It was late, and Ash was exhausted when they got back to the clubhouse. He dragged his ass up to his room and groaned when he found a note on the door from Charlie. He loved that girl, but sometimes she could be a giant pain in his ass. The note said:

“Please come to my trailer. It doesn’t matter what time you get in. I need to talk to you...tonight.”

He took out his phone and sent her a text. “I’m exhausted. What’s up? Can it wait until morning?”

“No. Please,” was her reply. Ash rolled his eyes, stuck the phone in his pocket, and went back down the stairs and out the back door. The night was clear, and cool. By the time he walked all the way across the small compound to where Charlie’s fifth-wheel sat, he was at least wide awake. He knocked on the door and seconds later it was pulled open. He noticed several things all at once. He was hungry. He hadn’t realized that he was hungry until he smelled enchiladas, which were just about his favorite things in the world. He also noticed that the woman who answered the door wasn’t Charlie. It was Mack. That reminded him that he was horny...and Mack looked and smelled better than any enchilada he’d ever had. For a few seconds he forgot to be mad that he was set up...by, his little sister.

“Hi, Ash.”

Ash shook his head slightly to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. Mack was still there, still looking at him with her pretty hazel eyes. Her soft hair lay straight across her shoulders and down her back. She was wearing a light-colored peach sundress and sandals and looking much younger than her twenty-eight years. “What are you doing here?”

She stepped back, pulled the door open wider, and said, “Come in and I’ll tell you.”

“What if I don’t want to come in?” he asked. He was stalling, because he did want to go inside with her, close out the rest of the world, rip off all of her clothes, and fuck her against whatever surface they made it to first. At the same time, however, he didn’t want any of that to happen. He meant what he told Charlie earlier...his life was so much easier without Mack in it.

“Then don’t. I’d really like to tell you what happened back then...but if you don’t want to hear it...”

He sighed. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to relive that terrible day. As he had that thought, however, he found himself following her in through the door. “What is this about, Mack?”

“You still have no patience at all, do you? Can you sit with me, just for a few minutes?” Ash looked at the little booth-like table. A tray full of Mack’s enchiladas sat in the center of it along with a bowlful of Spanish rice...and all the trimmings for both. There were two place settings...and a candle in the center of the table.

“What is all this?”

“Remember our first real date?” They were friends for most of their lives, and it in middle school that Ash started realizing his feelings toward her were changing. Unofficially from the time they were thirteen until they were sixteen, they were already a couple. But the day Ash got his driver’s license and didn’t have to rely on one of his dad’s chauffeurs or his dad himself to drive them, he took her out on a “real” date. They went to a little Mexican restaurant in the Village. It was the only one in New York City and it was Ash’s favorite place. He looked down at the candle again. It was in a little red-and-black glass vase...just like the ones they put on the tables at Rosa’s in New York. They had both ordered the enchiladas and Spanish rice...and iced tea, which he now noticed was on the table as well.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was a long time ago.” Mack’s already anxious smile faltered, and he felt bad...but what was she trying to do?

“Yes,” she said, sitting down at the table. “It was a lifetime ago.”

Ash sat down across from her. “Mack...what is all this about?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you. I realized that you’re right. I should have told you five years ago...six years ago...what was going on, but I was afraid. Please don’t take this as me trying to blame you for my shortcomings, but I was so afraid of how you would react.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She absently stirred the glass of tea in front of her and said, “Do you remember Bobby Landon?”

He rolled his eyes. He was exhausted, annoyed, and in no mood for a trip down memory lane. He just wished she’d get to the point. “Yeah, the little asshole that grabbed your ass our junior year. I defended you and got expelled from school. Dad had to make some big-ass donation before they’d let me come back to finish out my last year.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You defended me. Ash, you put him in the hospital. You broke three of his ribs. You knocked out his two front teeth...”

“So, you’re complaining about me defending you?”

“No. I’m just saying that you always acted with your heart and not your head, and I knew if I told you the truth about why I didn’t show up for the wedding, you might end up...killing someone.”

“What? Why? Fuck, Mack, just spit it out already.”

“Okay, but it’s not that easy. Phil was touching me inappropriately and making gestures that made me uncomfortable for a long time...”

“What the fuck? He was sexually harassing you and I’m just now hearing about it?”

“Please, Ash...this is hard for me. Please let me finish.”

