Charming: The Coast Book 9

by Hart, Eve R.

  I didn’t believe that for a second.

  I looked back down at the paper in my hands. My eyes scanned like I would find some loophole to stop this but I didn’t have a clue what I was looking at or what I was looking for.

  By the time I looked up, he was already in his car and backing up.

  “I have to go,” I said trying my hardest to rip myself out of Sketch’s hard grip on my body. “Let me go! I have to be there!” I might have been losing my mind a little.

  “Abigail, let me get Iron. Hold up a minute, woman,” he said and I could see the concern in his eyes.

  I knew what the detective would find if he pulled my brother’s body out of the ground. And if he planned on having another autopsy done, then he would know the truth. It was wrong enough that he was going to do this but it worried me beyond no end that he might find out the big secret I’d been keeping for the club. The one we all had been keeping. That Dade hadn’t died in a motorcycle accident.

  “No,” I said sharply as I pulled the handle to the driver’s side door. “I’m going. Tell Iron everything that’s going on, but I’m leaving now.”

  I peeled out of the lot and my body jerked as the car bounced along the bumpy dirt road.

  How could this have happened? What new information had he received? And what exactly was he looking for?

  When I pulled into the cemetery, I could see they already had all of the equipment set up. And as I got out of my car and walked closer, I noticed that they must have started before the detective came to see me. They were nearly to Dade’s coffin.

  Why was he doing this? I was about to crack from reliving it all over again.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” the detective said but there wasn’t a hint of sympathy in his tone.

  “You’re digging up my brother like it’s nothing, I have to be here. How dare you?!” I scolded not giving two craps that he could easily cuff me and toss me in the back of his car.

  “It has to be done. Something isn’t sitting right about the whole thing.”

  “Then you clearly need to get a life, because my brother’s death was an accident,” I said with venom dripping from my tone.

  “Is that what they told you? How much do you know about that club?”

  “What is your endgame here? What is the point of doing all of this? Did you even think about what doing this means?” The questions spewed out of my mouth but I didn’t expect to receive any answers from him.

  “I’m sorry if this hurts you,” he said with a small, pathetic sigh, “but this is the way it has to be. Don’t you want to know what happened to him? What really happened?”

  “I know what happened, detective, and nothing you tell me will make me believe otherwise.” I turned my back on him and walked away, only putting a few feet of distance between us. I was pretty sure he understood the move.

  It didn’t take long until I heard the roar of motorcycles not far off.

  Men jumped down into the dug out hole. I watched with panicked and angry eyes as they hooked up my brother’s coffin to the machine that would soon pull it out.

  My heart beat so loud in my chest. I knew it would take a while until he would find the truth because he would have to drag him back to the morgue and have a new autopsy done. It still didn’t make me feel less shaky.

  The motorcycle engines cut off as the machine started up.

  The detective shifted closer to me but I didn’t look at him.

  “You shouldn’t see this,” he said as I watched the box that held my brother’s body rise above ground level.

  “Get away from her,” Iron called out and I knew he was only a few steps behind me. “Abigail.”

  I shook off his touch. I couldn’t handle it right now.

  What would Dade look like now? It had been months since he’d died. Would his flesh still look the same? Would he be bloated? The thought churned my stomach and it was all I could do not to bend over and cough up chunks of whatever was floating around in there.

  “Abigail,” Iron said again and there was a tightness in his tone that I’d not heard before.

  I ignored him because I couldn’t handle anything else right now. He had to know that, right? That I wasn’t trying to be rude. It was taking everything in me to stay upright.

  I felt like I was walking through tar as I approached the casket and when I was a few feet away, my feet quit working altogether.

  “Open it up,” Detective Mullins told the uniformed officers that were standing nearby. “Stay back.” His words were directed at me as an order, gruffly tossed over his shoulder.

  I held my breath. My name was being called from behind me and I knew it was more than just Iron’s voice. But nothing was working right, certainly not my ears, and I couldn’t pick out the voices and who they belonged to.

  An arm slid around my waist from behind as the lid was pulled back.

  “Abigail,” Iron’s sharp voice snapped me out of my daze as he swung me around so I could no longer see. “I need you to listen to me—”

  “What the fuck?!” the detective growled. “Where is the body?”

  Confusion had me pushing away from Iron, my body ripping away from his grasp. I turned to see the detective lifting something out of the coffin and for some reason, I instantly knew what was going on.

  My brother’s body was in there, it just wasn’t whole. It wasn’t flesh and bone and hair and teeth anymore. It was ash, in a pile inside that small, black, ceramic box.

  Iron had asked before. He’d told me this was what he wanted. I refused him but he’d gone and done it behind my back anyway. And he was never going to tell me.

  My knees crumbled and I felt Iron and someone else trying to catch me. I batted their hands away, the hits stinging the tips of my fingers.

