CHAPTER FIVE
I need to come clean with Marcel.
Today showed me how in deep we are with each other. My foolish attempt to chase him away, thinking it would keep him safe, seems stupid and pointless now.
He deserves to know everything. I trust this man more than I’ve ever trusted anyone in my life. It’s both terrifying and comforting.
When we return to my apartment, Carter pulls me aside. “I’m going to crash at Bianca’s tonight.”
“Are you sure? You can stay here.”
“Nah. I’ll stop by in the morning though. We can do breakfast or something.” He lifts his chin toward my apartment where Teller disappeared so I could have a moment alone with my brother. “He’s a good guy, Charlotte. Don’t let the shit with Uncle Chuck and his stupid club interfere.”
“I’ll try.”
“If it comes down to Chuck or Teller. Choose Teller.”
“I think I already have.”
“Good.” He leans in and kisses my cheek. “Love you.”
“We’re orphans for real,” I say.
“We’ve been orphans for a long time, sis. It’s just official now.”
“True.”
“Feels good, right?” he says sadly, walking away.
“Love you,” I call out. He throws his hand up in an answering wave.
Marcel’s in my kitchen when I finally enter my apartment. “Where’d Carter go?”
“To his friend’s.”
“He all right?”
I almost cry from his concern. Defending Carter earlier came from a genuine desire to protect my brother, not from some arrogant desire to cause trouble in my uncle’s clubhouse. “I don’t know.”
After my father died, no one gave a shit about Carter. Instead, my uncle fed my brother bullshit stories about how Carter was now the man of the house. Later, he called my brother a sissy for not wanting to learn to ride. When he realized my brother had no interest in prospecting for the Wolf Knights, Carter was of no use and he full-out ignored him.
Somehow Marcel’s accepted my brother into the small circle of people who matter to him. Because of me. Because he’s just a decent guy. A man so loving and loyal I can’t even comprehend it. Good to his core no matter what he thinks of himself. He stood up for my brother in a way, that as a woman connected to the Wolf Knights, I’ve never been able to. In a way that matters in their world. He didn’t have to risk pissing Chuck and Keeper off, but he did it because he felt it was right.
“I’m sorry about the other day.” I accept the mug of coffee he hands me and take a seat at my kitchen table.
“Were you worried about me going to your mom’s funeral?” he asks gently.
Staring into my coffee cup, I nod.
“I wish you’d told me.” He shifts, his chair scraping across the floor as he moves closer to me.
“I didn’t know what to do.”
“I understand.” His gaze settles on my face. “Don’t chase me away again.”
It’s both an order and a plea.
“I know how strong you are,” he continues. “You don’t need me. But I want to take care of you, Charlotte. Whenever something bad happens, I want to be by your side.”
My eyes water. No one’s taken care of me since my dad died. I took care of Carter. Took care of my mother until I had enough and left for college. Everything after, I dealt with on my own.
Marcel pulls me into his lap, and I curl my arms around him, resting my forehead against his. His leg shifts, adjusting me in his lap, reminding me of the awful stuff he’s survived. “You’re wrong. I do need you,” I whisper. “How about we take care of each other?”
“That sounds good to me,” he answers in a low, rumbling voice.
Tears sting my eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, Marcel. Or cause problems for your club.”
“Charlotte.” He uses two fingers to lift my chin and meets my eyes. “The only thing that could hurt me is being shut out of your life.”
I sniffle and nod.
“No more.”
My hands twist in the folds of my dress. “I need to take this off.”
His face remains passive. We’re still on shaky ground. And I still need to come completely clean with him. He gives me a nudge. “Go on. I’ll clean up in here.”
I don’t bother shutting my bedroom door. All I want to do is peel this awful dress off and toss it in a bonfire.
It feels like a flannel pants kind of day. I add a T-shirt and go find Marcel.
He’s in my living room, sitting on the corner of my couch. Legs crossed with his ankle resting on his knee. Tapping his fingers along the edge of his boot. “Hey.” He smiles and holds his hand out. “Feel better?”
A warm wave of emotion rolls up my throat, prickling my eyes with tears. “No.” I don’t quite know how to accept the comfort he’s offering, but I allow him to pull me into his arms and hold me while tears run down my cheeks. “I feel so guilty,” I whisper.
“Why, Sunshine?”
The nickname makes me smile through my sorrow.
He uses his thumb to brush the tears off my cheek. “Talk to me.”
I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’m relieved that she’s gone and I know that’s awful. I loved her, but I hated her too.”
While I gather my thoughts, he holds me, rubbing slow, comforting circles on my back.
“She always seemed to hate me, but it’s not like she treated Carter any better. I always wondered why she even bothered having kids. My dad was the one who did stuff with us.” I babble out all the thoughts and feelings that come to mind while Marcel listens. “When he died, it was awful.”
