Final Ride: Hellions Motorcycle Club (Hellions Ride Book 9) (4 page)

He pauses, as if thinking about my words.

I want to laugh. Do I have a choice? I know how clubs work. If Frisco wants me in North Carolina, he will take me, and God Himself couldn’t stop him.

“I don’t hate your mom,” he finally says. “In fact, I respect your loyalty.”

Nervously, I wring my hands, his words a shock to my system.
“What’s going to happen to me?”

My mom always told me I was too inquisitive. Maybe not knowing would be better. I feel like I may have just put my foot in my mouth, so to speak.

As if the world hasn’t just crashed down around both of us, he calmly answers, “I’m going to take you home with me. You’re going to learn what I learned from the Hellions about family. Our club isn’t like Fury, Shannon. You’re safe, and you’re family.”

“What about Fury? Vic isn’t going to let you simply ride away with me,” I give him the truth.

He blows out a breath. “I don’t know how to tell you this. I don’t want you to be afraid of anyone, but especially not any one of my club brothers. Fury is no more. Vic is done, the club is done, retribution for your mother has been achieved. I promise you are safe with me.”

“I hope what you say is true.”

I wonder if the Hellions are different from Fury. Will this be a place where I deal with drunken men, crazy women, and drugs, guns, or some other activity that will put everyone behind bars for association? That was Fury. Everything bad in the world all crammed into one club.

If Frisco is wrong, then I’m about to dive straight into the depths of Hell, and I may not know how to find my way out. There are things my mother fought to protect me from; things she died today to keep me out of. Is this what she would have wanted? Is the man in front of me still the same man he was almost twenty years ago?

“You’ll see. I promise you’ll see the Hellions are family, and they’ll take you as you are. They did me. You will get a firsthand lesson in family with my club.” He smiles, his white teeth shining like out of a magazine ad. He’s so confident that I can’t help thinking that maybe the Hellions really are a family.

Lying back on the couch, I let the numb take over my mind again so I can close my eyes and rest. I fight back the urge to tremble.
Show no weakness
, I try to tell myself.

“It’s shock, Shannon,” Frisco explains. “You’ve had one helluva day. Just rest.”

I can’t stop myself from physically shaking as he wraps me in a blanket and leaves me to stretch out on the couch.

Soon, we will be in North Carolina. Soon, I must face my mother’s past, my possible real father’s present, and decide if the Hellions can be my future.

Anxiety Rising

The reflection in the mirror haunts me. The red splotches covering my cheeks and forehead give visible signs to the chaos inside of me.

He left three days ago. I haven’t slept since.

He hasn’t called. Radio silence.

He hasn’t answered my calls. Not one.

Shut out.

Left behind.

Abandoned.

The anxiety is rising. Every time I close my eyes, I break out into a cold sweat. My heart thumps wildly. My pulse races, accelerating the rush of blood through my veins. A fury of heat builds and builds inside my body, while my skin is sickeningly cool and clammy. My lips are plump from constantly sucking on them, and my hair is a tangled mess, sticking out in all directions. My ever so slowly and delicately rebuilt life is crashing down around me on the inside to the out.

My eyes. The worst is my eyes.

I blink to fight back the reflection against the silver of the mirror. I breathe deeply and look again.

The haunting look is back.

Everything is dark, pitch black. The air is stale. Breathe, I remind myself to breathe. Zack and Ray are safe. My cousins, my only family, is none the wiser to the hell they were tied to because of me. They are safe. Their company is safe. Their lives will thrive.

What was supposed to be something to help my family has become my living nightmare.

Blackmailed.

A simple agreement, and my life has forever changed.

In the weeks since my bargaining, I have been beaten, violated, and isolated. I have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

My chest tightens and everything tenses as I fight to hear anything coming.

I can’t take any more. I’m ready to break.

I hear shoes crunching over the dirty floor outside the door. One foot down, second foot down—the pace is familiar.

Felix Delatorre is the devil in disguise.

Tears automatically form behind my eyelids. The anxiety builds to bursting. My heart feels like it may jump out of my chest. My head roars with the rushing of my crazed thoughts. To spend days in a dark, dank closet, only to be removed to eat or be tortured has worn me down.

I hear the doorknob being turned. The steps come closer. The sound of a second doorknob turning, and then … blinding light hits my pupils, and the smell of his overly strong cologne burn my nostrils.

I raise my arm to shield my eyes. Then I peek out from behind my forearm to come face-to-face with Felix Delatorre, El Diablo, the devil himself in the flesh.

“The time is here, my dearest,” he says as a wicked smile creeps across his face. “You want the pain to stop?” He traces the blade of a knife across my raised arm, and my skin parts, each movement, each drag separating my flesh.

My blood drips to the ground beneath me as I sit curled into myself, knees to chest, trembling as the fear takes hold. Adrenaline overrides my system, but the pain is nothing to the anxiety rising.

An evil cackle comes from the man’s mouth. He squats, eye level with me. “Beautiful Rachel. I wonder if her eyes will grow as wide as yours when I take my knife to her pussy? I wonder what dear Ray Mitchell will think of his treasured cousin when I make sure he knows you broke. You failed your family. I bet he turns his back and considers you dead like your father and mother.” His spit hits my forehead as he speaks. The odor of onions on his breath has me ready to vomit the meager contents of my stomach.

“Or what about Zack?” He twirls the tip of the knife just above my elbow, digging it in deeper and deeper at every turn. “Cocky man who thinks he owns every ass in the city.” He removes the blade as he smirks knowingly at me. “He doesn’t own your ass, does he?”

I lurch as the dry heaves hit me. This is my family. We aren’t like he’s insinuating.

