by London Casey
The door opened and Eden tensed back.
“Hey,” Trev said. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” Eden said. “I didn’t think you were here.”
“I came back last night. You were passed out.”
“I haven’t slept like that in a long time.”
“Good. Hope you’re rested. Want coffee or something?”
“Coffee is fine,” Eden said.
Trev left the room and Eden sat there, still waking up a little. She hurried to try and fix her hair. Running her fingers through the knots from sleeping, she couldn’t believe she was actually worried about her appearance in front of Trev.
He came back into the room and gave her coffee.
“Prospects brought us food,” he said. “Plenty out there before we get moving.”
“Thank you,” Eden said. She glanced to the other side of the bed. “Trev…”
“What?”
“Where did you sleep?”
“In here.”
“In bed?”
“Why does that fucking matter?”
“I don’t know. I’m just asking.”
“Beautiful, correct me if I’m wrong, but my fingers were deep in your sweet pussy and my cock deep in your mouth. You’re worried about me sleeping in here?”
Eden felt her cheeks burn red. “Yeah, right. Sorry.”
Trev drank his coffee. “I slept on the floor, back against the wall.”
“What? Was that comfortable?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Trev said. “That’s where I slept.”
Now Eden felt foolish and somewhat flattered. Trev was definitely a hard guy to figure out. One second he was aggressive, taking her body to climax, then he slept on the floor?
“Let’s get food. Then we have to talk.”
Trev exited the room.
Eden snuck to the bathroom.
She then went to the kitchen and saw Trev standing over a huge plate of food, eating as though he would never eat again.
“Save any for me?” she asked.
He pointed to the table. “There’s plenty. They know how I eat.”
“Do you even taste it?”
Trev put his fork down. “I grew up with nothing, okay? I never knew when or where my next meal was coming from. Hours? Days? Longer? And when there was food, whoever could eat it fast enough got it. Whoever could fight for it won it. Understand?”
Eden swallowed hard. She nodded. “Sorry.”
She went to the table and started to eat. Her approach was a little more dainty compared to Trev’s.
Trev finished his plate and then turned around. He grabbed a half gallon carton of milk and drank from it. When he took the carton away, there was a milk mustache on his face. He quickly wiped it away but not before Eden saw it. It was adorable to see. And insanely sexy, considering his size and muscles.
“Look,” Trev said. “Don’t mind me. This is all still processing for me. We’re waiting on some calls and figuring out what to do next.” Trev pulled a chair out and sat down. “When we get some shit figured out, I need you to help me find the guys who hurt you. Shot your friend.”
“Help? How?”
“You said the voice. The laugh. Right?”
Eden nodded. “I’ll never forget it.”
“Good. Don’t forget it. When I find out who did it…”
“You’ll kill them?”
“What do you think?”
“So you really kill people?”
“I’m not a serial killer, Eden. I do what needs to be done for my club. We don’t run with the kind of justice you’re used to. There’s no speeding tickets and lawyers in my world. There’s action, consequence, and punishment.”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting killed?”
“No. We run with the reaper every day of our lives,” Trev said. “When he decides to strike, so be it. I just hope I’m in my cut, defending my club. Like your old man was, beautiful.”
Eden felt her chest tighten. She hated the image of her father getting shot. She forced food into her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. She looked down and tried to hide them.
“Aw, don’t get upset,” Trev said. “I’m sorry. When you’ve seen as much as I have, it doesn’t have the same grab.”
Eden swallowed and sucked back her raw emotion. “I just want to know why.”
“Don’t ask. He died as a good man. That’s all you need to know. If you dig too deep it gets dirty.”
“No, Trev. Not him dying. But him and my mother giving me up.”
Trev nodded. He reached across the table and took Eden’s hand. “Let me ask you something. Did you have a good life?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Did you have a good life?”
“Not really.”
“You were adopted?”
“Yeah. But then my adoptive parents were killed.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“My aunt then took me in.”
Trev nodded. “Did you get beat?”
“No.”
“Anyone touch you in ways you didn’t want to be touched?”
“No. Never.”
Trev nodded. “Good. You had a good life then, Eden. There’s always bad shit that will happen. At least yours wasn’t as bad as others. So maybe that’s why they did it. Because if your mother confessed who your father was, the implosion… you don’t get it. You’re the catalyst for a war so big and so bad…”
“No pressure,” Eden said. “Right?”
“No, beautiful, no pressure. We’ll protect you. I’m just being honest. And growing in the MC life… during that time… it couldn’t have been easy.”
“How would you know?” Eden asked. “You don’t look older than me.”
Trev grinned.
He had lines at the corners of eyes that ran down to the edge of his smile. It was freaking unfair how hot he was.
“I hear war stories,” Trev said. “I’ve been running outlaw and patched in since I was of legal age. Did my stint as a prospect when I was seventeen. I lied to get into the MC. This was the life I knew. Right now, it’s a little more peaceful than I’m used to. Guys with girls. Kids. Family. That’s good. What I’m trying to say is maybe they gave you up for what they felt was the greater good. So you didn’t become a pawn in some kind of biker war. I don’t know what else to say about it.”
