“If it were that fucking easy I would’ve gotten over this long ago, Fury,” I return shortly. “It’s not a matter of spilling my guts and this shit that’s eating me alive will go away. It goes deeper than that. I feel like I’ve let her down by not grieving her the way I should’ve.”
Narrowing his eyes at me, Fury asks,
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’ve locked yourself away from your friends, family, fucking everyone who cares about you for months and you don’t think that’s enough?”
“Not what I mean, man,” I huff. “Sitting around feeling sorry for myself and wondering why I’m not devastated doesn’t count as fucking grieving, and you know it.”
“Yeah, well, what does?” He barks sharply. “Drinking yourself into a coma? Shutting yourself off from everyone? Or is it letting your business go down the fucking toilet because you can’t drag your ass out of bed to see to it? I don’t know, brother, but all that sounds like grieving to me.”
Pushing my hand through my hair, I think carefully about what he’s just said, and concede the point.
“Maybe you’re right, to a point, but all that’s been about me, not her.”
“Jesus, Jonas,” Fury growls. “How much more of yourself are you gonna give this. A year? Two? Ten? When is enough, enough? Because I don’t know about you, but I miss the guy I considered one of my best friends and I’m not the only one.”
Meredith, one of Hounds new waitresses, takes the lull in conversation as her opportunity to set two huge plates filled with burgers and fries in front of us, leaving as quickly as she arrived.
Around a mouthful of food, Fury asks,
“Is that all today was about? You feeling like shit because you’re relieved Bec didn’t live through the hell that would’ve been her recovery, or is there more to it? Because from where I’m sitting, you don’t have a damn thing to feel bad about.”
Following suit, I bite into my own food and groan at how good it tastes. I can’t even remember how long it’s been since I’ve eaten real food, hence, falling on the rest like a starving man after a fast.
When we’re both finished, I lean back in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest. Answering his earlier question, I say,
“For the most part, yeah. I wanted to hear from someone who’d been through it if this shit was normal. The other part of why I called you here was to tell you, so you can tell everyone else who’s been up my ass for months, that I’m coming out of hibernation. I’ll be back at the shop tomorrow.”
With a nod, Fury grins.
“Good to hear, but before you go thinking this conversation is over, listen to me would you. And for fucks sake take it in. Coming home to find my wife and unborn baby dead fucked me up, but not the way you’d think it would,” he admits sadly. “What a lot of you didn’t know at the time was, Rosalie and I were barely hanging on to the remnants of a marriage we shouldn’t have jumped into. I loved her, and she loved me, but I wasn’t in love with her anymore. And if I'm totally fucking honest, I don’t think I ever really was in love with her to begin with. Fuck, I wanted to be, wanted to believe I was, but it just wasn’t there for me. Rosalie was a sweet, kind, gentle woman, which meant, she wasn’t for me. When I met her I thought she’d make the perfect wife; the calm to my storm or whatever. But I was wrong. I need the kind of challenge Avery gives me. I need to know that if I’m being an asshole or doing something that’s pissing her off; she’ll call me on it. Rosalie never would’ve done that shit. She would have lay in our bed, cried herself to sleep, and got up the next day like nothing ever happened. Avery would sooner have my balls than go to sleep on an argument, and trust me, brother, she nearly has a time or two.”
Chuckling, I nod,
“I bet she has.”
“No joke, Avery is everything I’ve ever wanted in an old lady. I might not have admitted it back then, but she always was,” he confesses. “It took me a while to get over losing Rosalie and my boy, but nowhere near as long as I spent kicking my own ass for not protecting them. See, you and I aren’t so different, brother. Sure, you feel like shit for being relieved, but I felt the same way about not being there when she needed me most. I’m not saying you’ll ever forget how this feels, but it will fade until it’s little more than a sting every now and then. Something that reminds you to be a better man when you think about her. That’s something I can promise you. It mightn’t be much, but it’s a start.”
“That shit wasn’t your fault, Fury. I wasn’t in the country when it went down, but them dying like that had nothing to do with you or the club. There was no way you could foresee what was going to happen that day, not a chance,” I impart carefully, needing to impress on him how little any of what went down had to do with him.
“Yeah, and I get that, now,” he nods. “I didn’t then, not when it was so fresh, so fucking painful, but I do understand it now. You will too. It’s not about how much you loved her, man, it’s about how you remember Bec that counts. Focus on the good shit and leave the rest in the past where it belongs, Jay. Like I said, it’ll do you no good to go over and over it, beating it like a dead horse.”
After talking a while longer, we part ways. Fury’s given me a lot to think about it and not much time to do it. Because as I said, I’m bound and determined to get my ass back to work tomorrow.
CHAPTER THREE
~ Blaine Adams ~
“Raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies are the main reason I have trust issues.”
- T-shirt
There’s nothing quite like the sound of dozens of Harley’s rumbling in sync. The vibrations traveling through your body from the tips of you toes to the top of your head. You would think after growing up in an MC I’d be used to it by now, but I’m not. There is just something comforting about it, and not because it means my loved ones are home. It’s more than that. Much more.