He flicks his tongue out like the snake he is, making an awful slurping sound. I flinch when he leans in to lick the tip of my nose up to the bridge of my eyes. Then pain radiates through my body from the memories of Delatorre’s invasion of every orifice of my body except my nose and ears. If his penis was smaller, there is no doubt in my mind those would have been torn apart as well. It’s an agony I experience in both my mind and my body.

Sick bastard.

“I own that ass,” he whispers with a hunger in his tone that has my insides tight in fear. Then he stands, and I feel like I’m crumbling into a million pieces.

Closing my eyes, I fight back tears.

Please don’t let him take me again
, I pray.

I feel the cold metal of the blade tap my nose as blood drips from the knife and onto my face.

“We must let you heal, pet. Show me you’ll be obedient, and I’ll make sure your family stays untouched. I have plans for you. Soon. Soon you will see what I need you for. Soon you will repay your debt, and then your family will be free of me. It’s up to you, Amy. Fall apart now, and I will destroy everything Ray and Zack have built for themselves.”

At his threat, I swallow back my emotions. The anxiety inside is at a crippling point, but I can’t let it win. Ray and Zack are the only people who have ever welcomed me with open arms. I must protect them. Everyone else leaves me. No one ever stays. They let me stay. I can’t let them down.

With two steps back, Felix Delatorre gives me space before he slams the door in my face. I hear the distinct click of the lock before I listen until his steps are so far gone I can’t distinguish them anymore.

He’s gone. For once, I find solace in being alone. For once, I find comfort in being left behind.

Breathe deep
, I remind myself as I fight back the crushing weight on my chest. It’s not physical weight that is holding me down. Internally, my mind is shutting my body down. I feel it.

My skin prickles at even the feel of the air surrounding me. The room spins as my eyes widen the more my mind amps up to the world around me. I feel like a racehorse at the gate with my erratic heartbeat as adrenaline kicks in. The gates jerk open, and I rush to the bed, falling face first onto the mattress, where I inhale the scent of fabric softener. On an exhale, I feel wetness on the pillow from my tears.

He doesn’t have me. Felix Delatorre is dead. I’m in Frisco’s house. The Hellions surround me. They saved me. They haven’t left me.

At the reminder, I curl my knees into my chest before I let the blackness engulf me. I’m a ball of nerves. The past and the present all rolled into one mess. From then to now, I still don’t know what the future holds.

My eyes remain tight as I drift off into a tormented sleep.

While my mind fights back the past, my heart fights back having any hope for the future. After all, everyone always leaves me.

Three days. Seventy-two hours.

I have been a dad for less than a week, and already I feel a change in me. My every thought has become about Shannon. My mind has gone in circles every waking hour since meeting her. In that time, we have been tucked away in the safe house, where I take it slow, not wanting to push her.

Is this what a father goes through during pregnancy? I’m a dad. I am responsible for another person, one who hasn’t been a part of the Hellions.

In the time since our arrival in Florida, I have shut off communication. The club is a back burner to my new reality. Roundman and Danza, both being father’s, along with knowing my history, are giving me space.

Amy. My mind goes to the curvy woman in my house who I haven’t been in touch with. She’s called. I just haven’t answered. I should, but what do I say? Is she ready for what needs to happen?

My place isn’t big. I need to move her to my bed. Shannon can take her room. It’s time things change with Amy and I, anyway. For too long now we have danced around what has obviously been building between us.

Shannon is asleep right now, so this is the time I can handle my present without trying to explain to my past, or that I have a woman in my house. How will Shannon feel about that? Will she be upset that I replaced her mother? That isn’t exactly what happened, but will my daughter understand?

I look down at my phone. I should call. I should give Amy a heads up. Yet, as I stare at the screen, I don’t dial her number.

I miss her in a way that almost feels dangerous. The last time I allowed myself to care for a woman this deeply, it ended in disaster. I broke Tilly. I won’t survive if I break Amy, too.

Rather than make the call and get a feel for what’s going on with the woman I have come to care for, I just sit down and think, staring at the phone. After a long while, I still can’t bring myself to dial her number. Instead, I wait for Shannon to wake up.

When she does, I fight back the pain in my chest as she blinks, not once, not twice, but four times before she seems to become aware that she is indeed awake. Tilly used to do that.

Jayne
, I remind myself. She wasn’t Tilly. She wasn’t Matilda. She was always Jayne. Shannon only knows her as Jayne.

God, what a mess! I can’t believe the lengths Tilly—Jayne—went to in order to hurt my club, yet I am supposed to believe she loved me?

The anger fills me once again. Everything I pushed down years ago when I walked away is resurfacing.

“Gonna make a call,” I say softly to Shannon, to which I get a nod. “Made some coffee. Your mom used to like hers with three sugars and more cream than coffee, it seemed. All that is on the counter and in the fridge if you need it.”

She gives me a small smile. “Mom didn’t let me have coffee. I’ll just have some water. When I was little, she didn’t want me having sugar or caffeine, so I’ve always been a water, milk, and juice kind of girl.”

Of course Tilly wouldn’t let her have coffee. She’s young, and Tilly wanted to be a good mom. She used to beg me to get married, have babies, and run off together. All she ever wanted was to be a mom. I should have picked up on that the last few days I spent with my daughter. Not once has Shannon drank anything other than water or milk.

I want to beat my own ass. I want to shake some sense into me. I need to pay attention. Shannon needs me to pay attention. She’s my daughter, flesh and blood. I need to know her. Does this come in time, or is there some instinct I’m missing?

Instinct.

My instincts scream at me to get on my Harley and ride hard, fast, and free.

“Gonna make a call. Then I think we should ride,” I say, giving in to my own stir-crazy needs.