“Did your uncle help you guys out?”
Nausea rolls through me and I sit up. “Yes and no. He gave her money. Fed her habits. Kept a roof over our heads, so I guess that’s something.”
Without the full story, I probably sound like an ingrate to him.
I close my eyes, debating whether to share my darkest pain. If he ditches me because of my emotional baggage, better he do it now.
Before I fall any more in love with him.
Charlotte looks so lost. I keep touching her, trying to reassure her I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. My hand curls around her neck, my thumb brushing her soft skin. Under my fingers, her pulse beats wildly, even though on the outside she seems calm.
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing. After my dad died, Chuck was in and out of prison.”
“Club still take care of your mom?”
“Ulfric made sure we were okay. He was more like an uncle to me than Chuck ever was. He tried to get my mom sober, but it never stuck.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes.”
She takes a few deep breaths. Trying to center herself? Calm down? I can’t tell. “What’s going on in your head? Your pulse is out of control.”
Her eyes widen and she leans into my touch, rubbing her cheek against my hand. “It’s nothing. I was such a stupid kid. I bought all the lies and crap the club preached. How innocent my uncle was. That he got railroaded by the system. The usual outlaw garbage.”
She meets my eyes for a second and her gaze darts away. As if she thinks I’m insulted or will disagree. “Go on.”
“So, my brilliant plan was to become a lawyer. Then I’d work for the club and keep them out of trouble.” She squeezes her eyes shut and her cheeks redden. “It sounds so stupid now.”
“It sounds like a girl who lost her dad young and wanted to hang on to what little family she had left.”
Slowly, she opens her eyes. Her head tilts as if she never considered that was her motivation.
“So that’s why you went to law school? You don’t practice criminal law though.”
I thought it was a casual observation, but something about my words causes her mood to shift. Her jaw tightens. She slides off my lap and puts her back to the arm of the couch so she’s facing me and tucks one leg underneath her. “I planned to concentrate in criminal law. After Chuck’s last stint in prison, he was a different man. Harder, meaner, but he also tried to do more for Carter and me. Took more of an interest in our lives.”
The way she says it is almost creepy and a sick feeling settles in my gut.
“He promised to pay for law school if I worked for the club after graduation.”
“Lot of money.”
“You’re not kidding,” she mumbles.
“So what changed your mind?”
“I used to go to the clubhouse all the time when I was a kid. It wasn’t like it is now. Or at least it wasn’t when they had family days. But, we’d go there for barbeques in the summer, Easter egg hunts.” She swallows hard. “Christmas.”
“Yeah, the few times I was there when Ulfric was running things, it was a lot different. Tamer.”
“Right. I was never afraid there. My dad had been a member. My uncle was a member, who would dare touch me?”
The sick feeling twists into a ball of dread in my stomach. “What happened?”
“Winter break my second year of law school, I went to the clubhouse. They were supposed to have a party for members’ kids. Santa, Mrs. Clause, reindeer, all that Christmas crap. I said I’d help out.”
“Carter come with you?”
“No. He had the flu. My mother was already at the clubhouse. I shouldn’t have left Carter alone, but I’d already promised, so—”
In the short time, we’ve been together, it’s obvious Charlotte is a woman who keeps her word. “You felt obligated.”
“Yes.” She swallows hard and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “This is so stupid,” she mutters.
“No, it’s not. Keep going.” We’re close to something, and I don’t want her to back out. I want her to understand she can trust me with everything.
“After the families left, the ‘real’ party began. I guess there was another MC visiting from out of state.”
“Who?” Her eyes widen at my sharp tone, and I work to calm myself. “Do you remember the name?”
“No.”
“How—”
“Let me finish.”
I snap my mouth shut and wait for her to go on. “I remember Chuck telling me I was old enough to stick around for a club party if I wanted to. My mother agreed. I was stupid and curious, so I stayed.”
“And?”
Her cheeks turn pink. “I don’t remember much after that. Which is both a blessing and a curse.”
“Why?”
She stares at me for a few long seconds before continuing. “I woke up the next morning in one of the clubhouse bedrooms. Half-naked and hurting.”
“Fuck.” I stand and walk to the other side of the room, pacing for a few seconds, trying not to explode. When I finally stop, she’s watching me with fear dancing in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” I say, trying like hell to calm down.
After I sit back down next to her, she picks up the story.
“I didn’t feel right. I was sick to my stomach. My head felt like it was going to split in two. I’d never lost a big chunk of time like that before.”
“You didn’t do the drunk-girl, college experience?” I say, trying to inject some humor before she exposes more of what I suspect is an awful story.
