I had already warmed up before I jogged over here and I was ready to go. I tossed my bag to the side and slipped off my club hoodie and shirt. Then I patted the pockets of my black track pants to make sure they were empty.
With a deep breath, I climbed up and slid in between the ropes, never taking my eyes off of Andrei. I didn’t really think he would try to get a cheap shot in, he wasn’t the type, but I still knew better than to let my guard down.
One of the skinny guys that I’d seen around the place enough to know that he was kind of like a little bitch boy around here hopped in and walked over to me. He helped me get on a pair of gloves and once he was done, I gave him a short nod of thanks.
Then I clapped my gloves together, letting Andrei know that I was ready.
Arms up, feet planted, knees bent, I was ready for him.
“You haven’t been around lately,” Andrei said as he advanced slowly on me. “You might be a little slower than you think.”
“Shut the fuck up and do something,” I said then ducked my face behind my hands.
He chuckled, taking it as a joke, thank fuck.
Just like I had expected, he went low. His right arm curled around and aimed for my side. I jumped back and threw a jab. I barely clipped him because I wasn’t close enough, but I knew it.
He raised a brow at me.
“May have watched you a time or two,” I said and took a step to the left. “You always start with that when you go against a new opponent.”
For a second, I would have sworn he looked impressed.
Usually, people didn’t see it coming when he made that move and so they didn’t even get a chance to toss something out. He seemed a little happy, if not shocked, that I’d made a move right away.
But I wasn’t going to start beating my chest just yet.
He tossed out a left hook and I ducked, then hit him with an uppercut as I came up. His head jerked up a little, but not as much as I would have thought.
It went back and forth like this. He’d always make the first move and most of the time I had a good idea what it would be. I would attempt to block or dodge it, then throw out some sloppy followup that seemed to barely do anything to him.
“You’re not bad, biker.”
Wait? Was that a compliment?
I didn’t let it get me off my game though.
“Yeah, not what you expected, huh,” I said a little cockily.
“You should talk to Yuri. I think you would draw in a new crowd. Lots of money.”
“I’ll think about it.”
And maybe I would. It wasn’t like I was against doing illegal shit. I would definitely run it by Iron before I seriously thought about talking to Yuri though.
Now he was slowing down but not because he was tired. He was assessing, changing it up. Like a smart fighter would do.
We circled once. Twice. Then all the pent-up shit just made its way out. I faked left and got him with an elbow to his nose. He stumbled back then shook his head. But I didn’t back down. I advanced two steps. Then got him with a gut punch that had him flinching forward. While I wanted to smile, I held it back.
And it was on.
Neither one of us held back now.
By the time we were done, Andrei had a busted lip and was favoring his left side.
I wasn’t much better. I could feel the cut on my forehead leaking blood down my face and I wouldn’t doubt if I woke up with bruises all over my abdomen tomorrow.
It was only when Yuri rolled into the room and called out ‘enough’ that we both collapse to the mat.
“Fucking shit. I got enough children to look after,” Yuri said tossing each one of us a clean towel. Then he walked away while shaking his head. “Paragon, find me when you’re ready to make money,” he called over his shoulder without looking back at me.
I pulled my knees up and wrapped my sore arms around them after I pulled one hand free and wiped off my drenched face. Andrei laughed at Yuri’s remark and I tried my best not to find some kind of pride in it.
“Feel better?” Andrei asked, his eyes pinning me with a knowing stare.
I hung my head and breathed in deeply.
“No,” I said as images of Laurel flashed in my head.
“This have to do with club?”
My head snapped up and I eyed him for a good long minute. He didn’t flinch, so I figured it wasn’t like he was trying to get information out of me that he shouldn’t have been.
In a way, it almost looked like he was… genuinely concerned.
Which was crazy.
We weren’t friends.
Hell, this was probably the most we’d spoken to one another. Ever.
“Family,” I said and maybe it was just a start.
He didn’t say anything for a long time and I couldn’t explain why the hell I started talking.
“My woman has been missing for nearly three weeks now.”
This got his attention. He sat up straighter and if I wasn’t mistaken, his face looked a bit sad.
“We had a… fight. She walked home and never made it there. I
t’s all my fault. We can’t find anything. I’ve searched this town twice over. And… nothing.”
I wanted to collapse right there. I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. But I didn’t. I somehow managed to hold it together.
