by S. Nelson
Even if he tried to come after Reece again, it wouldn’t be for quite some time.
Reece
I couldn’t explain my emotional roller coaster where Tripp was concerned. I’d been through the entire gamut since I’d met him, starting with fascination when I first saw him standing at the edge of the stage during one of my routines, to undying thankfulness when he’d rescued me from that bastard in the back room, to anger when he’d fired me, to sexual unease—of the good kind—when he looked at me like he wanted to devour me, to guilt for not telling him I was married. Then back to untold gratitude when he saved me yet again.
I’d never felt so alive before, yet I feared whatever was developing between us would fizzle out and die. Nothing good ever lasted in my life, and while I’d come to accept that, I could honestly say I was teetering on the edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. And it almost did when Tripp found out I was married. I really thought my betrayal would have driven him away, but he’d proven again that he was a good man.
We talked for hours and, justifiably, he went back and forth. One second he understood my need to withhold the truth about Rick, and the next he’d tell me it was wrong of me not to share that kind of information. We eventually agreed to move on and put the incident behind us. Easier said than done, of course, but at least we both made the attempt.
Before I could dismiss the topic of Rick altogether, though, I needed to know what had happened to him. Tripp didn’t want to tell me at first, but thankfully he realized I had a right to know. Initially, all he would reveal was that Rick had been taken care of, and my heart skipped a beat. At first I assumed he meant that Rick had been killed, a thought which made me both uneasy yet relieved. I pressed further, practically begging him to tell me exactly what happened. I’d held my breath in case he told me that my first assumption had been correct. It turned out that Tripp had spared Rick’s life, although he’d had him incapacitated by breaking both his legs. He also told me that he warned Rick that if he ever came near me again he’d kill him. I believed that he’d actually follow through if given another opportunity.
While there were so many things I had yet to learn about Tripp, what I did know told me he was a good man, present debacle included. Not the ‘put your best foot forward until you finally show your true colors’ type of man, but a genuinely good-hearted, ‘do right by you’ type of man.
While I hated that my brain conjured up images of Tripp and Rick together, I couldn’t help but compare the two. Tripp had a good heart while Rick did not. Of course, Rick had been nice in the beginning, and me being so young I simply didn’t have the experience to spot a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
He’d come into the restaurant I worked at after school and sat at the counter, making small talk for two hours. I thought he was handsome with his shoulder-length sandy blond hair and green eyes, eyes which were deceptively perilous, although I didn’t know it at the time. A handsome stranger paid attention to me, and I ate it up.
Rick showed up every time I worked, and once when I joked that he’d been stalking me, he simply shrugged and gave me a mischievous yet what I thought was an endearing smile. Looking back I should have seen the signs, but like I said, I was young and inexperienced.
When Rick found his opportunity he pounced. And I say pounced because he was most certainly a predator. We soon began dating and when the accident happened, the only person I had to turn to was Rick. He had become my only family, readily taking me in and letting me live with him. He dug his clutches in deeper after we’d been together about six months. I’d finally decided I was ready to have sex, and soon afterward the sides he’d kept hidden started to emerge. Becoming enraged when I talked to another guy, even when they were customers at the restaurant, he’d accuse me of cheating. I’d vehemently deny it, of course, because it wasn’t true.
After I graduated from high school we were married. I’d convinced myself that once I became his wife he’d no longer have a need to be jealous. How wrong I’d been.
I had big plans of going to college, but Rick only became more suffocating, refusing to allow me to go anywhere without him. I had to quit my job, solely relying on him for everything. About a year into the marriage, he started drinking more, and that’s when the real abuse started. At first he shook me when he yelled at me. Then he graduated to slapping me across the face until he eventually elevated to punching and kicking me. Since I didn’t have a job, or go to school, or socialize with friends, and had no family to speak of, I had plenty of time to heal after one of his beatings. No one to witness the abuse.
The first time I tried to leave him was when one of his beatings had caused me to miscarry our child. I was twelve weeks along and although I was only twenty, I desperately wanted the baby. In some warped way I thought if we had a child that he would change, but in fact my pregnancy only heightened his paranoia and abuse, claiming he wasn’t the father and that I’d been messing around on him. Looking back, having miscarried my child had been a blessing in disguise. I had no right bringing another person into that kind of world.
Over the course of our relationship, I left him a total of four times, this last time being the fourth. He’d made good on his promises and had found me each and every time. Only this time, I hoped and prayed Rick would heed Tripp’s warnings and stay away from me for good.
Against Tripp’s advice, I returned to work the following night, reminding him that there was no way Rick would be bothering me anytime soon—his words. I repeated them to him to drive home that I was safe. True, there was a part of me that believed Rick would saunter right back inside Indulge and hurt me, even kill me, but then I remembered that he couldn’t walk.
“Move,” Arianna demanded, shoving past me without giving me the opportunity to shuffle to the side to allow her to pass. Her mood toward me had shifted from mere annoyance to downright hatred, or something very close to it. I knew the reason why, but I never played into her sourness by engaging her.