I’m sure you’ve heard the story before; girl grows up with bikers, they teach her everything they know – imparting wisdom and kick ass skills along the way. Well, that’s not me. Far from it, actually.
While I grew up surrounded by bikers, I didn’t spend a lot of time in the clubhouse. Sure, I went to hog roasts, family parties, visited my Dad from time-to-time (never on my own, one of my brothers or my Mom always came with me), and I spent some of my summer holidays there. But what I didn’t do was have sleepovers or spend every waking moment there like Avery did.
The clubhouse was her safe haven, where mine was the home my Mom and Dad made for us.
Another part of why I wasn’t at the club as much as some of my friends and cousins was because my Mom had her work cut out for her raising four kids, on top of working part-time.
I can’t remember how many arguments my parents had about Mom quitting work to stay home with us full-time, but they were plentiful. If I had been old enough, I would have taken Mom’s side, because, for the most part, I could absolutely see where she was coming from.
While Dad’s argument was solid – Mom was run off her feet and in a bad mood because of it, more often than not – Mom’s way of thinking made more sense to me. She wanted to contribute, not only raising their children but financially too. Something that I’m sure pissed my Dad off to no end, considering his Alpha male status.
It wasn’t like Mom’s work was taxing per say; she did the books for he MC’s legitimate businesses and a few other local ones. Most of which, she did at home in between running us kids around to and from school, and to various after school activities. Of which there were many, considering I have three brothers and all.
I love all of my brothers, but Miles, my older brother by barely a year, is who I’m closest to. Not only in age but in everything. We just click, like two pieces of a whole. Mom likes to say, we should have been born twins, we are that alike. Don’t get me wrong, I’m close to my eldest brother, Bryce, and younger brother, Jacob too. It’s just that Miles and I share a wavelength, that’s all.
With five years separat
ing us, Jacob being the youngest at twenty-three, followed by me at twenty-five, Miles, twenty-six, and finally, Bryce, who is twenty-eight, we might have all grown up, but we’ve never strayed far from home. Well, everyone other than me hasn’t.
Moving to Furnace wasn’t planned. I had always thought that I’d get an apartment in my hometown of Blackwater, get a job doing what I love as a gym teacher, and settle down with a good man and raise some kids eventually. But life doesn’t always work out the way you expect it to, so my plan had to change, and so did I.
When Avery was kidnapped and subsequently rescued in a joint effort by my Dad’s MC, Devil’s Spawn, and allied club, Vengeance, I was on the back of Dad’s bike before he could tell me no I wasn’t coming. Not that I had any intention of being part of the rescue effort, I just wanted to be there when they eventually bought my cousin and best friend home.
Seeing Avery broken like that, scared, battered, and scarred broke something in me. She is the strongest, most capable woman I know, so watching her suffer in silence was heartwrenching.
I did everything I could, shy of forcing her, physically, to leave the house to help her get back even a little of the woman she once was. However, nothing worked, not until Fury came home. That, mind you, seemed to light a fire under her ass and pull her out of her funk quicker than I could blink. And thank God for that.
To this day, Avery still thanks me for pulling her head out of her ass and getting her and Fury together, but that was all her. I may have had a hand in it when I sat Fury down and told him what had happened to her, but aside from that, I had very little to do with it.
Sure, Avery was pissed when she found out I shared the details of her injuries and what she went through during her recovery, but in the end, it worked out for the best. Fury needed to know before he formulated a game plan, and Avery would never have willingly told him.
Not long after they got their shit together, everything went south for Vengeance. Well, I shouldn’t say south, maybe just sideways.
Rebel Warriors or I should say, a vigilante offshoot of the club, got involved in some seriously hardcore shit that I still don’t know much about. What I do know is, one day the men of Vengeance rode out on a run, and a few days later, they came home looking worse for wear.
I haven’t been able to pry the details out of any of the men – they’re shut up tighter than a nun’s asshole – but from what Beth has told me, Rebel Warriors, Wyoming chapter is no more. More for the better if you ask me. They were, after all, the one’s who perpetrated Beth, Bec, and Avery’s kidnapping, so good riddance. The world doesn’t need oxygen thieves like them, anyway.
Obviously, in the midst of all that, there was still the minor (or major depending on who you ask) detail of Jonas’ torment. I say torment because that’s exactly what it was. He wasn’t merely a broken man; he was devastated by Bec’s death.
Watching a man like him – six-foot-five, two hundred and eighty pounds, and an ex-army spec ops commander – break was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. And with it, another part of me was lost too.
To explain my relationship with Jonas, I have to go back a bit so bear with me.
*****
Since their foundation, Devil’s Spawn MC, and Vengeance have always had a good relationship. I’d go as far as to say, they’d do almost anything to help each other out, as was evident when they came together recently. However, that doesn’t mean politics wasn’t involved; it was.
The majority of the time things were worked out during sit-downs at one or the others clubhouses, or meetings at a half-way point between the clubs. I wasn’t privy to the details because let’s be honest, I was just a kid back then. But, from what I’ve been told, both MC’s found a way to get over most of their issues without too much violence or bloodshed. Apparently, the same could not be said for other rival clubs. But what would I know?
