TRACE
Monday was an eternity in coming. The weekend passed like fucking molasses, made worse by the fact that Bone had gone on a complete rampage over the weekend. A drunken bender would have been a kind term. The whole clubhouse was in an uproar over the fucking rat and the stolen drugs. It was only a matter of time before Anders made a move into their territory and that shit was going to be hard to take back. It would mean bloodshed and lost lives. Bone was pissed the guy that Tommy tortured hadn’t given them anything more than he knew that Anders had the drugs. Bone already knew that. It didn’t bring them one step closer to figuring out who the rat was and that drove Bone mental. He didn’t like that he was losing control of his own club. That the men behind him might not be entirely loyal.
Trace rode his bike to Sandra’s apartment. He couldn’t believe she was still in the same spot. Time hadn’t been kind to the wooden structure. The massive building was once yellow, but the paint had chipped and faded, peeled and weathered to the point that there was hardly any left. The wood underneath was splintery and gray. The balconies sagged. The dumpsters overflowed. Most of the cars parked in the crumbling lot were broken down old wrecks. It was rough nine years ago, but damn.
It burned Trace up that Sandra still lived in the shithole.
With his son.
He had a kid.
It hadn’t exactly sunk in yet. Fuck. Would it ever? He could probably go an entire lifetime and still not believe it. He had little doubt that Sandra wasn’t going to let him be a part of her kid’s life. Her kid, not his. He might have donated the DNA to make Alex, fuck, she named him after me, but that didn’t make him a dad.
Trace rang the buzzer for apartment number nineteen. His hand didn’t shake. His shoulders were square. He’d worn his fucking cut, because he was an asshole, and the same dark jeans he’d worn the night he’d found Sandra again. He was dressed all in black and he knew it was intimidating. He’d driven his bike because he was also a piece of shit. He could have caught a cab. Dressed like a normal person. Spared her.
He didn’t. There couldn’t be any misunderstandings about who and what he was.
He half expected there to be no answer. It was two on the fucking dot. He was nothing if not punctual. Always had been. Couldn’t stand those fuckers who had no respect for time. If someone told him to get a coffee and be back in five, he was back in fucking four and a half.
He had no doubt Sandra lived there, but she might have changed her mind about letting him inside. She didn’t owe him anything. He’d spent the past few days looking her up. He didn’t earn his name for nothing. There wasn’t a person on earth he couldn’t find or find out about. She’d lived there for the past eleven years. She’d dated a few guys on and off. The longest, and the most recent, Steven St. Vincent, a piece of shit who did the nine to five, suit and high class lifestyle, but dabbled in dealing on the side, lasted for six months. She’d broken it off nearly three months ago.
Apparently her taste in men hadn’t improved.
The door clicked in his face and Trace started. Sandra didn’t owe him anything. Not one fucking thing. Not even an explanation. He was the one who left her. Chose his lifestyle over her. He was in too deep to stop when he met her. Not even loving her could change his mind.
He pulled the door open and stalked down the grimy hall. The original color of the carpet was past recognition. Garbage right beside the mail boxes.
Fuck. My kid is being raised here.
He marched down the hall, vowing that with every loud thud of his shit-kickers, that it was going to change. He had money saved up. Plenty of it. He’d done well for himself. Up until a year ago, he’d actually enjoyed his time with the club. It all changed the night Big Ted’s daughter pulled him from the watery depths that should have been his grave. He’d done some real fucking soul searching and didn’t like what he saw.
He was thirty-five years old and he’d wasted much of his life on shit he wasn’t proud of.
That wasn’t the point. The point was, he’d done well for himself doing so. For years he’d lived at the club so he didn’t even have a mortgage. But he did at the moment, on a tiny apartment that didn’t look like much and only served as a place to crash. He’d bought it the year before, after he’d nearly drowned. The need to get away from the club house, the men, the booze, the fucking debauchery, and bullshit was that great.
He raised his hand to knock on the battered door. It was missing the last digit and just said one, though there was a faded spot on the wood beside it. The door swung inward before his fist hit wood and Sandra was there.
She looked like an angel, her blonde hair flowing around her shoulders, her cornflower blue eyes shining, though guarded. She had a flowing maxi dress on, an emerald green number that covered her from head to foot, left no cleavage exposed and no leg, but somehow still looked fucking gorgeous. It did little to hide her sweet curves. She was small, always had been, but he liked petite women. Fuck, he liked any women, but he’d always had a soft spot for Sandra. He didn’t know what it was exactly.
No, that wasn’t true. He did.