  “Don’t touch me!” I screeched. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

  Then I was getting to my feet, so fast that my head was spinning. My legs were working and I was running like I’d never run before. An arm snagged me by my waist and my legs kicked up in the air as I turned my head to see who had stopped me. Pain sliced through Cable’s gaze as he looked down into my eyes. He knew what had been done to my brother, it was clear as day. The acid burned in my stomach, threatening to crawl up my throat. I turned my head away and saw that I was now surrounded by the club, or at least six of them. It was enough to let me know that I wasn’t going anywhere unless they wanted me to.

  “Let me go!” I screamed. I struggled against his hold but Cable was scary big and it was pointless. “Put me down!”

  “Put her in the car. I’ll drive her back to the compound,” Iron said calmly but his words told me I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

  “No. No!” I pleaded angrily.

  “Are you sure you want to do that with me right here?” the detective said stepping up to the crowd. There was a smugness in his tone. I hated it but I was also thankful for it right now.

  Iron’s jaw clenched and there was a blazing fury in his gaze.

  With a nod from his Prez, Cable released me, making sure that I was steady on my feet before pulling his hands completely away.

  I took off for my car, fumbling with my keys as I drew closer. I nearly tripped over the curb but managed to keep myself from hitting the ground. Without a look back, I took off.

  Tears streamed down my face as I drove away from that horrible scene. I opened the window in hopes that the fresh air would make it easier to breathe. There was no rumble of motorcycles following me and I was torn between being grateful and feeling so alone.

  But I was alone.

  Maybe I’d had it wrong all along.

  I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t part of the club, I was just a dot on the outside. They would protect themselves first and always. Not me. Not my wishes and not my wants. No, not me at all. I wondered if Iron even thought about it before he did it. Did he care that burning my brother’s body until it was nothing but charred dust was something I didn’t want? Something I couldn’t ha
ndle? I knew Dade was gone and he wasn’t coming back. All these months I’d been out here talking to him, I knew he couldn’t really hear me. But there was something about knowing that I was talking to ash that gutted me. Iron had done this to protect all of them, but in doing so, he’d left my heart and soul shredded.

  I couldn’t explain why it was so important to me, but it was. He was gone, yes, but I needed him to be at rest as whole as possible.

  All our lives, we’d been put up on pedestals simply to be cut down over and over again. Expectations had been thrown at us that were just unrealistic. According to our parents, Dade had been a disappointment because he wasn’t smart enough. When I came along, Dade was pushed to the side. The older I grew, the more I could see that I had all of their attention and what I thought was love at the time. And when I was old enough to grasp what was going on, Dade was leaving. I could see it though, the hole carved out of him by our parents. The parts he’d ripped away to give to them in hopes that he would one day be good enough in their eyes.

  It wasn’t until after he’d left that I realized he was just as lonely as I was.

  Then he lost his leg. Sure, some might have said that it was only a limb and that he was lucky to still have his life. But really, it was life kicking him in the dangly bits again. Because he’d never felt whole and now there was another piece missing, this one he couldn’t hide. I knew it and that was why his anger never bothered me.

  He’d never been mad at the club though. I didn’t understand it at first, but the longer I stayed, the more I got it. The club was everything to him, even after he lost his leg. They accepted him just the way he was from the beginning and after the accident, they didn’t treat him any differently. Dade had found the love he’d been needing his entire life here. And because of that, I couldn’t hate the club completely.

  That didn’t mean that I wasn’t hurting deeply and feeling the sting of betrayal down to the bone.

  Again, I was reminded that I wasn’t part of the club. I wasn’t a brother and that meant that I took last place on the priority list. Maybe I’d known it all along but it had never been thrown in my face until now.

  What was I supposed to do? Where was I to go?

  I could go home but there were reasons why I hadn’t. And I never wanted to again. I could change who I was and tuck the odd parts of me away and my parents would welcome me back with tight smiles. I could live the rest of my life a shell of myself and utterly lonely, but at least I’d have a roof over my head. There, I knew what was expected and there wouldn’t be any surprises like the one I’d just had. My parents would always find a way to cut me down and prove that I wasn’t good enough, but at least with them, I could see when it was coming.

  My heart felt like it had been ripped to shreds and it ached so bad. That was the worst part, I hadn’t seen something like this coming. I would have never expected it in a million years. It seemed that I was that stupid, naïve girl that everyone thought I was.

  I knew I couldn’t stay at the compound anymore. I didn’t trust a single one of them. How could I? I searched for something, going over all the time that I’d spent here in my head. I was mad but I was also desperate to find something good in all of this, but it just wasn’t coming forth.

  I was headed back to the compound because I didn’t know what else to do. I knew that I could lock my door and no one would bother me. It might have been on their property, but it was my space. I knew they respected it.

  As I pulled around the back of the first building, I saw Charming there. His hair was damp and so was his tank. He had on loose shorts and sneakers telling me that he had been out for his daily run. With his arms crossed over his chest I couldn’t tell if he was there to stop me or comfort me. Could he have heard what had happened and was mad for me?

  I threw the car into park harder than necessary and jumped out. I came at him with a force of desperation because that was what I was, desperate for his protection and strength right now. And when his arms dropped to his sides, I rushed toward him.

