Never Enough: The Vipers MC (6 page)

I shook my head. “I only know he is now. The president patch is on his kutte. I didn’t say anything about it, so I don’t know how long he’s been the head of the club.”

“Jeez. That’s so much to deal with at one time. I mean, a baby is one thing, leaving your husband is another thing. You had to do it all at once.”

I nodded. “I’m no hero,” I reminded her. “I felt like the world’s biggest bitch when I left. I knew it would hurt him—no matter what he did, he had this childlike belief that it would be all right as long as we were together. A man like that. Somebody capable of the violence he inflicted on others. He had that hope in his heart, all the time.”

“It sounds sweet,” she murmured.

“You’re a hopeless romantic,” I accused, smirking. “But, you’re right. It was sweet. He was sweet. He was capable of that, too, just as much as the violence. You’d never think it to look at him, or the men he ran around with. A bunch of greasy, foul-mouthed criminals. They had hearts of gold, though. They treated me like a kid sister, protected me from their world. It wasn’t their fault, either. Axel—he was president back then—led them to the violence. He wasn’t a nice man. He acted like their father, but exposed them to all of that. I’m a mother. I know how wrong that is.”

“Shoot, I’m not a mother, and even I know how wrong that is.” Cindy shook her head. “So you ran off.”

“Yep. Wrote a letter, took off my ring and left with a bag full of my stuff. I found a cheap motel, stayed there for a few days until I could get a lease on an apartment. I’ve been here ever since. Around six months later, I sent the divorce papers from my lawyer’s office.”

“How far along were you when you left?”

“Three months. Just enough for him not to notice, you know? I was going to tell him that last night, too. It was a big plan I’d put together. We were a little strained at the time. Things weren’t going well—stress in the club, stress between us. I thought, this is great, I’ll tell him about the baby and it’ll be a new beginning for us.” I shuddered. “He came home bloody. He’d beaten a man, probably to death. I don’t see how it could’ve gone any other way, though he wouldn’t tell me even when I demanded he do so. He was drunk, didn’t see what the big deal was. I remember the way he swayed back and forth in front of me. I wondered how he’d even made it home alive, the condition he was in. That was when I made the decision to leave.”

“Whoa. That was seriously brave of you.”

“Brave?” I laughed harshly. “That’s the first time I’ve heard myself described as brave.”

“You should get used to it,” she said firmly. “Because you were brave. Leaving like that? All to protect your son? What would you call it?”

“Cowardly. I was a coward. I ran away instead of facing the problem.”

“He wouldn’t have let you go, I bet. Not when there was a baby involved.”

I nodded slowly. “You’re right. He wouldn’t have. And he can’t know about him now. I don’t want him to be a part of my life, of our lives.” I stared intensely at Cindy. “I don’t want him anymore.”

“Who are you trying to convince? Me, or yourself?”

I shook my head. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m not doing anything. I’m only trying to tell you how clear it seems that you do want him—just not what he stands for. And by the way, that could’ve changed by now. Seven years is a long time.”

I thought back to the way he beat up my would-be attacker. The ease with which he laid the man out on his back. “I don’t think so,” I murmured. “People don’t change. If he’s still part of the club, he’s still part of that world. It’s really very seductive—I can understand how easy it is to get wrapped up in it, you know? The feeling of camaraderie. A brotherhood. They’ve always got your back. It’s like in that movie
Goodfellas
, where the wife talks about how normal life in the mafia felt after a while because it was such a self-contained world they lived in.”

“Did it ever feel normal to you?”

I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head. “No. There was always part of me screaming about how wrong it was. I loved him so much. You have no idea how much. But once he got deep in with the club, it never felt right.”

I didn’t tell her the whole story. I’d never told anybody the whole story. It was something I kept inside my heart, locked tight. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to admit the real reason I had to get far, far away from that club and everything related to it. It was the same reason I had to stay away from him after all the years of being apart…even though the only thing I wanted in the whole world was to feel his arms around me again.

Chapter Seven

Grayson

“How did she sit there in plain sight, without me ever finding her?” I looked up at Tony as he looked over my shoulder at the laptop screen. “I mean, shit, she lived less than ten miles from here. What a fucking joke.”

“It’s a big city, lots of people. What were you supposed to do, go on some mission to find her?”

“Something like that. That’s how it felt, anyway.” I sighed, remembering the first days after she left. My whole world crashed down around me. “I knew things were bad, but I didn’t know they were that bad.”