It was her spirit, her heart, her soul. It had nothing to do with the tiny package that was her beautiful body, the delicate features of her face, her silky blonde hair, piercing eyes, full lips, her pert breasts and tight ass- okay, maybe it had a little to do with that, but he hadn’t just loved her for her body. He’d loved her for her kindness, her compassion towards every living thing. She’d grown up on a farm an hour outside Detroit and she loved animals. She used to volunteer at a dog and cat shelter, cleaning and playing with cats and walking the dogs. She was the kind of person who would give her last dollar to someone who needed it more.
She’d always been way too fucking good for him and he damn well knew it.
“Hey,” he forced out, realizing he was standing there ogling her like the asshole that he was.
“Hey.” She moved back and the door swung open. Her hands clenched in front of her waist, tucking in the folds of her plain dress. Her eyes swept over him and his heart did something strange in his chest. It hurt, whatever the fuck it was up to in there.
“I- is it alright if I come in?”
She rolled her eyes and he realized she hadn’t lost her sense of humor, her wit, or the snarkiness that attracted him to her in the first place. “I guess you better. If I wasn’t going to let you in, I wouldn’t have told you to come in the first place.” She might look sweet and innocent, but that mouth could blister the ear off any seasoned biker.
“Right. Er- alright.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. His fingers rasped over the thick stubble that he still hadn’t bothered to shave. His other hand gripped the door frame so hard that his knuckles turned white.
“Nothing to say?” One sandy blonde brow arched. “I thought you’d have plenty to say.”
“I’ve spent the weekend thinking about it,” he admitted. “Maybe I overthought it, because I’m here and I can’t think of a single thing.”
She turned, leaving the door wide open. He watched her hurry off to the kitchen, no doubt to make some coffee. Sandra didn’t drink. Not even beer or wine. She just didn’t like the stuff. She’d offer him coffee out of habit.
He stepped inside and shut the door. Out of habit, he slid the lock into place. Sure enough, Sandra emerged from the kitchen holding two cups of coffee. “I assume you still take yours black?”
The fact that she remembered fucked up his insides a little more. All sorts of wild sensations ricocheted through his chest. “Yeah. Thanks.” He took the mug and followed Sandra into the living room. The place still looked pretty much the same. He’d caught a glimpse of the kitchen and the appliances were still the old junkers they always had been. The living room had a new framed picture, the kind of thing they sold at department stores. It was blue and green with dead trees, their scraggly branches reaching to the sky.
A laptop sat on a beat up desk in the corner. The couch was different, leather, but well used, probably purchased second hand. There was a smaller flat screen TV in place where the old one had once been, but the stand was the same. It was like entering a time warp, but everything had changed.
He took a seat before Sandra did. She was sure to sit as far away from him as possible. The living room was small and the only piece of furniture was the couch. Unless she wanted to stand, she didn’t have a different seating option. He knew that down the hall, there were two small rooms, the second the size of a closet, the first barely bigger, and an ancient bathroom. He doubted it had been updated.
“Uh…” she took a sip of her coffee, winced because it was too hot, and set the mug on the beat up black coffee table. Her cup rested in the perfect outline of so many other cups before it.
He set his down on the table without drinking. “I have a son.” He didn’t see the point in skirting the reason he was there.
Sandra’s eyes dropped down to her hands. “Yes. He’s- he’s yours.”
“You never told me.”
Those eyes, blazing fire, flew to his face. “Of course not. Would you have if you were me? You left me, A- Trace. I had no idea where you even were. You told me that it was over. I know that you chose the club over me. It’s obvious that you patched in. You got what you wanted. I was a- a distraction at best. I understood that there was no future. I knew you wouldn’t want a kid. I- I didn’t want my son involved in that life.”
“Did you know? When we were still together? Did you know you were pregnant?”
She didn’t hesitate and he could tell she wasn’t lying. Dishonesty really wasn’t in Sandra’s nature. “No. No, of course not. I would have told you if I knew. I didn’t know until almost two months after you left. I was- sad. I wasn’t eating right. I was depressed. I thought- I thought I was just late. I was working more and eating almost nothing. That can throw things off. By the time I missed a second month though, it finally clued in on me that the tiredness, the sick feeling… it might not all be depression. I- I took a test and of course it was positive. I was terrified. I didn’t think I could do this alone, but the diner was good about it. I told them right away and they gave me mat leave. Guaranteed my job when I got back. I struggled through it. This place isn’t much, but it’s home and it’s safe enough. I have Alex. We have each other. That’s all that matters.”
“You should have told me,” Trace ground out, voice gravelly and bleeding, just like his damn heart. “I would have supported you. Given you payments. Taken care of you so you could get a better place.”