Once again he felt like his insides were burning. It was like the anger was poison and he could feel it eating him up from the inside out. “Go on,” he said, too harshly. “Finish.”

“I was afraid of what you would do to him if I told you. I was just afraid in general. I didn’t know what to do. Finally, and stupidly, I decided to tell his wife. She listened to what I had to say, told me she’d handle it, and basically dismissed me. I didn’t find out until later...the night before our wedding...that she filed for divorce over it, and she was threatening to take everything from him. He blamed me. He came to my apartment after you left that night and...” She stopped. The tears in her eyes and the look on her face told him the rest of the story, and he was choking on the anger. He opened his mouth, and she shook her head and gave him a pleading look. Wiping a tear off her face she said, “He raped me.”

That was it. Ash slammed his fist down so hard on the table that iced tea splashed over the sides of glasses, the enchilada plate rose about two inches and slammed down, and rice splattered everywhere. He stood up, growling about how he was going to kill the motherfucker, and Mack softly said, “Ash, this is why I couldn’t tell you.” Everything Ash had thought, felt, and done over the past week suddenly flashed through his mind. He had watched the way Wolf handled the douchebags they’d had to deal with and he’d promised himself that he was going to work on being more patient and thinking before he acted. But, even after thinking it through, he’d still chosen to exterminate the vermin who killed his friend. How could he ignore the fact that some lowlife had raped his fiancée?

“I don’t see how you would expect me to react any other way. How would you react, Mack?” Mack pulled out her phone and she laid it on the table in front of her. She swiped her thumb a few times and brought up a video. The picture on the screen looked like porn. Some bleach-blonde bimbo with big boobs and naked as the day she was born was sitting on top of some dude. Mack pressed play and Ash watched as the blonde bounced up and down and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. Something about the tattoos on the guy looked familiar...but he couldn’t see his face. When the video panned over and he saw who it was, he actually felt the blood drain from his face. “What the fuck is that? That’s not me...Mack...that’s not fucking me!”

“It was taken that same night. He showed it to me. He said she gave you X and you wouldn’t remember...”

“Oh fuck!” Ash grabbed his head in his hands. “No! No, no, no! Oh God, Mack...you should have come to me. You should have trusted me. Baby, this isn’t real.”

She looked down at the video. It was right on his face and he was obviously in ecstasy. Then it went back to the blonde...and then him again. He watched Mack’s face for a second as it dawned on her...they never showed both of their faces at the same time. “Oh my God! Ash...I thought...Oh God!” Tears were streaming down her face and she was shaking all over.

“You thought I cheated on you?”

“No. I mean, yes, but I thought you were drugged...”

“I was with Sledge all night. We had a few drinks, went to a strip club where he made fun of me for refusing a lap dance...then we went back to the hotel and I went to sleep. I didn’t want to be hung over for our wedding. Jesus, Mack, even drugged I couldn’t have touched another woman. He told you this...and then he raped you?” She nodded, numbly. “Baby, why didn’t you go to the police?”

“He said I was going to Aruba with him for the weekend and I was going to be his...” she choked out, “sex slave, all weekend. He said if I called anyone, especially you, that he would take this video to the cops...do you see the bruises on her neck? He says he has another video of you choking her and he was going to tell the police you raped her and tried to kill her...and she was going to back him up. I’m so stupid. Fuck...I’m so fucking stupid. I believed him. I...”

Ash dropped back down in the seat and reached for one of her shaking hands. “You thought I’d kill him, so you went to Aruba with him?” He felt like he was going to be sick. He could taste the bile in his throat...and it burned. “You did what he told you to do...all weekend?”

She nodded and then, sucking in a big sob, she said, “When I got back, you were gone, and I thought it was better to just leave it alone...he kept saying you’d go to prison either for what you did to her, or what you were going to do to him. Oh God, Ash, I’m sorry.”

The ice around Ash’s heart melted...instantly. He stood up and pulled Mack to her feet. He pulled her into his chest and held her there, letting her soak the front of his shirt with her tears. His emotions were battling inside of him. What he wanted to do was go find Phil...and do exactly what Mack was afraid he would do back then. He wanted to kill the bastard. But what he needed to do was hold Mack, be there for her...and think this through. He was still going to kill the bastard, but he was going to have a plan before the motherfucker took his last breath.