Over the years, Dad took me with him occasionally when he had business to do with Vengeance, but it wasn’t until I was thirteen that I met, Jonas.
He’d been deployed overseas, fighting for our country during my last two visits. Hence, I hadn’t had the chance to meet him, I’d only heard of him. Actually, I had heard all about him.
Everyone talked about Jonas. How reliable he was, as a brother, a friend, and a warrior. The women involved with Vengeance chattered about how handsome he is – how sexy, downright dangerously so. But it was the whispered words about his hero status that had my interest peaked before I’d even met him.
I’ve met a lot of heroes in my life. I’d go as far as to say I’ve been blessed. The men in my life aren’t the archetypal heroes you read about in books or concocted from girlhood fantasies. They are gritty, raw, rough around the edges, and they love fiercely. So fiercely it’s a bounty you never want to be denied.
That and more is why tales of Jonas intrigued me. But more than that, I was determined to see for myself the truth that lay beneath them. Needless to say, Jonas did not disappoint. Furthermore, he surpassed everything I’d conjured him up to be in my young imagination. And let me tell you, he was almost a mythical being in my mind by the time I finally met him, so that’s really saying something.
My first impression of the big man was little more than a ‘Holy Crap’ moment. I had never, as in, ever, in my short life seen a man so ginormous. But it wasn’t just his stature that was imposing – intimidating even – it was the darkness that lurked behind his eyes that had my advance toward him faltering.
As a thirteen-year-old I wouldn’t know how right I was about what I’d seen working behind his eyes that day. In fact, it wasn’t until recently when Jonas finally and resolutely lost his shit that I understood just how deep those monsters lurk.
On a side note, how I found out was not fun in the slightest, but I’ll go into that later.
Anyway, huge, muscular, intimidating Jonas, as brutal and scary as he was didn’t frighten me. If anything, I wanted to help him; soothe him and the rabid beast tearing at him trying to break free. However, no matter how young I was, I knew my assistance wouldn’t have been appreciated.
But pain, anger, torment, and monsters aside, something about Jonas called to me. The man is a mystery I’d like nothing more than to solve, but sadly, I don’t think he’ll ever allow me close enough to try.
The depth of yearning I have to heal him, and the insurmountable desire I feel for him didn’t come until later. Much later. In the beginning, it was nothing more than my childish determination to guide a man, a good man, a kind, sweet man back into the world of the living and away from the edge of whatever darkness was pulling him under.
It would take years of visits, some of which Jonas wouldn’t even acknowledge my presence, multiple attempts at talking to him on the rare occasions he wasn’t surrounded by his brethren, and a few well-timed smiles for me to crack his hard exterior. But when I did, it was magnificent. It was almost as if the heavens parted and the bright light that was all Jonas and his beauty shone through.
By the age of fifteen, I had Jonas. All of him. His smiles came readily, his laughter was becoming more frequent, and the length of his sentences had increased from monosyllabic grunts to full paragraphs. We talked, we joked, and occasionally he would look at me as if I meant something to him.
For the most part, I knew this was all in my head. There was no way a man of Jonas’ sheer beauty, intelligence, and years would be interested in an awkward teenager like me. But the mind is a beautiful thing at that age because regardless of the stark reality Jonas was so far beyond my reach, my brain refused to accept that truth.
However it wasn’t until I talked to my Mom – hypothetically of course – that I realized, the heart wants what the heart wants. And my heart wanted Jonas; it always would.
My Mom, Priscilla Adams, heretofore alpha male biker expert – self-proclaimed naturally – gave me sage advice and wisdom as only she could at the time. She had no idea the boy I was interested in was Jonas, but that being said, her advice was no le
ss relevant.
“What’s on your mind, Bee? You’ve been acting differently for weeks now, and your Dad is starting to get worried,” she asked out of the blue one afternoon.
I saw the worry in my Dad’s eyes increase in the days that followed our most recent visit to the Vengeance clubhouse, and I knew it was killing him not to broach the subject with me.
Dad, or Tank as he’s known to his MC brothers, isn’t a man to beat around the bush. He says it like it is; his favorite phrase being, “You’re not diabetic, so I’m not gonna sugar coat it for you.” Hence, Dad holding back and not confronting me about what was troubling me was something completely out of the norm. But he was doing it for me.
I think somewhere deep down my Dad instinctively knew this wasn’t something I’d feel comfortable talking to him about, and that too would have burned.
When I say my Dad and I are close, I mean, we’re tight. Solid. For the most part, inseparable. As a little girl if my Dad was home, I was on his lap, in his arms, or sitting at his feet while he was doing whatever it was that needed doing. As I grew up not much changed, except the sitting on his lap or being in his arms. I still pressed close to his side on the couch, sat next to him at the dinner table, and I still chose to be with him over anyone else, I just wasn’t as overt about it.
Vengeance MC Box Set - Volume 1: Call Me...Vengeance ~ Fury ~ Jonas Page 64