Eden nodded. She touched Trev’s hand. “Thank you for being here. For letting me be here. For fighting for me or whatever. I thought I was coming here to find my family.”
“Maybe you found that,” Trev said. “Don’t deny the power of this club. We’re wild. We’re outlaws. I get that. Yes, we kill people, beautiful. But we don’t just go out and kill random people, okay? Everything has purpose. We view the greater good of it all. The people of this town. They don’t know what it would be like around here if it wasn’t for us. The streets would be filled with crews, drugs, guns, violence. But I’m not selling you this, Eden. Finish your breakfast.”
Trev took his hand back and stood up.
Eden forced herself to eat as she let his words sink in. She then asked, “You’d really go after the guys that killed Dimitrio?”
“The guys that went after you,” Trev said. “Yes.”
Eden caught herself smiling a little, sensing maybe a little jealousy from Trev. Not that she and Dimitrio were ever a thing. Yeah, Eden had always had a little crush on him but nothing ever came of it or would have.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting into trouble?” Eden asked.
Trev turned with his coffee in hand. “No. I could handle prison. I could handle anything. Even death. What I can’t handle is not making it known I don’t stand for bullshit. You fuck with me, I’m going to fuck with you. End of discussion.”
“Can you tell me something about my father?”
Trev drank his coffee and then put it down. “I had something else in mind for today.”
“Like what?”
Trev walked to
Eden and put a hand to her shoulder. “You need to just trust me, Eden. I’m being patient but no more questions, okay? You need to just listen to me carefully and do exactly what I say, when I say it. This isn’t a joke. There are people out there that want me dead. There are people out there that want you dead. Fuck, beautiful, there are people out there that would love to know you’re Griffin’s daughter. So finish your damn breakfast and let’s go for a ride.”
Twenty minutes later, Eden managed to brush her hair, get changed, and brush her teeth. Then she was strapping a helmet to her head and climbing on the back of a motorcycle, her hands sliding around Trev’s body.
Then it finally clicked… this was the life her parents never wanted her to live.
*
When Eden saw the cemetery her stomach flipped. When Trev turned and started to move up the dirt path of the cemetery, her hands clutched tighter to his leather cut. She wanted to yell at him but the motorcycle engine was too loud to do so. She really was at his mercy.
Trev guided his ride along the path and then came to a stop. He killed the engine and Eden kept her hold tight to him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“You need to see it,” Trev said. “Proof. Closure. Anger. Whatever you need to do here, beautiful.”
Eden slowly climbed off the motorcycle. She started to shake, looking around at all the remembrances of death. She hated death. She hated cemeteries. It didn’t settle well with her. The last time she was in a cemetery was…
“Come on,” Trev said.
“I can’t,” Eden said. “No way. I just can’t do this. Take me away, Trev. Right now.”
“Whoa. Hold on a second…”
Trev reached for her and Eden swung at him. Her knuckles cracked against his jaw. She did it without even looking at him. Her body was in fight or flight mode and for some strange reason, she picked fight mode.
“Goddammit!” Trev yelled. “What are you…”
“Now!” Eden yelled.
She swung again and Trev caught her wrist. His other hand touched her back and pulled her tight to him.
“Hey, look at me,” Trev said. “Right now, goddammit.”
Eden felt her lips starting to shake now. Her body shivered as though she were naked in a snowstorm. Each sight of a tombstone was another person dead. How did they die? Natural causes? Old age? Cancer? A car accident…
“Right now,” she whispered. “I have to leave. I have to go. I… I…”
The panic overwhelmed her.
She finally forced herself to look at Trev. There was blood on the corner of his mouth where she had hit him.
I made him bleed. I punched an outlaw and hurt him.
“Eden, focus on me right now,” Trev said. “Nothing around you matters. It’s just me and you.”
“Okay,” Eden whispered. “Okay, Trev.”
“We’re going to sit down together. Right against my ride. Don’t touch the exhaust though, okay? It’ll burn your pretty skin. I don’t want that.”
Eden nodded over and over. “Okay.”
“I want you to take a deep breath in and count to four. Then slowly let it out, count to four again. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.”
Eden listened to Trev. He gently touched her waist and pulled her to the ground. They then sat next to each other, Trev turned toward her, hand on her leg.
“Keep breathing,” he said. “Then look at me and talk to me.”
Eden got herself to calm and she looked at Trev. She focused on his features. His sexy features.
“I don’t like this place,” she whispered. “At all.”
“I can see that. You know this is what happens in life, right?”
“I know that, Trev. I haven’t been to a cemetery since my adoptive parents…”
“Ah, fuck,” Trev said. He slipped an arm around her and hugged her. “I should have known. I already told you, I’ve seen enough that it’s all normal to me.”
“Not to me,” Eden said. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Trev said. “But you have to do this. You have to go see him. Look at his grave. Understand what’s happened. Learn to accept it. So we can start to move forward with all this shit, Eden. It’s only going to get worse from here. I’m trying to do this for you right now because calls are answered and action takes place.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means plenty,” Trev said. “None of it you need to know about right now. Now take my hand and let’s go.”