“Come,” Andrei said, getting to his feet and then extending a hand to me.
I accepted and got to my feet as well. Then we were moving, out of the ring and down the long hall that led to the back. He opened a door and walked inside. It wasn’t smart to follow him in because it could have been an ambush. And I kept that in the forefront of my mind as I followed him inside.
But it turned out to be an empty office. I was pretty sure I let out a relieved breath.
“Tell me.” His words were more like a demand but I felt like it was almost meant as a question.
I tore off the other glove and set it on the oddly bare desk. Then I told him.
About Laurel.
About what we knew.
About how we had not a damn thing.
“We help,” he said like a caveman that couldn’t speak in complete sentences as his heavy hand descended on my shoulder.
I flinched only because I was sore as fuck.
This seemed to amuse him and he threw his head back and barked out a laugh to the ceiling.
“Need to work out more, biker.”
“Yeah,” I grumbled.
“But for real. I’ll ask around. See what I can find.”
“Thank you,” I said as I blindly nodded. Hell, I would take all the help I could get right now.
“Tell your boss,” he said snapping me out of my daze. “I don’t want any bad blood between us. We have good thing going on. Pyotr would be pissed if it got messed up.”
And there was maybe the thing I had needed all along. That Pyotr wasn’t really a threat to the club. That the Russians weren’t what we needed to fear. It still didn’t mean I wasn’t going to watch my back, and the clubs. It just meant that I realized that possibly I’d been an asshole when I didn’t need to be.
“Go. I’ll call you if we find something.”
I stood tall and held out my hand. He shook it a little more firmly than I could handle at the moment.
It was not a fun walk back to the compound, that was for sure. If I’d known what I was in for when I got there, I would have ridden over instead. I needed a hot shower and a long nap but it would have to hold off a bit. I only hoped that Iron wouldn’t be pissed. It wasn’t like I had really spilled club business, though it was bordering on it. Laurel was one of our own. And not just because she was Cami’s sister. While I may not have outright said it, she was mine, in my heart and in my head. So for damn sure she was part of the club, and it also meant that I would go to any lengths to find her.
No surprise, I found Iron in his office.
“Prez,” I said as I pushed the door open.
“Hey, B.” He paused as he took in the cut above my brow but didn’t say anything about it.
“Got something to tell you,” I said as I slid into one of the seats in front of his desk. He merely raised a brow at me and waited to hear what I had to say. “Went to the gym and somehow ended up having a conversation with Andrei. I didn’t tell too much, but he offered to help look for Laurel.”
Iron nodded a few times while he took in my words. I hoped I hadn’t fucked up royally.
“Yeah,” he said and I waited for him to go on. “This could be good. We need all the help that we can get. Hell, maybe they can see something we keep missing.”
There were more but I could tell he wouldn’t say it out loud given the circumstances. This could bring us closer together. Make the club realize that the Russians weren’t our enemy. Yeah, for the brothers that were like me. I couldn’t even argue with that but I wasn’t going to say it either.
“You sure about this?” he asked and I knew what he was really wanting to know.
“He seemed genuine. And at this point, maybe I’m a bit desperate. If they can help bring her home, I don’t fucking care the cost.”
Because, hello. I wasn’t dumb. And neither was Iron. This could end in a favor owed. But like I said, I didn’t fucking care as long as Laurel was safe.
“Alright. I’ll accept their help.”
Thank God!
“Thanks, Prez,” I said as I breathed out a sigh of relief.
I made my way down to the kitchen. I wasn’t hungry, hadn’t been for weeks now, but I knew I needed to keep up my strength. It was wise after the workout I’d just had to get some protein in me. I whipped up a couple of eggs and stuck them on a bagel with some cheese. That would get me through most of the day, I decided.
Mouse rounded the corner as I was cleaning up the last of the dishes that I’d used. The look on his face made my hairs stand on end.
“What is it?” I all but barked.
“It’s Cami,” he said then shook his head. “She’s, um, she’s in the room where we stored Laurel’s stuff. I don’t think she’s holding up all that well. And I have to admit, I kind of don’t know what to do. I tried to talk to her, but she just kept muttering to herself and moving things around.”
“I’ll go check on her,” I said and made my way past him. “Call Brand. I think he’s at the shop today. You know if Chris is around?”