Coming back from the restroom she bumped into me again, that time pushing me against the wall. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” I shouted, pissed off that she wouldn’t give me a break. Whatever her issue was with me was all on her. I did nothing wrong and I wasn’t going to let her give me shit any longer. I had enough on my plate at the moment as it was.
She stopped and spun around, advancing on me until she stood so close I could smell cheap men’s cologne all over her. “My problem,” she sneered, “is that you waltz in here and think you’re the best thing that’s ever graced that stage.”
“I don’t work the stage anymore, or did you forget?” Not working the pole any longer was just one of the things she hated about me, Tripp’s interest in me being the main reason, of course. At every available opportunity Arianna would sneak up next to him and press her fake tits against him, pawing at him and offering herself. She wasn’t subtle about it, making sure to remind me that they’d been together every chance she had. He assured me that he wasn’t interested in her, and that the times they did hook up he was drunk, and that he never wished to repeat that mistake ever again. Even with his admissions, though, I couldn’t help the jealousy that captured me whenever she touched him.
“You’re stupid if you think he’ll keep you around for much longer. Tripp loves variety, always coming back to me in between his new interests.” She’d completely switched topics, focusing on the one that was the real reason why she’d decided to harass me that evening.
“What does that say about you, then?” I asked, scoffing when she looked confused. “If that was true, which it’s not and we both know it, he’d just be using you until he found someone better. You’re the idiot for waiting around for whatever scraps he’ll throw your way.”
If looks could kill I would have been dead already. I could tell by her expression that she didn’t know what to say, but she was trying to think of something anyway. Several awkward seconds passed with us simply glaring at each other, until finally she mumbled, �
�Fuck you,” and walked back toward the front of the club.
Rolling my eyes, I took a moment to compose myself before returning to the bar. Even though I tried not to let Arianna see me flustered, my insides were twisting and turning from the implication that Tripp would eventually go back to her.
As soon as I stepped behind the bar I saw Tripp, and low and behold Arianna was standing next to him, jabbering on about nonsense, I was sure. A fire lit my temper and, with barely controlled fury, I stalked to where they stood. He saw me approach, his eyes never leaving mine as I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down for a sensual kiss. As soon as my tongue found his, he growled into my mouth and pulled me close, shoving Arianna away from him at the same time. I heard her gasp but I wasn’t about to break our kiss to look at her. After I regrettably pulled back, Tripp had the biggest grin on his face.
“I think I know what that was for, but I don’t care. You can stake your claim on me anytime your little heart desires.” He gave me a quick peck on the lips before taking a seat.
“Since you’ve given me permission, you should be prepared for me to stake my claim over and over again.” I’d meant to keep the tone light but I couldn’t help it, even though I’d silently warned myself earlier not to go there. “You need to stop letting her hang all over you like that.”
“I will. I promise.” Well, that was easy enough. “You’re the only woman I want hangin’ on me. Pinned underneath me. Sittin’ on top of me.” He cocked his head to the side and appeared as if he were deep in thought. “What else?” he asked, tapping his chin with his index finger.
“Bending over in front of you,” I offered, letting out a startled shriek when he grabbed me and pulled me on his lap.
“That’s my girl.” He laughed, nuzzling my neck before sucking on my earlobe.
I heard Carla laugh, not even realizing she was paying attention to us. I should have known better, though, as she had become protective over me, warning Tripp that if he ever hurt me he’d have to deal with her.
I’d decided to tell her everything pertaining to Rick, from my history with him up until what had just happened at the club. She was my one true friend, even though there were times when she was more like a mother figure.
Tripp
Lost to my own thoughts about Reece and everything that’d just happened with that shitbag husband of hers, I nearly ran right into Stone when I walked into the common room at the clubhouse.
“We finally got ’em,” he hurriedly announced, completely disregarding the fact that I’d almost knocked him over.
“The results?”
He nodded.
The last thing I wanted to deal with was this shit, but I knew it was of the utmost importance, the future of our club, and our president, basically hanging in the balance.
“Where’s Marek?” I glanced around the room, trying to locate our downtrodden leader.
“He just went to piss.”
“Is he drunk?”
“What do you think?”
Ryder waltzed out of the kitchen with a half-eaten sandwich in hand, stopping and looking at us standing together. “What?” he mumbled as he shoved the rest of the food in his mouth. Once he swallowed, he asked, “What’s goin’ on?”
“We got the results back,” Stone offered, glancing down at his watch.
“Fuck,” Ryder grumbled, looking between the two of us. “Wait, is that good news or bad?”
“Let’s wait for everyone to get here first, and then we’ll tell him together.”
As soon as Stone stopped talking he looked uncomfortable, which immediately made me uneasy. I’d known Marek for years, and without sounding too much like a pussy, the first time I’d seen him really come alive was when he met Sully. Well, more like ‘took.’ Or ‘saved’ was more the honest truth. Over the time they’d been together, married for all of it because he’d initially forced her into it, I’d seen his eyes light up with life. Again, not wanting to sound all pussified and shit, but he’d changed.