“Huh?” Tony looked at me, head tilted to the side. I didn’t know I spoke out loud until he did that.

“I said, I knew it was bad between us right before she left. I just didn’t know how bad it was. I mean, when I got home that day, and she was gone? It was like she hit me with a bus.”

“I hate to say it, brother, but you’re the only one who didn’t know she was gonna leave sooner or later.” He sat on the edge of the desk, looking down at me with a grim scowl. His bald head gleamed in the overhead light.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” I said.

“Nope.”

“Why didn’t you try saying something to me, maybe? You know, spare me a little pain?”

He chuckled bitterly. “Come on. You wouldn’t have listened. No offense, man, but you don’t wanna hear what you don’t wanna hear. You didn’t wanna hear how unhappy she was in our world. You figured, if she’s not complaining out loud, she’s fine. That’s how you are.”

“What, delusional?” I could practically feel my blood pressure shooting up.

“No. You’re a good leader. You see things how they are…unless you’re too close to them. Like, a club issue? You can see right through it in no time. It’s like nothing to you. When it’s something you really care about, though? Like something that’s a part of your life? It’s a different story.”

“You’re telling me I’m fucking delusional. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“You’re a stubborn fuck, too,” he added. “Don’t forget that part. You won’t listen to me. Even to me. Your best friend since birth. This is what I’m talking about. Maybe that’s why she left, man.” His voice was quiet. He was trying to be my friend, and I knew it, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I pushed the urge to pound his face into the desk way down deep inside me, and told myself I had to prove him wrong by listening to him. I would listen and try to understand. That would show him who was a stubborn fuck.

“It’s too late for me to ask myself why she left. That was a long time ago. It’s in the past.” I glanced at the laptop again. “This is what matters.” I tapped the screen, which showed her brownstone. “Her place. They’re gonna come for her again, I know it.”

“Sure they will, if she owes that kind of money. I’m surprised they let her go this long—usually, if you’re a day late they’re after you.”

“I know. It’s weird. Maybe because she’s a woman, I don’t know. Some of these douchebags actually have a conscience. But they’re not gonna give up, not even after the beat down.”

“Especially not after it. They’ll wanna let you know you didn’t do shit to stop them.”

“Right.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. If I had gotten an hour of sleep the night before, I’d have been surprised to hear it. It felt like I hadn’t slept at all, tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling, watching the clock change from one minute to the next, then the next. Torture. And all I could do was think of her. Once I saw her on the street, once I kissed her at the apartment, it had opened the door. Everything came pouring out. Christmases, birthdays, vacations. Our wedding day. Our wedding night. The day we bought our house and christened every room. Over and over, I asked myself what went wrong. Just like I did when she first left.

“What do you wanna do about her?” Tony asked, breaking into my sleepy thoughts.

“I’d say let’s post a guard outside the house, but she’ll see that coming a mile away. She doesn’t even know all the new guys who came in since she left, but she’ll know who they are. She’s smart like that.”

“We could put ’em in a car,” Tony pointed out. “I know it would make me feel better.”

I grinned at him. “Still your little sis, huh?”

“Whatever. She was a good kid. She hurt you, and I hated her for that, but she was a good kid.” It was the closest Tony would ever get to saying he loved her, or even liked her a whole lot. We grew up together, the three of us. Tony was oldest, a year older than me and two years older than Jess. We’d lived in the same neighborhood, played together when we were kids. Went to school together—Tony got left back in grade school, so the two of us were in the same class. Jess was so smart she skipped a grade. It always amazed me that she would hang out with us in the first place.

I sighed. Tony heard me. “You okay?”

“No, man.” He was the only person in the world I would admit that to. “I hate this. I thought I was over it. Now it’s all coming back.”

“You were never over it. She’s your first love, brother. We always have that inside us.”

“You sound like a Hallmark card. Or a TV movie.”

“Fuck off. I’m just trying to help you.” He shoved me. I shoved him back. Neither of us really meant it, and it burned off a tiny bit of steam.

I looked around the office, with its wood paneling and fancy furniture. All the stuff Axel used to think was important. “I blamed him for a long time,” I muttered.

“Who?”