“No. I told you. I tried to fit in when I went to college. But not with that crowd. I worked hard because I wanted to earn at least a partial scholarship to law school. I had a steady boyfriend for a few years too, so I didn’t bother going out much.”
The boyfriend part is new to me, and I want to punch myself for actually being jealous of some guy she was involved with years ago.
“Same thing in law school. The drink ’til you puke thing never appealed to me.”
“Go on.”
“I hurt.” She squeezes her legs together and the blotchy patches on her face and neck go from pink to red. “Down there. Bad. There was blood on me and I knew it wasn’t my period.”
A strangled noise works out of my throat and I sit forward. “Did you go to the doctor?”
She nods. “I went to the hospital.” For a brief second, she meets my eyes. “More than one person raped me while I was unconscious. They found trace amounts of Rohypnol in my blood.”
“Tell me you prosecuted these fuckers.”
Her head tilts as if she feels sorry for me for being naive.
“I thought my uncle would take care of it for me. That’s how the club works, right? Someone hurt a member of his family, I figured he’d want to handle it. It wasn’t in my nature to go to the cops.”
Knowing how my own club operates, that makes sense. I’ve personally dealt with at least three fuckers who hurt a woman I cared about. No cop or court was going to do what needed to be done, so we handled those situations ourselves.
Is that wrong?
It’s wrong to hurt a woman. These guys would do it again and again without remorse. So, no, I didn’t think it was wrong.
“I understand. Believe me.”
“You rescued Mariella,” she says. “A girl you barely knew.”
“Right.”
“And you took care of the ones who hurt her…who killed her, didn’t you?”
“Damn fucking right.” No point denying it. She might as well know who I am and what I’m capable of now.
“Well, my uncle didn’t have your zeal or compassion.”
My stomach drops. “What do you mean?” I ask in a low voice.
“He said ‘my behavior’ insulted him in his own clubhouse.”
“What?” Even as a fucking kid I was able to sense something off about my mother’s boyfriend and did everything I could to protect my sister. A grown fucking man blamed his niece for what happened under his roof? When he should’ve protected her? I can’t fucking wrap my head around it.
After my family shut me down, ignored what happened to me, and expected me to do the same, I wanted to keep that pain locked down. I never tried to talk about it with anyone I cared about again.
Until now.
Until Marcel.
The weight of his gaze rests on me. His anger, his compassion, all of it flickers over his face, but he remains calm. Silent.
“Go on,” he finally says.
“That’s it. There’s nothing else to tell.”
“Merlin did nothing?”
“He didn’t want to bring attention to my fuck-up.” My hands ball up into fists in my lap. “He said, since I couldn’t remember what happened, maybe I enjoyed it. Or even initiated it.”
“Initiated it?”
I shrug. “He said to get over it and move on with my life. Maybe be more careful next time.”
“What a fucking piece of shit.” He stands and paces. “Does Carter know?”
“I never told him. He was still in high school. But I think he always suspected something. You’ve seen how impulsive he can be. I didn’t want him doing something stupid and getting hurt.”
And I was ashamed. I couldn’t burden my little brother with something so ugly. But I leave that part out.
“What about your mother? Did you tell her?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “She said ‘what did you expect?’ And—” I swallow hard and force out the final knife my mother lodged in my heart that day “—maybe if I wasn’t so uptight a guy wouldn’t have to drug me to fuck me.”
“Jesus Christ.” His mouth opens as if he has more to say, but instead, he shakes his head. “She blamed you.”
“I know that sounds unbelievable, that no mother would say that to her daughter—”
He shakes his head. “No, it really doesn’t.”
The honesty between us is too much. Too brutal, and I turn away.
“I felt completely helpless. This horrible thing had happened and no one believed me. No one cared. I only remembered these tiny, horrifying fragments of that night and couldn’t talk to anyone about it.”
“What’d you do?”
“I stayed far away from the club. Told Chuck not to bother paying my tuition anymore. That I didn’t need his assistance and I wouldn’t be working for the club. Ever.”
“You said that to him?”
“Damn right I did. Told him I’d pay him back every penny once I had a job and he agreed.”
“I’m surprised he let you go that easy.”
“I always assumed he felt guilty.”
Teller snorts.
“Anyway, I went back to school furious. Switched my concentration to family law. Dropped and added classes the first day of the semester. Then I shoved it out of my mind. Buried myself in school work.”
“How long’d that last?”
“Not long. By summer I started unraveling. I had more and more flashbacks and nightmares. I didn’t know if they were actual memories or my mind filling in the blanks, but I started drinking to block it all out.”
“That why you don’t drink much now?”
“Pretty much.” I hesitate, unsure if I want to continue revealing so much. “I hated myself. I couldn’t stand being in my own body. I didn’t know who had been inside it. What they had done. I felt contaminated,” I whisper.
