He could have answered a hundred different ways. Hell, “I don’t know” would’ve been preferable. Not “No.” I’m not in the frame of mind to accept a flat-out “No.” Not right now. Not after just finding out all of that picky eating and nausea in the morning wasn’t due to the stress of being held captive. Not after being told I’m two-thirds of the way through a pregnancy neither parent wants!
Oh my God, Grams is rolling over in her grave. I know it. Dammit!
I let out another defeated sigh when a knock sounds on my door as I put the last of my things into a bag the nurse gave me. And, half a second later, the toe of Dreads’ boot peeks around the hospital door.
“Hey, Pipsqueak. You dressed?”
I barely see the tip of his nose, but he doesn’t try to peek around it.
“Yeah, I’m sorta dressed. Come in, Dreads.” I toss my bag on the chair beside the bed. “King decide you could be trusted enough to drive me to the club after I’m discharged?” I chuckle, only somewhat wincing when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror above the sink. I grab the clothes someone brought for me from the countertop.
“Yeah, guess so. You doin’ okay?” His husky voice is almost shaky when he leans over and grabs my bag before slinging it over his shoulder.
When the nurse whips in and quickly swooshes the door shut, the breeze notifies me that my backside’s been showing through the opening in the back of the hospital gown. I quickly jerk the material closer to my body.
“Shit. Sorry for flashing you.” I flush before scooting behind the curtain and shimmying my skinny jeans up. Then I slip a Def Leppard T-shirt over my head. “I’m fine. Been better. Had I known I was carrying a freaking alien inside my body, I wouldn’t have turned down all that good food. I’m kinda kicking myself in the ass for it now. I’m so damned weak.”
I will admit, of all things I could be complaining about—or not, ’cause I should probably be dead—weakness truly is a small price to pay. Considering I spent the first six months of my pregnancy holed up in a basement outside Queens, stubbornly starving myself, which is why I’m even able to button these Miss Me jeans.
Fucking Queens of all places. If I would’ve known I was that close, I would’ve tried harder. I wouldn’t have slept. That’s for damn sure. At least not until I’d found a way to escape.
“How’s he…” I hate myself for fucking asking as I step from around the curtain.
I hate myself for caring. I hate myself for having cried from the moment he unusually did exactly what I’d demanded him to. And left.
After I’d told him to get the fuck out, he did. Without another word. Without even a half-assed attempt or an inkling of fight, he silently turned around and walked out. With his necklace in hand.
Who does that? Who?
“He’s all right.” Dreads grasps my shoulders from behind me at the same time his chin rests on the top on my head. “Nurse is here. She wants to take out your IV. Sign your discharge papers and let’s get the hell outta here. It’s gonna be a long night, kid.”
I feel his breath when he chuckles, and I roll my eyes before turning to face the nurse. “Just take my shit to the car. Or bike. You didn’t bring your bike, did you?” The probability dawns on me as he snickers.
“No, Vagabond. I wouldn’t do that to you. I brought the truck.” After he shoulders the hospital bag, he salutes the nurse and makes his way out.
I’m not happy about King making me stay at Jacques’s Sons of Silencers MC. Not in the slightest. But I understand why it’s important not to turn down another MC’s offer during trying times, too. So, unfortunately, that puts me—at least for the next few weeks—under Jacques Cain’s rule. But fear not. Given our history, even if he doesn’t fucking remember it—he’ll quickly learn—I’m not bowing down to him.
I’ll heed his warnings of policy, respect, and protocol, but I’m not his bitch. And he’s made it abundantly clear I’m not his old lady, either.
When Dreads pulls the diesel truck into a parking spot towards the end of a long line of bikes, nervousness begins to get the better of me and I question whether or not the last tray of hospital food I scarfed down will stay...down.
“Why you swallowing so much? You’re acting nervous as shit and we ain’t even parked yet. You gotta pull your shit together, Pipsqueak. Or they’ll eat you alive. Rox may be in there. You know that?” He jerks his chin towards the huge black-and-red building. “I’m supposed to ink her tonight. Some dragon or some shit. She’s already paid.” He shrugs then slides the truck into park before killing the ignition.
