JUSTIFIED (Motorcycle Club Romance) (6 page)

The afternoon sun had long faded and darkness filled the cell. Not a single light switch graced those cinder block walls, and I had to rely on the tiny bit of moon that trickled in through the barred windows to see my way around the cell.

At some point, I’d fallen asleep for the night, but I was awoken hours later by a bright flash in my face. Startled, I jumped up and clutched onto my sleeping son.

“Say cheese,” LeRoy said, a camera phone smashed up close to my face.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why are you taking my picture?!”

“So your daddy can see that you’re in real good hands,” he sneered. “Apparently we underestimated the Black Dogs and your daddy has decided to call our bluff.”

After a few flashes, he thumbed through the pictures. “Perfect. That one will do just fine.”

He turned to leave, flashing me a sinister look on his way out.

“Wait!” I yelled.

He stopped and turned towards me with raised eyebrows, as if I was inconveniencing him.

“Are you going to feed us?” I asked. “My son hasn’t eaten since dinner last night. He needs to eat.”

LeRoy laughed and slammed the door and locked it behind him. The heavy trodding of his boots down the hall grew faint within seconds.

My stomach rumbled, but it was only a reminder that Tuck had to go without food too. I could last. I could fight through the hunger pangs that were about to consume me, but he wouldn’t be able to understand, and that scared me.

I lay back down on the thin mattress and tried to remember happier times. I shut my eyes and pictured the day Ash had proposed to me. We were sitting by a lake, fishing. It was one of the first beautiful spring days after a long, harsh winter and everyone was dying to get outside.

We’d gone joy riding in his pickup before finding a nice, shady pond in the middle of nowhere. We hopped out and grabbed the bait and tackle from his truck bed and found the perfect spot on the grass.

Ash always had to bait my hook, but I think he liked feeling useful and manly. He’d grown up without a father, and almost everything he learned about being a man was a direct result of my father taking him under his wing. Ash was born to be a part of our family in one way or another, and somehow our kindred souls found a way to make that happen.

“I got one!” I recalled saying as I reeled in the line. “It’s really big! I can tell!”

Ash had to stand behind me and help me pull the fish in, but after several fruitless attempts, we realized my line had gotten stuck in the reeds and the fish swam away.

“That’s okay,” I said. I really didn’t care about catching a fish that day. I just wanted to spend time with Ash. That was when I was the happiest, and that was when everything in my crazy life made sense.

I dropped the fishing pole and turned around to grab the container of live bait, only when I turned around Ash was standing there on his knees with a black, velvet ring box propped open. A sparkly diamond shimmered under the midday sun and the biggest smile crossed Ash’s face.

“Marina Elizabeth Barrett,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

We were only twenty years old, and some may have thought we were too young to even be thinking about marriage, but we both just knew.

“Yes!” I shrieked. “Ash, yes! Yes, I’ll marry you!”

He stood up and slipped the ring on my finger, and I wasted no time in admiring the simplistic beauty of the diamonds that dancing reflections all around us. I wrapped my arms around him and then kissed him. The longest, sweetest kiss we’d ever shared was that day.

“I knew I was going to marry you,” he said. “I knew since we were eight years old.”

“How’d you know?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off my ring.

“I just knew,” he said with a half smile. “I couldn’t live without you then. I couldn’t imagine ever living without you in the future either. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

My eyes opened and I was thrust back into reality – into the cold, cinder block cell walls that surrounded us. It was a far cry from that sunny day by the fishing pond and from the arms of the man I loved more than anything.

I rolled to my opposite side and readjusted Tuck, but I couldn’t get comfortable. Something was poking me in my pocket. My phone! I’d completely forgotten that it was in there.

I popped up and turned it on. One bar left on the battery. Signal floating in and out. I walked around the room, trying to find an area where the signal would hold. Below the window, the signal seemed to be the steadiest. I quickly composed a text message to Ash, my heart racing. It was the first time I’d had so much as a glimmer of hope since we’d been made captives.

My fingers trembled as I typed in a message:

KIDNAPPED. WAREHOUSE. COTTONMOUTHS.

I wished I had more information for him, but that was all I had. I pressed the send button and waited, but a red “x” next to the message told me it didn’t go through. I attempted to send again. Nothing. Before I went to try again, footsteps came from down the hall and grew louder. Someone began to unlock the heavy metal door. I jammed the phone back into my pocket and rushed over to lay down on the bed, feigning that I was still asleep.

