Chapter 9

I want someone to look at me the way I look at bacon.

-Ellen’s secret thoughts

Jessie

We fell asleep that way, her head on my shoulder, and my arm curled tightly around her waist.

We’d done this exact move countless times. Though now, with fourteen years between us, it felt so different.

I knew we needed to talk. Knew it, but the feel of her in my arms made me feel like I was home for the first time in five thousand, one hundred and ten days.

And yes, I’d counted.

I was a fucking fool in love. Had been for fourteen years and would be for the next fourteen.

***

When I woke up, she was gone.

I assumed she was in the other room, so I got in the shower to rinse off the day.

When I came back out, it was to find only Tally, Imogen, and Verity in the kitchen. Ellen and Naomi nowhere in sight.

“Where are the other two?” I asked.

Verity, Truth’s wife, was the one to answer.

“I know that Ellen left in her car about an hour ago,” she said.

I stiffened at hearing that Ellen had left.

“As for Naomi, I assumed she was in her room.”

She was eyeing me like I’d done something terribly wrong, and I instantly knew that they knew about me and Ellen.

They might not know the whole story, but they knew enough to put two and two together.

The clubhouse was big, but the walls were thin. They’d likely overheard what we’d discussed. Mostly because neither Ellen nor I had kept our voices down, and it was more likely than not, as all three women were looking at me like I’d committed the ultimate sin, that they knew every one of our dirty, little secrets now.

“Be back,” I muttered instead of denying their thoughts.

The truth was, Ellen had been with me.

And it pissed me off all over again that she’d leave without talking to me first. Without hashing out what we both knew needed ironed out between us.

Sooner rather than later.

I left the room and went in search of the illusive woman, wondering whether I should be concerned or not that she wasn’t still here.

I stopped in the living room when I saw Fender.

“You see Ellen leave?” I asked as I passed.

He shook his head. “Nope. I was in my room on the phone with my folks. Apparently, they’re coming for a little visit.”

I snorted.

Fender’s parents were very conservative. They hated that he didn’t graduate college. They hated that he worked somewhere they didn’t approve of instead of the family business, and they also hated that he rode motorcycles and had tattoos.

“What about Naomi?” I asked.

“Room, the last I checked,” Fender said distractedly, staring at the coffee table where he was working on a draft of a house. “She came out for an hour or so for some tea. We commiserated on the fact that y’all were fighting outside our rooms, and then she went back in there. I heard the TV turn on and haven’t checked since.”

I sighed.

I was pretty sure that everyone in the whole damn club would know about Ellen and I by sundown.

Annoyed now, I walked straight to the surveillance room that was set up off of the kitchen, and flipped on the monitor.

I rewound to two hours before, then fast-forwarded until I could see what time Ellen left.

Then froze when I saw that Ellen had left, but Naomi was with her.

“Mother. Fucker,” I growled.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Fender,” I stepped out of the room. “Naomi’s gone.”

His head snapped up.

“You’re joking.”

I shook my head.

“Negative,” I said as I pulled out my phone and dialed Ellen.

Ellen didn’t bother with pleasantries when she answered.

“Yeah?”

It sounded like she was crying, and my panic level shot through the roof.

“Ellen, where is Naomi?”

There was a large pause on the other end, and then a whispered, “I dropped her off at home. I’m at my shop. Why?”

I immediately hung up and ran out of the house, heading for my bike, and drove straight for Naomi’s place as my anger boiled beneath the surface.

But the moment I pulled up outside, I saw the blood.

And I knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

***

Four tense hours later, I felt like a shaken up bottle of Coke as I tried to sit in my seat and not go off on the man who’d done his level best to kill anything left inside of Ellen.

Sean had yelled at her for being a part of something she—nor I—had any clue was happening, and I was fuming inside.

“She’s probably dead in there, and you helped her get that way.”

I knew the man was devastated. Hell, I was devastated for letting it happen. He’d told me to keep her there. I’d thought I had. So if it was anybody’s fault, it was mine.

But as I listened to the nearly silent crying coming from Ellen, I’d almost broken down and pulled her into my arms.

But I didn’t.

Only because Sean came out of the room right when I was about to crack, demanding answers of me.

Answers as to why his woman had nearly died. Answers to why I’d let her drive away with Ellen when she should’ve been at the clubhouse under lockdown with the rest of the women.

Not that they were technically on lockdown. At least not that I’d understood. Sure, there’d been some bad things happening to Sean and Naomi lately, but not enough to where I thought I needed to guard the clubhouse with my rifle while sitting on the roof waiting for intruders.

But you didn’t have me watching them! I wanted to growl. You just had me take them all to the clubhouse.

Instead, I took the high road and started to explain. Giving every single piece of information that I had and anything I thought might be relevant.

Then came the hard part, explaining how I’d found Naomi on the floor in her house, bleeding and broken.