As a child who grew up in the system, I’ve had to learn many coping skills. The lengths the mind is capable of in an effort to save itself are astonishing. I’m sure you can only imagine. And the list of coping skills I’ve accumulated over the years is probably much lengthier than you could envision. From deflecting to breathing techniques. Hell, I’ve even been known to compartmentalize. It’s never been diagnosed or documented. But I recognize the enabling technique for what it is.
After I’ve calmed my breathing and focused the majority of my attention on the positives surrounding me, I try to breathe. I’m not in a basement. I’m free to eat what I please. I’m free to smoke as long as I can get my hands on some cigarettes—
No. A negative. A huge negative, Ghost Rider. I can’t smoke. Dammit.
“Hey, I’m just fucking with you. I won’t let anything happen to you.” His knuckle taps my chin. Then he rests it there until I glance up. “I know he loves you. Or loved you. Okay? I talked to the fucker. Many times, when he was drunk off his ass and out of his mind. I’ve heard the shit he’s said in his sleep. I know you’re his Jacqueline. He just doesn’t remember. And, until he does, I got your back. ’Kay, Pipsqueak?” When he winks at me and smirks, tears flood my eyes.
I don’t know why he wants to be my friend or why he’s being so friendly. Nor do I know why he’s being nice to me. But dammit, I need a friend. I need someone, and I’ve had no one for far too long.
“Okay,” I mutter around a smile before glancing down and hoping he doesn’t see the tears as they fall. “Thanks, Dreads. It means more to me than you know.”
His hand reaches across my lap before opening the passenger door to my right. “Don’t mention it. Now, come on. Let’s go find you a room and get you settled. Your pops and cuz left town an hour ago, but they’ll be back in the morning. We’ll get you settled in though. Sound good?” I catch the hint of a dimple when the truck’s cabin light flickers on.
“Sounds good.” I peck his cheek before ducking down and grabbing the lighter of my two bags. “Grab that one, will ya?” Then I slowly slide my way down the height of the too-jacked-up truck.
It’s more quiet than I expected it to be when we step through the open garage doors leading into the compound and housing area of the club from the boneyard. It’s so damn quiet that the hairs on my arms rise and I shudder the farther we make our way into the main room and memories of the last time I was here accost my fragile, compartmentalizing mind.
After Dreads kinda ducks his head, he grabs my hand before quickly clearing our path through the room of people. And when he gets past the bar, Roxy’s dad, Clutch, steps from behind it with a beer he’s in the midst of opening, but Dreads waves him off.
“No, thanks, bro. Jacques in the garage?”
As his words register, however, I start trying to wrench my hand from his grasp. “Wait—Jacques? Y-you said we were finding me a room first,” I stutter around trying to plant my feet, but he proceeds to drag me through the quiet crowd like I’m nothing.
Then Clutch answers over me like I haven’t protested; like I didn’t even speak. “Yeah. A bike came in. Another one. No colors, just black on black. Third one this month. This one had a note. He’s down there, taking her apart. What’s up with her?” The much older, weathered-faced man squints as he assesses me from head to toe, and it shows off every line and crease across his features. “Rox’s here, ya know. She’s not gonna like this one being here, either. I thought Jacques knew she wanted him to tell King and Philip to head to the Holiday Inn before this one was released?”
As the man follows behind Dreads, who's still dragging me, I keep glancing back between attempts to pry my wrist from Dreads’ grip. I can’t decide if the older gentleman who’s trailing behind us is being led by his beer belly by one or two feet in front of him.
“Like it’s ever fucking mattered to Jacques what Roxy wants? I don’t think so. I need someplace to stick this one, and I’m not doing it without Jacques’s consent. So get the fuck off my back. The tension’s too thick for that shit right now anyway,” Dreads barks over his shoulder. Then he opens the door at the end of the stairwell, which leads to another exit on the opposite side of the compound.