“Axel. Shit didn’t start going downhill until he went nuts.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah. There was definitely a before-and-after in those days. We were all pretty happy and safe until he decided it wasn’t good enough.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. It didn’t have to be that way. Look at this place. I mean, it’s great that he redid it—probably the best thing he ever did with all the money he earned and stole. It gave us a place to call home, whatever. But everything else. I could’ve done without that.” For months, there was never a night I didn’t get in a fight or pull my gun on somebody. There was never a night I didn’t expect to lose one of my brothers. I almost lost Tony in a gun fight—he knew how far Axel’s bullshit ran. He still had two scars on his side, where the bullet went in and out.

“You think it was all his fault, then?” Tony’s voice was quiet. We had never talked about Jess before, not that way. She was usually a bitch, cold and heartless. We didn’t understand how she could walk out like that without saying anything.

“What the fuck do you think? What are you, my shrink? I don’t like this.” I got up, looking out the window.

“I just wanted to know. You can blame it all on him if you want to. Shit, not a day went by back then that I didn’t blame a lotta shit on him. Losing our friends, man? Our brothers? It all started with him. I just don’t know if Jess leaving was totally one of those things. You weren’t easy to be around then—don’t act like you were.”

I didn’t say anything for a long time. Was he right? I was never the guy who talked about my feelings. I never told her what I was going through inside. I pushed her away. It was easier. When I got home at night—if I went home instead of staying at the clubhouse—I got into bed without touching her. She’d get up before me to go to school. Sometimes I wasn’t asleep, but I’d pretend to be if it meant I didn’t have to talk to her. I couldn’t talk to her. It would mean telling her what I did the night before.

I didn’t need to tell her. I saw it on her face all the time, every day. She knew. She judged me. She hated me, like I hated myself. I wanted to pull back from her before she pushed me away.

And she was too good for me. There was that, too.

I didn’t respond to anything Tony said. Instead, I changed the subject. “What about the loan shark?”

“What about him?”

“Do we know anything yet?”

“Man, it’s been, what, half a day since I talked to you last night? Everybody went to sleep, brother.”

“Lucky you.” I felt like the walking dead.

“We’ll find something. Don’t worry. I gave the guys her name—none of them know her. I picked guys who weren’t around when she was. They don’t know why they’re asking questions.”

I nodded. It was better than way. “Good enough.”

“What are you gonna do next? Are you gonna go see her?”

I thought about it. It was tempting. Showing up at her front door. Surprising her the way she’d surprised me when I got home that day and found her gone. I’d watch her face change when she opened the door, seeing me, knowing what it meant for me to be there. I would push her inside the apartment, take her in my arms, and…

“No,” I answered, willing away a hard-on. I wouldn’t do any of those things. I didn’t wanna get any closer to her.

He accepted my answer. “That’s fair. Okay. I’ll let you know when I hear something.” He turned to leave the office. “Oh, one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“If you knew it was her when you first found her last night, would you have still beaten that guy up?”

I laughed. “Are you kidding? I would have killed the fucker.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I thought so.” I turned away, listening as the door clicked shut. When I knew I was alone I let out a sigh, leaning my head against the window. What was I gonna do?

I wanted to protect her. From the minute I saw her, I knew I had to keep her safe. There had been so much fear in her eyes, blank terror. It only got worse when she realized she was looking at me and not some random guy off the street. I had noticed, and it didn’t exactly make me feel good. Maybe at the time—all the hatred had come back, and the pain. I had wanted her to be afraid of me. Days later, I didn’t feel that way anymore. I wanted her to trust me enough to let me take care of her. She needed me, whether she believed it or not.

She wasn’t part of my world anymore, the outlaw underground world. She didn’t have the ways of fighting scumbags like that loan shark. I did. I was ready and willing to use them for her. I would do anything for her, didn’t she know that? I would do anything to stop anybody who thought they could hurt what was mine.

She’s not yours
. The voice in my head made fun of me, the way it did back when she first left.
She never loved you. She was fucking somebody else the whole time. She hates you. You were never good enough for her
. On and on, every day, all day. It had gone away after a long time, and I hadn’t heard it in years. The voice was back because she was back.

So she wasn’t mine anymore. Maybe not by law. Inside, I knew different. Jess was mine, she was always mine, she would always be mine. I’d been with hundreds of women since she left, and all I saw when I was inside them was her. Her face, her eyes. I’d hear the noises they’d made, the sounds, the words, and I would imagine it all coming from her. It was the only way I could get through life. I never told that to anybody.

I couldn’t sit back while she was in danger. No way. It wasn’t how I was built.

I needed to sit and think out the ways I could go behind her back to make sure she was okay. One way or another, I would take care of what was mine.