While he’d become more on edge where his wife was concerned, constantly fretting about her safety knowing her father had still been out there, he smiled more. Okay, so I wouldn’t go so far as to say he smiled, per se, but the corners of his mouth curved up more than ever before. And the way he looked at Sully, watched her when she wasn’t looking, told me he’d fallen head over heels in love with her. Their beginning had certainly been the furthest from ideal, but they were meant to be together.
For all the happiness Sully brought into our president’s life, she also brought him a ton of worry. Waiting for the other shoe to drop where her father was concerned, the constant fear she’d be taken from him, it all weighed heavy on him, showing in the deepened lines around his eyes. Then when he found out about what Rico Yanez had done to her, which unfortunately was the same thing Vex, her ex-man of sorts, and her father had done, he started to slowly unravel.
We’d all witnessed his slow descent into hell, his main focus not on club business but instead on making Vex, Yanez and Psych pay for what they’d made Sully endure, even though all that shit happened before Marek had even met her. It didn’t matter, though, and I now understood his need for justice where she was concerned. I knew without a doubt that I’d snatch Rick’s life if he ever came near Reece again.
To add something like this to the mix after everything Marek had been through, I feared he’d dive off the cliff of sanity and never resurface. I only prayed the results would be the ones he needed. The ones we all needed them to be if we wished to keep our president. Our leader. Our friend.
Ten minutes later the rumble of bikes sliced through the growing tension, my unease heightening with the thought that we were about to possibly deliver the worst news of Marek’s life.
The door to the clubhouse swung open and in walked Trigger and Jagger. Thankfully no one else was with them. Marek had made us swear not to tell anyone else what was going on until he figured out what to do, which he never did. Instead, he chose to shut out his wife and drink himself half to death. The other guys had questioned the change in Marek, and we all chalked it up to his dealings with Psych. And by dealings, I meant Psych’s torture and death. Cutter wasn’t buying it, though, insisting Marek would have taken great pleasure in exacting revenge on the Savage Reapers’ leader and not shut down afterward. Even though he was suspicious, he stopped trying to get any of us to talk after the third time we didn’t give him anything.
“Hey,” Jagger called out, coming to stand by my side, looking as reserved as the rest of us. Trigger mirrored our expression but remained silent, feeding off the palpable strain surrounding all of us.
We chatted amongst ourselves about the upcoming meeting when the man of the hour stumbled down the hallway and into the common room.
“What the fuck?” he growled, heading straight for us, albeit slowly so as not to fall on his face. “Is this a fu . . . fucking irrevention?” He looked haggard, but that was nothing new.
“No,” Stone answered, striding the few feet until he stood directly in front of his best friend. “This ain’t no intervention. We got the results.” It took but a few seconds before understanding crossed Marek’s face, and just when I thought he’d be relieved to finally find out whether or not Sully was actually his half-sister, he almost crumbled. Holding on to Stone’s shoulder for support, Marek’s eyes became glassy, unshed anguish pooling behind his blue orbs.
“I don’t think I can do this,” he garbled.
“You can, and you will,” our VP gritted out. “Enough is enough. This shit’s gotta stop. Today.” Placing his hand on Marek’s shoulder in return, he leaned in and whispered something in his ear, our president’s face falling even more before he reluctantly nodded.
“Let’s do this in Chambers,” Trigger suggested. “Just in case some of the other guys show up.”
All of us agreeing, we entered our sacred meeting place, shut the door and took our seats.
Tripp
“I swear to Ch
rist, if someone doesn’t say somethin’ soon I’m gonna lose it,” Jagger blurted, pounding the table in frustration.
“Calm down,” Trigger berated him, quickly glaring at him before turning his attention back to Marek, who was leaning back in his chair with his head tilted and looking up at the ceiling.
All concern was focused toward our leader, preparing for the results to be bad but hoping for the best. The envelope in Stone’s hand was still sealed, indicating he himself didn’t even know yet. We were all in limbo.
The tearing of the envelope made me shudder, but my reaction was nothing compared to Marek’s. Forcing himself to his feet, he kicked his chair behind him with as much force as he could muster.
“I c-can’t fuckin’ do th-this,” he stammered, the reality of his predicament sobering him slightly. “I can’t,” he mumbled before heading toward the door. Stone jumped up from the table and rushed forward, stopping Marek before he turned the handle.
Flinging the results toward me, our VP shouted, “Just open it.”
My fingers trembled slightly as I pulled out the folded piece of paper. I scanned the document but had no idea what the hell I was looking at. There were multiple columns with a bunch of numbers.
“Well?” Stone shouted over his shoulder, pinning Marek against the wall to ensure he finally faced what he’d been running from ever since Psych fucked with his head.
Stone had given Adelaide Psych’s DNA as well as Marek’s, both in their own baggie. He feared if he labeled one ‘Father’ and the other ‘Child,’ she might’ve been a bit more suspicious, and that would’ve opened up a whole other can of worms. Instead, he just asked that they be tested to see if the two samples were related.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m lookin’ at,” I grumbled, trying to read over the piece of paper once more. “Give me a sec.” Starting from the top, I searched for anything that made a lick of sense to me. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom, after all the bullshit columns, letters and numbers that I came to the fields I needed.