The metal door slowly creaked open and there stood Mary Jane with a bag of fast food in her hands. Her once perfect, smooth bob was pulled back into a low ponytail. Not a speak of makeup graced her face besides some jet black eyeliner and gobs of black mascara. She wore cut up jeans and a faded t-shirt and sneakers. Mary Jane had vanished and a stranger named MJ had taken her place.

“Here’s some food,” she said. She could still hardly look at me, but the second we locked eyes, I could see her searching for a sliver of forgiveness. “Don’t tell anyone. I wasn’t supposed to give you anything. When you’re done, shove the wrappers under the mattress. I’ll pick them up later.”

“Why’d you do this to us?” I asked her, tears welling in my eyes. “I thought you were my friend.”

She shrugged. “Everyone has to atone for their sins, Marina.”

I was confused.

“Are you being forced to do all this?” I said. “They’re just using you like some puppet aren’t they?”

She bit her lip before looking over at me with her big brown eyes. “Tripp Cotton was my kid brother.”

My heart stopped, and I felt sick. I wanted to throw up.

“Look,” she sighed. “I’ve long forgiven my brother’s killer, but my family hasn’t. I have to do what I’m told.”

“Are they going to kill us?” I asked. My eyes pleaded with hers for the truth, but she stayed silent. “You have to tell me, Mary Jane.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what the plan is. I just know what I was told to do. I was supposed to get you here. I did my part. I know nothing else.”

I didn’t quite believe her. “Do you have children?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No.”

“Then you don’t understand what this is like,” I said. “Mary Jane, I know you’re not one of them. You may have the Cotton name and the club markings, but you’re like them. Do you know what your brother did to me? Do you know why Ash beat him to a pulp that night in the country?”

She shook her head.  “I know my brother wasn’t the best person in the world, but he was still my brother.”

“Your brother was a monster,” I seethed. “I hope you can rest easy at night knowing that your family thinks it’s okay to murder a fucking baby. I hope it makes all you Cottons feel much better about yourselves.”

“MJ!” a man’s voice boomed from down the hall. “Get your ass back here!”

She flashed me one last, apologetic look before turning and locking the door behind her. She was just as powerless as I was. She was a pawn in the game just like me.

I woke Tuck and grabbed the food out of the bag. I broke the biscuits into tiny pieces and put a straw in the orange juice. “Here, baby. Eat this.”

Tuck ate every last crumb. The poor kid was starving. The clock on my phone said it was almost eleven. The fast food meal would have to serve as both his breakfast and his lunch.

I pressed my ear up against the cool, metal door to try to hear if anyone was on the other side. I heard nothing. I pulled my phone out of my pocket once again and paced around the room, this time standing on top of the sink and the bed and anything that would get me higher up to the ceiling and closer to the window.

When I finally got two bars’ worth of signal, I tried calling Ash. To my surprise, the phone rang. My clenched onto my neck and waited for him to answer.

“Marina?” he answered. “Oh, my God. Are you okay? Where are you?”

“Ash,” I sobbed. I tried to stifle the cries, but it was too hard. “They took us. We’re in some warehouse. I think they’re going to kill us. Please help. Please come get us!”

“Marina, listen to me,” he said. “Is there a window where you are?”

“Yes,” I replied. I breathed in deep and tried to calm myself down. I had to keep my voice down. If they heard me talking, I knew they’d bust in there and then all hell would break loose.

“I need you to look around and tell me what you see,” he said. “Street signs, businesses, landmarks.”

I stood up on top of the bed and peeked outside the barred window. “There’s a deli across the street. Calavetti Deli. And a gas station. Kwik Stop – spelled K-W-I-K. And an intersection. It looks like Main Street and…West Ferguson Avenue?”

Ash was quiet, and I assumed he was writing them down. “Okay, very good, Marina.”

“Ash,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “I only have 7% battery left.”

“Okay,” he said. “I want you to shut your phone off and turn it back on in about six hours. This is very important.”

“I love you,” I whispered. “If anything happens, please just know that.”

“Marina,” Ash sighed. “Nothing’s going to happen. Your dad and I are on this. Nothing’s going to happen to you and Tuck. I’ll see you soon. We’ll be together soon, alright?”

He sounded confident, but I was sure he was only trying to make me feel better. Right now the ball was in the Cottonmouths’ court. Their game. Their rules.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?!” LeRoy barged in seconds after I hung up with Ash. His meaty hands gripped my wrist, nearly crushing it, and forced the phone to fall from my hands and drop onto the floor.

