Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded and closed my eyes too.
When two sets of breathing had evened out, the late-afternoon sun blocked out by the heavy curtains, I silently slid from the bed, went to my room, and dressed. I opened the drawer of my side table and stared at the old picture inside. The outside edge was burned. I brought it to my nose, smelling that night as if I were standing on the grass, an inferno around me.
I looked at the picture and ran my hand over the two people it showed. “It would never work,” I whispered, and saw a teardrop fall onto the smiling couple. A teardrop that wasn’t strong enough to extinguish the fire. A perfect couple the world didn’t want in it.
I put the picture in my pocket. My meds stared back at me from the drawer. I wouldn’t need them where I was going. I shut the drawer and threw on my leather jacket. I walked to Cowboy’s room and looked inside. I stood in the doorway and looked at the couple on the bed. Both light-skinned, both blond. Both blue-eyed, both perfect for the other . . . both people who belonged, who wouldn’t get spat at in the street for simply holding hands.
I fought the lump in my throat as I stared at them. Sia murmured in her sleep and turned, her arms searching for Cowboy. He brought her closer, sensing even in sleep that she was his. As they rolled to face each other, I saw the identical carvings on their backs. Every muscle within me tensed. Black and white. They’d been punished because of me. Because they were with me. Knives permanently scarring their skin, because they dared to love me. I’d known from the minute I met Sia, the moment I fucking fell hard for the bitch, that this would never have worked.
I was weak. Let my heart rule my head. I wasn’t being smart. I was being selfish. And now it had hurt them.
And it could have been so much fucking worse.
Indoors, where no one could judge, we worked. But outside, in the real world, we weren’t accepted. There would always be fuckers looking down on us. And it would be their words that wounded. That would stick like tar and feathers, suffocating us one by one until there was no air left for us to breathe.
They belonged together. It was time to free Aubin. Protect Sia . . . and learn to fucking walk alone.
They’re not mine.
“Au revoir,” I whispered and snuck out the door. I got my bike and rolled it down the road until the sound of the engine wouldn’t be heard from the apartment.
Climbing on the saddle, I ran my hand over the place that held my picture. As I pulled out onto the open road, I let my bike take me to a place I hadn’t been for too long. With glassy eyes, and hands shaking, I rode hard.
To confront the demons from my past.
And join them in hell, if that was the way it had to go.
Chapter Thirteen
Hush
The lights of New Orleans passed by in a blur. My knuckles were white as I gripped the handlebars. I’d barely stopped. My pounding heart kept me going. It was amazing—acceptance. Freeing everything from your mind. Freeing the people you loved from carrying you as their burden. The weight I’d carried for so long had lifted, leaving only a determined numbness.
Without Sia, without Cowboy, I had no family left, no one close to me that mattered. The club had suspended us. Even after I went into Mexico, I was under no illusion—after taking Sia as ours, we’d still be forbidden from club life by Ky. Mexico wasn’t gonna help us keep our patch.
The picture of my parents burned in my pocket. Every fucking memory I had of the small-town hicks came rushing to the surface. Of cunt after cunt hitting me, calling me, throwing shit at my parents as they held their heads high and defiantly walked through that bigoted town hand in hand.
I turned down country roads until a building came into view. Taking a back way that I knew wouldn’t be manned, I killed my lights and followed the path to the clubhouse that had once been my sanctuary.
My eyes lost focus as I walked through the door and marched down the hallway to the bar. It was late, the middle of the night, but I knew these fuckers. They’d all still be here, drinking and fucking. Titus had this place like a fucking frat house. Ox would never have tolerated that shit.
I threw open the door. The room was a cloud of smoke and whores. I searched the faces of my old brothers, until I heard a loud laugh and fixed my gaze on the one I was looking for.