When my Chucks hit the black asphalt patched with loose gravel here and there, I assess my surroundings. Even though the sun is setting and it’s darker than it was when we got here, I can see just fine.
Now, I understand the terms I’ve heard being used in the gates of this club and amongst these men. Words like steeple. Church. Respect. Protocol. Even though it’s built from nothing but sheet metal, chrome, and stained glass, it’s humbling. If that even makes sense. There’s a different element to this building the others don’t possess. And it’s palpable, to say the very least.
Just before the door slams shut in front of him, cutting him off from where we stand outside, Clutch mutters, “Tension’s always thick around this motherfucker. What’s new?”
But Dreads doesn’t get the chance to answer. As a matter of fact, his grip on my wrist doesn’t even loosen. Not even a little bit. He stops walking and looks to the left of the beautiful church-looking building. Then he glances back at me, and I can barely make out his eyes through the ill-lit section of the property.
“You’re what’s different. God fucking save us all. I told him you were toxic when all this shit started.” He shakes his head almost like he’s lost in thought for a moment. “Come on. Garage is this way.” He pulls me towards the building surrounded by bikes in different phases of being broken down—or put back together, depending on how you look at it.
But, suddenly, I’m feeling quite pessimistic. Sue me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My words are fast and very sharp ’cause I’m getting real pissed real quick. “Let me go. What the hell, Dreads? What happened to you having my back?” I growl, furrowing my eyebrows more the harder I fight him, trying to wrench my hand back.
And what does he do? What’s his response? He drags. His grip tightens like a vise before he fucking drags me in the direction of the “garage.” Which does seem to appear more like a garage the closer we get to the building. As the driveway and the garage doors come into view, so does Jacques fucking Cain. Bent over a bike, with his back to me. All three feet of exposed tanned and tattooed flesh of it, just a smorgasbord of toned muscle and bone in the shape of a reddish, tanned V.
“I’m just fine with Holiday Inn, actually. He’s made it known he doesn’t want me.” The words keep falling out, and I pray to God that they’ll stop, but they don’t. They keep coming. “Or this child. So why, again, Dreads are we doing this? Where’d my father go?” The anger I’ve been trying to tap into can finally be felt, and I instantly grab onto it like it’s a lifeline. “Fuck Jacques. I’m not here because of him. I’m not here because I’m supposed to be under his care,” I explain as Dreads finishes dragging me into the open bay area of the garage. “Seriously, Dreads!” I yank just as my free left hand connects with a metal bar with a lever jutting from the floor. I yank it without regards to my shoulder or dislocating it with all of my goddamn might! Then I plant my feet and square off with my so-called friend!
I almost let him see me cry! I asked him about Jacques! See if I ever freaking trust him again!
“Fuck. Jacques!” I shout around my quivering chin, which is embarrassing me even more. “Where’s my dad?! Where’s King? I’m not here for Jacques! I’m here—”
His words are cruel. They’re dripping with sarcasm and reeking of sinister cynicism, “Fuck whom? Jacques?” Then the man himself chuckles, sealing the fact that whoever he is now, without the memory of who he was before, remains the same.
He’s a fucking asshole. Either way you slice that pie, his tone alone proves what a dick he is.
I rotate and when I’m confronted with the sight before me, my anger falters. I will not lie—it does.
His worn-out, grease-smudged jeans ride so very low on his hips, and my eyes keep looking down where the butts of two guns are tattooed along the skin under his low dipping V of muscles that are just above his hip bones. The sight instantly makes my mouth go dry.
On its own volition, my tongue sweeps from my mouth to wet my lips as my eyes follow the path of ink and then the short, thick, black hair sprinkled across the planes of tanned, toned, rigid ab muscle after ab muscle. My mouth dries instantly, and I try like hell to swallow the lump and the words lodged in my throat. After the second or third swallow, I can finally speak.