“I know.” Sandra nodded. “I didn’t- want that. I wanted Alex to stay away from that. I didn’t feel that taking your money and not having you in his life would have been fair. I didn’t know what you’d do if I told you. If you- if you even wanted to be a dad.”
“Were you afraid I’d take him from you?”
“I- I don’t know,” Sandra admitted. It was painful to hear those words. “I guess not, not that way exactly. I just couldn’t risk him finding out who you were and the things you did. I- I never wanted him to know. I wanted to keep him safe above all. What you- you and that club do- that’s not safe.”
The unspoken accusation hung between them. “I’m sorry,” Trace finally said, though he knew words were so damn inadequate. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you until that night. That I- that I didn’t let you know before. I should have told you who you were with.”
“We were together for over six months,” Sandra said carefully, her voice surprisingly devoid of bitterness. Maybe enough time had passed that she’d made peace with what he’d done. How he’d kept the truth of what he really was from her and how he’d left her as soon as he knew he was going to patch into the club. “I- I never knew. When you did tell me… I knew it was the end. I didn’t want to be a part of that.”
“No?” He was a shit head, but he had to bring it up. “What about Steven St. Vincent? Drug dealer extraordinaire?”
“You’re an asshole,” Sandra spat. She blinked hard. “I didn’t know he was doing that on the side. When I found out, I broke up with him.”
“Where did you even meet a piece of shit like that?”
“At the diner. He was a regular. Used to come in all the time for breakfast. He always wore a suit. I don’t trust men in suits, but he wore me down after a few months. I just got tired of saying no.”
She blushed and hot bitter jealously twisted in his gut. The thought of Sandra with that weasel, with any man, made him want to snap. She wasn’t his. She had her own life and could do what she wanted, but sitting right there across from her, it brought it all back, all the feelings and emotions, aches and pains, he thought were long buried. Long dead.
“I- when I found out what he was doing, I broke it off. He- it wasn’t going to work anyway.”
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Heat stirred in all the wrong parts. His groin tightened and his cock hardened. Images of Sandra naked, panting his name, flashed across his mind. He swallowed hard. It just proved that he was truly a piece of shit.
He didn’t own her. He had no right to imagine those things, to remember them, to want them again.
“Why not?” He forced the question out past the lump clogging his throat, aware that he shouldn’t have asked it in the first place. There was suddenly something charged between them, the very air thick with it. “Why wouldn’t it have worked? What about the others? Why didn’t it work with them?”
Sandra’s eyes tracked back to her hands. She couldn’t look at him. He balled his hands into fists, sure she wouldn’t answer. It would be better for him if she didn’t. He wanted her too much. Coming to her apartment had been a mistake. It brought back everything in a hard rush. The past. The present. The future he never thought he’d have, but he wanted now more than ever.
He had no right to think it. To hope. There was nothing left between them. He’d shattered it all the night he’d broken her heart, chose a destructive lifestyle over a woman who could have been his everything. He’d run because he was afraid. He’d needed a family again and he picked his brothers over her because he was scared. He’d have to risk his life with the club. He knew that, but it was better than risking his heart.
“Why?” he asked again, thicker, harder, voice more gravelly. He needed to force the answer out of her. He needed to know.
She finally looked up at him, her eyes wide and swimming with unshed tears. Her delicious lips parted disconcertingly. Her tongue swept out to moisten them and goddamn it, he wanted to be the one to lick her lips, to taste her. Her cheeks burned, the pink hue rendering her almost girlish.
His dick, which didn’t get the memo about not being an asshole, jumped to life. His balls clenched so hard they nearly curled up into his stomach. The sunlight spilled in from the window behind the couch, haloing her golden hair. She looked like an angel. And he was nothing. Not the devil. Not the dirt beneath her feet. Nothing.
His hands balled into fists as he waited, sure she wouldn’t answer. She remained silent. She blinked and hot tears spilled down her cheeks. His chest ached. Those tears hit him straight in the gut. He was a bastard. He’d destroyed her then and he’d made her cry just by being there. He had to fucking go. He’d send her a note and money. Tell her he wouldn’t intrude into her life or her son’s life. Send her the money every month so she could afford a better place. Fuck, he’d do some digging and put that money straight into her account so she couldn’t refuse it. It was the very least he could do for her.
He shoved to his feet and was about to leave, to get the hell out of there, to spare her anything more, when her whispered words, so soft, so guileless, stopped him in his tracks.
“It didn’t work out… nothing worked out… because- because none of them were you.”