“Okay, I’ll call Brand. And no, I haven’t seen Chris. I think he’s off today.”
The door to the room was wide open. As I approached, I heard rustling and chaos. Maybe the chaos was more of a feeling. I sighed internally because I didn’t know what I was going to find. I had a good idea it was going to be a frantic, if not hysterical, Cami and I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to try and calm her down. Which I realized was shitty. I was barely holding it together as it was, so how could I give her words of comfort when I couldn’t even find them for myself.
“Cami,” I said as I stepped into the room.
I was right, chaos. Boxes opened. Things pulled out and separated out into little piles spread out all over the room. It was clear there was some kind of organization to her madness but I couldn’t begin to decipher it.
“Cami…” I said again and approached her much like I would a wild animal.
“B-ry,” she said with a gasp as she got to her feet and whirled around to face me. “Oh, you scared me. Hi. How is everything?”
Though there was a cheerfulness in her voice there was a scary edge to it. Like she was trying her best to cover what was really going on with her. Like she was clearly about to snap.
I said her name again very calmly. Her eyes slowly moved up to meet mine. I let it all down for just a moment, the thick guard that I was trying so hard to keep in place, so that she could see how much I was suffering too. She needed to know that she wasn’t alone and that I did understand.
For a long moment, we both just stood there, choked by our emotions and struggling to fight our way through them.
“I-I just thought that it would be nice if she had someplace to come back to that seemed somewhat familiar. Like if I could get this setup with her things to actually look like a room. And not have everything in boxes where she would have to sort through it. I don’t know…” She let out a long sigh. “It’s probably very silly, but I want things to seem as normal as possible when she comes back.”
It didn’t slip by me that she kept saying the word back like there wasn’t any other option. Even I didn’t want to think that Laurel might never return, in the back of my head it was there. It was a very real possibility. And I feared that outcome so much.
It also wasn’t missed by me how she avoided the word taken or kidnapped. Or that we would rescue Laurel. I knew it was her brain’s way of keeping her going. A way to block out what was really going on. I wasn’t going to correct her or steer her mind away from the distracting plan to make this place more like a room.
“I think that’s a great idea,” I said with a soft nod. “Would you like some help?”
“Yeah. Please. That would be great. I can’t move the big stuff around o
n my own.”
“Okay.”
I waited for her to tell me where she wanted me to start. This was her show, the thing that she needed to do to keep herself going, I was just there to help out.
But she didn’t say anything for a long moment. She just stood there, her body almost swaying back and forth as her eyes went glassy.
Then she was crumbling, literally, her body sagging as her knees trembled. Her hands went to cover her face as I automatically reached out to catch her before she hit the floor. She buried her face in my chest and cried. Like body-wracking sobs and pouring snot, cried. And I did my best to soothe her and calm her down. However, I knew there was no stopping this because it was like the dam just broke.
“I’ve been such a crappy sister,” she sobbed and I was barely able to understand what she’d said. “I haven’t been there for her. I knew she wasn’t doing alright with everything though she tried her hardest to play it off. I wanted to say something but I knew if I did I would only make it worse.”
There was more tears and some hiccuping.
“I just didn’t know what to do. If I got in her face, then she’d shut down and stop talking to me. I didn’t want that. So I tried to give her space to work through things but still let her know I was there. I tried my best to let it go when she didn’t call me back. But this last time… I should have known something was wrong.”
“You can’t do this to yourself,” I said giving her a quick squeeze. “This isn’t on you, Cami. Laurel could be difficult sometimes.” I let out a sharp, huffed laugh. “That’s one of the things that always got to me. In a good way, that is. I never know what I’m walking into. She can be headstrong. And if she wants to shut you out there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it except for wait it out. So how were you to know that something had happened?”
“It’s not your fault either, B-ry.” She didn’t look up at me and though her words were muffled by my shirt, I heard them loud and clear. It didn’t mean I believed them.
Maybe that made me a hypocrite, trying to get Cami to see that this wasn’t her fault when every second I blamed myself. But Cami wasn’t the one that had set her on that path that night. I had been. I was the one that told her I couldn’t do it anymore. I was the one that kicked her to the curb because… why? My pride was wounded? My feelings got hurt? I jumped to conclusions and went all macho man? Yeah, now none of those seemed like good reasons to close the door in her face. To send her packing. To let her walk home alone.