Fury: Book 2 in the Vengeance MC series (3 page)

*****

Four hours and an u
nknown number of minutes later, I find myself standing at Avery’s door. With my hand pressed against it, I say goodbye.

“Ave, can you hear me, baby?” I don’t expect her to answer me, she’s yet to say a word to me other than my name the day I found her, but it was worth a shot. “I’m gonna take a ride. I don’t know how long I’m gonna be gone for, but there won’t be a mile I travel that I won’t be thinking about you and hoping you’re getting better.”

Boss, my friend, and President wasn’t impressed with my declaration that I needed an adult timeout, and he voiced that in a way that almost everyone in a five-mile radius could clearly hear his degree of displeasure. That being said, he didn’t fight me on it, much. If anyone could understand what I was feeling, it was him. But where we differ is, his woman is willing to talk to him. Maybe Beth isn’t ready to share all of the details surrounding her time spent in captivity, but she’s letting him in more and more every day.

Diesel, Gage, and Jonas proved to be the bigger obstacles on my road to freedom than Boss. That was something I went into Boss’ office equally unprepared and unwilling to face.

These men have had my back through everything. They were there for the months I spent prospecting, my wife and son’s deaths, the years I spent only half living, and the fight to get my woman back, the very one who wants nothing to do with me now.

Like I said, they’ve been there for it all, and because of that, they’re under the assumption I owe them for it. According to their fucked up logic, I should stay and share my pain. I’m supposed to unload on my brothers and open up, telling them my deepest, darkest secrets. Forget that I didn’t join an MC to be dictated to, and forget that we’re not part of a fucking knitting circle, these assholes want their pound of flesh. And they want it from me because I owe them that much, or so they say.

Well, my answer to that is fuck them. I don’t owe them shit. What they’ve done for me was because they’re my brothers and that’s what we do – have each other’s backs. What we don’t do is throw it in each other’s face after the fact. No. What we give we give freely. No payback. No markers. No debt, not even one of gratitude.

It took over an hour, but when that hour was up, so was the time for explanations. They either came to terms with my yet to be determined length of absence or they didn’t. I’d given them all I had left to give, and I could care less if they were good with it or not. Boss got it, so I left it up to him to make sure everyone else did.

For the record, don’t take Boss not arguing with me as him being happy with my decision, he wasn’t. He just wasn’t going to fight me on it. He made a valid point when it came to the fallout the club was dealing with after we brought out women home. We didn’t have a full picture of what the fallout from that was going to be, but to my mind, it whatever it was wouldn’t take a whole charter to deal with.

After packing the meager belongings – most of my shit is at my place anyway, and I didn’t need any of it for a road trip – I sat at the bar with Sarge, threw back a few beers, shot the shit, and said goodbye to my brothers.

Avery’s Mom and Dad, Tilly and Saint, made it back just in time for me to let them know I’d be leaving town for a while, and to say the big man and his wife were happy about it would be a fucking lie.

Tilly was upset and disappointed I was leaving, pleading with me to give Avery more time to heal before I took off. Nothing I said to Tilly hit home, though. Not even the what felt like five million times I reassured her that me going wasn’t because of Avery but because I had to. Saint, her husband, on the other hand, was livid. In his mind I was running away, hiding, putting off the inevitable confrontation between myself and his daughter, and that made me the world’s biggest asshole.

See, this is where shit gets complicated. Saint knows how I feel about Avery, and until she was abducted, he made it clear that I wasn’t good enough for his little girl. He didn’t want Avery hitching her star to a biker, Saint wanted her out of the life and settled with some pansy-ass, suit-wearing motherfucker. Something, I’ll have you know, we’d come to blows over six months back because obviously I vehemently disagreed with Saint’s choice of men for his daughter.

Saint’s complete one-eighty when it came to my relationship, or I should say the non-existent relationship with Avery came about on the heels of him seeing her cradled in my arms the day we found her. Avery refused to let me go when I tried to transfer her to her dad, holding onto me for the entire excruciatingly slow, painful ride back to the clubhouse. In Saint’s eyes, that made me her man. To him it didn’t matter that her actions screamed the opposite, for all intents and purposes, she was mine to care for and protect. Hence, me taking off wasn’t looked upon all too kindly.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Saint roared as soon as he saw my duffle by my feet. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? My little girl’s gonna need you, so unless that’s a bag full of shit you’ve gotta get some bitch to wash for you, you better have a fucking good explanation as to what the hell is going on. And mark me, boy, you better start talking, and you better do it quickly.”

“Just pointing it out, I don’t answer to you, brother. Never have, and never will. You’re in my clubhouse, these men are my brothers, and we’re doing you a solid by letting you come and go as you please. Don’t confuse that with you having the first fucking say as to what I do or do not do when it comes to my club, though,” I reply more calmly than I feel.

Fisting his hands at his side, Saint tried to reign in some of his legendary control before saying,

“Yeah, I’ll apologize for that later, but what I want to know now is, what the fuck is going on? It’s only been a week and a half, Fury, you’ve gotta give her more time.”