Trev rose up first. He offered his hand and Eden took it. He pulled her to her feet. She started to shiver again at the sight of all the gravestones again. Trev kept to his word, holding her hand tight. He interlocked his fingers to hers, almost romantic, and he started to walk.
Eden felt a warm calm run through her body. That was what Trev’s presence and touch did to her. Nobody had ever made her feel like that before.
When Trev stopped, he pointed to a grave.
The first thing Eden noticed was how blended in it was. It just reminded her that she had purposely waited almost a year to come to Frelen. Her eyes filled with tears and she put her head to Trev’s hard chest.
“Say something,” she whispered.
“Griffin, brother,” Trev said. “This is your baby girl. Your beautiful daughter, Eden. She came to the MC looking for you. I’m sure you know more about this than we all do. Hell, for all I know, you crazy son of a bitch, you set this in motion. Hell, maybe even after your death. You’re that kind of wild, right?”
There was silence and Trev put his arm around Eden and squeezed her.
“Keep going,” Eden whispered.
“We’re going to take care of her,” Trev said. “No bullshit, Griffin. I promise you that, brother. It’s the least I could do for you. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt. I’ll make sure she understands who you were. She knows you died wearing your leather cut. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to her yet but someday it will.”
Eden stood and wiped tears from her eyes. She broke away from Trev and stepped forward. She stared at the stone and couldn’t find any words. Maybe there were no words because all her words were going to end up as questions that her father could never answer. The bullet that stole his life stole his voice and stole all of Eden’s answers.
She stood for what felt like an hour.
“This one time,” Trev said, “I had this beef with a guy, okay? He sort of screwed me with some motorcycle parts. I paid him and he kept giving me the runaround on things. I figured lesson learned. Shit happens all the time like that to people, you know? Serves me right for being stupid.”
Eden looked back and saw Trev leaning against a headstone, arms crossed.
“Isn’t it rude to lean against someone else’s stone?” Eden asked.
Trev patted the stone. “Me and Ashburne’s are solid on this, beautiful.”
“Oh.”
“So one night I go out for a few drinks,” Trev said. “Griffin tailed me. He knew I was pissed off. He knew I was looking to find a reason to fight someone. Always trying to save my ass. I get to this dive bar and the fucking guy who screwed me is sitting there. Two pretty women around him and he’s buying shots. When he saw me, he nodded like nothing was wrong. He fucked with me and I wanted to fuck with him. The thing was, I had gotten into a little bit of trouble and I had the PD on me. They were waiting for me to fuck up. They wanted to put me away and I was seconds away from having it happen. The guy walked over to me and put a hand out to shake my hand and quickly went on the defensive about the parts. I asked him what the fuck he was trying to prove. He laughed at me and wanted to know what I was going to do. He put his finger to my chest and said that a bunch of dirty leather guys weren’t going to rattle his chains. The second he said it I felt my hand go back. Then Griffin was there. Standing next to me. Before I could do anything stupid, Griffin knocked the guy out. One punch. The entire bar went silent. The guy was out, on the floor, arms out. Griffin knew how much I w
as out so he crouched down and dug through the guy’s pocket and got me twice what I had paid.”
Trev started to laugh. He let out a long breath and shook his head. He looked away, blinking fast.
“So I bought a round for everyone at the bar, for the disturbance. The bartender had two of his workers drag that asshole out. I never saw him again. And that was Griffin.” Trev looked at Eden. His face like stone again. “That was your father. He always looked after me when we ran outlaw together. When he patched back into Back Down Devil, down here in Frelen, it was like I lost a father. I get it. It was good to see him again years later but it wasn’t the same. There was a lot of shit he had to keep to himself, and so did I. But that was Griffin. He was smart as hell. Always managed the finances great. Always had business ideas. And at the same time, he’d drop the pencil while calculating some kind of percentage of something and grab his gun, ready to fight for his club and for his brothers.”
Eden turned and walked to Trev. She didn’t care what kind of message she sent, she put her hands around Trev’s back and hugged him. She clutched his leather tight, shut her eyes, and inhaled him. He smelled like a wild man. It was so dumb to think that, but that’s what came to her mind.
“Thank you for telling me that,” she whispered.
Trev hugged her back. “Anytime, beautiful. I know you don’t like this shit, but it’s important to see. Things are going to get wild around the clubhouse and the town. It’ll work itself out though. That’s what happens in this life. One second you’re having a deep talk with a good friend and the next there’s a bullet ripping through your neck and spine. Remember that.”
“I will. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Okay, let’s get out of here. Let him rest. Let him do whatever he’s doing, wherever he is.”
Eden looked up at Trev. “Hey. Do you believe in heaven and hell?”
“I don’t know. I believe in what I can see. I’ve seen hell. I’ve experienced hell. But for some reason it never made me want to be a better person to go to heaven.”
“You’ve never experienced heaven…”
Trev smirked. He touched Eden’s face and wiped a tear off her cheek. “No, I’ve never experienced heaven, beautiful. But… looking at you… being near you… I sort of get it.”