He nods, and the simple gesture gives me the courage to continue.
“I started having random hook-ups. It gave me a sense of control. I chose who I wanted. Did what I wanted. Remembered every detail the next day.”
His jaw works but the words he comes up with surprise me. “I understand.”
“Can you? There’s not even a small part of you that’s bothered?”
“Fuck no,” he answers immediately. “I’m the last person…No, I’m not bothered.”
“I almost didn’t go back to school. But then, it felt too much like letting Chuck and my mother win if I dropped out.”
“You pulled it together?”
“Sort of. My third year was rough. Christmas was horrible. Every jolly Santa I saw triggered me into a fucking panic attack.”
“Christ.” He runs his hand over the back of his neck a few times before facing me. His wild and haunted eyes hold me hostage, and I steel myself for the question he’s about to ask.
“Do I? Have I ever done anything to…trigger you?”
The word rolls off his tongue unnaturally as if he’s never used the word trigger in this context. Hell, I’m sure he hasn’t.
I reach out and take his hand, needing the connection as much as I think he does. “No. Never,” I answer honestly. “Please, don’t see me any differently.”
He stares at me for a moment. “I see you, Charlotte and I love everything I see.” My eyes water and he squeezes my hand. “Go on.”
“I finally stopped cycling in and out of these unhealthy hook-ups and found a therapist. I stopped dating altogether and concentrated on working through everything, but my grades went to shit. I buckled down to study for the bar exam and managed to pass. Chuck had the nerve to come to my graduation and pretend that he was proud of me. Bragged to all his bros about helping me out. I wanted to kill him.”
Maybe I should have left that last part out. Marcel looks ready to kill someone.
“Since my grades were so bad my last year, I had trouble finding a job. I was so happy when I finally did so I could start paying my uncle back.”
Marcel’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything.
“That’s it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
He works his hand over his chin and seems to be struggling for what to say. “When you were ready, you told me. Nothing you said changes how I feel about you. If anything, I…thank you for trusting me.”
“I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone in my life.” I swallow hard, thinking about the way my uncle’s acted over the last few weeks. “I wanted you to understand why if it comes down to my family or you, I choose you.” Christ, that sounded heavy. “Well, and Carter told me to pick you,” I say to lighten things up.
A smile breaks the serious expression he’s been wearing. “Did he now?”
“Yup, right before he left.”
“See, I knew I liked that kid for a reason.”
“Thank you for always being so good to him. For sticking up for him.”
“He’s important to you, he’s important to me. I don’t dislike him. He could use a good ass-kicking once in a while, though.”
I can’t help laughing.
“Come here,” he says, curling his hand around the back of my neck. He pulls me closer until I’m kneeling next to him on the couch. “You need to understand something. I’m here for you. I’m on your side. Always.”
“No one…I’ve never really felt that before. No one has ever been there just for me.”
He heaves in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I’ve done so many things wrong, Charlotte. Hurt people I care about. Let them down. I don’t deserve to have you in my life. I’m scared I’ll fail you too.”
He thinks he’s hard, that he’ll end up hurting me eventually.
But he’s the kindest man I’ve ever known.
“Anything else, Sunshine?” I ask after a few minutes.
She sits up, teeth biting her bottom lip but doesn’t answer.
“Your meltdown the other day. It was more than just your mom.” I’m guessing here, but I think I’m right.
Her gaze slides to the floor.
“Charlotte, look at me. Did something else happen?”
Finally, she slowly nods. “Chuck threatened me. Told me not to bring you to the funeral.”
“Motherfucker.” That dirty piece of shit is definitely going to ground. Taking him out requires time and planning though.
And permission from my club.
Unless Merlin comes at me first. Then I’m within my rights to shoot him, gut him, beat him to death. Whatever.
Tonight, I’m not leaving Charlotte’s side.
“I panicked. I knew if I told you, you’d go after him. I was afraid it would start trouble between your club and his. I didn’t want to be responsible for that.”
I graze her chin with my fingers and tip her head back so she meets my eyes. “Please hear me when I say this, Charlotte. If I told any one of my brothers even half of this story, they’d be picking up a shovel to help me bury your uncle’s body.”
“But—”
“No. Don’t ever hide something because you’re worried about that. I’ll protect you. No matter what. Merlin can come at me all he wants. I’ll fuckin’ kill him.”
“You won’t…you won’t tell your club this will you?”
Eventually I’ll have to spill at least some of this to the club. First, they need to understand why she can be trusted. Second, I’ll need a good reason to call for a vote to put Merlin down.
Oh, yeah. Murder’s on my mind.
I answer her as truthfully as I can. “Not unless I have to.”
Charlotte’s a smart woman who understands how things work in our world and what my answer means.