“Yeah. Fuck you. You heard me right. And?” I square off with all six foot six of the towering man in front of me.
And he never once backs off. Not that he should.
When there’s less than a few inches between us, I jerk my head up before continuing. “I’m not like your other groupies, asshole. I won’t beg you to love me. Much less acknowledge me. I have more fucking dignity than that. And I for damn sure won’t be treated like Roxy’s treated for the rest of my life. You made it abundantly clear at the hospital where you stand. With me and this child.” I unconsciously move my hands to the front of my abdomen, and when my knuckles brush his cut before bumping into his belt buckle, I step back, but my eyes remain on his. I hadn’t realized I’d moved so close to him. “I’m not here to piss you off. I’m not here to get in your way. As a matter of fact, if you give me the right room, I can promise you won’t even see me. Or you’ll barely see me. A pregnant girl has to eat, and I’m starving. Constantly.”
I smirk, trying to lighten the subject. Then I decide to be as real as I can be with him. “I wouldn’t be here if King didn’t feel like it was important for me and the few from his club to remain here until this shit’s sorted out. You have to know that, Jacques. I promise I’m not here to bug you. Let’s just park me somewhere in a room far away from you. Then we’ll figure out what we can, and hopefully...we’ll soon go our separate ways. Shall we?”
I’m pleading. I know I am, and I hate myself for it. But, every time I’ve ever tried to use force with Jacques, it’s never worked. It doesn’t stroke well against his ego, I guess. And, if he doesn’t want me here, then I won’t be here. If he doesn’t remember me or care to, I don’t have a problem with that. Okay, other than the hurt it causes, I don’t have a problem with it. But pain, like many things, will ebb with time. And, if anything, I’m a testimony of that, right?
Besides, I know when I’m not wanted. And I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted. The twinge in my heart almost causes my façade to fall. My fake veil of strength that covers the fact that my heart is breaking. But, thankfully, not a single tear wells in my eyes. Even as the hole in the inside of my heart gets bigger the longer he waits to respond in the silent garage, with Dreads standing eight feet away.
The hole in my mouth, the one I’m chewing in response to the pain in my heart, causes a metallic taste to fill my mouth. When he finally speaks…
“That our new deal? We just gonna pretend none of it happened. You just gonna forget that easily? Without even hitting your head?”
The traitorous tear that’s been threatening to spill over my lashes finally escapes when his betraying hand cups my face.
But I still mutter the words anyway. Responding as if I’ve been cast under a spell. For some reason, I’m suddenly unusually eager to divulge the secrets of my heart to him. It may be ’cause of all the pain in my chest. I don’t know. I just speak, muttering exactly what I feel.
“I guess so. But don’t fucking call it easy. You haven’t earned that right. You can’t feel what’s happening on the inside my—” I cross my arms before I pull away from him and turn my back to the room. “You can’t possibly know. So you don’t get to call it easy. You got to forget. I will. I just haven’t yet. But I will.”
“Vagab—” He sighs before he moves towards Dreads and continues speaking. “Top floor. The room next to mine. The one that connects. Put her ass in there. I’ll speak to King,” he barks at the other man before heading back towards the bike on the hydraulic lift.
“Wait. Top floor, room next to mine—no.” I quickly turn before stalking towards him. That’s not what I just said. Nor is it what we just agreed on. “No. I said put me somewhere away from you. Put me in the church. Hell, put me in the two-by-four security room at the front gate. I’ll sleep there. But put me away from you. That was the deal. Hello?”
I’m reaching up to grab his left shoulder when he spins on me. And there’s no fucking way I am ready. Especially with this damn pregnancy vertigo. The floor beneath me tilts, and a second later, he’s got me with his arms around my waist and standing me back up before my knees hit the ground.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, woman. The fuck are you falling for?”
And, for reasons I can’t possibly ever explain to you, I decide to fall completely and utterly the hell apart. Again.
“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know why I’m falling,” I whine through a sob, and it’s damn near the most horrendous sound ever to have met my ears.