LeRoy picked it up from the hard, concrete floor and placed it to his ear. A menacing smile formed on his thin lips as his eyes nearly pierced through me.

“Why, hello, Ash,” he said, drawing out each syllable slowly. “How are doing on this fine, beautiful day.”

LeRoy paused, and I knew Ash was saying something on the other end.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” LeRoy smirked. “We’re taking real good care of your little family. If you’re a good boy and do as you’re told, you might get to see them one last time before you meet your maker.”

As if LeRoy had just sucker punched me, it was starting to make sense. They didn’t want to kill me or Tuck. They wanted to kill Ash. They wanted to make him pay for what he’d done to Tripp, and Tuck and I were nothing more than bait to lure him in.

“Be a good boy, now,” LeRoy said to Ash. “Do as your alpha tells you.”

LeRoy hung up the phone and threw it on the ground, stomping it into a million pieces with his weathered, leather boots and laughing all the while.

“You’re disgusting,” I snickered to him. “You better not lay a hand on my husband.”

LeRoy laughed as if I were some meek little mouse trying to scare away a lion. “Oh, it’s not your husband we want.”

I pinched my face in confusion. “What do you want then?”

“We want your daddy’s head on a platter,” LeRoy licked his lips like a maniacal psychopath.

“Why my father?” I asked, still confused.

“For covering up Tripp’s murder,” he said, as if was obvious. “Had he never done that, Tripp’s killer, who we all know is your precious Ash Decker, would be behind bars right now waiting for his turn in the electric chair.”

“My father didn’t hurt Tripp,” I said. “He was trying to protect his family. Isn’t that what family does?”

“Exactly,” LeRoy seethed. “Tripp was my cousin. We were family. You fuck with my family, I fuck with yours.”

Nothing I could ever say or do would change LeRoy’s mind or the intentions of the Cottonmouths. Their perfectly orchestrated plan was finally coming together, and that’s all they cared about.

“What are you going to do with Ash?” I asked.

“After he turns himself in, that’s for a judge and jury to decide,” he said with his hands in the air.

“Aren’t you worried about him turning you in for murdering my father?” I countered.

“Oh, he’ll never turn us in,” LeRoy snickered. “If he wants to keep his little family safe that is…”

His eyes traveled from me to Tuck and back. We were always going to be pawns in their manipulative schemes to get what they wanted. It wouldn’t end here. It wouldn’t end ever.

“Do you have to kill my father?” I asked as I fought back tears. All the man had ever done was protect his family and his club. He was a good man with a good heart who sometimes had to do bad things.

“You don’t know the half of what your father has done,” LeRoy huffed. “If you only knew what kind of monster he is.”

“He’s not a monster,” I yelled. “
Tripp
was a monster.”

LeRoy flew at me like a bat out of hell and slapped my cheek with an open palm. My skin burned red as pain radiated from the site. “Don’t you ever talk bad about Tripp!”

LeRoy was so mad he was spitting and his eyes were wiggling like some crazy, rabid animal.

“Tripp was a damn angel!” LeRoy continued. “A freaking saint!”

They hadn’t the slightest clue about the kind of person Tripp was, and from LeRoy’s reaction, it was clear that they’d glorified him into something he wasn’t since his passing.

My hand covered the red spot on my cheek in an attempt to sooth the pain.

“You apologize now!” LeRoy yelled.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, staring at my feet.

“You say that Tripp Cotton was a Goddamned saint! He was a good boy!” LeRoy kept yelling. “Say it!”

“Tripp Cotton was…a good…person.” I could barely spit the words out. They tasted bitter and his name on my tongue took me back to that night by the bonfire. I’d tried to forget that night a million times, but it was always in the back of my mind. In many ways it felt like yesterday.

LeRoy stood in front of me, trying to regain his composure, with his hands on his hips. His eyes burned with a scary sort of intensity.

Tuck began to whimper. He couldn’t speak much, but he knew that the big bad man freaking out and yelling in front of us was scary.

“Put a muzzle on your kid,” LeRoy said.

“He needs diapers,” I said, trying to change the subject. “My bag is in Mary Jane’s car. Please. He’s been sitting in the same dirty diaper since last night.”

LeRoy huffed and rolled his eyes as he turned and left, slamming the door behind him and clinking the lock.