  I stopped short, a few feet lingering between us. His face, his eyes, they told me everything I needed to know. There was so much guilt swirling in there.

  “You knew?” I asked and my voice broke right along with my heart. “You knew what was done to my brother and you didn’t tell me?!”

  “Abigail, wait,” he said and I dodged his reaching arm as I ran past him. “Let me explain.”

  “Explain what? That you guys went against my wishes to save all your asses?!” I threw my door open and was in the process of slamming it closed when his foot blocked the way. He didn’t step in, his arms leaning against the frame like he was trying to hold himself back. “There isn’t a single thing that you could say right now to fix this.”

  “Abs—”

  “No!” I yelled, my finger going up and pointing at him with anger. I might have been shaking but my vision was a little blurry at the moment and I couldn’t tell. “You don’t get to call me that. You don’t get to call me anything. I thought I knew you. I thought this was something. But you don’t do that to people you care about.”

  “I would have told you. I wanted to. But I thought it was best if you never knew.”

  “Well, that didn’t work out for you, did it?” I said with a crazy chuckle.

  I blindly pulled my suitcase out of the closet and started angrily tossing stuff in it. I tried to focus on the things I needed to grab. The most important was the bag full of Dade’s things that I’d kept. I paused for a second before turning back to my closet. I blindly reached for the bag that held everything and snatched it down from the top shelf. I couldn’t forget that. With shaky hands, I carefully placed it into the suitcase. It didn’t matter how much room it would take up, I wasn’t leaving without it.

  But then my thoughts went to everything else. I had too much now, I’d have to leave some of it behind.

  And yes, some of it was just stuff that I could eventually replace. That said, it made me think about everything I would be leaving. My thoughts again went to my brother. I might have been able to take a small piece of him with me, but I’d be giving up bigger ones.

  The thought nearly had me doubling over. He might have been gone but a huge part of him was still here. It was clear in the way they’d kept his room the way it was for so long. And in the way the sadness still hung around. In how the brother’s still talked about him and remembered the good times. All of it comforted me but right now, it hurt so deep. I was trying so hard to let Dade go but it wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to be. And I realized just now that by leaving here, I’d be giving up a huge part of that. Of his life. Of the good things that I felt would keep me moving forward.

  That was until all of this. Maybe this was the thing I needed to set myself free. That didn’t mean I liked it even a little bit. I felt hurt. Broken. Betrayed. And so damn alone.

  “Please talk to me,” he said, his voice sad and broken. It made me pause, my hands full of underwear ready to be placed inside my suitcase for the purpose of fleeing this place. With a shake of my head, I continued on with my packing. “Don’t leave angry like this.”

  I snorted and rolled my eyes.

  “What do you care? You didn’t care then and I won’t believe that you do now.”

  Stupid, naïve Abigail. I’d proven, yet again, that was all I was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Charming

  In the back of my mind, I had a bad feeling this day would come. I couldn’t see how it would but I knew there was going to be a time when this secret that I’d been a part of would rear its ugly head.

  I watched helplessly as Abigail frantically packed her stuff. The anger she was feeling came out with every movement she made.

  What could I say? I was in the wrong here and I couldn’t imagine how she felt finding out the way she had.

  I heard Biscuit’s nails clicking up the stairs a second before I heard Blade’s lumbering steps. Biscuit ignored me, darting into the room th
rough the space between my legs.

  Abigail paused long enough to pick her up, give her a quick pet, and set her gently on the bed next to the suitcase.

  I was at a loss at what to do now. I knew nothing I might think of to say would make this better and she probably hated me. I couldn’t fucking blame her. I hated myself right now.

  Blade shouldered me out of the way, causing me to stumble, turn, and hit my back on the unforgiving door frame. I wasn’t sure I wanted him here but I did nothing to stop him. I knew that if she wanted him out, she wouldn’t hesitate to let him know. And Blade might have been an asshole but he’d never do a thing to make her feel truly uncomfortable.

  A sad laugh rang out in my head and I realized why I hadn’t stopped him. Blade always seemed to know the best way to handle Abigail. His blunt, to the point attitude worked with her. I fucking hoped it worked now.

  “Abigail, stop,” he said. His voice was low and gruff but not harsh. She did as he said, releasing the clothes in her arms the same time she pushed a long breath out of her nose.

  I watched from the background, feeling like the asshole on the outside of it all. Her eyes were full of tears as they slowly dragged themselves up to meet his. She softened for him, for just a split second anyway. I hated it as much as I was grateful for it.

  “You knew too?” she asked as if hearing the answer would absolutely crush her.

  “Yes,” he said with not an ounce of apology or guilt in his tone.

  “Why?” she asked him.

  “Because it was the right thing to do,” he told her and I could see his head give a little nod. “For Dade.”

  “How… what does that even mean? You did this to save your own skin, all of you.”

  “No, baby girl, that’s not why.”

  I was a little shocked at the name that slipped from his lips. For some odd reason, it seemed unnatural but also didn’t sound as odd as it should have. But there was something about it that caused cautious sparks to go off in my head.