“I know what she needs, and right now that isn’t me. Avery needs time to heal physically before she starts down the long road her emotional recovery’s going to be. While I’m here, I’m only making it worse. I want nothing more than to go to her, hold her when she cries, soothe all her hurts and erase her pain, but I can’t because she won’t let me in the fucking door. There’s not one thing I can do for her that wouldn’t hurt her more, and that kills me. Fucking destroys me, brother. You know how I feel about her, what I’d do for her, but none of that matters until your daughter is ready to see I’ll be there for her, however she needs me to be.”

“Fuck,” he hissed angrily. “How long are you gonna be gone for?”

“Not sure, but I don’t think it’ll be more than twelve months give or take a few,” I reply shrugging a shoulder.

And that’s the truth. I have no idea how long or where this sabbatical is going to take me, but however long it lasts and no matter how many miles I put between us, I know for a fact I won’t go an hour without worrying about my girl.

“Please, will you take a day or two to think about it,” Tilly implores. “I know how hard it has to be on you that she won’t see or talk to you, but I promise she knows you’re out in the hall waiting for her and it helps that you are. Just knowing that you’re there seems to give her some comfort.”

“I have to,” I say, wishing she hadn’t told me that. I hate thinking I’m taking anything from Avery that she needs right now, but I have to do this for me and my sanity. If I stay much longer, I can’t trust myself not to barge into her room and make her talk to me. Make her see me, and only me.

“You are going to regret this you know. I don’t know which highway you’ll be on, which town, or how many states away, but I promise you you’re going to regret it,” a soft feminine voice echoes from across the room.

Turning to see who it came from, I saw Blaine walking toward me at a fast clip.

“Already know that darlin’, but that doesn’t change the fact I’ve got to get out of here for a bit.”

“It shouldn’t, that’s not why I said it, Fury,” she murmurs once she reached my side. “Two broken souls don’t make a whole, and if there ever were two broken souls, it’s you and Avery. You should take this time away, not only because you need to put space between you and my best friend, but because I think you’ve got some soul-searching of your own to do. I might not know you well, but I’d have to be blind not to see the depths of pain in your eyes you desperately try to hide from everyone. Life hasn’t been kind to you, Fury, that I’m sure of, but the question is, are you going to let that stop you from seeing what could be, or are you going to continue down the path you’ve chosen thus far? That decision is yours and yours alone. And while you’re gone, hopefully getting the answers you need, I want you to know, I’ll take care of Avery until you get back. However long that takes, I’ll be here.”

Blaine’s words washed over me like a soothing balm, and even though she’s all of five-foot-three on a good day and has the claws of a six-week-old kitten, I felt marginally better knowing that she’s on duty to protect my girl.

“I’ll second that,” Sarge interjects beside us. “You take all the time you need boy, and don’t come back till you’ve pulled your head out of your ass and you’re willing to offer our girl anything her heart desires. That includes you, brother.”

“Fuck me, seriously, old man?” Saint fumes as his wife giggled at his side.

Flipping Sarge the bird, I turned on my boot toward the back hall and Avery, but not before Blaine added,

“Think about what I said, Fury. And if you can, leave some of that baggage you carry on the side of the road somewhere. You’ve carried it around for so long that I don’t think anyone would mind if you conveniently lost on the border of yesterday and tomorrow.”

That brings us to now, and my last attempt to get Avery to talk to me.

Resting my head beside my hand on the door, I lower my voice so for her and my ears only.

“I don’t have enough words to tell you how much you mean to me, Ave, but if you dig deep enough, you’ll find I’ve said them all at one time or another. I hate what you’re going through, and I wish like hell you’d let me in so that I could take some of your pain, if not, help you get to the other side of it, at least. But I get that you’re not ready. Maybe you never will be, but that won’t stop me from hoping you will be one day. I need you to know that it doesn’t matter how long it takes, I’ll be waiting for you, Ave. Day or night, if you need me, call and I’ll be here as soon as I can. I’ll let you know where I am and call to check in when I can. Whether you answer your phone or not, I’ll leave messages so that you’ll know I'm thinking about you. I want you to promise me something before I go, though, baby.”

I give her a minute, waiting to see if she’ll respond knowing that I’m serious about leaving, but get nothing. No acknowledgment. No answer. Not even a whisper from the other side of the door.

Sighing, I push myself upright, running a shaky hand through my hair.

“Promise me that you’ll let someone help you. It doesn’t matter who you chose to let in, it could be anyone, but make sure you open up to
someone
,” I stress. “Blaine’s here for you, so are Adelyn, Emily, Bella, your Mom and Dad, and Beth. They want nothing more than to help you see your way clear of this and back to smiling again. I’m gonna miss you, baby, but this isn’t goodbye, it’s I’ll see you soon. Every mile I ride, every night when I close my eyes, I’ll see you, Ave. Hold strong and take care of you until I get back and can do it for you.”

With nothing left to say, I bend down to pick up my duffle, and that’s when I hear it. Three faint taps on her side of the door telling me to ride safe, watch my six, and come home whole.

Years ago, when Avery was a kid and she was too upset to say the words, we made up a code of sorts. One tap meant, okay. Two was, I’ll miss you. And three, well, I told you what that means already.

Walking away from her, knowing that my Avery is still in there somewhere, burns deep in the pit of my gut like acid. I fucking hate every step that takes me further away from where I really want to be, but it’s for the best. She needs this as much as I do. We both need time and space and because I’m the stronger of the two of us, at least right now, I have to be the one to leave.