Chapter Twenty-Two
Selena
It’s easier this way. It’s always easier this way. I’d rather spit in his face and leave him, standing there angry and mute, than hang around to face the consequences.
So I cut and run. It’s what I always do. I’m good at it.
He calls my name once, but I don’t respond. I don’t even turn around to look because I know if I do, the chance I’ll break is too great.
And I can’t break. I can’t waver. Because Jake depends on it.
But I leave that parking lot with tears flowing from my eyes.
I know what could happen if things were just a little different between us. I’ve seen flashes of the kind of man he can be, in between those moments where his demons get the better of him. I know that if I hung around, if I made it clear that I really give a damn about him, he could pull it together. He could make a step towards progress instead of falling backward.
He really could be my second chance.
But I can’t do it.
I can’t leave myself vulnerable like that.
Time and again, this world has taught me that if you open yourself up to someone, all you’re doing is making it easier for them to hurt you. I do a good enough job of hurting myself on my own, I don’t need anyone else’s help to experience pain.
When Jarrett and I were together in Reno, that’s the closest I’d ever been with anyone. Even Jake’s father — some ‘friend of the club’ who I had a passing acquaintance with one night after too much bourbon, a man who never had even a passing predilection towards using condoms — kept his distance; I never really saw him after that night, and I doubt he even knows he has a son.
But I never needed him. I never needed anyone. I could handle things on my own.
And when Jarrett and I pulled off that heist, when I held in my hands enough cash to actually start my life, and my kid’s life, over again — somewhere safe, somewhere new, somewhere independent — I took that cash and I ran.
I never paid my debt.
Until a couple weeks ago, my debt never caught up with me.
And then someone knocked on my door. He was dressed well, in a shirt and tie, and he smiled and introduced himself as Killian Ward. When I told him I’d never heard of him and asked him what he was here about, he told me he was the head of the Bloody Jackals chapter in Salem. But I could call him ‘Bones’, he said.
I tried to shut the door, but he lashed out and knocked me backwards, and I hit the ground screaming.
Killian loomed over me, still smiling, and he casually pressed the barrel of his gun to my forehead; the steel was so cold, it made me shiver while he leaned and whispered into my ear that he wasn’t planning on killing me, but, if I wouldn’t shut up, he’d teach me what it’s like to watch the light die in your child’s eyes as they learn what pain truly is.
I shut up, then. One of Killian’s associates came in and took Jake away. Every selfish choice I’d made caught up with me in that instant that I saw my child taken away as collateral.
My child. A commodity.
They took us to their clubhouse and, in a back room, they did things to me I’ll never forget.
I’ll never forget the way he smiled at me while he made me scream.
I’ll never forget those whispered threats of what he’d do to my child if I didn’t cooperate and get them the information that they wanted.
All because of a war.
All because of Jarrett and his club’s business.
And all because of me.
Each step forward is a step towards town and my eventual freedom. Each step forward is a step away from a man and from his club that would’ve accepted me as one of their own. But instead, I chose to burn them and condemn them to a bloody death.
I’ve got one path ahead of me: to walk every last painful mile to Jarrett’s house, to collect my things, to pray the men holding my son will honor their word, and to try to start over some place far away from here and every painful memory of what could’ve been, if only I hadn’t been such a selfish idiot two years ago.
I have to forget about everyone behind me.
My selfish short-sighted choices have left me on my own.
It’s just me and my son. Everyone else I’m leaving behind is as good as dead.